Hollow win.

It was mechanical. Wooden and resigned.

The envelope came on Thursday evening. Not the red one I was expecting for notes on some changes to the health plan but the dreaded dark silver instead. The request for my company, as if inside might be a million dollars and I am the commodity traded publicly for a song few can sing.

I didn't open it. I just left it by the door and I went upstairs and began to dress. Stockings. Stilettos. One of his dresses. Hair up so he can take it down. No jewelry. None at all. The inside of my brain is jello. Alternating the current of thrill with the dread of knowing it could always be the last trip because I stand as the last living witness to his transformation into a monster. I was there, you see? It's my fault.

I turn around to inspect the seams on my stockings and Ben is in the doorway, holding the envelope.

Deja you, princess.

Deja yourself. You ready?

I'm not invited and you're not going.

What do you mean?

The invitation is for you and Lochlan. He knows, princess. He knows we let him back in. You can't go.

I have to, Ben.

We'll figure out something else.

Something else? We've had a quarter of a century to do that. Nothing works. It just makes everything more difficult if I fight it.

Bridget, I haven't had a quarter century to fight it. Lochlan hasn't tried to do anything.

He created this.

I wave my hands around to indicate my life. Panic is rising like bile now. I feel like I'm choking, drowning. I have already switched into Cole-mode now and there's no going back.

Guilt, Bridget. He feels guilty. And the first minute he thinks you're safe he vanishes. What kind of love is that?

I don't know, Ben. I don't know anything anymore.

Me neither but I know this is wrong and I know I'm not going to let you go.

You new guys are so noble.

A condescending voice from behind Ben in the hallway made us both jump. Timed perfectly to arrive in his little 350z to take me away to the dungeon in the sky as soon as I would have had time to prepare after receiving the envelope had I not been ambushed.

Always wanting to rescue little Bridget. Always pointing out everything that is wrong with her. Giving in to so many of her whims and then acting outraged when she won't stop. When you have enough and she still won't stop.

She stops today. Ben says it so softly, I'm still not a hundred percent sure that's what he said.

You know what happened to the last man who tried to keep me from seeing her, don't you? Or have you holed up with your guitar and your bottle so long you don't remember things quite so clearly anymore, Benny? Do you think he left her on purpose? Anyone can be bought. Anyone. Don't make me have to buy you. I've left you in this position because you're not a threat to me. Don't make me change my mind.

In that split second I made a choice to believe that he was lying. Protect thyself. Oh to hell with it.

I walked over to Caleb. Slowly. Heart thumping so loud my gait is wobbly in those stupid shoes. He smiles at me. Victorious.

Or not.

I slapped him.

Hard.

I came up again, going for more but he grabbed my wrist and squeezed until my bones grated but I didn't cry out because my insides had turned to dust from the doubt creeping back in.

Caleb paid Jake to go and he changed his mind and couldn't live with the guilt.

It all makes sense now. All of it. Every last thing. Every last measure of confusion blown away leaving one final secret. Caleb's.

I waited for him to relax his hold. It took a while. We had a staredown. One that's been twenty-seven years in the making.

There's no statute of limitations on what you did.

There isn't one on Lochlan either. If I go down, so does he, and then you'd be without your fucking Siamese twin. Ben would be wise to encourage you to rat everyone out but at this point they are all so afraid of your head that the status-quo, ticking-time-bomb fragile princess everyone can get a piece of seems like a safer bet, don't you think?

He dropped my wrist and walked out and within the space of a minute I heard the car start up and he drove away.

Bridget 4.0, now with gapless playback.

What the hell have I meant
If this how the day ends, I regret
Close your eyes and dream now
The world so far
your heart sounds alone
and I connect

In all the ways I've dreamed you
I chose a song to reach you
But why it's sad again
Only now I see it

Today is a lipgloss print on a cool windowpane, a squeeze of a hand just a memory as you walk away toward the noise and the light and I remain in the silent dark to wait, arms wrapped around the second hand of the clock in an effort to swing forward to speed it up.

Today is a chocolate sugar cone with a hole in the bottom, summer dripping down the steps and across the patio, smeared into rays of blistering afternoon sun and wishes for an ocean of ice.

Today is a note held by a voice that is oxygen to the ears, and then left to fade into a clash of leads and fills, the memory of a melody so familiar that pause fails to take away the sound and my gratitude swells to bursting.*

Today is a text message to herald the beginning of the trip home in the same late sun, the screech of brakes and the wail of the train whistle through the trees starting a slow count to your arrival at the door, somehow timed perfectly, somehow timed to save.

Today is almost finished.

The man who stayed behind.

Eighty-eight steps down, my hand on the smooth pewter of a railing forged painstakingly. Beautiful work. The joins almost seamless but slightly raised so as not to pinch or catch. The scrollwork in each step left unfinished for traction on the ice-cold metal.

I have descended this staircase a thousand times and every time is with a death grip and my eyes glued to that railing for guidance. That railing is the only thing that separates my life without Jake from life with Jake.

I am in bare feet and a slip of a nightgown this time. That's why I'm so cold. My clairaudience for Jacob's voice waking me from a fitful sleep means I have to check on him. Maybe he is cold too. Maybe something is wrong. Maybe he found a way to sculpt himself back to life out of the thimbleful or two of ashes I have left.

In my distraction I stumble on the step and sit down hard, still with both hands on the railing, now high above my head. I have twisted my elbows and the pain from the dislocation flares up white hot and I let go. I rest my forehead against the center post and automatically smooth my gown around my legs. I close my eyes.

A warm arm slides around my shoulders and pulls me in.

I open my eyes and look up. Ben kisses my forehead.

Why are you down here again, bee?

I'm looking for Jake.

He isn't here, baby. Come back up.

He's here. I heard him again.

Come on, Bridget. Let's go back to bed.

No.

I pulled away and stood up. I wobbled on the next step down and four hands shot out. Ben caught my shoulders and two hands came out of the dark and caught my hands. Jacob's glorious crown of gold came into the light.

He's right, princess. You need sleep.

You called for me. I'm here because you need me.

I don't do that, honey. You really should be sleeping.

I'm just staring at his eyes. Out here, outside of the concrete room with the fear of Cole keeping me cold his eyes are different only I don't know how, exactly, they just are. I want to know if he can still do it. Still hypnotize me. Still pull me in and keep me there to do whatever he wants me to do, or make me feel things that aren't real like security and peace to buy himself time to get untangled from my emotional tentacles. He didn't want to drown so he exploded mid-flight instead. You want to talk about dramatic exits? I'll show you a fucking dramatic exit.

I shake my head. I can't think.

I let go of his hands and turned around, giving him my back so he could read the words he has sung and I looked up at Ben. I nodded.

I need to sleep.

Ben took my hand and pulled it up under his arm tightly in hand and we went back up the steps. Slowly this time. He is humming under his breath and I am well aware I have just been spellbound and that's it's for my own good. Bridget functions better vaguely mesmerized, and Jacob knows that. That's why he called for me. Only I need to work out why he still has the same abilities he had before.

I also need to check and see if all of my forks are bent again. Jacob loved to destroy the cutlery without touching it. I wish I could do that.

Oh, wait, maybe I don't.

Four thousand volts.

Well, now.

My grandparents had farms when I was little. Tucked back along the South shore of the province. Low-tech ones, apparently. No hay balers. No power until the forties even. Root cellars. Bee hives. Actual off-the-grid self-sufficient farms.

Imagine my delight tonight when I ran up to the fence to greet the horses and got zapped halfway across the road. Oh, yes. Imagine my dismay when the horse came right up before I could get the gate open and also got blown halfway back to the tree line. And then he came right back and got zapped again.

Tonight the electric fence went live and the horse and I became each others learning curves. I didn't know. I knew it was there but it wasn't live, goddammit.

I left in tears because I didn't want him coming back a third time. Ben warned me not to get attached to them (as if that were even possible) and then laughed when I failed to recognize (and respect) the barrier put into place to keep the horses safe, not hurt them.

I'm calmer now. My elbow still feels weird and my ego is shot to hell but the plan tomorrow is to show up with carrots as a peace offering. And maybe rubber boots.

(Also: my pride is still up there under the apple tree if someone could please collect it for me.)

Closed words and open letters.

Walking along the high tide line
Watching the pacific from the sidelines
Wonder what it means to live together?
Looking for more than just guidelines

Looking for signs in the night sky,
Wishing that I wasn’t such a nice guy
Wonder what it means to live forever?
Wonder what it means to die?

