Rare/Gift.

What is that? May I see it?

Sure. It's a card for Daddy's birthday. He said it's a big birthday this year so I started early. 

This is really cool, Henry. Daddy will love it. 

He likes everything I make. I could do a bad job and he'll still tell me it's the best. 

Because it is. Just because you made it for him. That's special in itself. 

Do you think he's going to have a good birthday? He told me he's not going anywhere, that he wants to make some plans here and spend it at home. 

Isn't it better if he's home?

If he wants to be.

Maybe you can spend the day with him. 

He said the four of us would do something special. 

Did he?

Yeah but he didn't say what. 

I see. 

Is it okay if we do that?

Of course it is. We're a family too. 

Like a family within a family. 

Exactly.

I want it to be a really great birthday for him. He seems really sad lately. 

Does he?

I think he's lonely. You don't work there anymore so he's by himself a lot.

Henry..did he tell you to tell me that?

No. Do you think he'll be mad that I did?

Not at all. I just wondered if he told you directly. 

No, I just feel it. Sometimes I feel what people are going through before they say anything. 

I know you do. It's hard, isn't it. You get that from your father. He can do that too. So can I. 

Can Ruth?

Not really, Ruth is a little more cut and dried. 

What does that mean?

She doesn't put much value in feelings? That's not exactly what I mean though. She waits for confirmation of how people feel. 

She's logical. Like Lochan is. 

Yes. 

Which do you like better? My way or hers?

Oh, that's not fair. I like all of it equally because it's what makes you you and it makes Ruth who she is. 

What a diplomatic answer, Mommy. 

Gee, thanks, buddy. I do my best.

I was actually going to name Ruth Allegory but they talked me out of it and so I named her after a chocolate bar instead.

I am an ocean, I am the sea,
There is a world inside of me.
Lost in the abyss, drowned in the deep,
No set of lungs could salvage me.
Save yourself, save your breath,
The tides too strong, you'll catch your death.
So breathe for me, just breathe.

There is a Hell, believe me I've seen it.
There is a Heaven, let's keep it a secret.

Let me get something straight. I'm not considering any of his proposals. I asked Caleb for his latest one (when it's ready) purely for amusement purposes. Because I'm horribly curious and difficult and weird. Because I get off on his anticipation.

Lochlan was angry we came back but Lochlan doesn't make me flinch in the same way some of the others do. I've known him too long, too well to be surprised by his emotions unless they are of the devastatingly touching variety because he keeps those under lock and key, doling them out when he's run out of the others. He understands why I turned tail. He gets that the arrangement we have here on the point is unique and incredible and worthy, that it features that built-in safety net one should always check for before letting go. Not just for me or for Ben but for everyone involved.

At the end of the day nothing I do surprises anyone anymore, least of all him. This is what happens when your life is a circus. When you are raised and loved by a bonafide carny. Nothing is ordinary. Everything is extraordinary, colorful and amped. Unpredictable. Everything is an adventure, bad or good. Everything hurts and bleeds and rejoices all at once. You laugh and cry, live and die, lie and tell the truth all while making plans to do something else. You blink and the lights and the speeds blind you, sucking you back into a whirlwind of chaos that never ends.

It's why Lochlan is so practical. Because our life is not easy, lived the way we have lived it. He tempers the chaos with logic, routine and rules designed to keep the compass in hand when you don't know which way to set sail.

He serves as an anchor in a bottomless sea.

Stripped.

PJ is single again.

Christ almighty Jeeeeesus.

God bless him, he finally decides it's serious, admits that he does really really like her and moves out. He gets a real job and she promptly turns into someone else, asking too many questions, giving herself away, bemoaning his new address which wasn't nearly as prolific as his former one on the point, that his job was not as high-profile. She asked how much money he made and so he dropped her on the spot.

Better now than later on, my friend.

Small comfort. I tried to hug him and he pushed me away, telling me I don't know what it's like to be alone. Telling me a whole bunch of other things I won't even repeat here so that in case he wants to save a little bit of face to have someday it will be there for him to wear.

It was very hard to stand there and listen as he took my flaws and spelled them out one by one, choosing to spread the hurt around as much as humanly possible. And I took it because he's hurting and I'll do anything to help absorb that pain so that it doesn't soak into him and scar him for life. I took it even after Ben swung around and told PJ that if he didn't cool it he would flatten him.

We get venting. But not with human punching bags. Off limits.

And then he talked about going far away, because the children want their fathers and they want Ben and I had to go through the reasons why the children still live and breathe through PJ's presence in their lives but I understand if he can't do it anymore because there is a selflessness in what he has done for us that I'm not all that sure I deserve. There will be no act greater than the effort PJ has made to see that we were looked after even when we couldn't look after ourselves.

I'm not even sure if it was an argument or simply a air-clearing talk. I'm sure he's staying and just needed to hear why he should, so I made sure he knows he's wanted.

He laughed bitterly and told me to go inside, that my freakish talent in making everyone fall in love with me isn't something that can be learned. That he isn't loveable. Or worthly. He's not a catch.

And so I threatened to flatten him myself if he ever talked like that again. I told him I often contemplated marrying him in between husbands because we would have been so normal, and so ridiculously cute and BOOM.

I got him.

I made him cry.

The sad part is I knew he would cry and I did it anyway, because it's true.

Perogies. Best for aim and little mess afterward, except when they explode. Which is everytime the boys threw them overhand.

So the boys are now cleaning the dining room.

:)

All systems go/Never waste the cake.

Some very very good things about today, since things are going to settle back down fairly quickly now, I think. I hope.

No, I haven't spoken to Batman. Batman is very mysterious. Hell, I didn't even know he was divorced until he asked about a neighborhood downtown and I extolled the nearby shopping for his wife and he said she wasn't coming. That was years ago and I still don't know much about him other than his motives and even those are sketchy. Similarly, Caleb was not as punitive as I thought he would be when we tricked him and left. Nor was he punitive when we returned. I lasted less than a week. I think he's thrilled so it's a thankful non-reaction, which helps lighten the load I carry right now.

Duncan came home early by ten days. Because he's loyal and knew things were getting rough. And because he's devastatingly handsome in a two-weeks-without-a-shower roadie kind of way. God love him because I didn't actually linger in the hug I got. He is already asleep. The useless fuck. I am so happy he's home.

And PJ. PJ came back! I found him outside on the front steps slowly trying to explain to my children what an ass he has been and how you should never try to change to impress someone, that if they don't love you for who you are then they aren't the one for you.

Clearly he is the one for us because we'll take him even though he appears to be single, unemployed, homeless and...drunk.

It's going to be a lovely night. Lochlan has taken PJ downstairs to deprogram him get him in a hot shower and fix him up emotionally and then we'll feed him a little crow and watch him eat it, because we're all horribly sadistic like that and want to make him suffer for what he did (pot, kettle, black, eh, Bridget?)

Then maybe we'll tell him all the trouble we got into while he was gone. Because he didn't believe Henry, and Ruth said she wasn't even going to try to explain to him because he's messed up and probably needs sleep and a food fight and then he'll feel right at home.

So Ben is making dinner.

Because Ben has some sort of bizarre hierarchy (in his head) of foods that we make that work best for throwing with minimal collateral damage, beginning with mashed potatoes and ending with cake.

I'm not throwing my cake, I like to eat it instead.

I've learned to eat it pretty fast.

I'm so far in the doghouse right now I can't see daylight.

He laughed. Yes. Yes, I think you really are. That was quite an operation you embarked on there. Dragging everyone with you, no less. Did you prove your point? Was it worth it, Princess? I told you what he was and you didn't listen.

I look at my shoes. Sometimes..sometimes Batman seems less scary to me.

Less scary?

Yes.

That makes me so profoundly sad. There is no reason for you to fear me, Bridget.

 Sure there is.

I've spent years now trying to make your life easier. Trying to give you what you want and take as little as possible in return. What could you possibly find in me to fear?

Everything. I shrug, looking up at the house to where Lochlan sits on the top step cleaning and refilling his lighter. Within eyeshot from now on. He's barely speaking to me because we came back here but I will abide by his rules without question.

I wouldn't hurt you, Bridget.

Yes, you would.

He looks at Lochlan too. Lochlan stares back at Caleb openly, thinly-veiled hatred in his eyes.

Is that what he tells you?

No. You've shown me. You have hurt me. Coming back here was as hard as leaving.

You belong with me, Bridget.

No, I don't.

You need to stop fighting it.

I don't. And nothing changes. We'll go around in the same circles, fight the same fights, dance the same fucking dance and destroy each other one little bit at a time only I'll be long gone before you even show any wear because there is less of me to lose.

What if we change the rules again?

What do you mean? I stand up. Loch has made a beckoning motion toward me. I'm not going to delay.

What if I made up a new proposal for you that ends your fear?

Oh, go for it if you think you can pull off the impossible. You know where to find me when it's ready.

Doghouse?

Yes.

With the redheaded guard dog out front?

That's the one.

Home.

Homehomehome.

Really glad Satan didn't take the offer so we can have our house back.

No worries. I'll figure the rest out later.

Someone please tell me where the cord is for my macbook. ARGH.

When Ruth said she was relieved to be back here on the point I think I knew it's where we are meant to be. Does that make me horrible? Probably. I didn't uproot them overnight, though. We planned and plotted and schemed and fretted and even with my doubts I went ahead with everyone's blessing but one.

