Reverend Run.

Sam got very busy very quickly, somehow winding up with a funeral and two weddings this weekend, plus regular services. He's pulling a hundred-hour week and I'm trying to help him as much as I can, not only by filling him up with coffee and taking care of his chores every chance I get but I also went out this morning and bought him an off-the-rack black suit in a huge hurry when a particular bride decided at the last minute that everyone at the front of the church (including Sam) had to be in black or white. 

I wasn't going to buy him a white suit. He'd look like a BeeGee. 

Though, now that I think of it, that would have been amazing. But it's too late now. He's already left, pins in place on the hem of his pantlegs because I didn't have time to sew them but I will tonight when he is home. 

At least the weddings will keep him well-fed and the stipends are several hundred bucks a pop so he comes out tired but ahead. And he only agrees to officiate the weddings of people he has met and counselled and actually likes so that's an extra bonus. 

I love weddings. Really I do. But I love Sam more because he's a good person, deep down. I'm not sure if I am. He says I am but I think he would have told me I was Cleofuckingpatra if only because I'm the only one in the house who could shorten his pants on such little notice.

Obverse and Bridge.

Lochlan waits until the room is at least forty-five degrees and then he pulls me up into his arms, one arm around my shoulders, the other scooping the rest of me up hard against him, not touching anything else. He can move us both, he's strong and he's overly warm and I didn't know heaven was a sauna until I met him.

Jacob described heaven as a garden, but only around the edges. He said he thought it was more like a digital picture frame you could walk right into, or change at will. He wondered if it was like a university and God was the professor and you would go from class to class processing everything you have learned, studying the meaning of life and having coffee or lunch, spending time with those who arrived before you.

What a weird concept, Pooh, I told him from my pale sun-dappled nest in bed. He's bunched all the quilts up around and over me, and just my head is peeking out. It's freezing and the summer bedroom is unheated, save for him and the woodstove we forgot to bring wood in for. Jesus, Jake. I think we need to run better vents in here. 

I think I can keep you warm, Princess, he promises, pulling me up against him.

Lochlan says heaven is a day at the fair. No one steals your wallet, you never get hungry or sunburned and the tiny lights are never turned off because you never have to go home. It doesn't pack up or shut down, it's just always there.

What a perfect idea, Locket. 

It would be except that heaven doesn't exist, Peanut. We have to live now because once we're gone, that's it. This is the reward, only most people don't know that. They hope for something later instead of now. That's a waste. 

What about God? 

What about him? If he pays he can come in and see the show. Just like everybody else. 

HOT and FAST.

I'm all fixed up. Lochlan gave me a hard line for my internet and suggested once again that I give up on Firefox and use Chrome.

Of course he's right, but that's okay too. He's the computer guy, I don't know anything about computers or networks or HTML, because you've had to look at the same design of my blog for almost five years now and while I'd love to change it, I don't know how.

In other news, we have heat wave and wind warnings and the humidity is high and so I'm just going to slither down into a chaise by the pool and pray for winter. I told you I wasn't good with the heat. I have a headache and my eczema is all over my hands now. It's probably got less to do with the heat and more to do with how neurotic I am but who cares? I'm broiling. I'm also wearing the absolute least amount of clothing I can get away with and still considering making this into a nudist camp. It's the only stone still unturned in this commune. May as well throw caution (and clothing) to the wind.

Short and sticky-sweet.

Today is all about Pallbearer covering Love You To Death, a very mild case of sodium hypochlorite poisoning (I'm FINE, Jesus. Locked myself in the shower to scrub it, used way too much bleach. Shower is incredibly clean but my throat hurts and my eyes did that thing like in erotic asphyxiation when the black comes in around the edges just before I pass out but I survived. I always do.) and plotting to have ice cream for dinner, which never goes over well because big guys seem to require big plates of chicken and vegetables or huge slabs of steak and garlic bread to not be hungry.

Offering up a frozen cone of something sweet probably won't cut it but it's too hot even to barbecue at this point. We'll have to stand in the shade and eat the ice cream reallllly fast or it could get messy (also like in erotic asphyxia-oh, nevermind) and really I don't have much time to write much more here today.

Because someone (I won't name names but it starts with L) seems to be throttling my internet something awful lately and it's taking too long to do anything online, This is it for the day, though Andrew offered to look into it later. I'm sure he'll find the root cause and Lochlan will pretend he forgot to do something when he reconfigured things and then I'll be back up to speed but in the meantime it's too frustrating. I'd rather be choked into unconsciousness than wait for these pages to load.

I'd rather be outside with ice cream dripping off my elbows.

I'd rather be loved to death.

The Devil's cover letter.

There's such a tiny little part of me that is a shallow, materialistic nightmare most of the time I can forget about her, but the Devil knows how to coax her out of hiding in spite of my best efforts to kill her off, quash her forever and be the free spirited light traveler I was groomed to be before the Devil took over. Now I run a fine balance between being a capable earth mother and a helpless walking nightmare. I'd like to say it's all his fault but I'm loathe to give him anything, including credit at this point.

I was out watering the herbs on the patio this morning when he wanders over oh-so-casually and without preamble drops his latest thought on my head. It was heavy. I'm shorter now and have a headache. Talk about left field.

If this property isn't satisfactory, Neamhchiontach, we can find one that is.

I'm sorry. What?

He takes a deep breath. Everyone has dealbreakers. You have to decide if this is one of yours. 

Frankly I don't care if we live in a cave. The discussion was private, the thought was fleeting. 

I can have the camper moved, if he won't do it. I can look after virtually anything he won't do, Bridget, and you know this. It worked for Cole and for Ben and it can work for Lochlan too if you stop writing down every single thought that crosses your mind. 

Maybe you should stop saying every thought that crosses your mind out loud. 

Consider it. Seriously. No man can be everything. Especially to someone like you. 

Someone like me. I wondered for hours afterward what he meant by 'someone like you'. And the little tiny part of me that goes for broke (or maybe goes for rich) started jumping up and down yelling Oh boy! We get our house on the beach! SCORE!, even though it will probably never happen.

Because I can't be discreet, and because he'll never settle for second place.

Serenity Princess (accepting those I can't change).

The further you go
I should have known
No use in holding
When it's already gone

It's Monday and I'm still here on the surface of the fucking sun, so let's do a barometer (a core dump as Loch calls it) and then I'm going to go outside by the pool and wait for my brain to melt and start pouring out my ears where it can mix in a puddle in my lap with my heart and I'll let the whole mess slide into the water. Pink and blue. So if you fly over the area I'll be the one with the now-purple pool, just outside Horseshoe Bay.

There is endless loud derision for the fact that I regularly sleep with counselor number one (August) and seem to always be just about to with number two (Sam). I don't know if it's any of anyone's business. I'm doing okay right now (Look, Ma, no meds!) and I haven't been caught anywhere (in the past eight hours at least) talking fervently to ghosts or demons alike.

I'm in love with everyone though. Still. Always.

That has to count for something.

In other news if I have to pick between DC and Marvel, I'm going with DC. Sorry but it seem obvious that I'll pick the dark brooding emotional superheroes over the shallow slapstick ones, though Iron Man teeters in between. I'm a Batman girl all the way, he's my favorite.

The actual Batman in my life I'm trying to avoid. Long story. He's presently Lochlan's boss and mine as well, though I am contracted a whopping six hours a week with work I can do in two. It's sweet of him to attempt to take over Sugar Daddy duties but well, long story, he isn't. I've had several vague yet sweet invites for breakfast in bed or whatever. I haven't refused them, I choose not to acknowledge them at all. Maybe he appreciates the sparing of his dignity in a way I don't appreciate the kindly sexual harrassment. We're so civilized in our strange relationship.

Since we're talking about sugar, I am not allowed to move the camper down to the beach. I had even found a company who could do it at great expense but Loch said no. Then he said I was immature. Oh my fuck. I just want to live on the beach. Didn't think that was too much to ask. If I ever move, he's not invited.

Speaking of invites, I received a beautiful one on pewter stationery to spend Christmas in Tahoe this year. Which would be...well, amazing. Obviously I'll have to refuse. In lieu of being able to do that (bait, switch), I was also invited for a horror movie night this weekend. I might be able to swing that. He is still my (boy)friend, after all (shhh just shut up just shut up) and I somewhat betrayed him and would like to make peace with that, as long as it doesn't involve being held up against a door by my throat, that is. Or at gunpoint. You know. That all kind of kills the mood.

Yes, I have the new Switchfoot album (well, there's a shift in subject matter). No, I haven't had time to give it my requisite five consecutive-listens through but it's audibly stunning. I love I Won't Let You Go and Shake This Feeling and Holy Water and Where The Light Shines Through (also the name of the album, don't you know) and If The House Burns Down Tonight. It's amazing. The boys all love Float because they're huge Jamiroquai fans and it seems to be in a similar vein to that genre but really Switchfoot could put out an album of all white noise and I would love it. Some songwriters seem to have the keys to unlock my mind, I think.

It's a nice change from PJ's recent steady musical diet of The White Buffalo. PJ doesn't have headphones, he plays all his music from the stereo that's wired into the house whole. The whole point, rather so if he is listening to something, we're all listening to it.

In other album news, it's the summer of genre mixing, apparently. I caught Royal Tusk live this summer and fell in freaking brutal, thorough love with a song they have called Above Ground. The chorus. Jesus, the chorus. It's like someone flipped open the top of my skull and started stroking my brain. It's the most glorious thing to hear live that you will ever hear in your life. Well done. All their other songs are good too but that one blows my little mind.

