The love/hate relationship.

Caleb's method is to take what he wants, no matter the cost or the difficulty. He is gratification personified.

Cole's method was to share the wealth, permit and deny as he saw fit based on the weather.

Jacob's method was to stand in front of me, fighting my battles for me while I remained mired in insanity, unable to help myself, hellbent on forcing him to be tested repeatedly to make sure he would hold. He didn't.

Benjamin's method is to stand behind me and watch my back while I do the work, catching me before I hit my head when I fall but forcing me to get back up without his help, fighting my own way out of everything. Even when he didn't want to. Even when he knows I'm suddenly running the wrong way. As usual he does the opposite of everyone else.

Lochlan continues to live in denial and does nothing, attempting to live in a past that isn't ours any more. Pretending that nothing ever went wrong and then got worse. So much worse. Hoping that he would wake up from a bad dream only he isn't sleeping. Denial that saw him calmly, almost cold in his usual logic, take me by the arm and march me off to the library yesterday where I was locked in until Ben could get home to deal with me. Because I slid a little. Okay, maybe a lot. Ben can deal.

Because Lochlan can't. Thirty years later I still don't understand why he can't but he has no capacity to deal with emotional outbursts past his own, or past ones that signal immediate danger to me. Otherwise?

Nothing.

He has poured his heart out. I have seen what lies within it. So why can't he manage me? Why can't he deal with my outbursts or my pain or my hyperactive, predictable slides into total ruin like yesterday? I trigger them on purpose, in order to see if I ever get anywhere. I trigger them on purpose because I'm a masochist too. If I am feeling pain then I'm feeling something. He thinks I am ridiculous. He won't dare wade into tragedy or mental health because he doesn't know what to do and yet he is affected as much as anyone. This is simply how he gets through things.

It's frustrating to me, because I'm the emotional one in this family.

I know. Surprise!

And for further surprise and admissions today, Lochlan is wearing on. Wearing thin. He's softening some as time passes. Just not enough but I'm starting to see something. And I'm getting a bit better too. Thanks to time. Thanks to relocating. Thanks to Ben, who became an unlikely but welcome buffer between Lochlan and I, keeping us where we should be. Mostly apart.

The very first thing I ever wrote about Lochlan in this journal was about how we knew right off the bat we weren't meant to be together, but that we could be friends. Nice to know there are some promises in this lifetime that are so easy we can keep them in our sleep. 

Today he continues to tell me it's because he is perfect, and I must be jealous of that.

I just nod and say nothing, because it's his attempt to maintain that perfection that drove me away in the first place.

Ben arrived home just in time to see me throwing books at walls and cursing Lochlan a thousand times over for his refusal to help me EVER. After he was finished laughing he suggested I maybe try exposing myself to my memories just a little bit less rather than barging into them head on as if I am capable of withstanding them or some other foolish idea. That I am brave, but brave accompanies crazy and it isn't Lochlan's job to police my days simply because he works from home. So what could I do tomorrow that might work out a little better? (For the record I hate it when Ben does pretend-psychotherapy.) I said I would be nice to Lochlan. He laughed again. I said I would maybe not spend six hours watching home movies and listening to Jacob's favorite songs on his ipod until I was batshit-nutbars.

Ben doesn't believe me.

Not for a second.

Everyone else does, but especially Lochlan, who was very interested to hear what my plans would be for today.


Now do you get it?

No, Of course you don't. There is always more to our history but I do have plans right now so I need to go. I was only three quarters of the way through Jacob's music when yesterday turned to shit.

Write off.

Yep. One of those nights when everything totally fucking fails and I'm left in almost-tears standing behind the hallway door while Caleb tucks the children into bed because legally I am forced to let him in my house and because emotionally it remains the closest the children can get to memories of Cole. It doesn't matter how many surrogate dads, stepfathers or hunkles I give them, Caleb remains the strongest link to their hearts, and he is the one who shares my son's blood.

I am forcing my eyes open, head pressed against the cool wood because if I close them it's October 2005 and Cole is still in control.

He did a better job of things than I am doing. So is Caleb, for that matter, speaking in soothing tones to the children, willing them off to dreamland where monsters like him don't exist. I won't be so lucky.

Taller on acetate.

(The photograph-taking was painful, almost. I'm mindful that the beautiful brown summer has faded from my skin and I revert to alabaster marble, blue-veined and translucent, sickly thin and without my security-blanket mermaid hair. PJ didn't want to wear a button-down shirt. At the last minute, Henry's dress pants failed to fit him anymore and Ruth waged a brief fit, wanting to wear stripes instead of solids. Ben's cowlick made its annual appearance and no amount of convincing could make it lie flat and New-Jake kept asking anyone who stood still why he was in the picture when he had only been here for a couple of months, to the point where even Sam told him to stop talking and hush. Lochlan's hair curled, much to his dismay and Christian was late so we were all scowling in the earliest shots since we had waited so long the whole idea was almost scrapped altogether. 

This was a sitting, purchased from the photographer as a fundraiser for the kids' recreation club. Family portraits. Only instead of four, the children asked if we could have everyone. The photographer quickly suggested he come to us when I phoned to confirm our appointment and ask how much room he had for we have seventeen in our family, on any given day.

We all trooped out to the cliff through the damp grass and were arranged in a clutch, with the shortest people in front and the tallest in back but also in order of importance so somehow Lochlan and Ben stand on either side of me and do not appear to have the usual six-inch height difference between them because Ben was standing back a bit further. The children are in the front. I was placed dead-center (har) and Schuyler was vaguely miffed that he and Daniel are on opposite sides. 

It was a first, and I think we pulled it off. Everyone was smiling. Everyone was looking at the camera.  No one moved and blurred, no one photo-bombed (this is an extreme sport in our household) and everyone was still speaking when it was over. Kind of like wedding pictures, the whole endeavor was taken very seriously. It's a family picture, and we're a family if ever there was one. I'm going to suggest we make it an annual event.

And in the picture, my hands are hidden. The children are standing in front of me so my arms aren't visible anyway. They are crossed behind my back and one hand is holding on to Ben's little finger and the other hand is holding Lochlan's hand. It doesn't mean anything to you but it means everything to me. I had to keep my balance somehow, I was standing on their toes.)

Princess under construction.

Please excuse the mess and watch your step. Oh and this is SO NOT the design it's going to be. I picked something cheery for my mom for a temporary thing. Because mom likes cheery and she likes blue.

True to form the final design will be straight out of a memento mori because Bridget likes despair and she likes black.

-------------------------------------

Update 7:00 pm: Got rid of the blue. And the yellow, thank fuck. Never said I was a web designer. You can watch my changelog and laugh while I cry.

See, believe, forget me
My playful thoughts contrive
Nights concede to reckless
Versions of myself
All my real friends gather
Stay my wanting for a shield
I can't see you real

All I hate and all I fear
I bring it back to you, do you feel it
The night is gone and all we get
A picture for a poem, and we lose her

At one point I recall reaching up into the air and pressing an imaginary button that would freeze time. He laughed.

It isn't possible, little one.

Yes it is!

He knows better. Don't say it, don't think it, just let me have my tries. Let me think I can do this. Let me do everything I can, and yet we are powerless. Time just keeps on fumbling toward the cliff. Never smooth, it catches and slips and tumbles in a roar of chaos. It will kill you and it will take you for a leisurely ride. It will be counted and spent and saved by those who have learned the secret. They can manage their time.

I can't do that. I don't know how.

People have tried to count it for me, and I fight back. Don't do that. Don't you dare. This is MY time and you can't tell me there is too much or too little. You can't count down for me. You can't count away from me.

Leave me alone.

Some things can't be taught, I guess. Today I am thinking of that moment. I'm thinking of another as well, standing in the woods yesterday as the rain poured down on my head. It was so quiet. I could see for miles into the dark, the trees placed five or six feet apart, everything covered with moss, unspoiled heaven on the side of a mountain trail. I was watching for bears, and yet I was watching to see if my brain would slide down out of one ear and go galloping off into the forest, never to be seen again.

It didn't and so I brought it home and shook it. It still has the rattle. On a good day it sounds like bells, and on a bad day it sounds like death.

City fair.

I think everyone in the house today is exhausted from a seven hour odyssey of turkey, stuffing, gravy, children, stars, wine, cake and television. They might sleep all day. I held court at the dining room table until the wine ran out and we went home. Ben assumed I was trashed but it was mildly so and I remained awake until I felt tired, ate something and took some aspirin and woke up in terrific spirits. That might also be because Ben did the early-morning dog walk and I got to lounge in our big bed, drifting on a half-awake dream until he came back with cold skin and then I was wide awake.

So now I get to have coffee and do laundry and he has gone back to sleep. I don't have a switch like that. I am like the sun. Up. Then down. There's no option to check out halfway through the day, though yesterday we crawled into the bed at three and snoozed for forty minutes. It was glorious. I don't feel tired.