And then I came screaming back in the middle of the night and oddly once again there's a small fraction of the collective who are unhappy and the rest are almost convinced the whole thing was a dream.

Batman said there would be no strings and then he tied us up so tightly I couldn't breathe. What was supposed to bring relief brought a different sort of misery. Evil I can handle easily became evil I don't recognize or understand.

And I've done it before so it comes as no surprise. When faced with a choice between Batman and the Devil, I'll pick the Devil every time.

The mediators think I'm insane, I suppose but Caleb had already complained loudly about the transportation issues involved in collecting Henry for his time, and the issues with breaking down a perfectly good extended support network. Everyone had questioned our isolation in the woods coupled with Ben's issues and the need for the reassurance that came in living close to one another, as unconventional as it may seem.

And Lochlan even doubted that I would do as well away from the ocean again, though he is beyond angry today. Again, his angry is a tsk and an occasional unchecked shout and nothing that I can't soothe with some effort. He will blame everyone else before he gets it through his thick skull that I fucked up, because you can't fuck up when you're twelve, and that's as old as I will ever be to him.

So where does this put me? Squarely in the failure to thrive box, the loser corner, back to the starting line. It has nothing to do with fear. Fear sent me away. Courage brought me back. Living with the Devil is easier than living without. Facing Lochlan's epic frustration and perceived betrayals is better than letting Batman take a bigger role when it's too late to change the play.

I'll take the fall for all of this. And I'll do it with an ocean view. Some things just can't be replaced.

Lesson.

Caleb took one look at me this morning and smiled sadly as I sat across from him over breakfast. What began as a breakfast meeting ended as a rescue mission. Which is why my life is this way. At the end of the day, when everything goes dark and everything's gone wrong I have nowhere else to turn.

I was warned gently four times to keep my composure, that we were in public. He picked up my hand and held it so I wouldn't continue construction of butternauts with my knife and fork instead of eating the smoked salmon and caviar in front of me. I would build little armies and then smash them and laugh but the laughs were ending near tears even though I tried to separate the two.

Pyro's right sometimes, Beautiful. You are a lot of work. 

I think he said I was a piece of work, Diabhal. 

That too. Let me make some calls. We'll have you guys out of there by sundown.

Just....

Just what?

Make it as easy on the children and Ben as possible. 

Ben should be looking after you and maybe if he was this wouldn't have happened. 

He can't. And Lochlan-

I know. That's why I'm happy to take control on his behalf. But Lochlan is so out of his league right now it's almost comical.

But you're not-

Don't, Bridget. Don't you dare ask for help and then try to limit my efforts. Not now. Not ever again. I told you [Batman] owned all of it. I told you he would come looking for his pound of flesh from you but you were too busy running from me. I am not the enemy here. I never was. I never will be. I can make things tough for you or I can make them easy but when all is said and done you are my Universe. As are the children. Our friends. But you are my life. You're my responsibility now.

I squish another butternaut. Caleb reaches over, ripping the knife out of my hand, throwing it down on the plate with a clatter. People stare at us as we stare at each other.

It will be okay, Princess. I will look after you.

Composure asked for her check and fucking left.

Exponent.

The worry stone and an old copy of Treasure Island were all I had left when I came home. Taller, thinner, darker. In cutoffs because I had grown and my jeans were way too short now. Pinstripe painter's jeans now ragged shorts, pinned up tight around my waist, covered by my pink halter. Hair tangled into a low braid. White at the end and frothed caramel at the top and I have to focus very hard not to curse when I speak, because I get used to giving Lochlan my uninterrupted stream of consciousness whether he likes it or not and I've picked up some rather colorful phrases along the way. I've picked up two other languages and I know how to do teardown on five out of the seventeen rides. I know how to lie and I know that you can speed a Ferris Wheel up until the screams come out involuntarily.

But it isn't safe, like so many things.

I know now that Caleb is evil and I know that Loch is somewhat either prevented from or unwilling to stand up to him and I don't know why for either but I know that I'll never go back to the Midway show, maybe someday we will do something else but for now I'm sort of glad to be home even though everything is different. The sky looks different in the colors it shows. Food tastes different, as if I don't need flavor anymore and everything I draw is dark and angry.

I don't speak until I'm spoken to. I'd rather read or just sit with my headphones on and stare out the window. I go out with Lochlan for more milkshakes or sometimes to the movies but he always has a ton of homework and I've been failing math all through junior high and should be doing homework but I've lost interest.

Chris sits with me sometimes on Saturdays and tutors me in math when I wait outside the shop for Lochlan to be finished work and he asks me what happened that changed so much this time and I just say nothing and ask what's different. He tells me I'm moody but I tell him I'm just tired.

I should tell him I need help with this but I don't.

I should tell somebody something but I can't.

Aperture photometry.

In the middle
Under a cold black sky
The sun will only burn for you and I

Not sure today if I am ruled by the living or the dead, my thoughts a thousand miles away as rough hands lift me up, razor burn stinging my skin. Taciturn is on, and all I can think is how much Jacob would have loved this song. I could play it for him now but I've lost him in the move and I suddenly realized this late the other night when I went looking for him and came up empty.

I resumed my descent, falling faster still through the dark in the cold night air, reaching out for purchase and finding nothing so I tuck myself into a ball instead and scream with my fingers over my ears. Lochlan makes a grab for me and it holds, ripping my arms out of their sockets as he bears my weight so easily. He grabs my fingers, my hair, pulling me up, hand over hand. When I'm up on the edge he lets go in order to breathe and I slide right back over the side, falling down to the bottom again.

This time when he pulls me up he doesn't let go. Because this one learns from his mistakes and corrects them and atones for them for all eternity. 

His chin presses hard against the top of my head as my skin absorbs his heartbeat. He steps back and begins to methodically remove off every single thing I have on. My earrings. My shoes. Rings. Sweater. My defenses. My thoughts. My defections. Deflections. He smudges my eyeliner with his fingers and tucks my bangs behind my ears.

Now you're you, he says. Now you're mine.

He pulls my chin up until my lips meet his and I don't let go to breathe either. Not anymore. He takes my hands in his and pulls them behind my back, keeping them there, his arms around me, my collarbone pressed against his chest, our hearts fused through bone and flesh like lightning, only slower.

That's what this was like. Lightning in slow motion. I can finish his sentences, pull thoughts from his brain and comfort him like no one else can. He stands in front, torch held out to keep back the monsters, one hand keeping me close against his back. Never too far away anymore but still keeping up the appearance of efforts to teach me self-defense, self-reliance, self-confidence, none of which actually exist, fear and bravery all tangled up, resulting in epic, choking anxiety that has destroyed anything else I ever had. Sleep and affection bring the only sweet relief from what is otherwise life with my breath held.

His lips follow a line down my cheek and against my throat, his head ducked down, warm curls tickling my eyelashes, soft lips tracing paths he knows by heart. He lets go of my hands and tucks his arms under mine, pulling me in tight against him again. I put my arms up around his neck and he lifts me up and carries me back to the darkness but it's okay because he's with me and he will fight for my breath on my behalf and when he turns and gives it to me I will gulp it down and beg for more.

The hours move slowly while we watch lightning strike and rings roll into corners across the darkened floor. The minutes crawl by as we watch each other burn.

Red velvet cake and scary movies.

Bring me home in a blinding dream,
Through the secrets that I have seen
Wash the sorrow from off my skin
And show me how to be whole again

I've just learned that I have a huge crush on Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Sue me. He looks damn hot in the middle of an exorcism. And I had to find a new movie star to drool over since neither Robert Redford nor Paul Walker seem to make very many movies anymore. But now Jeffrey, see, he's a very busy man.

I've also discovered that iTunes and I are still mortal enemies. Starting with removing my sidebar and then telling me I was not authorized because I'm now using a different Macbook. Fuck you, iTunes. Lochlan doesn't want to hear about my struggles anymore. He told me to look up the solution myself. I made the 'loser' sign on my own forehead and told him Jeffrey would have done it for me. He said Who? and went back to his reading. He tries to force my independence in the dumbest ways and then he'll still open my can of pop for me every pizza night without me even asking, even though I've been able to do it since around the age of thirteen. (I still can't finish a whole can. That hasn't changed since I was eight.)

I found out that August spent months trying to get someone to listen to him about me and they didn't take him seriously. That makes me angry. That deserves a whole post, just not tonight. Another day when I can write it down without losing my mind in the process.

I remembered today that if something goes wrong we are here on our own now. No army to rush in and fix things. No cooler heads will prevail if Ben and Loch get into it. Don't know why I didn't remember this before. I suppose I was in a little bit of a hurry, running screaming from the Devil because I was on a collision course with hell.

I noticed that Sam really needs someone to talk to and what do you know, so do I, so he is hanging out pretty much around the clock. When I asked him what he thought of the house he smiled and said it felt good. That it's a happy house. A cozy house. A step in the right direction. Then he told me he and Matt were working on things. That they were talking and that he feels better about the direction they are going in but maybe he's a bit of a cautionary tale unto himself.

I heard from New Jake. Batman says to be warned, that Jake might do some goonage as required since we are somewhat isolated out here. New Jake called to see how I felt about that. I didn't know so I invited him over for dinner instead. Apparently I don't know the meaning of isolation. Everyone's right here, what are you talking about? We've had more dinner guests and sleepovers than ever before and we've been here a whole four days.

