Lawyers + chefs.

I returned to work today. Maybe I shouldn't have as I felt paper-thin, close to tears, shaky and not at all up to any of the bullshit I put up with throughout a regular shift.

I got yelled at. A lot. All day long, seemingly and through no fault of my own. I couldn't finish anything before being told to do something else. I couldn't get out of my own way. I went outside on my break and screamed into the void and then ate my sandwich and texted with Ruth, Henry and Ben and then I went back in for more punishment. The yelling continued, the stupid customers continued and I wondered why the hell I need to prove this in particular?

I looked at the clock, thinking it was ten minutes to two but it was ten to three. And at three, I ran.

I was so happy to be home again I forgot about work, forgot about just about all of it save for the ache in my shoulders and my legs.
I got a big hug from PJ, one from Duncan and one from Mark too, who is still here working on some tattoos for some folks, me included.

I got a really long hug from Lochlan who told me to quit. And I laughed because one crappy first day back after a micro-breakdown does not mean the end of this. Especially seeing as how I'm a little over two weeks from my first year anniversary of having a job.

And he laughed too, because he knows I'm so stubborn. Oh so stubborn. Maybe too stubborn for my own good.

Caleb came home later but I got a quick hug as he said he had a business call to attend to, that he was finishing tax season. I am suitably impressed, as I refused again to touch his taxes. He forges ahead though, and is getting it done. We'll talk when I'm done, he threatens. They make you cry, that's it. This charade is finished. 

It's a part-time job! Not a charade! I tell his back as he heads upstairs to his study.

In your case it's the same thing! He calls back down. Not going to wait until it's a legal issue. We can nip it before then. 

Don't you dare send threatening letters to my boss.

Those, my dear, are what make the world go around.

Quiet Gods.

I'm finishing my breakfast, just about to go back up and get ready (I don't go to church in my pajamas) when Caleb comes in, wraps his hand around my head so he can pull me in close, his mouth against my ear and tells me he isn't about to try and take Ben's place in my life, that it is sacred and he wouldn't fuck with that. Or Jacob's. Or Cole's. Or even Lochlan's. So that I can rest easy knowing he's not going to be the bad guy anymore in my life, that he sees how frightening and exhausting it is for me.

Then he lets go and puts both arms out wide. As if to say, See? I didn't even get angry or jealous when you pointed out that I'm not going to have a formal place in this relationship hierarchy in your stupid little blog.

I have shoved him to one corner of my brain, dismissed as the boyfriend. Here close when I need him and nowhere to be found when I do not. Then maybe after years and years have gone by without him reverting back to machiavellian devil-status I will relent and give him a more formal designation but we're barely one season away from his last monstrous turn and he's as predictable as I am when it comes to sliding backwards.

But he gets it and here's a first, I guess.

Can I have a hug? His arms are still out while my mind slips right through them. Oops.

I nod and throw myself at him, as I've never turned down a good hug in my life and he's always given some of the best.

He folds his arms in around me, squeezes hard and kisses the top of my head. Believe me, Neamhchiontach. I need to get this right and if you help me, I can do it. Then he lets go and swats my ass up the stairs. Church is in an hour and you're not ready.

You going?

Not today, Doll. I frown and he laughs. I'm sure you'll have lots of company. 

I come back down half an hour later ready to roll. Showered, warmly dressed and dragging Ben and Lochlan with me. Ben drives, Lochlan rides shotgun, Dalton pretends to sleep beside me, head heavy on my shoulder and I look out the window wondering if Caleb is acting or trying hard, as always.

Dry ride.

I can see you running, running
Every night from the same darkness
It's coming, coming
But you are not alone
If you just say the word
I'll be there by your side
You make me more
You make me superhuman
And if you need me to
I will save you

Joel must have decided the worst of the storm had passed or maybe I just made him horribly uncomfortable enough that he left shortly after the movie ended, not wishing to see if the final installment was out or hanging around to talk with the boys. Not even two months after our last altercation in which he tried to cross my boundaries and failed and I was short and irritated with him, and he with me.

We didn't actually talk last night and I made such an effort to be a jerk and he made no effort not to be one and sadly I think the tides have turned with him at last and instead of a novelty, a treat, a fascination, I have become a chore. A tiresome errand he has to make a long drive to in order to verbally spar with. A tiny thorn in his side, the one person that broke him and that he somehow feels some sort of lifelong allegiance to anyway.

Maybe that's done at last. He's not the first man to get fed up with me (that was Lochlan, ironically) and probably won't be the last. But Joel was a different kind of intensity, an incredibly invasive, personal, completely wrong relationship and I still torture him every chance I get. I lie to him. I make things horrible so that he will let go but he's slow to catch on. Or maybe he isn't but he's definitely as stubborn as I am.

He will call later and tell me I lied, tell me I'm only hurting myself, tell me everything I'm doing is only going to set me back and I will disregard that too. Everything I've done as of late has made things better and I don't know if I prefer the short term gains that maybe do set me back, or the long term agony that maybe works toward a better future. I don't know. I just don't. I don't know much of anything.

I just know that waking up this morning breathless, sandwiched between Lochlan and Caleb worked, yes, Caleb, Caleb who said last night he feels as if he's finally achieved what he wanted all along. Just to share me.

Yes, that's what he said. I swear to God he's in love with Lochlan and I'm just some sort of symbolic testament to that.

He just wants to share me.

I don't have the heart to tell him that isn't what we're going to do.

I don't have the heart to remind him that Ben has a Very Big place here and it's only because he's so busy perpetually that there's any room at all for Caleb.

He knows. I'm sure he knows but he's an opportunist, as always.

Just like me.

Netflix and Friday.

I can't believe no one noticed this big box of Animal Crackers in the pantry.

YOUR LOSS, BOYS.

Edit: Actually Joel ate most of them to feel less uncomfortable while we watched Fifty Shades Darker and he pretended he was having an innocuous conversation with me while we watched. In reality he was testing me to see if the worst is over for the time being.

Before you tell me I'm making a hostile work environment for him remember I found the cookies and decided to watch the movie before he was here. If he's going to show up unannounced then he must suffer. It's totally inappropriate to watch a movie like that with him, but that's what our entire relationship has been from the beginning, so why the hell not?

It's very uh..Fifty Shades. They should have gone for a hard R, I think. It would have been better. Also I feel like every movie I watch now just screams Vancouver so loud. I can pick out every location. Please kill me, I have lived here too long (Nine years now! CHRIST!).

This movie is like watching Caleb in action. LOL

Out of balance.

On headphones my only copy of Pearl Jam's Black features vocals and rhythm guitar in my right ear, drums and piano in my left, and the principal guitar skews back and forth wildly. It's distracting to the point of unlistenability.

Is that a word? It is now, folks.

Ben doesn't see the problem, except with what he now calls his Little Production Quality Specialist.

It's bad, Benny. 

But you love it anyway. Like me, I guess.

***

Lochlan is sitting in the gazebo when I come out, his phone and an empty coffee mug in front of him, a conflicted expression on his face. The wind blows his hair just enough to give him a leading-man appearance and I take a long minute to appreciate that. A very long minute.

What are you waiting for? Am I in your spot? But he hasn't looked at me.

Well, whatever spot you're in is where I want to be. 

Fuck me. You sound like Winnie The Pooh. 

I burst out laughing but he doesn't join in. Okay, what's wrong? 

Nothing you can fix, Peanut, and if you're okay then that's all that matters. 

Okay is a relative ter-

You know exactly what I mean. He glares at me.

I nod. Caleb staying.

Caleb staying. Because it's not enough to have a romantic dinner for four. He somehow charms every last one of us! What this fuck is that, even? Last time I looked I wasn't into the tall, dark and rakish type-

Rakish. What a delicious word! 

Don't change the subject. 

Another reason to want to be a man. Y'all can be rakish.

Bridge.

Yes?

How did he make me think that was totally okay? That of course it's normal-

Oh, it's so not normal, Lochlan.

I know that but how? How did he manage to bewitch me too? 

It was late, mayb-

Contrary to popular belief, I care very deeply for your approval in every area of my life, my relationship to Bridget included. Caleb is behind me and I jump fifty feet. I love you like a brother. Maybe more than that. Maybe you're beginning to see my side of this finally. I certainly hope this week is an indication of things to come. 

He turns and goes back in to the house. I turn and watch him go and then when I turn back around Lochlan is gone. I see the door close on the camper parked at the edge of the rock wall but I don't follow him. Instead I go back to the house.

Oh real love.

But here you are to set a brand new path
To show me all that love means
When I hold you, I need you
I said forever, I mean forever

Dinner on the patio last night, later than ever as Lochlan was working with Schuyler on a thing and came back so late and all that remained by the hour long after which I should have been asleep was Ben, Lochlan, Caleb and myself. Ben and I were starving, Lochlan was indifferent but warm at the same time and Caleb was just quietly content. Happy to be there, maybe, happy to watch the waves and enjoy the food and wine and sparkling water and talk about nothing as I reset myself into life as it was before the nightmares resumed and blew me right out of my comfort zone.

