If monsters are real then the ghosts are too.

We've gone over Lochlan's Christmas list for what he would like to see me fix and as it turns out the only really significant things are less love for the Devil and less pedestrian, every-day ghost sightings.

Those are the only times he worries that I might have truly lost it, when he remembers that I am still indulging in a fucked-up romantic and sexual relationship with the person who abused me throughout my childhood (and beyond) and I talk to Jacob like he's still here (because he is) and let's face it, even that one makes me worry just a little bit, as I always feel like I'm one short conversation with him away from returning to that stupid place where I sat in a room that contained nothing I could use to end my days and spoke very little until I realized if I talked maybe they'd let me come home and so I did and here I am. Also a huge memory is that the sheets were so rough they gave me hives and no one seemed interested in my sensitive skin issues at all. I recall being the source of amusement when I asked for organic sheets and sensitive skin bandaids but when the hives came they just added benadryl to my cocktail of drugs and then I talked even less because all I wanted to do was sleep and-

*deep breath*

Why the FUCK am I telling you this? It's just a memory, just a thought. I can put the ghost away but he is stubborn and stuck, just like the rest of us.

Joel wants me to address other things, and not with him. He is subjective. I don't listen to him. But he has connections.

So do I, says the Devil, as he lifts my dress over my head. He plays his own advocate for brownie points here in the dark. Lochlan just wants you to be strong, he reminds me. These are things I know.

I'm not fixing it if it ain't broken, I whisper into his mouth.

I think he'd like things to be less intense with everyone else and more intense with him-

If we get any more intense we'll just burst into flames-

He wants the kind of love you had with Jake. The usage of past tense makes me cold.

We DO-

No, you don't. He's worked his whole life for this and you didn't mourn him as he left you, you simply moved on. 

He's alive, Diabhal. Jake isn't coming back. If he had just left it would have been the same. I would have been happy for his happiness. He had moved on and I would as well. And that's what Lochlan and I did. 

Then how does having Dalton, Duncan and PJ in your bed make you feel better?

That was Lochlan's idea- (Caleb forgot Ben, Sam and August, which I found so interesting but also none of your you-know-what).


Grand gestures to keep you happy, Neamhchiontach. Like roomfuls of roses or hot air balloons-

DON'T. 

See what I mean? His hand is warm against my back but I am stiff and cold now. The moment has passed and it's not going to come back around. The love isn't the same incredible crushing romance you and Jacob shared. This is more like routine-

That isn't fair. Lochlan is the one constant of my entire life. I would die for him. 

Maybe he needs to know that. Then as an aside, please tell him it was my idea and perhaps he'll resent me less. If the worst thing I represent in your life is a clean, safe, financially sound way to indulge your issues then he should be grateful. 

Since when are you safe? I smile at him in the dark, into his soul, through his lips, apart only a little. I love these conversations with him when we are nose to nose.

He returns my smile, eyes flashing dark blue. As long as you keep a little of that stubborn, twisted streak for me, Bridget, I'll be whatever you want.

Turn black, drop off.

Is that my post today? I don't know. Maybe. Does it matter? Do you want to know that my hair grew last night while I slept? Or that I cut my finger rather badly chopping onions (it's always onions, and no, I don't cry when I cut them -onions, not fingers, I mean) and the bleeding didn't stop for like two hours and finally Sam took over and sat on me for twenty minutes holding a towel around my finger and finally it stopped but only when I stopped. I made a joke about my blood stopping and then my heart and all I had to do was not move and I could finally die and earned myself a trip to the library to talk to Joel about my gallows humor and how I'm not allowed to indulge in it forever and ever, amen.

Joel's being a total asshole. Just thought I'd mention that. Can he leave now?  

No, Lochlan says. I indulged you. Now it's your turn to indulge me. 

(God, give this one WHATEVER HE WANTS.)

I wait with a smile and a bandaid, wrapped far too tightly around my finger.

He takes me in close, lips against my forehead, hands on my face and tells me we have to do more. That we need to make this easier, somehow. That it's time I resume the hard work and leave the play for a bit. It hurts worse than the knife and each word slows my heartbeat down until I'm standing there dead.

We tried that-

There are some things we could do, Peanut. He says it so gently. So hopefully.

It's broken-

I know-

Not my heart, well, my heart too, but my head-

Bridget, don't say that. 

It's true. Maybe you should move on. Go back to the living and leave me with the dead. 

I made that mistake once already, Peanut. I'm not making it again. Go talk to the asshole. I'll be in with you in a bit. He turns me around and gives me a gentle shove in Joel's direction. Fine. But I may just listen and not talk. Talking rarely gets me anywhere.

Yeah, right, Jake says from his place leaning against the wall, laughing.

Hush, you.

It's appropriate behavior if I drown Joel out with Christmas music, right?

Schismatic.

Brought a knife to hell and saw
What was left down there and more
Hide and seeked for far too long
Kept my treasures with my bones
Lived for lies, lived for tales
Lived for good and hit the rails
Love you, boy, with what I know
Hid that love up with my bones

Instead of letting me linger in my grief, hanging back in the dark, tripping over my own regrets, failing to keep up, Lochlan ripped out a single page from our history book, folded it neatly, secured it in his back pocket and unceremoniously tossed the rest of the book into the fire. We watched it burn and I wanted to ask which page he kept but I have a feeling I know.

When I woke up drowning he was there, in the dim light of the overnight, still quiet but newly crowded. Each way I turned there were limbs and skin. Everywhere my mind tried to hide there was a form to chase it back into the light. Every time I tried to catch my breath a new set of hands or a mouth would take it away again. The minute I touched earth I'd be pulled back up away into the night by my hair or my neck or my hands. Every time the cold rushed in it was blocked, replaced by warmth and intensity. Each time I tried to pinch myself my fingers were taken into someone else's, each word I tried to speak swallowed by a long lingering kiss. Each attempt to front flip into a hole met with a practiced recovery to keep me out. Each knife I sharpened to protect myself from my own mind wrestled out of my grasp like taking candy from a child.

Each time I tried to wake up I was brought back into dreams. Nightdreams. Different from daydreams in that they come true, eventually.

I woke up with the sun, sitting up abruptly, taking a deep breath into Jacob's birthday, the only one left behind to mark it. Forty-nine. On the cusp of what we thought might be greatness but turned out to be nothing instead.

At least I thought I would be the only one but as I look around at sleeping men, most of whom have at least one hand on me, I realize I'm not alone anymore. It isn't me against the world, me against the dark. My eyes light on one face after another and I can place touches and sounds from the darkness before. It wasn't a dream but it feels like it.

Lochlan climbs to the top of the hill in this new day and drives a stake deeply into the ground. He's claiming this day back from what it once was. The wind unfurls the design on the flag at the top of the post. Freaks, to be sure. Just so everyone knows, in case it wasn't very clear. I watch from the edge of the patio.

Happy birthday, Jacob. I pour out a morning whiskey I'm not going to be allowed to drink anyway and watch as it soaks into the earth. I told you who I was and you never wanted to believe me but here we are. And you're nowhere to be seen.

How many was it? Joel is so curious. He came out first thing to check on me and is taken aback.

Seven. At least. I'm not entirely sure. It never stopped. Not even for a moment.

Jesus, Bridge.

Well, it worked, so that's all that matters, isn't it? I snap at him. I don't mean to. I just didn't get any sleep.

Presence.

(I hate today and it's been so long. Four hundred and ten hours at least. So far.)

Eat, Princess, he reminds me from the chair that looked empty a moment ago.

I push the plate away. Cold pancakes hold no appeal. I get up and walk outside onto the patio and all the way down to the sea.

You should have finished your breakfast, he scolds from the rock wall.

I take a deep breath with me on my running start, launching myself off the overhang, doing a magnificent front flip that no one's going to witness, plunging into the cold November sea. When my head breaks the surface on the way back up, Jacob treads water beside me.  

You should wait a half hour before swimming, he instructs and I roll my eyes and duck back under. I open my eyes into the brine and he is there, pointing up. I shake my head and I am suddenly, violently pulled back up regardless.

The emotions that funnelled through me like water through the holes in my sweater were as follows: anticipation at the thought of going to heaven to be with him forever, shock that he's come to life and is saving me and dismay that it's Lochlan, now in the water (bye, iPhone) and angry that PJ turned his back for just long enough for me to do it again.

PJ is on the beach by the time we come around the corner, me actually being pushed and shoved and dragged along while Lochlan hollers and shouts at all three of us, Jacob included.

WHAT THE FUCK. 

I was taking a fucking piss, man. 

SO GET A REPLACEMENT. 

PJ looks at me as if I betrayed him too and I keep staring at Jake. Why don't they see him? Was he trying to save me or kill me? Didn't ANYONE see my front flip? Why am I still so insane? How long is this going to go on?

Forever- Jacob says, a subject he is an expert on and Lochlan cuts him off.

One of these days, Bridget, I'm not coming. And then I can become you, and maybe that will make you happy, since nothing else does. And he pushes past me, heading back up to the house, leaving PJ and I standing on the beach in the early morning sunrise of a day I wish had never ever happened but it did and I can't live with this pain.

