Herrings in a crimson hue.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

My own personal saint Padraig (PJ!) is sick today and has not ventured out of his boathouse cave (though I've had several SOS texts), and so Daniel and I have retired to Daniel and Schuyler's bed to pour the rest of the Baileys into our coffee, eat all the cupcakes iced in green and alternately play U2 and snark at the canned proposals from all fifteen seasons of The Bachelor.

Hopefully by lunchtime we will be positively shitfaced but in my experience life just never gets that good, now does it?

P.S. Duncan, we saved you a spot. Bring more cupcakes though. Daniel can shove them into his face whole. Amazing what being Ben's little brother can do for one's appetite. Could be worse, at least he's never tried to take a bite of my Macbook.

See ya. Have fun. Avoid the green beer, it's lethal. Okay, by lunch? I meant breakfast. Clearly. Here, maybe he should eat the laptop after all.

Opto-mechanical.

(In my rush to ignore the front lawn that faces the woods and focus on the orchard, the grapevines and the Pacific ocean in my backyard, I failed to notice the two beautiful cherry trees that flank my front walk. All I saw were some sort of previously-bloomed trees when we moved in, I figured early Dogwood, maybe Magnolia if I was very lucky indeed but lo and behold they are baby-pink cherry blossoms and they are EVERYWHERE.)

Here we are with your obsession
Should I, could I

Heave the silver hollow sliver
Piercing through another victim
Turn and tremble be judgmental
Ignorant to all the symbols
Blind the face with beauty paste
Eventually you'll one day know

Change my attempt good intentions
Limbs tied, skin tight
Self inflicted his perdition

He bent down and smoothed my hair back. I think he wanted to see my face. As soon as I felt his eyes fall on my skin I mouthed a curse at him, sure he got the message without a sound. I failed to stand however. I'm going to remain here, crouched in the corner of a dark room with my back to the world until something changes. Only I can't do it in these heels forever. I'm going to have to change my shoes. And the bones of my corset are digging into my flesh and really people should only pull petulant stunts such as these in pajamas.

But I don't have any pajamas.

And so I will do it in full graveyard dress. Sped up and full of film grain, you'll get bored easily and turn off the projector and walk out of the room, leaving the curtains drawn and the air heavy with cigar smoke.

(I'm already dead.)

I did not say that out loud either but he responds as if I have.

Not true.

I nod, slowly. Tears are dripping off my chin, mascara mixed with salt forming cloudy pools on the floor all around me. Soon I will be Alice in the drowning pool. I cast my gaze around for some cookies to eat in order to grow big but let's face it, magic isn't going to save me now. When confronted with a stressful choice I pick the inappropriate choice every single time, as if I am bound and determined to make things more difficult than they have to be.

Yes. You could have been a trophy. You could have been paraded around the world collecting admiration. You could have been fed. You could have been given the best of everything. You could have let your secrets go, and let the chips fall where they may instead of trying to arrange them in the shape of a heart and you could have been mine.

But instead you gave everything to my brother.

This time I nod. I know all this. This is nothing new. I rise up onto my toes in an effort to make my imprint even smaller. At this point I could disappear into his open hand and no one would ever find me but today is not going to play out that way. The strip is flapping off the feeder and no one recognizes the family in these home movies.

(Stop reading my mind.)

But it's so...entertaining, Bridget. As is how when pushed you run straight to me. That touches me. He pulls me up with one hand and I am wedged in between him and the wall. Flames lick up my limbs. It burns. The blue in his eyes is cool and I dive inside before I can be scarred from heat. Sweet relief.

A knock on the door startles him to the point where he loosens his grip and then turns back to give me a look. A look that says put on your public face, we have company and I wipe the backs of my hands across my cheeks and sniff and turn to head for the bathroom to wash my face before anyone can see me.

I am too late and now must present myself in this decorum, which is none at all. Caleb walks back into the room and gestures toward me. Then he steps aside and Cole is standing in the doorway. Relieved that I have been found. An odd emotion for him, considering when he is painting he has a tendency to hand me a twenty-dollar bill and tell me to go find PJ or Christian to take me out for a coffee, that I shouldn't bother him anymore, that he knows I'll turn up sooner or later.

Cole crosses the room to me quickly.

What's wrong? He takes my hand and turns to block me from Caleb. He's standing in front of me and facing Caleb down and I don't really understand why the conversation Caleb and I have at least once every single month is suddenly front page news.

Nothing. I'm fine. Just a momentary lapse.

Overwhelmed?

Yes.

I'll take you home. You need sleep.

I nod and defy Caleb to read my mind this time. Cole's false concern is a mask he wears for the benefit of his friends. Everything is just bullshit and I am knee-deep. He knows damn well his brother has caught on and he knows Caleb doesn't like what he's seeing. He knows his days are numbered and he knows it isn't Caleb who will reap the rewards when I finally find the courage.

The film is changed and suddenly the faces are familiar again. Happy, smiling, fake. Comfort in assumed roles, succor in experience. Nightmares in my future. As we leave I am careful not to place myself directly between them. There's a reason for that. I wave my hand in front of my face to dissipate the cloying cigar smoke and I try to pretend that Caleb can't bring me to tears with his stupid uncanny ability to read my mind as easily as his brother transcribes my heart.

The angel of Highway One.

Jacob is watching me as he stabs the few potatoes left on the plate. He still has his boots on. They're leaving puddles under the table on the tiles. He did take his coat off, however. His collar is standing up, along with his hair, and his sleeves are rolled up. Dinner is serious business. Abandon all pursuits and appearances and dig in.

He points his fork at the radio on the counter.

Want to turn that on for the news, why don't you, Piglet?

No, I don't like the news, Jake.

He shoots me a look of affectionate disdain and impales another piece of potato. He is talking with his mouth full. I can hardly understand him between the food and the heavy Newfoundland accent.

Current events are necessary, Bridget. You need to keep up with what's going on in this world.

At least that's what I think he said.

Maybe the world should keep up with me.

I think it already does.

Good, then. We won't have any more problems.

He laughed loudly and pushed back from the table, finishing a beer in one gulp and standing up. He gathered his dishes and brought them to the counter, turning on the hot water.

I can do those, Jacob.

So can I, piglet. He smiled at me as he poured a little soap into the sink and washed the dishes efficiently, putting everything in the rack. I always forget Jacob was a bachelor for so long and a very good housekeeper besides. Except for the glasses. When he puts the glasses away they are right-side up. I always put them away upside-down. I don't know why but I like my way better.

Want to keep me company in the garage?

Sure.

Get yer coat.

I went to the back porch to collect my coat and Jacob headed down the hall to the guest room to ask Lochlan to keep an ear out for the children, that we might go for a little drive. I didn't hear the response but Lochlan does not have any problems with that. After all, he is currently living here rent-free and so I'm going to take full advantage of him the same way I have perpetually since 1983. He owes me, but for what I can't articulate anymore. It's been too long.

I follow Jacob out through the snow into the dimly-lit garage. He fires up the work light and opens the hood on the Chevy. It's my truck. It's a rusted albatross and an impulsive hunk of waste. It will never run the way I imagine it does in my head as I rumble down the highway firing on hopes and sketchy mechanical skills and a CAA card clenched tightly in my fist knowing full well that every man I know will be positively incensed if I called for roadside assistance from a company instead of calling one of them.

Not like I'm allowed to drive it on the highway here anyway. Here the highway is an infinite ribbon that leads to nowhere after hours of white-knuckle white-out navigation. It is a drive through hell and back out the other side, as we have checked out of civilization and are living in an alternate reality. Lochlan says every time he drives from here to Toronto that he think he has somehow missed the city because it's just nothing but highway for so many hours it's stupid and we really should move already.

Jacob breaks the news to me. She's never going to run well, or run like I am used to with his Ram. Or even the Suburban. She is on life support and everyone has signed her away. We should pull the plug. I am stubborn and I say no.

Jacob is exasperated with my recalcitrance and begins to yell. I should just listen. Maybe he does know better. Maybe I should step back and let someone who is unbiased give me some guidance. Well, shit, he's put on his preacher digs and I'm getting a lecture only it's cold and I thought we were going for a drive.

Objective? Snort.

I pull up the garage door. It takes more strength than I actually have but I'm mad. It flies up easily with a loud clang and Jacob looks up. I walk around and get into the truck and I fire it up. On the third try it actually starts and Jacob begins to walk around to my side just as I throw it into reverse.

I ignore him and back out. On the way I hit the mirror on the door frame and the garbage at the end of the driveway.

