Shape-shifting dates and comfort boys.

Forty-five days of sobriety and I catch Duncan sneaking in the front door this morning. He looks fucking thrilled and tired but sober and I grin in spite of myself.

Great. Probably the very last person I wanted to see first. 

Wow. Let me go get my phone so I can document your walk of shame here, Poet. 

It might be a rare thing, better do it quick, Bee. 

That good, huh?

I expect girls to be mostly different and usually taller versions of you but instead they're all dripping with makeup and hairspray and questions that seem to lead to whether or not I can marry them tomorrow and buy them trips. 

Where did you meet her? 

One of the AA guys had a sister. She's in recovery a few years. Has her shit together okay but just..trussed up like a fucking peacock. 

But you...managed. 

I did. Then when the sun came up I got the hell out of there because I didn't want to see what she'd morph into in the daylight without all of her decorations and...and....I just realized this is destroying my mythical reputation as a lizard king if I tell you this stuff. 

What, that you're afraid of cosmetics?

Basically. 

I won't tell anyone. 

They already know. I have no need to impress them. I was still hoping to be the cool one around here in your eyes though now that the dust has settled. 

Did the dust settle? You haven't spoken to me in ages, Duncan. 

He scratches the back of his neck and looks so sheepish I want to alternately nail him to the wall and let him off the hook. Bridge, I don't think I want to add any more drama to your life. Caleb seems content to look after that. I also don't want this to be weird. Let's just pretend we're the same as ever. 

Unrequited?

It's good enough. I miss you, Bridge. I'm trying to get my shit together again, if you can forgive me for everything. 

I'm sorry I make things hard for you. 

Oh, God. See? There you go with those words of yours. 

I realize my double entendre and burst out laughing. He laughs and rubs his eyes wearily. PJ walks in and smiles when he sees we can't keep it together but we are together at last.

What did I miss?

She don't hate me, Bro.

Sweet times, Brother. But I knew that already. 

Can I have a hug then, Duncan? It's been a while. (I reach up for him without waiting for his answer.)

Yeah it's been a while. Come here. You're going to need an extra pair of arms when that skeleton of a horse drops out in the driveway anyway. 

Wow, thanks. 

Oh, Poemgirl, it's going to happen any minute now.  Sometimes the Devil is right, you know. You can't save anything else until you've saved yourself. I'm learning it, too.

Threats to nowhere.

Can you please make him leave now that you've got what you paid for?

Bridget, you need to learn to coexist with your critics. 

He isn't a critic, he's a fraud and since I don't plan on ever speaking to him again you'll be wasting your time keeping him in your corner. 

I only want you in my corner. 

Tough shit. 

It is, surprisingly. But you're doing great and I want to see this continue instead of the endless backsliding. 

Then take me off guardianship. And leave all of this to Ben because he's done more for me than any of you ever have.

Demonstrate actual change. And Ben has the weakest character of all.

I've been running your stupid shit for a year now. If that doesn't qualify me as independent I don't know what does. And say one more disparaging thing about Ben and I'm gone.

I cosign everything you do. And Ben admits his flaws freely. I admire him in case you think otherwise.

So stop signing. 

It's my money. 

I thought it was my money. 

It's for you. 

Well then take it all back and I'm not signing another thing. 

Then you'll never be free, as you put it. If you don't continue to make progress with me then I can never approve the removal of those orders. 

It's been six fucking years! 

And you're still talking to ghosts and running off and fucking things up every chance you get. 

I don't know how to do anything different. 

I am teaching you! 

No, you're not! You're only making things worse! 

It's better to keep things the way they are with regard to our legal arrangements.

Then I'm clearly too young for you if I'm a child in the eyes of your system.

You always were. Do you think that ever stopped me? You're missing the point, Bridget. You're not well, You probably never will be. I love to watch you test your limits and muster your courage. I like to watch you pretend in front of me because I know at any second I can rip away your transparent little facade and see my girl. At any second. 

Then you just contradicted yourself. 

I don't really care.

Well I do. 

Then tell someone who can help you. Maybe Batman is up for the challenge. Oh, wait, he didn't turn out to be as helpful as you had hoped, now, did he?

I don't need his help. 

Well, Pyro certainly isn't going to help you change. You think I like to keep you young and helpless? Where the hell do you think I got the idea from?

You don't disparage him either. 

I can do whatever I want, Princess, in case you hadn't noticed.

Pedal backwards.

While I was off eating Cartem's and walking a techy floor show yesterday Joel was presenting Caleb with his notes on me. A followup, if you will, six years late. A condemning account of how I'm doing well but it's all a front, fake and put in place because I am spoiled and coddled and protected.

Oh, I didn't realize I was supposed to be drafted to the wolves, but he says I am enabled to within an inch of my life and that Caleb is possibly the worst offender, furnishing me with all my heart's desires save for..you know, anything I've actually asked him for. Not sure I get that part but Joel seems to take special offence to the power Caleb gives me with his money and with my own in the form of the credit card.

He also took offence to Ben's generosity and said I was being set up to have my heart broken again.

Last time I checked, that was called living. If you take the leap you take a chance and you might end up okay but apparently I should be alone, working to provide for myself and getting regular heavy counseling because that's the healthy way. Instead I made a commune, threw myself into a plural marriage and take too many fucking risks!

Because YOLO.

Because dammit, Joel, you aren't qualified to judge me.

Besides, I'm still under limited guardianship, if you want to be purely technical here. I'm shared three ways legally between PJ, Caleb and Lochlan. And I don't frankly care if the greater world sees me as a fully functioning six-year-old. The greater world never did anything but pay money to stare anyway.

Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics And Interactive Techniques Conference swag.

There's a mouthful, but sometimes I get to go to some mighty interesting things. Today I got my first walking teapot from Pixar! Also seventy billion pins, some of which are storm troopers! I'm very popular at home right now. HUZZAH.

There, but for the grace of God (go I).

Be my reminder here that I am not alone in this body
This body holding me, feeling eternal
All this pain is an illusion

Maybe by his own recognizance, maybe at Sam's urging, Batman wants a barometer and I'm having none of it. Where was he a week ago? Where was he when I've been hiding in the garage or the library watching my mind squeeze through the cracks in the floorboards and soak into the bedrock?

I've destroyed Caleb's work, I've failed at being trustworthy and oh, yeah, I found my Lateralus CD under the seat in Daniel's car. Because I had to move the seat up all the way to reach the pedals and I saw it when I was getting back in. So I still haven't grown any and that's just the last straw, I tell you. 

Batman puts his hands in his pockets and laughs nervously because when I get going he doesn't know what to say and I know he liked me quiet and easy to lead. He isn't used to strong personalities, he's very unassuming, able to step back and blend into his environment and that's made for an easy time for him here. Sometimes I wish he'd go home. He wants to be my conscience but that position has already been filled by Sam, who reminds me daily that I need to think before I say things and not do so much damage when I spread my moods over the collective like thick warm butter, suffocating every living thing for miles.

If you want to come in and save the day I think you need to start sooner, otherwise maybe you could be my friend? My nosy neighbor? Part of my storied past?

Indeed. I don't want to get involved without being invited but I think sometimes you have resources that you forget about, that would make your life easier. 

I snort. (Easier? Naw, I'm going to do this the hard way, gunning her straight through.)

So I'm here as a reminder, that's all. 

I'll keep it in mind. 

Better yet. Let me deal with him. 

I can deal with him. 

Yes, I see that and I see how poorly you come out as a result. 

I'm fine. 

He shakes his head and stares at me. You're never actually going to let me in, are you?

It's my turn to look away and shake my head. I've got a lot going on. 

Nothing's changed, then. 

Nope. 

Then can I extract a promise that if you need anything, be it money, muscle or just a hug, that you'll come to me? If I can do anything. I feel helpless here, Bridget. 

Don't. You live in a beautiful spot. The view's not bad either. There's New-Jake, shirtless in the driveway cleaning the bike and I gesture at him. Batman smiles.

It's a waste is what that is. 

Maybe he'll be only unscathed one here. But then Jake sees me and hurries over.

I doubt it. 

Me too. 

Thanks for the vote of confidence. 

If I had any confidence in you being able to weather these years relying solely on your own stubbornness, I wouldn't be here right now. You're tough, Bridget but you're no match for this. 

Sure I am. I'm here, aren't I? 

Only because they won't let you go.

I'm right where I'm supposed to be. Right here. Right now. You worry too much.
 

That time Monday turned from black to green.

(So many things have been altered to bring this to the page, forgive me if it seems simplistic or glaring, it was the only way I would be permitted to write about it. Also dealing with big important expensive things makes me cry. Like everything does.)

Caleb's independent board is all but dismantled, thanks to a huge undertaking on my part to offend, disturb and anger each one of them, independently.

They didn't like the fact that I am using de facto household budget logic here, that I pointed out they sign their name on things quarterly, making decisions at random but mostly following the herd and for that they are collecting big fat paychecks.