New Jake is doing really great, thanks  to those who have asked after him. He has a new (read: WORKING) insulin pump and is stable. I'm so happy people ask about his health. He's in a better headspace these days so he's managing very well. Sometimes my readers rock. Batman does too. He keeps Jake too busy to fall into holes, something Batman tried to do with me and failed because I'm "not motivated". I'm busy, uninterested in being his girlfriend because he is difficult.

Ben is also doing really well. Maybe it's a relief and I should be insulted? I'm not. I'm glad. All of this rearranging was tough and somehow easy at the same time. He's making an effort to be present but feels free to not be, too, if that makes sense. He's got a lot of work coming up that he can do from home and he's suddenly thriving. He also has the beginnings of a tan from all the gardening I make him do.

Yes, that's right. You didn't misread. Vampire Benjamin has a tan. A farmer's tan so just his neck and arms but IT'S A START.

In our garden just four out of the some eight hundred tomatoes in the garden are ripe. The pumpkins are ripening for fucks sakes and the hundreds of green tomatoes just hang there, mocking me because the nights are cold. I have heirloom seeds from everyone I know for next year already and things will be better. I'll be kicking the garden up a notch. Not as many tomatoes. Broccoli and garlic and rosemary in spades. I'm campaigning for some goats and chickens too but I have to check the bylaws to see if we're rural enough. I mean, we must be. There are no pokestops, gyms or nests for fifty miles. I have a page of pidgies and a Pikachu I hatched myself from an egg and otherwise I'm not playing Pokemon unless we drive downtown where the park is freaking full of Tentacools. Score. LOL

Jake would have hated Pokemon. We had very rudimentary Blackberry phones and woefully underpowered flip phones then. When I'm reminded of Jacob and his dumb little cellphone that barely worked I get a weird warm feeling now that seems to take a few more minutes to morph into a painful ache in my head and my stomach. Maybe I can credit the boys with being here, spending time, making things fun and keeping me distracted. Maybe time does change the way we react to constantly being aware that someone you love isn't coming back. Maybe I'm learning to live with the things I can't change. Maybe it's just a temporary great spot, treading hearts right here and I'm about to be sucked into a black hole in spite of my efforts not to. I don't know exactly. Cross your fingers.

I still have the phone. It's in pieces but I have it.

That's really all for today. See you tomorrow.

Sunday weirdos.

Heat makes things strange. Makes them ripply and mirage-like. Makes them smoke and waver. Makes them melt. It makes me lethargic and yielding. Makes me cranky and weak.

Beach Jesus/Sermon at the Sea was warm and overly sunny for me and I grew so tired of squinting I turned and walked back to Sam's car two-thirds of the way through the service. He parked in the shade. I sat with the door open fanning myself and feeling sweat pool in the center of my back and underneath each ear, somehow. I took off my hearing aids and put them away.

Thirty minutes and he was back. You alright? 

Good work, Sam, I tell him again in my deepest voice.

If it was good, why'd you leave? 

Too hot. Now I miss the Prairie winters suddenly. Ten months of the year without sweating, as long as you can make it through eight weeks of forty degrees.

It's only warm like this for three or four weeks out of the year here.

Yes and I hate it. 

And you miss driving on ice?

Fine, you win. Can we go home now? I'm going to need help moving my bed into the pool. 

Let's go out for lunch first. There's a little place I found downtown that's really good. 

Downtown? We won't get home until one. 

Oh well. 

Lochlan's home today. 

Ah. I've been replaced. And so soon. He looks down with a huge comical frown.

Never. But if he doesn't have to work I want to be with him. 

You really like the guy, don't you? 

Naw, I'm just bored and I want to play connect the dots. He has the most freckles. 

Actually I think you do. 

Shhh. We don't speak of those. 

But my face is covered. I've been marked by Jesus as one of the unbearable ones, a hot mess when everyone else is positively worshipping this weather instead of the things they're supposed to devote their faith to.

The Lord makes beautiful things. He smiles at me, turning on the car, turning up the air conditioning, motioning for me to close the door.

Like your Poland belt buckle? 

Ha! No, I think that was made in Taiwan. 

Oh. Really? Not Poland? How curious. 

I know! That's part of it's charm!

Shrinkage (take it any way you like).

Sam finishes another lesson by handing me a gold star from a roll he keeps in his office for Sunday school attendance.

Good work, Bridget.

You're biased because I'm in a swimsuit.

Actually I was going to talk to you about that.

You'd rather I didn't wear it?

Yes. Wait, no. I was going to tell you to wear your wetsuit for the lessons so that you don't burn.

I don't think the lesson is long enough for that to happen.

The sun is reflected in the water. You burn faster.

Oh. If you want, I can. But just say it, because me sunburning isn't the reason.

It's distracting to the point where I forget what I'm supposed to say.

You say "Good work, Bridget." I do it in a deep voice and he laughs.

Well, as long as you can prompt me, then, I guess it's fine.

It's way too hot for any more clothes. I was actually going to campaign for naked lessons.

Clear it with your husband and it's a go.

God, I can't wait to see you in your birthday suit yelling at me to breathe.

Wait, I thought you meant the student would be naked. I can't be naked.

Why not? Is it a sin against the Lord, Reverend?

What if I get excited?

Then you EMBRACE it! Jesus. It's forty zillion degrees and we have a pool! Boners for everyone!

Bridget, I swear to God. You're a man, aren't you?

I wish. Then I could write my name in the pool with my pee.

Okay, now that's just wrong.

I mean the snow!

Marginally better. You're obsessed with having a penis though.

Now you know how I got to this strange and wonderful place.

Collectors and defectors.

I haven't slept yet. Our hours of languishing flat out on the sand last night on the big round beach blankets watching shooting stars was followed with a night of being passed back and forth, being held up, being held down and being turned over so many times gravity ceased to be a factor because I couldn't tell which end was up. I became a falling star overnight only when I came back through the atmosphere I was supercharged instead of destroyed.

Ben could tell which end was up, thankfully, and he was anxious to reconnect in a new way. He likes it dirty and rough and difficult and by the time they stopped fighting over me I had flutters and shakes and was bathed in sweat. True to form they both fell asleep while I was in the (autoclave) shower and when I came out, Lochlan was flat on his back, snoozing deeply and Ben was almost spooning with him, one hand holding the top of Lochlan's head, the other holding my pillow against his chest firmly.

I wish I could post photos of that. I take them, I just can't share them.

Ben looks good though. The dark circles are gone and so is the beard. I thought I was throwing him under the wagon, marrying Lochlan but it seemed to calm him down, as if all the vigilance and strategizing of the past eight years can be relaxed at last.

I left them sleeping and went to find a bottomless mug of coffee.

Eventually they surfaced and right away, Loch asked me to come back upstairs.

Jesus, you're a machine. 

I wish. I have something for you, he said.

Upstairs we went where he went and pulled a largeish flat box out from underneath the bed and set it on the bed.

Open it. He smiles at me almost shyly.

I open it. Oh my holy water. Inside? At least a dozen pastel sets of the most beautifully soft vintage lingerie I've ever seen, far over the cashmere and velvet outfits he burned yesterday. It's all in perfect new condition and all in my size. I try on everything. Not a stitch is amiss, not a seam puckers or lifts. Uncanny. The slips fit like gloves. The garters are the perfect length. The bras contain everything yet still manage to be completely scandalous. I look almost..I mean...kinda sexy almost. He sits quietly, watching my fashion show, admiring my skin in between trips to the mirror. Hell, I'm admiring myself right now. Geez.

How did you-wait, when did you do this?

I've been adding to this collection for years. I've found pieces in Europe and the US but it was hard to find such small sizes so it's taken a long time but I knew I wanted to make the most beautiful collection for you.

And Caleb found out and beat you to it. 

He heard me telling PJ a while back that I wanted to go one better than Jacob and all that lingerie he bought for you that you liked. But Cale cheated. Everything was new again. That's not the same. Money can buy whatever. This is history. None of this is younger than 1960. I remember you looking at those retro Vaudeville girls on the sideshow. I remember you saying everything you wore would be velvet and satin and beautiful. I don't forget anything you say.

I can't believe he did that. 

Bridget, our entire history is steeped in his concentrated efforts to ruin everything for me but it didn't work. I have everything now and I want you to have everything. I want to spoil you for anyone else so that you will only be mine. I want to give you everything I couldn't give you before. 

Can we still have cheeseburgers though? I like eating those with you.

As many as you can eat. 

We both say half a one at the same time and he smiles so wide, eyes glistening that I loose my composure in the neatly stitched ribbons and ruffles.

I kiss him hard, wavering slightly. I still can't feel my legs but at least I look good.

Lochlan. 

Yes. 

Thank you. I don't even know which set to wear first. 

We'll pick, each day. How does that sound?

Perfect. 

Love you, Peanut. Glad you're finally old enough to wear some of this. 

Wait, how many years were you collecting it for? 

The first two sets I found in 1982. 

But-

Yeah, before Jake. Before everything. I mean, it looks now like I'm just copying everybody but I was-

You were here first. 

Yeah. I was. And I'm back. And I still love you as much as ever. 

How much is that?

More than anyone would even comprehend if ever they stopped to consider.