He is still yelling but the window is up and I can't hear a word. Good. It's just another lecture anyway about how independence isn't necessary and I should just mind him because he knows better and I'm wondering how I manage to collect these men who think they can just run the show and what it is about me that makes them just take over and do everything?

I drive until I hit the edge of town and then I turn left toward Lochlan's highway of hypnotism, the ribbon that chokes off my escape and lulls me into an endless field of nightmares.

I've never been on this road before, but the first rule of decision making is to just pick something. And left is East. East is never a bad decision.

Except when I turn I pull off into a gas station (fill 'er up, just in case) and I turn off the truck. It doesn't start again because he was in the middle of fixing it and boy, look how foolish I am, just making sure I confirm it for all, with my impulsive actions and rash moments because I never learned how to deal with frustrations and it's some sort of wild instinct that sends me into a spiral and they know how I am better than I do so I won't even try to understand it.

A knock on the window makes me jump out of my skin. Lochlan is there. His truck is idling beside mine. Jake is using his old trick. If a dog runs away you don't chase it or it will just run further. I am the most unloyal pet ever, I guess.

Come on. We'll come back and tow your piece of shit home tomorrow.

I swear. Every bad word I know. I hit the steering wheel for emphasis once or twelve hundred times. Lochlan nods and waits.

You done? Because you make him fucking crazy. Just like you did to me.

You're still here.

Tell me about it. You know, Bridge, I fucked up a lot. More than anyone. But Jacob doesn't deserve to have to deal with the fallout from that.

Then maybe you should apologize to him, because you did this. You and Caleb and Cole. I could have been a normal human being but I'm fucking not, am I?

He doesn't speak to me for the trip home, except to tell me the headline that will be spoken on tomorrow's news report will be something like this:

BRIDGET FAILS TO LISTEN AGAIN. ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.

The paper has the same headline every day. And as I'm falling asleep in the truck on the way home beside Lochlan, I remind myself to get another bag of potatoes. Jacob averages ten pounds a week, by himself.

That can't be normal either.

Words like violence break the silence
Come crashing in into my little world
Painful to me, pierce right through me
Can't you understand, oh my little girl?

All I ever wanted, all I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Vows are spoken to be broken
Feelings are intense, words are trivial
Pleasures remain, so does their pain
Words are meaningless and forgettable

I'm really disappointed. I thought I could go to the man who bought my horses and buy them back for more. Apparently I can't.

Blameless (I can see the moon and it seems so clear).

Lochlan has my hand in both of his. He won't let go, clutching it against his chest, thumping it for emphasis. He's been shouting at Ben for the better part of the afternoon, in between everything else. PJ has tried to calm him down without infringing on our issues but it's a moot point. Everyone has a say, it seems, and none of it is good.

Last night I left my regret in Caleb's hands, my hair tangled in one strong fist as he slid his other hand across my throat and over my shoulder, pulling me closer to him, breathing me in with palpable relief. It's been a long time. I did not resist. I only did what he expects and Ben watched quietly from the balcony, smoking cigarette after cigarette in the pitch black night tinged with a yellow glow from the ambient city lights in the rain.

I listened carefully as Caleb whispered urgently against my ear, I played along as he instructed and I knew that all I had to do if he went too far was scream and everything would be okay because there is no way in hell Ben is going to let Caleb have more than this night. He doesn't get my life. He doesn't get my heart. What he gets is something different. I call him Cole and he responds in kind and the homesick chill bleeds out of my veins in a rush. The relief of being in Caleb's arms is a sick covert thrill I will fail to acknowledge properly because it's reprehensible. But here it is now again, just like the endless rooftop lights of the glass walls he calls home now.

He rises and pours three glasses of red wine, taking one out to Ben. Ben sets it on the table and ignores it. It was still there when I woke up this morning, tangled in limbs, my hair tightly wound around Ben's fingers instead, holding my place in the night.

My head pounds. My skin is raw and flushed. I have forgotten where we are.

Contrition comes flooding back in along with the muted sepia morning light. Caleb is in the kitchen pouring coffee now instead of wine. He is casually dressed in what I call his driving clothes. Black chinos and a white t-shirt. He'll add a black fleece jacket and his sunglasses (rain or shine) and he'll begin to glower now gradually as the day progresses, lifted only by a visit with the children and then a return to the realization that he has begun to wait again for the next time Benjamin surrenders to my pressure when confronted with the perfect chance to turn back time. When reminded that it's not only me we are saving.

These ideals are not shared across the board, obviously and here comes Mr. Outrage to rile against Ben, layering blame upon him until he is buried. Ben who is still working to untangle the mess that Lochlan made so long ago but sometimes Ben is human, easily swayed by his pretty girl and when am I not human? There we were on the balcony, whispering quietly beforehand. Feverishly, in order to ascertain whether we should just cancel this and leave. No harm done. Bridget remains intact.

No, we're here. On with it. I make the decision with my last measure of courage in the face of evil. I talk Ben into things he isn't comfortable with because I know he will come around. At least I hope he will. Life holds no guarantees now, does it, Princess?

If Lochlan thinks we have any less doubt then he is dead wrong. If he thinks I can ever change he is also dead wrong. If he thinks Ben is going to change and become more like Jacob, or worse, more like Lochlan, then he's so wrong he's beyond dead and back to life in a zombie-shuffle-fight-to-the-bitter-end.

When I am moved in the dark, my head hanging upside-down off the edge into the lights while Caleb's hands slide around my neck once more, I see Ben look away briefly. I see him put his hands up to his face as if he is horrified by what he sees and then I see him drop his shame on the floor beside his dignity as he chooses from among his various degrees of excitement instead. And I smile inside my head. In a moment he will come inside. In a moment the guard will change. In a moment I will be liberated from my transgressions. In a moment I will be safe. The homesick will slide back in around my shoulders to complete his embrace but I will be safe.

As Caleb was leaving tonight from his brief stop to see the children, I walked him out to the front hall. We were still talking about Henry's report card as if nothing ever happened. As if there is no abject chronicle written of our lives thus far and he abruptly tells me he has sold the horses. That he had an opportunity to turn a profit and he took it and if the children miss them we can arrange for time at the nearby riding school.

I am so dumbfounded by this I can't speak as he kisses the top of my head and leaves. Eight minutes later I am still standing by the door, tears rolling down my cheeks when Ben comes into the foyer and asks what's wrong and I tell him, woodenly. I am still numb. I love my horses and they've been sold out from under me.

Just as I thought we had smoothed over the bumpy road we traveled when I failed to allow for a smooth spring quarter with the company and delayed his time with me as long as I could and I worked so hard last night to make it up to him and see that he is happy and leaves the boys alone, this is how I am rewarded.

Business as usual. Only it's so personal. You don't understand.

I don't know how many times I've tried to tell you, Bridget. This is what happens. You think you keep him under control and he just erodes a little more of you. He's not going to stop until there's nothing left. WHY CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? Lochlan's voice has returned to a low simmer, seething desperation. I try to pull my hand away and I can't.

I'm not willing to see what happens if I don't engage Caleb. Clearly he's adept at removing things I love when I don't obey his word. I don't see why that's so hard for them to understand. If he requests me, I have to go. Eventually. Inevitably. It's not a difficult concept. I don't have a choice. I never have. Just a reprieve here and there, and look where that has gotten me.

You can take the road that takes you to the stars now
I can take a road that’ll see me through.

Cold water pressure.

This morning the bright yellow grey sky heralds summer in a campground by the sea, the cool damp air seeping into the cracks of the trailer but hunger and the need to pee precludes burrowing deeper under the covers. I grab my hoodie and shrug into it quickly while I search for my jeans, finding shorts instead. I pull them on and zip up the hoodie and head outside.

I smell burned coffee and pine trees and salt. The ash of last night's campfire is fragile and has already blown over the grass. I ignore the beer bottles stacked against the steps and head toward the row of outhouses out on the bluff. What a dumb place for them. It's only when you're exiting that you really get a sense of the wonderful view of wide open Atlantic.

When I return to the camper Lochlan is awake. He has his threadbare white t-shirt on inside-out and his jeans on but the buttons aren't fastened. He is filling the kettle for his coffee. I am too young to drink coffee still. His curls threaten a revolt as he smiles at me. He drinks it in one gulp. He's always been a fast coffee drinker. Breaks are short. It becomes a habit.

Want to go out for breakfast?