I slipped in four different caveats and finally Caleb caught the last one, having missed the previous three. It said, "And if Bridget wants to buy all the golden sheep in the land in order to spin their fleece into chains which will hang from the necks of any musicians she encounters on her trips to the New York studio, she will have carte blanche to do so."

They ALL initialled that and Caleb yelled WHAT THE FUCK? so loudly in the boathouse that I heard him from my kitchen, over the sound of the time machine, sans hearing aids, no less.

I texted him immediately. I KNOW RIGHT?

So he called a meeting.

I'm pretty sure you could hear him tearing strips off people. Confirming what I had been telling him all along. All five who initialed the release? Relieved of their positions. Two remaining who did not see these forms but seemed to be so easily charmed? Reassigned back to the legal team where they belong. This isn't a company, this is a family and if he ever listened to me he would keep his fucking money in the bank where it belongs, instead of paying people so he could talk about his board and his capital and his ventures and his seeds. I'm so fucking done with this shit. I've never SEEN so many people waste so much time on so little work.

After things calmed down, after the room was cleared, Caleb turned to me, hands on the table.

Tell me what you're thinking, he demanded.

I'm wondering how in the hell you've done so well for yourself without ever paying attention to what's going on around you. I'm wondering how much you threw away. 

He burst out laughing. You should be counting how much I'm going to save now that the board will be dissolved. 

Depends. Is it a finder's fee? And the board was supposed to be dissolved last winter, you lazy fuck.

I'll ignore the namecalling because your addendums were hilarious. And you're possibly the best money manager I've ever utilized.

Do you use them all?

Only the really pretty one. His eyes flashed and he came over to where I stood, at the other end of the table. He put his head down against mine, pressing his cheek against my temple.

I'm sorry, Bridget. I'm sorry for trying to hurt you, I'm sorry for not softening things. I'm sorry for not being my brother's keeper. You've been instrumental in directing this project and I need to pay better attention. I need to listen to you. I need you to help me.

Three things, Diabhal. Firstly this project is my family and secondly, I already decided I'm not going to believe you. Cole was a lot of things to me but I know damn well he loved me and you can't take that from me. Thirdly, stick the money in the bank and leave it there. Stop trying to stretch everything. Stop risking, stop wasting.

I wouldn't dream of it. Forgive me. His lips are against my forehead.

I want to go. Let's pack up. I step back and his eyes swim back into focus.

Breakfast? (He is desperate to spend more time.)

Only if it's in paper. (McDonalds. Five minutes to order, ten minutes to eat.)

Yes, fine.

He walks back down to the other end of the table to collect his things. I pick up my bag, stuff my phone and my doodle-covered papers into it and walk out. I take the elevator down alone and stand on the sidewalk, breathing the hot stale air of the city, realizing I really surprised myself in not being intimidated by people who are supposed to be so much smarter than I. Relief makes me burst into tears.

Skateboard Jesus slowly rolls past me and he says, What have you learned this morning? 

So many things I can't list them all. 

Good for you. You make Jesus proud.

No, I made Bridget proud. 

Same thing, he says and he picks up speed, disappearing into the crowd.

Enabled, disabled, humbled and done.

Lochlan has abandoned both his man-bun and his razor and says he's going to become wild like the bears. He growled and chased me up the front steps and then told me to go dress for a bike ride. The sunbeam was parked on the front walk. This is a test run at a slow speed through the neighborhood. Yeah right. Half the time we wind up in Maple Ridge (and get to visit his mom, who makes us slushies and tacos) or Whistler (where we can buy tacos for mere hundreds of dollars) so I knew to bring all my stuff in my backpack and wear all the gear, not just the drive down to the Ferry Terminal gear (where you can get chowder! For hundreds of dollars. Damn. I used to buy hot chowder from a guy with a thermos near the public wharf. He charged a dollar a cup.)

And I am right. Seven hours later, two tanks of gas and we are back, with only eight near-misses and two missed exits thanks to Sunday construction and a decidedly distracted Juggler, who's now working on his unicycle skills, entertaining Ruth and her friends and Aurora too.

Because PJ yelled at him when we got home and then Ben did too but not too harshly, just hey, if I can't travel overseas alone with her, then fuck off with your amazingly poor motorcycle skills, okay?

Except that I'm sure Loch's skills are fine, he's just ridden enough in his life that the law of averages kicks in and his odds of drama increase due to miles logged.

Or something like that.

(IRONIC)

We didn't get any tacos today or any slushies. Just lemonade from the 7-11 and then a melted granola bar from his pocket that we shared before finding a little hole in the wall diner in Burnaby somewhere that I forgot the name of that had really great french fries just like the ones in Shediac.

Or maybe it was Halifax. Summerside? Martha's Vineyard. Brigantine? I can't remember anymore. I think the helmet is making my neck shrink, compressing my brain onto my shoulders. Just what I need.

(He just said the fries were just like the ones at that truck at Casino Pier. Yes. That's it.)

Maybe a month, maybe two.

Three hours of Skyping with Nolan this morning and ninety-five minutes of the vet's time and I am now broke and we are hospicing a beautiful older-than-I-thought horse, but not for long.

(I had just decided I would be the headless horsewoman for Hallowe'en, too. Flaming pumpkin and all.)

There are worse places to be if you're in your final days. Caleb remarked that I should have stayed out of it instead of being all upset over the mud or the number for a name and let the professionals do their work. I've had it now. I threw a clean plate at his head. He swore back and I lunged, caught by the braid from a very on-point Sam, who apologized profusely for managing to pick me up off the ground by my hair and also for inserting himself in what probably would have been an amazingly fair fight for once, seeing as Caleb doesn't want to engage in physical altercations and seeing how strong I've become living outside in the sunshine in a surprisingly nostalgic summer thus far.

Ben won't even go see Aurora. He doesn't want to get attached. Same with the kids, though I think that's more PJ's doing so they don't fall in love with her too.  Loch gets attached to everything and will bear the weight. I'm going to be crushed like a bug, sending a horse up to heaven so Jacob will have one to ride since it's been a while.

It's fine if she has an ocean view and a warm salt breeze on her face when she goes. I certainly won't be asking for more than that when it's my turn. 

In the meantime we all get extra snuggles and carrots too.

I want to cry but it upsets her. It upsets everyone but sometimes it's a tap I can't turn off. I asked Sam why I gravitate toward all things that aren't long for this world and he said maybe it's not me finding them, maybe it's them finding me.

Love at first light.

Caleb stood in the front drive this morning, watching. Hands in his pockets like always, face set impassively, expressionless as he remarked on the fact that this isn't what he pictured when he decided to build the stables, figuring we would find a couple of young, well-behaved horses for the children to ride and keep me happy.

I pointed out that she keeps me happy.

She has only been here for a few hours yet. You can still change your mind, Princess. 

No, I'm good, thanks. (I'm still technically not speaking to the Devil).

She was grunty and gentle this morning when I went out to feed her and give her a bath.
She stood well for me, though John was two steps away and she was well secured and had distractions. I never ever want to be kicked by a horse so we went very slowly but she was great save for when I tried to scrub her hocks. I didn't push and she settled again.

Then Lochlan came in and she nudged right past me, crushing me against the wall as she turned. She stuck her muzzle right in his hair and rubbed the top of his head very hard, snorting really loud. I asked him to go outside and I would lead her out to see if it was a fluke. Nope. The moment she came outside she saw him and bent her head and did it again. Harder still.

I went and got a banana for her and when I tried to give it to her she stuck her muzzle against my chest and pushed against me, snorting as if she were laughing. I almost fell over. I think she's starved for companionship and I don't think I'll be changing my mind about her anytime soon. Not if she keeps doing this. I can't wait to see how she reacts to the rest of the boys.

The tiny collector of quickly-beating hearts.

This is Aurora. She's eighteen or nineteen. Her teeth are shit. Her back is shit. Her attitude? Also shit. Her old name was a five-digit number so I chose a new one. I hope she likes it. She lived in eight inches of mud in the blistering sun.They were going to put her down. I know she's going to break my heart but I brought her home anyway.

She's going to be therapy for a bit. She's going to be loved.

My apologies but I'm not sorry.

Ben cheered me up this morning, waking me with his bagpipes as he stood on the platform where we set up the new telescope. It's like a mini-stage so he has a perfect vantage point from the highest point of the cliff, directly on the line where the old crumbling rock wall divides the two main properties. It's far enough back from the edge that I don't worry if the kids play on it when the telescope isn't outside and it's more than perfect for Ben's piper moments.

