Champion of the world.

Nothing you would take
Everything you gave

Did I say that I need you?
Oh, did I say that I want you?
Oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see
No one knows this more than me
And I come clean

Outrageous. He's not holding to his word anymore, Bridget.

He's using logic as a weapon tonight. He's highly annoyed. The eyebrows are working overtime. I'm glad he cut his hair, I get treated to the full complement of facial expressions. Otherwise I just see a faceful of curls and his mouth.

I know but look at the other side of the coin. We have the whole peninsula now.

It's a trick coin, Peanut! Remember?

It will be good for the others.

My whole wing is vacant, Bridget. You could fit a couple of them in there.

That's your space.

That's my space, right there. He nods in the direction of the driveway where the camper sits with big wooden chocks behind the wheels. I never needed much. My sketchbooks and torches. He looks down at me. You.

I know.

But now it's out of control. I can't live like this.

You don't have to change anything.

Sure I do. This is it. The deciding factor. The final piece of this experiment and now it's all-in, Bridget. It's a compound. And he owns all of it.

You're making it sound like it's such a big deal. Caleb bought the house next door. That's it.

But now he has the whole peninsula, as you said. A hell of a lot of prime real estate.

And you're threatened by his money suddenly?

Lochlan shoots me a warning look. No, I'm threatened by his proximity. To you. To my daughter. To Benjamin. This isn't healthy.

Like you said, it's an experiment.

And you're the subject. That isn't right.

I would use Caleb to get Daniel and Schuyler out from under their mortgage any day. They can't afford that house. Having them move into the house next door and having Christian and maybe Corey have their own suites there too will help all of them immensely. Do you want to deny your friends the same help you received?

I want nothing from him. I never asked for this.

But you got help by default, Loch.

Jesus, Bridge. You're not going there. Not tonight.

I want to help them. It has nothing to do with Caleb.

He sees it so differently. His eyes are pleading and I can see his thoughts.

(No further. No more. You'll only get so far from me, Peanut and then I'll call you back and you'll come skipping down the dirt road at sunset, sugar streaked across your cheeks, tangled hair with daisies braided into your curls, and you'll ask if we can stay out later but I always have to disappoint you because you need a good nights sleep while I hold you so you can grow up healthy and someday leave all this danger, these thrills behind. Only I failed to help you do that and it's all still here, right behind me. I drag it with me as I walk.)

I straddle his knees and take his face in my hands. It's how I get them to pay very close attention. Old habits die hard, I've been doing it since I was nine.

I don't care how he sees it. I only see it as a means to an end. The land is worth far more unified and everyone will be in one place. I'm even going to propose some space to Matt and Sam, if they want, it might help them sort out their stalemate on living together. It's a good thing, Lochlan, please.

Then tell him you're using him.

He knows. I don't think he cares.

Exactly. He doesn't put your feelings first. It doesn't matter who you love, there he is, right there dismissing your plans for his own. That's not right, Bridget. Things aren't getting better with him here.

That's what Ben has been saying about you, remember?

I always put you first.

If you did that you wouldn't be here now would you! I shout it at his face. It's not a question, it's an observation.

Do you want me to go? Because I can go, Bridget and then you can live happily ever after with the Boogie Man and Frankenstein but don't cry for me when you wake up and you're afraid of the dark because I won't be there to soothe your fears. No one will. They're both too wrapped up in themselves to do the job. You know it and I know it and THEY know it.

You weren't there for y-

I'M HERE NOW!

He was so loud I was scared into silence.

I'm here now. Repeated in a whisper as his hand takes mine and brings it up to his lips, warm as they press against my skin.

Hades waits.

(A very vivid dream, but a dream nonetheless. Dalton said it was 'just a dream' which reduced it to manageable for me. If it's only a dream I can control it. Right? What do you mean, no?)

It took him forever and a day to open my hands. In one was a broken lock, the inside of the tiny door handle, the mechanisms that failed. In the other was everything else, the air removed, sealed into a tiny package. I can add water later and it will grow back to normal. It took even longer for me to open my eyes, I had squeezed them shut tight against the lies and promises, against the epic block of time I would never get back again. Life is over before it's even begun, that's what this sign says, while the one up ahead says Hell: Next Exit.

We get off here, sweetheart.

He smiled when he said it, arm resting on the door sill, aviators in place, hair ruffling in the breeze.

I didn't even want to come here. I sit back and cross my arms. It's a momentary lapse, this outward petulance. I resume the vacant stare out the window. I've been subsisting on panic and silence. Neither contains enough fuel to see me through. I know the platitudes involve things like keeping my strength up and looking after myself but somehow that just happens and I'll have nothing to do with it. I can stand here on the side of the road and watch as I drive past and wave only I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what the directions mean or what hell even looks like. This is not the roadtrip I planned. This is not the life I lead. This was not how things are supposed to be.

Pull over, I tell him. It's not a request, it's an order so he does when he sees the panic in my eyes and I rush out the door, almost tripping in the dry tall grass on the shoulder and I bend over, automatically pulling my hair back with one hand. He comes around and puts his hands on my shoulders and I wait for the retching but it doesn't come. Why is my head spinning? My stomach is empty and he knows that so he yanks me back up to face him.

You lied, Bridget.

I nod. I'm not going to verbalize anything. I no longer care. I'm the passenger. This is not my trip.

Why did you lie?

Silence again. What am I supposed to tell him, that I thought I could pull it off? That I thought I could eat the cake, that I thought everything would work out, that I like to torture myself because I've never felt worthy of any more than that? Fuck him. He doesn't deserve an answer any more than I deserve to know the reason I'm here in the first place. A few words on a page and complete and total invisibility besides.

He forces me back into the car, buckling the seatbelt around me, frowning at my obsolescence.

This is not a reason, it's a minimum at best, a tangent. A will to persevere in spite of nothing. Some will say it wasn't for nothing but that's a lie too and I see right through it. We drive through it and it spreads and dissipates onto the wind.

He takes the turn too fast but nothing happens. The car drives like it's on a rail. He smiles.

Almost home, Bridget. Then we can rest.

I've been here before. It hasn't changed a bit. It's exactly like I remember it and at the same time I have no memory of this at all.

This isn't my home.

Everyone feels like that at first. Just give it ti-

We need to turn around! I shout it and scare myself but Caleb just smiles.

Give it time, beautiful. All of this belongs to you now.

Texts from Satan.

Eurydice. Brilliant. I forget how incredibly bright you are sometimes.

Eurydice waits.

Back into your endless honeymoon, I see. Everything is straightened out with Ben?

For the time being.

And then what?

We'll see, I guess.

You know what the best part is, Bridget? You give away everything and you give away nothing at the same time.

Caleb, what are you talking about?

Your writing. You have zero class when it comes to detailing things you can't control but when it comes to finishing what you start, you come up short.

Maybe you should read someone else's words then, since I have no class.

I said when it comes to-

I heard what you said.

You're a very cranky little thing today aren't you? Boyfriend keeping you up all night?

Yes, actually.

Oh, good, that made him stop talking. He fussed with his tie for a moment before loosening it significantly and then as he rolled up his shirt sleeves against the heat he tried a new topic. It was not a better choice.

So what in the hell are you going to do without your Jake-substitute around for the next ten weeks to pacify your need for oversized Newfoundlanders?