It's an old joke. We never have breakfast here. We don't have any food. We get on the motorcycle and drive to the diner once or twice a day and sit in a booth with a scratch-polished table and ripped leather seats and the waitress always frowns because we sit on the same side, Bridget on the inside. And I don't speak even when she asks me a direct question, which if she is anything like me, leads her to believe that he is my captor and I am his unwilling victim, instructed to remain silent lest I give away his crimes.

For my compliance, hash browns. And when we leave he'll turn to me, pull up the hood on my green sweater and make sure the zipper is all the way up, because it's still cold, you see. Especially on the bike.

Friday gloss.

This week I'm well on my way to being organized. I have almost finished Full Dark, No Stars and a Revlon Creme Gloss in cherry tart. The kids and I decorated cupcakes and made some plans for spring break and I've been to a birthday party, parenting mediation and a tsunami warning.

I think this weekend we may go out for Chinese food and see Battle: Los Angeles, which I keep calling The Battle of Los Angeles as if it's a Rage Against the Machine album title (it isn't, just close).

I printed out reams of concert tickets too. Rush and Switchfoot, to name a couple. It's going to be as good a spring for shows as it is for films (Suckerpunch, Fast Five, Thor, Super 8, Circo and that's just for a start).

I have stifled memories, burst into laughter and held my tongue, hanging on for dear life, sitting on it, tucking the bits back inside that threaten to stay out, shoving, sweating, pushing and swearing and throwing latches as quickly as I can catch air. That's hard for me. I am stubborn, but sometimes waiting them out is the only way to travel light.

I have listened to the lawyers when they told me not to write about the devil, because the devil stands to burn everything I know and love down to cinders and the only thing left will be a faded poster still flapping against a power pole in town, held fast by a single rusted staple.

I have tucked myself under Ben's arm as he sleeps unaware, putting my head down against his heart, wishing he had forty-two hours in the day instead of twenty-four, and I have memorized his heart beat so I can play it through my skull when I miss him, even though we have grown fresh skin over the raw open wounds of a year ago, skin that stretches uneasily and bends to accommodate his long days and my penchant for using proximity as a emotional weapon in taking one too many hugs from Lochlan. Too frequent and too long in duration, too close. Enough time to match breathing patterns and unlock muscle tension. Enough time to forget that aching wedge with its twenty-five years of moss, rain and circus flyers stacked up, making the weight unbearable.

I have dutifully sat in the desks of Ruth and Henry's classrooms and listened carefully as their teachers assure me they are doing well. I have exclaimed with delight as their marks have risen dramatically since last term and they both are labeled voracious readers and creative writers. I beam with pride. I can't ask for more from them and yet, this is nurture, not nature. Nature does not beget small humans of this caliber and I can lie awake at night wondering if my choices and my behavior stunt their emotions or perhaps set the stage for decades of therapy when they join adulthood and for now, I am content that so far things working out very well, which means I will earn a temporary reprieve from Caleb's ever-present threat of English boarding schools.

I have admitted to Sam that I really don't want the stress with Caleb's company and he arranged for the decisions to be revisited in the fall, on my behalf. I booked Nolan on a flight here for Easter and I spent a small fortune on new umbrellas. Good umbrellas, because when you pay $25 for a single umbrella it works better and doesn't fall apart within days and I can get on board with that, even though sometimes the boys tell me I am cheaper than a tin can in a one dollar grocery.

Hear it with a soft, slight Scottish accent and it sounds better, believe me.

I have made decisions about things I want. Bucket list stuff. Stuff I really wanted to do before I turned forty or maybe just before I die but no one's listening while they decide what I should do instead so sometimes I wait out my own life with the patience of the sphinx. Only I still have my nose. The rest of me is disintegrating in the elements and across the street is a Pizza Hut. It's a tourist wasteland. Come and visit, always remember.

And I'm melodramatic without even trying, as I'm actually rather content right now.

*rolls eyes*

I don't have a coffee craving or a imminent narcoleptic event brewing and the boys are beginning to trickle home in a slow river of beards and total utter decompression disguised in flannel and denim and tattoo ink, resplendent in the knowledge that I still have my shit together. Something I somehow manage to do better than most people, even when I can't string together the simplest of words.

No one will claim this masterpiece that I found on the table this morning. I wonder who the drawing represents. She looks rather stunned.

Tying up loose friends.

My apologies. I didn't make it back in time to write anything. The day tilted up dangerously on an axis I wasn't prepared for and I hung on with the tips of my fingers until things straightened back out. I don't feel like I did much more than set my mouth in a determined social expression and withstand and wait. That leaves me under the impression that it would be best, just now, if I don't say anything more. Just call the day done and go to bed.

Maturity! A rare thing, like the Aurora Borealis or Daniel singing out loud.

Goodnight.

Long gone.

And when I'm gone
Who will break your fall?
Who will you blame?

I can't go on
And let you lose it all
It's more than I can take
Who'll ease your pain?
Ease your pain

I am heading out into the rain to practice scuba driving and also to shop for umbrellas. Because they all seem to self-destruct on the same day. The very very very rainiest one. Actual post to follow later.

Priorities.

As per this recent post, I did indeed find a coat this morning. And I learned I can't find curtains at all unless they're very generic patio-door-sized rod-pocket panel jobs in the dullest colors on earth, which is how people decorate their homes, I am guessing.

I wouldn't know. I don't seem to harbor any decorating skills at all. And I'm creative but when it comes to the house I don't want neutral, I want....

Carnival.

But you can't dress a house in circus. No one would come to the show. Boo. Hoo.

I'm okay with that for now, I'll leave everything white. What isn't white is beige. It's so neutral it's Switzerland.

As for my coat, I got EXACTLY what I envisioned in my head. That doesn't happen so often. Visions, people! I have a vision in my head of how I would like this house to be decorated and not a sweet clue of how to go about accomplishing that. I just...well, my incredibly...er.. minimalistic/proletarian/gypsy formative teenaged/early adultood years preclude the ability to do ridiculous daredevil things like pay $15 for a coordinating bath mat because what a waste, we already have a bath mat, it just doesn't....match, but at the end of the day when death, drama and dues take up so much of our precious time, who the fuck cares if the bath mat matches the shower curtain?

(The shower curtain is clear in the bathroom I am speaking of. I told you I can't make decisions on such dumb things.)

However!

I can make decisions on big huge things.

And so I quit my job again.

You see, on Saturday we threw a birthday party picnic for Caleb, at Henry's request. It went very well. Everyone had fun. (Civilized! Co-! Parenting! FUCK!) Apparently time with Bridget wasn't plentiful enough and so Caleb sent along a pewter envelope later in the evening. I accepted for us (because I am immature, remember?) and then Ben declined for us and we stayed home and made out with Lochlan instead (because I could say just about anything and that's all you ever think about anymore anyway). Sunday Caleb attempted to reach us once more and I ignored my phone. Monday I attended the board meeting he called as he moves to finalize his retirement and I don't know if it was low blood sugar, fear or just general immaturity (ding ding ding!) but I'm afraid I didn't last very long and I walked out in the middle of the meeting and embarrassed the fuck out of him and accomplished nothing since undoing this will take a lot more than just leaving the building, I'd have to spend another ninety minutes signing papers at the lawyer's office. I hate the lawyers. They have no senses of humor.

Maybe tomorrow I'll do that. Today I am busy picking colors for the circus/beach house, and enjoying my new coat and temporary Pretty Vagrant status. Oh, and making out with Lochlan.

Yes, this is totally working for me.

Those are great, princess.

What are?

Your sneezes. They're just orgasmic.

What are you talking about?

The breathless buildup and then climax and then the afterglowish bless-you thanks.

Wow.

What? I appreciate them, that's all.

Are you that bored?

Yup. Can I play with your phone?

Yes. On second thought, no, don't touch my stuff.

Why? My hands are clean.

I know your hands are clean, but your brain is positively filthy, Padraig.

The maudlin rum.

One of these days
you'll break me of many things
Some cold white day,
but you're crazy if you think
I would leave you this way

You should wake up before the wrath comes
(me and you) could take off before the wrath comes
soon

And one of these days
I pray it will be sometime soon
On a day like today
you'd be crazy not to want me
to teach you the way

Moments into the game last night, Lochlan skated too close to Ben and Ben gave him a shove that sent him to the ground, knocking his helmet off. He came charging out of the net, fast for such a big guy and the others threw themselves between Lochlan and certain death, since Ben never put down his stick.

But Ben had no intentions of hurting Loch. These are simply reminder knocks. Caleb got his later in the game and I'm still not one hundred percent comfortable with him taking Cole's spot, which was occasional player when enough others don't show, because Caleb is the furthest thing from a sporting man that I can envision unless it involves horses, or perhaps water polo or croquet.