So there he is in his boots and kilt and nothing else, playing laments and war songs and dance songs and some original work too. I finally took my coffee outside when I realized he wasn't going to stop any time soon and I stood at the beginning of the wall on the grass, still in my pajamas, holding my cup up to my face with both hands. Smiling even. Boats were coming nearer to the bottom of the point, a few speedboats, a sailboat. Some windsurfers. Then some locals in their zodiacs. Then two more larger sailboats, their decks packed with people enjoying a perfect day. Ben got to the end of Scotland the Brave, turning a slow circle on the final notes and when he saw me he yelled out JESUS, FINALLY! and put his pipes on the platform.

He ripped off his kilt and mooned the waterside crowd. Then he left the kilt, picked up his pipes, and went back inside, pulling me by the hand.

Smiling's just a phase.

Look at us now-
Are you happy with the way that things
Are going around here?
Are you happy now?
Opened my skin, made a claim of revolution
Then you let yourself back in

I want to tell you about new music out but I'm afraid there's just too many surprise haymakers, chokeholds, corners and long quiet conversations going on here to just blissfully immerse myself into molten melodies. Too many words to sort through. Too many accusations flying as the Devil makes a blatant grab for a brass ring that's already been claimed.

I liked him better when he was subtle and mean. I liked him better when he existed within the confines of my nightmares, within the bonds of our arrangement and not like this. Don't vilify Cole any worse. Don't make this any harder. I don't write about Cole but that doesn't mean I don't think about him so much. Sometimes I wish he would help me with things, take care of things, look after things. So many middle of the night calls when I would be leaving work and our shitty car wouldn't start and he would get a drive over from one of the others, screwdriver in his pocket and he would tell them we'd be fine, that they could leave and I would always ask him why, what if he can't get the car started and he would smile and say I shouldn't worry about it and he never failed to get it working. Never even once. And he never let me accept a ride home from one of them so that I would be home safe because he always said if he was there, I was safe. He lied too but that's okay because I didn't know any better, because I existed in a weird space where I thought when he said I love you that it meant something and I'm actually sure that it did and I'm sure now that his big brother is forging ahead with yet another phase of this plan to destroy whatever he can't have. I'm sure that the total eclipse of the sun that was Jacob simply slowed down something that maybe should have played out already and now his frustration is showing, he's running out of time. Deprivation didn't work, neither did satiation. What's left? I don't know. There will be no white flags here. I'm not giving in. I was so close to happy I could taste it, breathe it in. Things were getting better.

Amazing how easy it is to control a fortune and how hard it is to control one single little human.

Just amazing.

After I weakened your relationship with Loch I paid Cole to put himself in the line of fire, so that you would be close. I continued to pay him right up through when you left him. That was such a surprise. I didn't actually expect that. You were so loyal to him for so long. I actually thought it fairly uncharacteristic when I discovered you weren't loyal to either one of us.

He didn't love you. He was a placeholder for me. While I went and made something of myself so that you would eventually have security, stability. Money. Basically all of the things I knew Loch would never be able to give you. I couldn't be in two places at once and I knew it would take time for you to forgive me for the sins of my past so Cole was the perfect solution. But don't think for a moment that he loved you. He didn't care one way or another. But he found the whole thing more difficult than he anticipated and I think the pressure drove him to treat you poorly. 

(I want to note 'poorly' doesn't cut it when you're having your head slammed into the floorboards while he violates parts of you that are so off limits they're still technically criminal but I'm still stuck on the 'he didn't love you' part.)

I was busy becoming better than Loch so I could one day come back and take over. So that I would shift back to being the good brother. The way our relationship started was necessary and I am sorry for terrorizing you but I had to do something drastic. You and Lochlan were so determined to be together. I couldn't let that happen. 

But it did, Cale.

But it did, Princess.

He had a voice that was 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 and
Someone who would die for me

I slid down his knees until we were nose to nose and he frowned and said he would miss our close talks once I hate him again. He put his drink down and put one arm around me. With the other he ran the back of his hand across my cheek, tucking my hair behind my ears, telling me I am beautiful, telling me he never meant to cause so much damage inside my head.

He wants to talk.

I delayed as long as I could, lying on the quilt, watching him watch my eyes for approval as he moved against me. So strong. So full of regret. So evil. So sweet. He kept my hands anchored tight in his fist, held against his chest and with the other hand he held his weight as he drove into me. It wasn't his usual style. His usual style is rough and surprisingly painful. He usually doesn't listen. He usually doesn't seem to notice there's a rest of me. He's usually a monster, disguised in a three-piece suit and when my toes curl up my brain shuts down. But it's awake now. It's curious and unrelenting as I wait for him to begin.

Ask me questions, Neamhchiontach, and I'll try to fill in the blanks and put your mind at ease.

Are you really going to spend the rest of your life obsessing over me? I lick my lips and steal his ignored drink. We're sober otherwise, straight and false.

His medium-blue gaze burns a hole right through. Yes. I've got the most important aspects of you well in hand.

Which are?

Your soul. Your youngest child. Your welfare. Your boys. Your heart.

I finish his drink, watching him pour another with one hand. The tears begin to roll down my cheeks. Or maybe it's bourbon. I have a stuffed up nose and I drank it too fast. Yes, it's probably just bourbon pooling in my eyes. No wonder they sting, like my skin again, tonight from razorburn and not from the sun.

Speaking of Henry-

He's mine, Bridget. I would not play games with the heart of a child. Every minute of every day I am grateful for him. And for you. 

He frowns at me as the bourbon leaks out more quickly now, flooding the moment until it floats up and turns over, bloated and logged. He mistakes my relief for disappointment as I try to picture what life would have been like trying to stretch Henry's strong little heart over someone new. Henry could do it but I don't think I can.

He wraps his arms tighter around me, pulling me in, kissing me briefly, snot, tears and all. Caleb hates germs so this is either an inability to let an opportunity pass or Henry really has changed him. Maybe in the same way so much has changed me.

Then what else is there? I ask him as his teeth linger against my lower lip. I put my hands up to hold his face as his eyes meet mine. He pulls back and stares at me, weighing his words. He drops them on me in spite of the fact that I can't lift them off and I bravely face being crushed.

Cole never loved you.

Oh, see, now that's where you're wrong. I was with him every day of his life right through his last breath so I think I would know a little more than you-

Bridget, I paid him to hold my place.

I try to fight to get off him but he won't let me. I stop struggling and just sit there, head down, defeated. I can't meet his eyes. This is humiliating and unbelievable. This is bullshit.

He did. He loved me, Diabhal. But Caleb isn't smiling. He says nothing. The bourbon pours all over the floor. I swallow hard and nod. You're right. I hate you.

He pulls my fists up and puts them against his eyes.

(It's not a lie. It's not a trick. Jesus Christ I don't think I'll survive this one but I am and I need to go now before I explode into a million little pieces because I loved your brother and I tried so hard and this one would have been something you really should have never told me because I would have been better off hearing anything else at all. Anything but that.)

YOU HAVE BEEN LEFT BEHIND.

Don't let me play Call of Duty with you.We were troubleshooting one of the xboxes last night and I'm notoriously eager to run with the big boys (as always) and also completely incapable of actually doing that. I started a single-player campaign and all I had to do was follow the two cinematic dudes, jump a log and then break into a sprint up a path to my right.

Nope. Couldn't do it. I couldn't even manage to look straight ahead let along figure out the controls for sprinting. Then that message would fly up on the screen and make me feel horrible. Just horrible. So I kept trying but I could only ever make it over the log and then I would get left behind. Ten times. Fifteen times. Twenty times and I threw the controller onto the couch and got up and left. Talk about post traumatic stress from being eight years old and too little to keep up when we went up the path through the woods to get to the baseball field.

***

Matt's new nickname is The Sandman, for he made me one of his specialteas after dinner and I promptly grew chest hair, sprouted a thick European accent and then passed out cold on Lochlan.

I woke up this morning sans accent, chest hair AND sunburn-pain. I ran downstairs, down the hall through the doors, down the other hall, through the den into their room and kissed a sleeping Matt on the cheek. His eyes flew open and he laughed. What?

I don't hurt!

Good, go back to bed, Doofus. It's seven on a Saturday.

I look over and Sam is facedown in a dream, one hand up on Matt's pillow clutching his hand deathgrip-style and I smile and whisper goodbye before going back, closing doors as I tiptoe out.

Aw. Also whoops. Sometimes they stay up all night watching movies and I forget. Sam is such a morning person, I miss him if he's not already up when I wake up.

I go back up and crawl up the center of my bed and then halfway back down under the quilt. I lie on my back and embrace the absolute lack of feeling in my skin.

Loch wakes up and he's all curls and mouth and and naked shoulders, leaning on his elbows. Where'd you go?

To thank Matt for the tea. Nothing hurts.

Oh. Thank fuck. He flops down on his face and throws one arm out to pull me in tight underneath him.

But he doesn't go back to sleep.

There's a memory of how we used to be
That I can see through the flames
I am hypnotized as I fantasize
Forgetting lies and pain
But I can't go back

The ashes call my name

Flashpoint/letdown.