It's Perseid time!! Get your asses outside!

The velvet bonfire.

True to his word, he set it all ablaze. True to his word he left his fists at his side and instead asked me again to be different. To be that little girl he used to know before time and experience turned me into a stranger to him. True to his word he asked but did no push. True to his word he gave my name as his though it hasn't changed yet.

Yet.

I'm thinking about it.

What do I wear? I asked this morning in between the flames of sunrise.

Nothing, he said. And he laughed without letting his eyes in on the joke and we stood and watched the light change into something new and I was completely comfortable in my own skin while he roiled and tossed in his.

We were soon joined by the Devil, who came out to watch the fire, hands in his pockets, unreadable expression masked by forced joviality.

I see the renovations have begun. You going to light her counselors on fire too? Gosh, maybe we should take before and after pictures. The new and improved Bridget, version 4.0. Find the difference. Oh, right. There isn't one.

Lochlan didn't say anything, having escaped into the roar of the flames, blocking out the cold.

I turn to Caleb. He does what he needs to do.

As do you, clearly. Logic and Impulse. You two won't make it a month.

We've only been inseparable for three decades.

She puts no weight in your presence, Doiteain. The word is drawn out to make a point.

Things take time.

THREE DECADES, Pyro.

Diabhal, go inside. Please.

I'm fine, thanks, Neamhchiontach. If he's going to try to destroy what I've built then I'll undermine what he builds. She won't change for you, Brother. She's still going to go to them and then eventually she's going to come back to me. I wired her this way for a reason. That reason wasn't you.

I can get her back.

You already HAVE me back!

You can't keep her. That's the problem. But good effort. Impressive show, as usual. For that, I'll give you full credit. He throws a twenty into Lochlan's top hat, which rests upside down on the ground near his feet, and turns and walks away.

Late than never.

I couldn't think of a better Wednesday.

I spent an exorbitant amount of time today in an artist's loft in the middle of nowhere on the sunshine coast. I found a kindred spirit and a great place to explore. I ate crab cakes and drank cheap coffee and crawled over logs in the woods and strolled along new beaches and nodded carefully as people pointed out that life is short. I nodded like I understood their lesson without educating them on how I already know these things. I listened well.

It was a most perfect day but we were home on the after-supper ferry and I turned back into a small pale pumpkin as the sun set somewhere over my right shoulder, far behind me. Lochlan kissed the top of my head and asked if I had fun and I did. Unequivocally.

Horizon lines.

You're okay with this? 

They had a thing long before we did. We were familiar faces far from home. That was it. There was no expectation that it would continue once we left. That's why they're getting together. She's not the one that got away or anything like that. August is easy, casual when he speaks about Erin and Christian. I wonder briefly if he's ever been in love. Tell me about Loch. How is he faring now that you're home? Right back to work I see.

A week is all we could have right now. He's...He wants me and the kids to change our name to his.

You can't blame him, Bridge. Any label he can put on you to tell the world you're his is a given at this stage. 

It never crossed my mind. Not since I was twelve and used to practice my signature with his last name. I didn't think it mattered anymore.

He runs his hand up my thigh. So warm. The bed shifts, swaying against his weight. I put my hand up and run it over his hair. The waves stick up after I smooth them. Just like Jake's.

He wants me to get rid of all the velvet things Caleb had made for me too. 

That I can see. Not sure how that ever got past him in the first place. He slides his arms around me. He's not gentle. He doesn't notice the brief alarm in my eyes. I shift my weight to bear him and he lands the most preoccupied, absent kiss against my shoulder. Christian's revelation bothers him. Lochlan's sudden rules bother him. I think everything bothers him but he keeps it in a locked room in his head and instead takes on my problems and bears the brunt of my issues like a trooper. Like a champ. My new best friend. My reluctant living ghost.

Maybe Caleb is right and I'm creating a monster. 

Lochlan's not a monster, Bridge. He's just a man, like the rest of us. Only I'm pretty sure you're the hardest thing he's ever had to juggle, seeing how hard it is just to hold you. 

I didn't mean Lochlan. I meant me. 

Just be quiet now. He covers my mouth with his and the conversation is over. His long strokes against me make the bed begin to rock ever so slightly. A cool breeze reaches my skin from the windows facing the water. I arch my back, pressing myself into him, calling him by the wrong name, forcing him to conform to a memory when he just wants to be a man like the rest of them.

But I won't let him be less than what I've made him into. Not yet. Maybe soon though. And I don't play by the rules. I did that once before and I'll never do it again.

Future Navy seal.

Christian's teaching me to swim. Or I should say, Sam did, in the end.

It's true. Christian had said he was tired of seeing me dogpaddling around the point to get back to the beach after being thrown off the cliff. He said I look like a terrified four-year-old the minute someone lets go of me. He said that should change and since we have a pool with a shallow and a deep end, it's time. Before Halloween, he says.

I have my red cross badges up to green. I'm not afraid of water, per se. Just the dark murky water that I can't see the bottom of. So he promptly threw me off the scary side of the cliff into the dark murky water that I can't see the bottom of and I screamed so loud something snapped in my head and then he proceeded to yell instructions I couldn't hear because I was fighting not being dragged to my death by the invisible monsters just below me. I frantically dogpaddled the whole way around back to the beach and then I asked him to fuck off and die.

(Rock climbing went much the same way, if you remember. He dropped my lines so I went plunging down the face of the cliff (a different cliff) and told me to recover. And Jacob punched him in the face afterward.

Christian is the only adrenaline junkie we have left who is as extreme as one can get.)

You'll be single forever. I tell him after the second throw. And PJ came out and told him the pool is where he can teach me and God help him if he scares me like that again.

I have a girlfriend, he tells me with a smile in the shallow end. My safe space, they call it with a laugh. The water's up to my neck. We don't do shallow, Caleb told me when the pool was being built. Besides, the children are taller than you.

Goddamn it.

He didn't turn out to be much of a teacher. Oh, and he's dating Erin (Jacob's sister) again long distance. They're talking, he says. That means dating, I tell him. They've done this dance before. I'm so happy I forget he's an asshole, especially when Sam offers to take over. We're both somewhat relieved. I love Christian to death but he's very heavy handed when it comes to me. It doesn't work.

No, I never dated or slept with him. That's probably part of the problem.

I would guess. I've known you since you were eight. At some point you're going to have to be brave, Bridget. 

I am brave! I cry.

Then swim in your precious sea, he says as he turns to go back to the house.

Sam is the complete opposite. I get lessons beginning with simple strokes, including him physically holding me up in the water, turning my head to breathe and my arms to do mock-crawls so I get the motion and the timing down. Then backstroke. Floating properly. Treading water properly. Proper dog paddle (fingers together, Bridget, or you're wasting energy!)

Oh.

Whoops.

Butterfly. Which is terrifying. But I can almost do it now. Kind of.

It'll be years before you're ready for the Olympics, Bridge. 

That's okay. I just don't want it to take half an hour to get back to the beach when Duncan can do it in three minutes. 

He's six three! And he'll take you with him anyway. 

No one likes that, Sam. 

Then do your front crawl and you'll be fine. We'll keep practicing but you did great. By Halloween you'll be a pro. Are you tired?

No, I'm good. Thank you for the lesson. But I wrapped myself in one of the giant pendleton towels we keep in the poolshed and curled up exhausted in one of the chaises and slept until lunchtime in the shade.

Sam said doubt is not the opposite of faith but I don't know if I believe him.

Caleb is aghast.

What have you done, Neamhchiontach?

Tempted fate and was rewarded, Diabhal. Why are you home so soon?

You planned this. I had to come back.

I was as surprised as you.

You admitted you and Ben changed the rules. You've been planning this for a long time.

I didn't know Lochlan was going to propose when he did but there was no reason to wait to get married once he did.

The word 'married' rocks Caleb visibly and he sits down heavily on the stool by the counter. What have you done?

I did what I wanted.

What about me?

What about you! What do you want from me?

Everything, Bridget. And now he's going to lock you down.

And rightly he should, maybe?

Wait until he leaves Ben out in the cold.

He won't. We've got it sorted out.

He looks at me with some indescribable rage. Bridget, you have no idea what's coming. He'll be worse than Jake. He's had that much longer to take care of you, to take responsibility for you. It's going to be something we never imagined and it's going to blow your life apart. 

He's fixing it. It's going to be the way it was. 

Between him and I and everything else it's never going to be that way again. He sold you a fairy tale but it wasn't his to sell. 

Whose was it? 

Pardon me?

Whose fairy tale was it?

It's yours, Neamhchiontach, but you refuse to take responsibility for it. And if you can't, I have to. It's not safe with someone who sets things on fire for a living. 

Reunion.

You were supposed to give me another month. 

I couldn't stay away under the circumstances. Neamhchiontach, what have you done?

Part II: Keeper of the flame.

(Life is real. We've made some big changes.)

I loved you from the first time I saw you, and I love you now. You're my fire, the fire that burns inside me and I want to take care of you for the rest of our lives. This is our second chance, Baby and we need to take it. Marry me. Make me the happiest man alive. You're the love of my life. My fire. Please.

He lets go of me, dropping to his knees, holding my hands in his. The quilt lands in the grass. My blood hardens in the cold and then instantly, painfully ecstatically liquefies once more. The fire roars through my skull, lighting the dark along the way, flooding out the monsters and the rage and the grief. The quiet that remains is striking and abrupt. I nod because I can't speak.