Croquet. Yes, when we are all a hundred years old, the swings will come slower, the insults will be unintelligible for hearing loss and the sidelong glances will be ignored on account of dementia. Who is this person and why are they looking at me? I cannot wait for that suddenly. I will sit under a huge umbrella on an old quilt I haven't purchased yet and watch the waves since they will not change over the next fifty years as remarkably as I will.

Mark this day, as it's the first day I have written about a future action, something Sam is always pushing me for, something I am usually too skittish/superstitious to manage since if I jinx it now, then what, Samuel?

He has no answers. He will, however, have a big smile.

Ben brought me flowers again last night. Huge chrysanthemums, a lily or two, what seems to be eucalyptus and something else, a beautiful creamy-pink arrangement that made me smile, for there's nothing quite as striking as a man walking toward me with a giant bouquet of flowers. I needed both arms to hold them as we came into the house, and I feared the biggest glass vase might not be big enough. He would have sacrificed the water pitcher but my plan was to divide the bouquet into smaller arrangements and have flowers in several different rooms. When I said this he simply said he would start bringing me flowers every night, and then the house will be filled.

Long after we left the flowers behind on the main floor, the dark came to claim his generosities, leaving behind his greed as I was held down, stretched out and stung. Turned raw, made whole, scratched smooth. Worn out, to be regenerated in sunlight for the next moonless night. I fell asleep marveling at how badly my limbs trembled, while Ben slept already, one arm tightly wrapped around my frame, weighing me down against the storm so I could not be ripped away from him by bad fortune. Consigned to a welcome oblivion for two.

Sleep came for me and I didn't have a chance to bring my dreams. It spit me out on the side of the road just before five this morning and as I picked myself up and dusted off my skin a light was shining, just around the next bend. Instead of heading toward it, I walked the other way, back into the dark. Toward the place where I have no narrative to cloud my perceptions, no inevitable death to scare my heartbeats into double-time and no flimsy camper-door lock to alter my existence forever.

On not giving in.

When I returned home, I walked straight into Lochlan's room and dumped out the contents of the bag on the desk in front of him.

What the fuck, Lochlan. You could have said something.

What did you want me to say, Bridget?

Maybe that you were serious?

Would it have made a difference? Would you be married to me if I had produced a ring? Is the ring really that fucking important?

No. I don't know. I can't think.

Right. But thankfully the rest of us still can.

I don't make decisions lightly.

So you thought real hard about sneaking out to go see him tonight. Did you touch him too, Bridge? Do you want to show your husband another set of bite marks and crush Ben just a little more?

The only one crushing people around here is you with the weight of YOUR history coming down on all of our heads. I can't even breathe anymore, Lochlan!

Whoops. Touched a nerve. He swiped his hand across the desk, taking the tiny white box in his fist and he stood up, coming around the chair to meet me face to face. He was about to say something awful I'm sure when we both realized Ben was standing in the doorway.

Hey guys.

Lochlan nods. I run over and throw myself into Ben's arms.

What's wrong.

Caleb had a ring that belonged to Lochlan that was supposed to be for me in high school.

And?

And we're fighting over why he never mentioned it.

It was fifteen years ago, bee. Let it go.

Then he kissed my head and turned and left the room.

Ben is like that sometimes. All or nothing at all. Won't give the other boys an inch but he'll give me miles and miles and miles in between.

(It's a Heretic's Fork, and it hurts like hell.)

It's Caleb's birthday today and he has a present for me. Suddenly he has all the time in the world again as he prepares to formally retire at the age of 48, not as old as he looks, for in my mind 48 is grey hair and more lines, more acceptance of the way things are and less resistance to stress, drama, life's bumps and jolts.

He is still frighteningly handsome in the wind and otherwise, and I find myself back on the docks for the second time in two days, wishing I had worn a warmer coat today, wishing I had my scarf instead of hunching my ears down into my collar to avoid the worst of the cold gusts. I find myself daydreaming about Jacob. Jacob was the perfect antidote to Caleb and to Cole, by default. Don't get me wrong. The similarities between Caleb and Cole were few while Cole was alive and now that he's gone it's almost as if they have become the same person and Caleb is now some sort of a romantic half-dead historical figure launched into my present to act as a barrier to any and all happiness that I pursue.

He smiles reluctantly and I am impatient. I need to go. I'm not feeling well. I don't want to be alone with him but he was insistent upon a solitary trek out past the boats jostling one another for purchase against the waves. Ben is working. The boys are home, the children are home and I have driven out under the guise of needing to clear my head and run some errands, replete with promises not to do what I'm doing right this minute. Curiosity is my weakness, I'll admit it. It gave the princess to the devil and it killed the cat too.

It probably killed some grown men I know of, but we won't get into that, because Caleb's going to play this out slowly, appearing to have some sort of five- or perhaps ten-year plan to reel me back in. Some sort of death wish, only it's for me, not for him. They're all so heavily invested in being certain there's no double-meaning and no doubt that I am left collecting breadcrumbs all along the trail through the woods and just as I manage to outrun the wicked witch with her candy and gingerbread house, I find myself face to face with the big bad wolf.

He stands too close. I smell Armani and Irish Spring. He's shaved so recently his skin is smooth enough to touch but I don't. His lips are smooth enough to kiss but I won't and he hands me a bag.

It's your birthday, I tell him. You're supposed to get the presents. Henry will have something for you on the weekend. (Henry is plotting an elaborate birthday picnic lunch for his father. We're going to freeze to death but nine year olds cannot be talked out of their grand plans.)

I think this is something you should see, Bridget.

I take the bag from him and peer inside. Ancient tissue paper has been flattened in folds around another box. A set of stapled notes and receipts is shoved down beside it.

Caleb? Why don't you just tell me what it is.

Just look at it. Please.

I pull out the paperwork first. It's a layaway form from 1986. Lochlan's name is repeated nine times. Eighty dollars each month. Jesus. I'm sure there were months when he didn't come close to making that unless he held some over from the winter working at the garage.

There are several blank spaces and still more spaces where the store appeared to make notes attempting to contact Lochlan for a full year and then Forfeit to Caleb C____, paid in full is written in a different hand, dated August 1989.

I'm not getting it.

Open the box, Bridget.

I don't want to open the box. I think right now I'd rather vomit on Caleb's bespoke shoes or maybe run screaming straight into the Pacific but oh, there's that curiosity again and I'm reaching in.

The box is cream-colored satin. Slightly aged but still crisp. I really don't want to know.

Caleb grows impatient and takes the box from me. He opens it and turns it around so there is no mistaking what's inside. So that I see it, plain as day.

A diamond ring. A beautiful gold and diamond engagement ring. Delicate. One of the nicest I've ever seen. And holy, my head is pounding now and I am beginning to look for an escape route because I don't like where this is going and Happy fucking birthday indeed, your present is you get to fuck with Bridget's head a little more. Just the way you like it, Satan.

Lochlan was afraid that Cole would propose to you before he could pay this off. He was hoping to win you back with this. Amazing the things you find out when you hang out at the circus, dirty as it is. Sadly, Cole beat him to the prize, pardon the pun, and Lochlan let the deadline on his next and subsequent payments pass without acknowledgment. He never even bothered to try and get his money back. He just walked away from it all. Isn't that ironic seeing as how he used to be so poor?

I am dizzy and he grabs onto my arm, tightening his fingers around my elbow until I hold my breath. He bends down so that his eyes are level with mine, his nose touching mine. His lips moving and disturbing the air on mine.

You know what the really ironic part is, here, Bridget?

His eyes are so blue now they have turned black but hey, what do you know? So has the sky, the water and the rest of my soul.

The really ironic part is I wouldn't have let you marry him anyway.

Then why are you showing me all this now?

Because he's gotten too close again, and it has to stop.

Galeforce hearts.

Slight of hand
Jump off the end
Into a clear lake
No one around

Just dragonflies
Fantasize
No one gets hurt
You’ve done nothing wrong

Slide your hand
Jump off the end
The water’s clear and innocent
The water’s clear and innocent

I'm standing between Duncan and Ben.

Everyone is facing the house and I am facing the sea, headphones firmly seated into my skull, chewing gum keeping cadence. Codex on repeat. The perfect song for this grey, blustery day. I am in jeans today, tucked into rain boots and topped with a heavy fisherman-knit sweater. It's cool and Caleb invited some of us for a sail, knowing full well we would have to set out early to be back before the storm, knowing that I would never be allowed to come alone.