Lochlan has absorbed his burn, channeling the heat and pain into pure energy. He is back to normal, but with bonus freckles and hair lighter than ever, tinging on the color of watered down Orange Crush and me, well, I'm still pink, swollen and too hot to touch or I will scream at you and then burst into tears. My skin stopped feeling the ache of the slow steady burn and has graduated to icy crawling. It's amazing how much this hurts. Aspirin and cold packs around the clock for me and blue balls for the rest of them I guess because even a kiss is a little above my skill level right at this moment.

And the Russian non-doc says, for goodness sake, stay out of the sun. 

Oh, okay. Yes I know this. I was so excited to be naked outside again sunscreen was the last thing on my mind.

PJ put a huge bottle of it on the counter and also on the patio right by the door. John brought me a cowboy hat to wear in the sun (his brown one, it's my favorite) and Ben gave me a really quiet lecture about looking after myself first. No matter what.

He did comment on my hair. It's almost white again. It's straw again too, but so is everything that touches me, even the softest jersey cottons.

I haven't actually slept. Mostly I keen and walk the house through the early morning hours. The doctor left some better painkillers but I don't take those kinds of drugs but I hid them in the cupboard for when I feel more destructive than I do now. Right now I would like to preserve myself or perhaps lie in the deep freezer for a little while.

I watched Caleb at dinner though. I watched him crush on Sam and on me and incubate his truth by sitting on it and I watched him curate his lies like a good devil should and I wondered what's next and then I realized he was as anxious as everyone else when he asked me if I thought I'd be better by Saturday. If I thought I would be able to be touched without flinching.

But not if I needed anything.

I would have an answer if he had asked, because that lobotomy would be good right now, then if I felt pain it wouldn't be so fucking familiar all the time. It would be new.

I can give you new pain, he promises.

Can't wait.

Pyromaniacs do it with fire.

Yes. Waxing trucks. Watering gardens. Pulling blackberries. (Fully clothed because amazingly sunburned.) Sigh.

Though if I'm good I've been promised ice cream and sparklers tonight.

While making potato salad:

Bridget, are you going to acknowledge the fact that Cole has been gone for eight years this month?

I did (even here!). Maybe it just wasn't as poetic or Cole-centric as you had hoped? 

Are you going to continue to be this disrespectful? 

Sure, if you're going to keep up your attempts at full control, Caleb.

We'll talk about it later. We have a lot to discuss at this point. Don't delay much longer.

Forgot about the telescopes, oh my Lord. Wait, I think they've all seen everything already and if they hadn't well, those days are over now.

Loch overruled me, deciding on my behalf (something he's always done, if that matters) that anything Caleb has to share that he has kept to himself thus far is of no consequence at present. What will it change? Who would it benefit? Hell, how we do even know if he's telling the truth or lying? He continued to talk over me, talk me into it, talk himself out of it while I sat on the counter and he does the same thing he does every other month. Comb my bangs straight down and then hold them and cut careful along the open edge. Then he lets go and nods like I am some sort of work of art (I was, once) and then he dismisses me but he doesn't let me go and he says,

Hey. What would you rather do instead? Today, I mean. For the whole day. 

The whole day? 

All of it until bedtime. 

Let's take a picnic to the nude beach and then watch the sunset.

What? No, Bridge. You want to have a nude picnic we should stay on our own beach. 

Really?

Well, yeah.

Awesome! I'll go pull the food together. 

What did I just get myself into?

You mean what did you just get yourself out of! Which would be your clothes. Take 'em off. We don't need them where we're going!

I lasted until threeish. I'm just not a 'sit on the beach and do nothing' person. I swam a little bit and I looked for shells and Caleb texted me asking if naked everything was my bucket list and I laughed and Loch frowned and texted him back Yes, just not with you.

He turned off both our phones and smiled and said he thinks he burned his arse. He's kind of uptight. While I was looking for glass and shells, much as usual, he was facedown on his towel 'sunbathing'.

Right. He was hiding his junk is what he was doing. I don't know why he would do that. I've never complained.  Tomorrow he said he gets to pick the activity. He'll probably make me help wax the trucks. Maybe we can do that naked too.

(I still plan to talk to Caleb. Just because I'm so curious I'll die if I don't.)

Momentary weakness.

PJ came home with a big bag of bottles and we cheered and he proudly displayed...

Dish soap, iced tea and some more of that pineapple coconut water. I promptly switched to that and was sober before Loch made it back, which is a feat in itself.

No fear, he yelled at me for an hour anyway.

We're a little on edge the days that Caleb takes the kids for his all-day spoilage jaunts. He takes them out shopping, lunching, for a show and then dinner and brings them home with stars in their eyes and then I promptly have to stuff them back into the box with all the rules and limits and denials and hard lessons and they say those things are sharp and they're getting too big to fit and maybe I should just take a few things out, but no. Once Caleb gets his lifestyle in there under their skin in the hole left by the sharp inside edge of Lights Off by Eleven, then what will I do?

Ben came home and yelled at Loch for yelling at me and then we all sort of retreated to our corners for the evening. I finished the coconut water and my book and Sam found me a little after eleven, still stuffed into the little chair in the library and he sat cross-legged on the floor in front of me and talked a little about good escapes and not so good escapes and how Mondays should maybe become something else to make them go a little faster and eventually he stretched out on the rug, shirtless with only old jeans and a cross on a black cord, caramel waves all over the damn place, neat beard covering his chin, endless smile brought to you by Jesus, hotness brought by God and I wondered what the fuck is wrong with me that I'm sizing him up instead of taking his advice and so I closed my eyes and when I opened them next, Ben was picking me up out of the chair, not saying a word.

Today I get to go ask the Devil questions. Wish me luck.

It's well-known how much I despise Mondays (PRINCESS FAIL).

You better watch your step when you're coming back down
From the city on out to the sea
And if your brothers come after me
With their horses so wild and so free
I'll be waiting at the gate in a terrible state
With the man who holds the key
And he'll treat you quite carelessly
For he knows my face from a previous place
From a country in a foreign land
Throwing dice in a game of chance on the sand
But I lost my cool and fate loves a fool
Now I'm standing on the edge of the pack
In my spacesuit hoping that this women will call me at last
Cuz' I'm an astronaut on the shores of this grand illusion
and I'm falling down at the sound of this beating heart

Today has been cancelled due to the overwhelmingly brilliant Monday-morning decision to get drunk with Teflon Jesus and his Lizard King of an older brother and listen to Blitzen Trapper's American Goldwing on repeat until I throw up.

Astronaut. The song is fucking called Astronaut. I die.

Hey, fuck off, sometimes it's better than being a grownup. LK isn't drinking, he's just sitting here smiling, crushing hard, enjoying the moment. We recruited PJ to come home and join us shortly with better alcohol (oh Dalton can hold so much more than I) and Sam has tried to physically remove me twice to no avail. Ha. He said wait until your husband comes home but I didn't know which one he meant so I don't think I should be worried exactly.

Stalling? Yes, very much. You?I don't want truth. I don't want anything today except oblivion, franklish.

Fun today, truth tomorrow.

This is the third best view in the known universe, right up there behind the eyes of all those that I love and then the Atlantic ocean with it's razor sharp seaweed, relentless wind, and unspoiled horizon.

The Ferris wheel was ridden multiple times, as I shrieked over the first few rotations before settling in and realizing my fingers were all stuck together from cotton candy and I should probably put away my phone.

I got kisses at the top. Every single time, just like always. Summer is complete now. Bring on whatever comes next.

Stop ganging up on him.

Oh, sneaky. This morning Ben woke with a start, which means I woke with a start though I didn't really open my eyes or anything, and he very gently rolled me away from him and into Loch. Loch did not wake up. I stuck my face in against his neck and fell back asleep. Ben got up and got ready for his early meeting. I wonder how many nights he's been repositioning me just to keep the peace. I wonder why he feels he has to? He wants to make things easy for Lochlan. I love that but I don't love enabling control.

That's why breakfast was so ridiculous. I went outside and Caleb is describing one of the restaurants we visited in the most hilarious terms possible. Dalton seemed mildly interested while PJ was losing his shit, laughing out loud.

How can bread be 'esoteric'? You're fucking serious, that's the worst part of this. You know she prefers french fries made by a clown, right? He gestures to me.

And Caleb took that and ran with it. Oh, Loch get a new job?

I was smart and lifted my coffee mug into my hand and pushed my chair back. If the table's going over on him I refuse to give up my Saturday morning coffee.

Good thing I did, because there it goes.

No one's enabling control around here. We don't seem to have any.

Wizard mode.

Back into Lochlan's arms this morning, his hands closing around my head tightly. One of these days it's going to squish and burst and then they'll find the embroidery scissors I lost in the last move, a few pens with colored ink I am forbidden to use in public and what's left of my brain, most likely the stem and the black part that was inedible to the brain tumor that never gets full. My head hurts so badly and my mouth is dry and he asks quietly if I'm okay.

