Black hole Sunday.

Break, break, break, on thy cold gray stones, oh sea.
And I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me.
~Tennyson

Last night Ben said that when I had one day left to live I would go and sit at the edge of the sea and not move. For the entire day. I was struggling to do a task in which you list what you would do if you had a year, a month, a week, and then a day left to live. He knew my answer before I did.

It should be so easy but I have seen death that was not scheduled and death that was and the logistics of compressing your dreams into a list and a suitcase is completely overwhelming to me. I range wildly between living off the oxygen of those dreams and pushing them away for their sweet futility. I'm not sure if it's better to know or to just be bumbling along and be wiped off the face of the earth.

The music was missing. Company coming means I don't put on my music and it becomes an uphill battle to reinstate a necessary addiction. And then everything is okay and the confusion stops and I know exactly where I am once again. And I'm sorry for that. The very first thing I do every morning before I press the button for the coffee pot to brew my awake is to flick the switch on the stereo and blow the sleep out of the house via the dial welded on eleven.

I hope there is a song I like playing when I die.

Oh, well, hello, morbid Sunday morning, how have you been?

Things I can say under my breath but never out loud.

Caleb brings raisin scones and good coffee over for breakfast and wants an update on Lochlan and on New-Jake because on both fronts he is curious.

Well, Lochlan's being difficult and aloof as usual but is still forthcoming with his affection and New-Jake I saw briefly yesterday as he wolfed down a sandwich that he made himself and then he took off with PJ. So....not sure why everyone I am interested in seems to speak of sexual competition for Caleb but heh, may as well milk it and watch him slowly self-destruct.

Oh, stop. Who can blame me for that? He has it coming and I take my hits where I can.

I think everyone has the wrong idea, including some of the people in this house. New-Jake is an enigma to me because I can say that name to a face I don't recognize and it's a skill I will have to learn. I'm aware that Jacob Thomas Finnian Reilly is a unique name (maybe not on the rock) but Jacob is not.

I have no trouble with Henry Jacob, just not with Jacob on a strange set of facial features. It's getting easier. Clearly he is not my Jacob and perhaps that's where the fascination ends. Not to say he isn't a terrific guy, I just have my hands full already with the three different sets of arrogance that rule my world as it is.

There won't be any more. Hell, if I had my way I would dispense with two altogether but the part of me that needs to be arrogant as well won't allow for it and that's the part of me that Caleb adores. The reckless Bridget, the completely ruined Bridget who takes risks and loves so hard she leaves a mark, not unlike the reckless ruined Benjamin that I keep on love support because he needs me so badly most of the time he will tell you he doesn't need me at all.

I don't need to remind Caleb of any of this. He is painfully aware of how pathetic I am. Only I'm not, outwardly. I'm trying to make this new place a success instead of a failure, like the last one. I'm trying to be better and be fun and smart and I feel like I can turn a corner only to find there's a set of hands there that shoves me back to the starting place. It isn't me. I want so much and I can't seem to ever catch a break to actually HAVE any of it.

So instead I sit in tears while Satan evaluates whether or not I'm embarassing him on this day. If I make him look bad I am taught not to and if I make him look good I am rewarded with a taste of what it is I want only I'm not sure and I can't commit because all of these things come with a price and I don't have anything to pay with.

Or rather, I do and I'm not willing to part with those things.

So once Satan is satisfied that he doesn't have to extend any lucrative offers to get rid of new boys he returns to the task at hand. Lochlan. The ever-present logical golden boy who says a third of what's on his mind and we're still all wishing he would just stop being right all the time, his arrogance fed by massive self-doubt because perhaps he raised me wrong after all and a few different decisions along the way would have meant we might have had some sort of Utopian happily ever-after and we might have gone to Cole's funeral and been sad for a friend that died and then a few weeks later had a picnic at the beach and life would have returned to normal with our children and our lives.

So blame him for the mess that I am. This isn't fascinating, this is ridiculous. So I don't have an update on Lochlan, Caleb, so why don't you just go fuck yourself for a change, and leave me alone?

(When I wasn't looking this morning, Lochlan hitchhiked back to the cornfield and got down on his knees and dug with both hands until he unearthed everything we buried there when we were young. He's brought it back here and spread it out on the table, clods of dirt spilling off and exploding in soft pufts on the floor. Dirt, sweat and tears streak his face and all I could do was freeze. I need to take it all up in my arms and run back out and bury it again but I can't move. I just can't move.)

One constant.

The minute I hit the sand at the ocean all of it goes away.

Everything.

Time.

Fear.

Life.

Just give me that, okay? Stop telling me that's my song. Stop telling me what to do, who to spend time with, who to love. Stop haunting me. Stop tormenting me. Stop judging, just fucking stop everything.

It's Henry's birthday today and you couldn't even let this go just for one single day and some days I wish the ocean would just take you away.

Dinner shift #1 is just about over. Now I get to clean up and await the late shift boys (my favorite ones. Shhhhh!).

Inevitably Satan comes back and ruins everything Lochlan missed.

Sometime late last night Caleb returned to the city from a trip to the hot potato and read my journal and decided he doesn't like New-Jake.

At all.

Fear of the unknown or maybe it was the three entries in a row that sent him over. The others don't care. They find it fascinating the way I zero in on people and draw them out. It goes against everything you would normally expect from me.

Caleb's instructions were to remove myself from the presence of Sam's friends and wait for him to drive up this afternoon. Also he needed last names and as much information as I had on them in order to run them through his ledgers in hell to see if they were on the list.

No, I said. (Now I'll get down on the floor in a ball and cover my head with both hands, but that's beside the point.)

Caleb is simply jealous because when we boil down the mix here and skim off the top, he isn't a part of the collective.

And doesn't he hate that.

I'm surprised I haven't been abducted in the middle of the night only to have my internet removed and then dropped off on the side of the road and left to walk home with a fresh incision where my brain used to be, honestly.

No, there may be some sort of complicated love..ahem..square going on here that you will never understand but aside from that, he isn't a member of Bridget's very special commune.

God, how I hate that word.

Anyway, I gave him last names and birthplaces and he'll simply have to dig for the rest. And he won't find anything I haven't already checked because Sam isn't dumb and frankly neither is Bridget. And there are reasons people are guilty until proven worthy, I just don't need to rehash that stuff. Too bad no one ever checked the brothers-grim, isn't it?

Yeah, too bad. I wonder where I would be right now if I had never fallen for Cole?

Or Caleb for that matter.

You know what? Let's change the subject. I have a busy day ahead of wrapping and baking a big chocolate cake and some folks are dropping by to wish Henry a great day in advance and I need to tidy up a bit and we have to run out and buy the special dinner ingredients because all of the extra people here mean I ran out of things I thought I had handy. Also I should really set up the sprinkler this afternoon because yesterday the children grew bored quickly in the afternoon and so this way they'll have something to look forward to and really I will need to go lie down at some point and close my eyes because I have the sweetest mother of a headache beginning.

I didn't even get into that whole other elephant standing there, now, did I? Find me a way to add some hours to my day or wait a few more, okay? Really they can stuff their fucking man-drama for a bit here. If Lochlan can't control his impulses I will start replacing people, I think. But stuff it nevertheless, because we are standing on the edge of greatness here.

My boy is turning nine tomorrow, and nine is a really big deal.

(Resistance is futile) A snapshot of dinner clean-up.

You're not seriously going to call me New-Jake, are you?

Yes.

From the big door-table in the kitchen, I can hear Ben's laughter. Or rather, Ben's attempt not to laugh out loud at the obvious awkwardness of the question.

You know other Bens, what do you call them?

Not-my-Ben.

Really.

Yes.

That's fascinating, but I don't want to be New-Jake, I'm forty years old. It feels a little like the first day of school and I've been singled out.

Try and be flattered. It's a very special name.

Aren't they all?

Nope.

I see. Well, maybe in time it will stop and you'll just call me Jake.

(THUD)

Or Jacob, if that's easier for you.

(THUD) (THUD) (Right now, please shut the fuck up.)

What should I call you?

What do you mean, Jake?

Everyone calls you princess. I don't think we're ready for nicknames.

Oh, I don't mind, it's a thing, besides, I think we're ready for nicknames.

Why is that?

I just called you Jake.

I didn't even realize.

Me neither.

That's good then, right?

Yes, it's good...Jake. (trying it on now.) (THUD)

Cool....uh...princess. (he smiles.)

Ben finally rescued us, and clapped a hand on Jake's shoulder.

No worries, Jake, soon you'll understand perfectly why she has the nickname.

Why is that, Benjamin? Do tell. (I flicked soap at him from where I was washing pots.)

