So apparently as naive as I am, I am worldly too (Part II)

I found a place where the past was forgiven
Where my mistakes met a grace I couldn’t earn
And so I piled up my excuses and defenses in the night
Then I lit a match, stepped back and watched them burn

There was no Jesus in my Sunday this week. Schuyler covering my mouth with his hand seemed to be the theme of the night, as at one point it was covering my nose too and I had my eyes squeezed shut, fingers cutting into my palm through the sheets, other broken hand held tight against my chest, head tucked down against his onslaught, his breath hot and ragged against my skull, his skin warm and hardly marked against my graphic novel of a body. We watched a movie (don't remember), devoured each other and then he took me out for breakfast. Always eggs Benedict and lots of fresh coffee and an amused smile over an-almost awkward (but not quite) breakfast. I spent the night pressed hard into his bed and he's making small talk over bacon. He fought himself so hard for control (Daniel is six-two, a hundred and sixty pounds and strong like a maniac) and maybe he's celebrating the victory. Maybe he regrets every minute. I don't know. 

I had fun though. Not going to lie. And I'm not going to lie that I love the attention. I love having him all to myself. I love the way he looks at me, as if I am such a delicate creature that fascinates him. That's my kryptonite, always. 

Lochlan came back with the first group. Dropped his gear in the driveway, came right to me. He had cell service before they hit the end of the forest road, on foot, and after making sure he hadn't got eaten by a bear on the trip I told him everything. He said we'd talk about it at home. That everything was okay, just sit tight and he would be home in four hours or so and here he is now, pulling me roughly up into his arms, holding me tight, his hand around the back of my head. A kiss and he looks into my eyes and I suddenly feel all the shame rushing in to block the sun but he shakes his head. 

We'll talk about it. It's okay, Peanut. 

I can tell from his voice that he's trying to talk himself into it but I'm also comforted by his lack of removal, his lack of anger. I don't do it to make him angry or to push him away. I do it because not I can't help it but because he told me I could.

I help him bring his stuff in. I can't take my eyes off him. Four days without Lochlan isn't fixed by one night with Schuyler, and I missed him so badly I was easily swayed into total destruction but he needs the strength of the army to soldier on and he needs to know he is not the bad guy or weak for letting me do the things I do.  The other guys build him up, assuage the guilt and keep him moving forward. They remind him of what has been tried and what works and doesn't work and he keeps a perfect balance. I don't need to explain it. They will. 

(To you, I mean. Dear reader you'll never understand the depth of most of this. Half the time I don't either. It's okay though, we're all okay.)

He's about to come back in for another long hug when we see we're not alone. Schuyler's in the door. He looks serious and grim and businesslike. He looks friendly, like the big brother Lochlan always thought he had in Caleb but never did. He crosses the room to welcome Lochlan back with a long embrace and he says it was him or Jake and he's not going to let Jake touch me if he can help it. That I'm safe. That Schuyler won't pass up some excitement but also isn't going to try and muscle in on what we have so he's not a threat. That he definitely prefers men because they are a lot stronger and he felt like he was holding a wounded bird the entire time.

You were. Lochlan gestures to my cast. But then he changes the subject and I leave as all the air is being sucked out of the room. I'm more than a lot annoyed that Schuyler's turning the whole thing into a sacrifice that he made for the greater good, as if he was put out by it or did it only as a favour when in reality at least I had the courage to explain myself without excuses. Makes me wonder if he lies to me or to Lochlan. Maybe I should ask but he's already vanished and Lochlan looks a million times more at peace with the whole discussion so I leave it. I'll kick it under the rug and the next time Schuyler comes over I'll trip him with it before pointing out that if given a choice I would pick Schuy over New Jake any day and if Schuy told me to stay put I fucking would so this whole excuse is bullshit.

It's ironic that the most dramatic boy on the point is also the least dramatic.

So as worldly as I am, apparently I am naive too (an obvious part I).

The way it was told to me was the Schuyler ended up being too tired and didn't go on the camping trip. The way it was told to them was that he was too busy with work, having gotten muscled in on finishing a project and wanting to consider the favour paid, so to speak. 

In reality, he knew New Jake would be around and no one else would be and that couldn't happen. 

Even Lochlan isn't worried. Lochlan can be disapproving later. Lochlan can frown all he likes and eventually he'll get over it. These are not the same as Schuy's concerns. Schuy doesn't trust Jake. Doesn't want to get to know him, doesn't believe a word he says when it comes to me and wouldn't leave us alone for a million dollars. 

This is almost exactly the same way Schuyler feels about Sam at any given moment but Sam is open and honest and so if something goes sideways Sam would probably tell us. Jake would sneak away. 

To that end, Schuyler snuck up on me while I was sitting on the patio steps shelling peas. A big bowl in my lap, basket to my left and mini compost drum to my right. He bent down behind me and covered my mouth with one hand, kissed the back of my head with the other and then said it's okay and let go, coming around to face me. 

He signed It's okay and you're safe as he said it but I didn't really believe him because he should have just called out as he walked. I tell him this. 

I did. Three separate times. You look lost in thought and I didn't want to startle you and have you scream and then-

New Jake would come see what was up. 

You know me well. 

Don't think I do, after that. 

He then deployed his practiced lie and it was transparent and sticky and when I pointed that out he just changed the subject, saying since he was home and I was home and we had time we should spend it together. Just for fun. Movie sleepover. Pajamas and popcorn.

He made a half-assed sign again for safe as he reminded me he was the safest choice here. I'm glad he is practicing, but I think he's wrong. I've been asking them all to start learning ASL with one eye toward the future, pointing out that forty years into this Collective would not be the time to struggle with communication. Someone said that was forty years from now and I reminded them we are mostly already close to that number, if not past it. A sobering realization on both counts and all that effort got me was a mountain of sympathy I don't want or need. 

And yet someone of the boys are exceedingly sensitive and heartbroken over my defects. A lack of hearing is some cause to unapologetically baby me, I guess and Schuyler somehow turned out to be most affected and has therefore put in the most effort. 

Compounding his efforts and the irony that this isn't safe is my open, unabashed and absolutely lethal crush on him. And so he is wrong, and I'm not safe with him. 

What time? I ask. 

Six? We'll have an early start. Before you fall asleep. 

If I fall asleep then there's no one to fight with you about what to watch. So that's a good thing. 

You are right. But six is good. 

Okay. 

Pajamas, don't forget. He signs it too.

I smile. This is great. 

He thinks I mean the movie night plans. Yeah, well, may as well take advantage while we can, right? 

Oh. Right. See you at six.

The psychology of men.

One of the most fascinating points of living in a commune with so many strong souls is that several times a year the boys have all-male events that don't include me. Sometimes it's as simple as a bonfire that runs late into the night, no girls allowed. Sometimes it's an event like paintball or a going to watch a soccer or hockey game. Sometimes they build things like arbours or dig garden beds. It's mostly net-level bonding and it's encouraged all the way around. It's good for them and I get some alone time too which is good for me. Though they are taking Asher this time so maybe that's a lot of alone time and it's a little surprising to me that this would be perfectly acceptable for three nights when last night life was all but child-proofed. 

Since Burning Man is another no-go this year they opted for mountain backcountry camping, and left yesterday mid-afternoon. So instead of worrying about food that's laced or errant people being bad they only have to worry about getting lost or meeting grizzlies. 

Sounds like a fun trade-off. I think I would take Burning Man and its drugs over meeting a giant hungry bear in the middle of nowhere. 

That's why you're not invited. Ben kisses the top of my head. Because you would just get cranky at the bear and make things worse. We will become one with the bear and invite him in for a drink. 

Oh, like in Midsommar?

No, definitely not like in Midsommar. 

I laugh anyway. (Do you feel held by him? Still the greatest question ever posed on celluloid.)

Ruth and Henry are both home and Batman, New Jake and John are also around but I have plans to make a lot of smoothies and read in the hammock and not lift a finger until Monday when they come back. Besides, Henry and I went and had our second vaccines yesterday and I feel a lot under the weather today anyway. By the time they come back, grunting and beating their chests I will be recovered mostly and I'll be able to redomesticate the lot. 

(Kidding! Jesus. I'm the feral one. Remember?)

An attempt was made at safety.

You couldn't save me but you can't let me go
I can crave you but you don't need to know

Did I take it too far?
Now I know what you are
You hit me so hard
I saw stars
Think I took it too far
When I sold you my heart
How'd it get so dark?
I saw stars
Stars 

I woke up breathless in the dark this morning. Mostly same as every day this past week except this time it was Lochlan and Ben's arms around me that kept me in a human cage and I was overheated, claustrophobic and unable to breathe but only once I realized where I was and what was happening. It was calculated and unconscious. It was planned and spontaneous. They both somehow decided to hold me all night so I wouldn't leave. I had no plans to leave. They had no cause for concern. It's not as if I sneak out at night or break the rules all the time and yet I grew up sleeping in a tiny trailer on a single cot with Lochlan who, if he wasn't holding me would have at least one hand wrapped around my elbow, knee or thigh. Subconscious childproofing? Subliminal (or maybe just liminal) fears? 

Either way I am touched. I am floored, actually at the sweetness of it. Maybe moreso from Ben because he is following late learned behaviour. Lochlan can parent from a coma, I think. Either way once I could breathe, once I could sit up and once I realized how little room I take up in our big bed and how close they can sleep together I cried because they try so hard and I'm a jerk to be running off testing tethers and teething on Batman and hesitating far too long on the way home in case New Jake was around to talk to. 

To talk to, I said and I mean that.

And when I got to my own house, the door swung open silently and I looked up to see Ben holding it open over my head and Lochlan doing his half-relief, half-glower face that I adore so much and I did a spin so he would see I was fine and I pointed out I was early and then I reminded him of the amount that allowed me to sleep at night for so many years straight and he just nodded and changed the subject to wondering when fairs were going to come back 'for real' and not just as distanced, low-attendance facsimiles of their former gloried selves. 

And I am so glad to be home suddenly and for that reason alone they didn't need to worry but sometimes I forget to say the right things out loud and so how would they even know?