He opens the box, fumbling again. It's started to rain and the wind has picked up and the fire struggles but prevails. Fate.

Please tell me that's a yes, Peanut.

Yes, I whisper it because I don't trust my voice.

You saved my life. He slips the ring on my finger. It comes to rest on top of the band he gave me after we were symbolically married in a tiny private ceremony with Benjamin, years ago.

I hold up my hand. It's a heart-shaped diamond. Our second chance beats in ice and carbon. It's beautiful and it's time.

***

I don't like big weddings. Not sure if you noticed (snort). This one took place in Coney Island, on the beach in the shadow of the Circus sideshow. Then we went straight to the Wonder Wheel. It was the most perfect place I could envision on short notice to marry Lochlan (for real, FOR REAL this time) and it had to be right. We were there just long enough for our short ceremony and a bunch of rides and then it was done. Sam performed the ceremony. Ben stood beside me too. Schuyler, Daniel and PJ came to be witnesses and because we wanted them with us.

We had a picnic of hotdogs and wedding cake on the beach. Then we drove to Montauk and had a few nights of a honeymoon alone while everyone else flew home. We stood and stared at each other on the porch of our cottage rental wondering if we would be able to get along, finally, at long last now that we're together. Officially.

After a long time there Lochlan nodded. We'll be fine. I love you. That's all I care about right now.

Ben and I very deliberately, quietly divorced a long time ago (almost two years ago, actually) and I didn't say anything because I couldn't. The pressure is off him though he said he intends to continue everything as always but maybe not feel so much guilt if he winds up spending six days straight in his studio or falls off the wagon or wants to tour or something that causes distance.

The distance would still be felt if you're not here, I tell him and his eyes well up. He's still mine. He always will be mine. But he maintains he took the opportunity as a placeholder because he wanted this for us and I wasn't ready but it wasn't the grand experiment that he makes it sound like. He still loves me so. He just knew if he hadn't taken my heart when the time came someone else would have and our chances would have evaporated, maybe forever.  It's intense, this love with Lochlan. We're intense together and intense apart and there's that trouble of getting along and I wish I could see the future the way I can see the past. I don't know. And there are other factors at play here. I worry. I still have a lot of fear of the unknown. Caleb's threats don't fade. I don't know what happens next but the deed is done.

Lochlan and I are finally legally, legitimately married to each other.

OH MY GOD.

(It's not sinking in. At all. Pinch me. Wait, no, maybe slap me. Something.) 

Ben is going to be my boyfriend but only because that was one of the things I wouldn't budge on. Though he thought I should cut him completely loose I maintain that our hearts are (and our bed is) plenty big enough and somehow more weird if he isn't there. Lochlan is on board with this (Yes, surprise.) You would be too if you were him. He goes back to being Alpha everything and my precious little twelve-year-old heart is quieted. Happy at last.

Right where you should have been all along, Peanut.

But I can't see where he means because I'm blinded by the sun. It's in the shape of a heart. My heart. I got everything I ever wanted and didn't have to lose everything that was left in the process.

We're home! More tomorrow. I'm zonked and all I smell is plane fuel on our clothes so I need to go bathe and sleep. So happy to be home. Not happy to find Caleb beat us here by an hour or two but I'll deal with him tomorrow too, if he lets me.

I have so much to tell you.

Part I: The top hat on the bedpost (The most gloriously sweet cliffhanger ever*).

(Ben said Do this right, Brother and Lochlan told him he was way ahead of him. The best changing of the guard ever, and the only step we missed in all this love, all this time.)

In the dim light left over from sunset he pulled me out into the water. I thought maybe we would just stand in the surf up to our knees, make a mess that would mean clearing the back hall of people long enough to strip out of our wet things outside on the steps and make it up to our room in only skin without tracking salt and sand through the whole house, but no. He had other plans. Baptism by saltwater.

We walked until the water was up over my shoulders and then he pulled me under with him. We surfaced in a kiss, in the dark and then he pulled us back to where we could stand comfortably. It wasn't cold, surprisingly. It wasn't uncomfortable and it wasn't frightening. I didn't notice any of it save for him.

Lochlan wrapped one arm around me to keep me close and with the other he held my face up to his so that I would pay attention. And then he started to talk. He talked about everything while we went numb in the Pacific together, not caring. He talked about his feelings from the time he was thirteen to now. He told me all of things that paralyzed him. All of the things he hated about himself. All of the things he wanted for me and then for us and then for me again. He talked about his regrets and his shortcomings. His flaws and his gifts and what he wanted to give to me. He talked about love and what it means to him and what it isn't and what he thinks it should be.

These are the sorts of words that take years, even decades to formulate. As he talked I could feel my heart.  He keeps doing this to me. All of the broken, blackened, stapled and taped together pieces of it swelled and burst one by one, only to melt together in a slick cohesive red plush before exploding again. Over and over again it did this, at the end of just about every second sentence until it made a mighty gasp and started to beat really hard as one organ instead of the remains of my loves. Whole, rebuilt on promises that I don't doubt for a moment for the first time since I was little and believed that it would be easy to keep a promise. You just promise to keep it and you're good.

He spent his life in anticipation of this moment where he could tell me everything and here it is and by golly he earned the spotlight tonight. This is the greatest show on earth. One night only.

In the moonlight my blood turned to gold again and he took a shuddering breath and laughed, his forehead pressed down against mine as I finally start to shiver. He asks me what I'm thinking as we finally wade back in toward shore.

I couldn't find any words. It makes sense now. Everything works out. Everything explained. Everything resolved. Everything is better. Everything will be okay. Everything is turning out better than I had hoped. Everything is right here. Right now. But my brain couldn't operate my mouth and I nodded and shivered and cried and he cried and goddamn it, we'll figure it out.

I could regret the time it took for him to say these things, and the stony silence for so long when he refused to explain himself and instead took up last place when he should have been first in line but it makes sense now. I could regret all the times I've tried to hurt him for that silence, or tried to pay him back for turning his back on me, or begrudge all the wasted time and heartache we've endured for each other but then he holds his hand out, waiting for mine.

Everything happens for a reason, right, Peanut? Maybe we just had to be sure. And if we're not sure right this minute then I don't think we ever will be. 

Then he got down on one knee in the crashing surf and fumbled for a box. My head aches from the cold and my hands are numb. I can't imagine what his feel like but he has a deathgrip on the box.

A wave almost knocks him down and he grabs for my hands. Oh, that's good. I can't save you, stupid.

I really want this to be spectacular but I fear I may die down here, he says from his knees.

It will be spectacular wherever, I remind him.

Okay, pretend you didn't see this. He gets up and we head back up to the house but instead of heading to the house we head to the camper that is still parked by the cliff. He wraps me (shivering mightily by now) in a quilt, tells me the usual order to stay put before making a roaring bonfire. Then he joins me in the quilt, his arms around me, his head tucked over mine. Our teeth are making such a collective chatter I can barely hear his words.

Bridgie, I'm going to cry and ruin this. I've waited so long to do this properly and everyone keeps beating me to it. 

*(Part II will be a few days from now because we won't have wifi where we'll be. See you soon!)

Stained glass.

There's a huge ornate glass jar by the patio doors and every time I come in from the beach I empty my pockets into it. It's half full of seaglass now with the odd perfect shell or tiny driftwood sculpture in for good measure. I beachcomb like other people breathe, constantly turning over rocks, checking in the same spots day in day out and waiting without patience for the ocean to bring me new treasures.

Wish it was gold, Lochlan says as I unearth this morning's handful of glass from our walk, dumping it into the jar.

It is! It's worth more than gold. Each piece marks a moment of time spent at the shore. 

That jar represents half my life, staring at the top of your little sunburnt skull while you take fifty years to sift through every grain of sand until you've got everything you can find and then I still have to pull you away. 

I'm trying to figure out if this is a good thing or a bad thing to you.

I can just buy you a big bag of beach glass from the craft store. 

BLASPHEMER.

It would free up our entire future though. Imagine how much free time you'll have, Peanut. 

You can have all the free time you like. I'll take Sam with me. 

Naw, I'm good. Same time tomorrow? 

We smile at each other. The bickering never ends. He'll never be slow enough for me and I'll never be fast enough for him, but somehow we keep pace.

The pop-ups and towables turned out to be such a pain we switched to motorhomes and never looked back.

Due to the sunburn I slept with a huge floor fan pointing straight up the centre of the bed. I slept on top of the covers without pajamas and when I woke up my ears hurt from the wind and I could have sworn I was in the back of Lochlan's pickup truck the morning he tried to surprise me when our ticket came up for a campsite. He tried to move the truck and trailer before I woke up but if you've ever slept in the bed of a pickup with a pop-up camper trailer towed behind it you know there's no way to sleep through all that clanking around. I remember thinking he was still beside me because I was tightly packed into the centre, surrounded by soft things and I couldn't get my bearings. I thought the truck had been stolen so I screamed and he lurched to a halt and jumped out of the cab and saw me and swore and then yelled that he thought I fell out and not to do that.

Where were you going? I asked. I was afraid now he was going to hit the highway with me in the back (legal back then, no actual worries but I was ten. I worried about..well, I still worry about everything. Sigh.)

We got our spot. He grinned. The waitlist was days and days and that was our first night in the truck since we couldn't set up. We got lucky.

Which spot?

Oceanfrontage. 

Can we stay there forever?