***

I wasn't going to post it but it happened and I was so so proud of doing that front flip, something I wasn't allowed to do on the highwire, though near the end of the run he relented and I did several front walkovers. They're not the same, though. And this was off a cliff, no less. No net. No witnesses.

Figures.

Maybe you can show me in the spring. Lochlan lingers near the door. PJ dragged me back to the house, kicking and screaming and promptly got me day-drunk so I was able to deflect Lochlan's frustration just enough to see it through. PJ was a saint. Honestly after this week he should have been the one to turn his back on me but as he said once I persuaded him to drink with me,

My allegiance is to my queen and no one else. 

Who is your queen? I ask him, genuinely concerned that I've been replaced by one of the boys.

You, idiot. 

Oh, I get it. 

We finished a bottle and opened a second forty before we were rudely cut off and then once I stopped spinning in place Lochlan had dinner ready and made sure I ate (something Jacob wasn't able to pull off this morning) and then made me help clean up and then sent me to sit by the fire with a cup of tea.

He comes over and kisses the top of my head before sliding in beside me on the couch.

I'll show you tomorrow. 

Tomorrow of all days, Bridget, you won't be jumping off that cliff. 

I need something to do instead. Some plans. Something to keep busy-

Tomorrow when you wake up, I'll be there. And I'll have my arms around you and my heart against yours and you won't be afraid or alone or in the past. We'll be in the day that it is, and it's our day. And we'll pour out a drink to mark his birthday but then we're going to do something else, something for us. And we're going to go on. And we'll do it together. And I feel really sorry for PJ's week but today is the only day that should have mattered enough for him to not risk it, and there has to be recourse for that-

Don't be hard on him. I promised I'd stay put. 

He should know better than to believe you, for the only tales you tell are lies, Bridget. And I love you for it. 

I love you too. 

God, I hope that's the truth, but I think I can believe you. He pulls me in close, pressing his lips against my shoulder, arms around my back, just below where Jacob's hand remains flat between my shoulder blades to brace me against this endless goddamn storm. Jacob's face holds no jealousy towards Lochlan. Not anymore. I can see him in the reflection of the glass doors, clear as day.

I love you cause I need to.

To the open arms of the sea
lonely rivers sigh
Wait for me
Wait for me

I've decided the opening shot of the movie of my life will be a helicopter or drone long zoom in from far across the water, toward the houses on the point, all the way in to the main house through the windows. U2's cover of Unchained Melody will be the opening track, Bono screaming the lyrics as you have nary a breathless minute to register everything that's about to go down. The whole thing will have a shattered lens over the top of it to represent the fractured brokenness of my life, but still mostly visible. My favorite part of that is that Unchained Melody flows seemlessly into the spoken-word intro of Walk To The Water, which is a beautiful song, frankly. It works for me, anyway.

As I talk Lochlan is frozen in surprise, staring at me in one of those moments where I'm not really sure if he's going to be blown off his feet by my creative day-dreamed revelations or burned off them by his desire to flat-out run, screaming, away to anywhere but here.

I have lists and lists of the soundtrack in my head. If you haven't heard Walk To The Water it's the absolute best example of Bono's voice and the emotion he can cram into every single note. A beautiful, imagery-filled slide through the notes and into the void, especially the fade at the end. For years I tried to use it to time falling asleep to music and I don't know if I ever succeeded.

Both of these songs are followed by Luminous Times, a song which remains one of the biggest betrayal of my young life and one I can't play the whole way through still, which is a tragedy in itself. It's a beautiful song but it just makes everything flare up fresh and new, hurting so bad I just can't do it. Lochlan won't allow it anyway. His efforts to let me navigate this anniversary at my own speed with my own ideas does not extend to watching me peel my skin off slowly while I scream, beginning with my skull and ending with my heart, ripping out the valves, blood pumping all over the floor. No. Just no. Sorry, Bridget.

 This is where we switch records to something else because the tempo changes and it's not time for that yet.

***

That was interesting. 

What do you mean? 

It was fascinating to meet everyone officially-officially. Formally.

I'm glad you finally did. The gallery shows are so dry. I pack them with friends and it's easier for Cole. He doesn't like strangers. 

I'm a stranger. 

Not now, you're not. So you like everyone? 

They're all great. Do you think they like me? I find they all watch you very closely. Are they not used to having new people at the shows? 

The shows are full of new faces. My friends keep an eye on me. They always have. We've been together since I was about eight years old. 

That's a long time. How fortunate to keep the same hearts close. 

It is. I am. 

Are any of them...new friends? 

Ben and Duncan we met as adults. I've known Andrew since I was in diapers. Lochlan and I were childhood sweethearts. This you know already.

What happened? 

A lot happened. 

Off limits?

Maybe. For now. 

I feel like you're a history book and I haven't even opened the cover yet, but I've been carrying the book around my whole life. 

That's a beautiful analogy. 

Is it? Sometimes you just meet a kindred spirit and I think you are the closest I've seen. I'm a little intimidated by that wall of big brothers who follow your every breath, though. Will they allow for a new friendship? 

He looks so hopeful. I want to die for the fact that somehow I became so sacred to the boys I became untouchable, exempt. Revered. Worshipped. But only touched by Cole and Caleb, and not even Caleb much anymore. Cole has become possessive and closed. I'm grateful but at the same time he was never as affectionate as Lochlan, something I absolutely need to breathe.

Jacob takes my hand in his, rubbing the backs of my fingers with his thumb. His hand is huge. Mine is so small. He's warm and solid and he can't take his eyes off me.

I think they will. I smile at him while my now-voice is screaming that I should have flipped the chair in my haste to get away.

Noted with interest, both books came out while he was still alive, and that's where I remain mired forever.

So come pull a sheet over my eyes
So I can sleep tonight
Despite, what I've seen today
I find you guilty of a crime
Of sleeping at a time
When you should have been wide awake

I walked in on a conversation I didn't even know was taking place, hot cider in hand, book in hand, hoping for a whole hour of Daniel's Famous Self-Care ideas that don't extend to extensive beauty routines that leaving me wishing I was a boy. I'm struggling to finish Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, the only reason being that both Ruth and Loch read it and said it's incredible. I love books that end leaving me breathless and in tears for someone else's situation as it takes me out of mine. But I'm struggling to get into it. Struggling to like it, even. So I persist. On the other hand, Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, the book I read before this, saw me going to bed at eight at night just so I could have more time to read.

Maybe it's a serial killer thing. I always love them too.

Maybe I'm just a masochist.

Okay, all of the above. So I stepped out onto the front porch and registered a whole new dynamic but all the old faces I remember. Caleb, Lochlan, Ben, PJ and they seem squared off with Sam. And August is behind Sam, just to his right, not that the placement of all the men matter but the names do. PJ is so done with Sam. So, so done. I can see it all over his face. He's annoyed. He already told me earlier. If I had done anything besides pull you in close I could see his spite, but this is ridiculous. At least next time make it count, Bridge.

I get that, but this is also something I don't entertain. Jealousy has very little place here anymore. Be content or get the fuck out. I don't waste my time with anyone who isn't at least half in love with me, and they shouldn't either. If they're posturing, climbing ladders or paying each other back, I don't want to be the object they use to do it with.

Not like the rules are all that stringent. The house isn't uptight and we don't play games. I don't think a poly household could endure that kind of immaturity for long and yet we are legendary for our sophomoric relationships, because that's what happens when you form such deep relationships at such tender ages. Who you were then follows you. That's how they see you. That's how they treat you, know you and love you.

That's why I'm forever eight or twelve and not included in conversations about me, like this one.

And God Bless August, who in my soap opera has taken over the role of Jacob, who managed to suss out Sam's issues (which surprisingly I'm not going to spell out this morning) without blowing it up further, who managed to get PJ and Sam to mend their splintered fences before my very eyes to the point where I forgot my teacup, cider dripping onto the boards. Lochlan saw it a mile away, as ever. Careful, Baby, he says quietly and I righten my cup almost automatically.

Caleb looks out into the woods. He's not a nurturer, and oh how I wish he was. He's only here to make sure his stock doesn't wind up further divided. It won't. If we indulge the pun, he has a controlling interest.

This is my life now. I look around and just on the periphery, where the night blends in with those woods that hold Caleb's interest so succinctly this evening, I see August's features blur into Jake's, to go with his hair. I watch him fix my life on my behalf so I can continue to fuck it up. I watch him put himself out on the very edge, making sure they're all in a safer place. Making sure no one's going to fall. Putting them all between us to keep me safe from him and him from me. As if I am dangerous somehow. To him and not just me. To them, to everything. To all of this. He has an much of a vested interest in keeping it going, and the way he does that is to pretend he has none.

I surrender my cup (and my life, I fear) to Lochlan and turn and leave. I don't think it matters what they think. I know different.

Matthew 18:5. Hebrews 12:15? I don't fucking know (Now updated, with the whole thing).

Sam was thoroughly unimpressed with the fact that I randomly crawl in bed with PJ when I really can't sleep, frustrated and angry that I didn't visit him, at least or even Caleb.