No one bit me, if that's what everyone is wondering. Caleb and I stayed out way too late last night eating dessert and drinking coffee after the proper meetings were dispensed with and then we found a pinball machine in a convenience store and cashed in twenty after twenty for tokens, failing to beat the high score. Not even coming close.

He can be fun when he chooses to be. His tie was stuffed in his pocket, trailing out behind him, his eyes bright and the grin fixed to his face. We started laughing hysterically somewhere around eleven and didn't stop until close to one in the morning, when he finally grew more serious as we walked back to the hotel and he said,

How much truth do you want and where am I supposed to start? 

All of it and don't start tonight, whatever you do. I'm tired. 

Let's find an airplane and go home to our son then. 

Does it start with him?

Bridget, we'll talk about it tomorrow.

What else will we talk about?

I figured I would just let you start with questions and once those are answered, we'll reconcile whatever is left. 

An open book?

An open book, Neamhchiontach. 

Why now?

You asked. You asked and I'm not going to live forever and I'm probably never going to get what I want so why the hell not?

Why aren't you like this all the time?

I told you. Truth tomorrow. Tonight I'll lie and say that I am. 

I was falling asleep on the plane before I was fully settled and he fastened my seat belt and told me to get some rest. I nodded and he said he loved me.

But do you or is that a lie too?

That's never been a lie. It never will be a lie as long as I'm breathing. 

Too bad. Your life would be so much easier if it was.

He just wants to be buff for dinner.

Also I've been forbidden to liveblog this trip any further. Starting last post. Oops. Haha.

Hey, not only did our little plane not disappear but I've graduated to watching Caleb do exercise ball rollouts or whateverthefuck they're called in the hotel gym!

My life, I tell you. Tinged with greatness.

I can go home now? Please?

Well, that settles it. I'm officially the only person in the developed world who doesn't hate the trailer for Fifty Shades of Grey.

I did have a few criticisms but kept them to noting Jamie Dornan's prop (cheap) watch, too-perfect hair and smooth face for a middle of the night piano practice and the fact that virtually every scene is lit with the same fake Seattle overcast mode, including the night scenes. I hope that will be fixed by February when the actually movie comes out but we're not going to be able to do anything about that watch, now, are we?

At least Dakota's bangs have probably already grown back by now.

(Please excuse the quick and dirty (not very) post. Packing for Toronto. Business. Big Epic Hates.)

OOAK.

(It stands for One Of A Kind. Just like that time I spent looking at a recipe that called for EVOO and I spent hours, days even, speculating what incredible, amazing new food EVOO must be that I hadn't even heard of it only to find out they meant Extra Virgin Olive Oil. I kid you not.)

Ben is trying really hard here and I should be letting him off the hook. Sometimes he forgets we were friends before we were married. That would be dumb. He's concerned that I haven't been sleeping at all and wants to arrange for some indulgences, as if he's lost his mind and is falling back on weird lists from a magazine we probably don't read. I'm not exactly the most predictable, typical girl out there. I make no apologies for that or for what you're about to read.

Massage?

I don't want anyone I don't know touching me (snort).

Manicure?

I can do it myself for pennies. I have like eight bottles of stuff in the drawer. 

So that rules out the toes too? I forget what it's called. 

A pedicure? No one touches my feet. Including you. 

Want your hair done?

No. Loch cuts it. I'm good. 

Uh. Facial? (we both snort and blush at the same time. Jesus, Gutter and Christ, we're perverted)

I'll pass. (More laughter.) You know, for now.

Hot bath?

It's the middle of the day, Benny!

So?

Maybe later. 

Bridget, what would make you feel better? 

I laugh again and cover my mouth with both hands.

Oh, well, shit. You could have said something sooner. We've just wasted ten minutes. You know what I could do to you in ten minutes? 

I hope you'll take longer than that. 

I meant the first ten. Don't you know me at all?

I was beginning to wonder the same thing!

Oh, just shut up and take off your clothes, Slowpoke. 

Oh! Promise? I give him all the dazzling grins in the world and he laughs again.

I can't guarantee it will be slow for long. 

We both blush again. I'm almost glad we didn't know each other as teenagers. There would probably be nothing left.

Not going to end well, is it?

Better moods all around today as I walk around with my hands outstretched, collecting reassurances that no one is choosing sides, that this is all for one and one for all. When I woke up this morning Ben had his arms around both of us, locked tight. Probably so he wouldn't fall off what barely passes for a double cot in the camper. Fifty inches of springy, uncomfortable goodness and yet I sleep better out there than I do in the finest hotels in the world. I'm sure I'm allergic to double-digit thread counts, and possibly air that isn't completely fresh. Case in point, Ben left the door wide open when he joined us last night and a bear could have walked in and had me for breakfast, I wouldn't have noticed. What I did notice that his hands were holding Lochlan's and that in their sleep they love each other and in waking they're learning.

Both pretend I was imagining things when I pointed that out but no one clarified whether they meant I was imagining that they held hands or that they actually are still learning things.

I'll go with learning, because I know what I saw.

***

A truce offered by the Devil, who knows his way around these sorts of things and wins just as you figured out he's been cheating at the game all along.

Your mark is healing nicely, he tells me as if I somehow injured myself.

I don't say anything.

We're on a loop here, Neamhchiontach. 

Still nothing. But I shrug because sure. I guess we are.

What do I have to do to get through to you? To get your attention and a little bit of your time without forcing you into situations that leave everyone with a bitter taste? 

(Oh, I have a flavor now. Who knew?)

Tell the truth. But not just when you want something. All the time. Anything I should know that I don't? I want it all laid out. Put all your cards on the table and stop holding things back and plotting and scheming and planning. Just tell the goddamned truth, Diabhal. For once in your life. I mean, for a man who's done as well as you have I don't know how you can sleep at night for all the lies you live. 

I don't sleep. I wait for you. 

See what I mean? 

You want truth from now on. 

Jesus, yes. It's not so hard. Look at how well things turned out when I told Ben I wasn't going to give up my friends with benefits. I flash him the biggest smile I've ever made and he breaks into hard laughter but then he swallows it so fast I worry he'll choke.

Okay. But you'll regret it. 

When do we start?

Have dinner with me tonight?

No, because I'll be killed. How about lunch tomorrow on the patio?

Just us?

Well, I don't know. Ruth will probably eat before she goes out and Ben will be hungry. So I doubt it. 

Then it will have to wait. 

Why?

He smiles at me but it's pained. I told you before. I'm not a good person and in order to fix you I'm going to end up breaking you more. 

His choice of words throws me because they're words I would say, not him.

I can take it. 

That's what scares me. You can but you shouldn't have to. 

Try me anyway. 

I'm actually going to think about this. Not sure at this point that any truth I could provide would be worth the damage it does.  Get back to me in the morning. 

Dismissed, I guess. My head starts to hurt, badly. I didn't think that would be so easy and now I'm wondering if he's right. If it's not going to change or fix anything, is there any point to being truthful?

I decide that yes, there is, because the truth is always better than telling a lie to the people you supposedly love. Because if you have nothing else in your miserable life, at least have a little integrity.

Perks include a chemical toilet, wardriven wifi and a free angry redhead.

An hour after biting her and he's off the hook? This is rich. 

Loch got up and left the dinner table. He has a point. Caleb has managed to turn the tables and take the focus off his own mistakes, shining a light on Lochlan who can't catch a break even though he's chased them all his life, and I'm left in tears beside an empty place at the table, with my appetite lost in the woods and no amount of consolation to fix this suddenly. It's just one more thing blowing up in my face. Drama after drama after issue after death and I don't want this. I want peace and harmony and camaraderie and happiness here. This whole point was designed as a safe place but the only actual safe place is the camper in the driveway. Okay, it's the only place that feels like me, feels like us.

Damage control will need to start now. If you think for one second I'll allow anyone to make him feel like he's an outsider for a single second more of his life then you don't know me at all.

I left the table too. You should all take a cue from Ben and see that Lochlan wants for nothing but my happiness. Not yours, not his own, MINE. It's a first here and I think some apologies are warranted. You know where we'll be when you're ready.

Ours alone.

I'll say it then.

I'm so incredibly excited for the FIFTY SHADES trailer coming this Thursday I squealed when Christian (the irony) showed me the teaser on the Beyonce twitter. I don't know what a Beyonce (?) is but damn. Okay, I know vaguely who she is. But FIFTY. I'm so excited and I'm not ashamed in the least.

The books were fucking amazing. Awkward sex descriptions but perfect character development. Judge me, I care not. Or better yet, try to write about sex and see how well YOU do.

I'll wait right here for your submissions.

***

Speaking of submission (HA), Caleb tried to nail Lochlan to the wall this morning for his possessiveness, after I wrote about how he tried to keep Ben from touching me when we're asleep. I thought it was very sweet  of Loch to show how he felt without fear of retribution (and here it comes anyway). Apparently I'm fucked in the head when it comes to normal relationships and don't know any better but that isn't right and Lochlan can't make rules like that.