I know that there's a meaning to it all
A little resurrection every time I fall
You got your babies, I got my hearses
Every blessing comes with a set of curses
I got my vices, I got my vice verses
I got my vice verses

The wind could be my new obsession
The wind could be my new depression
The wind goes anywhere it wants to
Wishing that I learned my lesson

The ocean sounds like a garage band
Coming at me like a drunk man
The ocean tells me a thousand stories
None of them are lies

Let the pacific laugh
Be on my epitaph
With it's rising and falling
And after all, it's just water
And I am just soul
With a body of water and bones
Water and bones

Where is God in the night sky?
Where is God in the city light?
Where is God in the earthquake?
Where is God in the genocide?

Where are you in my broken heart?
Everything seems to fall apart
Everything feels rusted over
Tell me that you're there

I know that there's a meaning to it all
A little resurrection every time I fall
You got your babies, I got my hearses
Every blessing comes with a set of curses
I got my vices, I got my vice verses
These are my vice verses

I think I've got it now.

The crazy people are the ones who acknowledge and give voice to their feelings. The sane ones do not. I feel more fear for those who seem like they have it together than for those who have already fallen apart.

You're uncomfortable around it because it hits close to home and you know you're on the verge. Everything could disappear with one false move, your perfectly planned life an admitted departure from what you imagined it would be as you evolved into who you are today.

I'm not sure if I should apologize for the abruptness of your trip here or if I should welcome you in spite of your protests. Be comfortable with yourself. Now that the cat's out of the bag, you'll never get it back in. Just watch it run around.

Laugh.

You'll be okay now.

Little miss patience.

Just. need. to. rant.

I have a huge peeve that doesn't come up often but when it does I want to scream right out of my skin. People who refer to a very short period of time as AGES ago. As in "I graduated from college a long time ago." and they stand there smugly and then when you ask the year they say 2007.

Or,

They've been dating forever.

How long is forever?

Like, eight MONTHS!

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

This is not a long time period, people.

Oh, and today I saw something that was six years old referred to as vintage.

Stab me, please. In both the eyes and the ears.

Jacob's chores.

I can see the stars
From way down here
But I can't fall asleep
Behind the wheel

It's a long way from the
Shadows in my cave
Up to Your reality to
Watch the sunlight taking over
Take me over

I've been poison
I've been rain
I've been fooled again

I've seen ashes
Shine like chrome
Someday I'll see home

I just realized Friday is August 13th.

I don't enjoy Friday the thirteenths any more than I let a black cat cross my path or fail to toss some salt over my left shoulder should I spill any. I have had seven years of bad luck after breaking a mirror and I walk far out of my way around ladders, usually through puddles or in traffic, thank you very much.

I prefer to spend those days in bed with the covers up over my head but someone (was it Ben?) told me once that the bad luck was over by noon, exactly the same way that April Fools Day only lasts until lunch time and then after that you should expect no fooling.

Today went on forever and then it sped up to the point where I had to dig in my heels or be flung off again and I still have fresh bruises from the last time that happened. I did a lot of work and then came home and did some more and now we all get to sleep tonight with freshly washed sheets and clean bedrooms, and the laundry is folded and put away. I'm going to go recruit New-Jake to unload the dishwasher, since he has become somewhat of a...a...barnacle at the table, and then I'm going to convince the children it's time to go to bed, once New-Jake is through crashing around in the kitchen. This boy eats. I've never seen anything like it.

Mondays are not thrilling around her. Survivable possibly, but not thrilling.

Bait.

Today I stood on the freezing cold dock in the pouring rain and watched Ben and the kids catch rainbow trout. I even uh...casted? a few times but nothing bit my hook because the fish just have this sense when the person fishing is just going to scream and run around in circles once they hit daylight and be unable to calmly detach the hook and throw them back.

She's a killer, don't bite.

Har. Stupid fish. I had a plan in place. Catch the fish and then pass the rod to Ben.

See? I'm not dumb.

You'll be pleased to know I even wore jeans and sneakers and a sweater and no, the current Coach handbag stayed home where it was dry and warm and comfortable. I'm well aware that you were picturing me in my stilettos and a little ruffly black dress with mascara running in the rain holding up a lure by one hand and possibly considering it as an earring or a pendant.

You obviously missed the former part of 2010 where I singlehandedly conquered the plaster, a blizzard, and the second cross-country move on my own, didn't you? Go back and read. I'll wait. Also in there are some terrific gems about failed block heaters, leaky tires and real estate deals suitable for Nurburgring for their speed and handling.

See, the princess is required to be efficient. Because otherwise she wouldn't be able to floss her own teeth or buy groceries for the seven hundred boys she feeds because seriously that would be my preference. I have always said, why do it yourself when you can have a butler who does it for you?

Fine, I say it under my breath, when I'm alone in a room with the door closed, in an empty house on a street devoid of neighbors home during the day and I said it in French. Just once. But the thought is so nice, I sometimes daydream that I do have a butler and I finish a glass of juice and put it on the coffee table and I...I....

I leave the room (instead of taking it to the kitchen! Which I just passed! Efficiency is next to godliness!)

I am so hardcore.

I was fully prepared to shriek and howl and gut the fish if need be and then I was going to use the internet to figure out how to scale it and de-bone it and make it look like the fish at the market and maybe tinfoil? and lemons? could be good or something if the boys really did plan to make good on their refusals to help me.

I didn't have to fret for long. The fish was caught, the hook removed, and it took one look at me, shocked to see that its welcoming committee onto dry land was not wearing mascara or stilettos and it demanded to be thrown back, to be hopefully re-introduced to the shore by people in more appropriate attire next time.

If the butler had caught it, it would have been thrilled.

Told you.

OH. My goodness.

Ben is on his knees lip-syncing Chicago's Hard to Say I'm Sorry. I'm not quite sure whether to laugh or film this for posterity.

Yeah, film it.

He is so awesome.

Date night.

Candlelight. A cool breeze from the water. Near darkness tangled with soft voices from other tables.

Five hours of Ben-time, my favorite in the whole wide world. His attention, his presence, his focus. His love and his devotion to making sure I had an evening to remember. Everything I wanted. I'm sure had I asked for a bunny to lay us eggs made of rubies he would have found one. I'm not sure how I got this lucky. For the record, I don't need a bunny, I just firmly believe sometimes that he does things on purpose because he can see the outcome long before the realization hits me in the head. He's good with me like that. He just pries my tiny white knuckles from whatever fears I have latched onto and lets me float gravity-free until I find a safe purchase and then he says, simply,

See?

Camembert, wine, bread, halibut. Roasted vegetables. Tenderloin, chocolate, coffee. Endless plates and glasses balanced on a tiny secluded table in the garden of a hole-in-the-wall bistro.

Perfect.

Every bite was a trip to heaven, every time that I caught Ben's eye a nod and a smile because sometimes it seems that life speeds up and we need to just jump off at a soft place and spend five hours doing nothing but talking and eating dinner and then he'll take my hand and we'll run and catch up and jump back on life and find out it's once again moving at the pace we can breathe within.

My knuckles are pink today, the circulation burbling along at a Sunday-morning pace on a Saturday, the skull ring precariously balanced just under the knuckle on my middle finger, my belly still so full I think I may need some sort of good-food intervention. I feel like I swallowed a bunnyful of rubies. Or at least far more Camembert than I am used to.

Huh. Some princess I am.

Fifty yards from my life.

If Deer has gently nudged its way into your cards today, you are being asked to find the gentleness of spirit that heals all wounds. Stop pushing so hard to get others to change, and love them as they are. Apply gentleness to your present situation and become like the summer breeze: warm and caring. This is your tool for solving the present dilemma you are facing. If you use it, you will connect with Sacred Mountain, your centering place of serenity, and Great Spirit will guide you.
~Medicine Cards by Jamie Sams and David Carson

Double standards and ghostiversaries.

This morning it's coffee and honey toast at the island. Bare feet. A fresh jar of honey to open. A handful of blackberries on the side. Cartoon noise softly from the living room, where Henry has taken over the entire couch when he should be on the floor at the coffee table with his grapefruit juice and cinnamon-sugar toast. We're the only ones up this morning, after a glorious sleep last night. It was so hot I thought I would melt or be sick. PJ fired up a rare round of teasing me that everyone jumped in on because I'm positively golden as of late, and three hours in the sun yesterday baked me to a brown glow. I don't usually tan (I never stop moving!) and so they were saying I was just dirty, and getting filthier as life here goes on.

Har.

I got in some really good comments about precisely how filthy I am, and the subject was respectfully changed once again. I live with a group of men frat boys, I can handle my share of teasing, but I also know when I am too hot or too tired to attempt to stretch my patience and I took that cue and Ben and I went to bed, where I could mercifully strip naked and lie on top of the sheets with the fan blowing directly on my skin.

Of course, with Ben, lying there not doing anything lasts about twelve whole seconds. My point, however, is that once we did finally go to sleep I fell down the well into dreamland and didn't come back until eight this morning, when Bonham wandered in to do his usual nose-poke into the side of my hand/arm/leg to let me know it's morning and he needs to go out.