For once.

I'm sure I'm running on artificial cheer today. Keep it light, keep it tight. Ben returns to work tomorrow and the thought of that makes me so tremendously sad but I do feel like I had time with him, time that atones for the winter apart, and time to reconnect as lovers that we haven't had for a while. It was amazing and I'm so grateful for it for and for him. I can't even articulate here how incredible it was to just hang out with him for the first time in ages.

Thankful would be the word.

Happy Thanksgiving if you're Canadian or love someone who is.

I don't do red wine so well. Goodnight,

B is for birdbrain.

I am lingering over coffee this morning, sitting at my desk looking at the new offerings on Coach, reading about Atlanta's goalie and marveling that our Thanksgiving week will see the rescue of miners trapped in Chile (except for that one guy with the wife AND the girlfriend who discovered each other at the site). Because sometimes I skim the headlines and sometimes I let the sand flood into my nose and ears because I can only focus my energies on being a good mother, wife and friend and really the remainder of the solution to the world's problems are something that can be solved with money. The hard part is keeping that money clean and out of the hands of the corrupt.

Good luck to you, if you are so idealistic as to think otherwise.

(No worries. I have no illusions as to how uneducated, unwordly and unsophisticated I am. You don't need to email me to tell me these things. I hear them every single day.)

What I would like today is this cup of coffee to remain bottomless, and I would also like a Ferris wheel in the middle of the woods so that I would know what it feels like to be a falling leaf. Dipping, swirling on the wind, floating gently to the floor of the forest path in pure silence. Ferris wheel music is an abomination, though over the years they have changed from circus standards to classic rock and I'm not sure if that's an improvement or just an intrusion. Mostly I think the quiet wheels are best but you need to experience it to understand what I mean.

You have to know the right people, and you have to ride the wheel in the dark after all the customers have left but before all the lights are shut down. It's worth it. Bonus points if you can see the beach as you approach the top.

Double bonus points if anyone actually appreciates my Saturday morning rambles besides Dalton. Triple bonus points if you think you're so amazing that you judge me for admitting that I don't pay attention to reality and you can actually fault me for it at this point in my life.

Saturdays are our Sundays, I believe. The whole day is a blank slate. Kind of like my brain.

The inadequate navigator.

Up until this point I figured I was ready to head back to routine. Fall. Working. That weird space between Thanksgiving and Christmas when you are existing between turkeys and decorations and fitting in a little Halloween fun and shopping for gifts and mostly trying to keep warm.

I have struggled to write while Ben is home. Having very little luck. I sleep less when he's home and tend to fight more to get the standard household chores done. Part of his time off involved casting aside responsibility and demands for doing absolutely nothing at all.

And then tonight he says he had the best break ever and I trumped him and broke myself.

I don't want him to return to work. I don't want to miss him. I don't want to go back to feeling like I am alone in the world and counting the hours until he returns to me safe and sound. I want to keep him here so I can throw myself into his arms whenever I want for a kiss or a hug. So I can make him lunch and wake him up. So I can be with him.

Time is so short. I don't care if you get it. I get it and I don't like it. And weirdly the whole episode of winter without him only served to make me more clingy and less capable. Sure I can do what needs to be done but I don't want to. I will scream in fear as I'm doing it and shut my eyes tightly and when it is over for the moment the tears will come. Relief. Frustration. Agony. Pick something. Pick nothing. I get annoyed when people infringe on our time. I am sad when the evening ends and we have to sleep at last. I am frustrated that he has to go back to real life because I'm not finished spending time with him yet in this fantasy world where our days are our own.

I am always stopped short just as I settle in. I am always left behind in the grand scheme of things, with a map I can't read and directions I can't seem to follow. What is crystal-clear to others is a confusing jumble to me written in another language. I can't do this. I can't exist in the present and I can't plan for the future. I can't read this compass because it's spinning. Spinning wildly from N to E to S and back again, twitching onto W and becoming a blur as the hot sting of tears push out from under my eyes once more. You can tell me I'm approaching foolish but interestingly enough you can't point me back toward common sense.

It isn't even on the map. They lied.

Ben is traveling by memory and I am following him by heart.

Passive Aggression.

The past few days have been a little busy. Company arriving and leaving, concerts, driving (oh, so much driving), trying and not really wanting to plan for the upcoming Thanksgiving break and also trying and not really wanting to wrap up Ben's final days off because then it means he'll have to go back to playing for others and mostly he would prefer to play for me now.

I did get a turkey. And gravy and stuffing and potatoes and carrots and a cake. Because what is a holiday that doesn't have cake?

Wait a minute, what is a day that doesn't have cake? Cake should be a requirement, like hugs and brushing your teeth. Oh, hugs are not a requirement in your day? Too bad. I feel sorry for you now.

And literally EVERY single time I sit down at the computer New-Jake starts talking to me. Poor thing is starved for attention. He is very very good at hugs, however, and so it's difficult to find fault with him.

(More about him another day because presently he is talking to me, and when he isn't talking, Ben is reading to me from the paper. Both of them somehow are failing to notice the laser beams shooting out of my eyes. I need to work on being less subtle, I guess. There's a cosmic joke in there somewhere. I would extricate it but I can't even think with all these words zinging around over my head.)

Last night? Mastodon. Deftones. Alice in Chains. It was glorious. It was a little confusing. Burned my ears from the first song and had a hard time adjusting to the volume and so I found myself tugging on Ben's hand to confirm the songs I think I was hearing but really Change (In the house of lies) and Your Decision were huge standouts. I've always wanted to see AIC in concert, the rest was just icing. I'm so very glad we went but I will be grateful tonight for a little sleep as we had a seven a.m. airport call this morning for our company and so we were up seemingly before most people were into their sleep cycles proper (because again with the driving. This city is spread all over the west coast, I tell you. We drive for HOURS every week.)

So not fair but again, totally worth it.

I wish I could have cake right this second but I think it would be rude. I don't know. I can't keep my train of thought. I'm giving up. Maybe tomorrow I can write before Jake wakes up, though I don't believe he sleeps at all, I just think he switches to a whisper to be polite and keeps on talking twenty-four hours a day.

Of course, now I'll also find out if he's reading my journal.

Score.

(Also, please excuse mistakes, I'm in the process of running screaming from the house and can't be bothered.)

Resuscitation.

Leave the truck, someone will lock it. Jump along on one bare foot while removing the other shoe and then sigh audibly as you slog along slowly through the warm sand.

Sand is the magic carpet that transports you to another universe where there are no budgets, telephones or traffic jams. No grumbling bellies and no rain.

Unless you want rain, but you always seem to prefer sweater-weather. It's a guarantee the beach will be empty.

Plow straight ahead until you reach water and then venture back five or six feet to walk along the edge of the firmer sand where the shells and the seaglass rise to the top in the tide.

A small handful is collected within seconds.

Smile for a picture. It's a beach, you're a Bridget. This is what we do. String you out until you've had enough and then bring you here to recharge. Fill up those green eyes again. Stuff your lungs with salt air and you can have a talk with that seagull and damn, no one will call you crazy because this is your turf.

Yours.

There's a rock shaped like a heart, and there's a broken seashell. Yuck, the seaweed looks just like your hair did in 2002 when you dyed it green for Henry's kindergarten Halloween party and it never came out. Hey, Bridge. Here's more glass. Put it in your pocket. Hey. You with me? Heh. It smells good, doesn't it?

When you am finished your daydream you look up and Ben is at the other end of the beach. So far away he's a tiny dot. You laugh because in real life up close Ben is huge and you generally have conversations with the pockets on his flannel shirt instead of his face. You contemplate calling him but he is intent and you don't want the ugliness of a ringing phone to spoil any of this for him either.

You jump up and down and wave instead.

He sees you and lifts his arm in response. You begin to walk toward him. He is taking his time so when you reach him you're still far away from where you started. He takes your hand and slows you down, passing you another handful of seaglass. You are delighted.

You slowly make your way back to the truck. Every step is a burden, every stumble a reminder that you are going in the wrong direction.

You shake your head. No, we're not supposed to be leaving. Wasn't the whole point of coming out here to stay here? On the sand? By the sea? Why are they breaking your heart? You don't want to go home. You don't want to come out here twice a season, You'd rather come twice a day.

Be realistic, Bridget. The world doesn't stop for you.

But it does here. That's the rub. The world does stop when I am here.

Only for you, baby girl. Only for you.

You try to breathe in as much as you can, see as much as you can remember and take away everything your pockets will hold. The shore will wait. The problem is, it just doesn't keep.

(For a minute I was jealous, but really, this opens up a whole new world.)

Today reminds of a day from four years ago, as the boys have made up now and all is well.