Pluto energy (back when Pluto was a player and not relegated to the farm team).

The night slides over me, a languid ink that colors my pupils in full dark and serves to highlight the gold and silver on my head and on my fingers. It leaves me gracefully as the sun rises low in the sky to my left, to the East, thankfully, as I don't have to look at him to my right, watching me from the bed, openly staring from where there's no dark left to hide behind. 

Maybe I should have left in that cover, hours ago, but instead I slept easily in good sheets and climate control, in the arms of a man who wasn't going to hurt me so that he could feel good and all I can think at this age of twenty is how I can leave Cole so I can have this. This man doesn't hate me. He is lonely and he wants someone to take care of and somehow in sponsoring Cole's photography equipment and trips he has become my quiet saviour. He puts money in my personal account every month whether I see him or not without fail.

Come back. I'll take you home later. We'll have some breakfast and then you'll be home before you're missed, Batman says with a smile. Really lonely. Probably more than I originally thought.

I turn to look at him. Where's your wife?

London. 

Oh. 

Bridget. We're not together. We just haven't bothered getting divorced yet. You know this.

Every man says that. Did you know? 

He chuckles. This isn't a fling, Bridget. You're important to me. 

I swallow a lump. I wonder if he knows every man says that to me too. I turn, letting the full sun hit my naked skin. If there's one place I have power, it's right here. Can we have eggs benedict? I change the subject. And champagne? 

We can have whatever your heart desires.

(Can you save me from the brothers Grimm?) And fruit! Kiwis maybe. I never get those. 

I'll make a call and have it sent. 

From where?

A restaurant that can do that this early. 

Restaurants deliver breakfast?

No, my assistant will deliver it. Jasper. Remember?

Yes. But I had forgotten. I met him once and I wasn't sure exactly who he was but he brought papers in to be signed and we were half-drunk already and headed out dancing and Jasper seemed annoyed. I assumed he was a colleague or a coworker. That means he can't be annoyed by me, as he serves Batman. That means now I have to see him again.

You forgot. 

It wasn't a proper introduction so I was a bit iffy on who he was. 

My apologies. But he's my conscience. 

Is he now. 

That's a challenge to my statement. Why? I get that Batman is both patient and looking for an equal that I can never be. I'm young and despite my years in unsavoury yet worldly environments I'll never be jaded nor sophisticated enough to spar with him verbally but I'm going to give it my best shot nonetheless.

Is he your confidant though? 

No. But maybe he sees things and wonders. 

Wonders what?

If you're old enough to be here. Who you belong to. 

Oh. 

What should I tell him?

Lochlan's face flashes through my mind like a reflection on water that suddenly forms a wake. Tell him it's none of his business. You're his boss. I say suddenly, annoyed. I've already decided that if Jasper is going to judge me, or Batman, for that matter, then I will judge them right back. When you can bring the world to its knees in such a weirdly powerful way at such a tender age you end up with nothing but false bravado and misplaced ego, and I suddenly have so much of both I can't hold it up anymore and I collapse on the bed beside him. He leans up on one elbow and kisses me. 

You are right and I would be wise to remember that. It's hard when I'm here in this city. I don't know anyone except for you and Cole. 

You should meet Cole's brother. 

Is he an artist as well?

No. He's a rich lawyer (and he's going to want to kill you (and me) when I tell him about you).

Maybe I know him already then. 

He lives in Toronto. 

What's his name? 

Name me the lawyers you know and I'll tell you if you're right. 

You don't trust me. He is amused suddenly. I would think this is a respite from Cole and from his brother. If you don't trust me, are you telling me you trust them? Bridget, you've had twelve years to believe them when they show you who you are and maybe I want to exist as a respite to all that?

Who told you this?

I can find things out easily enough and I don't think your army is functioning the way you hoped it would. 

My brain explodes and I don't say any more. It's been twelve years? It's been half that since Lochlan bailed on me due to pressure from Caleb and ten years since Caleb started touching me and I didn't think anyone knew about it and I don't know how Batman knows about it or if he knew before and he's trying to save me or found out recently and is just trying to save me after the fact. Maybe he just wants a piece of the action. Maybe he's pretending to be a good guy in a bad world and maybe this is just a test from Caleb, just like everything else and I've already failed and he probably is going to kill me. 

Actually, save breakfast for another time. I should go. Cole's going to be worried about me. 

If he was worried about you he never would have let you come to me. 

There's my confirmation. I can trust Batman. He doesn't know Cole (or Caleb) after all or he would know they really get off on this. 

I watch Batman sleep thirty years later. Long-divorced. Jasper is long gone too. The head games are gone, and Batman doesn't even try to pretend he isn't lonely but he also won't make any moves ever again to change that. He and New Jake watch movies together and cook elaborate meals a few nights a week and every few months (or years) I show up and he's marginally less lonely but somehow serves as a huge memory cache for me now as I can put every interaction we have ever had down as a puzzle piece and the big picture is suddenly so clear. He's not an agent of Caleb, an outlier or a whim. He's my true guardian angel and I didn't know it until now.

Drive-by Millionaires.

What are you doing, Neamhchiontach? Caleb kisses the top of my head. The boys are putting all the camping gear back into place in the garage. We did inventory this morning. We are officially out of space, both for storage for all of the out of season clothes, snowboards, sleeping bags, car parts and hair products the boys keep on hand plus boys themselves, as there is no longer any switching up as Dalton and Gage no longer travel and with Asher becoming permanent (did I tell you? We're keeping him) there is not even a spare bed here. Next door there is, as only five of them live at Schuyler's and at Batman's house there is only two so he has loads of space. 

There is no space here. 

(Also Caleb doesn't camp. Hahahahaha.)

I found a place. Seven bedrooms and thirteen bathrooms. It isn't finished yet and so maybe they could throw in three or four more bedrooms. Probably an extra level on top. I don't know. Figure it out. 

Do you want to move?

Sometimes, when I feel overwhelmed. 

Where would we go?

Home. 

That isn't home anymore. Besides, you're the one who always reminds us home is where we're all together. 

Yes but when I'm homesick I feel differently. 

I feel like the pain is talking for you, today.

Maybe. It hurts a lot. 

It isn't feeling better?

Nope. 

Hmmm. Did you want me to try and get better pills for you? Another kiss on the head but he pauses, lips on my hair. Waiting for my response which comes in the form of a shrug. 

Maybe just enough so I don't want to run. 

Bridget, we have the means to do whatever your heart desires. 

I know. I choke it out. A whisper. I'm so ridiculously aware of his means, and his ability to keep score that I'll just hold tight. 

He sits down next to me, lounging in the chair so gracefully, considering my face as if he's never seen it before. I believe we could add on? A second level for the stables for a guest suite? That would buy you the room you'd like. Or maybe we could expand off the guest wing here. 

I don't want to build to the property line. Maybe the stables would work. 

Well, we can't build vertically so our options are limited. That or you could have Asher live at Batman's. 

He did, remember? It wasn't really working. 

Batman has a lot of space. 

I nod. I could lean on him to house boys in a pinch but he's militant about his privacy. 

There is also more space above the garage we could convert so that there is a second self-contained loft. 

I nod. But it's more work. More construction. More noise and upheaval. 

How about this? When you decide what you'd like to do, come and tell me and I will make it happen.

I nod again dutifully.  

The sky is the limit, he reminds me. 

One final nod from me to show I get it and he stands up, checks his watch and is gone with a final kiss to my cheek. Going for a massage. Do you want to join me? 

I shake my head. I won't let strangers touch me. He always says I am missing out. I always point out that I'm not.

My inspiration for picking up my violin just went to heaven and I don't know what to do.

https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/robby-steinhardt-violinist-vocalist-kansas-dies-71-n1274433

I am so sad.

(Falling on) Deaf ears.

I was dead on my feet and Lochlan pulled me down into his lap with enough force that I couldn't pull away, arranging my legs so they were on the sides of his, then putting his legs up so I was pinned there. He made short work of my sundress and what little else I had on (a bracelet, a necklace that he fussed with for a moment before leaving) and then he was whispering a mile a minute, pushing inside me, pulling me down hard onto him before lifting me up slightly, a rhythm that seemed to match the waves for its slow molasses-crawl. I couldn't hear him, I couldn't focus, it was abrupt and fierce and overly-warm and I just wrapped my arms around his shoulders and rested my head against his ear as he did all of the work and reaped all of the benefits too. 

I can't hear you- I tried to tell him but he didn't seem to notice. 

Can we slow back down- I implored but again, no one's paying attention. 

He finally took me by the arms and pushed me down on my back, coming with me, face to face. Attention paid, at long last. 

You're not listening, I told him. Borderline angry now, not really interested in finding out the litany of words he left in the night. Does it matter if a Lochlan speaks in the forest and no one is there to hear him? Is he talking to me, to himself or to God? If he's talking to me, why wouldn't he wait for a response? If he's not, why is he doing it out loud? 

It's not important, Peanut. He resumes a tough pace and I have to fight to keep up again. His hands are vise grips, his heart is iron and his teeth are steel-numb, gritted closed and pressed against my temple as he pulls us into a whirlwind finish, both of us gasping for breath, both of us overheated and red-faced, both of us now annoyed with the other. 

What was it?

A magic spell to keep you safe from the devil. 

Will it work? 

I think so. 

Why didn't you do it before, then?

I do it every fucking day, Bridge.

Little things.

 

Caleb handed me a large heavy bag last evening and inside was this beautiful ink haul. The Lady Rose in Gold limited edition ink along with a Cotton Candy in Blue and a Frivolous Lime and even some fun Glow in the dark ink that he thought I might enjoy (I do! Summer of secret notes begins now!) and then for good measure a dip pen for drawing or writing that I have been eyeing for a while and the coup de grace was a Ferris Wheel fountain pen, which you can't not have if you're buying FW Press ink in that sort of volume. 

Did I miss anything? Did you need paper? 

No. I have lots. 