Aren't you late for a meeting or something?

I've already been.

Oh.

So I have time.

I don't.

Sure you do. You're here, aren't you?

Not anymore. I turned to leave.

Bridget, don't think I can't be a force for good in your life. I'm trying really hard here.

I know.

Then let me help you.

Help isn't supposed to be your means to an end, Cale.

I'm one of the few with means-

Money can't help you. Don't you think if it could everything would be fixed by now?

Lose the charades then. Do it now.

Slipping a little, are you, Mister Honest?

I can't help it, Bridget. We're wasting time.

You can go do whatever you want. I'm not holding you back.

What I want is in front of me.

No, it isn't.

He laughed out loud. I can assure you, it is.

Then you're the one who's wasting time. I balled my hands into fists and turned to leave but he grabbed my arm and pulled me in close.

You think an amateur seaside commitment ceremony protects them from losing you?

Yes.

Bridget, you are truly amazing. I've never seen someone fight so hard to surround themselves with such a loyal army of lovers.

I do what works.

And it's an illusion, princess. Just like your fire boy. Your future is predestined. Stop fighting it.

I wanted to say You stop fighting it and get used to the idea that you will die alone but in that moment I could not be so cruel. I guess that's why he still has hope that things will turn out differently.

Manual transmission (AKA Happy Mother's Day!)

Today when we were leaving the shopping center, we were walking between cars in the parking lot and we passed a car with a couple inside, sitting oddly close for bucket seats. It only took me half of a heartbeat to realize that the girl in the car was giving the guy in the car a handjob. It took me the rest of that heartbeat to realize that Ruth and Henry saw everything I saw.

It took me the rest of the trip home to explain that private cuddles in public aren't supposed to be in places where children could witness things they don't need to witness. My big-city-living, cross-country-moving, worldly, sophisticated, knowledge-sponge children are just that: Children.

I'm not all that impressed, truth be know and I'm the furthest thing from a prude that you will ever meet (see previous uh...eight years worth of entries). My kids have taken sex ed. I've talked to them, they get the rest from the boys' talks with them, books and questions and everything else so they're not shielded or bubbled or ostriched into ignorance here. I just don't think coming out of the Hello Kitty store and into HELLO FETISH was how I wanted to spend Mother's Day, but your mileage may vary.

All I'm asking is that when my elementary-school age kids are passing your windshield at least stop moving your hand, goddammit.

(Not safe) Swimming in velvet.

When he moves to slide my rings off Ben stops him, shaking his head briefly once. It's enough. I exhale my relief visibly, rewarded with almost-smiles in near darkness. Golden bands are threaded back onto my ring finger gently and deliberately. I watch, holding my breath. Loch smiles and pulls me in closer. He kisses up under my neck. I lift my head up and the back of it rests against Ben's chest. No space. No need for distance now. No room for error.

Ben takes my hands and holds them clasped in front of me. His head comes down to kiss along my shoulder. He slides the strap of my dress off my skin and turns me around as Lochlan's hands fall to my waist. Another kiss, this time stretching far up to meet Ben as he lowers his head. His hands slide around my head to hold me up closer to him. And then he lets go and I fall onto the feather bed. Lochlan laughs and pulls me over. He is already stretched out the full length of our in-house cloud, a dreamlike place where, once fully relaxed, you only feel peace. It's designed on purpose, similar to the giant soaking-bathtub of total sensory deprivation.

Ben has my wide green velvet ribbon and the last thing I see before he covers my eyes is his expression. He craves me. He ties the ribbon gently around my head and now I am blind. His lips are on mine. Cool rough stubble lingers against my philtrum. His breath warms my cheek. His hands pull me back toward the edge of the bed, lifting my knees, wrapping them around his waist. He pulls away and then he is back. When I cry out Loch's hand slides over my mouth. His head presses against my ear and he tells me that everything is okay. And then he disappears again and there is only Ben with his hands locked around my hip bones, grating them against his fingers. I have no leverage. I am in thin air, blind and at his mercy.

And oh, he likes it that way. Abruptly I am dropped back onto the cloud and then pulled back toward Lochlan. His arms pull me in close against him. His skin burns mine until we are fused glass and he stays against me, his mouth against my forehead, exertion forcing his breath out in harsh gasps. I throw my arms around his neck and hold on tight. He moves his head again, this time matching his face to mine, biting my lower lip, whispering things I can't hear between bites. Suddenly he lets go again. I am lifted out of his arms forcibly, back into Ben's embrace. When I cry out loud in dismay, Ben pulls off the ribbon and asks me if I'm okay. I nod. I am delirious and overwhelmed by their coordinated efforts to bring heaven down here. They become one person, blurred lines becoming a blend of red into black. Of blue into brown. Of hot into cold and romantic affection into something so outlandish and depraved that even I tend to ignore the safe words, if only I knew what they were. If only I thought they might heed them.

I am bent and pulled and taken to places I have never seen or heard of before. What we've seen of life is strange enough and so there is nowhere to go but here and there is nothing to do but let go and be honest and try harder and stay together.

Eventually we slow to a sleeping crawl and my eyes close against the rising sun, my head against Ben's heartbeat, Lochlan within reach as ever now. I hear the birds and see the light through the windows, burning off the ghost fog over my mind, taking with it my lingering reservations as it rises high into a Sunday sky to highlight the green velvet ribbon, lying tangled on the floor.

Boy sandwiches.

(Again, not putting a time reference on these. When is not important. What is. Besides, it's mostly obvious. One is from thirty years ago. The other, thirty days.)

I knew that he drank most of the whiskey from the bottle on the picnic table but I still didn't know why he couldn't follow simple directions.

Ow! Let go. You're hurting me.

Stay with me, Bridgie. The last thing I want is for you to get lost in the woods tonight.

Lochlan has my hand clenched so tightly in his my fingers are crushed and I'm tripping as I try to run with him. We are making our way through the woods toward the lake as the sun goes down. Not the public swimming beach but the rope swing the boys put up with their fathers years before.

We're going skinny dipping only I don't do that because I don't feel like I'm one of them. Bailey will. Her eyes are bright gold, full of beer. She scowled when she saw that Lochlan was bringing me with them. She's safer at home. It's past her bedtime anyway. I'm not looking after her.

We will, Lochlan says. Caleb nods.

Bailey looks fierce. Don't give her any alcohol. I don't want to get in shit.

I don't want any!

You're not having any anyway, Bridge, you're too young. Here, I brought pop for you.

Caleb twists the cap off as I watch. He is nineteen and this is his first year home for the summer from university. I take a drink. It's really sweet. I don't drink pop late at night. I don't even know late at night, we've never been properly introduced. I'm usually in bed by nine o'clock. But when it's summer and everyone stays out late my parents are satisfied that the older kids will keep me safe and entertain me besides and then they are free to sit on the dock and talk into the early morning hours with their cottage friends. It's a win-win situation.

Caleb doesn't seem drunk but he drinks a huge gulp from the whiskey bottle and then he's the first one out of his clothes, leaping ahead to grab the swing and launch himself out over the deepest part of the lake. With a holler he lets go and disappears under the surface. Everyone laughs and Cole goes next. I stare at his nakedness. They have no modesty whatsoever. Bailey is next. Her long hair covers her chest and she leaves her bikini bottoms on. She laughs and squeals as she flies out over the water and then screams when Caleb leaps up from below to catch her. I smile. I picture them as a couple someday. Maybe next year when she gives up the mall for more serious pursuits, because Caleb is so serious. He wants to be a lawyer. I can see that. He's very good at talking, reasoning. Adults trust him.