Caleb spears a final olive on his fork. Problem is, it's from my plate.

Hey.

Come get it. He holds the fork high above his head and grins. I place my plate on the table from my lap and then his plate too, climbing into his lap and then standing up to reach my olive. He groans as I manage to hit all the right places to step and the others laugh.

I take his fork, for good measure and settle back into his lap.

Take my olive, will you. That's what you get.

I didn't think you liked the black olives.

If you would ever let me choose pizza toppings you would know I like those ones best. Actually no. Manzanilla ones stuffed with garlic are the best. Garlic and hot peppers.

Forget it. You get pineapple on pizza if we let you choose. It's better if someone does it for you.

Forever ten years old. Pick my pop flavour for me, open it too, because I can't, finish it for me since it will be too much and never ever ask me what I'd like on my pizza since it's assumed I will like what they like, without exception

And I mostly do, except for pineapple.

His offhand remark reminds me that this is my comfort zone, the place where everything is done for me, decided for me, chosen for me. It's a place that, when things are at their worst, I don't mind.

I put my head down against his chest and he slides me down to one side, one arm holding me tight against him. He takes a deep breath and lets it out.

Next time we'll get pineapple, he says, a promise instantly forgotten as he kisses the top of my head and squeezes me hard.

It's safe. And it's warm and I close my eyes and I don't wake up until he startles me softly. It's later still and the ice cubes are low measures of warm water in the bottoms of our glasses. Ben is watching me intently and Lochlan is standing beside Caleb's chair.

Come on, Neamhchiontach-sleepy-head. Bed time.

Lochlan pulls me up to my feet and I lean my head against his shoulder. So tired. We head inside and upstairs, Lochlan's arm around my waist, his lips against my temple.

Once inside our room Lochlan strips off my campfire-smoke clothes and marvels at how sleepy I am (eyes so heavy). Briefly he tries to head off the coming storm but then he is too late and it hits, capsizing us, knocking us into the sea where we flail against the dark before finding purchase again, before finding safety in Caleb, who didn't leave like I thought he would, instead remaining to trace my tattoos on my bare skin and remind me that once, he was the nightmare, and then he became the good brother.

When I woke up this morning, I could still smell the smoke in our hair, but their arms were around me, a dreamstate tug of war with all winners, no losers. I didn't ask Caleb to stay but he did, I didn't ask Ben to make space but he did, I didn't ask Loch if it would be alright if this happened (but it did and it was alright indeed) and this morning no one resorted to violence and no one could find any ghosts at all. 

Netflix + milk.

One of the best husbands I have ever had is definitely Ben. Ben who got up this morning (early-early) and got cereal for us on a tray and put Netflix on the laptop and propped it up so we could snuggle in late. We spent a couple of hours slowly finishing two huge bowls of Honeycombs with chocolate milk because he's insane and we watched cooking shows, because so am I.

Chocolate milk in cereal is terrible. Also Honeycombs are huge. I gave up trying to fit them in my face and ate them like cookies, picking them up one at a time to take bites of while we marvelled over the cinematography of the new season of Chef's Table, which I am struggling to finish (yeah..still). I think it's because this season they're really focusing on the personal trials of each chef to the point that the food is not even a second thought but a distant memory instead. Only there's no character development so I don't exactly care and my mind wanders and I have to re-watch.

Ben is barely watching it at all. He is watching me while he easily fits multiple Honeycombs in his mouth at once. He has a large mouth to go with his entire oversized being. Someone once joked that I was a third of a Ben, proper but I think it's more like precisely half. Either way he makes up a lot of ground on my behalf these days and took Lochlan's cheap opportunity to make up his own ground and threw it out the window.

Either make your huge sweeping gestures all the damn time or fuck off, Lochlan was told. This just makes things worse.

And true to form, Lochlan fucked off. Because he is flighty and fancy and full of fire as much as he is pragmatic and he also has a pride problem and so he went off to lick his wounds and Ben took the opportunity the moment it presented itself.

I need to get dressed, I tell Ben, licking my spoon. He will drink the leftover milk. I'm lactose intolerant anyway and not a big fan of chocolate milk, or even cereal but I am a huge fan of Ben. The biggest smallest fan of his that ever was.

For what? He asks, letting his forehead knit. He sounds cross at the thought of anything breaking this momentary, wonderful spell.

It's my turn to clean bathrooms. 

Let each of them clean their own. He orders.

And ours. 

The kids can do theirs. 

And ours, I repeat.

We'll make Lochlan do it. 

Seriously. Besides, it's cold right now, without clothes on. 

Ben reaches down and grabs his t-shirt off the floor. He turns it rightside out and puts it over my head, pulling it down over me. Whitechapel. Right on.

There. Now you're dressed. 

This will be a good look while I do my chores. 

I told you, we're leaving them for Lochlan. We're going to stay in bed all day and watch television and be regular people. 

We're so NOT regular peop-

WE CAN TRY.

Terrible, beautiful life.

Pretty sure This Beautiful Life by Colony House is the most incredibly gorgeous song in the world right now. If everyone isn't using as their wedding song already then they should be.

Pretty sure slow-dancing to it with Lochlan under the lights on the patio last night helped bring me back from the hole I dug using the sharp edges of my nightmares over the past little while.

Pretty sure his solid hold on me kept me from slipping any further, instead helping to give me purchase to climb back up.

He isn't a spiritual man. He is reality-based. Logical. Pragmatic. Cogent. Sensible. And also certifiably magical.

And even as I started the night knocking on the door to hell I ended it in a much, much better place. Even as the Devil answered the door in surprise, the surprise grew as I was pulled away again, led back down the hall with a refusal to even entertain my motivations or my actions altogether.

Sunset is starting, Lochlan says. Let's watch it. Let's just watch it and not do anything else.

It's a response to a complaint I gave when I was eleven and I just wanted to stop packing up for five minutes and watch the sunset but we didn't have time because you can't pack up after dark with no lights.

She (the eleven year old that mercurially rules my world) is very happy with the complaint resolution. It seemed like something so simple but the difference in experience led to endless disappointment as she tried to live in the moment and learned...not to.

One of my biggest regrets, he says as he spins me around under his arm.

And now, fixed. I reassure him and he smiles in the near-dark, curls backlit, mood backlit. Everything backlit. Magic hour indeed. Who needs the devil when you have a magician? Who needs a ghost when I've got a live one? Who needs the maturity of an eleven-year-old when...

I mean, I don't know if I can fix that part but I'm trying.

High there (Fourth Sunday in Lent).

I sat in the orchard this morning in the cold sun and laughed at the sound of the fat fuzzy bumblebees making their way from one bloom to the next because I could hear them, loudly and clearly. It isn't often I get that pleasure but it was so quiet. No music, no planes, no sound carrying around the point from others, no arguments in the driveway, no fistfights up the back steps to the loft or to the boathouse, no lectures that go on for days to the point of boredom, to the point of sheer willfulness to do anything, everything, just out of spite by that time.

Just me and the bees. I am a bee, maybe. Though I have no black in my golden hair, and I'm not very big or very loud like these bees. I am in the trees, though these blooms are sparse and early.

I am sparse. I am early.

I'm a flower, not a bee then.

Okay.

(God, these pills are amazing.)

Sam comes out to see me, tromping through the wet grass in his mismatched suit, a smile on his face.

You're alone. The smile vanishes. It was a Friendlies Approaching smile and now he's just disapproving-minister, kind of half-in charge, half hands-off approach most of them have, as in I am here for comfort or physical affection but if this gets really freakishly complicated or violent, I'm out.

That's what Jake did, anyway.

I am not. I wave my hand up toward the hill by the water to where Lochlan sits on the tree swing, not swinging, just swaying, feet planted firmly on the ground.

Like some kind of metaphor too, I just don't know what.

He is currently fulfilling the role of super-patient, highly-annoyed and ultimately deeply-concerned husband. Because his wife is a fucked up tiny grief-monster with a massive appetite for whatever she can get her hands on to make this stop and yet it's never enough, it never stops. Nothing ever changes. Even the bees came back. Even the grief comes back. I want this to change but it's as if the moment I step out and say, hey I think I'm doing bett-

It hears me, turns and comes charging back.

It's a monster. And that makes me the monster. The little blonde monster on the point that they pass around, a hot potato who is hard to hold, difficult to handle and burning for something, she just doesn't know what until she feels that heat.

Abruptly I remember to tell myself that I got my dream. Deep, romantic love on the edge of the seaside, a life beside the ocean, in arms at all times with few daily worries past what's for dinner.

But I got so many other things too. And maybe this is the price you pay for that dream. I wanted a neat little house by the sea, true love and peace.