They think I am too wrapped up inside my head to notice their conversation but mixed in the piano swell I can watch their faces and see their emotions painted harshly on their features, fervid expressionism, responsive surrealism. I want to smile for the beauty of not needing to hear the words shouted into the wind. I am concentrating on the ocean instead. One good wave and I'm inside her again like a lover and it is so hard for her to willingly let me go. One keen cold roll of the sea and every trace of me will be washed away with the high tide.

Lochlan's face is stone. He's confident that common sense will prevail, like the wind. Ben isn't interested in debating where I am or who I'm with today. He is done with point-scoring, done with timeshares and done with the divided loyalties. Disappointment threatens to spill over and slide down his cheeks to be wiped away hastily with the back of his hand, subject changed, subject closed. Caleb radiates risk and thrill like heat, emanating the dares of his devilish side, proving Cole's personality a hundred times over, dark blue eyes flashing as he looks at me, perhaps he is mollified even with my guarded presence. Perhaps he is planning something different now. His hair whips around his eyes and I am grief-stricken by how beautifully Cole would have changed as he aged.

I clench my fists up tightly, pulling them into the sleeves of my sweater for warmth. The chords surge into my skull and I let my head soar across the water. I don't need to be present for their words. I don't need to be here at all.

Okay, stop it.

I am fully aware the mood difference between yesterday and today's entries are light years apart.

I told you my life was a circus but you didn't listen.

I wouldn't make that mistake again if I were you.

For the sake of argument, gnomes, leprechauns, pixies, elves, trolls and fairies all get lumped in together.

I am still looking for a new jacket for spring. I don't have many requests. It seemed so straightforward: black. Must have a hood and at least a little wind resistance. Slightly lined so I don't freeze my ass off, nipped in a little at the waist. Pockets. At least to upper thigh, not down to my fucking knees for once. Slightly dressy maybe.

Think I can find it? No. Something's wrong with every coat. I keep getting drawn to this one charcoal velvet confederate blazer with ruffles which is gorgeous but not what I need, and I will know the right coat when I see it.

Lochlan asks me if this is going to be the green hoodie of 1983.

In 1983 I was twelve (when have I not been twelve? I am STILL twelve) and I had a grass-green thin weight zip up sweatshirt which was pretty much the same as every North American kid ever. The difference was, when I put the hood up it went into a point.

Like a gnome.

Oh, how glorious!

I was a little tiny blissful freaking gnome and you could pick me out in silhouette because of that ridiculous hood but I wore that hoodie into the GROUND and have missed it ever since. I lost it in the spring of 1986 when Lochlan brought over the backpack full of my things from his cottage/camper/room/truck the year he tried to wipe my presence from his life.

You know how this one ends.

Last weekend in the midst of one of our epic arguments he made some crack about having kept up his end of the bargain in the form of a stack of letters. Not just any letters but a letter he wrote to me on each of my birthdays, starting at nine and ending at thirty-nine.

So far.

Only he said that the movie The Notebook ruined it and it seemed cliche and he never knew what to do with them anyway so he just kept them, and look, here, take them and you can see inside my head since you want to so badly all the time and he went into his closet and took down his big backpack and pulled out a green bundle.

Only I realized right away what the green thing was, wrapped around his letters. My hoodie. My gnome suit.

He rules everything. Absolutely everything. I'm going to look like a TOTAL fucking freak now and I couldn't be happier.

And I still haven't read the letters. As soon as he gave them to me he grabbed them back and said he had changed his mind. Hence the endless weekend tears. Another effort thwarted and I am never ever going to get to know what he's thinking.

And now I'll be wondering in green.

More simple than this.

My favorite sort of winters, the brief thirty-hour ones that roll in as we are finishing dinner downtown at our favorite hole-in-the-wall ramen house and end within a day or two, as the temperatures rise, bringing rain and taking away every last trace of the snow. The children spent most of Sunday building snowmen in the backyard and we found out what still fits and what doesn't when it comes to snowpants, boots and mittens.

Today is blinding sunshine and warm spring air once again. It smells sweet to me, as if spring is coming at last. Just around the corner.

He sat at the desk, waiting while I cried. Wiping my nose on my sleeve, I took hitching breaths. Wishing he would just look at me but he couldn't so instead he kept his hand wrapped around mine and held it tightly while I kept trying to pull it out so I could hit him or hurt him or make him feel the same way just for once and I cried and cried until there was nothing left and then he stood up and grabbed a tissue for me, standing beside my chair while I dried my eyes and pretended to compose myself.

And then I made a break for the door.

He was waiting for that too, and he grabbed me around the waist and lifted me off the ground and just held me there as I thrashed and screamed at him. I called him everything I have ever learned on the show and afterward. I named every flaw he owns and put myself right back at square one with tears, wondering why he's still allowed to make me feel this way when I have come so far without his help.

And still not a word. It's all right there in his eyes. Pretend stoicism, Incapacitating fear masquerading as impatience, ambivalence, embarrassment, even. Maddening silence. I can talk and talk and talk until my voice disappears and I run out of words and he will listen to every single thing and still not respond. Not a word. Then I will throw myself into his arms, forcing him to put them around me and rock myself for far too long before he takes over, the movement less one of desire and more of a habit, a hypnotizing lull.

His life now is the next best thing. The closest he can get to still having his beloved circus without the danger involved for me, because it became abundantly clear that it was no place for a girl and so he was forced to choose between his two only loves. Resentment goes both ways, you know.

I took it away and yet I am what he loved most about it. Though he gets tired of these wordless fights.

We had a lot of years there where we were almost normal, ones where you never would have known how visceral things were, just under the surface. Years we thought we might actually survive one other. Years we thought maybe things had changed.

A wasted effort, all of it. Nothing changes. Ever.

Snow tires and cigars.

When I finally got into my boots, coat and gloves, I went outside to see a row of men standing at the top of the driveway watching the children play in the snow. August was blowing on his hands and rubbing them together, Caleb was smoking a cigar. Ben wasn't watching the children at all, instead turned to face the house, watching for me. I ran down the driveway and threw myself into him. He closed his arms around me when I wavered, having hit a brick wall. I was slightly dazed after that but he hardly felt it. PJ laughed out loud and and said maybe I should start wearing puffier clothes for my own protection. I shot him a look and then winked at him too, just in case. He's been sort of testy this weekend. PJ gets the late February blahs. The only thing that picks him up is Daylight Savings and tea so we have two weeks left to go. I make a lot of tea.

This morning we woke up to a good seven inches of fluffy, packable snow. Coast-snow, a far cry from the powdery granular ice-snow of the Prairies. I didn't like that snow, but it never mattered much, the children were never allowed outside long enough to make anything of it when it was usually -30 or below. At least now it's warm enough to still stand around without gloves or a hat and enjoy yourself. It's real winter, the best part being all of it will be gone in a day and a half when the rain returns because the tiny little cold weather spell is over.

I hope the crocuses survive because they were popping up EVERYWHERE, and I know that in just a couple of short weeks the cherry blossoms will explode everywhere too. And I cannot wait. In the meantime I have had my fill of cigar smoke, because like woodsmoke, gasoline and freshly-mowed grass, it's one of those wonderful smells I absolute adore. I have had my fill of Satan, who stopped by to see Henry's latest school project and help Ruth with a game, and I have had my fill of the snow again, because I don't like winter, you see. Fall is my favorite time of year, when it cools off just a little. That's when the leaves turn beautiful colors and the ocean is as warm as it can be after a full summer of sunshine.

Better left.

Is that what it is? The grand gestures? The fact that they fall all over themselves to see to your happiness?

There's no magic formula so you should save your breath.

You don't believe in second chances?

No and don't tell me you do. You never gave me any.

I'd like to, now.

It's too late. I mourned you first.

You got in over your head and couldn't get back out. It wasn't your fault. And I should have done something.

You should have done a lot of things.

You were supposed to come back.

No, I wasn't.

Look me in the eye and say that.

No.

No because you don't believe the words coming out of your own mouth. Peanut, what did you talk yourself into this time?

He had asked me that question once before, the day I spent all of my pin money on blue cotton candy and ate nothing else for a whole day and then had a single warm beer and spent the remainder of the evening behind the trailer, barfing up blue foamy surprise. He laughed then and walked away, back to the bonfire. I crawled back into the camper, wiped my face on his last remaining clean t-shirt and fell asleep fully clothed in the center of the bed. I never did figure out who he was more angry with that night, me or himself.

He takes care of me.

I took care of you too, once upon a time.