Lochlan has not gone on the rope yet. At sixteen he is well-respected but a loner on the fringe of the group even though he pretends he's right in the thick of it all. He's sitting beside me drawing pictures with a sharpie and a composition book. He turns to me and draws a ring on my finger and writes Love is the most important thing down the length of my arm. He tells me never to forget that. I write I won't on his knee. It wears off before we go home because it gets wet. My words don't because I don't go in. In the morning my mom asks what it means and Bailey tells her that Lochlan doodles on everyone.

I don't show my mother what Caleb wrote on my back. I saw it in the mirror this morning because he wouldn't tell me what he wrote in his modern cursive script from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. He tells me he's going to get a big tattoo on his back in a few years. I ask him what he's getting but he doesn't know yet.

***

Your shadow
I will show you something different
I will only stop you drifting so far

I find Lochlan flat on his back on the floor in the library. Oh, he is so loaded I can't get him up. He wants to get up but he can't. I don't want to tell anyone else to enlist some help because they will just judge him. He needs to forget things so he uses a liquid lobotomy and then he will forever be sixteen and I will be ten and nothing will have ever gone wrong and the worst thing we will ever have to deal with is homework and eating our vegetables and rainy days in which we can't go to the lake or beach at all. He stops singing when he realizes that I'm there.

We need to go back in time, Bridgie.

Too late, Lochlan.

Tears slide out his eyes and into his hair. He does not get up. There's music on the stereo, I can't hear what it is. I just know I want to get him up off the floor and upstairs so he can sleep it off but I don't want the kids to see him and I can't do this by myself.

You need to get up, Lochlan.

Bridget, just go out and lock the door. Come back tomorrow please.

Come to bed, Lochlan. Come on.

I can't feel my teeth, sweetheart. I'm sorry.

You're an adult. You didn't fall into a vat of whiskey, Lochlan. How can you be sorry for something you did on purpose?

You don't think sometimes things turn out not to be the right decision?

I don't know.

I'll rephrase it then. Bridget, you've chosen wrong. Now what?

He doesn't wait for me to reply. He is singing again. His accent is all over the place and I want to laugh only this sucks.

You looked beautiful this morning.

Thank you.

No, I mean it. It's hard to believe you have grown up in front of all of us.

What was I supposed to do, stay little forever?

Maybe. Then I wouldn't have taken you to that godforsaken place.

I look away. I really don't want to do this now. I sit down beside him on the floor.

Then you wouldn't have this stupid tattoo. He lifts up my shirt in the back and runs his hand across my shoulder blades, where it says Innocent in Caleb's neat cursive script, in Gaelic. Neamhchiontach. To match his tattoo that says Devil in Gaelic. Diabhal.

I like my tattoo. It keeps him forever accountable.

It makes me feel guilty.

I forgave you.

But you didn't forget, peanut. He tilts forward and puts his head down in my lap. He closes his eyes and I automatically start to comb through his curls with my fingers. He goes to sleep. He's the only one who doesn't look like a little boy when he's sleeping. He looks like a man. A man conflicted and torn, a man who carries such a heavy load all the while refusing to claim it as his own.

How am I supposed to forget? And why can't you follow simple directions?

He doesn't hear me. He's in his whiskey dreams where I am a child. Little more than someone to bounce his fears off. Little more than a mirror, his little shadow. A little hesitant. A little suggestible.

Little.

****

The library door opens around seven. I see the light spill into the hallway and I get up and go to see how he is. Lochlan walks out into the hall and sees me and then turns and heads upstairs. I am behind him the whole way but he doesn't stop. Finally outside the bedroom door I ask him how he's doing and he stops for a beat but then he goes into my room and closes the door on me. In my face, if we are being particular.

I turn and slide down the door to sit against it. I can wait for him. Eighty-five minutes pass and Ben comes to the top of the steps and just looks at me. I ask him what he wants and he says he's been looking for me. I snap that I've been here for a while, that Lochlan went inside and never came back out. Ben says that he probably went to sleep. That he weighs a hundred and fifty pounds soaking wet and probably can't handle a forty all that well. Why don't I come down and let Lochlan sleep through the rest of the evening?

I shake my head. I'm fine right here, I tell him.

What's more important, Bridget?

Love. Love is the most important thing, Ben.

Who told you that, Bridget? I wouldn't say it's true all the time. I watch his face. He is choosing his words so carefully. Each one is made of land mines disguised as letters. Each one ticks like a time bomb. Each one is locked and loaded.

Maybe you're right.

He stops thinking and reacts instead, changing expressions and I know I went too far.

Are you choosing sides today?

Trying not to.

You might want to think about that, Bridget. Because from here it looks like my team is down a player.

We're all on the same team, Ben.

You know something, Bridget? You and Loch may live in some kind of fucked-up Neverland fantasy but some of us are right here in reality and I've got news for you. We've never been on the same team. Ever. I gave you as much latitude as I could and it's making me crazy.

The door opens suddenly. Lochlan doesn't come out or say anything but the door is just...open. An invitation. An escape.

A decision.

I did not have to think twice. I grabbed Ben's hand and pulled him in with me. He didn't fight me. We made a Lochlan sandwich (Ben and I were the bread, Loch was the meat) and stayed with him until he started making sense again. We took turns watching over him, took turns sleeping and took turns talking him out of his drunken opinions and stalwart proclamations. It took a while.

When the tides had turned we were forced to do the same for Ben, unencumbered by alcohol but positively hobbled with doubt, fear and massive waves of regret. I'm not picking sides, I prioritize based on need. Once reminded of that Ben was more comfortable and far less resigned. His generosity hits me like a brick wall only to mix with Lochlan's possessiveness. The heartbreaking honesty and depth of our words leaves me exhausted and suddenly doubtful of everything and nothing, least of all this very unconventional love affair that finds me squarely in the center.

Because this time I got the middle. It's very hard to be the meat. And yet, here I am.

Neamhchiontach go cinnte. And please pass the whiskey.

The dreams we have as children.

He either grew tired of us mentioning his curls nonstop or he went Hare Krishna on me (it's happened before) but when I walked into the kitchen this morning I didn't recognize Lochlan, who finally went for a haircut. By the end of summer he will be strawberry blonde and have perfect curls again but until then we get treated to this virtual stranger with dark red and weirdly straight hair. I can see his eyes. He can't hide behind his curly charm now.

***

I'm listening to Noel Gallagher again. I know. The Birds album turned out to be a literal masterpiece to my ears. They are so selective sometimes I even surprise myself.

***

We're out of cake.

I did not care to acknowledge much about this birthday just because I can't count this high and when I try I become sad in a way that seems so permanent and regretful and completely unusual to the fleeting and crushing sad feeling that I am familiar with. Life is far different from what I pictured. Not in a bad way, just completely different, and I have had to be far braver than I thought possible and still every day things are new and different and kind of unbelievable and those are the dreams you can pop like bubbles and I know I'm a fatalist but I mean well, really I do.