What? No! Six nights and then we're gone anyway. 

But it's OCEANFRONTAGE.

I know, Baby. Someday we'll live on the ocean. 

Promise?

I promise. In the meantime we are the carny kings. 

The surface of THE SUN. JESUS CHRIST.

I'm certain that Duncan is at this point plotting to fill the hot tub with sunscreen so I can be dip-screened and he won't have to yell at me while I shriek and complain that he's spraying it unevenly/on my face/not on my skin at all.

And I'm allergic to it so I'm going to get a rash and a weird sunburn, but only in places. He gives up and gives the can to Sam and says You deal with her. I like her better when she doesn't talk. Sam laughs and suggests regular/nonspray sunscreen.

See how fast they all come out here when you try to rub that all over me.

I'll do your back. You can do the rest.

Well, that's no fun.

Hush, Bridge. You're killing me here.

I plant a big huge sloppy kiss on his cheek and let him off the hook. Ben can do this. Besides, his hands are like tennis rackets. He can probably have me covered in one minute flat with one pass.

Then I pass the torch to him. Though it's a sad day, because I was enjoying you being too much for Duncan but just enough for me.

Told you, you're my favorite.

And you are mine.

Love you, Sam. 

But the SPF 60 Waterproof sunblock was no actual match for the Irish and I burned to a crisp inside of eight minutes. It was no match today for anyone else either and we have rechristened this to be Pink Point because now we all look like Lochlan after a day in the sun. Sweaty, ruddy and pink. He swears and says it means a day of hard work and I said that it means I am never going outdoors again, so someone needs to make it an indoor pool, and maybe an indoor beach since we probably have the money, and I'd like the stars and the moon inside too if you please and maybe-

Maybe just keep to the covered chaise, Peanut, because really you can't tan. But you shouldn't anyway so it's just as well. 

I think part of me is still outside. Does this look melted to you? I hold up one elbow. I feel broiled and skinned and miserably fried.

Yup, maybe a bit. I'll send someone out to scrape up the leftover bits. Maybe we should make room in the fridge for you. 

Oh, that's a great idea, yes, let's do that. 

Mother of invention.

What he couldn't do via brute strength, he accomplished with magic and so it was in the early evening hours when he appeared with his top hat in place, torches lit, eyes flashing in the firelight.

Let's go, he said, and everyone followed suit, taking a torch up behind me. Off we went, down into the depths of my mind, dodging doors with huge creatures locked behind them, skirting dark corners we didn't want to investigate further, until the air grew cold and the light came up and the telltale crunch of leaves could be heard underfoot.

Almost there? He asks me. His free hand has mine tucked inside it tightly. Close behind us still is my beloved army.

Almost, I whisper. I don't want to bring everyone here. I don't want to be here.

We get to the door and he opens it but Ben steps through first. The light is on but no one's home. They're not here. See, Bridge?

I nod. It's so empty. Our voices echo.

He's not calling you, it's just your mind playing tricks on you.

This isn't the kind of magic I like.

Then let's go back home, Lochlan reaches down behind my ear and brings his hand back, holding up a house key in front of my face. I take it.

I tell Ben to leave the door open. Like I left it before, I tell him by way of explanation.

Sure thing, Bumblebee, he says, and swings it wide, letting it rest against the outside wall.

We make our way back quickly into the dark and then back through into the light. They're gone for real. It was my mind. Everything is okay. It was just a dream.

Lochlan looks pale when he finishes safely stowing away the torches and hanging his hat back on the hook. You always had such a vivid imagination, Peanut and I tried to foster it as much as possible over the years but I wasn't expecting that. Fully constructed rooms. Traps. Dark passages that couldn't hold an echo. Amazing. 

It isn't. It's terrifying. 

That's why we're fixing it. All of us. Together. For you. 

Ben said I had to fix it myself. 

I didn't know what we were up against, Bee, Ben says abruptly. I made a mistake. 

Fifty to zero.

Woke up screaming. Jake was calling my name, his voice breaking over and over, a sound so lonely it curdled my blood as I slept fitfully between Ben and Loch and finally I sat bolt-upright, shrieking for him and he wasn't there. In the firelight Loch held me close and told me it was just my brain adjusting to the changes, that Jake is safe in heaven and he's not at risk. He can't be hurt and he can't get back to me because I released him to a better place finally. Ben nods on top of my head, squeezing both of us, barely awake but alarmed at the sudden outburst.

But I'm not having this. He's still there. I fight my way out of the bed, them grabbing for me and I start shrugging into my clothes, Ben tackles me against the wall, half-dressed, half-crazed. He's not there and you're not going there. It's just stress. Come and sleep, Baby.

But that isn't possible and within the hour half the household is awake and in the kitchen, tea steeping, lights blazing, Joel holding court with five o'clock casting a shadow over the room, wired and tired, attempting to explain what my brain is actually doing (processing. Grieving. Thinking TOO DAMN MUCH, everything hair-triggered by such an intense few weeks). I am given a sedative and sent back to bed. No dreams. No Jake. No memory of walking back up to our rooms. No desire to get out of bed today except that Ben forced me to. I whined and pushed against him as he physically pulled me out of the bed and stood me up against the closet door.

This is payback for me putting my faith into Lochlan making it through this intact, isn't it? Yesterday I called Lochlan the hero. Every day we fall a little more back into the love we used to have and every day Ben becomes a little more of a stranger.

He stands back and looks at me with irritation. No, Bridget, this is me wanting to take you out for breakfast because I keep venturing off into my own world when you need me in yours. And for the record, he's the hero in my story too. Tights and all. 

He doesn't wear tights. 

He should. He has nice legs. Now get dressed and let's go before they switch the menu over to lunch.

Stockholm syndrome for two.

I want to have a gin and tonic and watch Captain Fantastic. Can't find any takers except Rocket-Locket but he's working and three hours out from getting home. I want to lie in the sun and not die from it, withering into dust under a gaze so intense it cooks you from the inside out and I want to call the shots.

All of them.

I want them to be lethal.

I want the devil to understand that the days of his quiet coercion are over. I wasn't made aware that these last couple of years I wasn't even his primary victim anymore in his own special brand of threats and promises, which are frightening and too believable for comfort, for easy dismissal. I didn't think he would stoop that low, and I didn't think Lochlan would remain quiet, failing to say a word when all this time he's been allowing himself to be crushed under the weight of Caleb's efforts to find a way to destroy us, any way he can. Loch wasn't going to be a rat but he's not going to be a martyr either. Not anymore.

While it was a soul-crushing revelation, thankfully I don't have a soul so it's also liberating. Game-changing. A relief for Lochlan now, a lesser burden spread amongst the rest of us. For that I am grateful. I'm also so much tougher than I look after all and for that I'm oddly thrilled about that. Out of the two of us I turned out to be the strong one? Yes, me, the littlest one who stood there and cried when she dropped her ice cream in the mud because it was dinner and it cost our last two dollars for those ice creams and Lochlan gave me his, saying he wasn't hungry, but his growling stomach kept me up all night that night and the next day I worked double time conning hearts (and stealing wallets) until we had enough money for food for a week. Then I could sleep. Then, so could he.

Now I'm going to make my drink and snooze in the shade while I wait for him to finish up, reaping the spoils of my war with this hollow materialistic victory of decadence. At least that's what Caleb calls it. I call it bullshit because I didn't ask for this, and Lochlan doesn't deserve to be punished for it. All the pools and expensive tile floors and big electric gates in the world can't make up for what the devil has done to us.

Fuck it all anyways. Claus leaves today. He said it's not going to happen until I make changes and find boundaries. He said what we've done is striking, touching and incredible nonetheless and if I'm going to lose my mind this will be the safest place in which to do it. He said Lochlan's tougher than I give him credit for, which I hope against hope is true in the end, because I want him to be, I don't want him to be hurt by Caleb any more, I don't want him to be second best and I don't want him to be hungry. I believe he's going to be the hero of this story and I don't believe it's over yet.

Um.... (yum!)

I fell in love with a sandwich today. It was on pumpernickel bread. Mustard, Swiss cheese, black forest ham, tomatoes, lettuce and bean sprouts. Sandwiches are second only to cake to me but frankly they're way more filling and they travel much better in a handbag than cake does. Also no one looks at you funny if you eat a sandwich while you're driving. Try that with cake. Try eating cake with your hands. Try eating cake and not having any dishes to wash.

Sorry, cake, I think you just dropped to second place. This was a really really good sandwich.

Fix one thing, break another.

So the mess is drawing forces
Outside I hear them say
Just come out with your hands up
So we can blow you away
And I walk out the door
Get blown wide open
By the things I put away
And I wasn't even warned
Just blown wide open
Now the mess is where I lay

Caleb is being as attentive in absentia as he possibly could. His ears must be fire. His life is not going to be the same from here on in. He called a few times but Claus has been working with us and the phones have been left upstairs on their chargers. He messaged and I finally had a moment and messaged him back late this afternoon. I'm sure he was expecting Miss you too or maybe You should come home sooner. 

Instead I wrote Maybe you should plan to move there permanently. I hit sent and I put the phone back on the charger and I went to join the barbecue. We're doing ribs, zucchini slices and endless chicken wings, with watermelon and homemade potato salad. Delicious. Later than I wanted to eat but better later than never. Like everything.