Ben was coming home from eighty-something days on the road. I had spoken with him through three airports and he had agreed to dump his stuff, shower and then come straight over for a meal and to say hello and then and only then he could go back to his horrid little filthy chaotic apartment and sleep for four days, as is customary when Ben would get off tour.

He knew I was dying to see him. I was so excited. I was waiting in the front porch. For forty-five minutes. Because showering? I know what Ben does in the shower. It's a thing of beauty to watch. His shampoo is multi-purpose.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

There's his car! (He had a car back then. This was before his big Ford trucks came into our lives and never left.)

He's walking up the sidewalk. Oh my God! He looks awesome. Thin and tired but awesome. His hair is so long! Wow.

I open the door, smile plastered from ear to ear.

He walks up the steps, smiles briefly and says Hey, princess.

And he walks in straight past me to the living room where Jacob is reading in his chair and grabs his whole head, kissing him on the mouth. Jacob, never one to refuse affection, reached up and pulled Ben right into his lap where they proceeded to make out for several minutes until I started making very loud obnoxious protest noises and I think PJ choked on pure air. This was designed to make me laugh. I hate it when the boys are away. I make such a fuss when they come back. Not this kind of fuss, mind you.

It was probably the funniest, most surprising display I think I have ever seen. Or so I thought.

Ben repeated it this morning with Lochlan, after having left the house for an hour. Lochlan complied. In spades.

Ben has trumped himself, as if it were possible.

(And hot. Wow.)

I didn't protest. I think I could watch that any day.

Ha. Ben just called to me to see if he could come out now.

Castles in the air.

They managed to stop arguing long enough to stand outside the school chatting with the principal as we picked up the children from school. Big night. An extra ten people due for dinner, which meant twenty extra arms to hold us close and twenty to hold them apart.

Oh, wait. Eighteen. One was totally gunning for Ben and Lochlan to go crashing through the kitchen windows, locked in a struggle to the death, doomed to be dashed into the sea below our house.

Oh, can't you just picture it? Maybe add in laser beams for eyes and yes, I invited the devil Caleb and every moment there is unrest in my life his heart beats fast with anticipation. He gets off on my pain. He always has. It isn't my beauty that is his drug, it's my misery.

Beauty is a perk, like free parking or cake that is not only cake, but also warm cake.

I did not serve cake for dessert. I didn't have dessert planned, since these boys will stuff themselves full of pasta and garlic bread until they are forced to shove off from the table like they are boats at a shallow launch. Caleb will leave food still on his plate as he is usually deeply engaged in conversation with someone. Ruth will do the same, as it seems to run in the family, words taking precedence over just about everything else.

Big subjects were glossed on, because that's how I wanted to roll and everyone was fine with that.

Except for Benjamin.

And Lochlan too.

Benjamin turned to Caleb with an evil smile. That same one he'll give just before a table is upended. I shot him my death ray stare and he stopped smiling but continued on his chosen tack.

Smoke?

Sure.

Loch?

Yeah.

I put my hands over my eyes. I get it now. They're going to throw Caleb into the sea. Wait, why the hell am I covering my eyes? I should be selling tickets and calling the networks to bring their helicopters so they can televise this epic moment.

(Forgive the gallows humor. I'm possibly the only person in the world who can be excused for using it.)

PJ makes a move to stand up and go outside with them but Chris loudly points out that he wonders where PJ is going since PJ doesn't smoke. A little bit of uneasy laughter follows and then I change the damn subject. If they want to toss Caleb off the cliff then fine. They'll both go to jail. I will categorically self-destruct.

I opt to leave my eyes covered. Daniel puts his arms around me and tells me to relax, they're all reasonable men. I look up, shooting the death-ray stare at him instead. He concedes that he must have had too much to drink and is blathering.

I am beginning to flutter and wonder if I should sit on my hands or just let all of my fearful untapped anxiety spread all over everything when the back door opens and I count three men return to the kitchen. Okay, so I'll keep it all inside for now.

Caleb crosses to me and bestows a light peck on my cheek.

I need to run, princess. Busy day tomorrow. Call when you have a moment and I can get the details for Henry's days from you.

I nod. Why isn't he dead? I would have done it. In a heartbeat. In less than one, actually. While I am fantasizing about quick numbers and quicker deaths he makes his exit, quickly calling a goodbye to all and hugging the children, who are heading up to bed.

We're so civilized sometimes. The lawyers would be proud. What a farce.

The door closes and we hear the footsteps walk to the edge of the verandah and then a moment later the 350z quietly purrs to life. Ben bursts out laughing. Lochlan is grinning but he has his hand over his mouth.

What did you do?

Showed him the moonlight on his brother's plaque. That's all. He is smiling wider now. Sweetly. Motherfucker.

And what did you do? I turned to Lochlan to see what hand he had in all this.

I didn't do anything. If Ben drops him off the cliff and goes to jail, I get you to myself. The way things should be.

Oh well, it was a short reprieve anyway. The fists came out and they went to the floor and those eighteen hands pulled them apart and sent them literally to their rooms. I know they act like children. It never occurred to me that I could ground them for it.

Life just became so much more interesting.

No object.

August is sitting here drawing pictures of me while I am forced to be stuck inside while Ben and Lochlan sit out in the backyard on the patio where the ocean is so close one can taste it. Why? They're having a DISCUSSION and mostly that means the words will soon turn into fists and no one wants me there because maybe I'll get caught in the crossfire or maybe I might have something to say or maybe I won't say anything and I don't know which is worse.

Really if Ben wants to put a stop to everything all he has to do is throw Lochlan off the cliff. There. Done. Case closed. Only he won't because he knows I would follow. At a flat run, no less.

What I would like is for them both to just stand back and be generous.

Not with each other, just with me. Like they used to be. You know when you really want someone to do something or believe in something, you make it sound as if it is the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world. It's only later when they are fully involved that they see the downside, the dark truth behind the glossy facade. That's what they did.

This is bullshit. I can run faster than August. I could probably be on the patio before he's even out of his chair.

54321 (Nightwatch).

(Don't.)

Ben and I were in the living room. The fire was low, the lights were off. I was tucked into Ben's arm while his free hand traced my ears, lips, nose, forehead. His eyes are so black, it's as if they grow larger when it's dark. It's beautiful. It's frightening. His breathing is even. He doesn't seem tired. I am falling asleep staring at him. He could do this for hours. He will regularly do this for hours, as if he is memorizing my features. One finger across my eyelashes and then down my cheek. Under my jaw and then he leans in for a kiss. An endless one in which I need to relax completely and breathe through him or not breathe at all.

His skin is cool. He is gentle, no razorburning tonight. Time has stopped moving. The stars have fixed into place in the sky and everything has fallen away. I go to whisper something and his hand returns to my face as he pulls away to look at me. He quiets me and then rubs his thumb across my bottom lip and my brain begins to fight. Putting Jacob in his place. A shattery-slick doubling of Ben's image that briefly turns to blonde and then I struggle to bring it back again. The image locks on Ben once more. I take a sudden, deep breath and he tightens his hold on me and returns to his quiet explorations. Earlobe. Hairline. The white-line scar under my nose.

I feel his whole body tense and then I realize we're not alone and I look up, upside down and see Lochlan standing in the door, bathed in light from the foyer, red curls damp and shining.

Leave us. A growl from Ben. It's not a request, it's an order. His possessiveness is incredible to me. Sometimes it is larger than life. Sometimes it is nowhere to be found. I have not seen the pattern yet, it simply depends on the day. It depends on the weather and it depends on the moment. This is one of them.

Lochlan chuckles. I know that sound. That's his challenge. His I-can't-believe-you-think-I'm-going-to-do-what-you-ask laugh. Incredulous, but then he holds out his helmet in a mock salute and heads out into the hallway again, slamming the door behind him. I am just being held into another kiss when I hear the motorcycle roar off, up the mountain. Away from me.

Lochlan does that on purpose. Night drives because he knows I will remain half-awake. He never cared if I slept. The others would stand guard, count hours, demand to see the dark circles and then admonish me endlessly for my poor sleeping, concern taking a front seat to everything else. Lochlan always told me when I would sit, wide-eyed, counting stars while he drifted off, that when I got tired enough I would sleep and until then worrying about it would only make it worse.

Early in the morning in total darkness when Ben sleeps he'll let go and I will startle awake again, needing to see if Lochlan ever came home. I will tiptoe down the quiet halls and through rooms until I arrive at his closed door. I will never knock. When I am satisfied that he is safe, home and present then I will sleep. And only then. In Lochlan's arms wrapped tight around me but facing away from him, toward the window, a soft breeze touching my face, dreaming of Ben. This is the time I am given that is my own, without question.

Lochlan does not need to memorize my features, he already knows them so well. Nostalgia serves as the axiom for his emotions and the rules are set by the circus as always. Don't get comfortable. Pulling up stakes is a daily event. He is too worn out from work to see to it that I sleep, so never mind, here, give guard to someone more capable because you're a walking hazard at this point.