I worry the bottom will fall out. That's all. I've always felt as if I stood on the outside and my life is a movie I watch on a big screen, so lifelike I can feel what everyone feels, so intangible after all that any decisions are put to a committee vote instead of a whim.

***

People want to know what's going on. With triangles and declarations and boys and life here in the collective and I tend to ignore writing about it when I get overwhelmed or distracted.

Well, sorry, I've been distracted. An awful lot actually.

I stepped into the garage and Jake growled at me to smile, oh and to slow the fuck down, and really pay attention and count the stars that are lucky and leave the rest for others (no, I need them all, Pooh) and then I tried a new tea and learned that yes the afternoon coffee will now destroy me because caffeine makes me crazy and then I had to bite my lip when I realized I really really wish I could control the universe sometimes because then it would make perfect sense and I realized who I sounded like and it was that much-needed stab of familiarity mixed with an ache for a time when things were so simple the only things I had an opinion on were the color of my cotton candy (blue, always blue) and whether or not my hair went into a braid or a knot at the back of my neck (I liked the braid, he liked the knot).

I went to tell him about the ache but he had left already. To get his hair cut. And when he came back my courage left to make room.

Soliloquies for two.

Hope I didn't speak too soon
My eyes have always
Followed you around the room
Cause you're the only
God that I will ever need
I'm holding on and waiting for the moment
For my heart to be unbroken by the sea

It's windy on the beach today, so much so that it feels like fall. The water is dark, the waves choppy, the big boats far off into the blinding white sun, away from the shore. It's Wednesday and it's almost like I can reach out with one finger and stop the world from rotating for no one is visible from here. It's as if we've been dropped onto an uninhabited planet if only it weren't for the same story going around and around and around, at thirty-three rpm or one complete revolution around the sun over twenty-four hours exactly. It doesn't matter if this is a turntable or an orbit, frankly.

And that is his argument at present.

Because today he is the one who looks like a teenager, balanced on a rock above the shore, jeans wet up to the knees, eyes squinched up in the sunlight, head of red curls unbrushed and tangled, turned to face me sometimes but only out of habit and certainly not because I am all that interesting. I'm only listening today, and not talking back.

He hates that, you see.

That's why I do it.

I don't have much else to offer because he wouldn't listen even if he knew I think he's right and he makes perfect sense but at the same time so does everyone else.

I can't hear the music either, playing through my headphones that are tucked into the zipper of my hoodie. But I know it's playing, just like I know he's right. Some things just are. The moon always rises and this sun will always set. You can set your watch by Lochlan's ability to point out the sheer practicality of a feeling or an action and then he'll turn around and blow his own theory full of holes while everyone else ducks for cover from the blast.

It's sort of interesting when that happens.

He said once, if I stay at home and work two jobs I can make enough for college and then graduate without any debt. That would give me a leg up on life.

And then he left and went on the road with the show and with me, where we made downwards of fifty dollars a day between us and stole the rest and came home with empty pockets and emptier stomachs. He paid off his student loans three years ago. College waited for Lochlan long after everyone else was finished. I never finished at all.

He said once, if you were smart, you'd take Ben's offer and never look back. He's fun, he cares a hell of a lot for you and he's trying so hard, Bridget. He loves you.

And then he left because he couldn't stick around to watch it because it wasn't him and it wasn't fair and it wouldn't last and it doesn't matter how hard Ben tries, Ben can't undo history this deep.

Because our history is deeper than this ocean, deeper than the deepest, darkest, coldest part of the sea and that's why I should talk to him instead of just listening because you can't have an argument if only one person is fighting. That hasn't stopped him, not one little bit. He's still talking, I haven't said a word since eight fifteen this morning.

And he's talking fast. Fast because he has so much he wants to say and fast because there is not much time to do it. You see time is the enemy and he's rushing but at the same time he's been standing on that rock for the better part of forty-five minutes throwing out thoughts and admonishing me to hurry up and then he stares out to sea while he comes up with something else that he thinks might clinch it.

It's sort of amazing to view him so objectively.

I keep raising my eyebrows every time he turns his back because suddenly I no longer understand him at all, how his actions can go one way and his words another but it's okay because the sea will mix it all back together on my behalf, depositing it on the shore, frosted smooth and rounded by the sand, lighter so it's left behind for me to find.

I tighten my ponytail with both hands and resume my search for more of those words that match the actions. Slim pickings today. Just like always.

On buttoning a sweater with shivering fingers, on holding on with trembling hands.

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life.

You know what I remember most? Not his eventual acquiescence to my plans, but the fact that I had Black on repeat that entire weekend and listening to it now is akin to someone ripping open my soul and pouring hot lava down the hole.

You're gonna what? Jesus Lord, you'll fucking freeze to death.

I won't stay in long. But I can't come here and not go in.

Sure you can. Bridget, we're going to come in the winter and the summer too. There will be so many chances.

Jacob stands on the tiny porch in jeans and a thin, worn sweater over a plain white t-shirt. His hair just reaches the neck of the sweater in the back and I can't take my eyes off it. The wool matches the dark underneath part of his hair, a soft pale caramel. His jeans are so worn they're white and the lines around his eyes speak to a stress that would later break him, only I didn't know and I mistook the burden he carried to be plain and simple concern.

I don't think you should go in, Bridget. He repeats himself with a challenge in his voice. Only I don't rise to it, I turn around and go inside.

Jake doesn't follow. He exits the porch and heads down the shore. A long walk, giving him that all important count to twenty-five to calm down because ten doesn't cut it.

By the time he returns, pale blue eyes peaceful, reflecting the sea, I am curled up in the corner of the big couch with a knit blanket over me, a cup of tea on the table by my elbow, another on the coffee table in front of me, waiting for him. He takes a grateful sip and then points out he doesn't want me to catch a cold. Then he says he worries the undertow will be too strong. Then he says Sometimes I don't think you fight her hard enough, meaning the sea. He then makes a comment about the weather turning ominous.

I am amused. Will you rate your concerns in order of importance, preacher?

What? No, princess. How about this? You're not allowed in.

Oh, see, now I have to go in just to defy you.

He glares at me while taking another sip of tea. Everything tastes better here, did you notice that?

I nod. Don't change the subject, Jake. If we don't come back ever, I want to submerge myself just once more.

Who said we won't come back? I bought this place for us. This can be safe harbour. A getaway from all of it and still be near everything you...WE..need.

I just have a feeling, that's all. This is it. One chance.

Then you go for your freezing swim and I'll have to work to prove you wrong.

In up to my knees.

Okay, so..you know those awkward lollipops with the big sugar crystals and the wooden knob-handles? Those are tea-stirrers. I just sort of eat them. I had no idea really but now that I know it makes PERFECT SENSE!

Today is my birthday. Welcome to the weirdness that is me, always. Am dressed up! With eyelashes and everything because we're going out to shop and eat and do whatever I want because I. am. awesome and my mind is forever somewhere between twelve and seventeen. Really the numbers just keep ticking up and I want to grab the lowest one with both arms and pull back down hard with all of my weight until the one left showing matches how I feel.

On the upside? They are finished the fountain. All the pounding and hammering was to fix the steps/driveway/new section but the pond/fountain was put in and is WORKING! I can't hear it at all unless I am standing in it.

But the very best part?