(Do I have paper. I should show you my sketchbook cupboard. It is full and stacked to the top with unused, new sketchbooks. It's my favourite thing in the world. It's mostly Canson and Legion papers. I have a small problem with collecting sketchbooks and then saving them but I'm getting better. I am technically cut off from buying any more.)

Thank you, Diabhal. I didn't think anyone had any locally, and I didn't want to pay thirty dollars to have a single bottle shipped-

You ask for nothing, Neamhchiontach. 

I ask for the moon and the stars-

No, you don't, actually. I enjoy treating you. 

I smile at him and he smiles back, kisses my forehead and leaves me to play with my new beautiful things. I even let Asher try the dip pen, as I couldn't use it right anyway with my cast.

You'd call it a microscope, I'd call it showtime.

Sam had to put out an email to stop people from stopping by with food/fruit/flowers/wishes for us as per news of my hand being twice as broken as a week ago and while I was truly enjoying the irony of having distanced conversations with people who have never talked to me (and wouldn't) before but are so starved for socialization and contact that they're reaching out all around, he's right. There's a quarter-century+ of adults here on the point at any given time. One going down is not going to mean they all starve. 

But we know you do the lion's share, they wink at me, nameless.

No, actually he does his own share and then some, because I think they mean Lochlan and then I wonder how they learned that nickname. Lion. No one calls him that very often though..

They draw back, confused and dawned that I am probably medicated, and possibly dangerous. They've heard tell of the pretty woman in the floral sundresses, surrounded by an army as if she is the queen. 

Close, I nod. Not a queen though, just a princess. 

They've heard she was raised by wolves. 

Yes, but I've almost domesticated them, I point out. We're close now. They can wear clothes and sit in a room with humans and you might not even notice the difference. I bare my teeth in a smile and they run for their lives, flinging well-wishes and hollow offers over their shoulders, words drowning in their wake. 

Sam smiles in amusement.

Cover your teeth, you're scaring the locals. 

The gall of not understanding that a commune can cook meals en masse-

They aren't here to help. The cost of a closer look was a pasta casserole. 

I'm aware. 

But you let them in anyway. 

It's an appearance, Sam. Like your suit. So they would think we are fine and they would leave us alone. Life is just an act. I get to play the tortured princess. 

The smile leaves his face. Shut up and eat your flowers.

Cake weekend.

 Fifteen years ago Jacob refused to conduct the funeral service for Cole because it was Henry's fifth birthday and Jake decided that was more important to him, that he be with the children who were old enough to know what was happening and he wanted to one hundred percent dedicate his time to them and he called a friend in the church and the funeral went on. I don't know if anyone realized. I don't know if it mattered. But Jacob's decision meant the world to me because I couldn't get out of the emotional quicksand and the guilt of feeling like I was the one who killed Cole. I couldn't be a good mother in that moment, to tell everyone it wasn't the right day, that it was Henry's birthday and we weren't going to do it that day. 

I never did, and I never got rid of the guilt either and Cole would still be here if I hadn't broken his heart but if I hadn't done it the way I did I would have done it when he found out that Henry wasn't his after all. And he wasn't Caleb's son either. He was Jake's. 

And boy is it obvious now. Over six feet, lanky, blonde and bearded. He has my eyes and temperament and Jacob's easy moral compass. He has a crazy work ethic and time for everyone and everything at once. He lives in button-downs with the sleeves rolled up and he loves cake and hamburgers and animals. We have a big dinner planned for tonight. All hands are on deck. We managed to decorate before he woke up this morning and he was impressed at the LED balloons and efforts and the fact that it's a somewhat rainy Friday and we're finally cooling off. Usually his birthday is conducted during a hot spell with a melting-icing cake and all the doors wide open. Tonight we'll probably have to wear snowpants at the table but that's the way he likes it. If ever there was a rainy-day child born in the full sun it's Henry and I am so proud of him I have already burst ten times today and put myself back together. 

He won't let me call him Bunny anymore, or Henny, it's Henry or Henry Jacob, (please mom) but sometimes I catch myself and he never actually minds.

Notice I did all this without mentioning his father.

This morning I am coveting the Lady Rose in Gold Ferris Wheel Press ink and wishing that season two of Outer Banks wasn't still two weeks away. I am baking Henry's birthday cake for tomorrow (he's turning twenty!) and trying to be chill about it. He is heading out with friends for the day and while he's gone we'll decorate. We have his gifts, and his favourite colour for decorations and I made his favourite cake (hasn't changed since he was three) and am making his favourite dinner (which also has not wavered in at least six thousand years give or take) and it will be fun. I can't believe it. Still can't and never will believe my luck at how the children turned out in spite of everyone who told me they would be ruined. They THRIVED in this commune. They feel safe and protected and loved and nurtured here and that's all that mattered. 

They also have a great story to tell now. How many do? Raised in a commune? Jesus. It's a gift. 

(Might be better than being raised in a wolf den, but I turned out okay, right?)

For hand updates I have a pink cast now which exactly matches the colour of that ink. It is water resistant so I can swim, supposedly. I will be wearing it for the rest of the summer. Nice! They found two more hairline cracks way down in the metacarps (the long bones in the back of your hand, not your actual fingers) and don't know how they were missed (I do! Canadian health care is free but rushed and you have to advocate for yourself so fucking hard) and I got anaesthetic and a fresh reset and a lot of jokes with the doctor and Caleb glowering in the hall because space was limited but now I am restarting my healing and to make matters worse I tripped again this morning because I think my Birkenstocks are too big and that's hilarious and I guess I will wear my Nikes/docs/All-Stars instead because it will probably be safer. 

In any case, casts are great fun. It's fun to have a big hard pink gauntlet on. (No it isn't, I'm trying to be positive) They're calling it a cub paw and reminding me not to swat at them, that it hurts. I already asked Lochlan if he can take it off but he asked if I want pain or no pain and I said no pain and he said well, then we have to leave it. 

I am exceedingly happy that I don't need plates, that it isn't infected or open or mangled or anything awful and I am thrilled that I was right and something got missed and now it's healing and it wasn't in my head. So don't think I'm going to complain for the next six weeks, I'm not. I promise. At least it's supposed to be cool for the next two, at least. That helps. 

Jon Foreman you did it this time, kind of like every time but this is on a whole new level of incredible and I gave it extra time to make sure.

There's an ocean beyond the sea
That holds elixir for all who grieve
Only the shipwrecked could ever find it
By the ocean beyond the sea

In the forest beyond the trees
There sings a songbird who's been released
And the fowler could never find her
By the ocean beyond the sea

There's a valley above the sky
Above the reaches of human kind
And their towers could never find it
By the ocean beyond the sea

Beyond the scarecrows
Beyond the temples
Beyond the meadows
I heard a whisper
As soft as iron
As safe as lions
By the ocean beyond the sea

There's a highway beyond the road
Beyond where power is bought and sold
And the rich man could never find it
By the ocean beyond the sea

Beyond the tyrant
Beyond the sirens
Beyond the silence
I heard a whisper
As soft as thunder
As cold as fire
By the ocean beyond the sea 

This is the most beautiful song in the world. Haunting, dangerous, sweeping and still. Obscured, darkened and bright at the same time. It's a quiet moment and a rollicking adventure all at the same time. It's my all-time new favourite and odds are I'll never be able to play it again while I sing. I go see about my hand this morning, now. Wish me luck. I have a violin with glowing strings, a piano with aching keys, a gang of crazy boys I need to touch and a swing somewhere in a big tent full of people, under a spotlight depending on this working out in my favour or I don't know what I'm going to do.

Careful, Princess.

Oops, I found myself a daylight-vampire, in the form of a big Schuyler in pajama shorts and a t-shirt that just reads DADDY but only upside down which to me is hot and hilarious at the same time. Daniel is drifting in and out of a late-morning shady-cool sleep but Schuyler is awake and on fire and ready to listen, ready to shut me up and ready to throw me back to the other wolves but only after he's done. My hand throbs and other things too but he is just gentle enough for me to trust that he isn't going to touch it or hit it accidentally and that's all I need to know.

He was singing Silent Lucidity under his breath. That was so Schuy and also so strange.

At one point I believe I may have fallen asleep but was jolted awake easily enough. He finally calls time on the day and I am sent back across the lawn with a bemused smile on my face and an exhausted, effortful gait. Razor burn stings in the sun and the Devil watches me from the window at the top of the stairs, framed like a photograph of projected shame and ire. I don't care. I am tired. Schuyler is one of the true shining alphas of this Collective and he's also confusing as hell but no one, including me would ever turn him down. It's just not something we do here and I don't think that will change, ire or not. 

Maybe Caleb turned him down and has regrets. I would have paid to watch. Maybe he wants to watch. I don't know. I don't care, as I said. I need sleep.

(Update: Caleb wants me to delete this. So does Lochlan, oddly.)

Summer vampires.

Fingers are a lot worse today or maybe it's just that part where you turn the corner and admit things aren't going well and when fixes are planned you can finally give in and fall the fuck apart. Or maybe they're worse than yesterday. I don't know. All I know is the mercury dipped so fast last night it was fifteen degrees before I could sleep and Lochlan lit some lanterns and wrapped me in a Benjamin and I have had no sleep at all. 

My dream is for someone, anyone to have an appetite in daylight.

Jesus Beach returns.

A full house today, as Sam sent out instructions on showing up for outdoor church and he wore a blue suit and a bolo tie and his favourite sneakers and a baseball hat. He looked like an adorable alien and he was nervous and a little rusty as his usual audience is twenty and at any given moment only half of us are paying attention. He did require masks and when one elderly, fully-vaccinated gentleman balked loudly, Sam went and got him a chair and put him and his bare face a good thirty-five feet away and gave him a disposable mask to hold in case he felt like putting it on and joining the group. A quick explanation that not everyone is fully vaccinated yet and we all need to protect them, and he pointed to me.

Gee, thanks. I'm anxiously awaiting my second needle and I wish they would hurry up. 