A kiss on the same cheek traced by his friend and I slip away when the sun comes up. Back to my life, away from the past.

I return to the present and climb under the quilts and Ben holds his arms out. I am flush against him and his hand cradles my head. Stay with me, he whispers in his sleep. I am captive, unable to even nod and so I remain still, my arms wrapped around his neck, trying to will my still-warm flesh to transfer heat to him. He is cool still, exhausted and unable to fight in his dreams.

I will stay awake and fight for him, too. I'm not sure if their terrors are alive or dead though. Probably both. Just like mine.

Albatross.

I wouldn't have shown you such mercy.

That is why you failed.

Jacob would always pick up the flattest pumpkin he could find at the pumpkin patch and pretend to shot-put it at Ben.

He would yell Fore. As if they were on the golf course.

Ben hates golf. He thinks golf clubs are stupid and once took an old electric guitar out on a nine-hole course. He was marginally drunk that day and was asked to leave repeatedly. Jacob finally picked him up and dragged him to the truck and brought him home.

I instructed Ben to go crash in the guest room and told him not to emerge for at least fifteen hours at which point there would be aspirin, coffee, juice and dry toast for him. The guitar was left behind in the rough (where he threw it) and never recovered. Jacob ruptured a muscle in his back lifting two hundred pounds of unruly Ben with his arms and next time offered to first knock Ben out and then drag him out by the fauxhawk.

Ben never played golf again. So when the lawyers invited the boys to play golf yesterday it was a pretty easy refusal. We went to the pumpkin patch instead.

Ben doesn't generally like to touch the pumpkins until the knives come out to carve them. You would think he would take his bull-in-a-china-shop routine and extend it to a pumpkin patch but he's very solemn about it and he always wants to choose the exact right one. The perfect one. The Great Pumpkin. And so we'll wind up buying twelve or twenty-seven of them by the time Halloween arrives. There are already three on the verandah and a few handfuls of decorative tiny ones scattered around the house. Which I thought looked amazing. Add in another dozen outside and people will soon start thinking Bridget is selling pumpkins.

Great.

Or maybe not.

Ben is out back with Jacob's old golf clubs and the gates wide open to the ocean. He is teeing off with the mini pumpkins, watching them sail off the cliff into the sea. The ones that aren't exploding on contact, anyway. A good two hundred yards, I would wager. I think he's finally figured out the game.

Hopefully the guitars will stay indoors but with Ben I never say never.

Well, not anymore anyway.

Thing one and thing two.

(If I spin the dial and count the squares going this way in the game of life, I can ignore Caleb's attempt to change a whole bunch of little nitpicky things on our custody arrangements, which sent us back to court. I can effectively turn a deaf ear to his attempt to squeeze me with a power play after I made a move to stop his bullshit. Things quiet back down and life returns to normal, albeit with a heaping serving of the usual quarter-century of coercion and sexual abuse that seems to be like infected oxygen to me.

If I count the squares the other way I can call him on all of it, deploy Batman and frankly wind up worse. Far worse. Once I open that door there is no closing it again and I'm really not ready for that. Hell, I still wake up every morning expecting to see Jake. Sometimes Cole. I'm not strong enough to hold down a single sheet of paper with my words and you want me to do what? No, go away now, please and I'll pretend I didn't hear you either.

Be disappointed in me. You won't be the first.

It's far easier to literally lie down and take it and I am foolish for thinking otherwise. I try to continue to preserve my dignity but it's like gilding mud as it's flying through the air.)

That's what's in my head while the boys are busy making other plans. Aren't you sorry you asked?

Ben took me out for lunch yesterday at a cozy little spot by the water. We sat and watched the boats bobbing in the wake of the ferries and we had hot bowls of chowder and talked. We existed in the moment. We paid far too much for a simple lunch but left holding hands. We had a few hours to breathe alone and be contended and in this day you take what you can get. Selfishly, hungrily. We've had a lot of small pockets of time in the past four days to enjoy each other alone. A first. A best. I can't quantify what it means to be with him and not have to be renovating/packing/moving/unpacking/transitioning/deflecting/defusing all the time. We're like hey, watch a movie? Grab a coffee? Take off all your clothes and go back to bed at ten in the morning?

Yes, please.

All of that. And that is nice and I don't talk about Ben alot because Ben is a constant. A quiet, level, hotter than hot constant and there is no drama I need to sort out with him (right now). He is all, just come lie in my arms and nothing else matters in the whole world.

He's right.

Good people.

Spent the morning in court. The arbitrator has labelled Caleb and I high-conflict parents. She said that's just extraordinary considering we've never been married to each other and really for the resources and the support we have at our disposal we should have our acts together a little better than this. That this case was being handed unconventionally because we're an unconventional family. She then yelled for forty-five minutes about how we could do better.

And that we are immature and self-indulgent, that we have failed to put the children first.

I was fine with all of the labels up until those last eight words and then I lost my shit and interrupted her.

I'm a good mother.

I have no doubt, Mrs. Reilly. But you need to be a good person. You cannot allow your extracurricular relationships to supersede the needs of your immediate family. Parenting is not a part-time job.

I shook my head vehemently but she just. kept. talking.

I stopped responding after that, and she softened just enough. I really don't care what sort of bias she holds against how I live my life. It has nothing to do with Henry, short of giving him male influence and support where otherwise there would have been none. She thinks I'm out running around the city going to Eyes Wide Shut parties and sleeping with all of my friends and I'm not but I am secure in the fact that my lawyers and Caleb's lawyers know what's going on and she needs to spend a little more time on our files before she decides how horrible I am.

Caleb probably already paid her off. My lawyer has filed to allow new arbitration because this one is not objective enough to oversee this delicate operation.

Had Caleb not decided to suddenly start making good on his threats of challenging our arrangements in the first place none of this would be necessary at all, but last night after begging me for an hour of my time (for reasons I still don't understand), he was a no-show, not calling or texting or anything and then this morning I get an eleventh hour invitation to appear at the offices for a full review of our custody plan via mediation, agreed upon by all the lawyers collectively because it's Friday tomorrow and they have weekend tee times or something similarly asinine.

Lovely.

But you know what? I haven't done anything wrong. I don't threaten Caleb. I've never told him that I would keep Henry from him. I've never used him for anything. I've never made his life difficult. So I'm going to hold my head high and choose not to be threatened by this because if push comes to shove I have trump cards I can play now. I have all of that evidence that he harasses me and he is cocky enough to assume I won't use it. I have security in that when I have had enough of this all I have to do is turn on that light and the symbol will play into the night sky summoning the real hero who can save the day because at the end of it, Caleb is a small fish in a big pond.

I have Batman.

He's a big fish.

(And I'm a good person, I swear to God, I am.)

Aghost (Like aghast, but more transparent).

A drive.

No.

What the fuck, princess.

It's just a drive. Maybe he wants to apologize. Things got out of hand.

Bullshit.

Forget it.

This is total bullshit.

Ben and Lochlan are talking over each other and I'm just standing there holding my phone with the email pulled up. The one from Caleb inviting me for a drive so we can talk. Just talk. One drive. One hour. Maybe out into the Valley and back or up toward the ski hills. It doesn't matter. Talk without touching me. Listen without a legal team standing behind me ready to bring down the hammer.

Hmmm. I think for a moment and decide I am game. Caleb loves to drive. He loves his little silver Nissan and if he says a drive then that's what it will be. Ben and Lochlan are not game. They are the knee-jerks. The look-what-we-just-went-throughs. The only difference is they always forget that Caleb went away before. He went away for a handful of years there between when Henry was born and when I walked away from Cole. I brought him back and God, it was so weird and then it wasn't weird anymore and once Cole was gone he became Cole to me only he isn't but dammit if he doesn't just have enough Coleism to pass for the real thing and if I squint, if I'm drunk, if I'm low or if it's a day that ends in 'y' it's good enough for me.

Only he never showed.

I waited for several hours, giving him all the time in the world, but Caleb never showed. I'm not sure if he developed cold feet or if something came up and he had to put out a fire business-wise or if he just thought better of it and decided it was too soon (it is) but he didn't come.

No one ever stands me up. I am in tears and this is ridiculous because he's a dangerous, obsessive psychopath and he shouldn't be anywhere near me ever.

He is also Cole, he is history, and he is dad to one of my children. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I just wanted the part where he holds custody of my youngest child over my head like a flaming guillotine to go away. The scary parts where he does not have himself under control? Away, please, quickly, I am afraid.

Everything else can be left well enough alone.

Going to bed now.

Fuck it.

Riding the Subway.

Last minute stop for lunch. We're starving. Out of energy, out of time. Okay, Subway it is. It's always empty, always good though so we pull in and run inside and all I'm thinking is fooooooood. I need foooooood. So I ask for a foot-long sandwich. On parmesan oregano bread. No way in hell I could eat all that but I may try. Suddenly there's a lineup a mile long behind us. Phew. Got here just in time, Toasted? Yes, please. And to go, we're not eating here. We'll take them home.