Caleb did not get the koi fish to stock the pond. He got us turtles. Turtles and a bullfrog (which I'm told will be eaten by the turtles so he should now hop away, for his little green life)!

Because as I told you, I am still twelve and twelve-year-olds don't drink tea (or stay out of ponds full of turtles, for that matter).

Bane.

They started at 7:50 this morning, and I was at Caleb's door at 7:56 in my pajamas. He opens it, unsmiling but dressed and ready for his day and I barge right in, complaining that we have noise bylaws and sleeping boys and neighbors with infants and why the fuck can't they take a week off from jackhammering the whole fucking property and then I see the purse on the counter.

Oh, you're busy.

Bridget, it's just-

Then she walks out into the living room, trying to latch her earring. Oh God. Not her.

Bridget. Still unhappy with the entire universe, are you?

Long time no see, Sophie. Too bad we don't have more time to talk but you have to leave.

Caleb and I-

Yeah, safe trip home. Get out.

You don't get to tell me what to do in his house.

Sure I do. I look at Caleb, waiting for him to pick a side. He doesn't make me wait long.

I'll have Mike take you to the airport, Sophie.

But I thought we were going to-

I forgot I have an engagement this morning. Sorry.

She scowls at me and I shoot her my winningest smile. Caleb is trying not to laugh at me at this point. I have bedhead, I know. Great.

I see. Still stringing everyone along. Quite the little piece of work you are, as always.

Bye, Sophie. My smile drops as I turn and leave. A little warning would have been nice. As I grab the railing to go down the wet stairs I hear their voices rise. A fight. Oh darn.

***

Caleb walks into the kitchen an hour later, just as I slide the first of the birthday cupcakes into the stove to bake.

Bridget, that wasn't nice.

Was it nice of you to bring her here?

She was in town for a couple days. I didn't think I had to clear it with you.

You picked my side.

Of course I did.

I'm surprised by that.

Don't be. It's the burning building question. Who would I save? Well, she may be easier, but you are more fun.

Why is that?

I think the sight of you, with your messy curls, in your Hello Kitty pajamas ready to claw the makeup right off of her face was so adorable what else could I do?

Maybe you could entertain her downtown?

At Batman's hotel? Maybe we can fill each other's ice buckets. Your post yesterday was quite genius. Throw Batman to the wolves and then they won't notice Lochlan has finally regained his Alpha status.

That's not what I did.

Then you're deluding yourself. And for the record? I slept on the couch in the living room last night. So she wasn't very happy this morning to begin with.

I actually don't want the gory details.

Well, I'm going to give them to you anyway. I'm too old for one-night stands.

Even with Sophie?

Sophie is a social climber and a parasite and unlike you she is never silly and definitely never cute. So in case you wondered where my loyalties were, they are with you, always. The only reason I didn't let you know was because it was late and I know Henry isn't feeling well. Since there won't be a next time, I don't actually have to promise to do it differently, do I?

No, you don't.

How are the cupcakes coming? They smell delicious. I could have gone to the bakery though. You only have one birthday a year, Bridget.

My birthday isn't until tomorrow. These are just because it's Friday and...I like pre-weekends.

Yeah, me too. He stands there looking like an idiot, smiling huge. It's contagious. I cock my head and calculate.

Come back in an hour or so and you can taste-test them.

I will do that.

Today also marks the very first time I offered to feed Caleb without wondering briefly how to poison it so as to kill him without detection. It's a whole fucking day of firsts! Amazing!

Counterintelligence.

This week Lochlan did what he always does when something isn't quite going right.

He put on his resigned face, and he hauled his logic out, dusting off the top and oiling all of the moving parts. He pulled me in close, pressing a kiss hard against my forehead and told me grimly that everything will be okay, just keep going forward and we'll cross the bridges when we get to them. I nod in reply. We're resilient and silly and insolent and committed. We're filthy and hungry and we dream of adventure.

So why do we regret it when it finally shows itself?

***
Batman sends me a text message mid-morning, just as I am beginning a full-on house cleaning. I'm still fighting the parade of cherry blossom stems tracking indoors. I'm losing. They're everywhere. And on the almost-white carpets and white tile it's sort of a seasonal mess. My work is cut out for me. Fuck me, they're even in our beds.

Room service lunch today if you're game. I'll buy. And order without even looking.

I don't respond right away and ten minutes later another message chimes in.

Or we could just spend the afternoon in bed in the hotel. That's fine too.

I freeze. It's a blatant, crass message that Batman wouldn't write. I'm trying to figure out how to respond when three more messages crash into the first two.

Just ignore that. My brain is not connected to my fingers.

Don't tell them, it was a joke.

I'm very sorry. I think I must have spring fever.

The last one made me laugh. Don't make things weird again, Batman. I say it under my breath. It's sort of too late for normal, however. Batman was the original Indecent Proposal of my adulthood. I think sometimes when things don't go right in his life he becomes wistful for that, but at no point do I think he means any harm so there is no harm in writing it down.

Repeating itself.

I was coming up the sidewalk with the dog, out for a quick walk before beginning to pull dinner together, when I saw her. Ruth, long hair glinting gold in the sun, hoodie tied in a knot around her thin frame, pink t-shirt and jeans, converse. In a pack with around ten other kids. Loose on a sunny afternoon with vague instructions to stay out of the woods and be home by four-forty at the latest.

She made a move to run out from between two parked cars, heading up the hill in a game of Cops & Robbers when the boy in front of her threw his arm up to block her from going any further, as an SUV drove slowly down the street.

She laughed and he smiled at her. He's a full head taller than she is, red t-shirt and jeans and I don't know his name but she will tell me later. Once the street was clear he dropped his arm and took off with her running hard to keep or catch up.

Kind of reminds me of someone.

Update: His name is Tyler and he is thirteen and a half, and he's man enough to sit out on the porch with Lochlan, PJ, Christian and Andrew while they discuss why Ruthie isn't allowed in the woods. He has pointed out several times that he was with her and he wouldn't let anything happen to her anyway but that he is very, very sorry he talked her into it. I daresay there's a hint of a smile playing on Lochlan's face, while Ruth has already run upstairs crying because she is trouble, probably having thrown herself facedown on her bed.

I'm sure this will replay itself many times over in varying degrees of severity over the next few years and I can say I hope it gets easier but I know it won't.

I am trying to break my mind, and other future Wilco songs.

(Sorry to be so perpetually unavailable, it's been a busy week so far.)

-Matt and Sam? Done, for the time being. Sam is not being as resilient as he once told me to be, and I'm having a hard time comforting him without wanting to THROW THAT IN HIS FACE.

-Duncan opted to not file his taxes, due yesterday. I am waiting for an unmarked black CRA van to squeal down the driveway, throw him in the back and take him away. While I wait I'm introducing him to Turbo Tax. Because he was the only one who said he would "take care of it" once I finished when I offered to mail/file/phone. I'm glad I followed up. He is a little bit too laissez-faire these days about important things and all jacked completely uptight about unimportant things. I think his midlife crisis is finally kicking in.

-Coach sent me a 25% discount offer in honor of my upcoming birthday. My brand-spanking shiny new family doctor scheduled me for a fucking mammogram as her gift to me. Obviously the purse-shopping excites me far more. Also I can't seem to decide on a birthday dinner restaurant. Or who to take with me, seeing as how Ben has resumed his resistance all things redhaired and circusy.