It's definitely quiet here, the house is far too big and love is everywhere you look. Everywhere I look, anyway. Even in the dark corners where I become someone who doesn't appreciate any of it, instead favouring the losses because they overwhelm the wins. I do appreciate it. All of it. All of them. Even though I paid and continue to pay a magnificent personal price for it. But I appreciate even Sam, who saw from afar that I wasn't in the house anymore and came out to make sure I was safe.

Just making sure, Sam says.

Thanks, brother. Lochlan says it from the swing, his voice full of emotion.

Do you need- Sam sees an opening to minister.

We're fine. Lochlan cuts him off gently.

Sam comes right over to me, kisses the top of my head, then goes to Lochlan, does the same and turns and heads back over the hill toward the house.

They care so much for you. 

And for you. 

We're very lucky, aren't we? We went from being the only two people in the world to this. He smiles at me.

And it breaks my heart. I'm sorry, Lochlan. I spit it out in hot, frustrated tears.

We'll be okay. 

Yeah. 

I promise. 

And I smile, because that's a word that holds a lot of weight with this man now. And I can picture it because I'm fully high right now, but at least today, nothing hurts and that's a milestone with every single breath sometimes.

Bandaids.

I watched him by the pool. It's warm enough, though only if you spend enough time in the hot tub or the sauna before heading to the pool. It's warm indeed and as I watch him talk, as I let my brain register the fact that he is losing his accent slowly but consistently, that he is losing the blonde in his hair in favor of the same silvery-gold that I have now, that he has such little patience for impersonating ghosts even as he still needs things that people need, just like I do.

I use that to my advantage but he doesn't take it.

Instead he dropped me flat on my back on his bed in the sun, a bed that sways slightly from the heavy ropes suspending it from the ceiling. He dropped me there and he smiled his August-summer smile and he pulled off my bikini bottoms and got on his knees.

Heaven, like August, is a place you can go to. I went but the door was locked and so I hung off the knob, shuddering, sweating, crying out as August got back up and put all of his weight on me. Same moves as Jake. Same everything, same joke that maybe they were brothers instead of just friends. Same thoughts in my head that if he helps me pull on the door handle we'll get it open, eventually. It works and we spill to the floor just inside that threshold of heaven and then before I have time to look for Jake, or Cole, or Butterfield for that matter, August reaches up and slams the door shut, pulling me upright, pulling me away from it even as I reach back out for it, telling me I needed to go back, to let him be, to stop implicating him in this effort to stay stuck in 2007. That Jake is gone. That he isn't Jake. That he doesn't want to be Jake anymore.

And then he says if I want to come and see him for his own sake, for his own soul, that I am welcome absolutely any time and it will be different. That it won't be something Jake would do, but something new.

You're lonely. 

Everyone's lonely, Bridget. It's the human condition. 

And that made me more sad then the part where he said I should go.

It helps.

I don't want to help you anymore. I want to help me.

Things you don't deserve to hear.

In the beginning there was a fire, from which came a light. It burned warm and steady, always on, always there to show you the way. There to help you grow, like a surrogate sun. It was a light you could trust because you knew it wouldn't burn out, with a strong foundation and high flames. In the light you saw yourself. In the light, you saw your future. 

In time the light became such a constant, such an ever-present glow that eventually you took it for granted. That's not to say that you didn't appreciate it, but to say that it was just another fixture, like the old rope swing at the lake, or the rusted out packard at the end of the field by the fence, buried over the years by blueberry bushes and goldenrod. 

And then lightning struck, just at a sharp point on the ground between you and that fire, and for a brief moment in time you were blinded, enraptured by this new, exciting source of light, and in your mind it shone brighter than the other light, which grew so dim in the face of this white glowing light. It was a bolt you couldn't turn off, and fascinated, you walked right into it, standing in that glow, warming yourself though you knew it might be brief, and that it might hurt. 

You went anyway. Because you always did. Drawn to the brightness in the world, drawn to warmth always. You walked right in without hesitation and the light from this beautiful freak storm welcomed you. 

And then abruptly, the storm ended. And the night was coming. And when it came you weren't afraid because the fire was still burning. The first light, the constant. The still-going. And it burned for you. 

And it still burns for you, Bridget. And that fire is me. 

Springsteen and nine.

When I wake up next I have far too much real estate in the bed, two-thirds, if not more. Ben sleeps heavily way over on the right side and I hear Lochlan. He's playing the guitar and sitting by the fire. No fire is lit. The windows are open wide instead so that I can hear the birds. I can see the worn hem of the neck of his t-shirt. I can see his curls, head bent down over the guitar.

The screen door slams, Bridget's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays
Springsteen singing for the lonely
Hey, that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again, I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside, darling, you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we're too young for more
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty but, hey, you're alright
Oh, and that's alright with me

I'm nine years old and I want him to explain, or rather I need him to explain every single line in that song, even though he said he changed some of the words. I do this while I'm walking in circles, trying to step on my rainbow shoelace that's come untied. Every time I succeed I trip myself and he lets go of the guitar he can't hardly play to steady me.

It's just a song. 

You play it every day and you sing it all the time. I can hear you. It's like under your breath.

Don't stand so close.

But you smell good. 

So?

Why is her dress ripped? Did they rip it off?

No. She left her life behind. They get out of the shitty small town. Like we'll do when I get my license. 

Are we going where they went?

What? No, Bridget. We'll go somewhere better.

Caleb said I was a beauty. 

What? 

In the song, he says she's not a beauty but she's alright. Caleb said I was beautiful. 

He's grooming you. That's why I'll take you away. 

Like a cat does to her kittens?

No, Bridget. Not like that. 

Why did you put my name in the song if you're not going to answer any of my questions?

Ask Caleb. 

FINE. 

When I woke up it was five in the morning and Lochlan is playing the piano and singing Faithfully. He doesn't sound like Steve Perry, he sounds like Will South when he sings and my sleeping brain was so curious on how he was going to pull off the drum breakdown and endless lead at the end but he did okay. He also banned the Devil and his shady doctors from the house and so I woke up and the skies were clear, no hint of fog, no chance of rain.

He didn't give me the pills. He caved in and let the others.

Don't fucking demonize him too.

Present, hazy victories.

The buds are opening on the cherry trees, the apple trees too, though I always think they're dead like Jake until the blossoms are full and pink in the orchard. The roses are full of buds and the rhododendrons already opened. I'm most excited for the lilacs, though the buds are teeny-tiny on those, barely visible to the drugged eye unless you're right up close. Once again, I bought dwarf lilacs, and once again they grew to be eight feet and then some in as many years.

Maybe it's a sign.

But I can't read it because I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open, to the point that I didn't talk enough and Lochlan got spooked again and questioned if it was too much.

Yes, it's too mush, I agreed when I could finally pry my concrete mouth open.

Jesus Christ. But he's not talking to me. He's already figured out that maybe he can't blur the bad parts of my life like this, that he has to figure out how to weather them, a redheaded boat on a stormy sea the likes of which he's hardly experienced before. Lochlan has his own ghosts and I don't fault him for this. No one does. And he's trying so so hard and this isn't easy for anyone.

Stop it. He says it through closed hands, hands over his face. Stop. Just stop. Please.

And the Devil smiles and wicked smile and says As you wish.

There's some beautiful threshold between dulling pain and seeing miracles and I'm balancing directly on it, a tightrope of hope over despair. At the end of the rope Lochlan is there with his hands out, always, words of encouragement, support and pride. Driven to dive for me if I fall. To die for me even.

Down below (Don't look, Peanut! Look at me!) is Jacob. An audience of Jacobs. All wearing the same thing, looking up with concern but hope. Expectation. Awe. All watching the spectacle of my life to see if I can safely cross or if I'll hit the nets.

Caleb stands at the first anchor shackle and threatens to pull the pin. I can hear him shouting over the roar of the crowd of Jacobs. I can feel him threatening to send me to my dreams.

:(

Today was still drugged. A haze-Monday in slow-motion.

I'm fine.

That wasn't fine, Peanut. That was a level of not-fine the likes of which I haven't seen in a while.

A glitch, that's all.

A sign, I'd say.

And what does it say?

We got comfortable, maybe?

Caleb has other ideas. This is what happens when she's taken away from me. I can calm her.

(Huh. It's like I'm not even here.)

Hush, Diabhal. Lochlan I don't want to be on this stuff.

It'll wear off. He is dismissive. Hopefully by then you'll be too tired to scream any more.

It was a bad dream-

It was so tangible I was scared on your behalf! Those aren't normal nightmares and your mind, your mind isn't-

If you say normal next I'm going to kiss you.

He laughs and draws his hands down his face. Jesus, Bridgie. I was hoping we were out from under this-

It's a balance, Dóiteán. Caleb is calm and sure of himself.

Something she's always done better than the rest of us, Diabhal.