Oh, okay.

Says Satan, oh he of normal relationships of which he hasn't had a single one ever.

Ben still thinks the whole thing is funny/sad and continues to coddle Lochlan to pieces.

Sadly the rest of the boys backed Caleb up, saying Loch was becoming a little bit difficult with this and maybe he needed help. Maybe he needs time, I plead but they just insist that I have no idea what normal is.

GOOD! I yell. If it's not loving someone so hard people become alarmed than I don't want to know what normal is! 

Polyawkwardness (shhhh).

(I don't want to talk about yesterday, the two things actually cancel each other out, and my heart isn't in either, frankly so whatever. Call it filler, it makes no difference to me, I'd rather just keep steamrolling forward in the way that I do. It's neither interesting nor relevant but I was having a rough day so I wrote about other things instead of death. Instead of the things death brings to life that it has no right to.

I do that a lot.)

Ben continues to teach Loch how to share, how to not get up and leave, that sometimes there don't have to be such things as turns, and how, like with children, love isn't cut in half, it's simply doubled, magnified. Lochlan remains hesitant, reluctant, possessive in the same way he always was right through until Jake arrived and pretty much cut him out of the picture.

That was a mistake. Oh God, such a mistake. Jake saw Loch's possessiveness and trumped it whole and tried to bend something that broke and look at the mess we made.

But Ben is determined to do the opposite of everyone else and he welcomes Lochlan with his fears and his outward wariness of everything and everyone. Ben understands and steers Loch's attempts at control and he gives up so easily, letting Lochlan get away with things he has no right to ask for.

I hold her when she's sleeping. Not you. 

(Taking orders in your sleep. Try that one on for size.)

I actually don't fully understand why Ben puts up with Loch's bullshit half the time except that Ben is trying to do unto others. He's trying to understand Loch's own pain when everyone treats Loch like the glory boy, the one who has it all and doesn't have to work for anything, it's just given to him. The proverbial charmed life. This versus Ben who has lost it all four times over and is hanging by a thread and he's the one teaching patience and generosity? He's the only one who seems to understand that Lochlan's pain is different but that doesn't mean it's lesser.

I try to make up the difference in affection for Ben and he practically pushes me away and tells me Loch needs me more, or he asks me where he is, tells me to find him, suggests I go share all this cuddly stuff with him too. 

I fight with both of them about this. I demand that Lochlan open his mind and that Ben not let Lochlan walk all over him and they both laugh and tell me not to worry. It's maddening, frustrating to be bounced back and forth.

It seems like it should be so easy but between the greed, the guilt and the selfishness I'm never sure if it would have been easier to cut myself with my losses and bleed openly but do completely good by one instead of good enough by all.

Except that I tried that once and he didn't survive it.

Museum quality.

Two phone calls today before I even got out of bed, during both of which Ben molested me unrelentingly and I had to fight to not burst out laughing when asked if I was okay.

The first was a cancellation for a shoot planned for October for a new album cover for Ben's friend of a friend of a friend. So, not the usual guys, but some of their friends, also in a band. Up and comers overseas. Took a look through the portfolio (AKA a Youtube playlist Ben sent up of the videos and an Amazon wishlist of albums LOL) and booked me but have since decided I am too old for what they're looking for.

Too old.

OLD.

Ben's friends said not to be alarmed, that their vision was more around me twenty years ago when I first did a video for Corey and I was in my early twenties. Please don't take it personally, Bridget. 

I'm not. It's fine. I'm not, really.

Okay but I am. They sent flowers and champagne to the house an hour later to apologize for keeping me booked so long and then hosing. Dammit, champagne. I wonder if they'll let me bring it to the nursing home. I'm checking myself in this afternoon.

The second call was from Batman, who was speaking with Caleb and heard about the incredible knack I seem to have with charming men out of their money.

Ha.

Lemme just-

No, nevermind.

Caleb likes to do business over dinner and usually brings me with him so he can pretend he is successful. I am to behave. Vegas rules, as such. Only I seem to really appeal to his clients and they wind up offering so much money he is now in a unique and wonderful place where he has more capital than projects to invest in. Batman would like to turn the tables and see if I can't work my magic in reverse and find the companies that need seed investors. Have our pick, he says.

I wasn't aware my two titans were working together. 

We're not. I know of some companies that need investors. 

Bullshit, they're your companies if I'm a dollar over Thursday, I told him and hung up. I'm not going to be the bait in some new power struggle between them. I would like Batman to stay out of my head. Besides. I only charm the old men as a sport. I was as surprised as anyone else when they voiced their respect for my acumen.

Oh, I'm not arm candy, boys.

Maybe I was twenty years ago.

(Someone please bring up that champagne. Glass? No, I don't need a glass. Come downstairs? No, thanks, I'm staying in bed all day today. Why? Lost my youth. Could you look under the bed for me please? Maybe I dropped it last night after those two double cocktails.)

My first ever pound of chicken wings all to myself?

DECIMATED.

Also VERY VERY DRUNK RIGHT NOW.

Hahahah oops.

Advantage Pyro.

For Henry's birthday, Lochlan built him a telescope out of copper, glass and wood. He built a platform for it out on the end of the wall for viewing and pretty much put everyone to shame, including Caleb. And then Henry felt very bad about referencing Lochlan's legendary self-imposed poverty but Lochlan explained to him that most of the parts were foraged, and he actually started it two years ago, thinking it would be a fitting present for a young man, now in his teens.

I thought he was practice-welding on an old bike frame that's been under a tarp in the corner of the garage of the other house all this time.

He's really good at this quiet oneupmanship. Freakishly good, naturally, freak that he is. He's going to teach Henry some astronomy because Caleb says it's a foolish science so it's all the more important now that Henry understand just how big that sky really is. It's rare I see a speechless room full of boys over something good but I'll take it anyway.

***

Five in the morning and I am turned by the elbows back into Loch's arms. He is awake, against all odds and couldn't find me in his dreams so he found me in life. He pulls me back into the dream with him and I go willingly, carefully so as not to disturb anything. Lochlan's thoughts are colorful, all muted sunshine and sticky sugar high excitement. In his dreams I ride a Ferris wheel that actually touches the moon and a roller coaster that loops around the world. The swing flings me through the clouds and I reach down into one, scooping up a handful of gritty blue cotton candy just in time to be caught gently in a teacup as it spins around a post, bolted to a saucer made of July.

When I wake up next it's eight and he asks me if I liked the trip. I nod and say I'm going to make coffee and he can tell me how he does it and he shakes his head and tells me he'll take the coffee but not spill the secrets that keep us bound together so tightly, that magic, once explained, loses everything.

Bear sighting #6.

This one was waiting for me on the sidewalk as I approached the lower road to get to the driveway, dog on the leash, sun long set. I clapped my hands and yelled for it to go home as I followed it to my house and it disappeared into the woods just in front of our property while I went flying through the gate and down the hill, looking behind me the whole way.

I wonder if it's found the electric fence yet (switched off but still installed until we figure out what to do with it) and I sent the Devil a photo of it telling him all the fences he can commission aren't going to keep me safe in this world and he's fighting a battle he lost when he became the first predator.

The bears are less scary. They don't play games. They're just hungry.

(Yesterday is nothing more than random drive-by doubt, okay?)

Henry's birthday was incredibly successful, with two out of three parties down and only one marginally hyperactive guest that we had to gently remind not to jump on furniture or torment the dog.

I tried to wear my hearing aids all day so I could pretend I was like everyone else and stressed myself into a corner with the noise and now my nerves are shot and they'll die a slow death in amongst the rest of me, drowned by anxiety. The coroner will come and remark that I must have died of a broken heart before realizing my lungs were full of fear, I was shot by a dozen arrows aimed by a cupid with evil intent and that self-destruction was blissful, not as painful as you would think and most likely wholly unnecessary, same as always. My brain will weigh nothing, for it's empty save for some crumpled up wrappers from the midway and one lone marble rolling back and forth that will fall out of my eye socket when they remove those and give them to someone in need.

(Surprise! Your eyes change color with your emotions, now, recipient! Like a psychotic Blythe doll.)

I would be up for a nerve transplant to fix my ears but I think things would be more fun if they just rewired my whole brain so that when I thought about popcorn I would see the color blue or when it rained I would automatically draw a flower. That would be great. Then I would have excuses for days like these.

I could say, Blame the nerves! I felt hot so I heard a song which made me do jumping jacks. Only they messed up and it put me on a perpetual loop and quick! Show me some popcorn so I can cool off already with the blue and then hopefully it will rain because it's hard to hold a pencil when you're jumping.

Birth days.

He did it again. Right there in the middle of the day, he's watching Henry open gifts from some of the boys and he smiles as if he's about to lose his shit and he says,

I wanted him to have the same opportunities Ruth has with having a present father. 