You took a pass, that's what you did. You hung me out to dry and you let Cole take over and look what happened.

If you love someone, set them free. He laughed bitterly and took a sip of his drink.

It wasn't meant to be, Lochlan.

Sure it was. The fortune teller told you so.

You never told me what she said to you.

Because she was a sham. Because it's not important.

Then you can tell me.

He took a longer drink this time. Courage, it meant and I regretted asking. I am done. I don't want to talk anymore.

She said that I would forever be watching you fall and be unable to help you. And that it was my punishment for what I have done.

But nothing had happened yet, Loch.

He nodded. Cold blood ran through my veins as I took the glass right out of his hand and finished his drink. It was pure whiskey and I was wholly unprepared.

I coughed hard and pushed the glass to him. I don't need this. I don't need him. I don't need these feelings bubbling up all the time like air bubbles trapped beneath the surface. But they do, and I have to get used to it. Just like he does.

Soap and glory.

I sat quietly on the edge of the bathtub while he dipped the facecloth into the nail polish remover. My skin is slightly pink and raw now, but he is gently working to remove the last of his words. I wanted to let them wear off gradually but he is somewhat sheepish about people's opinions of Bridget as his own personal canvas.

He paused and smiled at me and then went back to slowly scrubbing the back of my knee, head tilted to the side. He is concentrating on removing as many letters as he can without causing any undo amount of suffering but my skin tingles and burns.

It's the best love letter I've ever gotten, Ben.

I didn't do it to win a competition, bee.

I know that. I just wanted you to know anyway.

He stopped and dropped the cloth into the tub.

There, I think you're good as new.

I wish I was new sometimes.

Me too, bee. But it won't stop me.

He reached over his head and pulled his t-shirt off and then slid down his jeans and stepped out. Starting the shower with one hand, he checked for the hot water and then turned off all the lights in the bathroom. He took me by the hand and pulled me into the spray against his chest and smoothed my hair back from my face. His hair is dry. He is above the spray and I am drowning.

He proceeds to wash off all the caustic chemicals he had to use on my skin and he promises not to do it again, that next time he will paint the words in chocolate, or maybe in icing or lip gloss and eat the results, that he forgets I'm not so tough, that I am accountable and I am so done with his unwarranted apologies so I pull his head down, pulling myself up around his neck and I kiss him. He stops talking. It's like a miracle and I'm in control for a few blissful seconds until he pushes me into the wall and I am his object once again to be used and admired and ruined.

And ruin he does. :)

By the time we are finished my skin is wrinkled and throbbing. Heck, everything is throbbing. He turns off the water and wraps me in a towel and bursts out laughing. I am pink all over. A little lobster.

He pulls the towel off and bends down around me. A long hug. A never-let-go hug. An I just totally destroyed your dignity and everything is just fine now hug and I reach up and hold on so hard. I think I could almost fall asleep if I wasn't practically hanging and he whispers in my ear,

Okay, maybe it was a competition. And I nailed it. Just like I just nailed you.

He makes his letch-face and I can't help but laugh out loud. Ben is like that. From class to crass in the blink of an eye.

I still wish he had left the words. I wasn't finished taking pictures yet.

The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
- C. S. Lewis

And quoted by my dear friend Sam from his favorite book:

Be sober, be vigilant because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.

Heavy sleep.

I've lost all that I wanted to leave
I've lost all that I wanted to be
Don't believe that there's nothing that's true
Don't believe in this modern machine

This morning I followed Lochlan into the kitchen. I can't seem to open my eyes, sleep clings to me like a shroud, reluctant to burn away with the sun. I move past him and head straight for the brew button on the coffeemaker when I hear him swear. He walks over to me and pulls back the neck on my t-shirt and looks at my skin. Another curse and he turns me around to face him and lifts up the front of my shirt. It's then that I realize what he sees.

I am covered.

Head to toe.

In Benjamin's words.

The only things he didn't write on were my arms from the elbows down and my face and neck. He wrote in black sharpie over tattoos and over blank places alike. When the black ran dry he switched to purple and kept on writing until he was finished. It took me all morning to read it, to the point where I was standing on the counter in the bathroom to see the hard to reach places.

On my toes it says BENLU VSBEE.

And here I said I was a light sleeper.

The late shrift.

Take a breath
Hold it in
Start a fight
You won't win
Had enough
Let's begin

I know how he thinks, how his mind has twisted the present into a blend of the past and the future, a dreamworld in which he doesn't have to be absent in the moonlight or center stage in the circus instead of watching from the back, fingers laced with mine, or arms tightly wrapped around me while I stand tucked into his coat, clapping my hands, jumping up and down, banging the top of my head against his chin, making him swear like a gentleman pirate or just a highly irritated teenage boy. Ow. Owowow.

This was in the days before beard growth seemed very successful at all, something that doesn't seem to happen until one's late twenties, it seems. It's okay though, he was always chewing gum on top of my head, grinding his chin against my skull gently but endlessly so if I jumped up and he bit his tongue then it was what he deserved. His chin is softer now. Did I mention I love beards? Because I do and that is partly why. They hurt a hell of a lot less.

The nickname Lochlan gave me was the very first. Had I started this journal before 1997 it would have had a vastly different name. Hell, I'd have a whole different identity, perhaps.

I've never shared it with anyone because it evaporated suddenly along with my dreams of living my life out on the road with the show. Lochlan stopped using it the day he broke up with me when I was still too young to fully understand heartbreak and I haven't heard it since. Apparently it was something he continued to use under his breath or in his head, much like I'll walk around calling Ben a shithead but never OUT LOUD because that isn't nice, right?

Right. So out of the blue Sunday night Lochlan said it, and I'm not sure if he slipped (but he doesn't slip, for he is perfect) or if it was a calculated attempt to undermine Benjamin (which he does, we're just not bright enough to catch him) but he came into the dining room last night long after dinner was finished, dressed in his armor, ready for battle with the road, jacket not zipped up yet but two helmets threaded up his forearm. One was mine.

Want to go for a quick ride, peanut?

Ben's fist hit the table and the dishes jumped six inches, causing Ruth to call down the stairs to see if we were finally having an earthquake and was she missing it? And PJ put his hand on Ben's shoulder as in, get up and I'll step in if I have to.

Because the children had already gone to bed for the night and the last thing they need is to bear audible witness to any more violence or sadness or anger, ever. I'm dreaming when I say I want to shield them from all of it and sadly they understand how emotions can get the best of people but they also know that we all need to work harder to keep ours under control, and to control our outbursts and impulses. Being human, this is hard. Being in a complicated environment such as this, harder still.

Lochlan didn't move a muscle, he just kept staring at me, waiting for my answer, waiting for nostalgia to kick in and point out to me that he had just called me something he called me every ten minutes for six years straight and something I may have missed dearly but had filed away for all eternity up until that moment last night. Ben saw my face. I was horrified by how I felt, hearing it after so long.

Ben didn't let me say anything though. Instead all my efforts were focused on getting out of the way as he upended the dining room table, dishes and all but only half of it came away because the leaf is out and I couldn't get the two halves to click back together properly last week. He was in Lochlan's face in two seconds flat, PJ holding him back but barely. You can't hold Ben back. He's a locomotive with a chip on his shoulder, anger-management classes be damned, all this damage over one little insignificant circus peanut.

Only I am not insignificant, nor am I exclusive. Anymore, anyway.

PJ's grip on Ben put him at a disadvantage and Lochlan clocked him with the helmets. Reflex? Opportunity? I'll never ask. I'm not sure Ben even felt it as badly as everyone else heard it, since he is singularly focused in his jealousy and impervious to pain besides. Lochlan isn't strong enough to hurt him but for that awful moment I doubted that fact and I thought he had hurt Ben and I kind of zoned out and Daniel was there by then and he took me out of the room, upstairs and we told the kids the table fell and the boys were arguing over the best way to put it back, shucks, you know how loud they are, sorry, and I pushed away from him and ran back downstairs to the dining room and Schuyler had invited Lochlan to get his sweet face out of Ben's universe and he put the helmets aside and PJ was standing while Ben was sitting with his elbows on the table. Working to keep control.

It's just a name, Benny. I said it quietly but I don't think he heard me.

PJ shook his head in warning. I ignored it. Ben exploded up out of his chair once again and this time he didn't get a pat on the shoulder from PJ, he got tackled from behind. My poor Ben. Everyone is hurting him, he just wants to be happy.