Sometimes everyone needs a little help. Caleb kisses the top of my head, folding me into his arm briefly. A reassurance that my ghosts will never be far, which is sometimes oh so little to ask for.

This is my garden...on drugs.

Church for me today was Sam coming all the way out to the vegetable garden and standing on the edge of the freshly-tilled soil, hands in his pockets, watching me muck about getting rid of the remainders of weeds and sticks left behind, plotting out rows and wishing desperately that I could throw my seeds in the ground now, today, rushing spring along like an errant bus on a busy boulevard. The mud is halfway up my boots and when I finally notice him it takes me a splucky-slow minute to get to him. When I do he steadies my lurch, smiles and then reaches down to find a little bit of dirt, which he picks up, using it to make the sign of the cross on my forehead while he prays for my simple, errant soul.

We grow from it and return to it. I wink at him.

You don't bury your dead. The smile is gentle.

I can't. I am earnest and forthright. It's true. I can't. I can't leave them behind. I don't understand people who park their so-loved ones in the ground, effectively anchoring them to one place forever. Cold. Alone.

This is good for you, today.

I nod. Pleased that he is pleased.

Will you be in for lunch? I'll be back a little early. He does shorter services in the weeks leading to Easter.

Yes. I'll help. 

If you feel like it. He's not going to mention the screaming. Not going to mention the fight I put up. Not going to mention the memories I drag around, rebuilding the mind-office, the darkened rooms full of file cabinets and their perfectly-organized thoughts, not going to mention Lochlan's fearful shouts and the wide-eyes as they looked at a little monster they thought was fixed, for the moment, but those moments are so few and far between. Grief grows like a weed all around me and I cut it back but it just regrows.

The good times aren't over, Bridget. He reads my mind. It's scattered like leaves across the grass in the heavier than usual wind.

Hope you're right. And I turn and go back to my work, which could be done by anyone else but today I need to do it. I need to see life on the trees and on the plants that survived the winter right along with me. I need to believe that things go on. I need..I don't know what I need anymore but this feels better than yesterday.

Plans.

Caleb has promised me an after-dinner swim this evening as the first of the year, much to Sam's dismay. Sam wanted the first swim of the year to be a refresher on my lessons. Never mind that they throw me into the ocean with alarming regularity, off a cliff, no less, he wants me to be able to swim around back to the point without assistance, by myself.

But your first rule is not to swim alone. Ever. 

This is emergency preparation, Bridget. Just like the fire extinguisher in the kitchen. 

And in the hall, in case the kitchen is already on fire.

Exactly. 

And the upstairs and downstairs halls-

Right. Preparation is key. 

So you're making me into a navy seal?

No, just a strong swimmer. 

I don't even think my shoulders or my arm are up to swimming today. I mostly plan to float. 

Also a plan. In case you're injured or tired.

You're becoming more like Lochlan every day. 

Really? He laughs. How so?

Contingency plans. Always a good contingency plan. 

Lochlan is very smart. 

True. But not academic smarts.

No, that's Caleb. Lochlan is life-smart. 

Thought you were going to say street smart. 

No, he goes above that. 

Yeah, he does.

Who does what? Lochlan comes in. 

We were just admiring your mind. 

How's that? 

Sam wants me able to return around the point alone in case of emergency and I told him that was a very Lochlan-thing to do. 

Yeah. He nods at Sam. Good idea. I didn't think of it though. 

You've wished for it before. 

But unlike Sam, who has more faith than anyone I know, I didn't think you could train for it. I just figured you were too small to fight the waves. 

I can fight anything. 

Yeah, you can. You're strong. A lot stronger than before. 

Tears. Geez. We've having a full-on circle jerk here and it's really nice. 

Imaginary daze.

HE FILLED THE POOL.

But it's cold outside. And it's supposed to rain tonight. So yeah. It's like baking a chocolate cake and reallllly wanting some but not being able to have any.

He called it a lesson in patience.

Ironic, that.

***

My love for Mark Morton (from Lamb of God) kind of reached a fever pitch when he said he was putting out a solo project. I was so excited. I love him. Mostly because he looks like John (yes, I've mentioned it before here, several years ago) and he's also hella talented, though as I grow up I skew doom/progressive, not so much thrash/metalcore. So while I've seen LOG live and and I've had a crush on Mr. Morton for like twenty years almost now, I thought he would sing, for whatever reason, on his album.

But like Slash (another famous guitar player who put out some solo work), he doesn't. He has guest vocalists.

Except for one song. So I threw it on the stereo and I'm like Hey! His voice is nice! He sounds so...friendly and not like what I expected.

But I listened and it didn't really stick with me. Kind of...safe. This album is testing the waters or maybe I'm jaded but I would have cranked the levels and drawn out the notes and really thrown the book at it. It's too safe. It's too benign. It doesn't have teeth or heart. Which disappoints me but I won't stop staring at him if I get the chance, or staring at John (if I don't) and when I ask the boys what's missing from this album they think I'm harsh or cracked or naive or just being bitchy because I really want to float in the pool and look at the clouds but I can't.

Imaginary Days for sure.

(Any thoughts on what I'm trying to find on this record that's missing? Email me. I want to love it.)

Crunch, crunch, soft.

Time management seems okay today. I did my annual first full day of spring plea for the pool to be filled, was refused (as is tradition) and went and whined to PJ, who checked my reality for me, proclaiming it very low and remediated it post-haste with another cup of coffee and a banana. We got groceries. I taught myself, PJ and Ruth how to make gỏi cuõn (cold Vietnamese salad rolls, SO MUCH EASIER THAN I THOUGHT) (THANKS YOUTUBE) and then I ate four of them. Not the huge ones. I forgot about sizing and bought smaller, I think nine-inch wrappers. So good though. I love love Vietnamese food, and their coffee too. I would eat my way across their little country save for the fact that it isn't on my bucket list. Maybe it should be. 

I was so proficient in the kitchen this afternoon. It was a marked departure from lying on the floor facedown this morning, hands clasped out in front of me, a dramatic request for just a little water in the pool. We don't have to fill it all the way. Six feet in the deep end will suit me just fine. 

But no. Too soon. Not yet. 

I bet there are people here who swim all year ro-

I said no, Bridget. 

My face is surprise and disappointment and he softens. Get up, Sweetheart. 

If I stomp my feet would it make a difference? 

Absolutely not. 

Damn. 

So get up. 

My arms hurt and I want to float. 

So have a bath. Or a hot tub. Both will allow you to float.

Yes, but I can't fit as many people in the bathtub with me as I can in the pool. 

So have it alone. 

Well, where's the fun in THAT?

Love letters to my own cracked soul.

I had to listen to Dare you to Move three times just to get out of bed. Today is a fight from the moment I opened my eyes and I plan to win. My corner's strategy is to power through. Take deep breaths. Envision it all rolling right off my back like a wave. Floating looking up at the clouds. Letting the weight disappear. Digging through the still-cool earth in search of life, but knowing where the (figurative) bodies are buried, and letting them rest.

My playlist is messed up and when all the iterations of Dare you to Move were finished, Wonderful Feeling came on. I have two of those (thanks, iTunes. Christ.) Okay, I feel better. Aspirins help too. My body hurts from running all day with coffee pots and arrows shot by entitled, spoilt-rude customers that I emerge wounded each night and everything aches something fierce and I have to fight that too.

I am two paychecks away from ten thousand dollars (not including tips, which can be really big. I just blow those because my charm demands a ransom for what it puts me though, after all) and I don't think I'm quitting yet. I want to prove I can fix myself and I'm not sure how this is going to do it but what if it is?

(Now today, people, please be nice in the ring because I'm really fucking tired and not in the mood for your shit.)

Beets, maybe.

They conveniently rallied around the Devil today, inviting him out for lunch, asking him for help with stuff, hanging out, being brothers as when one of the brothers in the Collective is hurting the others will always, always swoop in to help. By the time I came home from work, sweating right through my dress, done with customers, done with shit, done with life, they were having a grand old time tearing up the garden, sleeves rolled up, shovels and the tillers in overdrive.

I stopped and watched for a moment, smiling, though it hardly reached my face for being so tired. I wished for a picture, as I could have had it developed in black and white and added it to our history. Conquering the new world, or putting down roots, would be the caption.

In all honesty, these days we practice Irish gardening. I throw a handful of seeds towards the dirt and harvest what comes up. It works a little too well sometimes and some years it's a lot of work but with time management and all of this help we'll figure it out and come out ahead. Gardening is a very peaceful thing for me, and I don't care if it's flowers or food, it does more than pills, counselling, distraction or time.

I'm really glad they picked him up where I left him off. He needed it. I needed it too. 

Hasselblad heyday.

I went up to deliver Caleb's mail (it's my job this month. We all take turns and you get the task for the whole month. No one has to come dig through mail in the front hall. If some is for you it will be delivered to your room. It keeps my front hall clear.