You're very high maintenance, Bridge.

Fuck you, rock boy.

And a filthy mouth to boot.

You haven't seen anything yet.

Ooo, I'm scared.

Good. I like fear.

I heard that about you.

What else did you hear?

That you like the bad boys. (He grins and THUD becomes mush.)

Damn, my secret is out.

You're a billboard, princess.

Hey, Bridge!

Yes, PJ? (the volume level in the kitchen only needs a calliope now to complete the cacophony.)

I'm bad. I mean, I can be bad. I was bad once. I...uh...

Be quiet, PJ.

Yes, Ben.

It's nice to have some laughs. We need to laugh more, don't we? Yes, I think so too.

The project boy.

I'm severing the heart then I'm leaving your corpse behind
Not dead but soon to be, though.
I won't be the one who killed you
I'll just leave that up to you

I'm walking on the beach this morning with New-Jake, who told me I should call him Jacob and maybe that would help, and since he didn't know any better I nodded like a child and promptly changed my mind.

In my head he is New-Jake and I resented the hell out of every inch of him and I couldn't understand why. I resented the half-wave, half-straight hair on his head, the pale caramel that fades into dark golden blonde. I resented his eyes, green like mine. Endless, like Jacob's. I resented the way he'd quietly consider your response before he makes his own.

I had a whole list. I could have gone on for days. The way he holds his phone. The posture. All of it. Don't walk into my life and force me to hear your name over and over again. Don't be a Jake who hates shoes. Don't be a Jake who asks hard questions, the kind I'm still turning over at four in the morning as I stare at the ceiling. Don't be here, okay? Just go away, New-Jake. I don't think I'm going to adapt. I guess now I die.

That's what my Jake always said. Adapt or die, princess. As if it wasn't a choice and I had to actually adapt or something.

Oh, right. I do.

Ben and New-Jake get along like brothers. Keith and Lochlan get along like brothers. Sam still introduces ideas or cautions me to stay on the road and not go off picking flowers up a hill because then I get lost and mixed up and turned around and then we're all late and then Sam retreats back to the background. I haven't heard much from Stephan, I think he'll be continuing on in another week, maybe stopping in different sorts of places to see where he fits. One of the joys of having the boys in my life is that they all know so many people and through them I have met some amazing souls. Stephen is one but he just doesn't belong here. And for the summer I'm happy to host Keith and Jake because they seem to.

Time will tell. If I miss them when they go, then I'll have my answer.

Besides, usually when someone seems to fit it means someone else is leaving and I just don't know yet. More often than not it's Ben or Lochlan so I don't want to know yet.

I won't replace people, if that's what they are doing. If that's what you are thinking. Not fair.

New-Jake insists that he was aware that Sam had a friend he held an incredible loyalty to, and was moving for, but he said he didn't really understand how one person could have that sort of influence until he met me. He said the image of me standing with my back to the house, blonde hair and black ribbons flying out behind me in the wind at the edge of the sea will forever be burned into his mind.

(Oh no, please. Don't be a poet.)

And then he stops and says he didn't mean to objectify me. Which I don't understand at all actually. People are objects, aren't they? They are safe havens and life rafts, sure things and contraband. They are emotional grenades and food for thought and sights for sore eyes. Are those not things?

I wonder what I am, aside from striking image, which I think is what he was going for before he went for something else.

New-Jake changes the subject, I'm thinking to take the weird feelings away and instead his history explodes in the sand at my feet and then the tide comes in and washes it away and for some reason I know he is home. Here, with me. A fresh start. A better life for someone else who has felt things people shouldn't have to feel. He is worthy. It's as if word has finally reached the cosmos, Bridget's magnet is emotional in nature. Overwhelmed? Find her and everything will be better or at least you will have Schadenfreude you can swallow with milk. I wonder if I should have invitations engraved? I wonder how this happens?

I'm going to take today to finish thinking about things he said. I'm going to take today to reflect on the amazingly fun visit I just had with my folks, for the first time feeling like a true equal rather than an honorary one, and I'm going to finish up my chores, because it's almost lunch time and I've already dawdled enough today. I need a little extra time to cook, I only have two hands. Thank heavens they seem to be able to hold a lot.

Full. Not full. Fall.

This mourning is cold. Windy. The air feels so heavy, the rain must be close. I untangle my arms and my hair from Ben's uneasy sleep and slip away, crossing silently to the door on the other side of the room. I dress in the dark, fastening buttons by memory. Fourteen. Then eight. Then two. I slip into my boots and cross the room once again. I am followed this time by a little white friend who is happy to be the focus of my time for the next little while and thrilled that the heat wave is finished.

He recognizes me in black. As do they all. It's a customary sight, a cold kind of comfort to see sometimes. A warmth that you wouldn't expect from Miss Spindley-Bones with the soft scowl. I am elated to see familiar weather in a place that still reeks of mystery and newness. I reach back for my hooded sweater. Pale blue elicits a further frown but I wear it anyway since everything goes with black, except for pale orange. Never wear that, for some reason it's awful. Now we are warm and we take off at a clickety-clip down the concrete.

We pause mid-step, in the air, to listen to the windchimes. Oh! So beautiful!

My stomach is empty and I still am waking up with headaches from Friday night's excitement. I need toast and aspirin and coffee too and maybe a little more sleep would be nice. My guests have two more days to spend with us but it won't be at the break-neck pace we set over the weekend as we tried to impart such magnificent beauty on such a brief period. The effect is delightful, I believe we were successful.

Now we are at the top of a hill and I have let off the gas to coast, considering the brakes but only for a moment, there is lots of room at the bottom and we will slow so gradually. I am working hard to keep the transitions smooth and painless, though I like the pain so very much indeed.

What's amazing to me right now is when I am hungry you can hear it and even feel it and when the boys are hungry you can see it in their eyes.

Patience, please. Patience.

Otherwise I can't go on.

Well, now.

I finally got to see Tool!

Toooooool.

Remember, this is my bucket list. I won't be able to hear forever.

It was the perfect show. Tickets were cheap, the parking was easy, the crowd and venue were super-sketch and we didn't have to sit through an unknown opener because of the line-ups just to get in (which! I don't advocate. I've fallen in love with all kinds of opening acts, please support them, they work so hard.) We walked in, got comfortable and the lights went out and they came on. Perfect timing.

I hoped for Sober. I hoped so hard but it didn't happen. I heard Forty-six and 2 live, Jake. I closed my eyes and felt the music. I had the biggest contact high of my life. Dear God, the drugs at that show. These kids are all about endurance and I was fucking toast halfway in. So high. Looked at Twitter this morning and laughed. Going to burn the shoes I wore last night. Might burn the skirt as well and definitely the shirt. I might even cut my hair, that's how incredibly filthy we were by the time it was done, soaked to the bone with sweat, bathed in smoke and happy we finally snagged a show by a band we have listened to forever, it seems.

Am I getting too old for this? (Yes, Bridget, you are but it probably won't stop you.)

I hope not. The sound last night was perfect. Perfect. I could manage all of it and missed nothing.

Next up. Deftones. Mastodon. Alice.

Squee!

That Lochlan. Such a charmer.

Blows my mind sometimes.

Youngest child syndrome.

We've designated this week Parent Week at Camp Bridget. My parents are flying into the city this afternoon. My mom has never seen the Pacific. I don't think she has, anyway. She's been to Spain and Morocco and a lot of the Caribbean and Paris too but the Pacific Northwest? This will be new, and terrific for her to see.

My father has been here on business before but not for a long time. They have a long day traveling across the country, I don't envy that. It will take an awful lot to get me back to Nova Scotia when the time comes. Much as I love my seabound coast I actually despise flying. Maybe we'll drive. Lots of time to plan anyway.

The rules for the boys are pretty simple for the week. No one is allowed to do a shot, throw a punch or cut the head off a goat.

What? I thought they would be easy rules to follow, except that the boys are impulsive and eventually they'll break one or all three.

Since I already get up before five every morning and my folks will be running a four-hour time deficit I can imagine I will be able to post all week but on the off chance I am sporadic with it, this is why.

So excited I could burst.

Go here.

Listen.

Now watch as I die happy.

PS. We go see Tool this weekend!! If you see us, come say hello. As I always say, Bridget doesn't bite but Ben might. How will you know it's us? I never worry about that part. Ever.

Killing two thirds with one throne.

Keith is here for breakfast, along with um...let's see now. Stephen. Maybe it's Steven. Sam is back. Dylan. Andrew. Daniel, Schuyler, Ben. Lochlan. Also, quiet man in the back. The one who hasn't really said a word yet. His name is Jake and I'm sure that the way I visibly paled when I was introduced made him want to run for the hills.