I forgot who was here this morning and came down late to breakfast in my customary and probably completely inappropriate bedhead, skintight baby blue lycra boyshorts and a fitted green t-shirt that says Pint-Sized Sex Machine on it. Saw Sam, August, Claus and Joel sipping tea at the island and turned around to go back up.

Good morning, Bridget, Claus said without looking up from the newspaper. Eyes shot all around the room.

Good morning, I tell the room as I decide to own it. This is my house. I head to the coffee pot and contemplate third degree burns to take the focus off my skin burning from Joel's eyes. I can feel them. But when I look back at them only Sam is staring at me like he's never seen a girl before. I'm not sure how to take that so I leave it.

Later, during a break Joel asked me if I dress like that all the time around the house. I frowned at him and said, Of course not. We have a pool now. Usually I just wear a bikini. 

Claus, for the record, has a military-issue poker face. Iron fucking clad. I want lessons.

***

Russian doctor today too. Double-bonus. Anyone else want to come visit me? I put on actual clothes because I don't need any more comments from him about how he can fix whatever he deems wrong with me via plastic surgery. My blood pressure is up a little but not enough for anyone to be sounding alarms and I've already stopped taking the anti-convulsants for my headaches. I gave them three months and fuck it all to hell. Debilitating migraines are a cakewalk compared to the side effects of the medicine, which were supposed to go away but steadily got worse.

I'm running out of ideas here.

Claus thinks if I 'reduce stress' the headaches would go away.

(here's. the. eye. roll. yup. do. it. slow.)

I just stared at him until he admitted he knew that it sounded ludicrous. I'm anxious by nature. Which puts it so mildly it's laughable, I'm a worry-knot of the highest order. Pills don't help. Booze helps but I'm not going to give myself more problems or stick a band-aid on a open fracture. Fuck it all. At least sex works. For now it's the only thing that works.

Hence the t-shirt this morning.

And I'm not sorry.

I could shoot for the moon but I have a hard time hitting the fence, you know?

It's difficult to focus on the conversation at hand this morning with thoughts of last night still so fresh, leaning back hard against Ben, who had one hand around my forehead and the other around my ribcage while I marvelled at Lochlan's wide shoulders, wedged between my knees. Had I been able to see his face I would have told him that's an angle I could surely appreciate but alas, he was very busy.

When I got too loud with my cries Ben's hand moved to my mouth and he laid me out facedown on the quilt and I don't even remember how many turns they took or how many times I was turned over but I remember waking up with hurting cheeks from smiling in my sleep. I remember waking up blissfully cool, as we left the balcony doors open wide and it dropped to twelve degrees overnight and I rolled back an inch and was pressed up against Ben, Lochlan high above me on the other side, my face against his chest, one hand over my head against Ben's shoulder, the other around my chin.

Caleb is trying to talk to me and has realized I'm not listening. He moves closer, tilting my head to one side, checking for the hearing aids I never wear.

You're staring straight at me and you can't hear me? He looks devastated.

I'm sorry. My mind is somewhere else. Then I crack up because like I said, I have no poker face at all and it's terribly inconvenient that I don't sometimes.

You think it's funny that I'm leaving. 

No. I think it's awful that you can't just live here and be happy without always turning the screws, frankly. 

I told you what I want. 

Then I feel badly for you. It isn't mutual. 

Sometimes it is and those are the times I want to exploit because I think we could grow it into something incredible.

Something incredible, alright.  Caleb, I-

I'm not going to fight this because I don't believe anything is going to change so there's no risk in going right now. Ben will cave in and need rescue. I'll be gone, your ghosts will be gone. Soon your team will be gone and Lochlan will prove himself as useless once again in taking care of you. When that happens, call me and I'll be on a plane. Otherwise I'll see you at the end of August. He gives me a hard kiss on the mouth and I almost fall over but he steadies me and then stares hard for a moment while I stare back. Then he bends down to pick up his travel case and squints up at the sun for a moment.

Bridget, I've never known you to push away love. Don't start now. 

And he's gone.

I waited many heartbeats to see if I would have a panic flutter set in but I didn't. I waited many more to let the realization that the exodus of this week includes three very central characters in my story sink in but nothing changed. Caleb will be back. The memory thief didn't take everything. I'll be okay. I've got my boys. There's lots of them left. No shortage, anyway. The touchable ones remain. The loveable and loved ones remain, the alive ones remain. Life remains. I hitch up my cashmere underpants, vowing to do so well while the Devil is gone that he doesn't recognize me upon his return.

Then I realize I have a cashmere wedgie and I'm incredibly predictable to boot so I dial it back a notch, readjust my outfit and go back inside for breakfast.

Exodus.

You want the good news or the bad news first? Bad news? Yes, I do it that way too. Always end on an up note.

The bad news is the lawyers can't actually do anything concrete. They can't even threaten. Privately, personally, they've told Caleb to stop it, already. That he's one step below harassment, and that he's being immature and obsessive.

He knows this. Everyone knows this. And of course he knows what he can get away with. He's a lawyer. He also knows Lochlan is legally the bad guy right now, still. Mostly because recently Caleb was the one who wound up at the hospital getting stitches, generously refusing to press charges for what was technically assault at the hands of Lochlan for the incident with the watch. While I didn't need stitches and was taken care of at home by the Russian doc. See how good Caleb is at this shit? Exactly my point. And I'm still not willing to blow our lives open and nail him to the wall for the past because it serves no purpose now. If he ever hurt Lochlan I would do it in a heartbeat but that would be the only way. So for now peer pressure from outside of the collective will keep him in check. They told him to back off already. They told him to leave us alone.

The good news? He's heading out finally. We've been struggling here since April. Since he admitted Henry isn't actually his though he continues to be the best uncle/liar/fake biological father in the world and they still spend a lot of time together, having thoroughly bonded in the past few years in a way that kind of humbles me. His legal rights have been removed but his honorary rights remain and no, they aren't conditional on his behavior. They're there as long as Henry wants them there. But Caleb and I have discussed the prospect of him taking an extended break from the point for a while now so that I can have time to deal with this without him here to interfere with the process and now is a good time, since Henry's birthday is now past us and Ruth's is a little over six weeks away. It's a perfect time actually.

I need this absence from him. I need to be away from Caleb to clear my head. To exist without his brainwashing. His powerful presence here always cutting into my thoughts. The odd kind of guilt I hold for him, taking responsibility for his loneliness, for his heart. For his own soul even though he has backup. Lochlan needs this break too, for Caleb has been on his back since he was thirteen without a break, up to and including when I asked Caleb for an extended break when the kids were very young so that Cole and I could try to sort things out. He responded by buying property within a few blocks of where Lochlan was living. He's never let up for a minute and I feel like we're just beginning to see the extent of his efforts, maybe it isn't just me in my mad efforts to keep everyone together. They said we can't get better with him here. So let's make him go and see what happens. Just for a little while. Just to see if it does make a difference.

His favorite part was the cliff walk at Capilano.

Today I took Claus sightseeing. I wore my big huge sunglasses and I cried as we talked the whole time, just me and him. I drove in places I've never driven before. I got lost seventeen or twenty-five times. I screamed trying to merge on an overpass that was particularly daunting and he was so damned encouraging I asked him to teach the boys to stop doing everything for me because clearly treating me like I'm still eight is only hobbling me terribly. We wore ourselves to smithereens, came up with a concrete plan for our sessions for the rest of the week (he's staying until MONDAY!!!) and then he took me out to dinner at the fanciest, most beautiful restaurant where everyone assumed I was his grown daughter and he absolutely delighted in telling them I wasn't and correcting them no further.

It was almost dark when we finally got home and he gave me a warm hug and told me he was exhausted but it was one of the greatest days in recent memory. I agreed. It really was. And now the work begins. He is staying with August in the spare room in the loft so at least he is close by in relative comfort.  I could feel my ears burning once he went inside so I'm sure he was sharing all of his observations with August but I'm really glad he's here.

He prefers the term 'Storyteller'.

I think I make them nervous with my big feels and half the time they don't even know what to do with me.

That's what I think. And slowly they'll approach, one at a time, as if I am a wild animal they think they can tame or perhaps a mental patient they feel they may be able to reason with, before realizing the folly of their way, retreating to the circle once more, the safety of their numbers.

It would be funny but it's sad.

Big feels aren't a strength and they're certainly nothing to be afraid of. They're a decided obvious flaw, an utter lack of dignity, a proof that any vestige of self-control has been stripped away and you now stand for all to see and judge without your skin, thick or thin. It no longer exists and everyone can see right through you.

Now, I've never been a liar. I've never been one to hedge or hold a poker face. I could run and I could steal but god forbid I got caught. God forbid you ever asked me a direct question in your lives, I would unload my entire conscience at your feet for you to pick through and disseminate. It's ridiculous and I envy people who can lie through their teeth, deceive and trick and pretend and cheat and fake their way through life seemingly without a second thought. It's a gift and payback comes eventually but in the meantime it must be nice.

I'll stand here while the wind sears my uncovered muscle and bone and bear it well.

Better? Loch asks roughly. He knew the salt would hurt. He's one of those people. An easy, seasoned liar who does whatever he's ever had to do to stay on the right side of a moment.

Yes. It's gotta hurt. That's how I work. What do I do now? 

What do you mean? 

Maybe you should send Sam down. I need to talk. The tears start again. Make them stop. Jesus Christ. I've got no ghosts and nowhere to hide and suddenly he's being stubborn just when I need him the most.