(They have four days remaining to sort it out before I take Dalton and we'll just do tequila body shots off of each other and toast to madness and the art of finding midnight in the bottom of a sunlight sunlit (Ben just messaged me and told me sunlight looked wrong. BLAH.) horizon or something equally nonsensical. Dalton has turned out to be the smarter brother in the family, clearly. I offered him Saturday and he smiled and said I'm game. Whatever you want, princess.)

-This morning work began on the driveway too, since they have the heavy equipment here anyway to put in the never-ending, ostentatious yacht club/former simple removable dock. You know, because Mr. Honest (heretofore known as Satan) failed to inform me he was having part of the driveway extended so that it actually splits and turns right so that he can park up beside the boathouse, on the hill, instead of having to come all the way down to the house, past the garage with all the vehicles here already. I'm sure he is spending whatever this costs to stick it to PJ, who regularly sticks it to Caleb by parking directly behind the Porsche so Caleb can't get out. It's a little ridiculous but it makes me laugh.

Also, Caleb is putting in a fountain/pond out front. For koi. I'll be able to hear it from my bedroom window, which overlooks the front of the house and now I'll have to pee all the damn time just from listening to the sound of running water. Yay! In the meantime I get the sound of bulldozers and men yelling. Yay! Nothing new there.

-I bought Insurgent this morning (because the nice people at the tiny independent bookstore in town held a copy for me and oh my God I love them to bits) and have cleared seventy pages so far. This is a record for me, I'm admittedly a hideously slow reader. It's so good I want to eat the physical book.

-I painted my nails in Fearless Fog. Corey called it Cadaver Corpse because it's a weird mauvy-rigor-grey but he's a sick fuck anyway. I like the color but I love the name. I want to spend the rest of my life in a fearless fog and then things that shouldn't hurt won't and things that don't matter will.

Oh, I think I just figured out Duncan.

Neat.

Metallicorigami

(A rather awkward and half-assed portmanteau for a title, isn't it? Forgive me, I'm tired today. I'll pick up where I should have tomorrow.)

This morning Ruth remarked that her most recent purchase of origami paper had some metallic sheets in it. Only when she spoke I had turned the water on and my ears heard Metallica sheets. Almost immediately the jokes began to fly about hardcore paper and shred-folding.

Ben grabbed a piece of tinfoil and began to sing at the top of his lungs while he constructed a paper airplane:

Take a look to the sky just before you die
It is the last time you will
Blackened roar massive roar fills the crumbling sky
Shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry
Stranger now, are his eyes, to this mystery
He hears the silence so loud
Crack of dawn, all is gone except the will to be
Now they will see what will be, blinded eyes to see

I sank to the floor on the other side of the island in laughter, for when he launched it it crashed into the stereo, ruined. He threw up both arms and yelled It's been an amazing night tonight, thanks for coming out-ah! Hope to see you again real soon-ah yeahhhh! in his very best James Hetfield.

Breaking points.

Standing above the crowd,
He had a voice so strong
and loud and I swallowed his facade
cause I'm so eager to identify with
Someone above the ground,
Someone who seemed to feel the same,
Someone prepared to lead the way, with
Someone who would die for me.

Will you? Will you now?
Would you die for me?
Don't you fucking lie.
Don't you step out of line.
Don't you fucking lie.

You've claimed all this time that you would die for me.
Why then are you so surprised to hear your own eulogy?

Lochlan is awake late, picking out the notes to Bach's Prelude Suite No. 1 on his guitar as I write out the important spring dates on the calendar. I'm attempting not to be impressed but I fail wildly.

That's beautiful!

You like that? He smiles. I figured I should learn some familiar tunes at the very least.

Yes. It was great. I stop beside the stereo, pressing the power button, pressing Lochlan's buttons. Tool swells through the room, earsplittingly loud from where he turned it off earlier as he marched into the room yelling about honesty and wolves in sheeps' clothing and how I don't listen.

I WAS listening.

(To the music, which I always face head-on. Like a car wreck about to happen.)

I turn around and he is right there in my face, shouting again. I can't hear him because my teeth are chattering from the drums, my brain is reverberating through my skull, rationale replaced with firecracker explosions of instruments and he's saying arrogant things about promises and nostalgia. He's saying entitled things about life before this kind of stereo equipment when I could hardly hear the words and I would have to wait patiently for a moment when I would catch him off guard so I could listen to him sing the words and then I would know them too.

He finally has enough and turns off the stereo. As violent as the noise was, the silence is worse, falling like a shroud over the moment, choking it off. He starts talking again but I miss it. I'm considering how I feel about the music changing again, I'm not paying attention, finishing the lyrics silently to myself.

Abruptly Lochlan grabs my whole head and presses my forehead against his. BRIDGET. You forgave me. What in the hell is this?

Inability to function as logically as you can.

What do you mean?

Exactly. I don't know.

Who are you punishing by spending so much time with Caleb? Me? Ben? You?

Everyone.

It's working, isn't it? Where is Ben?

Downstairs.

When's the last time he came up for air?

Tuesday, I lie. I don't remember. He isn't speaking to me past repeating his magical rules so it's not important right now.

It's been a long week, Bridget. Can we call a truce? Can we just go back to the way things were?

Talk to Ben.

What in the hell is he doing exactly? Trading me for the devil? That's not going to help his cause, that will just make things worse.

He doesn't see it that way, Lochlan. He thinks you don't care about him.

Of course I care! I can't believe I'm pleading my case. Fuck this. We've been all fucked up since I pulled you out of the water in November and it's time I straightened us out. He pushes past me, headed for the stairs.

Where are you going?

To talk to your husband.

Batman and the space where gravity meets levity.

Someday you might find your hero
Some say you might lose your mind
I'm keeping my head down now for the summer
I'm out of my mind but pour me another
I'm going to take that tiger outside for a ride

New-Jake pulls a corner of his toast away with his teeth and chews noisily. Someone's getting a cold. Probably because most of the boys have been wearing shorts for a month when the weather still calls for jeans. I'm not sure how much of a mother I should be to this one because sometimes I am a little in awe of how much he observes in the run of a day, honestly.

He holds out a piece to me.

I don't like toast, Jake. But thank you.

Did you eat today?

Banana.

At what, six this morning?

Yes.

Then I'll make you something.

Lunch is right around the corner, Jake. Don't worry so much.

So let me get this straight. Ben's cool that you are sometimes with Caleb?

No.

But he doesn't freak out.

He has his own issues, Jake.

And all of you speak Gaelic to shut him out?

No. Yes. Well, not at first.

Ben is the outsider, then.

No, he's the longshot. There's a difference.

I don't understand this house.

Me neither. Now finish your toast. You shouldn't wait so long to eat.

I stick my tongue out at New-Jake as I get up to tidy the kitchen. Batman walks in unannounced. He greets both of us and sits down at the island beside Jake to read the paper. Jake stares at him until Batman looks up and says What? and then, caught, Jake holds out the half-eaten toast. Breakfast? I laugh behind my hands and Batman regards me coolly.

What are you up to, Bridget?

Cleaning up before we leave.

I mean with Satan.

Keeping the peace. I stand my ground. It's a tile, twelve by twenty-four. Sicilian baroque.