Keith and Jake are longtime friends of Sam from school. They brought Stev/phen. They want all the dirt on how Sam and I know each other too so, hey, here's some bacon. Everyone likes bacon. Have some. No, have more. No one goes away hungry in Bridget's house.

They are curious about how this works. Who does what? What about the money? How are chores divided? Do we share the trucks? Exactly what's the deal with Lochlan again? He seems like the odd man out. What do the kids think of having all of their hunkles within reach all the time?

Inevitable curiosities when we open ourselves to discussions about the commune (only we don't call it that). Too many questions and I've managed to leave that to the boys to explain while I hide in the kitchen, looking up recipes for something baked for lunch. Like a pie with crow. Maybe some humble-dish. Maybe some pride, too, just for flavor. I feel all over the place.

I am listening to the descriptions and explanations and it sounds perfect.

But in a perfect world the boys would never argue, no one would ever have to leave the property to work, and we would have a huge garden too. Also since it's my fantasy we would have all of Coney Island on site. Amusement is a necessity, vegetables are a luxury, Lochlan always says.

And cake would fall from the sky like rain but only when Bridget is hungry.

Speaking of hungry, I'm wondering if I have room for three more boys around my table on a regular basis. Add in the missing ones and the house will burst, testosterone raining down on us like confetti. I'm also wondering if I can really give this poor guy a chance at friendship, when the biggest strike against him lies in a choice made by his parents who named him. People I don't even know. I'm sure I can, save for the fact that anytime someone addresses him, everyone gives me the side-eye, and I'm convinced they can see my battered heart lurch around in my chest. It hits a little too close to home and I'm surprised by how unfair I feel towards him. He's adorable. For a mute.

Ah, I have found what to make for lunch. Blackbird pie. See, the princess can do this one of two ways. I can draw him in or I can shove him away. Since it's Tuesday and Tuesdays are hardly ever bad days, I may possibly do both. Just to see if he is worthy of his name.

I have the hiccups. Like, very very badly. So no post. I'm just trying to hang on to the darned chair.

Sunday review.

Ben pointed out this morning that the only competition he considers real is the ghost in the copper box.

And then he laughed in Lochlan's face.

He tells me I will give up secrets when I'm good and ready and not because the boys demand to know. He tells me everything is okay and if the rest of them don't understand how my head works than it is their problem and nothing more. He tells me I should just delete the emails that scold me and that I don't actually have to answer to anyone other than the girl in the mirror.

As usual, I'm not sharing anything with her. She looks like she carries her own burden. Besides, she's never even told me her name.

Ben puts out his arms and pulls me in close to his heart, squeezing me against his shirt. Kissing the top of my head. My ear. He'll drop one hand down to my face and he'll pull my chin up until it's resting on his chest and I'm staring up at him while he stares down. He smiles at me. Only at me. Then he bends down, gives me a kiss and he's gone again, off to the studio to work his fingers to the bone. I cry out in protest and he tells me not to worry about a thing. Soon. Soon he'll have more time off and we can catch a little bit of a break and spend some more time together.

Until that happens the inappropriate protocol is to molest Daniel beyond belief, to the point where I piss off Schuyler for my impositions, cry when no one is looking because I miss Ben so much and to yell at the girl in the mirror to grow the fuck up because she has it good. I can play with the little bird on the copper box and consider opening the lid with a screwdriver or a blowtorch or something but I don't because Sam had it welded shut and I don't mess with Sam's temper or Sam's rules.

I miss Sam. He's away on some sort of men's retreat for the weekend with his new church group. He figured it was safe to go, figured I was telling the truth when I lied and promised him I wouldn't go to Satan for anything, figured it was a good break from the endless questions I always pose to him. The heartbreaking, unanswerable ones I throw out like birdseed at a public park. Catch, Sam. Tell me why. Tell me how this happens. Tell me God's address so I can go give him a piece of my mind. Tell me what Jake was thinking when he set me up for this fall. Tell me that Ben will live forever so I never have to add to this pain.

Tell me why I'm still here when I begged to leave them behind and go in their places. Tell me what's so special about me.

Sam looks a little bit like that girl in the mirror. A little like Ben. A little like Lochlan. Tired. Haunted. Worn through to the point where the light shines through the cracks now and just about blinds you, as if you were driving into the sun. You can still put your hand up to shield your eyes but soon even that isn't going to work.

August patiently follows me around listening to me ramble when Ben is busy. Holding out his arms and trying to minimize his accent so it hurts less when I ask to be held and not so quietly diagnosing me repeatedly against my will. I defer. I protest. I rail at him to cull up the boys and make a row and I will duck behind it, the ribbons on my dress trailing out behind me as I run. I will duck down behind Ben's back and slip out the other end of the row and head straight for the mirror. One foot over the edge and then the other and for a split-second I will balance on the lip before jumping down into the reflection.

Oh, that's who you are. You're me.

Jesus Christ. You look awful, Bridget.

The heat merchant.

Let go it's harder holding on
One more trip and I'll be gone
So keep your head up
Keep it on, just a whisper I'll be gone
Take a breath and make it big
It's the last you'll ever get
Break your neck with a diamond noose
It's the last you'll ever choose

I am I am I said I'm not myself, but I'm not dead and I'm not for sale
Hold me closer, closer let me go let me be just let me be

I'm lying in bed fighting to stay awake while Jacob fusses with his post-it notes, the ones he uses to mark his bible because he's prone to going off on tangents in the middle of his sermons, which would always be written out longhand, agonized over and then discarded in favor of a village talk, an informal version of his pulpit-pounding shouting matches, where he would rivet everyone silent, still, fixed on every movement. He would instead stroll around the sanctuary talking to people as if they were the only one present. It was incredibly intimate.

It was staged, proof positive that Jacob could handle Bridget-duty, circus duty, carnival life. That he was a better man than Lochlan because he had God on his side and through God he could protect me from Caleb, and from the ghost of husbands past and from everything that could possibly go wrong. He thought he could steal kisses and then hearts and he thought he could make everything better with his super Jesus powers.

He thought wrong.

The boomerang effect was earth shattering and I have done nothing but fly in the face of everything he ever wanted and why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I defy him until he's on fire under God because he broke the promises. He lifted them up over his head and smashed them at his feet. He left and I stuck it out even though it's been frightening and at times impossible.

I keep finding post-it notes everywhere. In with my taxes from 2006. Tucked into my Good Housekeeping recipe book where I go for notes on times for pies. In Lochlan's sketchbooks.

When I have enough they will be word-feathers and I will glue them together to make huge 3M wings and then I fly down and visit Jacob again.

You're falling asleep, Bridget.

I'm awake.

Right. Who won the Stanley Cup?

Blue. Seventeen. Chocolate-chip.

Goodnight, beautiful.

Goodnight pooh.

A lot of the notes I have found lately have little quotes on them. Things I said that made him laugh or things that he wanted to never forget.

Things like:

Find out what Lochlan is hiding.

Yeah. Ones like that.

I need to ask God if it's okay sometimes to be relieved that someone is dead in order to keep secrets. I need to ask God what happens next.

I need to ask God why he lied.

Oh, Lochlan. What did you do?

Everything but this girl.

When the doorbell rang I went and opened it because no one else had jumped, and there was John. In black dress pants, black leather shoes and a rumpled white dress shirt. A far cry from the lumberjack I used to live down the street from.

He looked pained, hands behind his back and so I spoke first.

Formal visit, then, is it?

He passed me a pewter-colored envelope. Caleb color codes everything. Financial is manila, travel is blue, invitations requesting my company come in a rich dark silver, the color of the envelope John is trying to give to me and I don't take it.

When?

As soon as you can get away.

I nod and my brain starts spooling up. What do I wear? What does he want? I know but I ask nevertheless.

Is it work, John?

No, Bridge, it's not.

He turns, defeated, and walks back down the path to the driveway.

I close the door and turn to go see what everyone is up to, see if it's safe to slip out and go into the city for a while. I run straight into Ben, who takes the envelope from me and walks away. He stops halfway across the room and I can see the muscles in his shoulders freeze up.

No, Bridget.

What? What is that? Taking a page from Jake?

He was smart.

Not as smart as Cole.

Oh that's rich, princess.

It's true though. Jacob ran on heart.

And what would you have me do?

Not change anything.

Not change anything? What the fuck, princess, I can't deal with this. I can't deal with you being gone, I can't deal with percentages and jealousy and the pressure I see you caving under.

I'm fine, Ben.

Where is normal, Bridget? We promised each other normal. I could stay healthy and you would be happy.