Everyone watches as the bill is tallied. Ben is paying and he says really loudly,

You got a foot-long? Jesus, Bridge. You should have told me how hard-up you were before we left the house. I could have given you a footlong.

Only he said it with that grin just as I had taken a sip of my rootbeer. Oh woes, out my nose it goes.

Snort.

Ow. It hurt.

(Not as much as a footl-oh hell, you know how this goes.)

Placeholder.

Okay, Internet? Stop worrying. I'm not naive enough to think that this is the end of my woes. Not by any means. But maybe it's the beginning of the end of them. Let's just go with that. Caleb has his entire life invested in me being his singular focus, don't think I'm dumb enough to imagine a world where he just walks away from all that.

Also? Secrets. We've got 'em. Jesus help me.

In other news? Ben. Vacation. On it.

On him?

You betcha.

Abdicating evil.

What a difference a day brings, though I think I knew on Saturday, today has brought a bit of a deeper sigh of relief all around.

Caleb.

He can no longer threaten me. He can't threaten Henry, he can't do a damn thing except for run this magnificent business with the flair he has shown thus far, and be a good father when he feels like it, since Henry is already rich in fathers and doesn't need more.

He can't touch me anymore. Saturday's threats were a final taunt. He already knew it was over.

It will be a tense symmetry like it has always been. The boys will continue to farm their talents collectively and the harvest will be split equally. The relationship will remain cordial, effective and friendly. I still need to be able to deal with Caleb. I still will be working for him. The difference is he won't be able to hold my son over my head in order to spend time with me doing things he has no business doing.

I already have a husband. And frankly I have a boyfriend too, sometimes. That's enough. That might be too much for some of you but that's okay because this isn't your life, it's mine. And when I got the call from my lawyers today telling me that Caleb has agreed to my terms and the only counterpoint he requested is that he not be referred to as Satan hereafter in my writing or in person, I jumped for joy. If you know me, I don't do that. I never do that.

No more devil references? I think I can manage that. Unless they meant in all languages, and then I'm probably screwed.

One thing we're going to do is leave history buried in an unsuccessful cornfield in Eastern Canada, because some dogs are better left sleeping. Even Lochlan is fine with that. Good, because I really can't manage more than one event at a time anymore.

It took me a very long time to gather up my proof. Letters, emails, notes, witnesses, phone calls, video. Some of it was legal, some of it was not but Caleb's reputation means an awful lot to him and he did not wish to refute anything I had. He didn't wish to have his debaucheries aired in a more public eye, and he didn't wish to acknowledge how incredibly myopic he had become.

All of it was presented to his legal team. And then he was advised how to proceed. But he's a lawyer. He already knew. It just took a jury of his peers and a set of closed doors to really hammer home how tenuous his life, his career was becoming thanks to his obsession with his sister-in-law. He needed a very loud and persistent wake-up call. It has come. This is finished.

Maybe I was just lucky. I like to think I am. I put myself in some awful positions recently but it was time. Enough was enough. And I'm okay. I'm relieved. I will deal with my own proclivities concerning Caleb and my memories of Cole the best I can. That wasn't the right way. Nothing about that was right.

But who is going to argue with me? No one ever tells me no. Ben will not start to impose limits because that got Jacob nowhere but he won't turn a blind eye like Cole did because then things just get worse. So Ben acknowledges and allows and he fights with me anyway and then he worries himself sick and I couldn't do that to him anymore. Ben deserves better. He deserves everything.

But this was something I had to change on my own. Just like Ben said when he asked me to be with him: he couldn't fix any of my problems but he would hold me while I fixed them myself. Almost three years later he has kept his promises. All of them. Anything else wasn't a promise made.

I can spend as much time as I want standing behind my row of knights. God love them, they've done everything for me. Absolutely everything, fighting all of my battles, raising me, helping raise my children, holding us up when I have been a thankless, selfish little monster in return. Standing by me now as I have lost whole years being silent grief, unwilling to help myself or listen to them. Demanding that they fix this, fix everything, turn back time, bring me the good parts and make everything else go away.

It's been like surfacing at last, after diving into the deep blue ocean and swimming down until my lungs might burst and then staying there. For too long, until my head ached and I had not a single molecule of air remaining.

Rescue arrived and she surprised me. A petulant five-foot tall blonde with circles so dark under her faded green eyes you might stop and stare and wonder if she ever sleeps.

Well, she doesn't. Yet.

That might change.

(Do I really think this is the end of Caleb's provocation? I really don't know. I hope so. Maybe I'll just start with that and see what happens. I have to see him several times each week and I'm just going to take it one minute at a time.)

Please don't ask because I don't get it either.

(I am not a champagne and truffles girl, and I don't know why I'm telling you this.)

I think I proved it last night in spades with my tilty, beautiful belligerence that led to an abrupt reorganization of my dance card and saw the devil ousted in favor of the carnival comfort. The original freak. The one who doesn't look like a freak at all.

The big freak approved. Maybe, because just like me he chooses the lesser of two evils, and Lochlan isn't evil at all. Not in that way. Not in the way like Caleb is evil.

But anyway, back to the champagne, which seemed to be interspersed with heavier drinks that left me cursing the French bastard who invented stiletto heels and alternately chatting up the Russians like I did this every day or something. I don't. Jesus. I'm a deaf little freak girl who lives in the dark in a commune full of bearded musicians and artists. I have few interpersonal skills and endless affection. I hate to cook and I love to love and...and I don't belong here, so yes, I will take another drink, thank you so much.

At some point I was convinced the stilettos were the reason I was still standing. Propped up with beauty rebar, I was. Reinforced concrete blonde. So thoroughly drunk and really not able to even string two thoughts together when Caleb walked me out by the railing and put his hands up to check for the hearing aids and then smoothed my hair over the collar of Ben's suit coat. Usually I leave my hair tucked in. Now it doesn't matter, it just barely reaches my shoulders. I curse in his face and smile sweetly, swaying just a little and he smiles and leans in as if we are sharing secrets.

All I can think is that I can't feel my tongue anymore. I want to laugh but I can't.

Having passed the hearing aid and wardrobe check I am held closer while I stare out to sea. I could will it to splash over me now, drowning me. Saving me from him. Instead I am treated to his aftershave, intoxicated by the power positively writhing under his dress shirt. I am fluttering and I wish it would stop, but again, more concerned with my tongue and where it might have gone and where is Ben?

I hear him. He is singing. In the salon. Just to my left if I can push off from Caleb and walk straight through the glass. But I can't because Caleb has me in his arms and I am captive to his threats, sorry, to his 'suggestions' whispered in my ear, melting it with his laundered-money dirty soul, bending it down with his expectations, all of which are just as realistic as my fucking shoes. I still don't know what Ben said to him last week or where we stand or if there's any reason at all for me to be here right now at all.

I square myself in his embrace and focus on his eyes. No small feat. My useless tongue seems to be taking my other features with it to sleep. My eyes are all over the place, but not in the same place at the same time so I plant my hands on his chest and nod up at him.

Lochlan. I am still nodding, slurring. Ben. Not you, Cole. Sorry, baby. I stick my finger against his chest and I jab it in hard. Twice.

He laughs. Bridget, let's go cool you off a little. Maybe a long shower. He has my arm now and it hurts and I am being led down to the master suite and I don't want to go but my voice is under my tongue and I can't seem to pull it out. I see the hunger in his eyes but it's guarded for some reason. He has another drink and he gives it to me, saying it is juice, have some, sober up a little. I drink it down and then cough. It isn't juice. It's whiskey and lemonade and my new grand plan is to make myself sick, though I'm probably about to be sick anyway. Not drunker, oh, Jesus, no.

Congrats on the project and my condolences on the state of your personal life. I amuse myself saying that in a slur. I laugh out loud and almost fall down. At this point Caleb is holding me up, dragging me down the hall, eliminating a scene altogether when I think I would prefer to have one. I don't want to be alone with him. My kids are asleep in a stateroom at the end of this hallway, and what in the fuck does he think he's doing?

He opens a door and thrusts me inside and closes the door. What? Lochlan is waiting. Lochlan catches me in his arms and then Ben is there too and I am safe. Safe. I don't know why though, everything happened too suddenly. This is Lochlan's fault. I point at Lochlan and I tell him he should have trusted me because if I love you I will say so. I thank Ben for allowing me the chance to love Lochlan too and then I hit the floor.

I wake up late. The sun is licking the edges of the blinds and there is orange juice and aspirin on the table beside the bed. Ben's arms are wrapped around my neck. I am hot and sick to my stomach. Lochlan rolls over and smiles gently at me and I close my eyes and fall back to sleep for a while. Safe. When I next wake up I feel human and Lochlan is gone and I'm not sure if he really was there or if my brain has simply made room for him. Ben is kissing me, asking me if I feel better, anxious to start his day with a bang (snort) and I still can't feel my tongue.