Also, my hand is throbbing and so I didn't make it to the end of service and I wasn't keen on all the people anyway, or the bright sun and so I looked at Lochlan at one point and he put out his elbow for me to take and we waved goodbye to Sam who waved without breaking his cadence and we came home. Lochlan made coffee, shook out a few painkillers for me and asked if it was worse. 

Yes. 

Huh. I figured I'd have to work harder to get you to admit it. 

No, it hurts worse. Like every time I breathe it aches but worse. 

Okay, I'm going to call the doctor. 

Okay. 

Really? Not going to be the tough girl?

It's been a long year. I don't want to deal with any more. 

Says the girl who planted tomatoes with a swollen face from wasp stings the day before. Share the load, Peanut. You have enough to worry about. You need rest. You've been going at a million miles an hour your whole life. 

Is this about yester-

Maybe it is. 

I'm sorry. 

You don't need to be sorry. His tone is changing and I want to change the subject. Just let me help you not be in pain. Let's get you back to the doctor and see what's up and go from there. Then we'll talk about delegating. 

Okay. 

That's my girl. 

Everyone says that. 

But for them it's only wishful thinking.

True. 

Love you, Peanut. 

Love you Locket.

Naked memory thieves for the lord, naked advocates for the devil. Naked princesses, naturally. Is there any other kind?

It isn't a good memory, your brain is just constantly searching for sugar with which to coat everything. It's a coping response. Makes you think he's not that bad, that there are good things too. It's completely natural but it's also a step back, something you shouldn't be entertaining. 

He holds our hands up to the light, fingers laced together. The sun went down an hour ago but twilight persists in the form of fairy lights around the skylights in their room. It's just enough to accentuate the lighter night sky of summer without obfuscating it completely. Too bad Caleb isn't into these lights. They absolutely work and it never would have crossed my mind to put them up there. Not even sure how they got them up there, truth be told. Matt probably just stood on a chair. He's tall. 

I sleep with a clear conscience, my memory thief spending the night sitting on the floor, files like vinyl records spread around him and he plays them and then categorizes them in the sparkling new cabinets that Lochlan built after Sam burned the whole thing down years ago. 

This is for new, good ones, he told Sam. And Sam nodded and said it was maybe a good idea but we'll keep the fires burning for the old ones that I keep finding everywhere, tucked back on shelves in old forbidden rooms in this giant old castle inside my brain. It's centuries old. It's a Winchester house. I keep adding rooms and walling old ones off. I don't have a map anymore and there's no electricity and the part that Lochlan built tacked itself on to the end and from the outside you can't even tell. 

What if I want to keep it out anyway? You're subjective on this-

Bridget, I'm not.

Oh, but you are. 

What do I have to lose?

This. 

This is a dream. A fugue state. A Christmas wish I can imagine until the ends of time but it never happens. 

I'm here right now.  

You don't belong to us. 

Pretend I do. 

But you don't. 

What if you did? Matt entertains me. Matt will do whatever I say sometimes. He is the best. What would that look like? He asks Sam in all curiosity. 

She would be spoiled and cuddled around the clock. She would never worry. She would never be cold or be without someone to hold, or someone to hold her. She would have her spirituality nourished, her spirit raised and her fears drowned in the sea. 

Matt nods toward Sam but I see the holes. These are like bullet holes in a black-walled room, letting in all of the light. 

You don't think I have that?

There's a history that functions almost like an unwelcome visitor in the room with what you have now. 

But I would still be me, with my history being my shadow if I were here, I remind him. 

That's why you're not here, he says so gently and gives me one last kiss. The spell is broken, the night is over and the boys will throw on clothes and walk me home where I step into the day with more questions than answers, as always. 

My favourite part of all of this is how instead of Matt being jealous, he just joins in, and plays Devil's advocate the whole damn time. He's smart, that one.

Trust games.

Did I take it too far? (Did I take it too far?)
Now I know what you are (Are)
You hit me so hard (So hard)
I saw stars (I saw stars)
Think I took it too far (Too far)
When I sold you my heart (My heart)
How'd it get so dark? (So dark)
I saw stars (I saw stars)
Stars (Stars) 

One of my most treasured childhood memories is of standing on Caleb's Chuck Taylor All-Stars (black, of course, every other boy in the neighbourhood had white or pale blue ones. My brand new ones are baby-pink, in case you're wondering and I wear them with dresses), my feet on his, at the very end of the dock by the lake, holding one of his hands, and twirling around off the end of the dock, an endless arabesque, though at the time I pointed out with great joy that I was practising my camel spin for figure skating in winter. He would pay attention without seeming to, switch hands, catching me, spinning me back out over the water, a distracted dance to entertain an eight-year-old out past her bedtime, while the older teenagers hung out and talked. I could extend my free arm out dramatically and I always felt as if I could fly, out over the water and back safely toward land. That tiny dancer unaware of a future coming down the tracks like a freight train and she couldn't hear it at all, she couldn't feel it and she never saw it, in the end, a ballerina popping up only when you open the box but when you close it again she starts screaming.

I still do that dance sometimes, but now the dock juts out over the ocean, and Caleb doesn't wear All-Stars anymore. If he's down there he's got his brown leather boat shoes and I am always in bare feet, leaving my shoes by the steps. I twirl out with one hand and realize that I can't switch on the way back but he is prepared for that, with his other arm out to bring me in as I habitually let go. I keep my broken hand close to me and still I persist in old morning habits dying hard. The water is cool and dark grey today, reflecting the sky full of clouds and ash. We're on the moon, we're over it all. We're not built for the sun.

I let go but Caleb himself has never let go, even as every other boy has taken the opportunity to see me fall in the water for laughs after a semi-awkward twirl or two because he was always the tallest. He never lets me go. He says that should mean something. I don't know if it does. Maybe it should? Or maybe it's just a memory and I can close the lid on it and throw it far out into the sea. Or maybe I can keep twirling on his feet, a connected but disconnected novelty, kept in a box far out of sight until it's all you can see for miles and miles.

Filling holes in my life with cherry pits.

I'm baking some tarts from the cherries we picked in the orchard. A couple of the trees produce dozens of pounds of fruit and so I spend most of the summers harvesting and preserving as much as I can because fresh tastes better than canned, even if it's in a jar from six months ago, and free is better than overpriced, always. Plus it's a strange sort of cap-feather to display, as I always thought there was some sort of summer magic involved in watching my grandmother tie back her hair in a kerchief, tie her apron around her waist and light up her wood-fired stove to cycle through endless hot water bathed jars full of spiced carrots, pickles, applesauce, jam, tomatoes and anything else that she could keep. 

And so now I do it too, though PJ and Ben are actually doing the heavy lifting while I direct and stir with one hand and supervise and plan. I'll never have enough jars or enough space. I worry that all of this work will be destroyed in the next heat dome, and therefore I've frozen a lot of the prepared fruit for later in the year, just in case. We kept enough out to snack on for this week and next and the tarts have been requested after the pies went so quickly and none of the growing vegetables will be ready for another month and a half and so this is the plan, to enjoy everything we can, until it's gone.

There are nine men absolutely hovering right now. It's great. Also my fingers finally stopped hurting, and I haven't been to the beach in a week.

Fighting Destiny alright.

(And No! Commas! Where! There! Should! Be! Commas!)

I have three beach towels wrapped around me. I am the hemp-fleece burrito today, and the pool is a glorious twenty-seven degrees but I'm not touching it because I'm suddenly ridiculously freezing cold and I love it. I am sitting with my phone contemplating throwing it into the deep end because someone sent me the first book in the Fae Chronicles series in .pdf form and...

Look. I expressed interest because everyone is talking about these fucking books and I love to start books and never finish them and really I belong in a small group of ultra elite readers anyway because I think the last book I finished and still remember is the House of Leaves which is just insanity and wonderful from start to upside-down finish and why the hell not have that feather in my cap. I am well-read. This is an utter shame though, a deviation, an...an...abomination. 

Why? 

The characters have... "tattoo's"

The main character is "Mag's" 

I want to cry. 

But THEN. 

It turns from a cheeseball snappy-ass campy Underworld thing into straight up endless, languishing porn. 

Which-

Well? I don't even know. I won't be finishing it. Next time someone suggests a book with that many inappropriate apostrophes I'm going to burn a friendship bridge. And the porn isn't even that bad.

What are you up to, Neamhchiontach?

Considering resuming novel-writing. Also plotting a Monte Cristo since in a week and a half we'll probably be on lockdown again.

Oh? Why is that? 

No one's wearing masks any more. 

No, the resuming of the long-dead career. 

Writers today are terrible and completely free-range, unedited, and fanfic-quality. This book is all bad grammar and porn. It's horrifying. 

That's what I liked about your works. 

The fanfic quality? 

No, the snappy editing and absolute flawlessness. 

Oh, he's buttering me up. That's meeeeee.

He laughs. Want to swim? 

Too cold. 

It's a change isn't it? 

Yup. 

We could act out some of your book and see if you heat up at all?

Oh my God, will you play the Dark Prince? He owns everyone, it seems. With his dick.

I mean, I can, if I can find you under all of these towels. 

Touch my towels and I murder you with my ice-fingers. 

Sounds like it should it be a line in that book.

I think it is, actually.

It's the only lie he'll let me tell him and he never ever calls me on it.

His arm is tight around my waist, keeping me in close against his chest, my back pressed so hard against his ribs I expect at any moment to pushed inside his ribs and absorbed into his heart. 

What makes you think I haven't already done that? He says with a soft laugh. A shiver runs down my spine and I try to turn around to address him properly but he won't allow it. He reaches with his other hand, taking my wine glass, putting it down and then that hand slides down, from my heart to my ribs, over my stomach to rest on my hips. He pulls me in hard and it's my turn to laugh gently. 

This could be easier if you would let me turn, Dóiteán.

For my efforts, that free hand goes to my mouth. No more words will be said. It's rare to be so quiet. His head comes down next to mine, pressing hard, helping to steer me around and then I am dropped on my face into the quilts. Then he flops down beside me, facing me, grin across his face in the sunset light that is probably the most wonderful view, eclipsing the ocean by the leaps and bounds my heart now makes, loping around the room, picking up speed. Bridget zoomies. 