I looked at the clock. Eight whole hours. I looked in the mirror. Oh! Dirty face -wait tanned but the endless black holes under my eyes seem less horrifying than usual. Yay.

I didn't have to fight to pry my eyes open the whole way down the road with the dog.

(An aside for a lot of people who ask why I don't just leave him out overnight or tie him in the backyard in the morning? I love my dog AND my grass. I don't believe letting a dog out is doing much more than ruining the lawn. So I walk him. He gets exercise and time with me and I don't get a polkadot lawn. Your mileage may vary.)

I am awake. Awake and alive and ready for another day of fun. I think we may do more fishing today because yesterday was an endless game of dumping the children off their air mattresses out in chest-deep water and they would scream and fly off and climb back on for hours. I swam twice.

I lay on my beach towel and closed my eyes to the sun and almost fell asleep and Ben kept watch over the children without blinking because he's a better swimmer anyway and when he wasn't, Lochlan would.

We also might head downtown today for some delicious meals and some more exploring and then spend a little more time just doing little things at home. Ben has to install a peep-hole for the back door and I'm campaigning heavily to have it installed slightly lower than the others, which I need to stand on tip-toe to see through and boy, what a pain that is at my front door, even though the boys have the gate-code to get their trucks/motorcycles/egos down the driveway but not keys to my house because I'm keeping those to the people that live here this time because all emergencies are covered.

He'll put it low for me. I know he will.

I must go now and stand in the shower and marvel at precisely how brown my skin is and I know it's bad and I know I have the crinkle-lines around my eyes and a face full of freckles and once winter comes back and I am pale again I will curse the sun in all its glory but this has been the longest stretch of mild weather I have witnessed firsthand in almost a decade and I plan to milk it, wring it out and soak it up for as long as it lasts. Someone said this area averages five degrees in the winter and I laughed and then they reminded me it's a bitter damp cold and I laughed again, having been raised on the edge of the continent already, thank you, just on the other side. I know bad weather. This isn't it. This is home-weather.

I'm also going to go stand in the shower and marvel at the fact that had Jacob not ruined everything, today would have been our fourth wedding anniversary. Only, you know what? For the first time in a marriage I don't feel like I'm the child.

Oh, well, Ben just walked in and made a terribly pornographic comment about the filthiness of my skin again. I'm definitely not the child.

Snort.

(He can do that but he's the ONLY one who can, okay?)

Plans for the best-laid.

Morning.

My carpets have been cleaned, the siding, walkway, porch and stonework has been pressure-washed, the laundry is caught up, the litterbox is clean, the dog has been walked, I made a grocery list, updated my calendar, sobered up, renewed permissions to my wing of the house and now I'm going to the beach to teach my kids to fish.

Yes, that's right.

No, I have no idea what I'm doing but there's a pier and we have rods and wiggly things and really the mechanics of it aren't important when you're nine.

Or when you're twelve, for that matter.

Just listen for one little minute, kay?

Lochlan and I have great plans to sit outside on the verandah tonight as the sun sets and drink sasparilla and talk.

Talk. Huh. hahaha.

Yes, I've already arrived in the village of Sassafras and have set up my chair for the duration, in case you are wondering. I don't do well with new and different kinds of drinks but this stuff is really good and rootbeerish and not at all sinister so whatever, I'll listen to what Lochlan has to say, which I'm sure will be a well-rehearsed litany of things he didn't mean to say or do, tangled up with how we wear our secrets and a need to plan for the future and Jesus Christ, already, can't I just marry him and then we can leave all of this painful stuff behind?

Well, no, we can't, because I'm in love and it's not with him and revenge and grudges run so deep you would be stunned and really who the hell has ever kept me from Caleb the way Jacob did? None of you, that's who. You guys couldn't protect me from him with baseball bats and homing lasers, locked in a steel cage and that's what's so fucking dumb about all this.

Dumb.

Where were you all when he came to the fair when I was twelve? Where were you when he came back when I was in my early twenties and I married his brother and Cole promised the same things Lochlan did and then lied too, only he was worse but he's dead so that's not important right now, is it?

Heck with this. I need another.

Okay. Damned bottle caps. Lochlan would open it but he is still in the backyard talking with Dylan and Corey and really they need to go home because I feel one of those mess-things coming on. You know the kind where everything spills out and we look at it and dissect it and then pave over it and drive as if there's nothing buried there until some part of it begins to stick out again as time erodes the asphalt and suddenly you're forced to confront things better left buried.

It's not going to be pretty but then again I'm not either anymore. At least not in the mirror. To them I am. I know that. I know I have to be careful not to distract them when there are issues at hand. It's just easier, kinder and the lesser of all evils. I don't mean any harm. I'm just so tired of reliving everything every time the wind blows.

That's all. I'm just tired.

No ultimatomatoes though. I've made those before. They don't work. He stays. I'm keeping him. I just don't know in what format he gets to be anymore. Hell at this rate I'll be done for before he even gets inside.

And spellcheck is good, isn't it? Just for you, ethernet.

I would have posted something, aside from my indignant rant on the crazy drivers here, but I have a better offer from Ben to go and sleep on him while he watches some mindless television. Goodnight.

Sea to sky.

Here's the thing.

You are not special.

You have no reason and no right to drive faster than everyone else, cut in and out of lanes with so little room I gasp, talk on the phone while operating your moving vehicle, travel without wearing a seatbelt or drive after drinking.

But here's the thing.

You are special.

You're special to the children you have at home and to your wife or husband and your friends. To your brothers and your neighbors too.

You're special to the EMTs who are now trying to save your life and to the attendants at the funeral home who are going to try and make you presentable for your own service. Your name will never be forgotten by those who love you or by those whose loved ones you killed because you were too hurried/distracted/drunk to fulfill the privilege of operating a motor vehicle safely and with due dilligence.

Yeah, you're special all right.

Loch, stock and barrel.

Why don't you ask him if he's going to stay?
Why don't you ask him if he's going away?

Even most of the boys have switched to jeans and flannel shirts tonight.

It's cool, cold almost. A good night for a bonfire but we're not permitted bonfires due to being in the fourth week of a summer dry spell from the rain. Everyone seems to have dressed appropriately, however. Everyone is having fun. The dinner part is winding down now, latecomers milling around the barbecue while PJ serves up steaks and grilled cobs of corn and assorted goodies, my portobello mushroom caps that were a big hit as veggie burgers for the non-meat lovers. I know Schuyler can handle dessert and refilling coffees and lemonades and Chris will look after the beer and wine crowd.

Ben has taken centre stage with his acoustic down on the lawn with some of the older neighbors, all closet guitar players, it seems. I can hear them playing Tusk through the open window. My neighbor with the hydrangea (her garden makes me green with envy) is singing, God bless her heart.

I think the neighbors are all relieved, frankly.

We are nice people.

Not goat-sacrificers nor drug peddlers. Folks who worry about their dahlias and run out of propane and make kickass blackberry coffee cake just like they do, simply with unconventional jobs. And now they can also get the tour and understand the amount of space we have, that Lochlan has his own wing, distinct and apart from ours, as does August, and that Schuy and Daniel's apartment downstairs is darling, and possibly already better decorated than most of the expensive homes that circle the bay. That we all pitch in and look after the house and the garden, the vineyard and the orchard too, that we obey the speed limits and that the house is spotless. Oh, they looked, trust me. They see that my children are coddled and loved but also given limits, and have better manners than any of us. That we are well-read and cultured and travelled and not scary or gossipy in the least.

At least I hope so. The rumblings got back to me quickly when we moved in. The people who live up here are as protective of their neighborhood, of their peace and quiet, beautiful landscape and their way of life as are we, and so it was easy for us to choose this area. Even the bikes have been well-received, considering how loud they can be. The neighbors are discreet, in other words. We keep our privacy as long as we keep our decorum. That's so easy it's dumb.

They are sympathetic as well, upon hearing of some of what we have gone through, and I am protective of my reactions and so that's why right now I'm not so much hiding out as I'm taking a moment to breathe, away from everyone, because I can't deal with an endless parade of people exclaiming in hushed whispers that I seem to be doing well when they don't know me at all, and that I'm so young to have been through so much, when they don't know the half of it.

I don't want to hear that. A little understanding is fine, a wet blanket of pity and respect is more than I can bear. I'm permitted to hide for five more minutes and then I know August will knock gently on his door, since I commandeered his den, and I'll head back out into the night to have some more wine and maybe some strawberries if there are any left. I'll watch Caleb dance with Ruth and watch Lochlan watch me watching them while he pretends to be interested in the girl he brought tonight (because just ARRRRRRRRRGHHHHH) and watch Ben watch all of us with his usual casual interest that misses nothing while he seems to miss everything.