It makes me cold all over but when I ask him what he's talking about he dismisses it as me mishearing or him not being very clear, he just wants to be a part of Henry's life since he doesn't live in the main house with his son.

But my gut. My gut tells me he means something else entirely.

A tightrope I never come down from.

Today I'm forced to coexist with Caleb. He wanted me to accompany him to find presents for Henry's birthday. Why he waits until the day before I'll never know but it's mildly irritating.

We went to the Microsoft store. I think Henry's going to be very happy. We also went to the book store which means Henry will be incredibly thrilled and has no idea how blessed he truly is because one rarely learns the lessons of character in a bubble such as this.

I do try my best though. Henry's already expressed concern that Dad will spend too much.

Let him. Less for him, more for you. 

But then everyone else will feel bad. 

No. Your father's wealth intimidates no one. 

Henry laughs in relief. Good. Well, I mean, I'm glad. 

They're tough guys, Bunny. And wealth is only a small part of the measure of success in life. 

You always say that, Mom. 

That's because it's true. 

How much is enough then?

Enough money? Well, you know you have enough when you have some for emergencies, some for fun and everything is paid up besides. Then you have enough. But always save first and keep the fun for later if you have to choose.

Dad says everyone should be more concerned with making as much as possible and then you've proved yourself better. 

Do you think that's true?

No. Not really. 

Dad can't be faulted for not knowing what it's like to be average, sweetheart. He's a self-made man, as they say. 

That's what Lochlan says about himself but he doesn't have any money at all. 

He has more character. His 'self-made' definition is more about integrity.

So you get character if you're really poor?

Mostly, yes. My turn to laugh.

So he has tons and tons?

Okay, zip it, Henny. And remember it's not the price of the gift that counts, it's the sentiment with which it is given. 

You always say that too. 

It's even more true than the other thing, that's why.

BRB.

Going to make sweet sweet love to this big bottle of pineapple coconut water. God, I love this stuff.

Thinner atmospheres.

Today I did a lot of chores while Joel followed me around expressly not helping unless you count his leading questions and quiet consideration of my answers. By the time the lunch hour rolled around he had his evaluation and I had clear drains, clean taps, folded laundry, swept floors and a newly clipped dog who is really happy to be so much lighter in this humidity.

I had my own opportunity to fire questions right back, finding out exactly what's going on between him and Sam, what he thinks of Caleb's efforts to simultaneous keep and destroy this collective and what my future holds. He's much like a scientific fortune teller and I found it amusing to watch him visibly soften a lot of things and contradict himself at will if he thought I was going to dismiss his observations or even question them. I have no interest in pitting my knowledge of who I think I am against who he thinks I am.

It was just interesting to watch him pale visibly and try not to wretch as I fished huge clumps of hair out of the upstairs drains. Such is life with these guys and their Allman Brothers hair and plentiful beards, in case you thought it was all glamorous. I'm getting better at not being grossed out by living in a house with seven oversized men (okay, six, shhhh, since Loch isn't oversized and Gage is away right now) and they do try very hard to clean up after themselves and do the grosser chores.

I suppose I could have left that paragraph out but it's relevant to demonstrate life in the every day here. That Ben isn't around enough and Loch is always mad or too logical to be fun and the kids have their friends to play with and really I'm minding that no one has time for me.

Well, some do but that's besides the point.

I begged off having Joel analyze my afternoon and instead took the dog for a long walk up around the neighborhood above us. I came home, washed the dog's face, gave him a cookie and warmed up my coffee that was ignored in the morning and I took my paints and went outside. I came back inside three seconds later because the full sun hits the front yard midafternoon and I just can't take it like I used to be able to.

I counted eight more freckles and Loch came downstairs, freshly showered, home from yet another job he will quit in a week or a month and I forgot to drink my coffee again. He thanked me for doing the drains and said he'll do the next round. I sorted another dozen envelopes full of photos from Cole and Sam asked me to proofread this week's bulletin and then it was already time to make dinner.

The day went so fast, I feel like I just connected moons with a string of utter nonsense.

Enchant me, then eat me alive.

Ben swooped in just as we were dishing up plates last evening.  Oh, there you are. Finally. He's been holed up in his studio for days.

Leave two of them out, he said and grabbed my hand, pulling me out of the kitchen and up the stairs to our room. When we get there he tells me to find a comfortable dress that won't be too warm, for being outside.

I grab a pretty eyelet sundress and matching shoes. He looks at the shoes when I come back from dressing and says Not those. Something comfortable. 

I exchange the pumps for my keds and he says Perfect. He's changed into a tissue-weight henley shirt and his utilikilt so I know I've hit the mark.

Back downstairs and he grabs his keys, everyone says Have fun! and we are off.

Only I don't know where.

He turns out of our neighborhood and I'm like Yay! Whistler for dinner! But he just says Nope and grins, turning abruptly, heading down a fire road then turns again and then after fifteen minutes of what seems like twisting and turning and I can no longer tell where I am he drives through a heavy stand of trees and we come out in front of a glorious lake. A mountain lake that I haven't seen on the map and I figured everything on this side was just grizzly and black bear county and I should stay the heck away. But there are no bears that I can see, only this perfectly still lake.

And on the beach I see a pretty table covered with a yellow tablecloth and fresh wildflowers in a big tin pitcher. The path there and all around the table someone has layered woven blankets.

Ben smiles at me and says he wanted to try a new restaurant, and that I can leave my shoes in the truck. We get out of the truck (so much cooler up here) and he unloads a wicker picnic basket from the bed and I ask him what the restaurant is called so I can tell all our friends and he thinks for a minute and he says Chez Ben. But it's only open one night of the year. 

I see. Well they'll be disappointed then. 

I'm not, he says.

Me neither. I tell him back.

We settle at the table and he goes about unpacking. I don't have to pinch myself because when I see the food I know it's Ben and it's real. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cans of iced tea.

It was the best picnic I've ever had.

We took our drinks down to sit on a log after we finished our sandwiches, sticking our bare feet in the cool water. Pond skaters were all over the place, as were mosquitoes. We got eaten alive. I offered that maybe we should head back because we both had so many bug bites and also it was dusk now and bears are more active and I hear they love peanut butter but Ben said he wanted five more minutes and then we'll go. He squeezed my hand and looked at his watch. Then he did it again.

Then again.

I'm thinking...what the heck is he waiting for?

Then he looked at it once more, pulled me in tight against him and kissed me like he meant it. Long, heavy and hot. The split-second his lips touched mine fireworks went off on the other side of the lake. Actual fireworks.

I laughed mid-kiss and got another kiss because I messed up his efforts on the first one with my laughing. Half because he isn't usually given to this level of romance and half because deeply kissing someone after you've eaten a peanut butter and jam sandwich is uncharacteristically...awkward.

When we finally stopped kissing each other the fireworks ended and he nodded quizzically and asked me if I saw anything. He got to his feet, pulling me up too and said he swore he saw fireworks during that kiss.

Me too!

This proves it, Bridge. We are meant to be.

I think kissing after PB&J proves that. You have to really love someone to make that level of sacrifice.

Yeah, I learned something else tonight too. 

What is that? 

Kilts and mosquitoes really don't mix.

Too beautiful of a day to wake up feeling like everything is too desperately worthful to lose.

Even a well lit place can hide salvation
A map to a one-man maze that never sees the sun
Where the lost are the heroes and the thieves are left to drown
But everyone knows by now fairy tales are not found

It's thirty degrees in the shade and Lochlan is throwing fire. He doesn't notice the heat. His nose and forehead are already pink along with his shoulders and the back of his neck since I put his hair in a low messy man-bun this morning and he left it like that. It has lightened to the color of polished copper. I want to keep him like this forever. If I squint he is seventeen. If I focus I still wouldn't even come close to guessing that he'll turn forty-nine later this summer. It just doesn't compute. He doesn't age. All this sun and fire and hard living (not now, I mean previous to this house) and stupid stubborn syllogism and he remains the same.

I put my own hair in the same style of loose bun and he laid down his torches and came over, putting his top hat on my head. It's far too big and sits with the brim on my shoulders. I can't see. He doesn't want me to get too much sun. I don't need to see like I don't need to hear. I'll just navigate based on touch, like always.

And if he dies, I'll go with him. I already promised myself that years ago.

Weirdly effective.

Send out the signal and I'll fly low
If it means the death of me, I won't let go
And if I'm lost in the worlds shadows
I'll use the light that comes to me
From your halo

I think Loch was waiting for everyone to relax a bit. He acted so normal (relatively speaking) all week and then this morning he threw himself at Caleb out of the blue and bit him.

He bit him.

The yell Caleb let out was unholy and the answering call even quicker as Loch roared right back with a question, asking him what it felt like. Caleb launches into a curse-filled diatribe and says it hurts a lot and was completely unprovoked.