And he laughs out loud. I just had a vision of what you would be like as a puppy. Jumping up all excited and running around the room. I smile to myself because he's had too much wine and can't zero in on my thoughts. He is wild and affectionate and just a little bit too rough and I'm not going to give this up for anything. 

He leans forward and kisses me. Peanut. I have an idea. 

Hmmm? I'm pretty sure I know exactly what his idea is going to be.

Let's...Why don't we run away and join the carnival? Or the circus. Something. He starts to laugh out loud, and keeps laughing until tears start to run down his face. Let's just go. 

Soon. Soon we can go back. 

It's been too long of a break. I might be too weird even for them now. And you are definitely too weird for it now. 

I turn on my back and think about that. What if we did go back? What if we picked up where we left off. Not like it's full years away. We could come and go. Except that I'm not willing to go until the kids are grown and independent and part of the deal is that we settled down to give them a normal life and everyone was on board with that and we will continue to chart this course until we get to that point in time. And things have changed. The world has changed. I have changed.

Won't be too much longer, I lie, looking over at him but he is already asleep.

Inbreath outside, redux.

(UndertoneovercastInbreathoutsidegoingonalimbTearingoffthebandageUncoverfearlessnessWhen lightningstrikesIt'smetinthemiddleThere'sabone-bentriddleBemetwithariddlebefoundInbreathoutside-)

There's actually something weirdly liberating about taking my coffee way down to the far corners of the garden in the morning when it's cool, before the sun beats down on our heads, a scorching drum heralding the dog days of summer, as it feels like since the heatwave. I feel free and dangerous, adult and accomplished. I feel like I can manage walking and drinking a coffee at long last, something I've wanted to master ever since I saw Sophie walking around with the hugest Starbucks cup in hand, wearing her high boots and a perfectly-wrapped scarf around her shoulders, sunglasses perched on perfect hair because she doesn't need actual reading glasses ever and wow, it's also weird to see perfect people but honestly she's never been happy in her life and I wouldn't trade places with her for anything. 

Then I spill it. 

Ah. Lochlan laughs. Well, at least you get further every day. Maybe practice more when your hand is healed. I heard the tiny pause where he was going to say wing. They've all done it, multiple times.

He turns to move the wheelbarrow from where it was left last evening and I stop in my tracks, a practised habit as I see a hummingbird nearby. The hummingbird goes straight to the tool shed, a fairy-house if ever there was one, ten feet tall with a cedar shake roof and sides and a mirror on the door. The bird considers itself for so long my breath catches. Has it never seen its own beauty? Has it never realized how such complex beings as humans will stop from their minor, pointless travails, considering the bird the miracle in this equation?

Does it not know?

Lochlan straightens slowly, shaking his head as he sees the bird, and reads my thoughts. So loud inside my head they leak out everywhere, between my eyelashes, between my teeth, slowly dripping out of my ears, flooding his thoughts via my sudden tears. 

It doesn't, Peanut. It's a lot like you. Same heartbeat, same absolute oblivion.

Not so hot so time to work before it gets hot again. (I know you love these short pointless posts. Sorry.)

I got to stand around today in another pretty sundress, with my face obscured by a huge cup of coffee half the time and the other half I was directing garden cleanup. Weeding, reminding the boys what each plant is called, hilling the potatoes, strengthening the supports on the blooming tomatoes, tying up tall plants and bushy plants, harvesting herbs and cut flowers and putting in a path of stones where I have worn a path in the earth, walking through. 

We also raked up dried leaves from the heatwave and gave everything a thorough watering. The chickadees came to visit in the orchard, and so did the hummingbirds and bees and no, I don't have PTSD from the yellowjackets but I also didn't stray off the path. 

Lochlan absolutely loves working in the sun. He is already tanned and golden and said I need to enlist them more often instead of trying to look after most of it myself. Otherwise how would PJ know precisely when phlox blooms, or Dalton know when to stop harvesting oregano in order to let it bolt for the bees? 

After gardening I switched from coffee back to champagne. Busted fingers hurt like the dickens and no way am I taking vicodin anymore. I think I'm done with seeing unicorns on the lawn.

Trying out Batman's speech to text program and then just adding in my McCarthyistic editing. Tedious!

Coffee, bills paid, hummingbird feeders cleaned and refilled with my own very popular mix of one part white sugar to four parts water, sugar stirred into boiled water to dissolve, then cooled. I had to shake the feeders with vinegar and salt to clean out the insides as the extreme heatwave ruined the previous mix. While I was taking them down a ruby-throat came right up to within ten inches of my face. He thought I was a big flower. I'm wearing a green swing dress with cotton crocheted lace trim on the ruffles and the ties on my shoulders are too loose so I need to change before I have a wardrobe malfunction but it is easier to wear this than anything complicated. One-handedness is tough even though it's my left. Still healing a bad burn on my right. 

Ha. 

I'm not actually doing any of this though. Lochlan shook the feeders. Ben dressed me. Asher made the coffee and copied down numbers as I read them out. Caleb came down and picked a pre-coffee fight with Asher, blaming him for my stumble, as Lochlan's been adamant for the past hundred years that I don't go up the steps alone. Or down for that matter. I'm easily distracted and horribly farsighted. I don't hear you when you tell me to slow down or be careful. I saw a sea lion and was looking over my shoulder and for that Caleb feels Asher should be given a first strike. 

Don't be ridiculous, I point out. It could have happened to anyone. Besides, my Birkenstocks are a tiny bit too big but I grab them first since they're easy to kick off at the bottom and I can step into them on the way back up. 

He's supposed to protect you. 

FROM THE STAIRS?

Bridget, watch your tone-

You mind your own business! I fucking tripped. It was my own fault. Stop trying to find a villain in every moment so that you don't have to be one! 

With that Lochlan snorts coffee everywhere. 

Caleb gazes at him in amusement and then turns back to me. It shouldn't have happened, that's all. 

I say that a lot too. I feel you. 

He does not laugh. At least three of the others are now cracking up. PJ leaves the room. Lochlan has abandoned the idea of drinking coffee. Asher, to his credit, figures out how to turn his own amusement into an open grin. I see now what you mean when you say you have to be right there, next to her. It won't happen again. 

Ooh, he knows how to work the devil. Maybe he can teach me. 

Caleb seems pleased that his orders are being implemented at once. Thank you, Ash. He says it softly. I just hate seeing her in pain. 

I bet that's how they named it. 

Named what?

Champagne. It's actually Champ-Pain and it's a reward for hurting yourself. Also a mild painkiller. 

Are you saying you would like some champagne, Neamhchiontach?

Well, sure, if someone else will join me. 

It's eight in the morning. 

What does that have to do with anything?

Just laugh with me or I'll cry.

Don't mind me. I tripped coming up the steps and landed on my hands and face and broke two fingers and have a lovely road rash on my face from the anti-slip treads that held me up in the first place.

So I can't type. Or I can but it takes forever. Sorry.

Goddammit. Fun summer so far. How about you?

Cooking wine.

The casualties of the heat wave were the A/C working overtime, jacking up the power bill which will be very bad at the end of August but the alternative here was death. The condenser fan on the fridge fell off the spindle and made a godawful racket against the cooling coils and Ben fixed it, and then checked it the next day and it was fine. The wine bottles up above the kitchen cupboards on the big in-use/next up rack where I stupidly also kept the heirloom/luxury bottles all cooked and leaked past their corks, but there were only six bottles up there so it's okay. I got another job offer of ten hours a week to help organize a friend and I might take it save for this heat. And I discovered that after supper? Getting mildly drunk and watching snow-based horror movies is a great way to pass the time while waiting for the temperatures to go back to normal. The house is so warm even with the air running and I honestly have webbed and wrinkled fingers and probably chlorine poisoning by now so I have to not live in the pool. It's honestly too hot to breathe outside most of the time anyway. Even the ocean is cool but the air is so fucking hot if I can't breathe I can't swim so there you go. 

Everyone in this province is wilting like a weeks-old bouquet. Just in time for them to lift the indoor mask mandate in public. 

I'm going to cry.

The boys had their second vaccines. The kids and I will get ours in the third quarter of July. It's coming. Not sure I will ever feel comfortable again in big crowds or without a mask but I guess we'll see. 

In the meantime, I'm watching those old strange horror movies so you don't have to. First up was Arctic. It was on Netflix. I went in blind, thinking it was horror. It was survival-adventure. It was very compelling though. I rooted for the bear. And then the fish. And then the bear again. And then everyone. I felt like more could have been done to illustrate the mental taxation short of the series of strangely bad decisions taking place. It was highly satisfying with zero lead up or backstory provided. Best kind of movie. 

Now I'm watching Frozen. Not the Let It Go one, but the 2010 chairlift one. I am not finished it yet but lets just say the strangely bad decisions continue. 

Any suggestions? Googling winter horror movies is kind of a crapshoot. 

Also you really learn what makes people tick during a sustained heatwave from which there is no escape. I am learning I am positively a helpless asshole with two (count 'em-TWO) very productive hours beginning at six in the morning. Right now I am sitting between two exterior doors that are wide open and a cool breeze touches me every so often and it's so nice. The laundry is done. I emptied garbage cans and sorted the recycling out in the garage. I walked the dog up to the mailbox. I figured out dinner (will be sliced turkey breast sandwiches on rye bread and salad or raw vegetables) and I wrote here. That's enough. 

(Update: Frozen was godawful. The only person I wanted to die lived and the wolves were fucking awesome and scary though. Very uhhh gross and short on plot.)

Monday blues are the water in the pool.

Lochlan's warnings always ring true. I get too tired. Strung out. Touched out and spooled up. I get turned around, distracted and then I fall in a hole and since I insist on being surrounded by people who maybe aren't as attuned to my penchant for danger and destructiveness as they maybe should be, the hole just gets a little deeper and the longer I remain in it the crazier I get. 

In a nutshell. That is Ben's description anyway. He was the one who pulled me out, sounded the alarm and then got Lochlan who was busy with a bike, as usual and thought Caleb was paying attention. 