None of this has gotten past him, I assure you, and while he's content to bring down his hammer on affection that I traded freely once for security, his patience has worn thin. He is also anxious for life to begin, we have been stuck in limbo too long thus far.

I've stayed here too long as well, there's my knock now. Time to bring out the goats and drugs and freak the fuck out of everyone, I guess.

I'm kidding.

We don't do drugs.

I still want a goat, though.

Caught between the glass and the backing board.

Car overheats
Jump out of my seat
On the side of the highway baby
Our road is long
Your hold is strong
Please don't ever let go

I couldn't pretend that I had never read his letter. And I still find it funny to this day that no one ever said a thing or rang any alarms after seeing a seventeen-year-old boy dragging around a crying twelve-year-old girl by the hand but I'm guessing we look like brother and sister thanks to our hair, even though Lochlan's blonde is strawberries and mine is ashes.

He pushes my plate toward me.

Eat, Bridget. Come on, we can't stay here forever.

I'm not hungry.

I only said those things so that you would hate me and not want to come with me when I left and then I realized if I left you there you wouldn't be safe. Jesus. I'm seventeen. I'm supposed to be studying math and playing guitar and saving for a new car, not this.

You wanted this.

I'm saying I don't know everything and maybe I screwed up and I'm not going to screw up your life too.

So what now?

We drop it and go home. We go to school. Right through college. We do summer work on the midway but otherwise whatever romantic dream you have of staying on the road with the carnival has to end. Bridget, it isn't safe. He can get to you there.

He can get to me anywhere. He told me. Will we be together? You and I, I mean?

Of course. After college we can get married.

Can we buy a camper?

Sure.

* * * *

I'm standing outside the gates, digging in my bag for my watch. He's got to be late by now. The lineup is so long already and I don't know if I'm supposed to be in it or not. I walked from my job at the shopping center and Lochlan was driving back from a shift at the restaurant where he slings wine and fancy vertical appetizers to people who tip poorly. We are starving again. I always think I can fill the void with cotton candy but it doesn't work. It doesn't expand to fill me with sugary satisfaction, it contracts into a hard rock that gives me a belly ache.

I have lengthened out a little at fourteen. Lost a lot of baby fat. I'm lightly tanned and my hair is so long it regularly gets caught in the doors of the boy's trucks and in their watches. I have developed an affinity for short skirts and halter tops and flip-flops if I have to wear shoes. Every ride I go on is in bare feet because they make you take off slip-on shoes. I do this on purpose because it feels so good. I have developed a sick affinity for lip gloss. By the bucketful. I can charm almost anyone into anything and I'm aware of that in the way that you're aware that it's raining when you step outside into a monsoon.

A kiss lands on the back of my neck.

Let's go back to the truck.

Huh?

I need to talk to you.

People are going in, can't it wait?

The fair is all week, Bridget.

And we're...here, right? We had plans to go, that's why we're both here. What's going on?

Just come with me.

We go and sit in the truck and I have a sinking feeling I won't get to ride the ferris wheel after dark.

* * * * *

I knock on the door of the apartment hesitantly. Lochlan opens it, sees me and heads back to his computer. He is finishing up some work. Twenty-four and bearded now. The apartment is a mess and I start loading dishes into the sink from all over the place. I chastise him for not keeping it clean. He would be calmer if his living space were organized.

You didn't come here to do my housekeeping.

I stare at the framed photograph on his desk. It's me at seventeen, sitting in the ferris wheel alone and smiling. Waiting for him. Two summers ago. The fair is our thing, we still go to it together in spite of the fact that I have now been dating Cole for five years. Lochlan and Cole are friends so we're together all of the time. The more things change, the more things stay the same.

No, I came here to tell you I'm getting married.

Silence descends like a fog over the room and I'm acutely aware that this hurts. I don't want to look at him but he hasn't said anything.

He stands up, grabs his keys and brushes past me, walking out his front door and slamming it hard. After a minute I hear his truck start in the parking lot and he drives away.

* * * *

I knock softly on his door, and he calls out for me to come in. I open the door carefully and walk down the hall until I reach the sunny window nook where he has his desk. He is doing freelance work today. I pass him the steaming mug of coffee and he thanks me and smiles, his beard spreading out when his mouth turns up. He has lines around his eyes, now at forty-four and I can't help but be grateful that he has kept his promises to me in spite of the fact that three times now I have sprung engagements on him and once I have turned him down.

My eyes fall on the picture of me, still on his desk forever frozen in 1988. I wonder how long his promise will hold. I can see in his eyes the things he has been through and the one attempt to go away from me and make his own life that ended in disaster and brought him back for something over nothing at all. I worry that I have ruined him in a way that only we can understand and at the same time I will forever punish him for forcing me to grow up before I was capable of being the girl he wanted me to be, and for not stepping in and being the man that he promised he would be when it mattered most.

When Jacob flew I went to Lochlan and I asked him for help and he refused. I asked him to take his place in front of me and keep my children safe and I was going to go curl up into a ball and block everything out for a very long time and he said no because he was reeling and he couldn't help me, no one could, and that's your forty-eight hour gap between when they told me Jacob was gone and when I knocked on Caleb's door in hopes that death would take me quickly. Cole and Jacob were dead and Lochlan no longer wanted what was left of me so please, here, just make it quick.

Sadly, it didn't happen. Hi, I'm still here.

We exist in an awkward space, tied together with heavy ropes and then for good measure he has jammed a ruler down between us to always keep us a foot apart. For good measure Ben jammed another one down there and it hurts but I'll get used to it, just like I've grown used to the first one, my skin fused around it in a reluctant sort of acceptance. I think at this point we've had thirty years of stubbornness that has become too thick to swim through and that somehow retains the shape of our history despite our efforts to make it into something new. Once again the chance has passed, and frankly I don't think there will be another.

Then again, I didn't expect to have this sort of history in my life so I never say never any more. I'm not yet forty years old and yet I feel as if I have already lived a hundred lives, all different and varied and unpredictable and full, all compelling and eventual and complicated to a fault.

Lochlan realized the error of his ways very quickly after that first winter without Jake and I was gifted with the best revenge ever. Lochlan finally asked me to marry him so he could fulfill the dream of the twelve-year-old Bridget who would grow up to be his unintentional anchor, his focus, his muse.

And I said no.

Partly because I wanted to pay him back for being too late for pretty much everything I've ever been through, and partly because my focus is now on Ben and I think a lot of the time Lochlan's jealousy leads him to do and say things he doesn't want to follow through with. Lochlan has led a privileged life. Hungry by choice, vagrant by design, alone by one single hesitation that lasted an exhale too long and put me in the path of someone I have tried to outrun for most of my life as a result. Forgive? Sure. Forget? Never.

* * * *

Last night Lochlan brought home a camper, and I'm not sure if he's trying to fulfill my wildest dreams or finish me off. You'll have to ask the girl in the picture. She is life before death, and I am life after it.

And you wonder why we struggle so.

Look at the ground look at the ground look at the ground.

I flick the mental metronome and start to count along.

Look at the ground look at the ground look at the all of the sudden his eyelashes flicker and he slowly raises his eyes to meet mine. Mine are glassy, dripping with hot, panicked tears. The corners of my mouth are caked with cotton candy and I still have the five dollar bill clutched in my hand that he gave me for the hot dogs we're not going to get now. The ones he asked me to get so he would have time to leave.

What did you do, Lochlan?

Nothing, Bridget. Don't worry about it. We need to go.

What did you do? Tell me.

Is there anything you need from the camper?

My sweater.

Here, take mine. And if anyone asks you, make up a name.

Make up a-what's going on?

Let's go.

He grabbed my arm and pulled me around, practically running. We make it to the truck and he opens my door and lifts me up, shoving me in at the same time and I feel my hair brush the doorframe. A hair's breadth away from being knocked out but I land safely on the seat and scramble to launch toward his door to open it. Only I don't know what the rush is for. Maybe he has seen a ghost. Maybe he's robbed someone. I just know that Lochlan is never scared of anything unless it concerns me and so I do what I am told.

One minute I am reading his letter telling me to go away, go home, go to school, be a good girl and the next minute I am his only possession worth taking in an emergency.

Well, that's kind of thrilling in itself but I'm afraid because he's afraid so it's not something I can dissect enough to feed to my ego. Not now, maybe later.

He stomps on the gas and the truck spins in the dirt, spraying gravel all over the trailer. It screams to life and suddenly we are jolting along at a hundred and thirty miles an hour on the packed dirt road, full of potholes and I scramble back over to my own side and grab my seatbelt. It's that or go through the windshield and I'm twelve so I had my whole life ahead of me up until this point or so I think because I don't know what we're running from. We turn onto the highway and drive the wrong way. Inland. I have never gone this way before.

I'm so sorry, Bridget. I thought it was you. I should have known better. Dammit! I should have KNOWN it wasn't your fault.