I sit up and Ben sits up too. I lean back against him and his arms go out around me like a cage. I am not sure if it's to keep me safe from everyone else, or if it's to keep everyone else safe from me, I just know that something is off, something is different and inclined to be distant, he won't talk about it other than to reassure me that I am not a monster and that everything is fine.

I believe him.

I believed Jake too. He said this. He did this. 'Don't worry, princess. Everything is fine, just let me deal with it.' And look what happened, Ben.

It happened so fast. I am pushed away from Ben. The lamp hits the door and smashes into a million pieces. I can hear people running down the hall. Toward the noise. Toward us. I turned to Ben and he just shakes his head at me, desperate. Frustrated to the point of no return.

I'm not Jake, he says. Why won't believe in me? We're the freaks. Why would I lie to you, Bridge?

Caleb bursts into the room and smiles at the carnage. His work here is done. Payback's a bitch, Benjamin. You keep underestimating him, and I don't understand why.

This wins worst post ever.

Hi.

I'm here. It stopped pouring. I broke my finger when the fridge reached out and grabbed my hand, pinning it between the freezer and fridge handles which closed completely together and now my finger is all black and puffy and horrible and painy and I keep sticking it in PJ's face to say Look! Look how blaaaaaaack! and he recoils. And then my internet crapped right out. Then the cable went out and then @Shaw_Sean on Twitter got us rolling again because I wasn't going to wait on hold and use up forty or fifty minutes of my cell minutes to be told to unplug things I can't identify (A modern? Oh, a MODEM? Which thing is that? Lights? They both have lights. Is it rooter or r-out-er?) and Lochlan wasn't home to just fix it and then I collected the kids from school and just got settled down when the Welcome Wagon lady arrived! Because I FORGOT she was here in June and so she finally caught me home.

Now I have fridge magnets and possibly a vet for Bonham but nevermind all that. Seriously useful things though. A furnace guy. Pens even. Three new ones! I'm a serial pen-stealer. Ask my insurance agent. Or my lawyer. Or anyone who works at Safeway.

It's hard to type one-handed. Damned hard. And I have a huge headache and in two more hours Ben should be gearing up to come home and really that's all I want right now. Him. Home. With me. For days and days and days and days to come, right through to Thanksgiving.

That's all.

Wait. Advil. I want advil.

And I just made my daughter cry, listening to Relient K.

Great.

You cried wolf
The tears they soaked your fur
The blood dripped from your fangs
You said, "What have I done?"
You loved that lamb
With every sinful bone
And there you wept alone
Your heart was so contrite

(I should have written porn instead. MY APOLOGIES.)

In my own sweet time.

Here's your video for the day. I am so in love with this.

What was it brought you out here in the dark?
Was it your only way of making your mark?
Did you get rid of all the voices in your head?
Do you now miss them and the things that they said?

No worries, no one (else) is dead, besides me, Cole and Jake and really I can pass for the living quite easily these days with enough lipgloss and my lowjacked frown.

Today is sort of okay. I am deleting your emails, doing some office paperwork and making large quantities of banana bread and testing the limits of the stereo and my neighbors good graces, though we have tested those already with the Marshall stack because it's one of the loudest noisemakers in the house (aside from Ben himself) and you couldn't hear him forty feet up the drive so I think I'm safe.

I'm wearing my bulletproof thigh-high black stockings and my you've-done-it-now dress. I mean business. Well, I don't actually. Actually I mean ridiculousness and mayhem twenty-four hours a day, sometimes twenty-six and I'm thinking that this is going to be a fine slide right through into Thanksgiving.

Why? Because Ben will be on holidays at last. Finally taking a break because he's been getting comfortable with near-exhaustion and really Caleb rides him like a....oh, I had such a delightfully pornographic allegory to put there but I think I'll leave it off because my mom always reads my posts and then emails me small suggestions on how maybe I should write about happier things/times/moods and be less...perverted.

Then she tells me I look good in black.

And I should turn down the music.

And oh, Bridget, maybe you should eat a little more, you're looking so thin.

Yes Mom, check this out.

Who is that?

David Gilmour. Isn't he dreamy?

Yes, he is good looking, isn't he? He looks a little like Andrew.

No he doesn't, don't ruin it for me, mom.

How is Ben?

That's all anyone wants to know. How is Ben? Slayer of the darkness, husband of the cotton candy princess, patience of a saint, appetite of a sinner, biter of bunny-heads Benjamin.

He is delicious, as usual. Some things do not change, one of which is my lusty appetite for that man.

Luckily the larder is fully stocked.

Snort. (Sorry, mom.)

In any case, Ben will be home for two solid weeks to rest and the kids are in school and really right now we have no interest in going too far anymore or doing too much, we're exhausted and still living in fast-forward and majorly fucked up by the never-ending, always evolving dynamics of life here and everything it entails, including a commute that rivals the 'drive around the goddamn harbour' in Halifax that we've never missed for even a second, and we probably won't even get out of bed, save for trying a few new restaurants and maybe taking in a concert or two.

(Mom, come back after Thanksgiving to read, okay? I'm sure the only news for the remainder of the month will be x-rated.)

The rest of you carry on as you were, bunch of fucktards. And yes, I know I never wrote about the other night when Caleb showed up and Ben decided to get into it with him. Ever think there's a reason for that? Well there is, and there's also a reason for my steady stream of Lochlan-stories lately. Don't like it? Go read something else.

I don't want this anger, burning in me
It's something from which it's so hard to be free
And none of the tears we cry in sorrow or rage
Can make any difference, or turn back the page

Five provinces and eleven thousand miles later.

I can't change you
So I'll change myself
And I can't save you
So I'll save myself

So what if you remember me
You knocked me out with one in lies

I'm not the only fucking one
I'm not the only one

He learned how to ride it out in the field behind the big tent. In Shediac, where what wasn't ocean was dust, it seemed. He had bought the bike for a hundred and seventy-five dollars from some kid on his way to college. The kid threw in a couple of beat-up helmets and wished Lochlan luck after showing him the basics.

Hop on, Bridge.

Okay. Are you sure you can ride this thing?

Anyone can do it. Hell, you could.

I didn't want to though. It was a big old Kawasaki 900 and I was afraid of the noise. I would get on the back and Lochlan would holler at me to hold on and he would rip up and down the back roads, threading us around the potholes and sometimes off the road entirely, through the trees. I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed myself against his back. Every time he went around a corner he would yell something at me but I never really heard him properly. I wasn't sure if it was lean with me or lean away from me. I still don't know to this day but Lochlan's a lot bigger and more muscled than he was as a scrawny underfed teenager so it's no longer an issue.

Late that night in the camper he said we had to grow up now. That we couldn't sleep under the stars in the back of the truck because the truck was going back. His father needed it to haul wood and so he was going to get saddlebags for the bike. We had to pare down to just some clothes and our toothbrushes. My hairbrush, he could borrow it. I would have to give away or try to sell my books, the circus snowglobe that he gave me, the portable tape player and tapes that we played to fall asleep at night. I could keep the walkman though, even though we didn't have any money for batteries. You never know when you're going to have a really good week. Any money we got would go toward getting the bike highway ready. Matt would continue to rent his camper to us in each town.

And so Lochlan got on that bike and he rode it fine with me on the back and he's been riding ever since. He's never taken a course, never had a lesson and somehow along the way managed to get grandfathered in on one of his out of province moves and is fully licensed and insured. He's ridden drunk, sober, in the snow and rain, in the blazing sun, all night, all day and through arctic air masses that wouldn't quit. He has driven coast to coast seven times and I believe at night instead of dreaming, he rides.

He's had every kind of bike there is. Currently out back there's a Harley, a Victory, a Ducati and a Honda that all belong to him. I dropped a Harley on my first lesson from the boys and never got a second but any time I want he is happy to take me out for a long drive. Sometimes I am taken when I don't want to go because for some reason he seems to need me attached to his back to enjoy it. Die hard, old habit, die hard.

He pulled my hands up to his face, kissing my fingertips warm as we huddled together under the blanket for warmth. The camper was unheated and it was the last day of summer.

I'll buy you a new snowglobe. I'm so sorry, Fidget.

It's ok. I love being free with no earthly possessions. We are nomads. At least for now.

Wayfarers! That's it, baby. I'm still going to replace it.

You'll probably never find another one like that.

I'll see when the time comes.

Many years passed (exactly twenty-five to this day) and this morning through the rain and the bad blood in this house and all of the things that happened last week and last night, Lochlan came back after leaving the house for three hours and not a minute less. He came in and shrugged out of his backpack and then his wet gear and then finally his sweater and then he reached into the pack and pulled out a cardboard box. He put it in my hands and then sat down to watch as I opened it.