As soon as I find the sign for it, we'll turn off.

We've passed SEVEN FUCKING EXITS, Bridget, and you pretend you don't see them.

I can't take any more change.

I can't take him touching you.

You don't seem to mind when you're getting something out of it.

Yeah, well, maybe those days are done.

Come with me. We can talk about this later.

The invitation came as a bit of a surprise. We had just arrived home after spending most of the day downtown with Caleb. We took the children to the sad parade and then walked around watching people decked out in red and white while we painted the picture of a perfect family. I guess it wasn't enough, only this time Caleb wasn't interested in the 'family' picture of his dreams, just the Bridget part. He never really cares if Ben joins me. He doesn't get the choice.

By eight we were having dinner at a restaurant. I picked at the lobster and gulped my champagne. Oh, look, they put courage in my glass. Need that. Please give it to me and then get some more.

By nine we were strolling along the boardwalk. I had my wrap around my shoulders over my dress and Ben's suit jacket on and I didn't want to say I was cold but oh hell, I was so freezing I couldn't speak, I figured it would all come out in chattery, fogged breaths.

By ten we switched to wine and music and light conversation in the warm penthouse which is how Caleb unwinds from his workday. He sits back and tries on various expressions and extends his finer curiosities.

By eleven the wine was being poured slightly higher in my glass and the familiar hungers had begun to appear in their eyes. Ben had relaxed slightly, no wine for him, just water. He had a guitar out and was quietly playing along, watching me. Waiting.

By twelve I was slammed up against the door to Caleb's bedroom, my dress yanked up over my hips and Caleb's face in the crook of my neck, leaving a burn as he drove into me while my husband watched. Cole, don't hurt me, please. I can't take it anymore.

By one I was just falling asleep when Ben came for what he needed at last and it was such a relief to be safe again. I was sure Caleb stood just back from the doorway in the shadows and watched. I didn't care. I just said I love you, over and over again to Ben in an effort to make the distinction so that Caleb could hear it and know that he has won exactly nothing.

By three we were in the back of the car, being driven home, not talking to each other or to John. Staring out the window, at the lights. My skin is still red and raw, my life in someone else's hands, my history being spent in a genre I won't even look at without wine and darkness and want.

Lochlan opened the door when we got home and I walked past him and I felt his eyes burning into the top of my head all the while and Ben's tired eyes burning a hole into my back and I turned around to finally meet Lochlan's eyes and he shook his head, tears in his eyes. Aghast at my bravery, or maybe at my recklessness.

This isn't what you meant for it to be, is it, princess?

No.

Then why?

I just pointed at Ben. Ben will pretend up and down that this is all about me, but rarely will he admit that he needs this as much as I want it. He needs it to feel dangerous, he needs it to get high. Chasing this has become somewhat of an albatross to him, and he's loathe to admit it. But it's there, right between us, an obstacle I keep tripping on as I try to juggle in front of an audience. The harlequin. The whore.

It leaves me with a question this morning, since Ben and I are going to spend the day talking. Which is stronger? A man's appetites or his convictions? Jacob would have had an easy answer for this one.

Ben? Caleb? Lochlan, even?

Not so much.

Ben is working so we are downtown not doing anything Canada Day-related with Satan.

I forgot to bring my words with me. A quiet, rainy day anyway. Looked at android phones. Ate an almond. You know. Thrilling shit.

Special effects.

Sam is here this morning keeping the coffee and the Baudelaire in full swing. I have nothing if I didn't choose one hell of a group of educated men who can quote with confidence and creativity. He brought his guitar. Hopefully he also brought a pocketful of nails with which to finish sealing my fate because if I have to listen to singing preachers today I may as well just stop breathing now and prevent the inevitable stabs of remembrance. Not that I could tell Sam that it hurts. He knows it hurts but really I would no sooner wish them to stop with the music than I would ever want to stifle a good memory.

For the first time in the history of Henry, something else also happened today. I ran out of cookies. On purpose. Henry is very surprised because Mommy is usually better prepared than this and what the heck, mommy?

No worries, there's fruit, granola bars, fruit bars, bran bars, popcorn and crackers. He won't starve, I just want to see if he can get through a day without cookies. Yes, I realize I may be scarring him for life, I don't care. He needs to break the cookie cycle. He's soon to be as tall as me, if he outweighs me by the time he's ten what the heck am I going to do then?

In other news, Sam's quiet confidence inspired me to get the ball rolling and make an appointment to get my tires fixed. Fucking car. Drives me nuts but at the same time, I don't take it for granted. I even cleaned it last week, including the steering wheel and the shifter knob, which meant Ben almost lost control just starting it up and called for a soapy cloth and a towel to clean the shininess off both. I try. Did I mention I try?

You all think I'm some sort of spoiled playboy centerfold who sits in her turret eating grapes and reading Nietzsche while my knights fight over me...

Okay, well that's besides the point.

I have nails in my tires. Know why? I'm magnetic. We've been over this before. The same freakish power that enables me to kill car key fobs, Xbox 360s, and laptop computers just by virtue of my very presence also enables small, pointy metal objects to skitter across the road and fling themselves into the treads of my tires in their bid to be close to the source of all melancholy.

Whatever, go with it now, okay?

Melancholy is a superhero and she has long blonde-white hair and a black tutu dress, black garters and high-high black stiletto boots on. It's always windy and raining outside when she's around. Her hair whips around so fiercely you can hardly see her eyes, but you feel them on you. The room feels heavy when she's there but you can't take your eyes off her. She has dust from the cemetery caked under her nails and her lipstick is smeared from being kissed and left. She never smiles, she just stares, and her power isn't so much the magnetic anomalies but the power to absorb all of the sadness around her.

She's a giant grief sponge.

Yes.

Marvel will never hire me. That's okay. I'm not looking. I'm busy trying to morph, so I don't have to listen to Sam.

I don't think I'll write about the pictures so here.

(Pictures. Yesterday I did another photo shoot for a band that Caleb has interests in. That is all.)

I am here.

Just unimaginably tired as of late. Trying to keep the running around to the minimum. Trying to engage the children in helping and having fun when I'm dealing from a deck missing so many cards we're down to faces and twos of clubs. The children started summer vacation today, too soon on the heels of a six-week spring vacation for the move and I am sort of out of sorts for the time being while I figure out what to do. I'm in bureaucratic heck for a bit trying to organize our city membership for the pool. I was hoping to jump the children right into daily swimming lessons.

Honestly, I'm at a loss to know where to begin entertaining them in this fresh new environment, but thankfully they are a bit older as to not need constant entertainment and I was never the kind of mother to fill their dance cards. Instead I always allowed for a lot of imaginative, free time in which to just play. They're going to take turns again each night helping me make dinner. They're going to continue with their chores which are augmented when they are not in school. They're going to unwind and be kids, make God's eyes out of sticks, poke at slugs and pick berries.

They're going to do math, too. A textbook came home from school. Math is not our strong suit. We can draw you anything or write you into a corner but we can't divide fractions and Roman numerals are a fun pastime when confronted with graphics from the Super Bowl only. We'll get there. Every child has something to work on, every grownup too. I'm just eternally grateful they are happy and healthy and adaptable and they are grateful mommy buys them cookies and video games and can pump up a bike tire and start a food fight because some parents don't.

They're going to be kids. There's not enough of that these days.

I want to be a kid. I want to stay up too late, outside in the heat after dark and eat sour gummy bears until I feel sick and read with a flashlight in the tent and turn brown from the sun. I want to count the stars again. I want to grab a hot dog at the beach and call it dinner. I want to rejoice in the fact that I have enough change for the salt & vinegar chips AND the new Archie comic.

That kind of kid. The kind I was when I was Henry's age. He's going to be nine in two weeks and it wasn't until I saw his 'promotion' to senior elementary that I realized my youngest child isn't even in a primary grade anymore, and how strange it feels that they are racing past me on the way to their own lives and I am still stuck here so awkwardly between doing what Satan and Lochlan tell me to do because I will forever be a child to them, and thinking outside the box as a mother, because there are things I want my children to experience, and things I hope they never go through.

I can't live my life through them, and I can't live their lives for them. It's not an easy dance but I will learn the steps I'm sure.

Maybe I'll do some math too. You know, just in case I ever need it. It will come in handy when I gamble. I hear you get further by counting your cards anyway.

Bumblebee.

Remember how Bumblebee used songs because he no longer had a voice? Yes, that.