But it was. I didn't mean for it to happen.

It's my fault. I left you alone too long. I'll never forgive myself. I'm so sorry, baby.

So why are we leaving? That's family you're taking us away from!

Those people are not your family, Bridget.

He yanked the wheel and the truck veered dangerous across two lanes and skidded to a halt on the shoulder of the highway. He throws his arm out reflexively to block me as I lurch toward the dashboard, the seatbelt all but useless the way he is driving. We're far enough away now. It's dark out and Lochlan hates night driving. Maybe I can reason with him and we can go home, back to our cozy little camper. To sleep. Maybe get our food first. I'm hungry. I'm always so hungry. We don't get enough to eat and my stomach growls loudly and Lochlan hears it and rests his head on the steering wheel, helpless. I know he wants to cry but he's being strong because I'm not.

Bridget, listen to me.

I lean in and listen very closely. Lochlan talks low, quietly and he is difficult to hear with the trucks rumbling past us, shaking our seats, rattling the windows. I listen and my eyes grow wide and suddenly I understand everything that has made him afraid and I am glad we are away from there.

But what about the letter?

Pretend you never saw it. I thought I was protecting you by leaving you behind and I was wrong.

So now what?

Now? Easy. We find a different midway. Maybe go to Ontario. And I never let you out of my sight again.

For how long though?

The rest of your life. I'm your family now, Bridget. And I will watch over you until the day I die.

Quick before the vision goes away.

You know it's summer when the boys are all hanging out in the backyard wearing their utilikilts and holding plates loaded with meat. I've always enjoyed July but this just makes it completely worthwhile.

There are no mosquitoes here either. That helps.

A lot, Ben says.

Snort.

Torpor torpedo girl.

Keith is a little bit like Ben. As fast as I can empty blueberry muffins out of the pans, he is eating them. But his hands are covered with black grease from one of the motorcycles and besides, these aren't all for him. I wave my oven mitts at him.

Stop it. Stop it right now.

You're the best cook, Bridget.

Thanks but flattery won't get you any extra muffins today, Keith.

I can pay you for them.

Your money isn't any good here. At least wait until tonight when everyone has had some and then see what's left okay?

Sorry.

Don't be. They're muffins, not feelings.

He just looked at me strangely and headed back outside. I forget that my giant kitchen window overlooks the driveway three levels below and they can smell everything I'm making.

Duncan follows soon after, grabbing a muffin. Doesn't anyone ever wash their hands around here? Better yet, doesn't anyone ever ask if something is available before they just take it?

One, poet. These are for everyone, not just for lunch for you guys.

I can wait. I just wanted to see what you were doing.

Baking. Then mopping. Then laundry, then I'll take the kids to the park. Want to come?

Sure do. Want a ride on the bike first?

Tonight instead. Please?

Sure thing.

He wanders back outside and I leave the muffins cooling and go and pull out the bucket and the mop. Put the laundry in the dryer, mop the bathrooms and kitchen floors and organize dog and children (sunscreen/keys/bathroom visits/leash) and then we head out.

We're back twenty minutes later because the children started in on each other and because it's surprisingly hot for me today. Usually I don't mind but sometimes it's almost too much and I prefer to hide in the shade, lingering in cooler shadows while outside everything transpires slightly more slowly and with less patience than before.

Tonight when things cool down a bit I will switch into jeans and a big hoodie and Ben's jean jacket and a helmet and I'll climb onto the back of Duncan's motorcycle and we'll drive up to the top of the mountain and back down and we'll marvel at the wind and the beauty of the coast and then I'll come home and clean up supper and have a hot bath with Ben again and hopefully sleep. Hopefully, I say, because I can only get so far by myself and I tend to wake up after only a handful of hours.

Don't be sad for me though, I've been this way all of my life and I'm sure that had I ever been able to learn to sleep deeply I would be a devastating intellectual or some such fabulous creature instead of a chronically sleep-deprived unfunctional little human girl, writing down every last thing she needs to remember lest she become distracted and forget something. As if organization is some sort of hallmark of competency or some equally foolish conclusion.

No, seriously, that's how it is. And I have coffee and narcolepsy at hand presently as proof. You could argue with me, but frankly I'm too tired to care. At least everything is done, which means I can sleep.

But I can't sleep, and so on it goes.

Recent Proposal.

In honor of our first official BC Day, I've decided to throw a party.

Not a big huge bash, just a barbecue for about thirty people, more or less. A midsummer soiree. Jeans and beer. Steaks, burgers, corn. Chocolate cake. Sparklers. Because we are celebrating being here together, being on the coast again at last, and because there has been some quiet good fortune and luck mixed in with the usual bullshit so that's good enough and really I'm long overdue for a cocktail party that doesn't involve ten-million-dollar yachts and/or penthouses with forays into princess-trafficking if I may be so cheeky as to call it that.

Trust me.

Still, I invited the devil. I invited everyone and everyone can bring someone fun if they have someone. PJ has been sort of maybe seeing someone. Duncan likes a girl. Caleb is not permitted to bring anyone he has paid for or coerced, nor is Sophie invited so I'm betting he'll either fly away somewhere or show up alone. Children, dogs, neighbors and guitars have been summoned. Dalton will be home on Friday so it's perfect. I will charm Daniel and Benjamin into helping me make some potato salad and a million garlic rolls and sliced vegetables and fruits and assorted yummy things for a burger bar. We'll get some ice cream. BYOB for those who drink, Lemonade for those who don't. Lochlan will most likely stay in his wing and not show his face. That's fine. I've been sworn at all week long, I don't want to see him, frankly.

The boys can take turns at the grill. They're all good at things with meat and/or fire.

Har.

Last time I threw a party of this size I got married so it's been a little over two years and I don't really remember much about the day other than the looks of veiled shock on the faces of my family as I actually went through with something they never expected.

New-Jake and Keith will eat everything in sight. I am learning that about them. But they will also pitch in and carry things and clean up and get ready. One can mow the grass tomorrow and the other can set up the tables down by the vineyard gate. It's going to be beautiful here this weekend, so why not short notice? Why not come as you are?

Why not celebrate something instead of waiting for everything?

Of course, this will all be contingent on whether or not I murder Lochlan in his sleep tonight. We'll see how the next three days go, shall we?

How dare you say that my behavior is unacceptable
So condescending, unnecessarily critical
I have the tendency of getting very physical
So watch your step cause if I do you'll need a miracle

You drain me dry and make me wonder why I'm even here
This double vision I was seeing is finally clear
You want to stay but you know very well I want you gone
Not fit to fucking tread the ground that I'm walking on

When it gets cold outside and you got nobody to love
You'll understand what I mean when I say
There's no way we're gonna give up
And like a little girl cries in the face of a monster that lives in her dreams
Is there anyone out there cause it's getting harder and harder to breathe

Trailer park notes.

Look what's out a little early. I cannot WAIT to see this.

Suckerpunch.

Enjoy and goodnight.

Four a.m. shadow.

Jacob smiles ruefully, tossing his head back to keep his waves out of his eyes. His hair is getting long again and I'm struck by the fact that I didn't realize this was possible in heaven. That his hair would grow. I say as much and he laughs bitterly.

This isn't heaven, pigalet.

I ignore that, because I know, and we don't talk about how I fail to release him, ever, because here he is closer. Here, I might get him back with a lick and a miracle.

What was the tequila for?

I hate it when they fight.

And the tequila helped end the fight?

Of course not.

Then you don't need it, Bridget.

Maybe I wanted it, Jake.

Don't use that stuff, princess.

Then come back and I won't have to.

I would if I could.

(hear that? That was the sound of my broken heart clattered down out of the cords and into the bottom of my soul again. THANKS A LOT, JAKE.)

How is Ben?

I'm fine, preacher.

Took you long enough to carry this through.

I had to do it my own way. I thought it would work but you were right.

Jake smiles, not in a superior way, just in a glad-it-all-worked-out way.

And Lochlan?

Angry.

I don't doubt it. Caleb?

You gotta ask, preacherman?

Bridget? How are you with all of this?

I don't know, Jake. Why don't you all ask each other how I am? Isn't that the way this works?

You're full of it this morning, princess.

It's temporary, Jake. Ben, not to be difficult but you make decisions and stick with them until the wind blows.

I stuck with you, didn't I?

That wasn't a choice, Benjamin, it was an inevitability.

Ben grins and sticks his tongue out at me to dissipate my sudden, unwarranted attitude. I melt and I can feel pieces of my heart climbing back up my insides and tack-welding themselves back together. It hurts and I wrap my arms around myself just in case I pass out. I hate it when he's disarmingly smug. It usually means it's followed by some wonderfully sweet moment that invariably finishes me where I stand.

I am not disappointed.

We stand there and smile at each other.

What a goof.