I was assured by Ben that he's not going to go off on Lochlan here. That things are already different. We aren't all stretched so thin or forced to extend to allow for so many extra souls to look after. We're suddenly a tiny little family and we're going to stick together. So far so good. A lot of affection passes between these two. I daresay they missed each other while Ben was away. I have to fight for turns in hugs sometimes. That is so not fair but so awesome too.

I heard that PJ is not so happy, that he is second-guessing a lot of things right now. I sent him an email telling him I wished it was a phone call but since he won't answer my calls I wrote down what I want to tell him and he can read it and think on it or delete it and from here the ball is in his court, so to speak. That I'm gone. That we succeeded in getting out from underneath the devil. That it's okay if he wants to still be friends, he hasn't burned this Bridge (literally). That I miss him so much and I wish he was still wanting to be a part of my life. I didn't mention the children missing him. I wasn't going to play the guilt card right up front. He knows, I imagine. I don't think he's heartless yet. Soon, though if things don't change.

And I am hoping for a fun day tomorrow. It's Valentine's Day. Plans are as listed in the title of this post. Because I'm an incurable cake fiend. And I like ghosts and monsters too.

And love.

Gotta love love.

:)

So cold when I'm with you.

Me, I'm on the outside, tell me fade away
Drop me down but don't break me
In your sleep

In your sleep, inside
It's in your heart and mine
Whole sea is dark
It's in your heart and mine

You deserve more than this. He's walking through the house, hands in his pockets, murder on his mind, no doubt. I took the flowers Caleb brought and put them in a vase with some water. Surprise. Housewarming treats from the Devil. Red roses and a moment alone, a moment I have dreaded since we sprung our departure on him at the very last second that we could, given our circumstances. Given the fact that he is Henry's father and has to be kept informed.

I think you have that backwards. I am nervous but pretending I can hide it from him.

Do I? I don't think so. You could have had everything, Bridget but instead you chose to indulge your inner carnival freak and trick your way out of one predicament right into another. Typical. You and Lochlan are so full of good short-term ideas without regard for the long-term consequences of your actions.

You wouldn't give me everything. I remind him quietly.

He turns around and stares at me. Bridget. Oh, there it is, another warning.

I shrug. It's true. If you had given me what I asked for, things would be vastly different.

Not for me, they wouldn't and if you think I don't see that con coming from a mile away then you better practice your tricks a little harder. It would serve no purpose to indulge your whims-

Oh, just yours?

He stops his offensive and speaks softly. No, Bridget. I didn't want you to leave.

You just didn't want Lochlan to win.

His whole face lights up in total, unabashed surprise. Oh, but he hasn't.

Today is the first day of the rest of my something or other.

Christian called me at nine this morning without any specific reason to.

Come for breakfast, I told him.

Naw, Bridget. You haven't even been there twenty-four hours. Relax. 

I miss you guys. 

We miss you too, girlie but on the other hand, I don't have to put on pants now if I'm not going anywhere. 

Just admit it, you're a nudist. 

Okay. I'm a nudist. 

Nudists have to eat too, you know. 

I don't want to scar the kids for life. 

Then put on pants before you come over. 

I promise I will do that. But really I just wanted to say thank you. 

For? 

Batman's two dudes had me here and set up in under an hour. I felt useless. 

Enjoy it while it lasts. I hope you helped. 

Of course. I felt weird standing around. 

Nice having privacy? 

Sort of. 

It's okay, you know. 

I know. Are you okay, Bridge?

Yup. It's just a little quiet. 

Have Pyro practice his guitar chords. That should be noisy. Holy hell.

Meanie. 

Truth. Or even Ben. Ben's pretty loud. But at least he can play.

He did play a little already last night. 

How's the sound?

Terrific. Great acoustics in the kitchen. 

Awesome. Hear from PJ?

Nope. 

Caleb?

Nope. 

Bridge-

You coming for lunch then if you won't come for breakfast?

Possibly. 

Okay gotta go. I'm starving and I need toast.

Okay then I'll see you soon and I'll harass you then. 

I hope so. I'm having withdrawals already.

Fortunes told.

Now I think I get it in a way that I may have not understood before.

Money, I mean.

Batman had a team of trusted people come in and work to unpack all of our things last night, working until the house was ready. They used photographs and instructions and common sense and they got everything right.

It was more than a little surreal to come in this morning and find my power cord on the desk, plugged in just waiting for my laptop. To open the drawer in our bathroom and find that stupid box of dental tape that I hate because it cuts my gums still in the plastic organizer box, same as it used to be in the house on the point. My favorite lipgloss? Sitting on the counter beside my wooden hairbrush. Where it always is.

In the living room I noticed the wooden articulated figures we use for life drawings still in their obscene positions together. I walk over to the stereo and press play and the CD is still Footloose (1984, not the new one. Geez). Mike Reno is singing. I had taken that CD out and put it away, but it was in the stereo when they did their inventories so here it is back in the player now.

I open the fridge. It's stocked with everything I buy, even though we did a magnificent job at using up all the perishables and giving the rest to Daniel to finish up, since we were the first ones to go.

I couldn't be the last. I just couldn't.

I didn't expect the move to be this painless. Is this how people live? I don't live like this. I rent rickety, questionably-safe U-Hauls and I sign contracts I don't understand and I hope for the best and am always surprised in the end. Always. I go into debt for things that should cost less and I sell the small remaining fragments of my soul to the Devil for the rest and I'm suddenly not supposed to do that anymore but I don't see how that's going to work.

But I really like this new house.

It's smaller, more inviting. The lights glow in warm yellow tones at night and the woods are dark and lovely and peaceful all the way around. There's no wind. There's a driveway and space for two vehicles. There are four bedrooms, as I told you before and at my request the fourth one was made up for when Duncan and Dalton come back. They'll stay here with us for a few weeks while they find a new place. Everyone else is organized but they are flexible enough to want to wait until they are back in the province to look in person. I can't blame them for that. And the added people around me will make this transition a tiny bit gentler and less abrupt.

It helps. I'm a little fish out of water otherwise. I really don't like change and this one was slow and steady overall and the least difficult of every one so far.

The kids like the house. They like their rooms. They like that they can bike on the road. They like the promise of the deep dark woods and they like the idea that they will have to answer to three adults instead of twelve, most of the time.

Ben likes the house. He's very big in it, ducking through standard doorways, taking up huge amounts of room. It's like things were in the castle, only those rooms were smaller still. Lochlan is himself here, relaxed and calm. Certain, somehow as if he is the fortune teller instead of the woman with the skirts I spent so much time with on the road, as she sometimes babysat me for a sixth of Lochlan's pay. He says things will be just fine. She never said that. She warned me that I had a face that would ruin all those who gazed upon it. She called me Medusa. She swore at me in a language I didn't understand and she refused to ever do my reading again.

Now I get sandwich-hugs more than a few times from my loves, both of them surrounding me with their arms. Three musketeers now for real. No help, no backup, no distractions. Just one big fuckup, one little fuckup and a dreamer who can't clear his head long enough to see grey, instead seeing black and white, putting rules to all anomalies until things run straight again without surprise, and then he works to maintain that total control with a huge helping of magic, fireworks, wonderment and ridiculousness on the side.

Yeah, we'll be okay.

And there's cake. Which we didn't have but they left one anyway. :)

Scratch-and-dent sugarbaby sale.

I'm sure it's the right decision. I just worry about you so fucking much, and I worry about you being away from the water again.

Lochlan has his hands in his pockets. He's cold. The wind is endless this morning. We're on the wrong side of the fence on the dangerous part of the cliff, watching the action far below as Christian and Schuyler remove the bronze plaques from the rocks far below. It's low tide. It's the only chance we'll have to collect them. I'll leave the trees we planted. I have peppered the country clear across with little memorials here and significant odes there but currently ghosts are not on my mind. I have to dial in my focus on the living.

The living stands with his hands in his pockets, zippo in his fingers, probably. He's in a fine dark-grey v-necked t-shirt that cost me more than he would want to know about and his army green cargo pants. His rarely-worn silver chain is tucked inside his collar. He looks slight. Pale. Always a little too thin but stronger than his build suggests. His confidence picks up where his appearance leaves off. He never seems strong but he is. He just likes to be busy. He hates being parked in front of a computer and will be using a standing desk when he starts working nine to five again soon. Regular paycheques for a regular mortgage.

We wanted normal, we're going to get it.

Ben is sleeping in. Still worn out. Still taking up the emperor bed which will be dismantled next  and so I should go in and get him up but Lochlan wants to make sure the others come up safely before he leaves, so I'm not allowed to make my way back to the gate into the safety of the backyard. As long as he can see me that is the safest place, even if it means I remain perched on this ledge in the wind.

I should be across the driveway making my apologies in person but Caleb (generously and without hesitation on the phone) volunteered to host a sleepover and movie weekend for the children. He's maybe as afraid to be alone again as I am to leave him alone here but at the same time when has he ever made things emotionally easy for me? That's right. It happened the last time we forced a logistical separation. So that's what I'm doing again.

 (In case you wondered about him being alone here? He's received more than one lucrative offer for the whole property and is currently mulling over terms. Maybe that was the catalyst as much as anything. The minute he bought the other house developers came out of the fucking woodwork. He won't be left behind.)