It's evening, you're tired
You sleep walk, a robot out to the street
Are you crazy to want this even for a while?
you're driving, it's rush hour
The cars on the freeway are moving backwards
Into a wall of fire
Backwards
Into a wall of fire

We're done lying for a living
The strange days have come and you're gone
You're gone
Either dead or dying
Either dead or trying to go

Good morning
Don't cop out

Spinning unrefined sugar.

(Filling in the holes for you, I tend to leave out a lot of things sometimes.)

Fumbling through your dresser drawer forgot what I was looking for
Try to guide me in the right direction
Making use of all this time
Keeping everything inside
Close my eyes and listen to you cry

I'm lifting you up
I'm letting you down
I'm dancing til dawn
I'm fooling around
I'm not giving up

The hottest nights were the ones I looked forward to the most.

The smell of burnt fireworks and sweet corn, fresh hay and cows filled my nostrils and was chased with Lochlan's sweat as he paced slowly in front of me, smoking, smiling.

Good show tonight, hey?

Late summer is always best, I think.

Yeah.

He stopped and leaned against the back of the wagon where I sat with my brown legs and bare feet dangling over the dry baked dirt road. Dirty feet. Tired girl. My braids were all apart, my hair was filthy. I was down to three t-shirts and two skirts for free time and I figured the tan would cover most of the dirt. Some towns allowed for open fires and on those nights Lochlan would heat some water and pour it over me. That was as clean as we got most summers. I would come home on the final day in rags, voice hoarse from calling to the crowd, the sweet that offset the harsh from Lochlan playing the man. He wasn't a man yet, he wasn't even twenty years old. It was a joke but we played off each other well. I could predict his dares. He played up my sweetness to the crowd. They ate it up and we made hundreds of dollars. Enough for a carton of cigarettes for Lochlan and a new bikini for me, maybe there would be a beach within walking distance at the next town. Maybe we could eat for a whole week straight. Maybe not. He had to buy parts for the truck. Tires. Gas.

Nights we slept curled together on the single cot in the camper we borrowed for free. We had a box of cookies on the floor and a six-pack of warm beer underneath the truck. Sometimes I would sleep in the cab of the truck at the drive-in, flushed against his shoulder, my head absorbing his heartbeat. Lochlan would act out the movies for me later on, with his own interpretations. To this day Ladyhawke remains a favorite just for the fact that I laughed so hard at his dialogue I wound up on my knees in a field of strawberries throwing up blue cotton candy from the effort to stop.

I never said Lochlan wasn't a romantic. He pulled it off before there was money, and group dynamics and children. Before there were portfolios and educations and careers and debt. Before we had fifty dollars to spend without having to worry about more than a week in advance. Back then the future involved counting towns and bottles of beer and sneaking into other people's trailers to borrow marmalade and bread that we wouldn't return and picking nickles off the sidewalk in town and charming the older people into buying me two ice creams which I would then take and walk back to give one to Lochlan who would be fixing trucks and trailers all day when he wasn't posting signs ahead of the shows.

Eat fast, baby. It's melting.

My favorite nights were the too-hot ones we spent sleeping in the truck bed so that I could look up and see the shooting stars. We could claim them if we said we saw it first. He let me win. He taught me the constellations and how the weather worked. He showed me how to fix a two-stroke engine and how to steer an ox. I learned how to make a barbecue out of a tin bucket and some charcoal and I can open a beer bottle with my teeth.

But mostly he worked with teaching me how to use my pretty looks to get things from people. How to charm them into doing what I asked and how to keep them from realizing they'd been had through until we were long gone.

And it worked, for a time. Time, it turns out, was our enemy.

Only the most hardcore, hardened people can make a life out of that circumstance and we were neither. We were two dumb kids along for the ride, killing our beach country summers, loving each other, letting history write itself while we held each other in the heat and promised each other the stars above.

Time was pushing us along, pulling us out of the present and into the future. Lochlan needed to go to university. I needed to start high school. He had to get a steady job and have a shower more than once every four days. I had to be domesticated and learn to stop stealing things for his approval.

We needed to take our secrets and bury them in the center of a cornfield and then we needed to forget that location forever and leave them there to become part of the land. We needed to get along better and stop fighting.

We couldn't manage it.

I walked away from him and he turned the tables on me, deciding that he would be the one to end it first because of my stubbornness. Telling Cole that we were no longer together was his ace. Cole was still in high school and suddenly I had a ride every day in his car. Suddenly I wasn't a child anymore to him either but an equal and we spent our time listening to more music and working on the boys' cars. It was stable. It was good. On purpose, the implicit opposite of life with Lochlan, who wound up being the most stable person I will ever know, ironically.

Lochlan engineered Cole's interest so that I would still be close by and still looked after.

Cole asked me questions sometimes about Lochlan and I would lie easily. That was part of the deal Lochlan and I made in the fading sun and the dirt, in the coming darkness. I could hardly see but I could follow as Lochlan explained why some things were wrong and why we shouldn't tell and I knew he was right and it was easy for me to agree because I took half the blame. Cole died not knowing. He died and Lochlan was not his best friend by a long shot and Jake didn't get all of the history and neither has anyone else. What they understand is that Lochlan wins, every time and he keeps a sure confidence in that knowledge because of history and really when Caleb gives me a hard time it's NOTHING compared to when Lochlan and I are at odds because there are so many years and so many memories to feel my way through before I can hit on some socially acceptable and presentable way to respond.

It's the only thing I can do.

I told you when I admitted that Henry belonged to Caleb that I still had secrets. I told you I would never share them and I keep that promise because it's important to me, it's important to Lochlan and no matter how far he goes and no matter how many people I marry he is my own personal albatross and I feed and pet him daily because I don't mind having a permanent anchor to earth in him. I need him because he makes up part of who I am. We joke that he raised me, because he was trustworthy enough to be entrusted with my supervision as a child and then suddenly I wasn't that child anymore but I see him in the mirror when I look at myself. We have the same visceral reactions to things and the same habits collecting shiny things and things of value and then needing nothing but air to actually exist on. We still pour water in almost-empty shampoo bottles to make them last and we both prefer food cooked outside to anything else ever. We both drink our beer warm and pick our colors for cotton candy (blue, always blue) when everyone else says they don't care what color they get, and we both dream of those nights asleep in a field at the end of the dirt road that leads to the ocean, the road littered with ticket stubs and pieces from the first time I ever had my heart broken. Don't you ever question my loyalty ever again. You don't have that right.

What are you looking forward to most this summer, Lochlan?

The fair. Late summer. The usual. You?

Same.

The gardener suggested black mourning bride flowers and I laughed, quite inappropriately.

My apologies for not posting sooner, apparently there was some concern.

I'm fine, mom.

The bite looks awful. It's like a puncture in a red hive surrounded with a bruise that fades into veins. I'm rather translucent anyway, one of those pure white alabaster-fleshed humans with the visible roadmap of veins all over. Add in a few bruises and really, I may as well be inside-out. We've decided this was a zombie spider and sometime tomorrow my arm will turn completely grey and then the whole transformation into the undead will occur sometime early Sunday morning.

So with what little time I have left I went down to goth up the local nursery because what is an undead without black flowers in her garden? My quest for shade perennials led me to these things called bowles black violas, which seem to be a type of tiny pansy-poppy and are very pretty! I got some bleeding hearts too (bleeding! hearts!), and really, so much for my modern ski-chalet mansion. I should just paint it black and be done with it.

I'm not dumb. This house cost a lot more than the last one. If anything, the next color scheme will be darkest blue with very very pale yellow or white trim and maybe some highlights in pale slate blue. Why? Beach colors, the natural choice after Everything Black.

Don't you think?

Okay, maybe that's just how I operate.

(I think I'm delirious. Damned zombie spiders.)

Gave up lunch for coffee. Staring down the last two days of school and then I'll be forced to switch gears a little and run the kids around town a lot more than I do now. I need to get them registered for swimming. Henry needs another haircut. So does the dog. Henry also has a birthday approaching. Ruth is going through a truckload of paper drawing lately and I'm at the office supply store almost once a week because, like her father, using the other side is a horrific suggestion obviously made by someone who doesn't understand her art. (Cole girlchild.)

Pfft. Hi. This is your mother. USE THE OTHER SIDE OR NO MORE PAPER.

And then I buy more anyway, because certain things I won't use as punishment. Namely, anything remotely creative. I will never care if she passes math, I will care how she harnessed her imagination today, thank you very much.

(I will be soon requiring her to do extra chores for paper money. No worries. I like limits. Limits make for happy-everybody.)

And I wish Ben was home right now. I miss him alot lately. Not sure how much time I have left before he can say that his bride is the undead princess over there, limping along the street dragging her swollen, punctured arm behind her, searching for delicious human rockstars on which to feeeeeeeeeeed.