Talk to me. 

I would but you're not listening. You're busy being right all the time. Busy saying you told me so. 

I'm busy trying to keep you safe. 

This isn't safe, Loch. 

Why isn't it? 

I can get to myself. 

What? 

Nevermind. Just tell me what I do now. 

Let me entertain you. 

I looked up abruptly and he's smiling at me. It's not a big smile but it's there. The joke is so old between us it must have been covered with a layer of dust so thick it would have been virtually unrecognizable but he found it and hauled it out, cleaning it off, offering it up like a life preserver as I drowned in my own tears.

And I took it.

I just wanted to go to the beach. I wanted to go to the beach and I wanted to think and I wanted to spend some time watching the waves and unclenching my fucking fists and he said no.

What had come as no surprise to me was equally not a surprise to Jacob who suspected and probably knew deep down all along, paperwork be damned. The children were the reason he pushed so hard for me to leave Cole and let him in.

But they weren't enough of a reason to stay. Like me.

Bridget, I wasn't strong enough to stay. I was a coward and a loser and I let the three of you slip through my fingers. 

I sat and stared at him for so long he asked me if I was alright.

Alright? Am I alright? No. I don't think I am. 

You should go back to the house. 

Ben will come for me. 

You were hoping that had I known Henry was my own that I would have never left and everything would have been different and things would be okay and I'd still be there to this day. 

Something like that. 

Life is messy, honey. 

It's a nuclear holocaust, Jakey. 

And just as if on cue I could hear Ben yelling my name. I stood up so quickly I saw black spots in front of my eyes. I'm late for the party. I have to go. 

Bridget. Don't leave yet. We-

The door is open. If you want to go you can go. 

Bridget-

Just know you can go. You don't have to stay here anymore. 

Wait! 

But I left. I didn't say goodbye or anything else. I need to go celebrate how fucking ridiculously human we are. I really need that lobotomy now, Sam. And I need to go marvel at how wonderfully this child of mine has grown in spite of his tremendously fucked-up parents.

Ghost recon.

Back to the concrete room this morning, slipping out of Lochlan's arms as he dreams of the midway, away from Ben's cool skin as he sleeps heavily without dreams. He doesn't dream unless he drinks. I run down the long hallway, muddy water splashing up against my legs as I go. It rained last night. It's cold and damp. It's always cold and damp down here. Why I made this place I will never know.

When I get the heavy door spun open Jacob is sitting in the centre of the room cross-legged, praying. The room is empty otherwise. My brain starts to wonder if Cole went to heaven or hell but then I realize I know better and I stop myself.

Jacob looks up and smiles gently, crinkling his brow in confusion.

Why are you here today? It's Henry's birthday. You didn't have to come today, Princess. 

I did, actually. There's something I have to talk to you about and I wanted to wait for today.

What if I need you? 

I'm sitting on the floor just inside the big airlock door shivering. The floor is damp, the room is downright icy. The single bulb hardly gives off enough light to see much of anything and Jake flatly refuses to move out of the way so I can talk to Cole in private.

Close enough, Princess. 

I've been talking around him for the better part of a half hour and I'm not getting anywhere. Cole won't respond anyway. He's not chatty like Jake. He's never been determined to be helpful or anxious to work with me to see them through this purgatory in order to make it to heaven. I don't know if I even believe there's a heaven anymore.

You can just keep going to the Devil until there's nothing left of you. Jacob interjects again, answering for Cole (he does that a lot) and I finally address him.

Could you not?! 

Oh but I can! This affects me as well. You keep putting me in here. Which means I've spent the better part of the past eight years stuck with him. I wouldn't exactly call that the purgatory of your brain, darlin'. I'd probably just skip to the chase and call it hell. And all the while I get to watch my best friends take turns holding my wife. 

If you have a complaint about conditions then maybe you should have TAKEN THE ELEVATOR DOWN, JACOB. 

Oh, there's the fire. Light it up, Baby. Watch it burn.

Let me finish with Cole. Before I implode. Please. 

FINE. But after today, I'm requesting a transfer. Anywhere he isn't. 

That's what I'm trying to do. Move him along and then you. So you're not stuck here with me anymore. 

He bristled and then softened when he understood. It doesn't hold the same weight for him that it does for me. The joys of being a figment instead of a fragment, I guess.

Forget the lake, let's make it a sea.

Ben walked right through the wall of flames round about four-ish and picked us both up by the backs of our necks. Like kittens.

You guys done? Can we have some dinner out on the patio? Maybe straighten up a little? Because every time I step aside and give you two a chance you both or someone else comes along and squanders it. It's hard to watch. I may as well stay right here. 

Yes, you really should. I'm so drunk right now I don't know if I remember what Cole looks like but I'm not going to double check with his big old doppelganger down in the boathouse. Who threatened Lochlan into giving me up for the week.

Harsh. Christ. Someone fix this please.

Must have been one hell of a threat, I said as I passed Lochlan the bottle.

You could say that, he said, white as a sheet. I never got the bottle back. Yes, it must have been one hell of a threat. Probably payback for the stitches necessary after Lochlan drew a line across his face with the watch after the last time Caleb hurt me because they don't seem to ever learn. Probably payback because Caleb thinks it's Lochlan's fault that I fell in love with Loch instead of Caleb in the first place.

I could make this easy and cut off all contact with Caleb but he fucked me up so bad I can't. 

Why. Why is it even possible for someone so smart to think he can order someone to love him?

The children had been dispatched to spend the day/evening out with Daniel and Schuyler and the army still had a lovely wall up. Joel skulks on the wrong side of it, thankfully. Claus is near enough but more on call than anything and since I only have the plaques in the sea that they took away because they were too dangerous to look at and the memorial trees that are trees and kind of boring and no benches or anything else I looked through some of Cole's photos and his voice came back to me, not like Caleb's at all. Lower. His radio voice. Smoldering, simmering. I took out his guitar. The one I never let anyone touch, still with his fingerprints all over it. I put on his big grey sweater and for fifteen terrible awful seconds I contemplated joining him and then I took the sweater off and I put away the guitar and the photographs and I filed his voice away where the memory thief won't be able to destroy it along with everything else and I ordered a stack of pizzas (the usual, for the Point) and August caught up with me, kissed the top of my head and I think Loch's so drunk and so relieved we're going to have to put him to bed early to sleep it off and Sam's looking after Claus and keeping an eye on everything and Ben is finally back where he should be and I very carefully climbed up above the lake of blood and fire when no one was looking and I unpinned Cole's wings from where I had imprisoned him and I put him back in the concrete room behind Jake for safekeeping.

Just for a little longer, I promised as I closed the door against their protests while they both looked at me with accusing blue eyes.

I turned and smashed into Ben, bouncing off him, landing on my ass, hard. Jesus! He's the only one who's not afraid to follow me all the way down here.

You can't keep them locked up forever, Bee. Even Cole deserves better than this.

I need to deal with them later. Right now I have to tend to the living.

I think we need to tend to you.

Possibly. Little drunk right now. Can't do it. And I swayed and bailed on standing up altogether. He caught me up in his arms and carried me back down the corridor and up into the light.

Set them loose, Bee. Soon. It's been way too long.

Don't push, Benny. Please.

I sat at dinner, profoundly sad. I wanted to stick around, to see where Cole goes when I'm not there. I wanted to see how Loch feels when I don't take up his whole life and I want to know why Ben does pretty much everything Ben does.

How are you doing, Bridget? Sam asked me finally as I picked up my blood-soaked coffee cup full of whiskey and drank it all, again. Someone's keeping it full. Remind me to thank them.

This is a zoo. 

I beg your pardon? 

We live in a zoo. This is the monkey house and down there is the apex predator. I point to the boathouse and start to laugh.

Jesus, she's still drunk. Loch puts on his glasses. Mr. Perfect has sobered quickly. Must be the extra sixty pounds he has over me.

You know when you do that you distance yourself from who you are. You're suddenly civilized. You're Clark Kent. I tell him.

Monkey indeed. He smiles at me. You're so fucked right now, Peanut. It's bedtime. 

But I'm hungry. 

If you eat now, you'll be sick. 

Wait, maybe she should eat and get sobered up. If she goes to sleep now she'll just feel worse. 

I don't think there's worse than this, Sammy. This is Bottom Rock in the monkey house. I tell him and keep laughing. I watch PJ turn sideways and pour the rest of the whiskey into his own glass. Then I watch Lochlan catch him. Oh SHIT.

There goes the table. There goes the food. There goes Ben to save PJ from the red monkey and there goes Bridget, off her chair because the table was the only thing holding her up.

So this morning, I feel GREAT. Because I didn't get any dinner. I didn't get any water, I didn't have any aspirin or good ideas. Cole is still dead. Caleb is still the apex predator of my nightmares and Lochlan is angry that I called him out for distancing himself from helping me and from being who he is instead of trying to be someone he's not. He should be happy that we found out he was being coerced within an inch of his life into giving me up, to the point where I can't even describe it here, instead detailing it to my baby lawyerlets to see if they have any insights whatsoever because you can't tell me threats like that aren't at least punishable somehow, and yet at the end of the day he's still there with his back against the wall watching me fall apart and refusing to pick up any of the pieces.

That's the problem. Right there. 

Bridget, look at him. Look what the Devil did to him. Don't think he isn't just as damaged. 

That's just it, Benjamin. It's not a pissing contest. 