Against my wishes we're checking into a hotel downtown tonight while Batman's people unpack the new house literally overnight. Once they are finished we will have brunch downtown and then head home. To the new home. It was the one final service Batman offered and then pushed for.  

Make it as painless as you can while you can, Princess, he told me and so I nodded and signed off on that too.

In the meantime I am gulping down lungfuls of salt air like it's the last thing I ever breathe.

I could pretend he's not as scary as I make him out to be but I really have to stop lying sometime.

(Ben is home. Ben is beautiful and I cried and cried as if when I blinked he wouldn't be there anymore but he still is and I didn't sleep last night I just hung on to him like a velcro monkey so please excuse whatever rambling stupid crap I'm about to put down here.)

If there's one thing I'm fairly good at, it's learning from my mistakes.

Stop laughing. Okay, please? I'm trying to live gracefully here. I'm trying to figure out how. The collective as a commune does not work. There are too many egos and not enough boundaries and zero privacy. We were so busy holding each other up we didn't see we were holding each other down. They spent so much time watching me that they had none left to spend on themselves and when PJ moved out abruptly this week I guess it was confirmation that by taking apart what we built they all might have a chance. That if we all remain here nothing is ever going to change.

I don't need a safety net THAT big. The one I have works just fine.

We bought a house shortly after New Years. A beautiful little new house up in the woods. Far off the beaten path but oddly closer to everything we need to get to. No longer will I have to go venture down the big scary highway for over an hour to grocery shop. No longer will I have to ask four times what they said instead of the usual two because the wind is roaring in my ears.

There's no private beach. No driver. No support network in the new house. It's all ours and we'll either finish ourselves off or...thrive, maybe. Only Ben, Lochlan, the children and myself will live there.

Caleb will be fine, I hope. I realize I may have broken his heart along with his patience but it was necessary. The pressure he was putting on me was so tremendous and so I just kept planning and planning and not telling him anything and then I chickened out altogether and told him in front of the facilitator as we sat for our quarterly meeting as a blended family.

The look on his face.

Further confirmation that this is the right step.

The children are very excited.  And we don't need to live within Caleb's means. We did not earn them.

(Can you tell I'm inwardly freaking the fuck out over his reaction? Or lack of one? I couldn't tell him or he would have prevented me from leaving and I have to go. I can't stay here anymore. He's crushing me.)

We want normalcy.

Well, as much normalcy as a nuclear polyandrous family can have, that is. Lochlan is very happy. He's so freaking happy. There's a lot of talk that he did his magical brainwashing and I'm just a puppet. This is not true. It just isn't so stop. You're going to hear different all through this but it isn't him, it's me.

I'm going to escape the Devil with twenty days to spare.

I'm going to keep looking after my boys, no matter what, just more like in the way we used to when I had the castle. If they don't visit me every single day there will be hell to pay, but it isn't anything like the hell we're in right now.

Batman and his amazing team of miracle workers helped orchestrate this. I do apologize for pretending we were on the outs but I had to in order to keep Caleb in the dark. At no time did I choose Caleb over Batman. Neither one is mine to keep but at least Batman has marginally more self-control and a better view of the big picture.

Caleb has tunnel vision and at the end of the tunnel is me.

I'm not his vision, for fucks sakes and I play him thinking there will be no repercussions. There are always repercussions. I just don't know what they are yet but as bad as things will be with him, they will be better for everyone else.

It'll work. You'll see.

Swim out on a sea of faces,
The tide of the human races,
An answer now is what I need.

See it in a new sun rising
See it break on your horizon
Oh, come on love, stay with me

Grifters by choice.

Today I....

I....disbanded a whole commune.

By myself.

No, that's a lie. I've had a lot of help. A lot of help finding homes, collateral, spending money, protection, support and all sorts of other things because this was (IS) bigger than just a move. This was like brain surgery. This...was really hard, I've been working at it for months.

It was necessary. It was...time?

I'll talk more about it once I find all my stuff. Namely the power cord for my macbook.

The lesson to take away?

Never con a con artist, for she learned from the very best.

(I'd write more but Ben comes home tonight and I need to go find a pretty dress and tidy up and make sure I've got something ready for him to eat right away. He's always starving after a flight. Too nervous to eat in the air.

He'll smell like airplane fuel. I like that part. It means he's tangible again.)

My fault.

Okay, then.

This morning the boys are singing Heartbreaker. En masse. Daniel's got the falsetto. I'm kind of worried about this bunch now. They know too many awesome eighties songs in full.

Oh, wait.

I did this to them, didn't I?

Hahahahaha.

Your love has set my soul on fire, burning out of control
You taught me the ways of desire, now it's taking its toll
You're the right kind of sinner, to release my inner fantasy
The invincible winner, and you know that you were born to be

You're a heartbreaker
Dream maker, love taker
Don't you mess around with me
You're a heartbreaker
Dream maker, love taker
Don't you mess around
No no no

Shifting my dream for one chance to breathe
And the blue in my eyes fades out.

My time ran out and I'm home now.

Blah.

On moving heaven.

Ben didn't know I was coming to see him and so when I was shown into the reading room, as they call it, he was standing in front of a shelf trying to choose a book. I walked up behind him and stood there peeking out around his right side as he picked up Hemingway and then Brown and then finally pulled out a Lee Child book, a Jack Reacher novel to be exact and I waited until he was a page or two in and just starting to turn on his heel to take the book with him when I said,

I hear Mr. Reacher is only an inch or two taller than you are. 

He spun around far too quickly for someone so large and dropped the book on the floor.

My first thought is What the fuck, beard?

My second was He is fat. I love it. 

My third I forgot because he pulled me right off the floor and up into his arms and CRUSHED me like a little fucking bug but it was fine because that hug lasted something like twenty-five minutes and only when they came and got us did he finally let go.

As far as I know the book is still on the floor.

So Ben is sober, fifteen pounds heavier and seriously unshaven. His hair is still short though and freshly trimmed. I guess they have a barber but he said it's cold outside and he's doing a lot of walking so he grew a beard. There is snow here, I might grow a beard too.

He told me not to grow a beard.

The more he talked to me in that sweet only-for-Bridget way he has of addressing me the more my resolve dissolved and the less stoic I became. It was hard to remain angry. It was hard to keep my distance and hard to talk about things like how our plans are coming along at home when all I really wanted to do was stay in his arms and let the world disappear.

I'm still here. I can't leave. I don't want to go home without Ben so I'm trying to move heaven and earth to have him moved closer to home or something. I need a little luck now. All these resources at my disposal, I'm finally going to utilize a few of them to get what I want, which is a little help in keeping the promises Ben made to me because he had a hard time keeping them himself. I can manage it. I promise.

I might be tougher than I look after all.

Inner pedagogue.

There are things I don't tell you as I narrate life in twenty-minute or four-minute or twenty-four-hour increments here. Just because I'm good at recounting (or is that recanting?) conversations form thirty years ago doesn't mean I'm necessarily good at anything else.

So while I sit here waiting for the plane, let me talk about some stuff that maybe isn't so relevant, exactly.

(I'm on my way to see Ben.)

Because he won't talk to me over the phone and he's not in a position to come see me, I'm going to see him. Thank you to Batman, who once again intercedes when he sees that everything is wrong and everything isn't going to get better on its own. I don't want to go right now. I'm fighting the flu. Things are understandably good with Lochlan and August, strained with PJ and Caleb and...nonexistent with Benjamin.

Batman told me I was fearless as I slammed around the room throwing things in a bag, extracting promises that I can fly home first thing in the morning, telling him he just can't keep barging in and changing everything in my life. He stood with his hands in his pockets admiring my tenacity and complimenting my action. He said I was so annoying. He said I looked pretty when I cried.

At that point I knew for sure he was full of shit, for when I cry all the color pours out of my eyes and runs away and I flush like a little baby tomato. It isn't pretty. It's saturated misery. I shrivel up and blow away. And the worst part is? Tears are sort of the beginning of every emotion now. From joy to surprise to frustration to helplessness to love.

So fuck it. That's not fucking pretty. That's just...dumb.

But I packed and I sat in the passenger seat of Batman's car and I said goodbye to Lochlan for the fifteenth time, and Batman pressed the button and put my window up too soon and Lochlan turned away because he works for Batman now and what are you going to do? And we drove away and now here we are and I'm sitting here thinking Huh, I should write in my blog. 

But all I can think about is to point out that the only hobby I have left is writing. Which is also work but I didn't tell you I am painting again because it's probably a phase. Or how much I still love collecting meaningless and meaningful things, only so long as the meaningful things are very big (hearts and loyalty and forevers) and the meaningless things are very small (keys and sea glass and....cake) and that I really really am not feeling well or brave enough today to go anywhere at all.

I'm not brave. I'm afraid.

But I'm doing it anyway.

Okay so maybe I am brave.

And now I gotta go.

Stanley Park, possibly my favorite place in the world.

I found a really cool shell today at Third Beach. B for Bridget!

Roughly yesterday, or thereabout.

Burn me alive
Set me on fire
And watch me die
Burn me alive
Watch me resurrect
Right before your eyes

The liquid in the glass goes around and around. It's making my eyelids heavy but the conversation terrifies me to the point of permanent wakefulness. I raise my eyes up to watch him as he stares out the window, holding his own empty glass.

The scorched earth policy was my plan. Ruin you so that he wouldn't win.