The angel of Patrick Wilson.

The fair was so much fun. I wanted to pet the baby goats and ride a few rides and eat cotton candy and not fry in the sun and I managed to cover all of my bases save for the part in my hair, which is pink and slightly tender, especially where Ben held the top of my head this morning as we woke up slowly.

I left my hair down yesterday and at one point wished I had put it up as I was whipped around over and over and my hair was flying out everywhere. Usually I put it up (okay, daily), not only for the heat but because it could become tangled and God forbid my untimely death occurs at a carnival because well, that would just be serendipity, wouldn't it?

Speaking of death,

Okay, maybe not yet.

Also good to make note for the larger carnival next month would be that cotton candy made on-site is better than bagged, imported cotton candy and that texting teenagers who fail to acknowledge you at the counter can ruin the entire experience. I believe I much prefer the leering pizza-on-a-stick man from the Red River Exhibition because at least he gave a shit. This intensely distracted seventeen-year-old (who was so busy on her blackberry she had it plugged into a charger) made me feel vaguely annoyed.

But again, I'm sure the big one will be better. They always are, with a contagious, kinetic energy that runs through me like a current. I am saving my dollars and my energy and will probably not ride the scrambler again. Oh and the best part? The kids are 52" tall (and then some!) each finally. So I'm not forced to accompany them on the screamingly terrifying ones like the endless slide or the tilt-a-whirl. And they are not forced to join me on my favorite, the ferris wheel. Not the big parasol one that stops a billion feet up, I prefer the rickety little metal ones, and only backwards, if you please. Leave me there all damn day and go have fun, I will still be smiling when you return.

Maybe it's the only place that suspends time that isn't the seaside.

That's okay too. More options are better though I think I'll need a winter choice now as well. Carnivals in the winter are incredibly sad places to me, and frankly so is the beach, though less so. I do love a beach without people on it. It's one of the reasons I live here now. It's almost offensive to see someone else strolling along what I have come to consider my beach, and anyone who brings me down to it is summarily dismissed. Walk ten feet behind me and disappear if I turn around, because I'd like to be alone now, please.

There is no 'alone' at a carnival but it's interesting to be surrounded with crowds, line-ups and people and not know any of them, save for my boys. When we left, we fulfilled our usual tradition of bestowing all of our remaining tickets on a family who was running dry. They hopefully spent another hour there on the rides. Tickets are expensive. All-day bracelets are cheaper but I usually figure that out halfway through.

Last night the late-night plan was to watch a few movies. I was awake (for a change) and was blessed with watching Losers, which was incredibly fun and Passengers, which ripped the rug out from under me and left me sobbing long after the credits rolled. Not just a few tears but sobbing and I think I'm afraid of death again, which is good news if you are not Bridget but bad news if you are.

I can't explain it. We thought it was going to be a profoundly creepy movie about people who develop ESP after a plane crash.

Well, it's not.

Not even close.

I wanted to check afterward and see if it was written by M. Night Shyamalan, in a good mood for once, since I have grown to despise his movies but it was written by someone else. I wish I had had some warning. Maybe it was better this way, but honestly I ignore most movie reviews and buzz and prefer to come to my own conclusions. Which is also the way I view music and pretty much everything else in my life. Let me make my own mistakes and then I will learn from them. It was incredibly good and quietly profound, just like me. So go see it if you missed it, and take the tissues with you. You will need them. You're welcome.

Tonight we have The Hurt Locker because we're trying to catch up on movies because the end of Ben's project is finally in sight and vacation has appeared in a faint glow on an imaginary horizon. We are making plans to go to the beach and to picnic on the top of a mountain overlooking the city and hit the big fair and watch a million movies and sleep until noon (which Bonham will NEVER go for, unfortunately) and have a few of those romantic dinners at new restaurants (I staked out before I even got here) but will keep quiet or Caleb will trick me into going to them with him and that's finished for now. Bridget's going to do the famous Grouse Grind as well. I am excited. I'm going to get a t-shirt.

And I need to write. I'm just barely beginning to get back into writing and pulling out old projects and waking the fuck up from bad dreams and finding my cadence that disappears so easily and comes back so painfully, with so much effort.

2010 is now half over and we've spent enough time starting over and re-arranging life. My life is half over and I've spent enough time starting over and re-arranging time.

Far too profound a conclusion from a day that was constructed around mindless entertainment, wasn't it? Some days are like that, I guess.

Let love rule (Thanks Lenny).

Sorry, I took a tequila vacation and Lochlan followed me around all morning cleaning up internet messes as I made them, I think.

He is still here. What, did you think he would be thrown out? Asked to leave? No, the only new rule on top of Stop Touching Bridget was No More Fights, Goddammit, We Go Through This Every Single Year.

Both will be ignored, I'm sure. But the collective will stay intact, because we're a family. No matter what.

Caleb was amused as well and will play along as long as he can until it becomes overwhelming and then he'll just squeeze by threatening to petition to have my primary custody of Henry revoked in favor of English boarding school. Which, well, literally, darling, over my dead body, if that's the way it has to be. Ben won't let it come to either threat so really, how have we advanced here this week other than the knowledge that Friday mornings in Mexico are profoundly underwhelming?

Well, I'll tell you how. Since you're here.

Sam and Duncan ganged up on me and poured the tequila out and the coffee in because the boys like to force me to do all kinds of healthy things too, like confront issues and deal with life as it happens so that I don't follow Ben down the path of total escape. That path is a parachute with no strings, tossed out of a plane running on fumes and your pilot has already bailed.

Oddly I don't think Ben is going to cave and I knew this would happen when I rinsed the dirt off Lochlan's secrets and put them here. Ben feels threatened by my past because he is never sure if he's enough, if this is good enough, if we have enough love or can make enough history together to supersede or even just compete with everything that has happened thus far.

That makes me so fundamentally sad I can't even quantify it. And surprisingly Ben will tell you he doesn't give a fuck about anything and you will probably believe him because Ben lives life with a total recklessness that is only borne of hardship and pain. You don't have to understand why I'm going to abide by his wishes, you just have to know that I am.

As long as is humanly possible.

You laugh because something so simple is such a challenge task for me. You come to absorb my words with such curiosity, such disbelief. Well, you don't have the history and you don't live in this house. In this house, love rules everything and death takes those normal basic rules and turns them inside out and it's years before you realize you've been running on one set of feelings to outrun another.

Years.

This is where I am today. Half-sober, half-ruined, and half-renewed.

Over time (the end of the grand experiment).

Told me you loved me, that I'd never die alone
Hand over your heart let's go home.
Everyone noticed, everyone had seen the signs,
I've always been known to cross lines.

I never ever cried when I was feeling down,
I've always been scared of the sound.
Jesus don't love me, no one ever carried my load,
I'm too young to feel this old.

Here's to you, here's to me, oh to us,
Nobody knows
Nobody sees
Nobody but me

He bent his head down low, pushing against my hair, his arms sliding around my back, easily across the satin slip. He pushed me down onto the bed, kissing my throat, tracing his fingers down my face.

I love you.

I braced myself for him and then I was tearing at the sheets, turned over and hammered into, kissed all over, crushed beneath him. Returned to my back so he could smile down at me, slower now, harder now, until I'm clawing at air, his hand over my mouth so I can't scream, his head pressed against my mine. Then his hands are down, full weight and he pulls my hips into his so hard I can't breathe. Razorburn brings sweet stinging agony to my skin, sweat challenges our strength as efforts are wasted when our limbs slide freely over one another.

I am lifted, pulled away and then brought back to my delight and everything else goes away until the only focus is Ben. I am suddenly touched by how happy that makes me. How incredibly sure I am that after all of these efforts to test my loyalties they still remain with this man, and I am sitting above him now, knees up and wrapped around his back and his arms are around me and this is how we always end up and he kisses me because I am on his level at last. Cementing that loyalty. He looks at the clock, sighs and gets up, passing me my dress, apologizing for tearing my slip. It was vintage. Pale rose. He adores it on me and I am made to sleep in it often. I believe I can mend it still. He steps over to me and grabs my head in both hands, pulling me up to him for a kiss. One of these days I fear my head's going to come right off when he does that but I love it anyway. I am returned to earth gently. Beauty and the beast. So much heart in one room we're going to blow the walls out.

I love you, Bridget.

I love you, Ben.

We should have kept going. It took another two hours for everyone to show up for the family meeting Ben called, after hardly speaking to anyone for the past two weeks.

I should really learn that when a man stands in front of me with his back to me, blocking access that something very serious is about to take place and I am being shielded from harm.

Ben took this stance. Last night when he first came home and took me upstairs he looked at me with his eyes red and wired and exhausted, and he said simply,

Enough.