This isn't your place to-

I was right there! I'm right here. His hands are underneath my t-shirt, pajama pants low over my hipbones. He is dark and bothered and flustered and it's late and we have to get up early for church. I try to push him away so he pushes me down, turns me over onto my face and pulls everything off, breath hot against the back of my head, words gone. He puts his hand over my mouth, pulling my head up against his chest as he finds his way into me, pinning me against him, his word against mine. He's rough, it's dark and cool and I fight him only because I hate it when we're like this. I like him soft and gentle, more like the Sam I know and love, less like the monster who comes out when his needs overtake his good sense.

He never does turn me back over, never takes me with him, never makes sure I'm okay, he just slows back to an agonizing crawl, presses his face painfully against the back of my skull as he whispers I'm sorry and he's gone because Lochlan told him to go.

I went to first service this morning, walked right past him to crank the heat on the thermostat on the wall by the hall door and sat down in the front row. I left enough space and PJ came in a few minutes later, a tray of coffees in hand, holding one out for Sam, an offering in already-established peace time, made the way he likes it. He took it and PJ clapped him on the shoulder. Not a Hey Bro clap but an I was here first, don't forget that clap. Sam nods and takes a sip, burning his tongue the way he burned my resolve last night.

We're three days away and it's all going to shit now. What the fuck is this.

***

What I didn't tell you was that Sam thanked PJ publically for the coffee and then reminded the whole congregation that one small gesture can sometimes do worlds toward beginning to repair the damage caused by colossal, deliberate mistakes. That you can take something that belongs to someone else and finally begin to repay them. That you don't have to share everything, and you shouldn't take what doesn't belong to you.

Which is rich considering Sam isn't exactly my husband either. I think at one point Lochlan laughed out loud, as he has the right to be annoyed where no one else does, for Sam's jealousy and then his selfishness and violence. And PJ had enough of the whole thing finally and when Sam handed him the collection plate he fucking flipped it and left, yelling Thanks for the coffee?That's what you say?

He didn't look back, I didn't look behind our pew and Lochlan scooped up the few envelopes that fell when PJ lost it, putting them back in the plate and passing it on. I think PJ is banned now, but he won't care. He does care about Sam's misappropriated anger but he also only answers to me.

On the way out Lochlan shook Sam's hand at the doorway (having come in behind PJ and yes he's here and home and aware) and told Sam to fucking cool it. In front of people. Sam let go and moved right along to the next people out the door, wishing them a great week, not even missing a beat. I watched as the red flush of embarrassment flooded from underneath his collar and up his neck onto his cheeks but he didn't look at me again. He's not like this, he doesn't become uncharacteristically jealous and absolutely nobody picks a fight with PJ (and lives to tell about it) so I will go see him later and find out what's happening. Maybe he'll apologize for it. Maybe he'll stand his ground. Should be interesting, anyway. I will be sure to thank him for the incredible distraction from the ghosts.

Up all night.

Let me touch on all of the pertinent parts of the night here.

-The Linguine alle Vongole, the endless white wine and champagne (Caleb did indeed squire an extra case away for me, as promised), the chocolate cake for dessert and the toasts (and roasts!) to Schuyler and Daniel, now eight years married after what seems like a hundred before that.

We're very proud of their loyalty to each other, their deep appreciation and respect for each other and their efforts to continue to keep things happy, fresh and deep so many years in, when a lot of people become complacent or neglectful.

(I wish I could write their complete and fully-detailed lovestory here for you but I feel that action might dilute it or spoil it somehow.)

-The airplane fuel smell that I find cloying that no one else even notices, still present in my nose long after Lochlan washed his hair, had two separate showers and put his travel bag outside. He and Schuyler got in from meetings in California (still burning) at two the previous morning, which was why he came to bed at four and got up at ten to get ready for the party because everyone has jobs when we entertain and they aren't for nothing. He is good at hard work but I still had a haze of fumes in my brain late last night heading to bed and eventually left to go downstairs and crawl in with PJ, who never smells like planes because I swear some entire months he doesn't leave the house. He is the biggest homebody alive and he's so comfortable he's never going to find a woman.

That isn't the problem, he tells me. The problem is finding one that's okay with you doing this. He laughs but it's only half-strength as he falls back asleep almost midword. He is warm and solid and I am asleep again in minutes but then awake again when my phone goes off. Someone is pinging me for location and I begrudgingly kiss PJ's cheek for the snuggle and he doesn't stir so I take my phone and a stray glass and leave him to sleep.

-The leftovers. As long as everyone's content to eat seafood, champagne and chocolate we're gold. We're going to spend the remainder of the weekend recuperating and eating those things because they have a short half-life and are easy to make because they're already made, as such. No one has a single plan until at least Monday and this, THIS is what I've been waiting for.
 

It's alright.

Show me how defenseless you really are

It's a really good day for a ferocious new recording of So Cold. Eight times over, my brain registering one of the most familiar songs it knows (PROOF twelve years on) and at the same time noticing every new sound. Ben's big headphones are on eleven but I'm still in bed and they're cobbled from one plug into four different jacks to make it into my phone. I can't leave this bed, Lochlan's in it and that's a new rule from four this morning or so, when he came home with Schuyler, barely making it in time to get ready for the huge party they're throwing tonight next door for Schuyler and Dan's anniversary. Schuyler asked me at least four times already if I was okay to attend, that I could come and go at will, as if I will meltdown and fall apart right in the middle of hanging back by Batman and pretending I'm good at social situations or something, while eyes bore into my skin.

Sure, I'll be fine, I lie. After all, if shit goes south, plan Bee is to run and jump off the cliff in my cocktail dress, glass still in hand. Perfect, I reassure him to his doubtful expression.

He knows. Lord, they all know. Just let me listen to this song five more times, at least. Each rotation is a wheelbarrow full of dirt on top of my cold lifeless bones. As soon as you can't tell where I'm even buried, maybe I'll turn it off.

I said maybe.

Lochlan's arms are so tight around me I kind of want to scream or fall asleep. Maybe both. Maybe neither. So far I'm just lying here in the familiarity of his form that I needed so badly last night and the night before but he wasn't here. I tried not to fall in love with Caleb (that doesn't do anyone any favours) and he tried not to consume me alive and I was able to reassure Lochlan that I'm fine. Physically I'm peachy. The cold is gone. The aches from raking leaves are finally abating and I haven't cried in, oh, at least three minutes. Okay, two.

Must be great.

He sleeps like a log, as he does when I am finally back in his arms, safe. We are predictable. An hour ago he kisses the back of my head and almost cries with relief. I should have brought you but I didn't want you to be alone in a strange place. 

(No, far better to be alone here.)

He pulls the headphones off my head when I thought he was asleep at last and I swim out of my mind when the music ends to see what's happening. My brain is screaming to PUT THAT BACK because that's what it does.

Peanut. It's so loud. 

It's So Cold, I correct him, take the headphones back and close my eyes. It's so early. Go back to sleep.

Nicknames and necromancers (Daylight time).

Baby Mac. He greets me at the door with a warm smile, holding his arm up slightly, though I can walk underneath it easy to enter his rooms. He can be the Hades to my Orpheus. I just want that one shot, no looking back.

Only Caleb has other plans and the freshly-minted nickname makes me laugh, if only because it isn't one he would voluntarily choose and it took me a moment to understand he didn't say Babydoll.

Who came up with that?

Duncan, actually. 

Amazing. 

He nods his approval, a rare event when it places Lochlan first. I like your dress. He changes tactics and it's bullshit. I'm wearing a faded sage cotton slip dress he hates, with a long smoke-coloured cardigan because it's surprisingly cool, bare feet and my gold cross necklace. I look like anything but what he likes. I roll my eyes and his hands tighten around my arms ever so slightly. Then he looks down and takes a big breath. He lets go of me, dropping to his knees. His head remains bowed to look at the floor, if only his eyes were open.

Caleb-

At your service, he says quietly.

Oh, wow. If I were only a queen instead of a high-tied broken-crowned princess from the worst nickname I ever earned. What is this?

You need to be in charge. Tell me what you want.

So I did. I told him everything, as if he were Santa Claus but in black, who could give me everything on my list as long as I'm a very bad girl instead of very good.

We can do all of this. He looks fierce and reassuring all at once and I exhale violently, making him laugh. Now, Neamhchiontach, tell me what you want from me. 

Forty-eight hours later I am returned to my real life, away from the cool steady heartbeat of the one silently wondering how he can buy my affection when there's no price on my head but at the same time happy to dash my dreams. No Halloween party this year, the times clash with Schuyler and Daniel's big anniversary party tomorrow. My Eurydice isn't getting a second chance and neither am I so I need to learn to be content flush against the unforgiving night, restless in the fur blankets against the second love of my life, if not the first actual, painful crush of my childhood that still surprises me when I think back.

When the darkness lifts and I stir he is grief-stricken but grateful. We'll get everything done. You'll have the life you want. Hades comes around with the sun. Eurydice rises with me and I am victorious. It's a brief faith that will be shattered within moments but in the meantime it makes it all worthwhile. Go back to Lochlan. Tell him I was kind, since I was. 

For once, I remind him.

Cancel whatever I was going to post today.

Because THIS happened.

After playing this dumb game for three years and three months I *finally* caught the only Pokemon I ever wanted.

A Snorlax!!