I nod. I'm fascinated when he lays his thoughts down, naked and uncensored, covering themselves fruitlessly in the glare of so much sudden attention.

How am I doing? He turns with a smile and I return to staring into my glass. Bridget. It's a warning to pay close attention. I ignore him and continue drowning in the fumes. Straight Canadian whiskey and I could light my breath on fire from a hundred yards away. How close are you going to get?

I look up and smile. The truth is the only escape I will have from the Devil and yet I made a promise. We buried the truth in the cornfield at the end of the fourth row on the inside, away from the highway. In the pitch dark. In the dirt, digging with our hands and we chose to leave it there instead of redeeming Lochlan and crucifying Caleb.

Because we had to. If we had a choice we would have chosen it, as it were. As Lochlan told me while I stood there and cried because I wasn't old enough to understand why this was so frightening, only that it was and we had to make it go away. Everything is simplified, dumbed down and covered with dirt, turned over and packed down hard and left forever to rot in the ground.

But secrets don't rot. They just fester and linger and wait.

You're going to ruin us all, Bridget and through us the children too. We're tied together now and if one of us sinks, we all drown.

I wish Caleb would shut up now, I'm worn out. I finish the drink and stand up.

ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME? He crosses to me and wrenches my wrist. I drop the glass on the floor and nod up at him. He softens marginally and I can respond without flinching so hard. He likes it when I react to him with fear. I maintain that I can't help it but he certainly can.

Leave the sleeping dogs. Leave your failed attempt at young love to the past. Leave your giant addict husband to his altered reality and come to me, Princess.

You are...

What? What am I?

So fucking completely delusional-

My quiet effort at speaking back to him is rewarded handsomely, just as I hoped it might be. I'm not afraid of Caleb. He's too smooth to be as frightening as Cole was, too in control to ever be out of it, too hopeful still to go too far and I know precisely how far he will go and I learned a long time ago that I can take whatever he gives me.

By midnight Caleb goes to refill our drinks and the knock on the door is less of a knock and more of a battering ram. I walk down the hall without my shoes and Lochlan is in the kitchen, in Caleb's face.

Lochlan drops his argument when he sees me. I am twelve, standing in the doorway in a dress that's threadbare, slightly too big so the ties are wrapped twice around my waist and knotted in the back, and my too-long bangs are in my eyes. I am covered with scratches and razor burn and the daze in my eyes leaves them unfocused. My eyes and lips are swollen and I have seen too much for such a young age.

He crosses to me and takes my hands. Come on. I need to get you out of here.

The secrets don't go anywhere, Locket. You know that, right? They wait for us.

He looks at Caleb and then back at me. Don't you listen to him, Peanut. He can't hurt you anymore.

Caleb's voice is sharp and sure, cutting through the whiskey like a bright light.

That's not true and we all know it.

Sleeping on wheels (circa 1983)

Is this long-term, staying on the road? How can we keep it up? Will it last? I mean...um...is it something we can do for a while?

Sustainable, Peanut, that's the word you're looking for.

Is it sustainable?

Yes.

Why?

Because I have no expectations and very basic needs.

What about me?

You have pretty basic needs too, Bridgie. Food, shelter, safety. Education. Fresh air. Vitamins. A really good wide-toothed comb for all that hair of yours.

No, I mean do you need me? Am I part of your basic needs?

Yes.

Why?

You ask too many questions.

Just answer this one and I'll stop.

Why are you part of my basic needs? I feel better when you're around and something's missing when you're not with me. I worry about everything that has to do with you and at the same time you teach me things about myself. I'm selfish. That's why. I just need you.

Goodnight, Locket.

What? Was the answer good enough or are you angry? Just goodnight? No comment on my commentary?

If I say anything I'll cry. That reason was a thousand times better than I thought it would be.

What did you think I would say?

Oh, some dumb thing about me being easy to spend time with because I mostly learn and don't talk back.

Yeah, no, that's not a good answer. And for the record? The one I gave you doesn't even begin to cover it. There aren't enough words I could teach you or enough ways to convey exactly what's happening here. Soul-mates comes close.
 
We're not soul-mates.

Oh really? Then what are you to me?

I'm your muse.

No, the circus is my muse. She's dirty and exciting.

Wow, from awesome to asshole in fifteen seconds flat.

I'm the best at what I do.

Yes, you are.

Goodnight, Peanut. 

Night, Locket.

Hey, Bridget? 

Hmmm?

I love you. 

I love you. 

You're supposed to say 'too'. 

No, then I'm just returning an offering. My way means I am confirming my feelings to you independent of your own and it's a random coincidence. 

Okay then. Sweet dreams. 

You too, Lochlan. 

You used 'too' right there! 

'Sweet dreams' is not nearly as profound or important a declaration as 'I love you', now, is it? 

If I had said you don't talk back would you be doing it right now?

Of course.

Brigadoon.

Today Daniel ventured a fun suggestion of having a lunch picnic on the roof in full Victorian costume.

I was all for it but then I was shot down because the rain is ceaseless and they didn't want me up there tripping around in a full-length velvet dress. Or Daniel with the top hat that works its way down over his eyes half the time, making him look drunk when he walks, because he can't see. Schuyler also took offence to the potential destruction of their wedding clothes in the process and that begat a huge endeavor to endear them all to the nuances of the Wreck the Dress movement and we forgot about making a trip to the roof.

(My wedding dresses are safe in the closet so that Ruth can either choose one when she gets married or eschew all of them and then I will wreck them with gusto. I just wanted to leave her some options first. So of course I'm a fan of WTD. Who wouldn't be?)

Lochlan refused to let me go to work today. He says no work-from-home mogul on earth needs an assistant present ten hours out of every day unless they are lonely. Then he said he was hungry. Then he started in on me for writing too close to the memories, shaving little pieces off, letting in too much light, stripping back layers he worked so hard to build up.

Jesus. Loch and his litanies. I tell you. He followed me around for half an hour. I had zoned right out, making lunch, gathering the other boys for food, etc. until he got to the part about being on the run.

What if we are? I asked, my eyes very wide, while chewing a bite of a ham sandwich as I sit, warm and dry, inside my kitchen instead of up on the roof.

Then I should have probably changed our names by now, for starters. He was very serious indeed.

Maybe we're hiding in plain sight! Doesn't that work best, anyway? Right under their noses?

Who's noses?

Umm...I don't know. The bad guys! 

What if we're the bad guys, Bridget?

Then we can pack heat, right?

What? No! Jesus. We're in enough trouble as it is. No killing. Now hurry up and eat. We have to get out of here. He winks and takes a bite of his own sandwich. I don't budge. It's always far more fascinating when I can convince him to play along.

Daniel finishes faster than anyone. Can I come too?

Depends. What did you do? Lochlan asks him.

Um...I wore a coat yesterday that I shouldn't have. I was in a rush and I couldn't find my wool blazer...

And how is that bad? Lochlan is completely flummoxed.

Daniel rolls his eyes and sighs.  It was a light wool and I should have worn winter-weight.

Lochlan nods, eyes wide suddenly, matching mine, for I had stopped eating. It's not often Daniel goes full-on fashion diva and I can never really tell if he's joking or not. We look at each other and nod and Lochlan looks back at Daniel.

You're in. 

Subversion.

Coffee with Matt yielded all kinds of illumination on Sam. Don't worry, I had Sam's blessing. Matt proposed, Sam turned him down and it's over. Matt's ready to settle down. He wants to be married. He wants to start a family. He doesn't want to sleep alone and have to schedule meetings to do everything from have lunch to see a movie.

Sam just got finished being settled down and isn't ready to jump in again in case it doesn't work out. He has cold feet. He's afraid.

I see both sides of things. I only wish I could knock their heads together until they saw the light. Them being together is better than them being apart but for now marriage seems to be a dealbreaker.

Matt promised he would keep in touch. He's such a beautiful liar.

***

I went to the dentist today. No cavities, no problems, just the usual lecture on flossing too hard and not coming in often enough. Yeah, yeah. My teeth are so smooth now though. I guess I can continue to live on marshmallow fluff and sour soothers. Doesn't seem like it's causing any problems, so far.

***

I worked a shortened day for Caleb in which he mostly sent links to my instant messenger showing me different lines of designer lingerie, dresses and jewelry. When the overseas real estate links started up I closed the laptop and asked him what he was doing. He shrugged and said he was just trying to get a feel for what cities we should shop in this spring when I accept his proposal.

I asked him why he thought I would accept it at all when he's already been thoroughly forewarned that I won't. He just smiled and told me stranger things have happened, that he warned me things would become difficult, and that I need to listen better.

I rolled my eyes at him when he turned away and he laughed.

***

I was turned to face the wall in the shower, Lochlan's fingers up over my mouth, his head pressed against mine.  I bit against the palm of his hand as my knees buckled and I gasped for air. We ran out of hot water, time and energy. We went in circles. We went to sleep sated in the dark, cleansed of our sins and queued for the next round.

As I slept I dreamed we stood in the cornfield again in the broiling summer heat making sure the hole was deep enough and I felt so ashamed but it wasn't my fault.

He woke me, telling me I was talking in my sleep. When I sat up in the dark I wondered if anyone had ever found our hiding place. That maybe we should go back and dig it up so that we tie up all of our loose ends. He shook his head, pressing it against mine in the dark, telling me Shhhh, everything is okay now.