Caleb was paying attention but not in the right way and thought I was threatening him when I was simply trying to point out what my brain was telling me. He was changing the subject as fast as I could get the words out. He once again failed to take my massive sudden decline seriously. 

And that is not his fault. It's mine. Because I am accountable for my own behaviour and I don't put that on anyone if I can help it. 

Joel disagrees and wonders about all of the factors that cause this behaviour in the first place. He was always able to describe how it happens to Lochlan who watches for it but Lochlan isn't a machine and can't be there twenty-four hours wide awake and it shouldn't be all on him anyway, and they designed it so it isn't but shit happens and like everything maintenance and repairs are required to keep this human running properly or she simply doesn't. 

(Also the paranoia is a symptom of a greater mess and the boys are not plotting nor have they schemed. If anything they all stepped aside and let Jake in at the time in a way I didn't think they would. They did not conspire to make him leave nor is he back except within the confines of my broken stupid mind.)

In any case. I am floating on a floatie with a mister-hose for the rest of the day because it's hot and I can't swim because I have no strength after fighting my way through the weekend. Lochlan isn't leaving my side. I love that. He elbows the ghosts out of the way and then for good measure, Joel. 

Ha.

Xanax doesn't work anymore, can we maybe have something else?

But you were Support-Jesus. You sold out like the rest of them. You were ready to leave Jacob and anxious to strike out on your own and do what he taught you so it was an easy choice. 

Bridget-

I can't talk about it now, Sam. I'm tired. 

The meds? 

No, Loch lets those wear off. I'm busy trying to figure out if the only reason Ben is staying home is because of me, or if he wants to go back out. 

(Because right in the thick of this Ben got the invitation of his dreams to do a fall European run and it would only be four long miserable months and he said no without hesitation but then he told Dalton about it, and Dalton spilled the beans and now not only have they ruined my life but I have ruined theirs. 

I wasn't going to go anyway, Bee. 

Sure you are. It's a wonderful opportunity, Benjamin-

It's the same old shit and I don't go out on the road anymore. I would rather be here. I'd rather not put my hard work in jeopardy-

To babysit me some more. 

To stay sober. And I'm not babysitting. Oh, and not sure if you noticed but Jacob isn't real and he isn't here. 

Right, okay. 

Why would he stay away so long?

Caleb pays for permanence. 

Then why would Jacob show up? Also what's different now from before?

Because he changed his mind and now I believe he's real. I guess I'm tired of everyone telling me I'm crazy. Getting tired of Caleb choreographing my show. Getting tired of money talking while hearts take second place. 

Bumbleebee, you need sleep. We've gone through all of this. 

I stopped believing all of you and no one likes that. I know it. It was easier when I bought the story you all wrote for me instead of the truth. I get that. It always is. 

Where's Lochlan?

He can't save me. Though the narrative is absolutely beautiful-

Where is he? Ben is shouting now and I shrug. The dreamland of what they made is pretty much the same as the one I can dream up around them. My suspicions, sorry, my revelations are no more left-field or crazier sounding than what they've constructed here. What's the difference?

What is the difference? If you're right and he left you and took the money then it's not a fairy tale is it? It's a horror movie either way. 

Ben slams out the back door and is gone. 

See? He wants to be on the road. Even with the risks, it's probably easier than this. 

Sam shakes his head. Why would we do that to you, Bridget? After Cole, especially. With two small kids, all the logistics-

Because you could. Money can do anything. And because the army was never going to let someone new come in and take me away. Not in this lifetime.

Lochlan's in the doorway. Ben says you're lighting bridges on fire. Fire is my department so I'm here to put them out. He holds out a big glass of iced tea and another pill, because the fairy tale wore off too fucking fast. I think you should write this out. It's so creative. 

I am, I yell at him while I take the pill. Every. Damned. Day!

Out in the gazebo for hours this morning, wind whipping the curtains around me like funeral shrouds, sun rising unsteadily behind the clouds, cool salt air softening every rough edge it can reach. I waited and waited. They brought me coffee after coffee and would hang on the fringe until I asked them to leave, please, can't I lose my mind in peace? And then after Ben spending an inordinate amount of time standing in the center of the yard, precisely halfway between the stone wall that signals the end of the patio and then a five foot drop to the next level where the gazebo ends the formal backyard and it turns into a field, watching me sob into my coffee cup and try and hide it so casually from him even, Lochlan finally came out. 

Every visit with him ends like this. 

Not this bad. 

You don't see it from my perspective. 

His perspective is always right. Always has the answer. Always fixes everything. So I ask him and he ignores the question, instead holding out a big squared off white pill and I dutifully take it to end my own misery and then he hands me a half-glass of whiskey to wash it down. Lochlan is nothing if not fierce and decided. I wish I could be. I wish I could tell them to stop this charade. I wish they would understand that it's killing me. I wish they could see that I was a grown adult and could make my own decisions and I wish they knew that I hate them for this. That I know what they did. That they're going to pay when the time comes and it will be ugly and fresh. That things will change and the only one who will come out ahead is me. 

I wish I could sleep but I can't. I wish I could turn my brain off but it isn't working. It should have worked. Which charade belongs to who? What was the pill then? How come most of the time he's not following the script? Why haven't they noticed that? 

And where does Jake go when he isn't here?

To the death.

My eyes are burning. I stand again at the window, this time looking out over the sea. Jacob isn't on this side much anymore. I can see the fence and the telescope and the roof of the boat shed and most of the expanse of Daniel and Schuyler's backyard and my vegetable garden if I lean over and peer close left. 

God, the view. 

Oops, that part was said out loud and it wasn't by me. I turn with my coffee, elbows in tight to cover myself, underwear on but I wanted that coffee and didn't bother with anything else yet and then he took his back to bed and I said no. I can't drink coffee in bed. I'm neither coordinated enough nor large enough not to roll directly into the heaviest object on a bed, which is never me. 

The Devil wants a mirror day, wanted a full-moon night, wanted to lie in bed with his coffee and watch me look outside, well and content in knowing the ghost is not looking back but most likely knows where I am.

There's no Lochlan either, as while Lochlan can finally sleep if there is someone safe with us, as he can stop having one eye open to worry for me, he doesn't sleep much with the Devil around. 

I do, but it isn't a quality sleep, he'll say with a sad wink.

I knit my brows at Caleb briefly for the pun of a compliment and turn back toward the ocean. Jacob is sitting by the telescope now, joke's on Caleb. He waves with an irritated frown and I turn away for good. 

That's my girl. Come back to bed. 

I shake my head. 

Your annoyed expression is adorable but unwarranted. It's a warning, kindly deployed as an arrow with the tip dipped in wax.

I can't drink coffee lying down-

Not what I meant. 

My blood runs cool through my limbs. 

Do elaborate, then. I am still annoyed but definitely trying to match my blood and his tone. 

If I compliment you what do you do? 

Thank you for your generous observation. 

Good girl. Now tell me what's wrong?

I shake my head. 

Refusal is not an option. 

Wow, you're really going for monster-mode today aren't you? I yell it into his face suddenly, frustrated at the sudden fear and his turn back from tender to frightening. I hate these shifts. I hate his need to match every fucking moment, like he might not get his share, like I might fall in love with someone else and leave him in the cold. Well, boy, do I have news for him. 

Bridget, what's wrong?

It's amazing to me that the only person you couldn't charm around was Jacob. 

He wasn't strong enough, I guess. 

But he was, that's the thing. 

If he was he would still be here. Don't you think? He takes a sip of his coffee and looks smugly at me. 

He is here. He's outside. 

Caleb pales and checks his expression just long enough for me to see both. 

You need rest. Seeing ghosts all the time. Come back. We'll set an alarm and we can just doze for an hour or so more and then I'll send you back. 

Ghosts don't age. 

Sure they do. His tone is jovial and appropriately respectful. His voice is scared. Don't tell me I'm reading this into it. I'll make him crack first. That much I promise you.

Kingdom of sorrow, kingdom of gold.

Pet peeves of the highest magnitude when the lyrics on Ayla Nereo's website for Tightrope Walker are wrong. Could someone fix it please? No, I don't care if the song came out five years ago, it's difficult enough without having to remember that some of it's wrong. Nevermind. I will do it myself this weekend, if I remember. But it will be here instead so hopefully people won't end up like me, running to the folks with their full hearing to see if it's the website or if it's me.

I played it for August on my headphones and he was impressed. He swings lazily in the bed, cup of coffee in one hand, sheet just barely making him decent (kill me) and I am rocking on my feet, coffee cup in hand, birthday suit on since I can't find my swimsuit that he took off me sometime yesterday. I am gazing out the window at the back side of the property, over the tiny orchard with the swing down toward the tiny vineyard. A tiny princess surveying her tiny kingdom. Jacob stands in the middle of the vineyard in the sun, staring up unmoving at the window where I stand. 

A giant ghost of a prince.

It's been four thousand, nine hundred and eighty-nine days since he's seen me naked. Unless he's looking when I'm not paying attention and lord knows his best friend always paid attention and then his dues and supposedly that lost pink bikini is August's kryptonite but that's okay because August is MY kryptonite and I don't even need to hide it anymore, we've truly settled in to a beautiful routine where we meet up for a talk and don't ever end up saying a single word. 

The best kind of therapy, if you ask me and as a bonus I can lean heavily on a friend Jacob didn't want me anywhere near because August had a habit of stealing all the girls. The problem was he didn't want to keep them but that's okay because I belong to Lochlan again. He sleeps hard on the other side of the hanging bed, not waking up quite yet. The loft is cool and dark, here on the west side of the property, in the shadow of the big house. In the late evenings it warms up but he has two huge ceiling fans that move a mountain of air. 

Jacob puts a hand up to block the glare of the east-risen sun. It's Solstice today. The longest day followed by the shortest night last night, and I hope he suffers as he thinks of me having spent it here.

In breath outside.