I knocked and he said Come in and when I came in he was just standing up and turning off his monitor. Just a second too late.

What is that?

Just finishing up some banking-

No, your wallpaper. Turn it back on, please, I want to see. 

He sighs and lets his shoulders drop but he complies.

One of Cole's photographs of me.

You live in the same house. Do you really need a...a...technological shrine?

It's a beautiful photograph. 

They all were. But I don't want to see them. 

Then don't put them on your computer.

It feels inappropriate. 

It's nothing of the kind. My brother took a nice picture of my girlfriend, if you leave out all of the history. It's nothing you need to worry about. 

Do you have a lock of my hair and a few candles burning somewhere too?

No, I blew those out already. That's why you're here. I had a little summoning circle.

Oh, Jesus. 

Well, you asked. I'm just up here all day making voodoo dolls of Lochlan and casting wizard spells to make you mine. Seriously, Bridget. Thank you for bringing up my statements but honestly it's a good photo and if you stick around long enough you'll see they rotate through a sizeable collection of his work, including some even of Chris and Loch. So while I love to flatter you and you deserve it, it's really just a picture. 

It's never just a picture. 

No, it is. It really just is. I miss my brother. Let me have that. 

Captain Marvel update.

It was AWESOME!! The first half I was all lol aliens and the second half came back and put me on my ass. It was very very good and worth a weaker first half, which I was told sets up the Avengers world or something. I only fell asleep twice but rescued myself thanks to Lochlan glaring at me in the dark.

Lol. Aliens.

Also, managed to hear Heart, Lita Ford, Garbage and Hole in the same movie. WTF. 

Happy Saint Patrick's Day. My very own in-house Saint Patrick made coffee and french toast for us this morning, encouraged us to go outside and eat on the patio (which is fully decorated so I wonder if we're having a party tonight) and then got tickets to see Captain Marvel for the squad this afternoon.

I guess he got the morning half-right.

I'm KIDDING.

(Really not a Marvel person.)

(Maybe this one will change my mind.)

On the other hand the theatre has coffee. And nachos. So good enough. Lunch is decided. Actually coffee and nachos is not a good combo.

(Also I learned last night that when Thanos dissolved half the people on earth in the last Avengers they'e actually dead. I thought they were transported to another planet. That's weird. It totally looks like they're just being whisked away but WHATEVER, people. Give me the cliff's notes and eventually I'll figure it out.)

(PSS we watched Mortal Engines last night. AMAZING concepts which fell mostly flat. Can't figure out why. Why why why? Everyone in the movie was a beautiful soul. Why did this movie not work? At all? Let's all go think about it and touch base later. I realize you're not here for my reviews but I also don't care.)

The princess and the violet fog (spoilers if you're dying to see A Star is Born and haven't, yet).

Let me be naive here, just for one post.

Have you tried the gin? McQueen & the Violet Fog? It's like drinking rosemary-licorice cordial and it's very very good. I had way too much of it yesterday and yet I woke up okay today. Maybe because I got up at seven sharp and made coffee. I've decided to double my coffee consumption because honestly I'm cooking dinner now and I'm head-dropping while I stir boiling things on the stove, while I set the table. While I sort the mail (into eight piles. We get so much mail holy shit)

More coffee is not going to stave off the narcolepsy but the nervous energy it creates will help to insulate me from its effects.

So after thinking over my movie viewing yesterday I figured out why I didn't like it.

It was La La Land in a different package, with a grittier face and a far more tragic result of said actions.

I'm all for people going for their dreams but what happens if you find love along the way? According to Hollywood, you stomp that shit out post haste and continue on your way.

In the old days you would give up your dreams and settle, because love.

Modern days, hell, modern demands have changed that so it's the opposite now. God help you if you give up those dreams, and god help the significant other who holds you back.

Why can't you have a happy medium? Keep your dreams, and keep your love. There was no reason why she couldn't have brought him on tour. No reason why she couldn't have forced him to go, brought some keepers to handle him (because that awards show fiasco was so preventable) and then everyone is happy.

Instead they decided to be tragic. Fuck that. Choose love.

Shallow.

Ben came home early from his meeting and I am positively halfway to shitfaced, which is probably two martinis too many, but this is my fourth, I can't enunciate any more and I'm afraid he's going to be disappointed in me as I lost my grip on the day, a grip that was one-handed anyway, greasy enough to slide too far for my comfort and already way past theirs.

It's March break still, the last one we'll ever get. It's spring which hurts in a weird way. I always seem to fall in love in the spring and have my heart broken in summer, fall and winter, if we're keeping track but right now the buds are on the trees and it's a retina-searing eighteen degrees but cold in the wind. 

That's fine. I'm inside. 

Nothing particularly bad happened today, I'm just tired. I lie that information to Ben and he fails to believe it. He asks me if the concert cancellation (Breaking Benjamin (not my Benjamin) and Asking Alexandria cancelled their western Canadian tour dates due to 'production issues'. I know what that means, I'm not dumb, but I am seven hundred dollars richer again soon because refunds! Refunds and breathing space because we had three concerts in one week in April and now there's only two) had anything to do with it. Of course not. Shit happens ('production issues', apparently). I just...eh...I need more sleep. 

I'm watching A Star Is Born on my laptop (the remake with Bradley and ah..er...Lady? Not the Barbra Streisand one, but I'm going to dig that up next) and it's freaking GREAT. Their chemistry is blowing me off my seat. 

I'm glad you never met anyone like that, I tell Ben. Or rather, I almost tell him. Some of the words aren't fully formed. 

I did, he says. 

I mean someone who could sing. 

I did, he says. 

OH my fucking God! I mean Lady Gaga with her million award nominations and Saturday Night Live gig! 

Yeah, you're not really all that, are you? He said it as a joke but I just took another huge swallow of gin and put the movie back on just in time to see Bradley Cooper take a big swallow of gin, too. Oh, I get it. In this story, I'm the guy with a fucked up life watching someone steal my starshine. 

Gotcha, universe. Touché.

(Also I went into this knowing nothing, laughing about how much Bradley Cooper sounded like Sam Elliot with his Deep Voice and then Sam Elliot comes on screen. Yay.)

(Boy did I ever go into this knowing nothing. Oh my God. Next time go ahead and spoil it, please. Everyone was like It's great! It won awards! Well, to someone like me it's a battlefield disguised as entertainment and I don't have any fight left in me. Ben almost threw the computer out the window.)

Nice try.

I think they're planning something.

I waltzed into the kitchen in time to see PJ putting bags in the cupboard. He saw me and did a double-take and then all but threw the bags inside and shut the door. I saw a flash of green foil.

When I asked Lochlan and Ben what they want to do this weekend (Drive over mountaintops? Freeze to death kayaking? Spend the whole damn thing at the movies?) they both demure on making plans, saying they are tired and we should have a quiet weekend to rest, since no one is sick (ha, still coughing a bit), and since we don't have to do anything specific.

But it's St. Patricks Day! I complained. My national holiday! The one where everything is green except whatever I eat because I'm allergic to food colouring. 

Eh, it's not a specific holiday, Bridge. But I see Lochlan struggling to keep a straight face so I let him off the hook because I know something exciting is coming.

Yeah, you're right. I guess I'll mark it in my own way. 

That's my girl. Hey, maybe we can go see Captain Marvel this weekend. 

Or we can do nothing. You said you were tired, right?

Yeah. (He (Monsieur MCU superfan) was hoping I'd be on board but I'm die-hard DC, remember?)

Typical.

What would you like for dinner, Bridge? 

Toasted marshmellows and cold vodka. 

Where? 

In the pool. 

When?

Moonrise, of course. 

You're weird. 

Thank you.

Pies offering.

I did go to work after all, and halfway through the day I turned and walked all the way to the last booth, pulling down the menu and finding Batman there. 

You were coming to see me, that day you got..ah..distracted with Jake. 

I was.

Why?

Maybe a loan. 

He laughs a big, rare laugh. For what?

Does it matter?

Perhaps. 

I need to buy all the Jeeps. 

Why? 

No one told me how fun they were to drive.

Maybe I should get one. 

Yeah, you should. Take mine out this weekend and see. 

You'll lend your beloved? 

It's insured. Ruth takes it, sometimes. 

Possibly. 

Does this mean you might come back and see me and actually find me at some point? 

They wouldn't be very impressed. 

That's fine. I don't live to impress the commune. 

Collective.

Whatever. 

You're part of it. 

If I were I would have a place at the table. I am nearby. Close enough to keep an eye on you. 

I soften briefly. He is difficult and and it's rare that we're into each other. So rare. I appreciate that. 

I'm glad to hear it. Maybe now I can try this famous pie of yours? 

What kind would you like?

Surprise me. Just warm it up a little, please? 

I'll be right back. 

Light be mine.