He is amused. He looks at Jake and then stands and comes over to me, right up close until he is breathing my air and he softens finally. I worry about you.

It's a club now, is it? I'm going to lose it. My eyes are watering madly and my knees shake.

It's always been a club. Bridget, look around you. Don't you see how everyone tightens up when Caleb bends your ear? We all want what's best for you.

Because I'm the child.

Because you've been through enough.

I don't play the sympathy card.

I know. I admire you for that.

You shouldn't. My chin is quavering and he's such a gentleman, he changes the subject.

Where to for lunch today, Bridget? You decide.

Red Lobster or Chipotle. (Jake begins to laugh and I ignore him.)

Batman sighs. Where are they?

Um...Richmond, I think?

Are you sure you don't want to go downtown?

I don't think this city is big enough for you and Caleb and he's already heading there, to the hotel for lunch.

Amusement lights up his face. I think sometimes you're right, Bridget. It might not be big enough. We're too old for these games but at the same time I made a promise and I intend to keep it. He checks his watch and I am put in my place, neatly and with finesse.

I don't think Cole ever intended me to be a burden to you, ______. I say his name softly and he stops, surprised.

Bridget, who said you were a burden?

You just did. Saying you're too old for this.

Hell, Bridget, this keeps me young and as a bonus I get to see your beautiful face whenever I want. Caleb isn't a threat to me. I am mindful of your history with him as well as his role as a threat to you.

Tell me about it. The history part, I mean. Tell me what you know.

I don't think I have to, Bridget. I heard there are tapes if your memory is lacking.

Was that a bad joke?

The very worst. He winks at me and changes the subject once more. Chipotle. Really?

If we can find it. If not, I know where the Chuck-E-Cheese is in Langley.

You age me. Do you know that?

Where do you want to eat? Room service in your stuffy hotel?

What's wrong with room service?

It's boring.

Now you're calling me boring? But I'm the Batman!

Oh my God. You did not just say that.

I did. Now come on. Alfred's waiting.

Alfred...what?

I'm kidding. Sadly. I drove my own car here. But if you really want to drive to McWhatever, I'll call you Alfred and then we'll have the full Dark Knight experience.

Really?

No, Bridget, and after today I'm picking the restaurants.

You mean it's room service from here on out.

I don't even need a menu. I have it memorized. He struts out the door like a peacock. I grab my bag and follow. Jake throws the toast at me as I pass and I duck.

(Update: I question the existence of the Chipotle, which we never did find. We wound up at the hotel. Had room service. He ordered from memory. It was good. The end.)

Somewhere between.

I sat curled in the center of his large corduroy couch underneath a triptych of myself, in which Cole painted me swirling a blood-red maple leaf in a puddle of water, my hair blowing up mischievously in the wind. But it isn't a happy picture, it's so very cold and bleak and hopeless. I can't remember what he called it and I don't want to ask. Something like Waiting for November, I think.

Calling December, Caleb returns to the room with hot chocolate and cookies. I pick one up and put it back. Cranberry cookies. Store bought. Read my mind now, Diabhal.

But he fails and hits the button to resume the movie. We are, as Henry put it so eloquently yesterday, hanging out. Spending time in all of its brutal honesty which isn't what I would have chosen, for I am completely out of my element at this point and Lochlan has picked enough fights to make a bouquet, maybe since there's one in the front hall he didn't sent to me. Caleb did, because he promised he would when he was drunk as a skunk the other night. Possibly less drunk than I suspect, since he remembered more than I did.

The card read not mean. It made me smile.

This movie does not, however but I am riveted nonetheless. The Ledge. Patrick Wilson, Liv Tyler, Charlie Hunnam (who will forever be Nicholas Nickleby anyway) and I don't want to watch it but I can't not watch it because of the chemistry and Patrick as a bad guy and Liv as a power-mouse, as always. Caleb points out the compelling nature of her mannerisms in the movie. I am struck by how embedded his dominating tendencies are. It's like he is two different people, but then again, aren't we all?

I look up again at the girl with the maple leaves and wonder if she has this problem too. Probably not, she is confined to three panels and seventeen colors and she has no idea she'll be watching some sort of reverse-biography late in the evening in the pouring rain in the place she shouldn't be but sometimes the places you escape to to avoid the endless condescension of those who think they get it right, every last time, are the places where you can exhale for a moment.

This movie is a reminder that sometimes no one gets it right.

It goes on the pile with Into the Wild and Blue Valentine, I guess. Sad movies for ruthless realists. Misery, conjured on purpose. Unhealthy pastimes for people who definitely know better and still choose to get it wrong because it's easier.

Nevermind me. I'm a little down today. I know how the movie ends.

"Your princess is quite a winning creature. A trifle simple, perhaps. Her appeal is undeniable."

I knocked softly and was rewarded with an opened door. Caleb is up! Surprise of all surprises he is showered and dressed and nursing a teal-green-black mug of strong coffee in the kitchen. His blackberry is buzzing nonstop, the newspaper is deconstructed and all over the counter top and the remnants of a hard-boiled egg and toast remain on a plate near the sink. I'm suitably impressed. I had considered bringing the cymbals over, figuring I would have to make some serious noise to get him up.

He kisses my cheek in greeting. I see the fatigue then, in and around his eyes. He didn't bother shaving and is in jeans and a long-sleeved white waffle knit tee. A home-day at least. Good. I think he needs a break today. I tell him I will bring him with me to run errands and that he can rest assured he didn't recite most of the Princess Bride in his drunkenness last evening (it's a thing, every. single. one. of the boys has done this at one time or another) and he holds up his hand and tells me he drank water on my advice and doesn't feel that badly today and besides, he read word for word what he said in my journal and is there anything he can do or offer in exchange for not writing publically anymore?

Of course not. I look cross at him, because cross is what that comment deserves. But then I soften. How are you really feeling?

Like a forty-nine-year-old frat boy.

Excellent. Get your jacket. We're going grocery shopping.

Is Loch coming? I don't think I could take that giant food warehouse and the redhead at the same time right now.

No, he has work to do.

Thank Christ.

Funny, he said the same thing.

Goatscaping, Caleb-style.

(Banning alcohol from the grounds is next, but for tonight, hubris, Bridget-style.)

When I go outside with my basket of strawberries and knife tonight he is already there, waiting for me, sitting on the step in the place where I usually sit late in the evening, keeping company with the sea.

I freeze and turn to go back in. I was quiet, maybe he won't notice.

Don't go back inside, princess. I won't stay if you don't want me here tonight. He tips the rest of his glass up and swallows down the honey-colored liquid. I frown and stay rooted in place.

He turns and gazes at me curiously. How do you do it, Bridget? A question delivered in a broken whisper, blurred around the edges just enough to take the sharpness off.

Which part? I advance with my strawberries and walk down to the steps, sitting down beside Caleb. He pours three fingers of scotch into the glass and holds it out to me. I shake my head and hold the knife instead.

Missing someone who was a part of your life. How do you do that? I thought I could throw myself into work and different causes and your life and raising Henry but Cole is still gone. It's like a big black hole in my life. I don't want to be an only child. I'm so glad my child is not an only child. I realize this is not the same as never having had a brother or sister, but at the same time it's still about being alone.