He's now my buddy but honestly, I'm done. I live in the middle of precisely nowhere and we don't have a blue thingie for balls anywhere nearby let alone any good characters around. This was caught on the way home from the dentist, but not really. I drove eight blocks out of my way and Henry helped keep it busy until I could pull over and take over actually catching it.

He's MASSIVE.

Now I can get on with my life! Thank fucking Jesus says PJ.

5101.

The Devil is concerned, as I went and crawled in with him at five this morning for an extra hour of snoozles and I passed out hard against his neck and if you listen to him tell it, he basically lay there and panicked as I would stop breathing for ridiculously long periods in the dark, gasp for air out of the blue and then do it all over again three minutes later.

It's just a cold, Diabhal. I've been fighting it all fall. 

That's not a cold, Neamhchiontach, but it's usually not this bad. 

Time of year, that's all. 

(I've found my solid gold excuse for everything, as of late. Bad day? Time of year. Feeling not up to doing something? Time of year, I tell them. Didn't laugh at a joke? Time of year, for sure.)

That doesn't work on me.

What doesn't? I play dumb, batting my eyelashes just once so he catches me.

You're adorable, he smiles. I'm very grateful you brought your snoozles to me this morning. It's been quiet in my wing.

Sam's free.

Not that quiet, he corrects with a chuckle. I am concerned about you though.

I know. I say it quietly.

He plants a rather violent kiss on the top of my head, taking my hands in his and pulling me right up to his face. Tonight you spend with me, okay? I just want to see if it is a lot worse or if it's just been a while and I'm misremembering-

You can just ask, you don't need to find an excuse, Diabhal-

Time of year, Bridget, he says and I get it.

Whitman Mondays.

A sharp intake of breath and I'm awake, tense and suspicious of the light. The dust motes dance in the sun shining through the curtains, opened as a way to wake me when the dawn breaks instead of by force.

My first thought, as ever:

He's gone.

I reach out with both hands for my redheaded life raft instead. The tangible. The waking dream. The saviour in a strange land, this place of profound grief. It's so bright and clear. White sheets. Blue skies. Yellow and red leaves up to our ankles, crunching as we walk toward our inevitable demise.

A detour, Lochlan smiles, pulling me toward the lights instead. Toward the happy screams of people who don't know that hungry, unrespected, lowly-compensated people are putting their rides together under the duress of a ticking clock. That your life goes into their hands the moment the bars are lowered.

Do you care? No. That's the thrill part. And when you survive you'll come back for more, until we've turned your pockets inside out and all that's left are three nickels and a single corner-bent ride ticket.

I've been resurrected by those lights so many times and it's devastating that they only work for me.

Not only just for you, Lochlan corrects as he pulls the quilts up to our necks, turning me away, pulling me into his arms against his heart, closing his eyes to sleep a few moments longer, his breath exhaling against my hair.

Sleep a little longer. The rescue boat has high sides, warm lights and capable captains.

I nod against his head. Sleep. Sleep is that elusive shoreline I can never seem to reach, floating just offshore as if a giant anchor is keeping us from getting anywhere, but no one is strong enough to lift it.

He is, though. Oh captain. My captain. Steer me from the endless elegies and drowning grief.

Come take a ride then. I fall into my forever dream where he's standing in his jeans and a green Atari t-shirt at the operator box for the Ferris wheel, a smile on his face, curls sticking to his neck and forehead in the hot summer evening and I run in his direction, knowing I'll get the last ride of the night whether it's on this trip or the next.

I suddenly am keenly aware that it's not only Jake I'm missing, but that heck of a life we lived before everything got so sad, when I was so little Lochlan would whisper some of the lines from Walt Whitman's Spontaneous Me into my ear until I would blush, overheating and scramble to get away from his warm lips against my skin, wondering how dirty the words were going to get and he would laugh and pull me back in close and God I wish for that again so hard it hurts.

He pulls me ever closer. I can't remember any of the words but we're still here being wild-bees, he says and we start to laugh until we shake.

Nothing but a good time.

Tonight we're raking the ginkgo leaves from the front gate, where they pile up in the wind from the neighbor up the hill who has the trees. I don't mind. I love raking leaves. I do it slowly, though, as my elbow has never been so happy about it, but I do it anyway. The sun was setting, it was around eight degrees and mild, I was wearing Lochlan's work jacket and my belly is full from a single brunch meal today at Troll's (where, no big deal but pretty sure Bret! Michaels! was eating at the next table over), which was crazy-busy but always perfect and worth the wait.

Last night when Sam came up Lochlan let him down gently and then Ben appeared at less than eleven, surprising me with lighting the candles by the time I came out from brushing my teeth.

Hey, little tiny stranger. 

Hey, big huge stranger. 

Hey guys, remember me? Lochlan says and we all laugh softly. Sometimes this feels weird, but not tonight. We enjoy our own inside joke and then Ben pulls me in for a long breathtaking kiss and I never want it to stop and then Lochlan is on me and Ben distracts me constantly to the point where I can't concentrate and I'm losing my mind by the time he takes over, pulling me up away from earth, into his arms, off the bed so he's controlling our movements and he finally puts the focus back where I want it and by the time Lochlan returns and touches me the hair on the back of my neck stands up and I explode in a burst of goosebumps and release.  

Boom, I whisper in Ben's face and he laughs, again so softly I almost miss it.

Boom, he nods.

Oh my God. So good, I reassure them. They don't want me to get weirded out or overwhelmed or too tired. Overstimulated. Overunder. Upside down and inside out.

Lochlan gives me a final kiss. Sleep. We can sleep until late tomorrow-

Church-

Don't worry about it. 

Sam's going to wonder. 

We talked to him. Doing a little less work and having a little more fun this time. See what happens, Lochlan smiles at me with his We're about to have an adventure smile, something I could never resist.

Still can't.
 

(She was a right violent thug that came in the night loaded for bear and ready for a fight.)

It worked a little too well. Maybe I grew to expect it, to even think I deserve it. That my happy ending was going to come. That this make-believe beauty in dirt was real. That there was something that made it worth it. All the dark, all the tough parts, that there would be a field of flowers at the end and instead it's just more dirt. As if someone came in and dug them all up in the night.

This fairytale has a knife to my throat and the ransom it requests is my heart.

(So give it what it wants.)

(No.)

It wasn't the real fairy tale. You can't sustain that kind of love. It doesn't stay fresh. Only when it's weighted down with preserves and paint to keep it pretty long past its date does it last. Sometimes it's not as blinding but who wants to be blind when you can see the potential.

Anyone can grow a field of flowers. I proved it here, where everyone from the real estate agents to the landscapers to the longtime residents said not to grow anything save for native hardy tropicals and even then it's a struggle, because we're too close to the sea and there's too much wind and it's salty and the soil isn't so much soil but sand and then clay and then rock.

But I did it.

Everything grew. Again. Year over year. I don't even know if I'm good at it but I'm so stubborn. Who needs a gift when you have determination? I wondered if maybe I forced him to love me. Forced him to stick around and grow and flourish and dug my own grave in the process, looking over my shoulder every second shovelful to make sure he was still there. And when he was ready I picked him and then the season ended and the snow came and it covered over everything so you never even knew there was ever a garden there.

It doesn't snow here, and that's why we came. It was a fresh start in the warmth of the sun but back to the sea (even if it's the wrong one) and we had some loose ties to the place (Lochlan was born here, I've been here, Schuyler and Ben had some work here and Caleb didn't want to be somewhere cold when he retired) so the garden will grow because it has every chance and it should.

Not every fairytale is a kind one. The brothers Grimm taught us that. What they didn't teach is that you can actually write your own instead of living someone elses'. Or maybe you can join one already in progress and oddly it's a perfect fit.

Stop daydreaming, Peanut and pull those vines, would you? Lochlan is up to his knees in dirt and happy as ever, that we're doing this. That I came out with him this morning. That we have a garden bigger than anything we ever dreamed, and even though it's a full time effort it nourishes us without any outside help. But we're growing love, even as we're reverting this field back to dirt, tilling it over for a fresh start.

And it's working.

You think it's working?

I'd rather be here with you now than anywhere else. 

What if Jacob walked through the gate right now? (Lochlan doesn't do this. Why'd he do this?)

It stings and my head buzzes but I don't wait to answer. I'd tell him to leave. He's not welcome here anymore.

I don't wait to see if he accepts my answer. There is rosemary to harvest. But it's the truth, even if no one believes me.

Still here.

Today is wind and sunshine, leftover warm pakoras and stilton cheese on crackers but there's only a tiny bit left. I took my feast out to the front porch with a notebook and my laptop to start making Christmas shopping/making/baking/cooking lists and Caleb followed me to hold the door, noting my snack with amusement.

You're missing only a glass of champagne, he says.

Do we have any?

I'll have to order a case. I can pour you some juice instead? 

Maybe just water. 

He returns in a few minutes and by then I am installed cozily on the swinging bench with the big Mexican blanket wrapped around me, my snacks on the table, laptop open, notebook open, new pen at the ready (the pen came in the mail. It says I LOVE ANIMALS <3 BCSPCA on it and I'm keeping it forever. I gave Caleb the donation form to fill out but he doesn't get the  pen.

He puts the water on the table and points out the irony of a laptop and a notebook.