He turned around, facing his friends, taking a drink from a bottle of water. Almost to the letter I could have sworn it was something else because the action is the same but it was water. He put the bottle down on the table and he scooped his arm behind his back, me within his reach and gently pushed me further so I couldn't see their faces, so they couldn't see me.

I just pressed my forehead against his back and his arm came back again, pressing me against him, squeezing me in his own shorthand. It will be okay. And then he started to talk and I was shoved to the floor abruptly as Lochlan picked that moment to go for broke. All of the sudden everyone is shouting and PJ went for Lochlan and nailed him to the floor, keeping him there and Ben turned around and pulled me up off the floor and I tried to ask them what in the hell is wrong with all of you and I couldn't and I don't want to see them fight and Ben is trying to talk to me but Lochlan is still yelling, screaming for me and PJ is sitting on him so he's going nowhere.

Ben took my hand and he kissed it and he tucked it into his and led me upstairs to sleep. He was finished. Something I wished for. I don't know how it's going to work with this house or the new company or with the devil for that matter but all he had to do was say those words that burn Lochlan's ears and heart so badly and I can't help it.

She's mine.

This is what I have said all along as I've been passed from one to the next. No timeshares. Don't do this. Please. I can't do this. And then, fine. I'll embrace it. This is life now if this is the choice you have made. This is what grownups do. They take their bad ideas and they run with them and then later on they learn the cost. And then they have to figure out how to pay. I am bankrupt. I have no more emotional currency for this. It is over.

We're leaving now to drive downtown for breakfast with the devil, to do this all over again, so forgive me if I'm a little stressed this morning. I need to keep making sure it's water Ben is drinking because if he changes then he doesn't get to make any rules and Jesus Christ, no one wants me making them.

He holds my hand. So tightly I want to cry with relief but I'm waiting. Maybe later when we are safe again.

For Caleb.

And the tail-lights dissolve, in the coming of night
And the questions in thousands take flight
My love is the miles and the waiting
The eyes that just stare, and a glance at the clock
And the secret that burns, and the pain that won't stop
And it's fuel is the years
Leading me on
Leading me down the road

I'm sitting on the raft, waiting for Lochlan to swim back out and bring me in to shore. It's too far and I'm not a good swimmer. I'm still not a good swimmer. He would always stay beside me and take long slow strokes to keep pace or he would let me piggyback on him, arms around his neck the whole way out if he felt so inclined.

Caleb appears from the other side of the raft. The 'deep' side where the older kids hang out at the rope swing. He is twenty. I am twelve years old. I have secret dreams about him but it's rare that he pays me any attention. His wet hair is in his eyes, his trunks are dripping, low on his hips. He is thin but strong. Twenty-year old muscles look good in comparison to the ones of a seventeen-year-old Lochlan and a sixteen-year-old Cole.

Do you need help getting back, Bridget?

No, Lochlan is coming for me.

He stands, looking toward shore and he smiles into the sun, hand up over his brow to cut the glare.

I don't think he's coming out, Bridge.

He will. He's mad at me.

Why?

I want to go with him when he goes out with the show.

For the rest of the summer? What about swimming? What about your friends?

He's my best friend. I don't want to be away from him so long.

Everyone else is here, Bridge. You're too young anyway.

I'm not.

Wait a few more years. I'm heading in now. I can drive you home if you want to come with me.

I stared at Lochlan. He was talking intently to Bailey, his hand up pulling on his ear like he does when he's self-conscious but trying to look fascinating. Bailey only has eyes for Caleb right now, and she's staring back toward me, I make a motion for her to wait and I indicate that Caleb will drive us. She nods and I know she's about to ask Lochlan if he's going to come and get me for her so we can get home.

It's too late. Caleb sinks into the water and then waits for me to descend from the raft. I try and nonchalantly slide off the edge but it's scraping my legs so I push away and my head goes under instantly. Caleb reaches down and grabs my arms and pulls me back up and he pulls me in until his arms are around me and I didn't see but PJ always tells it like Lochlan stopped mid-sentence and ran down to the water, wading in and then diving under and that he's never seen a look like that on Lochlan's face before. I just remember wow, what a weird feeling to be in Caleb's arms and it's not bad but it feels really strange and good and then all of the sudden, Lochlan is there pulling me off Caleb and Caleb is laughing and Lochlan says something about thanks for taking care of her. Caleb says that someone should be and swims away.

Lochlan just stares at me for a moment and I'm not sure what I did to upset him so much. What I know is that he didn't like it. I got his attention by paying attention to someone else. Someone he considers competition maybe or someone he aspires to be like. I would file that away for future reference. Lochlan turns away now, pulling my arms around him and I lock my hands around his neck and huddle against his back as he slowly makes his way back to shore.

That night at the bonfire I am sitting between Lochlan and Christian. I have had three burned marshmallows and half a bottle of Schooner and I'm buzzing into the flames and zoning out, falling asleep because it's late and my head dips onto Christian's shoulder so he gives me a gentle shove until I lean the other way, against Lochlan. Lochlan kisses the top of my head but keeps talking. They are talking about cars. I am so tired from the fresh air. I can hear the music down the beach. Caleb and his friends have backed a truck down to the sand and the doors are open and Robert Plant is on, Big Log. Caleb is sitting quietly by a bigger bonfire watching the others make fools of themselves but he is a little bit blurry because my eyes keep closing and because there is fire blocking my view of him.

Soon Lochlan picks me up, carrying me to the truck in his arms. I'll never be a grownup at this rate and I am dismayed but I think I'm too drunk to walk and not awake anyway. He puts me in the passenger side and pushes me until I am lying down and then he gets in the driver's side and rearranges me, shoving his hoodie under my head. He drives and I fall asleep again. It's warm and safe and comfortable. He turns off the radio and I am in dreams.

I'm out of dreams suddenly. We have stopped. Lochlan is sitting with the engine off, his hand stroking my hair. I sit up abruptly, sleep leaving me. I look around but it's pitch black.

Where are we?

Just up from the dunes. Look that way. See the light from the buoy?

Oh, okay. What are you doing?

Just sitting. Letting you sleep. Thinking.

About?

I think maybe if you want to come with me for some of the work this summer, than you should.

I want to but how?

We'll just tell your parents that you're staying at the cottage with us. (I had been going to his parents cottage for years already.)

What about Bailey?

Same thing. She's busy with her friends.

Really?

I jumped on him, squeezing him hard. I was so excited. Old enough to go out with the midway. Lochlan's approval was my oxygen. He wanted me to go along. Best day of my life.

His arms closed around me and he didn't let go right away. We just stayed as we were. I was sitting on his lap and he was still belted in. He reached down with one hand under my thigh and unfastened his seatbelt. And he kissed me, not letting go an inch. I couldn't breath. I wasn't sure what to do. I just kind of stayed where I was and let him try and teach me without words how to kiss him back and then I figured it out quite quickly and his hands went to my head. He pulled me back and stared at me.

He swore softly, in my face.

I burst into tears.

We didn't move.

He pulled me in against his chest and I could look over the back seat and see the mess of beach towels, stacks of Chilton car repair guides, Pepsi cans and empty cigarette packs. I stayed clutching Lochlan's neck forever, it seemed. I closed my eyes. I started to go back into my dreams and he let go and I felt cold and he shoved me back into my place beside him and kissed my cheek and started the truck. We drove out of the dunes silently.

We never saw Caleb was sitting at the top of the boardwalk stairs above.

Two days later I was packed, wearing my baby blue backpack, waiting on the porch for Lochlan when Caleb drove up to pick up Bailey and her friends for yet another day at the lake.

You coming too, little Fidget?

No, I'm...heading to Lochlan's cottage for a week.

But Lochlan won't be there, he's starting Midway tomorrow.

I know. I'm just going to hang out there.

Bridget. I was seventeen once.

So?

I saw you guys the other night, after the bonfire.

So? (I'm caving in now. I don't understand.)

Don't cry. Just don't go to the fair, okay?

I won't.

You promise me? Please? When you get back from the cottage I'll take you out for dinner at the A&W drive-in in the car.

Just us?

Sure.

Okay.

He continued to look at me.

What?

It's just..weird. You're still a little kid but you're not a little kid anymore.

His eyes dropped to my legs. Brown and bare. I stood up, self-conscious, hugging myself. Caleb corrected his gaze.

I just want you to be careful of the wolves, Bridget. It's only going to get worse now.

That's what they call you, you know.

He laughed.

When will I see you?

Probably around the end of the third week of August.

You're staying at his cottage with his folks until he comes back from the Midway?

Yes.

You've already lied once to me, then.

I'm in tears as Lochlan pulls up. I hide my face behind my hands. Instantly there's a shoving match. Lochlan is the smaller of the two but he's brave. Caleb, for all of his burgeoning power, is not a fighter.

What did you say to her, Caleb?

That she needs to watch out for predators.

So you're showing her what one looks like?