He found one. Another snowglobe with a tiny big top inside. Identical save for the fact that the one I left behind was chipped and this one is beautifully intact. Ironic, since I am not.

Unbelievable. It looks almost the same!

And then I turned it over to see if it played music (just like my old one!) and there was the chip on the bottom in the same place as my old one, in the back so it never mattered anyway and...my initials are written on it in pencil: B. L.

Just like on my old one...

How, wait, why did you keep this all these years?

I figured by the time you were this old you might have your shit together. I was wrong but you can have it anyway.

You knew.

I knew? Knew what? That you would still want it?

No, that you would still be around. That you would know where I was twenty-five years in the future. That you would do this for me.

Lochlan didn't say anything more. I turned the snowglobe over and wound it. And then I shook it hard and set it down gently on the table, watching the blizzard spool up over the circus. Driving all of the townspeople away and the performers back to their campers or tents. I watched the two teenagers run to the bike and jump on and drive up the highway out of the storm, the girl clinging to the boy driving, trusting that he wouldn't spill them to the pavement or put them in any kind of danger. That he would look out for her the way he managed to keep the snowglobe intact all these years. Carefully and with intent. He would find a place for them to ride out the storm. Someplace safe, warm and dry. Because you can't hold a circus in the snow, and you can't keep history under glass.

You knew too, princess. You've fought pretty hard to keep me in your life.

For the life of me I can't figure out why, Lochlan.

Me neither, Bridget.

We sat there and rode out the end of the storm, sitting in a tiny little truck stop diner seventeen miles from nowhere, eating chicken soup paid for with a twenty-dollar bill Lochlan found in the parking lot, warming our hands in the steam rising from the bowls.

Nomads.

Waiting for the circus to begin again.

This would be the part where the devil and the rock star disagree.

You insult me in my home, you're forgiven this time
Things go well, your eyes dilate, you shake, and I'm high
Look in my eyes deep and watch the clouds change with time
Twenty hours won't print my picture milk-carton size

Oblivion was an impossible brass ring, hooked on the other side of the track to provide the faith in remaining on the carousel. I reached for it over and over again and came up short. Maybe I need a stretching machine. Or a second piece of cake, or perhaps a little more wine. The wine was taken away when I wasted it, however, letting the sticky dry liquid seep down between the keys of Caleb's beloved Macbook Pro. An uncharacteristic display of property damage. Gee, sort of like the damage Caleb does to me.

Are we even? Not on your life. And certainly not on mine.

I think I will have a second piece of cake. Ben usually declines his because the only sweet thing he likes is me. And I am still sweet in spite of the efforts of the devil to turn me into poison.

Up against the glass until the noise took over and that was as far as I could reach toward that ring. I had help. He braced my wrists together high above my head to the point where in my pain I was sadly grateful I might finally be tall now. He pulled all of my hairpins out from my carefully constructed low knot (barely held together now since my hair was cut) and let them fall to the floor. He turned the music up so loud I wondered if my ears would bleed and I paid for my insolence and my spilled wine and my inability to fulfill the loyalty he thinks he deserves. I paid for his obsession like I always do. The fuel for his fire, I am poison already and I tarnish the brass rings I do get, a caustic, gentle vengeance all my own.

Love me like you love him.

I am confused. Standing there pressed between the devil and the ice-cold plate glass I am struck by a sudden fit of giggles and tears. Pinned, shaking. The purgatory between laughing and crying. It was such a convicted whisper, one of those deep, guttural ones conveying nothing but pure want and I've reacted poorly.

He drops my hands and wraps his hand around my neck, squeezing it until the air is gone. My head hits the glass and the answer is in the stars now circulating behind my eyes.

Say his name, Bridget.

Cole.

Tighter now and the edges of my world are framed in black and all the lights in the sky through the window across the room are swimming into a bokeh fold. I chose wrong. If I make that mistake again I'm dead. Oh, look, a fifty-fifty split. Just what I always wanted.

Try again, princess.

(Cole. Of course. Jesus, Bridget, you can't even keep them straight anymore. Forgive me but Caleb is no longer jealous of Cole now is he? So with that reasoning it can't be Jacob either. So does he mean Lochlan or Ben? Shouldn't they be interchangeable? Wait a minute. Would they be interchangeable?)

Caleb presses his forehead against the glass beside me. Breathing heavily and I don't understand this at all. I just know I need air. I throw my caution out the window and it joins the grudge I have carried here, perched on the ledge together now, swinging their bare toes while I die on the other side of this shatterproof glass.

Loch.

I can't even get out his full name. Air comes rushing down my throat and fills my lungs and I'm sure Caleb is wrong but he looks almost relieved. The right answer, the obstacle for everyone. The constant that stands like a pillar blocking the smooth passage of time between the past, present and future. It occurs to me that the devil who can read my mind has no idea of the true direction of my heart and for once I have a secret from him instead of so many secrets with him, wrapped and tied with shiny cheap red foil ribbon in twisted bows, loops bent and dented from being crushed together in his hands. Holding my fate over me in the forms of my children. Making me do this. Making me be this.

What a monster. This is what I have become. All because I did something so incredibly selfish in leaving Cole to save my life, taking his instead. And now I am forced to my knees before ones who have been selfish their entire lives. HE CUT MY HAIR. I'm still angry about that. I'm angry about being here at all. This tears Ben apart. I'm shutting down and I want to go home. I want to see Ben, I want to be safe in a place where there are no wrong answers and he loves me because I am there and because I am awesome, in his eyes. Not because I owe him and not because he saw me a hundred years ago and decided he would deify himself to have what he wanted.

So everyone wins?

It doesn't work like that.

Caleb kisses me. Hard. My head is wedged against the glass and my precious breath is his again. My lips sting and my lungs ache for air and I can feel every last drop of what Caleb feels now. His arms block me from moving and then one hand drops and it takes my wrist, takes my pulse, feels my life. It is the single most frightening moment of my life because it's an emotional mirror to the way I felt when Jacob left and I wanted nothing but him back. I wanted him back so badly I sold my soul five times over even though it hasn't been mine to offer for a very long time. Awake for five days straight. But my soul is here with this man. All of this is his fault. He is responsible. He is to blame. I lay the blame upon him like a blanket. It is burning but he'll never notice.

Use what you have. Cole's voice. I duck out from under Caleb's arms and I take the long way around, grabbing my handbag and then the doorknob and I am almost on the floor, wobbling quickly in my little shoes, holding the handle to stay on my feet and then I am gone, pulling my dress down.

He is screaming my name but I don't really care. Fuck you too, monster man.

Now the body of one soul I adore wants to die
You have always told me you'd not live past twenty-five
I say stay long enough to repay all who cause strife

When I get outside I hail a taxi and throw myself into it, blubbering my address to the driver, who asks me something I can't catch because he is facing the wrong way and I just say that I'm fine and ask him to drive quickly, guessing at the question based on my demeanor and I repeat my address to make sure I got it right. Only then do I open my hands and see that I am holding the ring. It's not brass. It's platinum and Ben gave it to me the day we got married.

Prevengeance.

(Roll with it, Bridget has a headache.)

Home is on and the stereo is turned up to distortion level. I drank fourteen ounces of coffee this morning far too quickly and learned that there may just be a lifetime maximum for coffee the way there is for our dental insurance. I might be close to the coffee one. When I reach it I don't know what I'll do, but I know that I really looked forward to running into Starbucks Sunday afternoon while we were out and then paid for it later feeling queasy all through our movie night, resorting to curling up in a ball against Ben and fighting to escape into the film and forget how much my stomach hurt. I think I succeeded and I didn't fall asleep. It was lovely, actually.

Bonham doesn't mind the volume on the stereo. He is on the floor in the hall on his back with all four legs up in the air, quite resembling a sheep that someone has tipped over. He is probably dreaming of radishes and of other dogs' rear-ends. His two favorite things.

If I could sleep right now I would dream of a world where Ben has a week or two off. Hold tight, we are waiting to see if next week or the week after might be a good time for a little break before the next project, even though he has already started not one but two new projects at the same time! I believe I was good enough to Caleb on Saturday to warrant a little mercy but then again clemency from the devil is a tall order requiring a heaping side of grace and the laptop incident didn't earn me much of that. It earned laughter, because every now and then I will exhibit the behavior of a total brat and it's out of character by far for me.

No worries, Caleb did earn the damage I did after all. I should have filled his car with wine. Perhaps next time.

Magic markers.

Every light is on in the city now, it seems. It feels alive. It feels like all the people are these little carnivorous ants gobbling up the energy, the gristle of emotion, the meat of this night. I can hear the noise if I press my ear to the glass. Sirens. People laughing. Horns honking. Music. The low rumble of the white Ferrari that just inched down the street, seeing and being seen.