Ben had to pry me away from him this morning. Who wants to go to work when there are sweet reunions to be had? But under promise of more snow I went, because I knew it would be less busy, hopefully and more organized. I like it when it's organized. I hate it when I'm running nonstop. 

I got another kiss and Ben said he would be lonely until I got home and Lochlan glared at him and asked if he was just a third wheel or what? Ben didn't miss a beat, winked and Loch and said Shhhhh. I'm just letting her think what she wants. The minute she's gone I'm all yours. 

Lochlan laughed out loud and the happiness in the room made it even harder for me to leave. 

The day went fast and once I was home time slows back down, the way it should. We made dinner, I got caught up on laundry (have to wash my work dress for tomorrow since I only have one) and now they're looking at a gold-panning video online while I make my lunch for tomorrow. 

Maybe I'll call in sick.

Times change, routines don't.

Ben is home. I sensed him before I heard him, and when I turned around he had filled the kitchen archway, bag still in hand, smile on his face that said maybe he missed me as much as I missed him, and I dropped the pot into the sink and ran.

I am in his arms off the ground before he has time to say hello and I wouldn't have it any other way. His absence is a familiar ache and I always loved it when he came back. Still do.

I didn't get a welcome like this from PJ. 

He just doesn't want you to mess up his hair. 

And I get a kiss. A Ben-kiss which is one of the best kind.

Tired? 

Yeah. I didn't sleep. It was too quiet. There was too much space. I need my velcro friends. 

You got them. 

Okay, can we go to bed at maybe seven? I'm really wiped. 

I can do that. 

Lochlan? 

He's next door dropping off some papers with Schuy. Brace yourself when he runs at you. He's been working out. 

How so? 

Trying to get past the others to punch Caleb. 

That's a good workout for him. 

Not really but sometimes he's stronger than they are if he's in the mood. 

Where's Cale? 

Church, I think. 

Ooh. Alone? 

Yeah. I've done it. YOU'Ve done it. 

True. 

He smiles with crinkled eyes and I put my hands on his cheeks. I'm so glad you're home. 

Wow. I should go away more often to get a welcome like this. I figured you'd throw an Oh Hey over your shoulder and keep doing whatever. 

You should NOT go away more often and I've never done that in my life. 

Lies. You did it that one time I called Jake out and then went to Europe for three months. I've never felt so small. 

Oh, you deserved that though. You were being an ASS. 

I was. And I'm glad I'm not anymore. 

Me too. 

This is my brain on the sunrise.

I will not rescind a word
Of what I've said
For the vultures overhead
But for every line I vent
Another ten
I'm afraid I'd lose you then

Pre-dawn coffee from the firepit with Diabhal, who is soft-spoken and completely willing just to spend the time this morning. We've made toast with melted cheese directly on the grill over the fire and I give the ashes a stir, my own version of a dark zen garden, tracing patterns in the embers, envisioning them as water flowing black over my ruminations, eroding my efforts to shut him out as he deserves to be, these days.

The coffee is good. Hot, rich, tempered with just a little sprinkle of brown sugar. The bread is sawed rough from a round loaf of sourdough, broken with his hands into pieces small enough to eat, the cheese cut with his pocketknife and balanced on each piece of bread until soft enough from the flames to melt into the crumb just the way I like it.

The dawn is beautiful. The sun bursts quietly through the lavender-grey horizon gently and without announcement, casting a beautiful glow on our faces, erasing years, lines and deeds in a brief instant before casting shadows once again as it chases the moon out of the spotlight.

He's done it. He took a strongarmed action and strangled it off, returning to the patient Devil, to the reactive instead of the proactive emotional strategy he usually feeds off.

I watch him as I sip my coffee. He watches me back. Almost imperceptibly he nods. As if this is good enough, if this is going to be the way it is. He has softened around his sharp edges, mellowing at last, aging gracefully into what I always hoped he would be, but what I figured would always be just another daydream for a little girl looking out the window as the road wound like a ribbon around her life. She wanted to put the Devil in her pocket, along with the crushed paper cone from the cotton candy, and the seven pennies she found underneath the window at the ordering counter of the ice cream shop, so that she would always know exactly where he was, and he'd never be able to surprise her again. Then she would take her sticky hand and thrust it into Lochlan's and they would be safe.

Manic pixie dream boys.

Five nights straight all to ourselves and we've already resurrected old sleeping patterns, old habits and old feelings. Five nights straight of Ben being away (work. travel. argh. fuck. retirement. apparently) and I'm pretty sure that while we slumber away pressed closely together in each others faces, PJ is probably sleeping on the steps outside our door, an exhausted sentry, a one-man-band, tasked with keeping the peace. Not alone but mostly in charge while everyone else is off doing their dailies and he remains on high alert at all times because the moment you let your guard down otherwise Caleb and Lochlan will be at each others' throats because that's how their friendship is mapped.

Caleb thinks he is untouchable. Lochlan thinks he can carve rules in stone, that our routines will never change. Caleb has some foolish notion that we can move forward, all the while carving his name into the chip on Lochlan's shoulder.

We try to move on and then the past drags us down into the abyss. I worry that it might always be groundhog day around here, even as I tried so hard to move on, to find someone new, completely outside of the Collective and..it ended badly. It ended abruptly, and I went running back. 

Didn't know I had a reset button.

I was getting ready for bed, putting gloss on my lips from a little pot and Lochlan appears in my reflection, turning me around, taking the pot from me and putting it on the counter, taking my hand, finger still up, using it to trace my lips. His face is an inch from mine but he's very intent on holding my finger steady, gently sliding it over my lips. His mouth is open, breath held just for a moment as my eyes try to take everything in. Is he angry? Is he resigned? Is he fine with it, fine with everything or is he going to barge in with some sort of gentle demand that I can't fulfill?

He moves my finger to his lips and traces his bottom one. It's probably the most tender moment we've shared in months. Maybe even years. Then he kisses me and I replace the previous moment with this one, because it's soft and slow and perfect. It's not a Hurry up and prove I'm the One, it's a We're going to take our time moment.

He picks me up and sits me on the counter, legs dangling over the edge on either side of his hips. He pulls his shirt off and unbuttons mine, leaving it around my shoulders because I'm always cold. He pulls my hips right to the edge where he is there to meet me, and I cry out, surprised at the cold counter, and at the warmth of his skin, always. When he hears me he lets go of my hips and wraps his arms around me, lifting me up, taking me out of the room, into our bedroom, gently putting me down on the quilts, then following me there. Another kiss and he smiles and turns me over, pressing me down into the covers with his weight, pushing his arm down underneath me in order to pull me back up against him, hand firm against my belly, suddenly driving so hard into me that I have to make fists into the blankets just to breathe, just so I don't cry out too loudly.

His other hand is twisted in my hair. God, it's so long finally, he says, and I don't know if he's talking about my hair or the length of time we've been without this kind of comfortable privacy. He pulls my head back and kisses my ear, then lets go and I am shoved against the bed over and over again until he evens out, turning me back over, making me climb walls until I'm begging him to stop and then he comes too and I feel like his grip might pull my head right off, his other hand anchoring my thigh so hard he leaves a placemarker bruise, one that is still present this morning.

He slows to a crawl against me and another kiss is my reward for conquering the dark.

I like your lipgloss, he says. It tastes like raspberries. 

Everything ends in a fistfight. That used to be my complaint about movies, that it didn't matter what special powers anyone had, they would fight the enemy with punching and beating. 

My guys have super powers. They do the same. 

Six weeks of penitence, six weeks of grace (six weeks of violence, all up in your face).

As I learn to count my days
The less I care to veil
Something of a deeper truth
Is begging to exhale

When the time has come to bleed
And air my fill
Will you be there for me still
And if you turn and walk away
Well then I know
You were never there at all

Lochlan is watching the dark, watching a rare winter night with clear stars visible all the way to heaven if you remain still enough.

I gave Caleb up for lent. It is supposed to be a luxury, something you would miss. Something you would struggle to avoid, something difficult.

He is perfect for the job.

Just let me catch my breath, Lochlan says over the piano notes in my mind.

It can be more than forty days-

I don't know, Bridge. Just leave it. 

What will you do?

Give him up as well. He laughs but it's not a happy sound. I don't know. Fast, maybe. Pray. Something. 

Pray to who? 

Jake. Who else? As close as I can get to God, anyway. Jake is a good middle man. 

Why? 

I've done so many bad things in my life. I can't walk around like a hypocrite pulling faith out for special occasions. God let me down so I let him down. We haven't actually spoken in years. 

It's never too late. 

Bridget, if you knew the things I wished for on an almost hourly basis you would agree with me. 

He sounds like Caleb right now only he doesn't mean me, for once.

Leave him be. 

You breathing is the only thing that keeps him safe. 

Why did you let me go then? On the trip? 

You asked me. Remember? But you're home now and I don't have to play this game if I don't feel like it.

Piefaces, poker hands.