I'm a tangible soul. I need tangible notes.

Indeed, he says quietly and kisses the top of my head as he makes his exit. I can be alone here. Four people at least are within earshot and I don't have keys for the trucks or my shoes so it's not like I'm heading out. They think it's self-care but really it's just a chore I have to get done because time is running out. Christmas is two months away.

Focus on that, they say. Good girl. 

Yeah, this isn't self-care, it's panic-mode but yes, I'm going to focus on it and Halloween can come and go and maybe by Remembrance Day (which isn't on the day you think) I'll exhale and can pull it all together.

Or maybe I'll lose my mind.

Honestly, looking around this wouldn't be a bad way to check out. Too bad I hate Joel's pills. I hate his advice. I hate that he's right all the time. I hate that he's cute. I hate that he's here. That's the hardest part. I hate that he won't leave, by Lochlan's request, and is staying next door but spending his days over here, just for a couple of weeks. Just in case, though Lochlan still gets Alpha call, and I'm still completely unaccountable for all of it, even as it falls to me now to fix myself or be fixed at some point before it all goes to hell.

Hell is the reason this is so hard, and so if the Devil wants to keep me in champagne for the rest of my days then I'll try and take care of myself every chance I get. He may not have gotten any points with the handbags but at least the boys can share the champagne. No one turns down champagne because there's always something to celebrate, even if today the only thing is the wind.

The perfect ending to this peace of shit story, he said. ( I wasn't watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again, I swear).

Thou knowst how guiltless first I met thy flame
When Love approached me under Friendship's name
My fancy formed thee of angelic kind,
Some emanation of the all-beauteous mind
Those smiling eyes, attempting every day
Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day
Guiltless I gazed
Heaven listened while you sung
And truths divine came mended from that tongue
From lips like those what precept failed to move?
Too soon they taught me 'twas no sin to love
Back through the paths of pleasing sense I ran
Nor wished an Angel whom I loved a Man
Dim and remote the joys of saints I see
Nor envy them, that heaven I lose for thee

Joel remains unimpressed. You've gone backwards in time. I thought Baudelaire was your favorite but you're quoting Pope at length?

Baudelaire is my favorite. Always.

I would have thought you would go from Baudelaire to Frost, maybe. Not Pope.

And cross a whole ocean to do so? Never. Keats would have been a more mainstream choice.

Overdone.

Agreed.

Joel and I get along stupidly and like all the same things.Too bad we liked each other so much, or I would have maybe gotten better. Or maybe not. Not like he doesn't stick rigorously to his extensive training but now he can do it without the boundaries placed upon him by the field. Now he can do it on a personal level. What's on your mind, Bridget? Besides tears that delight, and all that stuff. 

She was moved-

We all should be that receptive of our thoughts.

I thought we were supposed to quash them and get on with it. 

Ah. Sam has been around again. 

Sam never leaves. 

Sam has a different take on things. He believes in faith and not things like Complicated Grief.

I laugh. At every turn Joel hauls out his labels like a mad filist. This grief isn't complicated, and I've told him that before. It's simple, exceedingly easy and has crushed me flat. Fuck life, I'm busy living death over here. Did Sam say something that's given you pause? 

Wow, you sound like Caleb. I gaze up at him in wonder. All he's missing the ever-so-slight English accent and he'd be there today but everyone is the antichrist right now because today Jacob is the King of the Kingdom of Sorrows and I'm the only Jacobian, as it were.

She was watching movies she shouldn't have been watching and now she's trying to decide if we should be permitted to hide her memories from her. She's worried she'll lose the rest and as ever, she still believes the Devil can bring him back. 

Joel looks from Lochlan to me and I nod slowly. Yup. Sounds about right. Sounds like a rainy Thursday twelve years later, though it feels like it's been twelve minutes and I'd like to peel my skin off and roll in salt just to get away from it, thanks.

Bridget, I think we need to talk about this. Can you call a family meeting? 

I look at Lochlan who nods and picks up his phone. Principals only from the Collective, for Bridget's Brain is a private matter after all.

Just like that, I'm a sideshow again. 

Nothing like that-

BOOM. I whisper it but they've moved on. I look at Jake for support but he's looking at Joel. There's no love lost from his side of the veil. Joel doesn't know Jacob knows and I'm certainly not going to tell him. Jake looks back and me as shakes his head. The problem is I don't know if he means Don't be worse, don't tell them it's this bad or Stop it and get on with your life, Bridget.

I watch him as he fades and then I realize they're watching me stare at the wall.

Sorry. I'm tired today. I zoned out a little just now. 

Have you been sleeping? 

Probably not enough, I lie. This the problem. I can tell them what they want to hear. They can check off all their boxes. I've moved on. I've done the work. I know all the realities of my life. I know death is an imminent visitor to us all. I'm logical and reasonable but I'm also something else in there that I don't want to address much that happily chucked a wrench in every last gear that was going to turn smoothly and now won't even turn.

When you want to do this? 

Now, if possible. If not then tonight. 

I wish you'd stop gathering my friends together to tell them I'm crazy. 

I wish you'd stop pretending you're fine when you're not. 

Can we at least charge admission? I'm tired of being the freak for free.

I love you like a love song Baby.

Duncan and I are singing this morning. Sappy love songs. Or maybe they're hate songs. I have trouble breathing through this song, especially when I'm getting over a cold and any part I can't pick up again PJ is filling in perfectly. I think this is the thing I love most about the boys, is their ability to be shameless in keeping up with all the lovesongs and broken heart songs out there, just for me.

This morning we're learning a new one, as the Internet is a beautiful place and while I'm sure you want to know I am so damn metal, drinking my coffee out of a skull mug that changes from black to white when filled with a hot liquid, wearing an Opeth t-shirt that's a size too small but looks amazing, hair in curls, mascara perfect since it's only six in the morning and it hasn't had any time to smudge yet, tattoos right up past my collar and into my hair behind my ears and down to my knuckles to the point where I look like I'm wearing a turtleneck from a distance and I wouldn't change any of them now, even as the ones that I was having removed and reworked stubbornly refuse to look different to me, I'm still a huge sap.

We're avidly discussing the diss from Hailey Baldwin to Selena Gomez. We've watched Selena's new video (Lose you to Love Me) again every time someone new walks into the kitchen and we have decided that Hailey is young and jealous and Justin totally married her to get back at Selena, who has thirty-eight million more fans than he does on Instagram. I didn't believe it either but then August showed me the numbers and if you bring receipts I will accept that I was wrong.

(For the love of God don't go hunting down August on IG. I'll kill you, just like Hailey said.)

But they don't have a prenup either which is a reckless thing in this day and age. I don't either, if you're curious. Justin and I both like to live on the edge, I guess.

(Or maybe it is true love.)

I'm only rich on paper and though you can buy my affections a little too easily when my magpie tendencies toward glittery pretty things (like Caleb) come out I also have ironclad peace of mind in that it's not just me now and Lochlan will never have to worry about money again.

It's the absolute least I could ever do for him, though warned that his jealousy is going to light this point and every last one of us on fire I'll still burn with a smile on my face. This is not to say I'm secretly getting back at Caleb by marrying Lochlan, it's more of an effort to point out that true love is true love and even as you change and grow and shit happens and everything goes to hell, you'll always have that soulmate and he is yours forever.

That's my Lochlan.

Though he's refusing to sing today. He's still mad about the purse thing, though I think he's secretly thrilled I'm singing instead of crying today. What he doesn't know is that the acoustics in this hole are incredible for singing today. I'm still down here, I'm just acting for the crowd. He taught me a little too well, I guess, as he's fooled too.

You'd be wrong, he says, just loud enough for me to hear. Ah. Okay. Figures.

I actually found the brass knuckles in the old garage but he doesn't believe me.

The handbags were taken back. Of course they were. I'm currently allowed a shortened lanyard and my phone case that holds a few cards plus my childrens' graduation photos. I can put a lipgloss in my pocket, if I have one, or it stays at home. Anything else is relegated to a pocket belonging to one of the boys, because if I carry a handbag it will be full of weapons by the week's end and I'm not supposed to have any.

I plead my case a dozen times if not a hundred. The pepper spray is for dogs. The brass knuckles is for muggers. The knives are in case someone attacks me or I feel unsafe if I'm alone-

Lochan turns on one heel and is in my face. When are you alone? 

He's not wrong. A girl should be able to protect herself though. I've had self-defence classes but it didn't work. I manage a hundred pounds on a good day and while it's nice to say you can protect yourself or maybe I had a bad teacher I just can't. It was never enough. I had a big dream at one point that I was going to beat the shit out of Caleb the next time he touched me. I was going to get him to the brink, strangle him with his own designer necktie and then at the last second, just as his face was turning purple and puffy, let him live, always to remember that I grew up to finally fight back. So let's face it, all of the weapons were to protect me from him, and then I happily get into his car with empty pockets and let him sprinkle sugar all over me.

Who gave you the brass knuckles?

Incriminating no one that time, I lie. Ebay. 

Lochlan laughs, not nicely though. Make up your mind, Peanut. Protect them or yourself. 

Both. All of us. 

From who? 

Me. 

Each other, you mean.

No, me. 