I lay back down but didn't sleep, staring up into the darkness as it rested just out of reach and I wondered if we can't go back because it's pointless or because he's too afraid or if I've made a nightmare out of something that was only meant to be a dream.

I wondered why he never truly settles down. After all, you wouldn't tell a child you are going to take her with you and live a life on the run. She might inadvertently give you away.

Samwise redux.

I would have liked a little slack for being down four (five if you count PJ) boys this week. My nerves are sprung and grated and my heart is soft and ruined but you know, PJ isn't going to give me any. Instead he gave me a whole lot of grief and said that maybe she (the new girlfriend that he has known for six weeks) was right, but then he refused to tell me what she was right about, save for the fact that maybe it's time for him to move on.

It is? This is news to me. 

It was enough for me to put down my gloves and stop the fight so I could hear him out but he didn't want to talk to me and he didn't want to talk to Sam so he left, slamming the door as he went out. Telling me to tell the children he will see them later. He doesn't need to be here when they get home since I am home today. Another headache has the Devil sleeping today to try and shake it before it becomes critical and so I called Sam and asked him if he would come and help me sort out my feelings, organizing them for me because I would rather just splatter them around the room today, with not a lot scheduled since I planned to be working.

Sam is pouring coffee and he turns to me after the door slams with raised eyebrows. His defensiveness is very telling. He knows something isn't right with this and his loyalties are going to snap back and scar him for life. 

I look at Sam for a long time. That's amazing. 

You said it once about Ben. 

Jesus. What I wouldn't give for a mind like a steel trap. All I have is a rusty bucket. 

But it's a fun bucket. 

Not this week, Sam. This week it's a pailful of tears. 

He held my hand as we sat and I told him everything that is wrong. Everything I'm worried about and every fear in the world that I have right down to biting into celery that's too stringy to chew and Sam sat there and listened to all of it. Sometimes I wish Ben could do that, or Loch, but then I drive them crazy with my bottomless anxiety and I know you're supposed to be able to tell people everything but when I do I just want to put it back. You're not supposed to tell anyone anything. They have their own worries and fears and expecting them to balance yours too just ruins everything.

Sam is a special case though. He can let God be the sponge and Sam will wring himself out when he is too full with my negative emotions that spill over all the time. God fills up like a bucket too, just like Bridget's brain.

He thinks everyone will be okay. He's got this faith that I won't acknowledge in myself. Jake tried so hard to help me find brighter days, silver linings and hope for a better next time but I was too busy standing at the bottom of the well, covered with mud and still digging for solid handholds to pull myself up on and still coming up short long after everyone else had left. I couldn't breathe, couldn't come up for air and couldn't hear a thing from down there. Sometimes it feels like I never left rock bottom.

But Sam assures me I am wrong as he leans down as far as he can, holding a lantern so that I can see how far I've come. It isn't far but it's something.

Distract me! I call up. Tell me something about you.

I see a strained smile cross his face. Matt proposed. 

Oh, God. Here he is listening to my misery and meanwhile he was bursting with his own news. Sam! I can't believe it! You must be so happy!

I said no, Bridget. I turned him down.

Or maybe I should just introduce her to Satan and save us all the effort.

Over toast and eggs, PJ tells me this song should be my pole-dancing soundtrack if I ever go back to that. Several months out of my life that I'm never EVER going to live down. But hey, it came in handy later on.

The song was Trigger Finger. Chimaira. PJ likes his music in audible-concrete form. The heavier the better. If you can see through it he doesn't want to hear it.

I used uh...Pour Some Sugar on Me.

I cringe at some of the things I did back then but I could only keep it quiet for those few months (which I have mentioned before so don't ever pretend to be shocked if you come here in the first place). The second that the boys found out they showed up and that was the end of that.

It wasn't for naught, though. I made enough cash in six months to almost equal around two whole nights with Caleb.

Woo, look at me go.

I went back to doing things the hard way. I wasn't given much of a choice. And in my defense, I have earned every. last. penny. he has given me. You really have no idea. He will even say it's not enough but I don't want any of it. It just sits there. I'm lousy at sugar-babying, I've been told. Good. I'll own it but I don't feel it.

Anyway, PJ is just smarting because he finally introduced me to his girlfriend (NOT FOR LONG) and I didn't have gushingly-wonderful things to say about her. Here's the part where I point out it's not jealousy. I love PJ. I adore PJ. Half the time I'll side with PJ to everyone else's wrath. He's my Tweedle-dee.

But I would cut him loose before a heartbeat was up if I thought he had a shot at getting out from under the collective and having a normal life.

However, it won't be with this girl.

He's so smitten he can't see what several of us saw within moments. She thinks he has money. She's pretty damn sure of herself and boy did she ever have big stars in her eyes. And I stood there and smiled graciously, playing dumb while she frowned at me, wondering precisely what my reason was for being here, while PJ made repeated references to a job he doesn't actually have and things he doesn't actually do. PJ wasn't PJ and that worries me.

PJ is not going to find a girl who loves him for himself if he can't tell the truth up front.

 And yeah, I know I'm a paragon of how to have a successful relationship and all but this is something else entirely.

So over second breakfast, instead of asking me to spell out my concerns he started taking potshots at my character in order to feel better about himself. I let him. He's scared he's going to lose her and he thinks something is better than nothing. He somehow thinks she will soon love him enough to weather the truth whenever he decides to reveal it. She's already told him she can picture them together when they're old and still in love.

Fucking gag me.

You're laying it on really thick for someone skating on what you've been told instead of what's right in front of your tall, airbrushed-to-within-an-inch-of-walking-photoshop fucking face.

Yes, WAY TOO MUCH MAKEUP. Maybe she's hiding things too. Like fear and desperation? Yeah. Let's go with those two, for now.

She also called him Patrick. Repeatedly. Which is just...well, for starters, it's NOT HIS NAME. 

God, I love PJ. Really I do. Think he can stay here and lick his wounds alone, while I take my bitchy little self over to the boathouse and work on my own game and maybe when we both cool off we'll be able to share a meal without our knives aimed for each other's hearts. I'm sorry. I get incredibly angry and defensive and mean when people mess with their hearts.

That's my job.

Fetching.

She lies and says she's in love with him
Can't find a better man
She dreams in color, she dreams in red
Can't find a better man

At dinner a martini was ordered for me and I drank it. And then another and I drank that too. Then more. And I kept transferring the olives between glasses and Lochlan kept giving me terrible looks across the table. By the end of dinner I had a whole glassful of huge olives left to crunch into. I ate the first one quickly, used to the bitter bite of oily fruity goodness. This one was spicy and gin-filled and I choked on it and then swallowed it whole. I didn't think I could breathe and so I took PJ's coke and drank some while he gently thwacked me on the back. Lochlan kicked me under the table. Enough, it meant.

Enough.

I left the other olives there in the glass. 

***

In the car on the way home I got the hiccups. Not just quiet little benign hiccups but full-body-jerking, silence-interrupting, breath-stealing, can't-finish-a-sentence type of hiccups that make it hard to function.

I sit in the truck long after everyone had gone inside, just to hold my breath many times in a row to try and get rid of the hiccups. It finally worked. I found out something else too. The truck sort of reminds me of my old pantry where I could sit on the floor for hours in the dark and reorganize my brain when things became overwhelming.

If now even an olive is overwhelming I wonder what is left to organize, exactly.

***

When I leave the truck I make my way to the boathouse to say goodnight and also find out if I'm supposed to work tomorrow.  Caleb turns around from where he is making tea. He invites me to join him but I refuse, saying I just want to know if I'm working. He asks if I enjoyed dinner and then asked how many martinis did I have?

I dunno. Doesn't matter, does it? I ask him, grinning and then I describe the fire-olives that were so lethal they must be ninja, hitmen, mafia olives so he should watch his back and we're all going to switch to the greasy black kalamata ones instead starting tomorrow. I tell him I still can't feel my tongue. He frowns and I blush inappropriately and say it's time for me to go. I step forward to give him a quick hug. He puts his arms out so easily. I get the hiccups again and start laughing and I give him a shove but he doesn't let go.

I look up into his eyes and hiccup again, my whole body going rigid in spasm. He smiles and says another drink will fix it but instead of saying yes like I always do I repeat no without hesitation.

If you want to come for a juice nightcap, you can, you know. No more booze though. I point toward my house and hiccup again.

Think I'll stay here. Sweet dreams, Little Hiccup.

That's not me, I'm Bridget. And I think I might be damaged. I mean drunkened. Do you think? I tap him on the chest hard.


Jesus, Bridget, go home before I keep you. He lets go suddenly, going cold. Yeah, me too.


Night, Diabhal. Don't say things like that, okay, please?

I head back across the driveway. When Caleb is desperate he sounds so much like Lochlan it's downright frightening. I walk into the heat of the house and sit down on the floor gingerly to unbuckle my high heels. Once out of the stilts I feel a little more steady. There's a bit of a jam underway in the kitchen. and I go to the doorway and watch. Lochlan drops his part and comes over.

Everything okay? I was about to come looking for you.

I nod and hiccup at him. He laughs, leaning down to give me a kiss but then yells BOO really loud in my face. I jump fifty feet but I still hiccup when I am done smacking him in the chest. Fuck it. Argh.