Tightrope Walker is now stuck in my head. Completely and yet infuriatingly because I don't know the words. It came on over the speaker on the patio last night and Lochlan got the slow dance he was denied the other night when Ben took me into his arms instead and then distractions came along and we didn't get the chance. 

He's got a glass of wine in one hand and me in his arm, tucked close, my nose parked against his lower lip, our eyes closed. My blood is watered and lit. It's forty degrees if it's a minute and every other soul on this point is in the pool. Smartly so. Lochlan comes to life when it's warm. The heat just fires him up like the sun that he is and we need to shield our eyes. 

And I forgot how warm I am, sweat trickling down the back of my neck, eyes wild, hands sticky, brain mush, heart swollen and bursting in the circle of light his attention throws on me. 

I reach up with one hand to pause the moment and he takes my hand before I can. 

Don't do that. It needn't be one moment you have to try and stay in. It should be every moment. 

I nod and my bangs stick to my forehead. He smiles and plants a kiss against them. Then he puts his wine glass down, taking mine too (haven't needed it in a while) and he puts his hands up around my head and a kiss bursts us into flame. 

(Out breath inside)

He pulls back to stare at me for a second, focusing suddenly. He bends down for another kiss, just to be sure and then he has my hand and we're running through the fields. Back through the years, minutes rewinding, thorns scratching our legs and arms, sun setting, flowers closing as we go. We make it back to the camper and he locks the door behind us, back against it, a laugh on his mouth before he charges three steps into me, crashing us both onto the little cot, crushing me beneath him, pulling our clothes off, music swelling in my brain but it's not Tightrope Walker anymore because it's not the right time and I am pulled back up naked into his arms, keeping him inside me, unwilling to ever let go. He is breathing heavy against my hair, my arms struggle and slip to hold on. He puts us back down and slows to a languid crawl. Crickets fill my ears as darkness fills the windows and the world shrinks down to the size of a camper and that's all we'll ever need. 

When I cry out he puts his hand over my mouth, his head against mine. 

Shhhhh, Peanut. 

And he begins to slow even further, slipping away before coming back harder than ever, gritting his teeth, keeping out the stars as he follows me through, checking himself not to squeeze me too tightly, not to crush me in his release before he lets go but doesn't, keeping my fingers laced in his as he lies on his back, pulling me in close. Our skin sticks together in the summer night heat and I am asleep as he begins to say something.

No idea what it is.

In the morning I remember. 

I love you too, Locket. 

The sun has made the camper the size of a room now and there's a resident Ben and we want for nothing and you have to defeat all of seven separate locks to get to me now.

Told you everything would be okay. I keep every promise I can, Peanut.

Windsweep set-down 
shadowside lightaway 
fool-eyed leader of the 
tightrope walker

Never enough words but I like to try.

Happy Father's Day.

To Lochlan who fought for and took custody of both children and more than made up for the years when we didn't know Ruth was even his. He's had nothing but love for them and has been the voice of freedom when I have hesitated and wanted to lock the kids safely away. He continues to give advice and teach them life lessons and he is there at every hour of every day for them no matter what and always will be. He is  the best father. Present, affectionate, patient, loving. Generous to a fault. Never on his phone or too busy or away. If they need him he drops whatever he is doing, no questions asked. He taught them magic and wonder and fire safety too, along the way and they are forthright and pragmatic and honest, just like him.

To PJ, who has been the constant since Jacob stopped being there. Who stepped in and managed wake ups and breakfast and packing school backpacks and doing crazy hair day and pajama day. Who drove them to sports practice and band. Who made sure they did their homework and walked them to school after lunch. Who questioned school dances on weeknights and taught them to always throw the second punch if it came down to it. Who gave the kids a Flintstone vitamin every second day for twelve years straight just in case they didn't get five servings of vegetables in a day. Who made a rocket from a toothpaste tube one morning at seven for physics class when Ruth forgot. Who baked for baked sales and was honestly a better mother than I could have ever hoped to be. He gave us routine and a safety net when what we had was ripped away and he never asked for anything in return. 

To Benjamin, who has spent every minute he was home with the kids from birth. Who was always the first to rock a baby to sleep or sing a lullaby to slowly wake them up. Who never ever failed to swing them from both hands as they walked, spending countless hours strolling down the sidewalk looking at houses and dogs and birds with them. Who was the beneficiary of just about every piece of art they ever made at school and he still has them. Who was always the first to show up with an elaborate plan for the afternoon and follow through right until bedtime. Who learned to be less loud and more tender via them and who stepped in and looked after us, along with PJ when things went wrong and who stepped out again when Lochlan came back for us without question. 

To Caleb, who was the first to find out Henry was Jacob's and made the sweeping decision to just cover everything. All of it. Life. Fatherhood. Who lied to make it easier for me and said Henry was his, in order to let me let him do this. He spent every weekend watching kid movies and making pizzas and being there, and helping to teach Henry (and Ruth because they were and still are inseperable) about manners, money and the world at large. He taught them a hard work ethic and good business practices and he backs up Lochlan's discipline without issue to show a strong united front. Even if it isn't fair. 

To Daniel and Schuyler, who taught the children tolerance and love and the value of family. To Christian who brought the fun and adventure and the idea that kids sometimes should learn the hard way. To Batman who brought the mystery and made sure everyone else was on their toes and then some and then sent money every single month just in case. 

To Duncan and Dalton, who always say Go ask your mother but then let them anyway.

To Samuel, who stepped in and gave them spirituality  and faith when I couldn't find it anymore.

To Jacob. Who gets to miss it all and never knew until it was too late.

To my own father, who's absence and lack of interest spurred a wolfpack who took over and raised me instead, who came around at the absolute end in his advancing age with regret. It touches me and we can finally talk, albeit long distance. 

And to Cole. The first of the pack to become a Dad who died without knowing he actually wasn't but that's probably a good thing. He softened and changed when the kids came along. I had already checked out on him but he was a good father. Thank you for that singular virtue. 

We are blessed with strong men with hardcore values and incredible fortitude who make each other better men by virtue of how we live and I am forever grateful. Today we celebrate them like we do every single day already and there aren't enough words to explain how thankful I am that they belong to us.

He's the spectre, I'm the wraith.

Intrusive thoughts-

No, they're not. I know where they're coming from-

Bridget, please. As in Bridget, please stop interrupting me for once so I can get this looked after and go back to my crises of self.

Hallucinations-

No, they're not. He's actually out there. I can SHOW him to you if you-

BRIDGE. 

Ignoring the elephant girl gets you a trip to the edge of the circus fence. 

This isn't a circus-

Like hell it's not. 

But Caleb is back to doing damage control, Asher is back in charge of my every move, what I wear, where I am when I fall asleep and what I eat and Lochlan as always is being blamed for not sounding the alarm fast enough even though I've been ringing the bell for three days now. I'll tell you every way short of sky-writing and Lochlan chooses that exact moment to only find the good, to only have optimism for the future-nay, the moment. 

God, I love him so for that. 

It's fine. He's fine. He doesn't cause any problems out there. (I mean Jacob, not Loch.)

What is he doing, exactly? 

Waiting. For me. 

Well, what does he do while he waits? (I've been waiting for them to acknowledge him as a person all this time. My heart sings as it spiderwebs into cracks.)

Reads his bible. Talks to God. Walks the rows. Helps things grow. Tries to be as helpful and inconspicuous as possible. He's patient. He doesn't want for much.

What does he do when you come out and see him?

Talks to me. 

About? 

Things to watch out for. He can see things we can't. People's true nature. The future. The present. The past. All of it. He sees our weaknesses and our problems from an objective viewpoint.

The idea of Jake being objective when it comes to you-

He has patience even for me now. 

What if..what if you asked him to leave.

He won't go. 

Did he say this? 

No, it's just the way it is. My brain wants him to go but my heart won't let him. And the heart is always more powerful than the mind. It just keeps him here.

What if you weren't here? Would he leave?

No, he would wait. I told you. 

Maybe we should go talk to him. 

Maybe you need to not enable her and this bullsh-

Cale. Shh. Bridget, what do you think we should do?

At least acknowledge that he's here. Ignoring someone is rude. 

Asher looks pale. I think I'm over my head here, guys. Maybe you all are too-

Just keep doing what you're doing. She's fine. We just keep a close eye.

Shouldn't this be transferred to professionals at this point?

Tried that. Tried everything. This is where we are now. Keeping her happy and making sure she doesn't become disoriented or distressed. 

Wow, you talk so cold. Like I'm not even here. 

Bridget, please. 

I guess we've come full circle today. I don't have much else for you today. Jacob is still a little shy about Asher. Asher, to his credit, is scared shitless.

Nevermind. Found a good song to practice and the way I sing it apparently everyone will be crushed by lunchtime.

 

Ricochet pinecone 
riverside elderberry 
underwater rushing 
tightrope walker 

Whistlestop coming 
soon I gotta go, gotta 
tiptoe mudslide 
tightrope walker 

Timid as a raindrop 
bold as the iceberg 
broken as the thorn of the 
blackberry crushing 

Goose-down comfort 
blackbear hideaway 
going out for winter 
tightrope walker 

Undertone overcast 
in breath outside, going on a limb 
and tearing of the bandage 
uncover fearlessness 
when lightning 
strikes it meets 
in the middle, as a 
bone-bent riddle be met with a 
riddle be found 
inbreath outside… 

Ricochet pinecone 
cavernwide honeyberry 
waterbent keeper 
tightrope walker 

Elderwise timestone 
rise a gaze east-side 
telling to the cradle 
tightrope walker 

Told as a footprint 
burned as a brightening 
sudden as the rush of the rib-bent whistler 

Windsweep set-down 
shadowside lightaway 
fool-eyed leader of the 
tightrope walker… 

Ricochet pinecone 
riverside elderberry 
underwater rushing 

Underbelly overcast 
going on a limb and 
tearing of the bandage 
(tightrope walker) 

(when lightning strikes) 
outbreath inside 
(when lightning strikes) 
inbreath outside 

outbreath inside 
inbreath outside

Everything you dreamed that it would be.