Ben has, not surprisingly, offered to suck the venom out of the spider bite, should it be of the poisonous variety.

Did I mention our new provincial health cards came this morning? Fitting, ain't it?

They don't have ears either.

Oh dear.

I was poking around in the garden shed late this afternoon and I've been bitten by a spider. We are waiting now to see if my arm falls off or if I grow some extra limbs or maybe later I could stand up high and see if I can spin a web and swing down to the beach.

For now it's very red and bruised and tender and a bit warm and not unlike a bee sting. I think I'll live. Well, I hope I will anyway. Not the blaze of glory I would hope to go out in, anyway. A bug bite? Come on.

In brief.

We don't grow complacent for one another. Ben and I understand that in the blink of an eye or the turn of a heart or at the root of a bad decision life can change, and just like that everything is suddenly unbearable. We don't take each other for granted and we don't lie. We don't let each other hang, toes touching the breeze, without a net below.

We just remember to breathe and we do our best and when I wake up in the dark, in the quiet hours he is there and he is half asleep but still he pulls me over him and I am warm and I sit up and he holds my hands palm to palm and keeps me centered and I take what I need and when I am barely finished he slides me off and down underneath him now and his hands slide against my skin and his lips land on the top of my head and the bruises are set in stone from his hold. When we return to sleep we know it's for minutes only and then suddenly I can hear the alarm. Ben turns it off and returns to me and I am gathered into his arms and he squeezes me tight against him. I am waking up one goosebump at a time, incoherent, sleepy, feverish. He kisses my cheek and he is gone for the day and once again I am left to my own devices which are those that you kick-start and then proceed to use for trouble only.

He smiles when he leaves, and we begin the countdown to his return. Rocketman. Workaholic. Lover.

Yesterday after he sampled all of the baking I did (pie excluded, I will make that today), he offered me a motorcycle ride. A thinly-veiled attempt for some much-needed time alone together, something that once again seems to be in such short supply and it pains me. He drove up into the mountains, far away from everything and I clung to his back as he drove fast, too fast, and so very Ben-like. He leans and I am afraid, he races down the highway when there is no traffic, chasing the thrill that brought him to me in the first place. The attitude he wears like a cheap t-shirt slogan that has brought him everything he has and taken away everything he thought he knew:

Fuck it. Going for it.

Ben's a survivalist, a quiet man, a psychopath. He doesn't say much to very many people, he's busy saving all of his words for me. I cherish them, you know. I roll them over in my hands, feel their smooth letters and sharp edges and I keep them all, filed away alphabetically in big manila envelopes right beside my work. We both need to work on saying more, more often.

I would have started with Slow down, motherfucker, but frankly I was too afraid to open my mouth and maybe change our wind resistance or something and kill us both.

I told him this and he laughed.

Four and twenty poison blackbirds.

Don't carry me under
You're the devil in disguise
God sing for the hopeless
I'm the one you left behind

So I'll find what lies beneath
Your sick twisted smile
As I lie underneath
Your cold jaded eyes
Now you turn the tide on me
'Cause you're so unkind
I will always be here
For the rest of my life

Ben is home today and so the baking will be as follows: apple pie, banana bread and blueberry muffins. If time permits I will do mini pies, otherwise one big one will suffice. He eats, holy, does this man eat. I am so happy to have him home today.

He has given up on the fool's errand of trying to keep me contained and has progressed to talking about putting a rope swing out in the orchard, far enough from the cliff but close enough that when I swing out I would have that thrill.

Thrill. Not the right word by a long shot. Welcome terror might be closer.

I was driven in town yesterday to get my lunch by the water, promised the breeze and white linens by Satan but it turned into a working lunch and didn't involve any food. Eventually I called for the car and came home of my own accord because Caleb wasn't getting the message that these are not papers I need to see and why does he continue to waste everyone's time with this? He always said time is precious and time is money and any other stupid quote millionaires throw around when they want to confirm that you're aware of how much money you have and I guess that's the crux of the issue, isn't it?

He wants to know how high I'll go.

How much it will cost him to get me to leave Ben and just give in. We already played this game and Batman even got involved (which he only does when things get really out of hand) and Caleb had gracefully bowed out but really he didn't, he just switched gears and came back with a larger, sweeter offer and I'm still forced to politely decline but there it sits and I don't want this pressure, frankly because in his family hearts are defective and unpredictable and...

I don't love him.

Caleb doesn't seem to care about that part but it's my bottom line, something he should understand. I just keep refusing and he keeps offering more and it's reached the point where I'm even tired of the sweetness because behind it stands that elephant and I try not to encourage the whole zoo-thing. I told Ben what it was and his response was to offer a trip next month. Back overseas, check out Wacken, perhaps go back to Venice for a few days. That's his knees jerking in response and I said no more suitcases, no more reactions. This is where Satan is, and here in Ben's arms is where Bridget is and where Bridget promised to stay.

We slept easily. Soundly. I'm not giving in to the living and I'm not giving in to the ghosts. I just want to bake some things for the boys and keep the children entertained and safe and maybe have that swing put up. I think that would be nice.

And on the upside, I was forgiven for throwing the bracelet in the water. Chastised but forgiven all the same. Which leads me to believe that I could get away with murder.

We won't go there.

The voice of irrationality.

I ran. Fast. I'm quick for such a little thing.

Lightning flash and she's gone. Out of your sight. It brings up the familiar bile, rising in your throat but you choke it down and take off after her, screaming her name.

He caught up with me halfway across the field and threw his arms out around me and we went down, crashing to the grass, his head smashing into mine and suddenly it was night and the whole meadow was stars and fireflies and then it was day again and I'm sitting up but he won't let go. I start to twist away and he squeezes me. Squeals escape and it hurts and I kick him repeatedly and in a blink I am pinned to the ground, the morning dew soaking into my dress and my hair and I spit curses at him and snarl.

He laughs.

Calm the fuck down, Bridget.

I manage to turn my entire body over but my arms are still facing him. Oh the pain. He turns it up another notch.

Jake! Let go!

Are you going to stop fighting?

No.

He rolls his eyes and puts his head down against my shoulder. Our breaths are hitching, caught. I'm crying and he doesn't care. I keep fighting but he's like stone and after a minute I just give up. I can't get away from him. He won't let me.

My breathing slows. My chest stops thumping like a jackhammer. I'm quiet. He turns me back over but I just stare at the sky, watching the clouds move quickly. My green eyes mix with the reflections and turn gold. Precious resources, the sense I will need most when I can't hear anything anymore.

What will they do, piglet?

Lock me in the library.

Sounds familiar. You pick the locks yet?

Yes. And I think they take their cues from you.

Why would they do that? I'm dead.

No, you're not.

Maybe it's time to let go.

You say that like it's my choice to make.

I shove hard and he backs off. And with that I am up and running again, across the wide open field toward the cliffs, toward the water. Maybe the roar will block out Jacob's bad ideas. That's why I put him down there. So that I couldn't hear him when he tells me what to do. Everyone does enough of that, I don't want to hear it from him too. I don't want to hear them screaming my name. Not anymore. I only listen to Bridget anyway. She knows exactly what she's doing.

Okay, so not exactly. Thankfully if I stand right at the edge, when it's very very windy I can't even hear the voices in my own head.

I'll be spending a lot of time out there. I have an endless supply of bobby pins with which to pick the simple locks on the doors they secure in front of me and I've already figured out how to disable the stupid alarm. I'm not afraid that I am giving away all my secrets by talking about that here, this is as fruitless as their efforts to break the silence, and as useless as my efforts at change.

Folding blind.

So nice to see your face again
Tell me how long has it been
Since you've been here
(since you've been here)
You look so different than before
But still the person I adore
Frozen with fear
I'm out of love but I'll take it from the past
I'll let out words cause I'm sure It'll never last

And I've been saving
These last words for one last miracle
But now I'm not sure
I can't save you if
You don't let me
You just get me like I never
Been gotten before

Maybe it's the bitter wind
A chill from the Pacific rim
That brought you this way
(that brought you my way)
Do not make me think of him
The way he touch your fragile skin
That hunts me everyday
I'm out of love but I can't forget the past
I'm out of words but I'm sure it'll never last

And I've been saving
These last words for one last miracle
But now I'm not sure
I can't save you if
You don't let me
You just get me like I never
Been gotten before

I think it surprised me so badly that the roses bloomed a second time that I figured other miracles were likely and I took off toward the cliffs.

After all, the only one home watching me was Daniel, and he had been asleep for hours. I ran out of things to do and so I went down to the garden to pull some weeds and on the other side of the fence...all these new roses! Then as I looked more closely I could see the entire wall of bushes was full of new blooms.