Then I realize I really am thoroughly and completely drunk as he lets go because I'm still warm.  He returns to his guitar, picking up the lyrics just as they get to the bridge.

She loved him, yeah
She don't want to leave this way
She feeds him, yeah
That's why she'll be back again
Can't find a better man
Can't find a better man

He grins and winks at me. Not sure why he's so happy. The words are so profoundly sad and yet here I am tapping my fingers because it's such a notable refrain. I couldn't get the olives to match the taste I remembered and now I can't get the feelings to match up with the words they accompany. I put my hands up over my eyes. I don't like nights that end like this. Maybe I just need some sleep.

No more of your darkness.

The Fairy Boys have taken over, giving back what they are best at. Comfort.

Okay, that's not what they're best at. They're best at home decorating. Comfort ranks a close second. Daniel took me under his arm and proclaimed it was a good day for a little decadence.

Decadence?

Yes. Come this way.

I followed him across the lawn, up the stairs and down the hall, then down another hall until we passed through the sitting room and into Daniel and Schuyler's bedroom, with its impressively-high four-poster bed and au courant sound system. Their personal space is all rich medium-warm woods and pale cool greens, with punches of cream and black. It's the most relaxing place in the universe outside of my soaker tub, I suspect and I spend as much time there as they permit.

He pushed me down on the bed and picked up his phone. Hey, he said.

I lie there and listen in.

We have a broken heart to fix. Can you bring up provisions? I raised my eyebrows and he smiled and winked at me. He said Me too, babe and clicked the phone off, sliding it onto the bureau.

He comes back over and scoops me up, moving me to the centre of the bed and sacking out beside me. He closes his eyes. You miss him.

I do. Tears are beginning to leak out of the outside corners of my eyes and straight down to the pillow. He pulls me in close. Everyone does. I need my big brother. He's going to be back before you know and until then I am devoting myself to looking after you so that I don't see any more of those tears.

I wipe my face and give him my effortful grin and he leans back in and plants a kiss on my forehead. Just then the door opens and Schuyler walks in with a tray. The tray contains two bottles of cupcake wine and three large plates, complete with warm black forest cake. Schuyler puts the tray on the sideboard and comes to the bed, bolstering the head of it with all the pillows he can stack up. Daniel lights candles all around the room.

Then they both pile back onto the bed, bookending me in the middle, passing out plates and glasses. Daniel waits for me to take a sip of my wine and then takes the glass and puts it on the night table. I am just about to dig into the cake when he shouts WAIT! and leans away, grabbing the remote off the table. With one button push the curtains slide closed across the windows and the stereo comes on.

Oh, they're still listening to Elton John. Now, he says, and we all dive into our desserts.

When I am full and relaxed, propped up on the pillows, listening to the rest of Caribou, they lean across me and kiss.

Don't let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see
I'd just allow a fragment of your life to wander free
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me

Boy, do I ever feel superfluous all of the sudden. I sit up and they fill in the space behind me with a deeper kiss and so I crawl to the end of the bed and over the side of the footboard, falling to the floor. I stand up and look toward the bed but no, they are still kissing.

Okay then.

Such sweethearts. I love them so much. I collect my wine glass and one of the bottles that's still half-full to take with me. I may not know how to comfort myself but I do know how to show myself the door.

Anachronisms.

I took a printout of Caleb's sundry account transactions over to the boathouse this morning to prove my responsibility in replacing the money I've been stealing. He laughed bitterly, pointing out the irony of my efforts to show him I'm a Good Human.

He said he had almost seriously contemplated killing me as I slept because I spoke ill of Cole again and that's why he had avoided me, in order to get himself back under control. In the next breath he asked me how content Lochlan must be as of late, having me all to himself, having his way paved to certain victory by virtue of circumstance and nothing more, as he had nothing to offer? It was a loaded, vitriolic insult and I chose to ignore it.

Caleb said maybe I should leave after all but when he saw that I was planning to do just that, he begged me to stay. I asked him how I was supposed to send Henry here to spend time with someone who wants to hurt his mother? He said he would never hurt me now. I choked out a sob in surprise because he's done it before. He's done just that.

Now, he corrects himself, tracing my cheek gently, I said now.

Pathos.

Please teach me to breathe
Remind me how, I can't remember
Please read me the theme
You've lost the plot, the story's dismembered

Lochlan called it a moment of mellow drama and I laughed when I stopped feeling sorry for myself. He's clever with words, teaching me pretty much everything I know as I learned slowly, succinctly to the point of using words for sport now, for entertainment.

Now I get these great litanies from him, spat out hard in his delightful Scottish invisi-brogue, too impatient to work lyrical magic. And I'm not sure anything ever changes. I don't feel like I've achieved much more than an ability to shut down into nothing, duck my head and weather the storms as they hit, one after another.

He came flying out of the house during the shoot-out in overtime, boys glued to games (Canucks won and so did my Leafs, so they say), cursing me straight to hell and back for missing that, and he grabbed a hold of the ribbons on the back of my dress and hung on through the worst of it and I didn't know he was there until I leaned forward but didn't get anywhere. He puts a lot of misdirected faith in the stitching of my clothing. I'm not surprised in the least.

He also called Batman to consult because he didn't like the way things were going and he didn't quite know what to do. They didn't like Caleb's abrupt shift to not wanting to see me when half the time he seems to gain oxygen by my very presence. They didn't like Ben's refusal to talk to me and throw in Duncan, TJ and Andrew being gone and then my heading out to take up sentry position close to one absent ghost (but not the other because he showed up again unannounced this week) and a recipe for disaster is baked and then held in the oven on keep warm.

Does Lochlan ever know what to do? I don't know. He panics inwardly. He shuts down too and he's trying so hard not to do that when I already have. It must be harder than it looks keeping the lot of us contained and alive and together. He's been doing it since before I even met him. I think a lot of the time he is exhausted and under too much pressure and things slip. I just don't know why he holds so much responsibility for everyone.

What if we fended for ourselves?

Oh, right. Things get worse when that happens. See, uh...that eight year period when we all moved to the Prairies and he didn't. Well, he did for a little while toward the end of our time there.

When it began to rain last night he finally started pulling me in by my ribbons, hand over hand until he could grab hold of me. He took the headphones away and pulled me right into his arms.

You ever wonder, Peanut, why I make you listen to silly love songs all the time? You ever put it through your thick fucking head that maybe it's because you absorb all the other stuff like a sponge and then you wind up in a puddle of fucking misery and I have to wring you out and dry you off and you take fucking forever to dry, you do. It's better if you just don't go in but you're like a magnet to that stuff. Before I can turn around you've run off and gotten in right over your head again. You gotta stop doing this, I swear, we're getting too old for this shit and I love you too much to see this happen over and over again. 

Ignore me, I'm about to feel sorry for myself.

At precisely six minutes and forty-five seconds in to An Offering of Grief by Pallbearer the song changes into something so beautiful and hopeful that I could listen to it on a loop for the rest of my life, headphones jammed in so deeply to my skull they've permanently altered my personality. I have a new copy of Sorrow and Extinction and I've just about worn it out here, guys.

It works best standing on the cliff overlooking the sea in the pitch dark, trust me. Also you would do well to replace whatever blood runs through your veins with something that burns.

Ah yeah, there we go. Everything's okay now.

Except it's probably not. Let's give reality a chance here, shall we? Ben called again tonight and still he did not want to talk to me. He's doing great. Guess I mess that up something awful, don't I?

So I'll be where I usually am, doing what I usually do, which is wondering what it is about me that makes them disappear.

No bird.

Meh. Say what you will, the redhead is not only one of the few men on the planet who will sit through one of the oldest film adaptions of Jane Eyre, but one of the few who can quote extensively from the book at will.

I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.

(We had a lot of time to read on the midway. Did I mention we stole library books? Well, we did. And I'm not sorry. A background in classic literature is an absolutely essential ingredient in the recipe for Good Humanship. But the kicker is we would leave the books behind at the next library we visited on our travels. To be fair.)

Satan preempted my morning routine with a surprise day off without explanation. I think he's angry. He looks a lot like Colin Clive too. But not Colin Clive as Edward Rochester. No, he looks like Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein. Egomaniacal, deluded creep that he is.

I said it. I can say it because I'm barricaded in the living room behind a blanket and a boy. I wouldn't say it to Caleb's face though, no way.

Wax nefarious.

And you belong with me

When I went into the garage yesterday the harsh, grating flutter of black wings startled me, making me press my back into the door until I caught my breath.

Because I forgot and Cole is still in there, and I kept him away until Lochlan took my light. Lochlan doesn't see him anymore but once the flames were gone and Lochlan was too Cole stepped out into the darkness, disapproval written all over his handsome face.

You forget about me the same way Preacher got sent away, Babydoll? 

Maybe. I hold Cole's eyes with my own. He can't scare me now, I think as I fight not to tremble outwardly. He sees this and softens, smiling almost, his dark blue eyes so clear and deep without his glasses.

I want to ask him about my hearing, if it will be perfect again like his eyes. I want to ask him if he'll hate me less when I'm dead. I want to ask if he'll get along with the others better after they're dead. I want to ask if he knows how long some of them even have. I want to know if he loves me. I wonder if he hates me for the fact that he was never a father by biology but when I open my mouth I'm too afraid to say anything.

It doesn't matter. As brothers, they share certain gifts and he has read my mind, just like Caleb does. If Cole could do it in life no wonder things turned out like this.