Happy birthday, Diabhal. I hold up a plate with apple pie and one candle stuck through the centre, lit with a match. I don't sing. He takes the plate and exchanges it for a whiskey, the thick glass so heavy it actually needs both my hands to hold it. I nod and take a sip. He takes a bite of the pie.

Your cook is a master. 

Anyone can bake a pie. 

You don't have time, anymore, so I must give my overwhelming enthusiasm to someone else. 

True. It isn't cake though. 

Sometimes a change is good. He holds out a forkful but I shake my head. I don't eat pie. I continue to sip the whiskey and wait for him to talk.

I'm concerned you're going to give me up for Lent. I know the trip wasn't what you expected and I need to make that up to you. 

Actually, you don't. You've done enough. 

I don't leave loose ends. 

Sure you do. 

I was hoping for a little high-speed romance, some good bonfires in the snow, some aurora and a change between us. I missed the mark. 

You took someone with a bad cold, who shouldn't have even been cleared to fly, to Alaska. 

It's different. 

Boy, is it ever, I laugh in spite of myself.

So let me fix this. 

Lochlan isn't going to be receptive to another trip. 

So we take him with us. 

I really need to stay home. 

So we have a mini-vacation at home. With lots of pie. Damn this is good. 

I'll talk to him. 

I will. It'll make more sense. I have some ideas. 

I sip my whiskey again. It's making my gin hangover lose a grip on my brain. Like what?

Better surprises. And he kisses my cheek with his crumby lips. You'll see.

Thank God I'm still drunk or I'd really feel this.

I am home from the war. Home from trying to keep the peace because today is his fifty-sixth birthday and he wanted to spend it in the past. Home from trying to wage a battle as a worthy adversary when I am nothing of the kind. Home to Lochlan's arms which tremble with regret and home to stay, because I shouldn't have left in the first place. Home to sleep off what is going to be a two-day gin hangover.

Home with my monster. Who ages but never changes, who likes a different vantage point from which to conduct his same-old same old, who doesn't ever seem to understand that his charm (and his threats) have changed me, permanently, and not for the better.

Though I tried to keep things smooth, to make sure he enjoyed his trip with little pushback I failed to impress him with my lack of enthusiasm or maybe he just keeps forgetting who I am, that I'm not going to magically become a yes-girl when he flashes his infinite credit cards and his cufflinks. That he can call a plane on demand no longer makes me wish for a sugar daddy to cover my bills and fix my life. The only time I truly liked him over our blink-and-you'll-miss-it getaway was when he sat back by the campfire, looked up into a cloud-filled, aurora-free night and said Maybe they didn't get my memo and then laughed disparagingly  as we failed to catch the whole point of the trip, which were the Northern Lights.

The only Northern Lights to be had the whole trip were my labradorite earrings, often called as such due to their quiet flash.

It was then that I looked at him in the firelight, at his unshaven, relaxed face, at his capable hands holding a mug full of hot whiskey and cream and I thought to myself,

God, I wish I was home.

And then he asked What are you thinking, Neamhchiontach? and I told him because I have a really hard time lying. It didn't go very well. Not very well at all and he certainly made no effort to extend the trip, to stretch it out through today or to segue into another trip or anything at all.

The five years of good birthdays was nice but I guess that's over now. And it's my fault because I told the truth, because no one asked if I wanted to take a trip. No one asked if now was a good time or even if I ever had Alaska on my bucket list (I do not). It's my fault because I am ungrateful for all that he has done for (to) me and because I don't listen (I did) and it's my fault his birthday is ruined because I can't let the past go, even as he's the one trying to remake it, trying to reorder history, trying to soften the blows of the bad guy so I forget everything he did. The past is an albatross, it's a carving in stone. It can't be outrun because it knows where we're going.

It followed me here. It follows me everywhere. How is this my fault?

He comes to find me not that long after we get home.

Neamhchiontach. We really need to talk. 

We do, just not right now. 

ALASKA.

In March.

No more bad birthdays (a promise we've kept for five years now).

Tiny (and so beautiful) labradorite earrings in a beautiful little box that he holds patiently for me. Caleb has the patience Cole never could grasp but they share a temper and I'm always loathe to wake it up this early in the morning.

Instead I say nothing and wait for him.

These are for you. 

I nod.

What's wrong?

On birthday weekends you get presents, you don't give them. 

I'm not most people. 

I nod again.

It's actually going to be a very long weekend if I have to force your words out of you. 

Sorry. Just trying to read the moment. 

And?

They say it's a bestseller but I'm still on the fence. 

And he laughs a great big laugh out loud. It's easy to love you, he says.

And I nod again. Of course. Very easy. Too easy, and that's what makes this next part so hard.

I was thinking that I need a little getaway. 

Is that right?

With you. 

I need to be here, Caleb. 

Two nights only, for my birthday. It's already cleared with Lochlan and everyone else who matters, and we leave at two sharp so please pack early so we're not behind. I sent the itinerary to your email. 

Where? 

It's a surprise, and you're going to love it.

New life who dis?

Well maybe I’m a part of something that’s bigger than me
Like I’m a page in a book in a library
And inside my heart there’s a dying part that’s always searching
‘Cause I know that there’s a place where I belong

All that I know
All that I see
All that I feel
Inside of me
All that I’ve done
All that I’ve tried
There must be more
To this wonderful
Terrible
Beautiful life

If I sing off-key with a magnificent sore throat and deaf ears besides, they can't possibly remain mad at me.

They're not. I charmed them back to life and with each new cleansing breath they watched me smile just for them and forget every dark and terrible thing that I do.

Who is this?

Colony House.

Seems vintage. But rest your throat, baby. 

I'm good. A little better every day. 

Not if you don't stay quiet. You'll rebound and you'll be flat on the floor by supper. 

Make me some tea and I won't. 

Done. He goes off to the kitchen to put the kettle on the woodstove and find some acceptable tea bags (people from the UK are HELLA picky on their tea, let me tell you)

Wait. He called me Baby. That's not a Lochlan thing. He's got a hundred thousand nicknames for me. None of them are Baby.

Neutral (chaotic).

Adapt or die.

(I'm trying! I'm doing my best. That's the biggest copout line in the known universe. Doing your best means almost-failing. It means forgive me, I can't keep up.)

Adaptation isn't one of my strong suits. Charm is. Helplessness is. Quietude. It is. It is what it is and I take the blame and light it on fire because it already burns, so why not?

Who is he. It was a statement from Lochlan, of all people. Who is this 'Jake' guy you're hanging out with. What does Cole think of him? Who the hell is a minister in this day and age? Why doesn't he already have a life? What is he to you, again? And on and on, sizing him up, feeling me out, waiting to see if Cole would accept him into our incestual fold or cast him out like all of the others before him. If you're not OG you're nobody, their rule used to be and Jacob taught them that that wasn't reasonable.

Because people adapt.

(People except for Bridget. She's still eight years old, tripping down the moonlight path after the boys, hollering at them to wait up.)

And now it's the same argument, different Jake.

We should have left him in Toronto. 

Who let him come back?

I'm not going to try to pin her like that. She's not a prisoner. For fucks sake. Caleb can be the bad guy there. I'm not. 

No one talks directly to New Jake about because I won't let them. He is protected airspace. He is an outlier. He is everything the old Jake used to be except I'm not in love with him the same way. New Jake is handsome and dangerously charming and exceeding good at getting into trouble with me. He gives no fucks but he gives them good.

But I don't want him to eat my soul. I don't want him to never leave. I don't want him to blend in with the group and I don't spend every breath thinking about him.

It isn't the same.

And it's a sad Wednesday when that becomes his only saving grace but here we are. Because I was hungry for something I didn't love and I never ever get this right.

Loch makes the rules and then changes the fine print.

Back inside, Bee. Ben is amused. I insisted, via hand signals and a pipsqueak of a voice that it was fine for me to go outside. That cold fresh air is a panacea of sorts in many countries, that no one gets to tell me what to do, as I am an adult (kind of).

I'm taking some air, I said haughtily and marched outside onto the patio.

Where exactly are you taking it? Ben said, half-amused, half-annoyed.

I'll let you know when I decide, I told him but he ran out of patience within minutes, ordering me back into the house, away from the minus double-digits, the frigid cold wind that hurts everything and makes my eyes water, that reminds me of home so much everything hurts on the inside too, even though none of those parts are cold.

He holds the door and I walk under his arm reluctantly. He shuts the doors behind me, locking them, frowning at my back. I can feel it but I don't turn. It's better to just sense the disapproval rather than to turn around and confirm its' existence solidly. Better to float along in denial than account for my own defiant behavior.

The cold can't exonerate you. 

Not looking for absolution, here, Benny. I am stubborn and refuse to turn around.

Two days, Bee. He was sick over it. 

He was invited. 

Not the same. You don't go to that house.