He was supposed to take you for a drive, get an ice cream. Listen to some non-triggering music on the radio. Babysit until dinner and then I would be home. 

We did that. 

No, you didn't. He bought you a bunch of ridiculous handbags and reminded you that you mistakenly think you are beholden to him-

I'm not-

Yeah, I'm not either. I'm not buying it. I'm not accepting it. And your ten dollar bag is just fine. (It's a pink velvet corduroy tote bag. I put a zipper in the top. It's soft and huge and holds everything and looks pretty. Beat a Dior or three any day.) You're not yourself, Peanut.

 Because of Jake-

No, because of YOU. I think I'm done tiptoeing around the ghosts and am going to focus on fixing the living. Starting with myself and then with you. And you were never a fancy handbag kind of girl. Remember? I had your lifesavers and your library card in my pocket. Every day, Bridget. Every single day.

Not ungrateful, exactly, but impossible all the same.

This morning we were up and out early. A self-care day dictated by the Devil himself to nourish and appease the little freak from the high wire who still hasn't decided if she deserves this, or not.

I made the mistake of holding my breath early during the weekend over a new Dior bag. It's unique and beautiful and I wanted it, for a brief moment. Caleb asked me to wait in the car for a few moments as he disappeared inside a boutique, ostensibly to see the price or ask a few questions. I waited so long I got restless and began to write on the fog on the windows, random poetry seen by no one but there probably until he has the car detailed (soon).

Caleb comes back probably thirty minutes later with an armload of bags.

You do your Christmas shopping?

Maybe. 

I'm a little annoyed as I could have come with him. I want to be home and yet my cabin fever keeps me flush with frustration. If only I could figure out how to have it both ways.

We have a very early lunch and drive back across the bridge and up the highway. Things never look familiar until the bitter end. I am relieved when we're back and happy with the amount of self-care I let him indulge me in. I had an eighth of an inch of hair trimmed (to keep it straight, some parts grow way faster than others but again it's on my shoulders now, bangs past my eyes and I'm not looking back now) and had a neck and shoulders massage at same which ended mercifully just before I wanted to shriek and run right out, as I don't like to be touched, oddly enough.

Not by people I don't know, I mean.

But he proclaimed it a successful morning out, as we dealt with the fever, dealt with the two points of hair a good inch ahead of the others and the tension keeping a low-tier headache going (I thought it was the rain) has been eradicated and also...his Christmas shopping.

When I got home he handed the bags to me in the front hall.

I'm not wrapping things for you. The boutique should have done that. 

They did. He smiles.

You want me to hide these for you?

He rolls his eyes. Open them. 

You didn't. 

Might have. You're supposed to do this four or five times a year, not once every four years. You're so stubborn. Let me have this. I saw your face. Let me do this for you. 

Not only was the bag I exclaimed over (silently, so I thought) there but so were two others in beautiful colors I didn't even know they made). Now I have three new ones and I don't know which one to use first. No, yes I do.

Do you think Jacob's urn will fit in this?

Absolutely not, Bridget. 

I mean, it might-

I didn't think you had access to it anymore.

I don't (Sam's hidden it) but I always future-proof myself. Someday I'll get it back. 

Not at this rate. 
 

Garlic and rosemary and cajun and sea salt.

It's been the most peaceful Sunday. After a restless sleep in which bears did battle with blankets, which turned out to be some sort of allegory for Sam's fitful sleep we gave up and took ourselves out for brunch, leaving him at church with some sort of halfhearted instruction to call Ben for a ride home if we don't reappear in time to take him home (we did). We milked our coffees while the rain poured down the windows outside. They forgot several things. Got things wrong. The restaurant got loud so we finished and left and came home to the blissful silence of more rain and dampening of everything.

I threw in some laundry and roasted pumpkin seeds from last night's carving party. I added Cajun spice this year, but not a lot and real butter, melted and mixed and then slow-burned over the woodstove until they were golden brown. Jacob came and thrust his hands into the hole I live in but Lochlan pushed him back away from the edge so I couldn't see him and took over everything and I don't have to worry about seeing him again for a bit. Usually when he has a lecture he disappears for a brief time and yet I know we're now doing this absurd march toward anniversaries I wish I could forget wholeheartedly.

Almost cried walking into a store the other day. All the Christmas decorations were up, Halloween now relegated to a side table marked clearance. If only I could rush my memories, or at the very least, sell them.

You wouldn't want to do that, Lochlan says. Someday they will be fond, when the bitterness fades. 

It's not even all that bitter, just a vague aftertaste, I tell him. It's physically painful and it shouldn't be. 

It's figurative, you me-

No, it's physical. 

Bridget-

Let's do something else, I ask him. I don't want to talk about this anymore. Sam did enough of that with us last night. Before and after he fought for the warmest blankets.
 

Polar Ids.

The house is casted in charcoal dust and fog today, woodsmoke and dried berries and pinecones stacked up artistically around the pumpkins as we slide into a quiet Saturday. Ruth is drawing in the alcove, using my easel because hers is in her room and charcoal is destructively chaotic. I have just finished my first coffee, plotting a second. Lochlan reads aloud from the internet to anyone who will listen, everything from Trump's most recent war crimes to the way Osmia Avosetta bees use flower petals lined with nectar and pollen to make solitary nests in the middle east and I wish we had them here. So beautiful.

I want pizza. 

Lochlan laughs. For breakfast?

Yes. We usually get pizza on Friday night with tons left over for the next day or two. But last night we went to a Greek place for gyros which was delicious and different but fails to provide the habitual rummaging through the fridge I am spoiled by. Oh well. I started a bagel instead and Lochlan finished it for me, melting cheese on it just right and bringing it over to me as he potificates, wholly unwelcomely about American politics and Canadian voting day. I'll be glad in a bit when all that is finished. I carried another sign up the road last evening and I'm ready for barbed wire and electric fencing to extend all the way to the bitter ends of this point if only to know that while I sleep someone isn't planting large blue signs in the gardens by the main gates.

If it doesn't glitter it's not exciting.

The glitter began to burn (as always) and so I took it off this morning. My fingers don't like color, my nails won't stand for being pretty and chemicals and I will never ever get along. Lochlan theorizes that I have long-range heavy metal poisoning, that so many years of heavy theatrical makeup, chaulk and diesel fumes turned my system inside out and now it's delicate and sensitive.

Then why aren't you the same? 

I am. That's why I don't paint my nails or wear makeup now. He laughs at his own joke and it's a beautiful sound.

There's a point. 

So why do you persist with your nails? 

I want to look pretty for you. Besides, I found a gentle mascara (Body Shop Happy Go Lash) and lipstick (anything by Bite, but specifically their Amuse Bouche lipstick in Jam, for those wanting beauty recs from me of all people, but that's also the only two makeup items I own now ) so why can't I find a safe nail polish?

Because it's paint and it has to last or people would be mad. Besides, you refuse to wear dish gloves so what do you expect? Your hands are dry and burning all the time. 

Truth. But it looks so nice and pulled together. 

Why don't you feel pulled together?

I don't know. I just feel like I'm slacking. 

The showgirls. 

Yeah, the showgirls. 

(I always wanted to be twenty-five years old and five-foot-eight and wear all the bronzer and lashes and feathers and slinky little outfits of the showgirls on the circuit but I wasn't tall enough, dark enough, glamorous enough and I never felt like I belonged, even as I took the stage alone and not a single one of them could have walked the wire with the charm that I did. Not a single one of them could have held the collective breaths of an entire crowd as I let fire travel down my limbs.

There are perks to being tiny. Being cute is one of its curses though.

Get the sticker nails. 

Those don't last five minutes though. 

Then move on from it and be resigned to plain nails. Most men have made their peace with it. 

Ben still paints his na-

Ben isn't really the typical male stereotype I was referencing here, Bridge. 

Well, THAT's good to know. 

His are blue glitter and I said they looked nice so now we match.

Daniel is painting my nails to cheer me up. They are red glitter and I love them. We're not even going to discuss the part where I'm deathly allergic to nail polish and that half the boys hate my glitter tendencies anyways. Caleb called Daniel a glitard in passing so Daniel offered to do his too and Caleb didn't even respond. I made a note to address his rudeness privately later.

He should be happy that someone cares for my happiness the way Daniel does, in trying to teach me self-care, giving up and doing it for me.

We should cut your hair, Daniel suggests but I'm not ready for that. It's grown into long points that are long enough now to braid easily and I love it. Haven't cut it for a long time, don't intend to any time soon.

Maybe a bubble bath then?

For how many? 

One, girl. Jesus. 

Boring!

Right? Okay maybe I'll leave that for someone else to handle. 

Story of my life.

Oh look, a hole.

Lay your heart into my perfect machine
I will use to protect you from me
I will never let you see what's beneath
So good for you and good for me
We told ourselves we're right where we ought to be

Pretty sure in his dreams last night Lochlan let go of the bar before he was anchored securely in a bid to grab me before I fell into the net, because he knew the net wasn't ready yet and we were in a hurry to get a single final practice in before showtime. It's when you rush that everything goes horribly, terribly wrong.