Come with me and I can show you. His mouth is so compelling. I want to bite into it. I want to keep him here. But then I look at his eyes and his eyes say run. Distance and experience have left him little more than a pure blackened nightmare, one I can't see past to see my Cole. So long I spent with him and he is reduced to a spectre of unease and longing.

And I listen. I run outside into the bright light where there are no ghosts and no truth, no folded stolen cash, no hearts remaining unbroken, no newborn metal, no belief.

There is no nothing, it's all been burned away.

Two truths and a lie.

Rise from the dead you say,
Secrets don't sleep till they're took to the grave,
Signal the sirens, rally the troops,
Ladies and Gentlemen, it's the moment of truth.

I was treated to a rousing singalong of Shadow Moses, surprisingly by the easy-listening boys, who have been exposed to this song on a near-criminal basis the past week or so. Lochlan and August traded off some pretty impressive metalcore vocal licks while PJ and I stood and appreciated their efforts like nothing you've ever seen. When it was done I clapped and said Again! Lochlan winked and refused, saying his career as a thrasher has to be kept fairly quiet or the floodgates will burst wide open and once they do, we can NEVER EVER close them again.

***

There was a knock on the side door, just down the steps from the kitchen where the driveway turns into a high wall that becomes the backyard. PJ went to get it and I kept washing dishes. Washing and washing until I felt eyes staring into the hole where my soul used to be and I turned my head to see the Devil standing there.

Bridget... It was a drawn-out, expectant word.

Yes?

He smiled. Have you seen my money clip?

Hmmm? Oh, yes! I found it in the driveway.

In my pocket as I stood in the driveway you mean?

Oh, possibly, yes.

May I have it back please? His amusement turns pained and I dry my hands and go to the desk in the hall, fetching the clip. I bring it to him and he holds it up.

And the bills?

What bills?

The money that the clip was holding.

I didn't see any money.

Bridget...

What!

Are you going to give me back the cash?

If I had any to give you, I would. I hold his gaze and he finally lets enough doubt creep in to let me off the hook. Fine. If you see a folded stack of bills, can you check with me? They must have fallen out when you stole the clip.

I nod slowly, raising my eyebrows.

He leaves, nodding at PJ on his way out.  Once the door closes PJ looks at me.

I like the way you told the truth by saying you didn't have any money to give him because you already spent it. That's really good.

I didn't spend it, PJ! I put it in the bank yesterday. I'd feel unsafe walking around with all that cash. Yeesh! Don't you know me better than that?

***

I am sitting in the middle of the floor in the garage flicking Lochlan's Varga Girl lighter on and off. It's almost out of fuel. It lights up the dark.

He opens the door, walks across the floor to me and takes the lighter back. He tells me he's going to put mousetraps in his pockets if I don't stop this, and walks out the door, closing it behind him. Leaving me in the dark where I belong.

He's just mad because I always take the lighter instead of his wallet. His wallet is always empty, that's why. The lighter is worth more than nothing.

So am I.

Ochre and pitch.

And I found myself in a bitter fight
While I've held your hand through the darkest night
Don't know where you're coming from
But you're coming soon

I find it hard to watch him work but here I am, standing in the doorway long after bedtime, not wanting to disturb his efforts but needing to find some sort of resolution to his feelings, such as they are.

He was angry on Monday when I took Ben's truck and went for a drive alone. He was angrier still Tuesday, that I chose to share a memory that he would prefer to keep under wraps. (It doesn't matter how it all happened, he said, what matters is that it DID, and we're still here with each other.) And then by Thursday Lochlan had stopped talking to me altogether while I traded playful barbs with Satan, exchanging very little work for a big paycheque. Sometimes, when he's in a playful mood himself, Lochlan says he needs a Sugar Daddy too and I remind him he has Batman. He HATES that as much as he hates my working arrangements. But it all stands and we wind up on the other side of every week just like we always do.

And so I stand here in the door between heaven and hell and watch Lochlan paint, which is pretty much the same as it was when I watched Cole paint, right down to the fire burning close by and the curls that flip out against his neck.

He's listening to West Coast quiet-pop and singing along and not doing it for me, he's concentrating. He doesn't even know he is singing, I'll bet.

Come on and we'll sing, like we were free
Push the pedal down watch the world around fly by us
Come on and we'll try, one last time
I'm off the floor one more time to find you

I smile in spite of the long week that rests between us. I keep the wedge in place. He put it there and now I hold it. If I give it up I'm doomed. If I trust him, I might die. I keep it there because I'm brave and because I'm so afraid so I proceed through life by touch. Even if it means making those I love angry, even if it means everyone winds up on a different side and I'm the Bridge in between.

What do you need? He says it over the music without looking up.

You.

Sure about that?

Lochlan-

Look, I don't do so well with him, okay? Especially without Ben in between as an intermediary.

I know.

Then don't expect me to like you spending time with him. And don't expect me to approve of the things you write either. Jesus, Bridget. It was so hard. So hard and you didn't see.

I know.

Not with the same gravity. You were too young. You need to keep that off. It makes me look so wrong.

All of it makes me who I am now.

He stops and puts down the brush and the cloth. He smiles to himself and finally he looks at me. Yeah. I know it does.

You going to talk to me again?

I might.

Loch!

Yeah, Peanut. Come here.

Sustainability.

I'm working and having a breakfast date on a Saturday and Caleb is all admiration and stars in his eyes. Perhaps he is still dreaming. 

It's your capacity to endure. 

You or your brother?

Everything you have been through. 

Including you and your brother. 

I'm going to change the subject now. 

To what? Cheese? 

Possibly, he says. He is fighting a smile now.

My capacity is that of your standard, shorter-than-average human and nothing more. 

On the contrary. You're extraordinary. 

You like words that end in -ary. 

Oh do I? 

Sure. Exemplary. Revolutionary. Weary.  Blah. Let's get going. I'm starving. 

Patience, Babydoll. I'm waiting for one more call and then we can leave. What are you going to have? Did you decide yet?

Nothing with cheese, if that's what you're wondering.

***

For those of you via email wondering how it's so 'easy' (WHAT the fuck.) to joke around with the Devil or wax nostalgic about past and present love while my husband rots in a rehabilitation program in the US (one with a five-star chef), please remember that Ben did this to himself and I'm not supposed to stop living, nor would I do anything that I wouldn't do if he were home.

Also remember that the Devil and I have a mutual love/hate relationship and this is how we do things and finally please, if we're going to go there, open your life to me so I can judge what you've done.

There are thousands of other blogs to read. You don't have to be here. I like that you are, though.

X&Y/pressure-sensitive.

This will not be funny to anyone except for me. So there.

And I could write a song
A hundred miles long
Well, that's where I belong
And you belong with me

It's death by Coldplay today.

I really need to call in sick most of next week or my wee little brain won't survive. I've already had one nosebleed this afternoon. That's my brain, exploded against the inside of my skull, leaking out in tiny crimson increments.

He's singing along with Swallowed in the Sea. He intuitively sets me up and I fall for it every time. I hope the letter opener is sharp for I intend to throw myself on it shortly. But Caleb knows me well. He's hidden the goddamned thing and now he keeps offering to make us some coffee because we both have headaches. Our work is just about done for the day.

Sure, but before you go do you have the letter opener so I can deal with the mail?

I smile sweetly and he hands me the choice instrument of my death today.

He turns back at the door. Bridget, it won't kill you, just probably require you to have stitches and possibly antibiotics so unless you want to spend the afternoon being fussed over by the Russian physician I think you should perhaps choose a different method. I'm partial to erotic asphyxiation if you're interested. I can't guarantee success but we could have fun trying.

I can't believe you just said that.

I can't believe you're trying to get out of work by maiming yourself with office supplies.

Not like you haven't used the duct tape for a similar purpose before, Caleb.

Duct tape has no business being in the office. It's purely for pleasure.

Maybe you should be the face of duct tape, then, and change the image people have of it.

Maybe you should, since it's usually your face it's on.

I'm going to go home now.

Can I come? I'll bring the tape.

Naw. You stay here and open envelopes. Alone.

DAMN YOU.

And when you find it, you keep it.

I watched her leave again this morning. Peyton, or whatever her name really is. An interesting look on her face. Maybe her financial dreams are slowly coming true as Caleb settles up. Maybe she's glad she's uninjured, unscathed. Maybe she sees what he is and is relieved to leave. Maybe she likes him. I don't know. I don't care.

I thought you said you weren't going to see her again.

He glares at me and says nothing. I go to work, sneaking looks at him all morning. After lunch I am caught up on the mountain of work that grew so tall as I dawdle and daydream through life waiting again. I go back to watching him work and finally I can't hold it in any longer.

What is it like? I blurt out.

Caleb looks up, eyebrows raised curiously. What do you mean?

What is it like to sleep with someone you don't love? 

He stares at me for several moments establishing whether I am serious in my curiosity or simply seeking an argument. He chooses wrong. Why don't you tell me, Bridget?

Because I've never done it so I want to know what it must feel like.

That is the best news I've heard in years, he says quietly.

Siucra.

Keith is reading another one of his grim dystopian-future books.

What would you bring to the apocalypse, Bridget?

I bite into my fluffernutter and take a sip of my coffee that is laced with toffee syrup.

Guns, Keith. Guns and sugar.