A good day to sit down before coffee and bang out This is Your Life and whoever thought it would be a good idea to put a smaller Sauter (upright) piano in the great room and ignore the Petrof grand in the parlour needs to have their head examined unless they actually enjoy me wailing through the end of this song, a particularly poignant song at that, as those are the only ones I sing. 

(Kidding, this was literally the greatest thing to ever happen to me and I've done nothing but play constantly.)

Duncan says he's just happy I moved on from Jar Of Hearts, and that it was a long winter because of it. The song started to weave it's way through my smooth holey brain and I had to instantly start figuring out chords for 24 instead, as 24 is the next song in my sappy morning-warmup playlist. 

PS The very newest Switchfoot song is really really good. I liked every single thing about it save for one line. The one that goes You've got your light and I've got my wings. 

And you only want to see the shit that starts to wind it's way through my shrivelled up little tear-soaked brain at that line, let me tell you. 

Makes me want to shine brighter, just to show Jake how bad he fucked up. How hard he tried to ruin me and how close he actually came and how in spite of the irreversible damage I am still here and I demand to be loved, even with the scars and he can look at them. They can all look at them and they can keep their regrets and they can suck it up and do what they should have done from the beginning and they can still fix it but I will never trust a soul or a song or a key every again.

You don't answer for any of this

 Ben and I had a waltz through the great room this morning to I Need You (to be wrong) which is the most unlikely but perfect slow dance, a smoldering banger of a song swelling into a summer-Beach Boys masterpiece by the end. Second song tonight. Album August twentieth. I am excited. Only three or four bands ever get me spooled up waiting for albums and Switchfoot is the Most Important of those. 

Also again, they stole an album title from me. Probably because over the years I have managed to use every word there is and in multiple languages besides so I am doing a correlation=causation moment here, give it to me, please.

Besides. Hello Hurricane. Their album came out a year and a half or a little less AFTER my post of the same name. 

In other rock star news, there's a beautiful house out in the valley (*link now removed. I figured out who it belonged to. I don't know him but he has a family and so I took the link down) and I'm trying to figure out who owns it based on the belongings and music equipment in the photos. Kind of fun, if you ask me. 

Horribly invasive*, Ben says. 

Excuse me, they put the photos on the internet. Invasive how again?

The internet is an invasion, Ben says. And he isn't kidding. 

If Ben were not so metal, he would be Amish too. Like me. Not as a derogatory label but as something we aspire to be. I broke my sewing machine this week and have resolved to double-down on hand sewing, as I was meant to do because I like it more anyway. 

You can control your tension, Lochlan snorts. 

EXACTLY, FOLKS. 

In other news. Jacob is still in the orchard. Ha. Jesus saves everyone BUT me here, folks. I haven't recalled Asher from Batman's in spite of a million requests a day and now a deadline to bring him back over to work before someone else does, Fidget and I fell asleep at a stoplight yesterday and lost my driving privileges for the summer, as something has triggered my (diagnosed, don't worry) narcolepsy and now I have zero trouble falling asleep. I am the army recruit now, having graduated boot camp with that treasured ability. I sit down in a lawn chair and fall asleep. I close my eyes and fall asleep. Feel the sun on my face as I close my eyes? Nope, I'm in dreamland. Fuck you. 

The doctor (called hastily who came and checked me because he was concerned it might be a blood pressure thing but then stuck around for a quick cup of tea and got to see me in action, don't you know as I knocked off holding a teacup full of hot liquid no less and Lochlan seemed far more alarmed by that then by someone waking me up with horns blaring at a light on the highway up the mountain) said it's probably related to all of the recent stress (HA) or possible the vaccine (GREAT) so yes, I will recall Asher because now I need a driver. It's fine. I'd rather control the music than the wheels any old day. Summers are for sticking your hand out the window and riding the wind, not defensive maneuvers in shitty North Van traffic.

That lion slept for two days hence and we should have robbed him blind. Instead we robbed him sighted and that's good enough for me.

You would have done it too, but for the payout. I know Lochlan is fond of stockpiling money, as he is technically retired but also not in the least and never stops hustling, and this is probably his most-least favourite side-income generator. 

I am a piece of meat dangled in front of a hungry lion. A means to an end. A thorn in each of their sides, cleaved in half in order to inflict as much damage as possible. A poultice, a panacea designed to cure quickly and without leaving scars, though at this point our delicate skin is thickened with them and the fire (and the brimstone too) no longer affect us in the same way it once did. There is no shock left. No surprise. No remorse. No promises and no vows to never do it again.

And there is magic, in such an easy event. An audience of one. A spectator who nods along as the rules are carefully relayed at the outset, agreeing to follow each and every single one, as the punishment is the end of the evening. One who holds out right until the bitter final moment, breaking every rule at once and by then we are too spent, too overstimulated and too gratified to level any sort of castigation for his efforts. Instead we take the money and run into the dark headlong and foolishly, where we finally stop just off the road and by the light of the moon and a single flame Lochlan checks me first, making sure I'm all there still, making sure I'm real, and then he counts the money, making sure it's all there, making sure it's real.

We have not, in all these years, learned the difference between the price of something and the cost of something. I fear we never will.

Wastrels, minstrels and the objects of their affection.

I am tired. Maybe here's part one?

***

God. My favourite thing in the world is when the Devil gets drunk and gets tender. It's better than Christmas and Burning Man and a good line of cocaine all rolled into one hot stumbling machine of a man and it's so rare these days. Not sure what to make of it. Especially on a rainy Monday evening in June. 

Lochlan and I are playing in the pool. The rain is pouring down on the roof. It's loud but we have music on and are swimming away from and then back toward each other. He takes me into his arms and treads water easily, and I wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, weightless in the deep end.  I always end up clinging to him in the pool if he is there. The deep end is extra-deep, the bottom of the pool is dark blue and it feels bottomless and scary without him to hold on to. He uses one hand to tread and keeps one arm around me tightly and is moved to pull me in hard against him for a long chlorine-soaked kiss. 

One hand slides off the arm of the chaise nearest us. The Devil is paying attention, his eyes flashing caustics from the surface of the pool. He straightens up, puts his glass down on the table next to him and leans forward, elbows on knees, fist in palm. 

Do you both even realize how beautiful you are together? 

I nod and kiss the tip of Lochlan's nose. We are fire.

You are! Between the striking colouring and the tension, I can't even take..my eyes from you. 

So watch, then. Lochlan still hasn't looked at Caleb.

I'd like to, with your permission. 

There's the cost of admission-

Name a price and I'll cover it.

Can't buy this kind of love, Diabhal. Lochlan says with a laugh. Thought you learned that lesson.

I'm only asking for a night of..inclusion.

You can't afford it.

I can offer a generous sum. Don't be a fool, Locket.

Oh, I'm not. Maybe a joker but never a fool. Not anymore. He pulls me up, hands locked around my shoulders and drowns me in a kiss that sends us both under the surface. 

When we come back up for air, Caleb is gone but there's a post-it on his chair. Lochlan pushes me up the ladder and I grab our towels while he bends to get the post-it. He reads it and shakes his head to get the water out of his hair. It springs up into crazy long curls and his mouth curls up on one side. 

Well, at least he knows the value of a private show. He shows me the paper. 

My eyebrows go up. VIP. Lochlan nods without a word. We should probably go get ready.

I didn't know it woud all turn out this way and I wouldn't change it for the world.

I'd rather waltz than just walk through the forest
The trees keep the tempo and they sway in time
Quartet of crickets chime in for the chorus
If I were to pluck on your heartstrings would you strum on mine?

I've been longing for
Daisies to push through the floor
I've never really felt like this before
And I wish plant life would grow all around me
So I won't feel dead anymore

 

Sunday is Father's Day and Midsummer all in one and we are planning a beautiful acknowledgement of both for this coming weekend. I still am light on energy and short on sleep but we're just going to make a feast to eat by the bonfire on the beach on the longest day and I'm going to make everyone flower crowns. We will chase the night as far back as we can push it and relish the light until it's disappeared over the horizon.

We will celebrate all of them, some biological, all honorary. All pitching in, having gone above and far beyond what most friends would have and I remain forever blessed, touched and grateful. Henry is twenty years old in one month from now and he is the man he is because of them. Ruth is a beautiful woman at almost twenty-two, independent and raised with a fine balance of utter freedom and perfect safety. Again, because of them.

And they will renew their vows to each other, to the army and to me, once cutting palms and sealing their brotherhood in a field with a stolen, questionably-rusted blade, now doing it on the beach at high tide with a sharp, clean and new knife. They will solemnly remember the conviction, the passion that only teenagers can muster and they will remember why they're here. We will add a few more, as the eight has shifted and changed due to life, death and circumstance, we have grown and reevaluated on this night, for this purpose. The beginning of summer always heralded a reminder of why they stick together. Why they're here. Why they chose me and closed the circle and just worked doggedly to make it all perfect and yet it's so flawed it's amazing the sun even bothers to grace us anymore when the dark would do just fine.

I long for a day like this again.

I was having a grand time. Being absolutely miserable, as is my right on a day when it's dark and pouring rain. I learned the simple chords for A.A. Williams' Control a while back but I was working on timing. She's in my headphones just faintly while I sing out loud at the piano. I can't do the guitar part obviously. Will have to hire Pallbearer to do that for me or maybe ask Ben about it. I just pound the keys louder. 

Hear me out. (It's actually tattooed across the palm of my hand. It's faded because I wash so many dishes but it's there.

A hand lands on my shoulder and I flinch so hard I choke on the words and it all grinds to a halt and it makes me vaguely disappointed because I think I finally had it. The fingers grip without squeezing and I take off the headphones to see who needs me, even though I know who it is by touch.

His green eyes are glassy and his face is almost as sad as my heart. 

Stop. Peanut, please. You're killing me here. 

Do you have any requests, then? 

Not today. He kisses the top of my head. Maybe just quiet. 

Sometimes he can't stand listening to me try to hear myself. I don't know what to do about it but everyone says if I subject myself heavily to things that scare me eventually I won't be afraid of them any more so it should probably work for Lochlan too.