Amateurs.

It's contagious, a drug. A fine light that entices me to come forward. Dance. Take your turn at the trough of life. Have your fill. Grow fat off the moment, live in the now, Bridget.

I am standing still in the center of the chaos. It swirls around me in a blur and I am dizzy from trying to focus. I stifle a yawn and grin. I am so tired. I press my forehead against the cool glass and wonder what the night holds, when the noise will die away, when I will go to the place that makes me forget that I am here, whether or not I will meet the devil or the angels tonight, I am never instructed. Heaven, hell or purgatory. It's a roll of the dice and I was never a lucky girl.

I turn around and Caleb passes me a glass. A sip confirms my suspicions. Hell it is. He apologizes and tells me he has a quick conference call that he will take in the living room so would I mind retreating to the study until he comes to collect me? I can surf the internet or perhaps write something in that infamous, infernal blog of mine.

Yeah, I can do that.

He kisses my hair and looks at me, waiting for approval. He is trying so hard I want to cry, but he has also taken my phone and my wedding ring and they won't be returned until morning. I force the smile again and take a sip of the wine as he walks away. All the way down the hall and he is gone.

I slosh the wine around in my teeth and then spit it into his keyboard. I return to the window, where I count the people walking up and down the street and hope for true oblivion. Writing it is only wishful thinking.

Getting there, well, that's going to take some effort tonight.

The same words. The same ones, goddamit.

I am drifting. Lying on a raft of weathered boards, tied to the dock with ropes thicker than my wrists. Bobbing gently and sometimes softly, violently on the sea. I can hear the birds. Stupid seagulls, replete with french fries from the tourists who don't know any better but mercifully have gone in town for supper. The sun bakes me into a pale golden hue and I am working from my toes to my nose, to make every muscle relax completely and keep my mind clear at the same-

Bridget.

I am waking up, loathe to leave my place in the dream. Ben is over me. He is kissing up my throat, his hands are pulling back the sheets, I can feel his hunger from the raft and am still looking for purchase.

Oh hell. I'm fully awake now, returning his kiss, putting my arms up around his neck, opening my eyes to see that he is naked and beautiful. I am lifted off the bed briefly and returned and I cry out and then that won't happen again because his hand is over my mouth and his lips are against my ear whispering to be quiet. He's so intense and he forgets that he can't be like that. Sometimes it is too late and I have to talk him back down from his black cloud.

We are finding our cadence now. His arms are locked around me and then I am pushed down and turned over and strung out on his initiatives. He is unrelenting. Sleep is for the weak, love is for the broken. Bridget is for Ben. He just whispers Everything is alright. I am here and you are safe.

There is no mistake. There are new rules. We keep changing and testing and trying life in different sizes and colors just like he is trying different ways now to make me scream, choke or tremble. I can't handle him, this. This is too much and I burst out with his name, abruptly halting his trip to heaven in which I am in danger of falling back to earth, slipping from his hands, slick with sweat and tears and he reaches down and pulls me back up to him, secure this time. Safe this time. So much better. I am in no danger anymore. I bite hard into his shoulder when I come. I never thought heaven would feel like this.

***
Not surprisingly, the other boys are backing Lochlan. Ben again wants to enforce the plans we made up over the summer so that we can have more time together, ironically so there will be less fighting, clearer definitions and no hurt feelings. Only look how well Bridget does when she has unrestricted access to Lochlan and why fix something if it isn't broken (but isn't it?) and Hey Benny, have you asked Bridget what she wants or are you just arbitrarily changing things up because you feel threatened?

Threatened? Broken? I look up, eyebrows raised in irritation. What the hell, guys? I'm trying to be happy, and that's very hard to do when everyone is pulling me in different directions. I feel like a stuffed bunny being fought over by two determined children. Eventually I'm going to have my ears ripped off and then no one's going to want me.

They are choosing sides. Loyalty to Lochlan, to history. Ben still reigns as the outsider, the new guy and God help him, he doesn't do anything to ever change that.

I argue that it's my life and they don't get to choose and maybe I believe in what Ben is trying to do here, maybe finding some peace and eradicating some of the constant tension would be nice. Why wouldn't you want that? They have reasons and they begin to throw them out, one after another until the tears are streaming down my face and even Lochlan says enough.

Just enough.

Ben touches the back of my head. He runs his hand down my hair and then my hair is gone and his hand is on my back. I am shaking, dabbing at my eyes with the napkin and attempting composure. We are in public. They have already sent the wait staff away numerous times, the restaurant is virtually empty at this time of day anyway.

Ben levels a threat at Lochlan. If he doesn't like what he is being offered he's free to go.

Lochlan swears and then Ben does the most frustrating thing ever. He abruptly stops fighting and throws an entire buttered croissant at Lochlan. Lochlan asks him what the fuck his problem is as the pastry hits him square in the chest.

This is bullshit.

Ben shrugs and throws a grape, and then an apple slice too and Lochlan warns him to fuck right off.

From quietly across the table, PJ wields a pancake and suddenly they are playing extreme frisbee with breakfast items and then finally Lochlan gets pissed off enough (he hardly ever participates) and picks up his entire bowl of fruit salad and aims. I protest, I'm sitting right beside Ben. Lochlan's not going to miss but that's a lot of fruit and I have this pretty dress on. Lochlan says, look at you Bridget, you're a goddamn mess anyway and lobs the bowl toward us. Fruit salad rains down everywhere. I am grabbing handfuls of the fruit off my lap and throwing it back at Lochlan and the manager rushes over, horrified. We are asked to leave. Ben is grinning from ear to ear. He's very good at turning one thing into something else entirely. He is unpredictable and childish and wonderful. And it's those same qualities that worry the others so.

He takes out his credit card and asks the restaurant to charge the costs for cleaning and time to him and adds a significant amount for their graciousness. The manager tells Ben he can come back anytime but the rest should not return. PJ is completely impressed with that. It was his idea. He loves that place. I could defuse it but I say nothing. I am still shocked and angry that they would gang up against Ben like that.

We drive back to the house in a caravan. Like a funeral procession. I am bearing pall and somber in my duties. I know what needs to change, everyone knows. This isn't new. Ben just needs to learn to approach conflict, touchy subjects with a less aggressive approach. Only I don't think he has that sometimes. We talk about it a little and he promises to work harder. We get to the driveway and I ask if we can just keep going. Just drive for a little while. Ben complies and steps on the gas and we are winding through the mountains above the house soon enough. I look for my owl while we talk. The drive is short though. Soon school will be out and I like to be there when that happens. I tell Ben it's time we head back. In short order once again we are at the driveway. Ben pulls in and parks. It seems like no one else came home either yet.

Out of nowhere, Lochlan pulls in behind the truck and gets off his bike. I am just opening my door when I hear shouting and his helmet rolls to my feet. Dammit, I think and I pick it up. Now it's going to have to be replaced. But I don't have time to think very hard about the helmet. Lochlan and Ben have squared off on the other side of the truck.

Lochlan has decided he isn't going to play by the rules anymore.

At all.

He won't have his access to me restricted, he won't allow for only seeing me when Ben is busy or away, he won't be told when he can and can't see someone he has looked after and loved his entire life.

His eyes flicker to me. Looked after, he said. The fucking nerve of that.

I stand there, holding my grudge. It is so heavy and awkward. I am straining under the weight and yet I refuse to let go. He sees this. He is so angry at me. I love him and I can't help this. This is the way it is. I promised my twelve-year-old self something and I keep my promises. Every last one.

Ben watches the exchange. It makes him crazy that he can't hear us when we talk without saying anything.

I repeat Ben's earlier threat so that Lochlan knows nothing is going to be different. I obey my husband because it's my choice too but I can frame it in this way and magically piss off the ENTIRE UNIVERSE in the process. And then maybe everyone will leave me the hell alone.

When he's busy, Lochie. When he's away, okay? I can't do any more than that but if that's enough for you then that's what I would like.

I go inside. I drop my grudge on the polished floor and grab one of the handles. Inside, I drag it around behind me because it hurts less than trying to manhandle it all over the place.

***

He is too rough, scrubbing my face with the hot washcloth. Cradling my head in his hand while he tries to remove the bruises and scrapes along with the dirt from my twelve-year-old skin, Lochlan is frowning, near tears but still composed. Barely. He is scaring me and at the same time he is trying to comfort me. We'll get you fixed up okay? Everything is alright. I am here. And you are safe.

The food wasn't that good anyway.

Brunch.

Family meeting.

Kicked out of another restaurant.

Blame Ben. He started the food fight when the voices were raised, when things began to escalate. He doesn't give a fuck. He just thumbs his nose at all of them and plays with his wedding ring.

More later. I'm really not in the mood. Unless you have more pineapple ammunition. We're incorrigible. Which is exactly what everyone seemed to be complaining about.