The rule is hard and fast, but not as much as New Jake. He's harder and faster, and I was intercepted by him on my way to see Batman. I never did find Batman after all, but then again, I stopped looking so damned fast.

God machines.

I woke up with the worst cold, the worst round of bad dreams (I dreamed we went back to the castle in the prairies and all the pipes had burst and the cats were shut in the front porch and so happy to get out (it's unheated) and there were squatters. This stemmed from a memory yesterday that Ruth brought up during dinner about the time someone stole the concrete angel statue from our backyard there. It was a memory relating to talking about strollers being left places and being stolen, and I mentioned how hers was stolen, once and we went down a rabbit-hole discussion about leaving things unsecured and how quickly they can disappear. Like people here in the GVRD leave all of their shoes outside on the front porch and we don't because not only is the front hall large enough but things get stolen, so why bother? Ben and Henry both wear extra-wide, extra-large, extra expensive shoes and they usually have to be special-ordered so I'm not leaving them out, thanks.

I don't have to go to church today but I still have to do taxes. I don't have to walk the dog (it's Henry's turn) but I do have to make lunches. I don't have to stay up late tonight but I probably will as sometimes someone comes to bed way late and I wake up (or am woken up). I should take it easy but there are a bunch of chores. I feel so tired all the time and I can't seem to find any real energy at all. Maybe once the snow is gone. Or the clocks go ahead again. There is always much to look forward to.

Go back to sleep, Neamhchiontach. He says it softly from underneath the quilts. His hand wraps around the back of my head and pulls me in against his chest but I fight to breathe so he lets go again, no longer even half-awake, pulled back into a dream I hope was better than mine.

I think I'm going to go make some coffee, I say to no one in particular and no one answers me.

Gangs of Boundary Bay.

Right now this second in time, Dorothy's White Butterfly is my all-time favorite song forever and ever.

Right now we're trying to figure out how to eat a Toblerone bar in mixed company. I have chocolate on my teeth, the end of my nose and all over my fingers. It's in Lochlan's hair. They're just not easy to eat at all with the big spaces between the triangles and such. They melt easily. Maybe that's just Lochlan's natural heat. I don't know. I just know that August gave me a copy of an album called 28 Days in the Valley and told me I would love it and he was right.

Lochlan got a new logic board for his iMac and it costs almost as much as my jeep. Then most of the boys needed new shoes suddenly so we spent around three thousand dollars (!)(JeSUS) at the sports store and I just want to eat some more chocolate, drink some whiskey and watch a scary movie but I also really need to get going on the taxes that I do for myself, Lochlan and the children, who are learning to do their own taxes. I'll be glad when it's done, honestly but at the same time I'm not worried about it, exactly.

And not because I'm drunk and full of chocolate.

Okay, maybe just a little.

(I don't want to eat any but I love to watch it being made.)

The fever has broken and everyone has fraudulently assured me with much enthusiasm that I am not, in fact, insane.

I looked around to see if they were talking to someone else. Maybe someone's here. Maybe the ghosts are smartly keeping things north when they start sliding south. Maybe pigs do fly. Maybe Bridget knows exactly what she is and how she came to be this way.

I'm not hungry, either, and that always seems to pique more concern than anything else so to appease Lochlan I am picking at a bagel he toasted and covered with cheese for me. I can barely look at it, sadly. The orange juice is good though. It's cold. So good.

Eat, don't play. He snaps.

Yes, Dad. 

A glare ends the tease and he resumes his own breakfast. He's feeling a bit better too though maybe not so much after all. We're tired, oddly. So much time in bed and all of it restless. All of it low quality sleep. No energy to love each other or even fight off ghosts. No room for extras, no time for watching the clock.

Bridgie. Come on. 

He's actively monitoring my progress and I failed to make any. Trying, I say. Then I start coughing, which gives me a headache.

Okay, nevermind. Back to bed. 

Oh my God. I'm so sick of lying there. 

Then we'll snooze in the theatre. Chef's Table started. 

Season six? 

Yeah. 

Let's go. I bring my plate and he smiles, but just a little.

Sentinel.

The map of nowhere is in my hand
The roads are blurred, sojourner's land
So take however long you want
(but don't forget, my love)
You pledged yourself to come along

You're lost in reveries, holding back the tears
Faint sound of the wires
The butterfly is in the fire now
Lost in a memory, holding my hand
One heart's in the ground
The other is veiled in silver all around

God. Just don't mind me, feverish and wrecked in a dream state this morning as I lurched up from a shallow, overheated sleep, loathe to let go of Jacob. He arrived unannounced in the dark, one hundred and three degrees of insanity in the form of a long-lost love. He turned out to not be real to anyone but me and my flu turned into a fresh tidal wave of grief dragging me down.

Just the fever, that's all, says Lochlan, who is also feverish but probably not being visited by Jake in his dreams, instead he says he can't sleep and asks me to stay put for a bit so we can nap.

I nod and I'm out like a shot, back into a place with cool lighting and frigid air. I hear Cole's voice plain as day but I can't see him and I'm glad these lights are on, let me tell you.

He isn't here, Doll. 

I try to play it cool. Is he coming back?

I doubt it. Look at this place. Would you come back?

I'm here right now, so yes. 

Our friends trashed it in the name of trying to save you from me. 

That's not why they did it. You were supposed to go with Jake. 

Look at me, Bridget. I can't go where he goes! 

And then I see him. He is hollow, blackened and eight feet off the ground, wings snarled in a tangle, a web fanned out like feathers. All this time what I thought were wings were just tendrils of rage and misery reaching out to pull me in.

You could have but you chose a different path-

They made me crazy, Baby. 

I took a step backwards and then another and then I tripped over something and fell, hands down in the dead leaves to try and save myself and then I ran, veering into walls, unbalanced, dizzy and wistful, as a fever of sentimentality washed over me. I could hear him screaming my name the whole way back as I climbed over broken-down walls and through collapsed doorways, throwing myself up stairs blindly, violently.

I ran until I couldn't hear him anymore and then I wok up with a start. Jacob is staring at me, his hands around my upper arms. He's pulled me up to a sitting from sleeping position in an attempt to wake me up.

You were crying and clawing at the quilts. That was probably one of the worst nightmares I think you've ever had. He looks pale and concerned. He won't let go. I try to pry his fingers from my arm but he's holding so tight it's starting to hurt.

Let go, Jake, please! 

Then he's Lochlan when I blink, only he's blurry and shaky and he won't let go either and he tells me it's just a bad dream but I think that's just a very kind way of telling someone they've gone insane.

Make it up to you later.

The flu is making the rounds here and I'm fighting it. Fighting it so hard though I've got hives all over and my fingers are still cracked from the cold and snow, my toes and earlobes and lips are cracked too and I can't seem to fight anything off at all, least of all the devil who comes to annoy me almost hourly with things and suggestions and offers, if only to be sure that Batman doesn't get an audience with me because let's be honest here, no one really wants that.

I've asked Caleb to help me out by replacing all of my everything with hemp fleece. Sheets, towels, hell, clothes. I don't care. Everything hurts. Polyester. Cotton. Wool. Five-o'clock shadow. Air, cold or warm.

He laughed to cover the fact that he had no idea what I meant, and doesn't understand how stupidly sensitive my skin is.

I didn't really care though, the waves of nausea are keeping me from feeling too upset by any of it. Lochlan is sleeping through his own illness, Ben is fighting it from a distance and last I heard PJ was yelling at me to get upstairs to bed, that he doesn't want to see me until I feel a lot better and that now he totally understands why Caleb tries to lock me down as I basically wail an answer to anyone who asks me a question. I don't know if I'm one of those people you read about in the tabloids (Woman ALLERGIC to winter! Snow will KILL her!) or if I just sometimes can't get my immune system to wake the fuck up and fight back but I did manage to have a whisper-screaming match with PJ anyway because I always have enough strength for that, and yet I lost, as it ended with him pointing his finger up the stairs and counting to ten.

I was gone by eight because if he resorts to counting it means I'm really really getting on his last nerve. 

Blue hours and golden ones too.

It's a good day for rain. A good day for napping by the fire and for splashing through puddles in boots that are waterproof, guaranteed. It's a good day to move slowly under the lights and through the dim, a good day to wish for summer, or even Christmas, if only to have something wonderful to look forward to. It's a good day for dark jazz and dark roast, a good day for paying bills and organizing junk drawers. A good day for calling in sick. A good day for pasta and cheese, made on the stove as a quick dinner and a welcome warmth. It's a good day to hear a new guitar solo.

A very good day indeed.

It's a good day to stay in or go out, to shop until I drop or window-shop for nothing. It's a good day for chocolate cupcakes and a thick coat of carmex on my chapped lips from getting kisses all the time. It's a good day to turn the music up loud as a soundtrack to the race of the droplets streaming to the bottom of the sill.

It's a good day to watch the waves. It's a good day, period.