Dark ones this time, but maybe I'll be gifted with another single baby-pink flower.

It must have been wonderful to wake up to the perimeter alarm blaring all through the house. Did I tell you they set one up? Yes, precisely for today or whatever day it would be that I would scramble down the path and stop just short of throwing myself into the sea but I sat down this time and hooked my hands over the edge against the wet stone outcropping that may or may not support all of my hundred and four pounds.

I looked down and to my delight, far below, affixed to the rocks just under the surface I could see them, in between breaking waves. My ghosts looking up at me. Jacob, most likely furious that I would put him somewhere so dumb and Cole probably trying to mentally connect with me to convince me to jump and spread the pain around just a little more, like a bad rash. He would do that.

That was as much of a thought as I could get out before I was grabbed from behind and lifted away from the edge, briefly, delightfully flying out over it, feet swinging in thin air, Daniel's arms locked around me because the one thing he never wants to be responsible for in his whole life will be sleeping while I die.

They've all come home now and have been yelling at me off and on now for over an hour and I'm getting tired. I want to change my clothes and put on something warm and dry. I want to swim out to the rocks and see the boys but I'm such a poor swimmer and PJ was right, this was the worst idea ever and I'm stuck wanting to get to them to the point where I don't think about much else other than the fact that suddenly, just now, I realized that everyone dies before forty and I'm going to be forty on my next birthday which means I'm already older and Jacob is frozen in time at thirty-six but he's supposed to be older than me and smarter than I am and why the hell has he done this and left me here? Why can't he be the one who has a little too much to drink and laugh and sing me a song?

Why is Ben in this place in my heart because I swore never ever and how the hell did I allow Caleb such prolific access into all of our lives in some sort of knee-jerk fashion to undo the years of restraining orders and forbidden contact that left him hating me and torturing me every chance he got and now we've reached some sort of wonderful, actual relationship, which everyone hates but I'm still testing the waters to see if they are warm enough and I'll make up what's left of my own mind, thank you.

No one loves me enough to stay.

They won't listen anyway. Just like they didn't when I pointed out I wasn't going to jump off the cliff and I was with Jake and he wouldn't have let me jump off the cliff anyway because he wouldn't want my light to go out. He always said Don't let your light go out, princess. Don't let the demons win. Don't let your head overtake your plans, pigalet.

I don't have any plans save for wanting to sit there in the rain, surrounded by roses with my Jacob and just listen to him tell me things because I'm happy he came but they wouldn't let me. They never let me do what I want to do. They never listen.

Oh I've done it now.

Portrait (She knew).

You know it's going to be a good day when Caleb walks into the room and instantly remarks on the lack of baubles on his favorite pastime.

Who are you, Howard Hughes?

He just winked and squared himself with his invisible courage for today. It's Father's Day, an awkward, difficult day for us where the boys jockey for position and are equally touched and left ruined by the gestures of the children to honor an entire room full of real and surrogate fathers, each one bringing something incredibly specific and necessary to their lives. Collectively the boys represent separate and equal parts of love and care to the children, and the children themselves have never failed to acknowledge that to the men who love them so much. They are like me in that regard. Instant forgiveness, instant affection.

However.

There are certain levels of affection and attention that the kids bestow on the boys. They have their own hierarchy, and they have their own preferences. PJ, Daniel and Benjamin are instant comfort, always available, patient to a fault, permissive and loving. Lochlan is their ready-steady rock. As long as he is around all is right with the world. He looks out for them in a strange, appreciative way. They understand his logic comes from a slightly different place. Caleb is Daddy Warbucks. As long as they behave properly and display their fine manners and intelligence they have learned they can have the moon from him. They also know that he is quick to anger and unforgiving. Like Cole. They do not ask for things, but they are drawn to that the same way I am.

Maybe because it's as close as we can get. Maybe it's because it's an authority that brings a small measure of comfort in the familiarity. It's what they know when everything isn't water fights and movies and stargazing and making ice cream. They know fathers are not fairy tales that are only fun. They know fathers will enforce the rules and be the final judge and jury. They know fathers will set limits and work to raise them up properly as well as happily.

Caleb arrived this morning, dashing and unhurried in his little silver sportscar and a crisp pair of jeans with a button-down dress shirt, looking like a forties movie star, acting like he had everything in the world, when in fact the only thing he has is now tied up in knots, tangled in the welfare of his brother's widow and her knights, because he decided to take a risk and place it all on black, betting everything he had on the only thing he believes in.

Me.

Baudelaire would call him out for this one.

Even in the centuries which appear to us to be the most monstrous and foolish, the immortal appetite for beauty has always found satisfaction.

I am supposed to be making an effort to ensure that he is properly recognized as the living blood of my children, but all I can do is stand in the shadow by the window and watch with morbid curiosity to see how they react to him. A relief follows, and it's as if Cole had never left them, they simply replaced their memories with that of the uncle who managed to miss the first six years of their lives mostly and now suddenly we can't seem to take a deep breath without him making a note of it and rotating the world accordingly in case we miss something.

I broke his brother's heart so badly he died and for that I was given everything, including the gift I could not return, the confirmation that Satan owns my youngest child. I was forced to replace my memories of Cole with Caleb's face. And I have. I've been good. I have listened, like a child, as the rules were spoken to me slowly and repeated until there was no ambiguity left. I am now the most vulnerable, requiring the most direction, supervision and care. The children grow and mature and Bridget never changes.

It isn't a turret that the knights guard anymore, it's the nursery and so the jostling for position remains. The need for approval rusts into the metal on their armor and coats their shields in desperation.

An equal fool, I extended the lunch invitation because I always choked back this overwhelming, oxygen-sucking need to please Cole so that he wouldn't become angry. And then like a princess, I cast my coldest look around the room, reproach on ice, a challenge to question my final rule on behalf of my children. He stays. No fists.

Lady of the flies, the immature leader who fuels her needs with her wants and couldn't raise a glass half the time, let alone these two beautiful creatures born of rage and fear and then molded into something wonderful. That is thanks to the boys.

And that's just a sliver of today. A small taste, a single drop of the blood I spill to quench his thirst for more of me because I don't know what to do with these feelings and so I pretend. I pretend I'm alright and the kids are alright and everyone gets along and we give cards and drawings and I pretend, like everybody else, not to see how he stares at me across the table as he exclaims over the menu the children chose for lunch, so at ease with them with so much tension beneath the surface it hums a steady drone in my head, between my ears that I'm forced to excuse myself and leave the room, fearing my brain might start to leak out from my ears and my heart might follow that lead. I'll pay for this later. Ben will look for my hierarchy. Everything costs me something and I am emotionally unemployed.

It hurts. I don't know why. Some days are hard. The kids are doing a fine job though. They always do when they have everyone's attention. Just like their mother. And they know that in a short while he will drive away from the house in his silver sports car and we can go back to breathing full breaths and not watching what we say around him, just in case it is the wrong thing.

On the way out he cups my face and smiles ruefully, reading my unfocused eyes.

Considering Baudelaire?

Yes.

'I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no melancholy. '

'I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror.'

Very good one, Bridget. See you on Tuesday for a drive and some lunch?

No, I have nothing to wear.

Perfect. Just wear the bracelet I gave you. That's all you need.

I frowned as he kissed my cheek and walked out the door. I threw that bracelet into the ocean the day he gave it to me. And I hate the fact that he is Henry's father. I pay the price for their hierarchy. I pay dearly. As I look around the room and feel the eyes on me, I see that we all do.
It makes me sad.

I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go
I'm filling the cracks that ran through the door
And kept my mind from wandering
Where it will go
And it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong
I'm right
Where I belong I'm right
Where I belong.
See the people standing there who disagree and never win
And wonder why they don't get in my door.
I'm painting the room in a colorful way
And when my mind is wandering
There I will go.
And it really doesn't matter if
I'm wrong I'm right
Where I belong I'm right
Where I belong.
Silly people run around they worry me
And never ask me why they don't get past my door.
I'm taking the time for a number of things
That weren't important yesterday
And I still go.

A new lip gloss collection for Ben to plunder.

I never did make it to very late last night. I believe I crashed about five minutes after I posted and was asleep in five seconds, another headache threatening to undermine the night. Another inability to sleep for any length of time save for a few precious hours in Ben's arms.