PJ put him on the floor and Ben flipped over and stood back up and asked him if he was fucking insane, that he wasn't going to hurt me or anyone else and what the fuck, who decided whether or not he could touch me when Lochlan seemed to get a free pass from everyone under the sun. To do whatever he wants, all the time, with no one second-guessing him or evaluating him or telling him to back off/cool down/step back/give up.

Exactly.

So PJ took a step back and Lochlan threw another one of those stupid unpredictable punches and Ben grabbed the front of his shirt and it was on. They brawled for a good minute on the floor as if it were the rink and I think they both came out of it hurting, judging by the amount of blood I spent the morning washing out of clothing and the pile of buttons here to be sewn back on their shirts.

I did not find any teeth this time. Huh. They must have gone easy on each other after all.

They made up under threat of being sent to live in the garage, together. Forever. Because I can't have this in the house. I can't have this near the children, asleep or awake. I can't deal with this and I can't really deal with Lochlan choosing to space out his attacks on my heart like this. I think I like it better when they just throw everything they have at me and I can reject it and things return to a quiet simmer.

Lochlan used my nickname again last night and I'm not really sure if he has a deathwish but Ben's fingers tightened around his fork and he just kept on listening to the idle chatter around the table. Later in the dark he held on to me as I gave myself up to the night. Dreamless sleep. No circus, no music, no nightmares and no ghosts. As long as he's touching me I can fall hard, like a peanut onto the hard-packed dirt of a circus tent floor. I'm certain I'm not deserving of the amount of attention I get from either of them, but they seem convinced that I am.

Peanut. What the fuck.

Found a distraction in my inbox. You're welcome.

(You can click to make this bigger, I think.)

Here. Someone wanted to know what I carry in my purse. The now-infamous Maggie Bag from Coach, joined by the Poppy Groovy wallet, both in a strange sparkly black leather that gets softer and more fluid every week that I bash them around, because I'm hard on things. I don't mean to be, maybe I just finally have things of quality that can stand up to a little enthusiastic use.

So...inside the bag? A map of metro Vancouver. Because I get lost a lot. Covergirl pressed powder (I am so NOT a makeup snob) in vampire-pale. Clinique Mascara in blacker-than-night, Covergirl eyeliner. I forget what color, either green or black. A brush to separate my lashes in case I actually use the mascara, because I am messy.

Lanolin hand cream because nothing feels better than innersheep-grease (says Duncan). Sexy Motherpucker lipgloss (which is painful, holy shit), two Peaceful cause-metics balms (one chocolate, one rose), Tokidoki lipgloss, 2 Loreal and a Kat Von D gloss (AKA snacks for Ben), a pill bottle containing a bunch of Advils for grownups, a couple of children's Advils and a few Lactaids. Bandaids.

My apple noise-canceling headphones. A pen. Too Cute mints that have a slide-out mirror. Bach's rescue remedy. Various bobby pins, hair ties and a ouchless clip for my perpetual twist. Cough drops, my vampire picnic cosmetic bag from Kukubee and my key ring. If you look to the far right you can see the baby blue glittery enamel Princess charm that Jacob bought for me seven billion years ago on a lark.

There, one mystery solved. I bet you were hoping that the contents of my purse were far more sinister than they are. Actually you would be right. Missing from this photo at my lawyer's request are the condoms and sex toys, lit fireworks, monogrammed guitar picks, pocket fire extinguisher, dozens of stolen still-warm human hearts I have begun to collect, and a live goat. Just in case.

I wonder if you are sorry you asked?

(This boy does not care what's in the bag, unless I'm carrying his feed bag, in which case he knows I have apples and sugar in my pockets and he gets right down against the fence and gives me the eye. )

Baudelaire Sundays

Because nothing says a darker, sunny Sunday like very good French poetry.

Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour
Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière.

Je trône dans l'azur comme un sphinx incompris;
J'unis un coeur de neige à la blancheur des cygnes;
Je hais le mouvement qui déplace les lignes,
Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris.

Les poètes, devant mes grandes attitudes,
Que j'ai l'air d'emprunter aux plus fiers monuments,
Consumeront leurs jours en d'austères études;

Car j'ai, pour fasciner ces dociles amants,
De purs miroirs qui font toutes choses plus belles:
Mes yeux, mes larges yeux aux clartés éternelles!

Joining millions of bloggers everywhere by taking a picture of my lunch.

The snow trimmed the neighborhood in white but we went out in force anyway. Dry pavement, full sun, the promise of a round of chowder for lunch and people-watching, turning the tables on those who think just because they've seen someone in a magazine they have earned the right to eavesdrop on their existence. Cold wind on the motorcycles, my face was red under my helmet, hair making a halo around my collar where curls would escape from where they were left tucked in. Ben did a last minute inspection of me and told me to signal him if I was too cold. I believe he still thinks I am made of glass by day and opaque indestructable marble at night.

I did not signal. I should have signalled. Okay I had one truck ride with Schuyler when the traffic crawled to a virtual standstill when a nearby neighborhood was cleared of traffic and inhabitants due to an IED found in a park (Hurt Lockerish photos from the news) so our plans were actually truncated by the ridiculous wait times on the highway but still, it was enough over a break from ducking under rainclouds that I feel somewhat sated and less wanderlustish tonight.

Until the morning, anyway.

Lochlan did not pull rank when I did not join him. He took his fast bike anyway and I'm generally nowhere near it because he's a bit of a maniac on it but I still think he was hoping for a little time. He doesn't need time, he is home all week, working from his little home office off his bedroom, close by to have all the time in the world so this day was about time with Ben. Scrunched in beside him in the booth. I had given up my crackers to the kids when the waiter lost our order (I think he was a little overwhelmed by the boys) and Ben shared his crackers with me to crumble into my chowder.
It was good (and OMG I am so messy). The whole day was good. Except for the IED part. That was completely unnecessary and a little over the top.

Even for us.

Sentimental circus (no sideshow).

And if you think real beauty's on the outside
Well that's a far cry
From the truth

Maybe all the information you received
Well you should not believe
There's no proof

PJ returns to the house after a brief holiday and the house returns to a completely comical version of its unbridled self. PJ runs a tight ship. PJ lives in my boathouse, so no surprise there.

But he is never down there. Instead he stands behind me as I navigate my days, giving Caleb these looks that just stun him into total silence or incredibly obvious subject replacements because for some reason PJ's word is gospel where no one else has ever set their hands on such a scripture before. Maybe it's because I do so well when he is around. Maybe it's because of the full moon/impending spring. Even Lochlan follows PJ's directions like a spoiled but compliant little boy and Benjamin wouldn't question PJ even if PJ told him to go naked bungee jumping for a good cause.

For the record..we're not going. We do give a lot to causes we believe in, and we keep the organizations and the donations closely guarded for obvious reasons. It makes it easier to deflect those who flat-out ask for money (don't).

Besides, Bridget (at almost forty) versus gravity? Are you out of your mind? There's a risk I won't take and I won't even get started on the whole leaping willfully off a high place because it's just not the way today is and so let's close the flap on that tent and move along to the larger, more colorful, bustling hard-floored tent that you've been watching us raise up in the dust for days.

Which is that I've been taking a lot of supplements lately.

Not a lot, just a few. But many days have since passed and I've been noticing something amazing that sort of surprised me and pleased me at the same time.

Mental clarity.

(Oh, God. There's PJ, reading over my shoulder like a nosy transit rider, chortling to himself over precisely how much mental clarity I could possibly have left when my head is so freakishly small and I stumble over the children's names fourteen times a day usually and I write every single thing down so I don't forget and really at this point he is becoming a thug, like a volunteer bouncer/well-compensated security guard looming behind my shoulders snarling at everything in sight so what exactly would he know about mental acrobatics and really, you want to see something amazing, PJ? Come over here and hold this rope and I'll show you the trick where I slide down to the knot with one leg locked on it and then turn myself around in mid-air, supporting my own weight, while it swings at fifty miles an hour. Dizzying, hey? Now shut the fuck up.)

No, really! It's uncanny. I haven't missed anyone's name in three days. I have remembered to take my vitamins/put the laundry in the dryer/walk the dog/send a thank you card/call the dentist without writing down a single thing.

That doesn't happen, but it's happening. Now. To me.

I can't imagine the fun of being able to retain the pages I read or the continued success in having random conversations without fluttering, stuttering, pausing to conjure up the right words or that thought I had right before I heard Ruth/the helicopter in the sky/the windchimes/doorbell/ringing phone.

I also feel happy without a specific reason. Stupidly so.

So it's definitely either spring fever or the thought of a full-frontal before-and-after shot of any naked bungee jumpers in my vicinity, with their newly stretched-out limbs and distorted naughty parts.