It doesn't look as bad as Bridget's.

No, but it hurts like fuck. I should have you charged.

Let me just make sure I have this right. It's not as bad as the bite you gave Bridget but it hurts a lot and you want to call the cops. You think the bite you gave her that is worse hurts? She's half your size! You think we should call the cops? Loch throws himself into a chair. Call them. I'm not going anywhere. In fact, I think when they come we'll need to give them the full backstory here so they understand things.

Caleb stands there for a moment holding his arm.  His face is ashen. Takes him so long to figure things out but he's bent from hell and never fully straightens so even if it doesn't turn out to be a lesson it can be payback.

He turns to leave without a word (LESSON ACCOMPLISHED) and Loch calls to his back. If I see that camera around here I'll take a bite out of it too. Don't take any more pictures of my family.

I have to hand it to Lochlan. He struck not half a day after PJ finally relaxed and we had decided that it was once again safe for them to be in the same building with each other.

I should have bitten his fucking heart right out of his chest.

Gross.

Just imagine the visual, Peanut.

Still yuck.

True. It's most likely rotten. Black.

Okay, well THAT would be cool.

I knew you'd say that.
 

Morning coffee and I was trying to make a playlist when this happened (What a fucking BUZZFEED headline.)

Scrolling by song title. Ahahaha, I give up.

And by last night he had purchased a big fancy new camera.

Ben either has far more self-restraint and a magnificent ability to calm down the entire household with his very presence or he is about a thousand times more fucked up than even I give him credit for.

I will never be sure which, at this point. When I came outside, drill in hand, ready to start converting the long galvanized tubs to be windowboxes for the stables, Ben was in the middle of telling Caleb he thinks he has an incredible eye as a photographer and maybe it runs in the family.

(Cole, not sure if you remember, was taking pictures when he wasn't painting. His photos were our bread and butter and were what brought Batman into my life, proper. Or maybe that's improper. Either way I still have around three thousand of his prints here. No, that's not a typo.)

And Caleb is agreeing with Ben. They're discussing the merits of erotic photography using unconventional subjects and provocative arrangements meant to inspire uncomfortable emotions in the beholder.

Oh, well, just great.

But then Ben abruptly points out I won't be Caleb's subject. That he needs to use models who aren't emotionally connected to make his work that much more diverse. Oh, I love him so much.

Caleb sees me through the screen and refutes.  Bridget is what sells this. Her fragility translates so well to film. She's the reason Cole made it. So I would say the opposite holds true, Benjamin.

Cole didn't make it. Cole exploded. I press my head against the screen. It pulls on the sides and I'm wondering if I force this if I'll come out in long tiny squares and reform out on the porch. Ben's head whips around in surprise and he gets up.

I can't believe you're encouraging him, Benny. 

You have to admit, Bee. It's possibly the hottest picture of you I've ever seen. It's like porn but classy. 

Oh well that just makes it all better then. Loch will be thrilled. 

That's why I said Caleb should use someone else. 

But then would it still be so hot? Or would it just be porn?

I don't know. I'll have to look at them first. 

Of course you will. 

Asterisms.

Caleb's scorched earth campaign continues and it appears I will go on until I'm staggering down the road missing limbs, fully lobotomized and amnesic, breathing borrowed air. No one understands this, no one can parse exactly at which point all attention turned to me and I became the possession, the doll they would fight over, pulling me apart in an effort to be victorious until my seams rip open, my guts spill all over the road and I am ruined, in pieces, empty and worth nothing.

I wasn't all that special at eight or nine, I didn't think. I was sort of average. I was willing and determined, I was flighty and dependent at the same time. They just had such an overwhelming need to save me, to control me, to stand in front and fight away all my demons for me and they've never let up for a single second of my life from that first night.

I want to ask how they can waste any more of their lives fighting for me, over me, on my behalf. Its been half our lives now, if we're lucky. It's been decades and nothing's changed save for the fact that the stakes are literally as high as they will ever get, as we fight through life and death and children and threats and lawsuits and custody battles and financial particulars and living arrangements and marriage arrangements and everything that goes along with everything else.

We've tried breaks. Absences. Forcible removals. Protection orders. Death. Life. Birth. We've tried making things work and we've tried adjusted collective living now too. We've tried lawlessness and we've had rules. We've had leaders and followers. We've watched the years tick past but nothing every changes except that I get older and less beautiful as each night passes into the next and still they fight on. It doesn't even matter if I'm HERE, they're still fighting over the memory of me, the idea of me, something.

I had to go around and request that each of my beloved friends delete the photo. Most tried to pretend they didn't really see it or it was no big deal. Some made really bad jokes to cover up their horror. Some gave me lectures. Some denied they ever got it until I chose to wait them out and they crumbled quickly. Some laughed and refused, saying I got what I deserved.

Some still threatened to put it up for the world to see until I pointed out that I don't care about the world at large, I care about the people who live here with me. The rest is just static, white noise, a constant roar of life passing by while we all remain locked in a ridiculous war and no one even knows why we're fighting anymore.

Sure we do, Bridget. We're fighting for you. 

Well, stop it. I never asked for this.

I changed my mind.

I've decided after a fitful night's sleep that I'm really not prepared to sign my mind back over to Joel. I'm not really sure that Joel isn't here to help make Sam redundant and marked for banishment. I don't trust them enough to believe them when they say no. Sam has always been a threat to Joel. I'm not sure the history there and it's none of my business. It was just far too easy for Joel to appear, herald a list of good boys and bad boys and then wait patiently for control to be give to him. Especially since he is Caleb's guest, not mine.

So yeah but no, I'm going to pass.

I also passed on an opportunity to wage words with the Devil himself, ignoring his messages, his invitations and apologies. Then his demands, his threats that turned to pleas so fast his desperation dripped down the walls and drowned me. I turned on my back to float, breathing shallowly, staring up at the sky, spreading out my arms and legs, floating in the deep water as it slowly filled the room. Now what? I ask Lochlan, who is teaching me to swim. I want to be done, the knot on my bathing suit digs into the sunburn on the back of my neck. I want to be done.

Wait for help, Loch says.

But I'm not nine anymore. I roll back over and swim for shore. It's just so far away.

When in this situation, you're supposed to wait for someone to rescue you. Loch insists.

How do they know I'm here? 

They just do. Don't worry about that part.

Should have built UNstables.

At the eleventh hour yesterday Joel formally declared his allegiance and called Caleb a psychopath.

To his face.

I closed my eyes. Didn't much want to see Joel's brain sucked out of his nose or his head squished like a ripe plum between Caleb's hands but Caleb chose not to engage. He'd lose. Joel was the one who gave me the labels I won't wear easily and is now the one who has convinced the others that I'm not responsible for the way I am or the way I act, even as I insist I'm an adult and stamp my feet. He taught us that it has nothing to do with being an adult, that I'm not in control, that I'm just doing what I need to do to ease the pain and I can't help it.

He blames them collectively for me.

He was harsh on everyone and so easy on me I stood there thinking he's about to make a play too and Jesus, no, not again.

But he saved his biggest criticism for me and told me I'm not doing what they made it so easy for me to do. Let them lead. Let them decide, steer, supervise and control. The ones who will protect and not exploit. He thinks he knows who those ones are and who are not. The list contained a couple surprises and one incredible disappointment.

And he asked Caleb to stop. Stop hurting me. Stop leading me down those roads. Stop torturing me. Stop making things worse.

Stop being evil and help, here.

And Caleb was so startled he agreed because Joel caught him by surprise. Because maybe Joel has ethics after all and maybe he knows what he's talking about and because he's the only person I know to make a mistake, learn from it and never do it again.

The rest of us aren't as bright. I was (am still) fully prepared to admit I put myself there. I go to Caleb willingly. I goad and tease him into these situations and then I find myself in over my head. He is deep water and I'm the ever-weakening swimmer. He's the shark and I'm the oblivious surfer. He's the predator, I'll be the prey for the rest of my fucking life. So whatever he's promised to do to help, it's most likely a lie, and for the next several meals I'll be using the unbreakable dishes and feeding the boys in shifts, because even though Joel promised to do a little crisis counseling on the fly with Loch and Ben and Caleb together, well, I don't buy his insistence that my brain exists as if it was indeed born yesterday. I don't think it's fair to be excused for the things I do but I don't exactly do them on purpose either. I don't know what it is. Joel says he knows, and that's the important part.

I somehow gave control of my head back to him. I don't know if that's any smarter but at this point it doesn't seem any dumber.

(If electrocution didn't kill me, the abject humiliation will.)

In the picture I look as if I'm already dead. Stark naked, tangled in quilts, tied up quite neatly, hands behind my back, ribbon looped around my neck so my hands are almost between my shoulder blades. I am facedown. I am waiting for him to come back.

He must have taken that photo as he returned to the room with a fresh drink.

He sent it to everyone on the point.