Are you holding him up? 

I can't! 

Exactly my point. Maybe he can't hold you up either. That's what I'm here for, stupid.

Decemvirated.

My heart has stained my sleeve red. Blood drips down my wrist, forming a pool around me until I can no longer stand on my feet and have to tread, kicking to keep my head above the surface.

Big feels, PJ says. He swims over to hand me the biggest cup of contraband black coffee I've ever seen.

What's in it? I ask him.

Courage and foolishness, he assures me and I float it nearby so I can throw myself at him for a hug. He's a great life raft. As I said before I'm a mostly terrible swimmer.

In the cup is eight ounces of whiskey with a shot of coffee for color. That's the foolishness part, I'm guessing. Works for me. I'll be on the floor before lunch.

August had other ideas and swam past me, pouring the cup into the pool, diluting my blood anyway and making it work even faster.

Well, shit, that wasn't what I had in mind, he laments, but we'll get it over with and get you back to rights.

I float on my back. Again, it works for me. I didn't want to feel any of this. I open my eyes and my angel Cole is pinned to the ceiling by his huge black wings. He smiles kindly at me. He's not frightening anymore but I'm so scared anyways because I can't remember the sound of his voice.

Just listen to me, Caleb whispers in my ear, and you can hear him through me. 

Fuck this, Lochlan says. He pulls his zippo out and lights it, throwing it into the pool to make a lake of flames. Let them burn, Baby. Let it go.

At least I can pay for the damages.

This morning I received a text congratulating me on receiving my share of the sale of the marble monstrosity which closed this week and is not my problem anymore. I'm so glad. Besides, even after we moved the gate that house was too far up the hill and the gate's been moved back and well, he spends money like water so no matter, right? Besides, it's a really good time to have real estate to unload here in the GVRD.

A really stupidly good time.

Caleb's timing is great if he thinks he can butter my ass with cash. Unfortunately he can't because money can't buy actual happiness. Only stuff like new alternators, camper tires and stove parts. We need all of the above but that only actually came to $312.72 at Canadian Tire yesterday so the rest can sit in the bank.

I get half of everything the Devil profits from. That's the deal. Which is great if you don't mind dealing with the fun prospect of being me. Which as Claus puts it, is like trying to heal a burn victim while she's still on fire.

To top it off, Lochlan is the one who sold me out to Caleb and I don't know why because he did that and then within hours warned me not to go over there this week and that there is indeed some sort of cut-off time limit on grief.

I DON'T EVEN.

He made himself the bad guy, and then made himself the bad guy and then yup, made himself the bad guy. 

Fortunately for both of us, August and Sam are WAY ahead of everyone because PJ made sure they would be. He has all the major holidays planned out far in advance, deathiversaries being right up with the rest. So Claus is here. Joel is here (URGHHHHH). Pretty sure they just backed up a truck full of tranquilizer guns/tanks and helicopters to the house and the army is all geared up and ready for battle. I should probably run now before they tie me down but I'm so curious about Lochlan's motives, I'm going to go find out about that first.

I'm also really calm and relaxed and happy so YUP. They're already drugging my food. I've got to hand to PJ. He's getting way good at this shit. He can see me falling a mile away. And weirdly I think if I look beside me Lochlan is falling too. No other explanation to be had, frankly. Unless there's a really good one I haven't heard yet.

My shallow heart.

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

He worked doggedly, stubbornly through the night, torches burning all around us in his efforts to pin me to the dark, to keep me right there in that place where he knows where I'll be but no one else can find me easily, if at all.

He steps back and wipes his forehead across the back of his arm and staggers slightly against the uneven ground. He takes a sip of his drink and points at me.

Now you don't move, Peanut. His eyes are so glassy, I can't even see the green, just the flames reflected in them. Flames and fear and rage. Don't you go anywhere. You stay right here where I can see you. Don't even move a hair's breath or I'll...I'll...

You'll what? I duck down out of the first set of ties. I'm smaller than he realizes and better at this than he remembers. This was part of the first act. Tie me up, close the doors and set the box on fire. Outside he's hoping to God I can get out. Inside I'm getting the fuck out and going through the door in the floor, dropping seven feet into a dusty crawlspace hoping to God he remembered to put the padding on the cement floor so I don't break my legs.

Here I'm hoping to God there's a fucking door in the floor so I can escape but when I hit the ground it's solid and the fire's getting so hot we're burning alive.

Read between the lines
Of what's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

He turns around to pick up the bottle and I duck behind the night and I wait. I hear him swear and the bottle smashes into the dark, shattering into a million stars, showering me with whiskey and tears, bathing me in his terror, breaking my hiding place wide open.

There you are. He says it but it isn't nice.

I nod. I'm afraid but I refuse to show it.

Come here.

I shake my head.

Now.

I shake my head again.

NOW, BRIDGET! He screams it and I take one step forward and the flames from the torch nearest me jump to my skin. I burst into flames and he smiles.

I'd kill you so they couldn't have you anymore. 

No you wouldn't. 

That's the sad part. I would. I would because I can't take it anymore. 

I woke up screaming. I woke up screaming with the sound of that stupid ominous chugging guitar sound at the very beginning of Boulevard of Broken Dreams in my head. Loch said he would have woken up screaming too if he had Green Day stuck in his head and didn't take it seriously but underneath our easy dismissal is a slow moving river of pure dread.

Ten is a number I suddenly hate with everything I've got. 

CYOA.

All of the distractions in the world aren't going to keep you from me this week, Neamhchiontach, the Devil reminds me, and with that statement I see the ground beneath the cart as the Ferris wheel tips us over the top and comes around clockwise once more, gaining speed.

I nod into his shoulder. His arms tighten and I take a deep breath and let it out.

Caleb adores my tattoo. He traced it with his fingertips in absolute awe, as if it were in reverence to him, as he shared Cole's initials and appetites, and has appropriated his life and efforts with ease, without permission.

You're glorious, he tells me.

I shouldn't even be here, I tell him and he nods.

I know. We'll finish this midweek. He kisses my cheek, smooths down my dress and pulls me back up with him.

I don't know if I can get aw-

It's already arranged, Bridget. He tells me. I wonder what the cost was and who arranged it. Just no more near misses with your poet or your thief or any of your other keepers in the meantime. I've got big plans for you. Ten is a big number and we will mark it appropriately. 

I already did. I pull my dress up again to show him my giant X over my periwinkle blue cashmere underpants.

I meant together, but I do love that. He has an X as well but his is a beautiful script and he's had it for almost as long as Cole has been gone.

He lifts my face up with one hand and plants a gentle kiss underneath my chin before letting go and looking into my eyes. I can see why we love you. What I can't see is why they let you go. 

He didn't. They made him. 

He should have come to me. 

He should have done a lot of things, Diabhal. 

If you could go back, Bridget, knowing what you know now, would you have left him? 

The answer snapped my brain like a rubber band, so instantaneously that I cried out in alarm and Caleb stepped in close wondering if he had broken something else with a sensitive question. I brushed him off with some excuse about him being cruel, and that I really did have to go. I pushed him off and left rather quickly. I don't know why it didn't cross my mind before or maybe it's just that I take so ridiculously long to sort through things. Most people take a few days. I take a decade or so. Always. It's maddening.

Would I have left him knowing that it probably is what killed him? Would I have gone with Jake knowing that I would have had seventeen incredibly painful months ending in Jacob's flight too? Maybe had I never done that Jake would still be here and then I could have gotten a sane, slow divorce and eventually married Lochlan on my own time frame. Maybe things would have been vastly different, no one would be a ghost and the only thing to deal with would be the endless inevitable stockholm syndrome that only ever bothered everybody else and never really bothered me at all. 

Worst/best conversation ever.

Duncan is trying skip rocks on a roiling sea this morning in the rain. I'm balancing on a rock nearby with my teacup and we're somehow not mortal enemies.

Because hope still exists, Duncan says.

For what? I ask innocently, but I know better as he winks at me.

I'm teasing you, Bridget. And frankly, I don't know what I would have done had you invited me into that room. Part of me would have grabbed you on the spot, the other would have sent you upstairs with a lecture and a smack on the arse to make you cry for being tough on Loch again. I'm here but for the grace of his generosity and nothing more-

No, you're here but for the grace of MINE. 

Damn. Wish I'd known that yesterday. And he smiles a rueful smile and I smile back really big and we're okay, we're just plain awful.

It's raining, Duncan. We should go back and make coffee. 

Yeah, we should. Think they hate us?

The plebes always hate the beautiful people, I tell him and he laughs harder.

For the little fragile miss, you've got a 'narse streak a mile wide. 

It's an act. 

That's the sad part, but you're a great actress. 

I know. Suddenly the levity is gone.

I wouldn't of turned you down, Bridge. 

I would have offered, Dunk, but I couldn't. Are we good?

We're always good, Babe. I think somehow keeping ourselves on our toes works. 

You do realize they had a pool going. 

Bridge, there's one for every guy you haven't slept with yet, my brother included. 

Wow. Nice to be known as the point whore. 

Well, you are the only woman here. Slim pickings. Not like there's much of you to be had even if you did go around. 
 

They had a pool going. PJ said he's out hundreds. He was sure. SO SURE that I would cave in and sleep with Duncan. But that he's so glad I didn't that it was worth the money he lost. That I can pay him back in sexual favors. And they wonder why I'm so fucked up as an adult. Seriously.