I'll figure it out eventually. I'm off to infect the big lunk with a little 'clarity'. Because he's walking around singing that stupid Britney Spears song. The new one. Because he knows I don't appreciate popular music in the way most people do.

I'm fine with that, too. (<--Not Britney Spears but also a new video on the scene this week. It's awesome).

Jacob would tell me, Just say the day was challenging, Bridget.

The day was challenging, Bridget.

Kiss principles.

The resistance to dishwashers ran long. Not only due to living in the hundred-year old castle with the sketchy wiring and sporadic successful plumbing but because they represent the final hurdle into full urban routine and domestic complacency. Now that we have set up in a new location and the house is new and the dishwasher is RIGHT THERE, I have had to make peace with the thing, and still wash fully half our stuff (thermal coffee mugs, PJ's eyeglasses) by hand, thank you very much.

I am so feral and uncontainable and the circus still runs through my bloodstream painfully so, to the point where it was really quite a brutal moment last week when Lochlan's mother saw the dishwasher flung open and pulled apart so that the fresh clean dishes could DRY already and mentioned that I could buy rinse agents to speed that along exponentially.

Oh.

Really?

Must I?

I bought the little bottle of 'jet-dry' when I was buying apples and carrots and coffee and birthday cards and I brought it home and regarded it suspiciously for several days and this morning I had to search 'adding rinse agents to dishwasher' online in order to see where exactly I had to put it and how much and what is that dial for with the numbers on the inside and let's go halfsies and see what happens and I wish someone would hold the flashlight and really...

You know what?

Life was not so hard living in a camper without a clean dish and hanging off the bar in the lights by my knees, being passed a chocolate chip cookie from a well-meaning rigger and calling it supper and really I would have balked quite magnificently at paying $7.99 for a bottle of something that makes my dishes pretty, unless I could have used to to wash down the random meals I was given as well.

So there.

If time was never on our side
then before I die I want to burn out bright

I had my head against the plaster, facing the wall. Away from the windows and the doors. I would have been smack in the corner if only the big plant stand wasn't already there. I don't rearrange furniture in order to find escape, I simply turn away from the light so you can't see my face. I close my eyes and wish myself into oblivion.

And yet I am still right there and his eyes are burning holes into my back. I can feel the cotton of my shirt burning away. Dammit all anyway, Jake. I really liked this shirt.

Why don't you just wait and see before you panic, pigalet? He asks. He is not taking me seriously, which is a good counterstance for the fact that I take myself too seriously and I am always full of expectations and abilities I don't have a hope in hell of fulfilling but then when I stop expecting so much everyone else starts and it's frustrating that when I am sick I should stop but when I am afraid I must keep going. Who made those rules and why do they need to apply to me anyway? If they work for you, great. I'm not interested. We've come to the point in the lecture of life that doesn't apply to me so I will excuse myself now and go and wait facing the black wall in the dining room with my head pressed against the cold cracked plaster and my brain screaming at me to get a grip.

Sometime during the night things were removed and replaced. Cast changes when the show isn't going well.Don't think your admonitions don't reverberate from inside my brain as well and I'm afraid the noise is never ever going to go away, drowning everything else out and the only thing that quiets it is the music and even that seems more difficult than it should be sometimes.

You don't speak so much as condemn, stacking your words against the top of my skull until I can no longer take a step and I am frozen in place by your disappointment but I know it's your own fear reflected in my eyes and you don't want to see that, ever because then you'll have nothing to hold over me.

Regret comes slowly, like the sunrise. And I only ever wanted a chair but I'll warn you, I'm still going to turn it to face this wall too because I'm not sure about you. You don't seem to have earned the right to judge my expressions and I'm incredibly angry that you think you have the right to evaluate my fears and discard the ones that shame us all. I didn't intend for that to happen, hell, I would just give them all away if I could and be like everybody else and instead I can't stand up to you in case you respond poorly so it's easier to find the disappointment in the pores of the wall and give my wishes to the stars, who will in turn absorb them until I have forgotten what they were and the noise and the dark will continue forever and ever, amen.

My patience is wearing thin, like the paint on these floorboards. I should fix this but I really don't care.

Queen of Hearts.

I feel like a giddy fool today, and not because Ben and I forgot to wish each other a Happy Valentine's Day. Give us some credit. At 4:45 am I'm lucky if I can remember to put my underpants on BEFORE my jeans, so really the extent of my skills are not social at that hour. Besides, he brought home flowers last Thursday night because he didn't want to forget the holiday and I gave him a card last night after we indulged in our favorite Chinese take-out. The sexual favors were traded all damned weekend and really, we are not lacking for romance in this house so don't worry about me. Besides. I can always go mack on my boyfriends. (Since you persist in being so awful, I'll join you. My, the water is warm in the gutter here, isn't it?)

In other news, I have eight hundred billion things to do today, I just noticed the floors are a DISASTER after rain all weekend and I am so not awake yet and really I don't care about the Radiohead album but I am patiently waiting for the Switchfoot one (GRAMMY winners now, DID YOU SEE?) and in the meantime I am...

...birdwatching.

Okay, headphones, dog that doesn't say much, absent bears, deers and cougars aside, the only interesting creatures we keep running across on the four or five long dog walks I take with the dog each day are yellow-breasted chats. Cute little fat yellow birds that live in the woods of my neighborhood. They are obnoxious, loud and adorable (now I know why the boys love me) and they're a little shy but not all that much. The dog doesn't care to eat them the way he seems to want to with hummingbirds, sparrows and finches (hawks, crows, owls, cats, bugs, please name anything else that breathes here) and I'm really proud of myself for looking up their proper names, past Oh my God, Duncan! There's one of those fat little yellow birds again! Look! Fuck! You missed it! Argh!

So there.

I will see Benjamin at supper time and the rest of the boys over the course of the day so I hope you have a lovely day. I am off to attempt to duck under, outrun and generally stay out of reach of Satan today. Because Satan can do a holiday like no one else and really he needs something else to focus his attention on, so if you have a recently-infected zombie or spare mushroom cloud or a giant man-eating bird I can distract him with, please hook me up ASAP.

Dangerous new pasttimes.

While they fight over me, I have a tendency to disappear. In my dreams at night I look for Jacob, and Ben will pull me out of the night and take what he wants from me and then leave me to fall back into the dark where every sign sends me in loops and the map is washed and faded, illegible and the way home is something reserved for after I have found what I need. It will be interesting when they do my autopsy someday. Not only will they find the pieces of my heart strung together on a tangled black cord but they will discover my shrunken pie-chart of a brain, divided by name, given to forgetting what the right hand was doing while the left hand took control.

I think I found him last night. He's been gone again for weeks and I want to yell at everyone that they are awful for living without him. Forgetting him. For pretending that life goes on because it doesn't. I am still waiting for him. When he was here the only one I missed was Cole, namely because whenever I touched Jacob I would think this was just insane, that I was finally able to not be afraid of his jealousy. But I keep waiting for Jacob to talk to me, to try and make everything better. To keep the boys in their corners and to keep me from sabotaging myself every waking moment of the day and sometimes of the night too.

In my dreams I listen to him sing. I watch his eyes as they smile or show concern when the rest of his face is stone, and I watch as they fill up when he is sad and slowly close when he is tired. Never once did I get to watch him fall asleep. He would not sleep unless I did first, and then he would lie at the ready to fight any demons that appeared in the moonlight, whether they be real or a product of my vivid and quite insane imagination.

Ben does not fight demons in the night, he sleeps on through, a novelty still from years of sleeping all day, or worse, not sleeping at all. He loves the routine of being home but he still loves to work too and I have entirely too much time where I feel the familiar sting of forbidden actions and instead I poke around the unused corners of my brain looking for dreams that are left behind.

A moment or period in time perceptible as intermediate between past and future.

I heard Ben's truck because he always beeps three times when he pulls in. Otherwise he has a tendency to sneak up on me and that isn't a good idea. I scream so loudly.

He came through the door somewhat slowly. I made it down the steps and into the front hall in time to see the door open. Ben looked at me and he smiled softly. So softly. Hopefully, almost. He closed the door and turned to face me.

I have a Present for you.

He looked defiant, almost. Cynical. But hopeful was edging those both out in a spectacular finish and when I thought hard about his words, I nodded. He may not have as long a history with me, but he has Now and he'd like to keep it.

I nodded. I ran and threw myself into his arms. I did not let go. I won't let go.

(The present, not the past. You people have no imagination. I give up).