Today was a fast day that became slow. The kids and I looked after house things and gardening this morning, then made some lunch and declared it to be kid-time. We went to a new coffee shop and treated overselves to chocolate biscotti (the kids) and iced coffee (Bridget) and then went back and loaded up on popsicles to go. When we arrived back home, Ruth gave me a makeover. I'm still sporting the white lipstick, green and blue eyeshadow, copious cheek glitter and headband she chose for me, plus the tiny fabric butterflies she clipped all through my hair.

After my big makeover, we went back outside and drew hearts and flowers and music notes all over the front walkway with Henry who freaked if we walked on any of the lines and then he decided it was too hot to be outside anymore and Ruth took her drawings to the shade of the veranda, and I still have an inch of my coffee left and my brain is finally at cruising altitude for the day. I haven't heard from Ben for over an hour so I'm hoping against hope that that means he's on the way home and we might be able to have a dinner that starts before eight at night or more than ten minutes to talk about the day.

I hope Ben is on the way. He really needs to see this eyeshadow. And the butterflies. I have a feeling I'll be picking them out of my hair for the rest of the summer. And twenty bucks says he'll happily be Ruth's next customer. He looks awfully cute with butterflies too.

Day Tripper (and God bless Peter).

Please excuse the mess. Just pointing out I'm not touching the absinthe. No way in hell, no. Also, someone managed to dig out all the mashups (covers? homages?) of the Beatles, Cheap Trick and Type-O Neg.

It's going to be a long, loud and awesome night.

And I know I sound hideously ungrateful. I'm not. There's a million things to be so thankful for and I have noted every last one. I promise. If you knew me outside of this page, you would understand that. If you don't, then I'm sorry. I'm really a nice person underneath the princess part.

I promise.

Man in a box.

Won't you come and save me.

I wish tonight for a white linen-covered table overlooking the water, a damned good bottle of wine and even better coffee, and a meal of pasta with greens and exotic cheese, and a basket of very freshly baked bread. I'll let the server place the napkin on my lap for me and I'll sit and contemplate the waves and the breeze while I savor every delicious bite. Then a long walk to look at boats and then I'd like to watch a movie that makes me laugh and be glad I saw it.

Reality (which I have come to resent) dictates that instead I'll cook a quick dinner for the children and then a second dinner for Benjamin when he comes home and then in the blink of an eye we'll eat and go to bed and be asleep before the sun goes down.

I. hate. this. schedule. It's been three days (a lie. It's been six months.).

Hate is too mild of a word but I know. I understand the point of the work and the way it flows and I am so incredibly grateful that he is appreciated, in demand and still loves it but after the way this year started I just have this overwhelming urge to grab him by the front of his shirt and push, pull and stuff him into a box and wrap the box in chains and padlock it shut and maybe learn a little bit of welding too, and then I would hold it carefully behind my back in both hands and shake my head innocently, ignorantly while people walked all around me wondering where he could be.

Yes, that's what I would like to do.

And in a perfect world, I would.

Thankfully nothing is perfect. Ben wouldn't like it. He needs to be tinkering if he is awake, there is simply no other way. He likes to be busy, he likes to just put his head down and ride out the difficult parts and he likes to focus on the present.

He likes burgers and fries and napkins with well-known brands printed on them. Quick and easy. He doesn't drink wine. He doesn't know what the hell to do with the side of me that hates reality except to say that it doesn't matter if I don't like it, I'm stuck with it.

Begrudged acceptance isn't quite what I had in mind this evening. The move is finished, we're just about through the last of the paperwork concerning address changes and becoming full-fledged west-coasters, we have new furniture and everything is put away and hung up and cleaned six times over and I have sought out every last amenity we need, where the best place is to buy guitar strings and lactose-free milk and good bread and the skincare I like to use. I have found neat places to take the children and we've explored the woods and the creeks and the rivers and the pacific and the road and the parks.

What I need, badly, is a vacation.

But I don't want to see my suitcase ever again and I'm still weirdly thrilled that I can leave my hairbrush, my perfume, seventeen lip glosses and my jar of cocoa butter just sitting out all over the place across the giant counter in the bathroom and all of it is still there next time I walk into the bathroom. I still haven't decided if I want the window in the walk-in closet to have the blinds open or closed. Am I going to flip the light on and walk in naked and someone outside might see? And really, who is going to be right outside my window at that hour? (Shhh, we know that answer haha).

So I need a home-cation or a stay-cation or whatever the hell it's called when you just take time off and have fun instead of just working your way through list after list and hoping to nurture and fulfill everyone while scrubbing toilets, shopping and cooking and maybe spending three minutes a day writing a journal entry or downloading a new theme for the ever humming BlackBerry.

I need a fucking white-linen table and a good dinner. Really that's it. Not the moon tonight, not a flight overseas or thousands of dollars worth of luxuries, just some pasta and wine.

And Ben in my hands, chained inside a box. Just so I could enjoy him for once instead of continuing to say goodbye all the time.

Small world.

The rain has closed off the world to me today. I haven't seen the water or the mountains yet. It sort of feels as if this is an island and I am alone forever and no one will ever know who I am. The fog brought with it a steady downpour and fresh air that I have opened every window wide to collect inside and get rid of the stale overnight warmth.

I have rainboots now. They are black (of course) with pastel polkadots and they look cute with my long black coat and my Edward Gorey umbrella, or so I call it. It's very tall with a spiral handle and it opens in a bell-shape with a little lace fringe and it looks as if it belongs to one of Gorey's Tinies.

Oh, wait. It does.

Garden tools can't be fenced. Can they?

Humanity and I are having a difference of opinion today as my faith has been tested this morning and the week has grown long with overtime, illness, theft and exhaustion. Add in all of the drama and PJ alternately being fed up with me and sad that I have faced such derision over my memorials. I'm done. Is it Saturday yet? Is it Sunday? Can I go back to bed? Can I just cry now?

No, I think I'll laugh. We've reached those levels of ridiculousness here.

Some guard dog Bonham is too, by the way. Snoring away on the floor at the foot of our bed, failing to alert us to the two stupid teenage boys breaking into my yard. Well, guess what, boys? That expensive jacket you dropped as you took off with my stuff? I have it and fuck you, hell no, you can't ever have it back. And it's worth more than the things you took so perhaps the joke is on you.

And when you grow up and some kid steals your stuff, consider it full circle. And it will happen. Ask me how I know. Good luck to you.

In other news, half a bottle of Advil and a pot of coffee and I'm almost human again. The ice pack helped, as did a mini-neck massage and a magnificent, concentrated effort to distract from the pain in my head. My headache that started on Sunday is almost gone. Finally. I can uncurl my toes and roll my flesh back down over the tips of my fingers where I slid the tips along the rack of knives so that something besides my head would hurt for a change.

I didn't actually do that, but I considered it very seriously for quite a while.

If I could paint a picture for you today it would be in shades of grey, moving away from what began as total blackness, hopeful that when we reach the other side of the canvas the world will be colored in a hint of turquoise and blush and the work will evoke a sense of peace instead of one of dread and foreboding. I don't know though, we're not there yet.

All in a day's work. There's nothing remarkable about my day. The children are home sick from school getting over their colds, I am attempting to run completely out of groceries because I haven't found time to shop yet and Caleb is still singing. All week long which is new and not all that bad really. As long as he isn't picking fights he isn't horrible.

Ben is wonderful but invisible. Head down, ears closed, focused as he works his magic because that's what he does and I may wind up horribly depleted in Ben-stores for the next several weeks but I will see him at bedtime and for toast in the mornings and otherwise thank God for cell phones and dreams. At least this time he doesn't have to go to work on an airplane and only get home every month or so. He'll be home every night, but distracted and consumed and oh I really hate these parts but after twelve years or so I'm getting used to deadlines and clients with changes and how things look when you don't have any breathing room. All of the boys have shown me that side of life and I believe I could write a book on it, if I wanted to write one but maybe instead I'll just write some other things instead. I'm sending some things out early next week, it's been a long time since I even felt like dealing with submissions but I am because life is about moving forward in some strange meandering road of self-improvement and then self-reliance.

Somewhere I became lost and some days I don't think this is my road, but someone else's and they must know the turns and the landmarks to watch for while nothing looks familiar to me but I'm hoping eventually to come to an exit and I can get off and circle back and find the right road. Or doze my own. I don't even think I have a road, proper. I think my path is dirt, softened grass and mud baked into a marked footpath, wide enough for two and then one and then two and then one and it goes along like that and every now and then the bottom drops out and you fall down a steep embankment and then you climb up the next hill, scratched and dirty and look out over the valley, the sunrise blinding you until you exclaim out loud and promptly trip over a rock and land on your ass.

Oh yeah. That's Bridget's path right there.

(If you own a MEC Tango Belay, come and get your coat, you stupid punk. And bring my things back with you.)