And he hollered my name as his hands grazed my fingertips but it was too late. We both fell but we weren't connected and so we died twisted, preventable deaths alone. I woke up in a cold sweat and practically clawed my way out of bed and down to the coffee maker to find a way to keep the dreams away forever, if they're going to be like that. Fuck that shit. I'm crazy enough without my brain betraying me even further. A mutiny multiplied by the numbers on the calendar.

Twelve years ago tomorrow Ben showed up, staked a claim and Jacob met him easily, tried to minister to Ben and we fed him dinner and he left without a struggle, without a fight but with some sort of harbinger that the army was right there, watching every move Jacob made. I guess they knew deep down he would leave. I guess none of us knew the extent to which he tried to manipulate me, tried to control access to everyone who knew me better than he did, who tried to show him using me as a project for his thesis would only serve to blow him to pieces. Maybe I didn't know then what I know now. It takes a village. A beautiful village tucked into the hills by the sea, wrapped around a massive hole that fills with water when the tide comes in but you can't see the bottom even when it's out.

And that's the way it is. Caleb is better at this than Jacob ever was but Lochlan is best of all and throw Ben into the mix and Jacob never had a chance. It was when he figured this out that he tested his wings and they worked and since he couldn't do enough here he decided to flex his wings in heaven. I guess it's working, as they rarely send him back.

Jesus FUCK, Peanut. It's not your fault he did this. Lochlan picked a bad time to look over my shoulder but I note he speaks in present tense as if this is an ongoing, present event.

It is, Lochlan snaps at me and now he's left the room and I can climb back down into the hole and pull the dark up over my head. Now you can't see me either but I'm here. It's an inky black vat of oxytocin and I only need it for a little while until the courage floods back into my veins to dilute everything else and then I'll come out.

I swear I will.

Mavericks and dreamers.

I'm excitedly wandering around telling anyone who will listen that the Montgolfier brothers not only invented the first hot air balloon but they did it using paper from their family's paper company, a company still run by the family today that we know as Canson Paper.

I only knew it was the Montgolfier brothers because of that scene in the Highlander movie. What I didn't realize is that there was a connection to one of my favorite sketchbook manufacturers.

Though, let's be honest. I have just as many Gumbacher, Strathmore, Legion and Moleskin books in my art cupboard because sketchbooks are my kryptonite. I get weak when confronted with a wall of them and I'll always buy four or five at a time.

I will never run out, at this rate.

In the meantime, Ben has finished his project, just slightly over the wire and has surfaced once again with apologies and late-movie-nights and even-later-Ben-and-Bridget nights and even accompanied me on a small grocery shop this morning to stock up on some of the stuff we ran out of too soon. We gassed up the jeep and got all our errands run because it's supposed to pour rain for the rest of the week and I don't want to be out in it, much. I'd rather be home.

The biggest news of the week is that after dinner was devoured and cleared away last night I went down to the storage room, found the bins of Halloween decorations and put them all up. Usually I don't put much effort into it, though we have morphed from very adult violent themes of dismemberment and serial killing, jumpscares and flashing lights everywhere to a softer sort of rustic Samhain vibe of grapevines and silver-painted skulls and soft LED pumpkin lights. It's kind of weird but also doesn't feel nearly as stressful. I feel like I'm outgrowing horror but I also don't feel like I've participated enough in Halloween proper for so many years now it's too early to make a statement like that and feel good about it.

The house looks much nicer though. Or maybe that's just because Ben has been in my sights all morning long.

Dinner dates.

I finally got to the point in life where I attended a beautiful wedding and didn't raise my glass in toasting the happy couple all while thinking 'Gosh, I hope he doesn't jump off a building some day to get away from your happy life you're pretending to have'.

I call it progress, Joel. 

I call it highly morbid. That's disturbing, Bridget. 

It's inevitable. It's just residual bitterness. I wasn't wishing them ill or assuming all marriages implode, it was more of a...protection...spell. 

A protection spell. Now you're a witch?

Sometimes, yes I am. 

This makes more sense than most things, oddly enough. Now tell me about the wedding. 

It was lovely. Very smoothly produced, though in my next life I think I'll be a decorator because the weddings I've done are breathtaking, while the ones I attend outside of the Collective seem a little more out of the box. 

So you're not still struggling with crippling self-doubt at all. 

Oh, I am. Don't get me wrong. But renting stock centerpieces are different. Most decorators are probably too busy to walk a beach for five months collecting a certain shade of driftwood. 

Obsessive. 

Stop labelling me! 

Just trying to get a barometer, here, Bridge-

Then ask for one. Don't take random thoughts from a conversation that's all over the place and try and diagnose me. 

He pauses for a moment in one of those Joel-clarity lightbulb moments that illuminates the entire planet. When Joel pulls a mea culpa you'll absolve him just because he does it so adorably. I'm not sure if it's manipulation or self-protection but it works perfectly. You're so right, Bridget. I'm sorry. I just try to get a feel for how you are when I visit in case you need extra support but you have so much in house and I think you're in good hands right now. 

I do too. 

Then I should probably go. 

You could stay for dinner. 

I'm sure you have a full table, but thank you. 

We always have room for you, Joel. 

I didn't bring anything. 

You brought you. That's enough of a gift. I don't need presents, I need your presence. 

You and your words. 

Yup. Do you want to set the table or get the cranberries underway?

Turkeys.

I alternately want to make another cup of coffee, build a bigger fire and go kayaking, if only to come home and have one of those blisteringly-hot showers you can barely feel because your skin is as cold as marble right until that moment that you stop shivering, wrapped in wool, finally warm. Then someone will bring in some Vietnamese takeout and you can cue up that horror movie (hopefully a good one, we're not going to talk about last night's choice Don't Breathe, which was honestly one of the worst pieces of absolute shit I've ever sat through.) and then go to bed at a still-decent hour, because it's smart to do so.

It's an echo of yesterday almost, though we did go and vote, we did go and see the Joker movie (absolutely fantastic with a side of WTF uncomfortableness) and we did eat our body weights in popcorn, which is always a bad idea but late last night I popped a huge cookie sheet full of hashbrown patties in the oven and distributed them to much appreciativeness, as nothing says I love you like the person who delivers a hot potato into your hands at eleven at night.

I think I'll skip the kayaking, as the rain is coming fast and steadily. It's definitely a typical October, though not for here, and I'm so incredibly grateful not to be living in the Prairies anymore, as I've heard Mother Nature finally shut the power off with her skills.

No thank you.

I'm glad I live here right now, in any case. I'm thankful for a lot of things today, not the least of which being the hole that sucks me in seems to be nowhere to be found right this moment.

Caturday.

It's Saturday of the long weekend and we had our big turkey dinner a week ago due to houseguests (I know! I don't talk about my life at all) and so right now I want to have breakfast and then go find the advance polling station so I can cast my vote and get it over with and then I can feel released in tuning out the endless rhetoric online and in the neighborhood, though some well-meaning or malicious (not sure which) candidate has peppered our gate area twice in the past two weeks with signs and so I called their office each time to come and collect them because well, please. We're so obviously not Conservative, if you know what I mean, but I'm speaking literally, as you probably know by now. I wouldn't dream of talking politics because it's something I figure everyone needs to educate themselves about and avoid the rhetoric as much as possible. Your friends will be skewed, your newspapers heavily skewed and the internet as a whole? Completely misinformed/directed altogether.

So that said, today is a day where I'm skirting around the hole somewhat easily. I just have a lot on my plate.

Lochlan made us coffees at the Keurig (which weird! I have a drawer for it but then I bought these McDonald's coffee pod things that don't have bottoms and come in big foil packets so I can't even put them in the drawers and I guess they can live in the box but they're so good and he laid a big fire because it's freezing this morning and I'm enjoying this comfortable camping sort of foggy quiet morning.

We're finishing up the laundry. We're going to go vote. We're dropping Ruth at a friend's house for the night and then we may see the Joker movie. Lochlan needs to call his mother to fix something on her computer and I really really want my scary movie night (still pending). I was hoping to sleep in but one of the cats (and my body) won't let me, too much and so I'm trying to rest my body when I am awake (exceedingly difficult) and just get over this cold, get over being tired and somehow pull myself out from under the crushing weight of the calendar and everything I have conditioned myself to feel from it based on the dates on a square on the wall.

I'll try harder, I tell Lochlan and he kisses my forehead.

I know, Peanut. You're doing fine.

An audience of none (Operation: Stay Out of The Hole continues).

It's some ungodly early hour and I'm spending it with Ben, who is working hard on a project he wanted to finish by Thanksgiving but honestly when he spoke of his panic I pointed out he could have easily meant American Thanksgiving in which case he has more time.

Tons of time. Months! Isn't the US Thanksgiving right on top of Christmas?

I woke up at five, long before sunrise, still in the studio and flew off the couch. The lights are still on. He still sits in his chair, headphones on, concentrating madly. I wrap myself in a blanket (who needs clothes?) and come over to see what he's doing. I put on headphones that are hanging on a hook but they're hooked in to something different and music plays from a CD. Cream, Sitting on Top of the World. Fair enough. Good song for a twirl and a spin.