Yeah, you. Caleb points at Lochlan, who counters with a fist. Miss.

This is none of your business, Caleb.

She's too young for you.

I'm not interested.

That isn't what I saw the other night. At the beach.

Oh, hell. It was a mistake.

One that's going to get a lot worse if you take her on this run.

Mind your own business.

I am. Leave her here.

Are you ready, Bridge?

Lochlan gives up and turns back to me. He takes my backpack off me and looks at his watch. He's breathing hard from the physical confrontation. He tries to smile at me and drops it quickly.

Yeah, let's go, Lochlan.

This isn't over, Loch.

Yeah it is.

Caleb just shook his head. Probably too cool to fight over a twelve year old. He was fighting from a different place. I understand that now. And he and Lochlan are still fighting and I'm sure it stems from that incident. But I also think that incident sparked a change in all of them. I was no longer the little girl following them around. I realized that the morning after the night Lochlan and I finally did seal our fate. I stood in the cornfield covered with dirt, crying with shame as he dug the hole, wishing we were burying Caleb instead of secrets. We had to go back and he would know. He would just know.

Funny how NOTHING EVER CHANGES.

Your move, asshole.

Can't hold on to me.

I linger in the doorway
Alarm clock screaming
Monsters calling my name
Let me stay
Where the wind will whisper to me
Where the raindrops as they’re falling tell a story

In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me

Don’t say I’m out of touch
With this rampant chaos/your reality
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge
In the nightmare I built my own world to escape

Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming
Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights
Oh, how I long for the deep-sleep dreaming
The goddess of imaginary light

This morning we have Amy Lee's voice competing with the theme music for Wayside on the television and everyone is patiently waiting for the baby-muffins to be ready. Daniel is baking them. Alone. Which means they will be perfect because he's a perfectionist. It also means they will take forever because he butters the pan perfectly and cracks the eggs perfectly and makes perfect conversation to cover up the fact that his eyes are puffy this morning and he is rather drawn and tired-looking and I know he fights with Schuyler and I know Schuyler can be cutting and cruel. Caleb-caliber cruel except that Caleb is afraid of nothing and Schuyler is afraid of me. And so he should be. Daniel is my charge, just like I am Lochlan's for the time being while Ben works overtime on top of overtime to finish this project.

Lochlan is reading through his notes and working from home. His reflexes are to lock me down and bar the door whenever Caleb's horns and forked tongue are showing at the same time and frankly I believe he feels left out. I spent hours hanging out in the crook of his arm yesterday, working on some stories I have been commissioned to write and then trying to stay awake while I listened to music on my BlackBerry, headphones jammed in tight to block out his parental tirade. Gentle, but still parental so I rebel and invite Daniel to come up and spend the morning because Daniel needs to be shaken, not stirred some days and really I wish that everyone would just act the same all the time, which is on their best behavior but oh, then things aren't any fun and it's much better when there is some fun.

I have chosen to retreat back into black this morning and the black stockings, platform shoes and buttoned-black dress are almost too much for Lochlan to bear. He prefers beach-Bridget, as did Jacob. Bikini top under eyelet camisole. Jeans. Flip-flops or dirty feet altogether. Evil eye bracelet leaving a tan line on my arm and tattoos covered with SPF30, always because faded tattoos make sadness in the world. Same big black bag slung over my shoulder, full of lip gloss, pennies, bobby pins, CDs and photographs. Always.

Imaginary would sound better on eleven but Henry takes priority and so it is on three. And these muffins would taste a lot better if Ben was sitting here eating one with me but really we all know he would shove the whole thing into his mouth and then get up and knock the chair over and proceed to eat the rest of them and then drink the coffee straight from the coffee pot before taking a bite out of the glass to wash it down so really in a way this is maybe better because this way everyone gets some and I'll still be able to make some coffee later when the afternoon narcolepsy begins to soak through my limbs and brain.

If it can find the way through all of this black, Lochlan says, reading my mind.

It comes from the inside out. I scowl at him and return to my words, I can arrange them with the blinding white light of a seaside morning where the sand is still warm and the waves break clear on broken shells, or I can go dark and shine a dim light on the letters as I pull them off the floor, puncturing my hands on the nails scattered around them, peeling back my fingernails, blood pouring down my knuckles as they become slippery but having to endure the pain to feel which letter I picked up in the first place because I cannot see. For the death of me, I cannot see.

Both are equally compelling, and equally likely on a day like today.

Reprobate.

Hello, are you still chasing
The memories in shadows
Some stay young, some grow old
Come alive, there are thoughts unclear
You can never hide

Even in madness, I know you still believe
Paint me on canvas so I become
What you could never be

I dare you to tell me to walk through fire
Wear my soul and call me a liar
I dare you to tell me to walk through fire
I dare you to tell me
I dare you to

Early this morning in the pool, I stayed in Ben's arms, face to face, the cool embrace leaving me with teeth chattering that he tries to stop by holding me tighter. Enveloped in his cold flesh I simply shake more and I put my head down on his shoulder and try to sleep in the water but that's dangerous and it doesn't take him long to ruin it and lead me out into warmed towels. I still smell like chlorine all over but it's similar to bleach and maybe that's a good thing.

Last night I stood between them, my back pressed against Ben, my head low against Caleb's chest. Eyes closed. Silence in the form of a wall of apathy and hate. Regrets scattered everywhere, the aftermath of the argument about who forgot and who didn't. You want to know why I had house guests? You want to know why I threw myself into New-Jake's problems on purpose? You want to know why I've been Bridget, twice-removed?

Caleb took my hands and turned them over, exposing scars that he traced with his thumbs. He put my hands up over my head against the wall and held them there with one hand as the other wrapped around my back and pulled me in closer, burning my skin, away from the cold that is Benjamin. I could feel his hands shaking. He is so angry and I am afraid. He whispers something against my hair and I miss it and he stops and looks at Ben and Ben says no in such a soft voice I almost missed that too and then I'm aware that Ben has left because I can't see him and I can't go to him right now and I don't know why everyone finds this so hard. I can't feel anything. I don't want to feel anything.

It's wrong. All of it. I know this.

I failed to acknowledge Cole's death out loud for Caleb's benefit (or as he says, for Ruth's) and so I need to be here for my amercement.

I didn't forget, I promise.

Ruth and I had talked quietly, long into the morning. Ben and I talked about it too. I talked to God about but God wasn't home (he never is when I need him) and so I talked to Sam instead. I talked to New-Jake a little bit and I didn't talk to Lochlan at all.

I didn't talk to Caleb either and the rage is spilling into his eyes now, blue-black, crowding out the envy and the lust, killing gluttony altogether. He is so angry he's failing to notice the marks he is leaving on me, marks that Ben will tally later tonight when he removes my slip and marks that will be added to the death note and then Caleb can go and be with his precious brother who liked nothing more than to hurt the one he loved.

I finally turned my head back and spoke very clearly between synapses of pain firing all over the room, making holes for the moonlight, making an escape route for my brain.

I wish I could forget him, and I wish I could forget you too.

May as well give him exactly what he wants. An unfair fight. I want Ben so badly to help and he senses that and returns to watch but he can't right this wrong and I hate him too, but so briefly. Save me, you're the strongest. Please, Ben and Ben shakes his head because he is paralyzed with grief, with perversion, with some heroic need to be the one who doesn't try to lock me down and maybe for that he will be with me forever.

Caleb pours vodka all over me and then in my mouth until I am drowning and Ben can't touch that. It's forbidden and he wants it, me, so badly I know he can already taste it and I don't want him to touch me in case it gets on his fingers, and then on his lips but I can't hear myself, the music is so loud. So loud. I'm choking into the black now. I hope I wake up again to escape from this because no one's going to save me except Bridget but I don't know where she went.

It's morning. I open my eyes and I'm staring at Ben's tattooed skin, his arms tight around me and maybe he rescued me after all and he's wide awake and I stir and he loosens his embrace but not very much and I hit him with my aching arms and I tell him we're not coming back here because I want to forget now, I do, I promise. I am sobbing quietly and he asks if I want to swim and doesn't say anything else and I shake my head but I am led there anyway and then I'm grateful because it feels better than anything else so far.

At some point Caleb comes into the room and stands by the window that looks down on a city of glass and he listens as we don't speak. He has become the caustics on the walls and I forget he is there for the moment as I kiss Ben. He watches when we get out and I am led past him by the hand, Ben's fingers tight against those scars they promised to protect but haven't. I look back at Caleb as we leave and all my eyes tell him is that I didn't forget. I can't forget.

No matter how much I want to. Sometimes.

Only sometimes.

The disclaimer keeps me alive. The acrimony keeps me warm. And Ben keeps me safe, believe it or not. From the devil, but more importantly, from Bridget.

She's an alarmingly dangerous girl.