I watch him quietly. His eyes are glassy, his hands shaking ever so slightly, his words slurred in the slight accent that I hardly ever notice anymore. I still vividly remember the last time he let his guard down like this. It's unnerving and shattering, that's what it is.

How do I move forward without my little brother being there? How do I step up and be as good a father as he was? How do I stop feeling guilty for finding pleasure in life when he doesn't even get to have a life?

He wouldn't want you to feel guilty because you're still alive, Cale.

Maybe he would, Bridget. Maybe he would call this a just reward for what I have put you through. Maybe he's waiting to take me down with him. Maybe this is why I'm still alone in virtually every aspect of my existence.

I am inspecting my knees. I don't know if he wants comfort or justification or a scapegoat.

He is gazing at me. He's having trouble focusing. This can't be the first bottle for Caleb, I know him better than this.

You're not alone, Caleb, I offer quietly.

He releases a bitter chuckle. Essentially I am, Bridget. I have worked my fingers to the bone for everything I have and I would trade it all in in a heartbeat for you.

For 'someone', you mean.

For you. Let's just be honest. Honesty is the only thing I have left that I haven't offered you.

Maybe you should get some sleep.

Why, you don't like to hear what I'm thinking? I live with the ever-present noise from within your head written down for all to see while you stand there and never say a word out loud but you can't take my thoughts for what they're worth?

I stand up, leaving the berries and the knife. I'm trying to protect you, that's all.

His eyes spill over suddenly and he turns away as he stands up. It is late. I think I do need a little more sleep, that's all. He wavers, giving himself away and sits back down quickly. It was that or fall down the concrete steps. I take his hand and take the bottle from him and pull him back up. I wait there while he steadies himself.

Are you okay to walk back home without help or do I have to call someone?

Maybe you could walk me to my door. I'm just a little bit out of my element this evening. Still with the formalities, since we are not behind closed doors. He can be the most amazingly proper gentleman in the universe sometimes and the biggest monster of my nightmares that I can conjure up in the very next moment. It's uncanny.

Sure. He holds out his elbow and I take it. I turn back quickly and stand the bottle on the ground. He doesn't need any more, what he needs now is sleep.

We take the long way around to the front of the house and then across and he tells me a little about his next project. Retirement has not been an easy sell for Caleb, who refuses to stop and enjoy the results of his efforts. I am intrigued because for once it sounds perfect for him. Finally we reach the glass doors on the deck of the boathouse and I remind him to drink some water before he lies down. I re-offer the assistance of one of the boys but he is adamant that he's only a little bit trashed and he'll be better tomorrow.

My apologists, your majesty. They will make my excuses.

I burst out laughing and nod. I wish I had this on film.

He leans forward, the smile slipping to the floor and kisses me. Hard. I can't breathe. Then he leans back again and touches the tip of my nose. I wish I had that on film.

I frown.

Oh, that's right. I DO. Goodnight, my sweet doll. Sometime you should come and watch our movies with me. But as I said, I am always alone. You're always with someone else. I know exactly how Loch feels and it fucking blows. All this, he gestures around, and I can't have the one thing I worked for.

Are you finished?

His gaze drops back to me and he smiles wide. Yes, princess. Stick a fork in me because I'm done and done. Tomorrow I will send flowers to atone for my verbal outburst. I mean you no harm anymore. I know I seem like a monster but really I'm just mean because I'm alone. Goodnight.

Under Loch and key (first bonfire of the year).

(It doesn't matter what date you put on this one. 1983 or 2012 will be fine, really.)

If I had a gun, I'd shoot a hole into the sun
And love would burn this city down for you
If I had the time, I'd stop the world and make you mine
And every day would stay the same with you

Give you back the dream, show you now what might had been
If all the tears you cry would fade away (away, away, away...)
I'll be by your side, when they come to say goodbye
We will live to fight another day

Excuse me if I spoke too soon
My eyes have always followed you around the room
'Cause you're the only god that I will ever need
I'm holding on and waiting for the moment to find me

I am buzzing with the effects of the alcohol and the cool night air, sitting on the sand, wedged tightly against and in front of Lochlan, his arms down around me. He tilts the bottle toward my lips, just enough for a small warm sip of burning fluid to trace down through my body. When I try to have more he says That's enough, peanut. You're too little to drink much of this. He laughs and raises the bottle to his own mouth, swallowing several times. He is warm. Too warm. Lochlan-warm which is less human and more fire. We watch the antics of the others on the sand in front of us as we lounge close to the bonfire against a log. He puts his head down against mine, his lips against my ear.

I missed this. I love you.

I pull the bottle back and take a huge gulp before he can stop me. Before I have to answer. The pause is so loaded he's been shot before I have had time to aim.

You shouldn't. I have too much baggage. I'm watching Ben as I swallow. He is standing down by the water talking to Caleb and Sam. Tide's out. Sea monsters are everywhere.

Better Bridget with baggage than no Bridget at all. He says it quietly and I smile. No Bridget at all was tough. No Bridget at all was a difficult time period that we don't talk about anymore, much.

Ben walks up the beach and I am shoved roughly to my feet and in his general direction. I turn and pass the bottle back to Lochlan who has turned to talk to Christian and fails to acknowledge me. I kick his foot and let go of the bourbon. It falls vertically, caught easily by the juggler. He looks up at me and smiles conspiratorially. He gets away with so much. His endless, automatic charm and pragmatic attitude make for such easy prominence within the collective. His long red curls are pulled back in a simple ponytail, he's in new cargo shorts and a black tshirt. The most unassuming king of all.

He leans forward with a torch and lights it from the burning wood. Time for a show, peanut. Be a good girl and stay close, okay? I'll need help putting everything away and you're the best helper I've ever seen. 

Second thoughts.

He's home in one piece, sort of a nice surprise compared to the last trip he took alone, where he didn't come home at all and instead we went and collected Lochlan and the pieces of his motorcycle that remained. I threw myself into his arms and was rewarded with a brief hug. A ten-second hug which is very unlike Lochlan at all and then I realized why.

He brought flowers for Ben. He reads everything. I knew he would but I didn't think he would go all out like this. The bouquet is huge.

I attempted to keep my composure and failed, spilling it all over the floor in muted peals of dismayed laughter. I will clean up the mess later. He and Ben clapped each other on the back wordlessly and then Ben opted to stare at me for around seven hundred seconds, maybe deciding if he wanted to start laying down even more rules and then he chose wisely, excusing himself to go and get some work done.

Another truncated hug from Lochlan and a kiss on my forehead as I am inspected, ruefully.

You drug your freckles out of winter storage while I was away, peanut.

I frown in response. I hate my freckles. Every last one of the millions there are.

You look beautiful. He waits. I know he wants to inspect me for himself to make sure there are no marks, no seared-in cloven footprints, no lashes from a forked tail or tongue. I make no move to reassure him. I know the marks are there. They already scar his soul.

I distract instead.

Hungry?

Starving. He smiles. That's his promise to let things go for a second. We'll pick it up later, as always.

He reached out and pulled me against him, my back to his chest, and held me there, one hand around my neck, not so gently after all, the other hand gripping my hip bones until they grated in protest. He picked up speed and rode me through the darkness and just as the sun was threatening to blow out the nighttime sky he brought his other hand up to my throat, tightening his hold. When I saw the stars he named them after me, each and every one, whispering my name into my hair, his voice hoarse and ragged.