Between the blanket dress and the quiet absurdity of dancing to music only I can hear I wind up giving him a sultry, ridiculously hot and extensively x-rated striptease to the song, not stopping until it's done, veering wildly from pure to downright filthy. When I finish he is still looking down, not having seen a thing. I think he's forgotten I slept here last night to be near him. Sam always says not to look to others for approval for your actions, and so I'm giving myself a 10/10 for my performance.

Carve me for Halloween.

I am dozing against Caleb's hard-as-a-rock shoulder. For some reason he isn't as bony as Ben but he's also not nearly as comfortable. It's probably the workouts, as the one thing Caleb refuses to be is the weakest in the bunch. He's a walking Hammacher Schlemmer catalog. Everything has to be The Best or it will never be good enough, and so this quiet morning with a fire crackling and my favourite teal and grey stoneware mugs, long empty is exactly what he wants. At least in this moment he does.

Tell me your thoughts. It's never a friendly curiosity with him. It's always an order.

But I'm ready because there's nothing I like more than to spread my insanity around like a sticky trap within which to catch my men. Or so some people will tell you but honestly I don't get the gossip. Most men don't want 'a handful', they want 'capable'. They want independence. In this day and age being a Knight in Shining Armour is exhausting and they have their own shit to deal with anyway, so put that to bed right there.

I'm wondering what would grow if I were planted right now. 

Pardon?

If I were a seed and you put me in the ground, what would grow? Would it be a tall beautiful flower? Or a little weed? Or maybe an exquisite vegetable like an eggplant or a turnip. 

His shoulders start shaking with laughter and I'm awake now. I have to shift my head because now it hurts to press against his muscles. You're amazing. 

I'm a turnip. 

An amazing turnip. 

Best you ever saw. 

And how.

Overtime.

(Three steps forward, eleven thousand four hundred miles back the way we came.)

You're exactly what I see
Maybe that's exactly what I need
Your heart is working overtime
and your brain is racing out of your mind

the hardest thing about this
is that I can't let you in
You know I need you but I can't see you
without losing everything

It's like a flashlight is being shown in my eyes and I squint, looking away. A throbbing starts in my head, somewhere far back, I can't place it exactly but he squeezes my fingers hard in his hands and says my name. I look back warily. I'm present. Yes, I'm paying attention. If I wasn't I'd be screaming, scrambling backwards, returning to the dark of the cave that is my mind, at once warm and comforting but ice-cold and frightening. He doesn't want to run down there today. He doesn't even want to put a foot in the door.

So he's got it propped open.

Hold the door, I laugh. It's an inside joke, if you know the provenance. I wasn't a Game of Thrones fan overall but that was one singular shining moment, wasn't it?

Three things about the day, Bridge. It's an order. He can do what Joel can't anymore and I love Sam for rolling up his sleeves and standing here in the cold while he tries to call a foolish freedom dog to heel, watching her run the fields in the sun, wholly ignoring him.

The new Wildernessa EP. Espresso. Cole's sweater.

Those are things. I need more. He says it gently. Like I'm trying to remember the answers on a verbal exam and it means my entire future. Okay, so exactly the same thing.

The sun is rising. I am safe and loved. We are okay.

What does 'okay' mean?

Everyone is healthy except for this cold. We're all doing well for the moment. Making plans for the future. We are blessed and have what we need. The pantry is full. The door is secure. The house is warm. The dog sleeps on the big rug in the kitchen. The children smile. We have movie tickets. Music plays all the time. It's really good.

What are your worries?

That my memories will drown all of this.

Can they? Do you give them that power?

I don't-

Bridget.

I try not to-

Bridget-

Okay, let's say I don't. Then what?

Can you drown them with an ocean of gratitude and blessings and maybe even faith that things are getting better?

Well, logically, yes but when did that ever work for me?

And Lochlan starts laughing. That's the best thing about all of this. It doesn't matter how dark it gets, doesn't matter how far down Sam peels my protective layers to get to the dimmest bulb in the garden that is this Collective, Lochlan is right here. Even when he was gone he was always available, never wavered, never put anything above this. Not God, not his own marriage, not anything. It's maybe a faith I have that I put above everything too because we always said we'd be a team and we've burned everything away but this and that's enough for me. I'm not independent and no, I'm not doing this for myself. There is no self. Just us.

I can do that, and I look into Sam's eyes with a determination he doesn't know is from something deliriously unhealthy as I try to please him without even budging. I can trick him by shifting his definitions for my own benefit.

But then he catches me.

Do what, Bridget?

What you said.

What did I say?

I've forgotten-

No, you changed it.

Survival mode? I offer up helpfully while he frowns.

Right. Survival mode. He looks at Lochlan with frustration and decides that's enough. At the door he turns before leaving. She's all yours.

Yeah, I know, Lochlan confirms. He takes my hand, now freezing cold from where Sam let go. You have to work with him, Bridget.

I thought I was.

You're grifting him. It isn't really fair and you don't need to put up a wall right now. Don't play games. It's Sam. He's a gift.

I'm sorry.

Tell him that. And don't start grifting me. Jesus Christ. I created a little monster.

I told you that decades ago.

I'd probably be fine if someone would take away my Sirius XM.

Every time that song comes on I reach out with one finger and turn the radio off.  Sam laughs and points out I've never turned off a fifties-era song before and I raise my eyebrows at him.

That's George Thorogood. 

He covered the Bo Diddley song. My bad. It came out in the fifties. 

Wow. Must have had a whole different sentiment. 

Name some of your loves today. 

Ginger kombucha, tattoo flash, power ballads, TED talks, painting tutorials-

People, Bridget. 

Not George then. Or Bo. 

Go on. 

Lochlan. Ben. You. 

You didn't say Ja-

I reach out and turn the radio back up, all the way. Forever Young by Alphaville is playing now. I wonder if anyone's ever covered it. I don't know if I can get through it. Hits too hard. Like every other eighties ballad I come across, which is why I was listening to this station (80s on 8) in the first place. If Lochlan and I hadn't imploded before I even grew into adulthood that first time around things would have been so incredibly different right now.

I walk down the same path as ever. I never know this fork, that bend. Nothing ever looks familiar though they have shown me the way. They led me down it. They stood at the end and called my name but I never heard them, not even once as I stumbled along, tripping, feeling that cold lurch as my heart, broken and shrivelled, slipped out from between my ribs with their claw marks from the wolves trying to get in and the blown out holes from the light trying to get out. At first I would cry out in alarm and fumble for my heart while they helped. Now I just scramble to collect it and shove it back in painfully before they notice.

This path scares me. It's never daylight. It never leads anywhere. Just when I think it gets to the end, it turns the corner and keeps going. The brambles scratch along my arms and legs, the rocks threaten to dump me on my ass, the mud tries to suck me down.

Lochlan comes charging back, picking up my heart as it rolls to a stop at his feet. He shoves it in his pocket and takes my hand, tucking it against his chest, under his arm and turns to continue on.

Come on, Bridgie. It's not long now.

Leave me here. 

I'll do nothing of the kind, Sweetheart. 

Seriously.

No, I am. I am seriously. Seriously not leaving you here in the dark.

He's drunk. I'm insane. We're perfect for each other.

Deep, deep breaths today. That's all. I keep holding my breath until my head aches and I have to focus really hard not to do that.

Soul reversal.

Jacob was waiting for me when I came down this morning. Just wanted to see if he's in the same place. Just wanted to see if he's aged. Just wanted to know if he remembers me, or knows who I am, or misses me too or regrets any of this at all.

I am. I have. I do. You're Bridget. Of course. I can't answer that. God doesn't allow for regrets because what's done is done and I've made all of my reparations to him and I have been absolved. 

Well..that's bullshit because I haven't absolved you. 

You aren't God. 

Once, you told me I was. 

That was foolish. I've said and done many foolish things and so have you. That's why I'm just a man. We are just human, and there is only one God. 

Right. That lets you off the hook. 

What else do I have, Bridget? 

Solid gold memories. That's what you have. 

That's what you have, you mean. 

Yes. They're priceless and worthless all at once. 

That's a beautiful way to put it. 

No, it's ugly. 

Not coming from you. You can make anything beautiful. 

Flattery won't get you anywhere. 

Where could I go? 

This is true. 

Speaking of which. You should go. 

I just wanted to make sur-

There are no guarantees in life, Princess.

I know that better than anyone, Jacob.

Then go back. 

Wow, you sound like August. 

Well, good. It used to be that he sounded like me.

Deconstruct.

Caleb is there, in close, mouth just about level with my nose as he ducks his head down against mine to talk quietly.

Time this weekend?

I shrug. I'm currently not in charge of my own itinerary, figuring it would be better if I leave Lochlan or Ben to guard the door. If they think I'm up to it, then I will too. If they don't then no harm no foul, no expectations and no hurt feelings.

Ask Loch. 

I was hoping you could come to me. 

I'm sticking close for the next few weeks. 

That isn't necessary. 

It is, actually. I've navigated one successful anniversary out of a dozen. I'm trying to make that a pair. 

Then come and stand behind me. I can protect you far better than they can from your...ghosts.The way he says ghosts gives me pause, makes me crazy, forces me to doubt everything I've ever known.

Not this time. I'll find you before winter. 

I'll be right here. I'll be within reach, Neamhchiontach. 

Not this time, Diabhal. I need to try this and I need your support. 

You have it. They do not.