I feel nothing. They're all letting me drink. No idea who is watching my kids. My kids, not ours. Cole is dead. Dead. Do you not see how permanent that word is? I see it now. It's flat. One sound. Kind of like the sound of my head hitting something hard. When I come out of my fog it's going to hurt so I'm going to stay in it and then it won't be so bad. But you know what? I'll have to be the first one to say the selfish things, answer the loaded questions and figure out which end is up. Hell, I'm in charge. I sign everything. All questions will be asked of me. Who has all the power now? Thanks for passing it on. It might be enough to match the blame. No more prayers required. I'm up to my eyeballs. Jake is nowhere to be found. Well I know where he is but he should be here. He's tired of looking at the closed door. There is no comfort here. There is so much to do and I'm still stuck in one spot. Unreal. It feels unreal. I can't shut up my head. So I might possibly drink a little more and make it stop. Or maybe a lot more and finish it off. Shut the bitch up for good. Almost wrote for god there. How ironic. God isn't in today. My phone is ringing. Probably Jake. Who should be here because we need him. I don't think I could stand up if I tried. Let it ring.

Today brings so little in the way of updates. Every time we think we'll go in Cole suffers something else and they whisk him off to surgery again. It was a severe attack and they think he must have had several smaller ones before now. The complications are keeping us home because they can't keep him stabilized. The damage might possibly be too severe. But he is alive. For today, they said. He's only 39 years old. He's been in tremendous pain now since the early hours of Monday morning.

We're going in when hours start at 2 pm, if he's stable enough. They said he won't be able to talk, he might not even be awake. I can't bring the kids, they're under seven but Jacob promised to talk with someone to have that changed in case, well, in case something happens.

Thank you for the prayers, they're much appreciated. Please continue if you can.

I'm sitting tight waiting for the call to let us know when the protection order is lifted so we can go to the hospital. Cole had a heart attack yesterday and didn't even have the meeting with Jake as he requested so no one knows what he wanted to discuss. I can't get any details on his condition and the wait is torture. To top it off no one called until late yesterday afternoon which makes me angry.

Nothing to write, I'm frozen.

Injection of fluff and puffs of cuteness.

Or something.

I had four phone calls wanting to know what was wrong now. Please, I'm emptying my head. If you've hung around all summer you know that already, don't pay me any mind. How often do you get an uncensored look directly into the brain of someone else?

Right.

You want fluff? I'm FINE. Fine. I went to the Aveda salon and had lowlights put in. To combat the straw appearance. And bangs were trimmed. And now I can get some laundry done and the kids are sacked out watching Madagascar. It wasn't a typical Monday by any means. Jake is in meetings all day, one of which involves Cole, isn't that just grand?

Yes, I thought so too.

But the bangs, the bangs rock. And I'm making muffins too.

Is that more normal? Oh and yes, I'm about to go clean the toilet. Well, once the muffins are out of the oven.

Pft.

On not being very good at self-assurance.

The album playing now is Tool's 10, 000 days, or as I like to call it, the aphrodisiac album.

    You believe me don't you
    Please believe what I just said
    See they're telling the truth
    And this wasn't all in my head
    See they took me by the hand
    And invited me right in
    Then they showed me something
    I don't even know where to begin

It doesn't give me nightmares, the music. What it does is make me mad, in a way. In turn that gives me back the control I desire so ferverently. I feel like I can bat my eyelashes and slay a thousand demons with my charms when I get mad. Some of the only power I have ever felt in my life. Figures it would be based on sex. Self-vilified by my own perceptions of myself. Is there not any other way I can feel confident? No, I just turn it up so I don't fall apart. I feel the strongest when his desire for me is conspicuous.

Enlightening. Hard to explain. Fuck, Bridget is hard to explain. You have no idea.

Pushing. Shoving. Fighting. It hardly breaks for the moments of overwhelming comfort and you know what? Some days aren't so fucking good and I don't feel like I'm going to get through it at all. Some days I don't feel like we're going to make it. There. Out loud and everything. To him. Knowing he wouldn't want to hear those words because they're pessimistic.

He didn't want to hear it. Me, shoving at his heart and testing the limits. He has no limits.

But the simple solution of me being committed and him going off to find a nice normal girl, well we tried that route already and it didn't even work at all. All it did was delay the inevitable. Which was the certainty that we would be together. Someday.

Someday is now and the price is so goddamned high from Cole's...brainwashing. We're not having any luck at all with the intensity. It's staggering. I only have to open my eyes and see him first and my heart is in my throat. The nerves, butterflies, the anticipation will knock you flat. It hurts. It hurts like trying not to hyperventilate.

We both still feel like we're doing something so wrong here. Something verboten. Every time I touch him I can't take ownership. Inside my head I'm trying to justify it. Still.

How dumb. Because failure is not an option. I will. not. fail. Jacob.


    Overwhelmed as one would be placed in my position
    Such a heavy burden now to be the one
    Born to bear and read to all the details of our ending
    To write it down for all the world to see
    But I forgot my pen
And as much as everyone waits for more admissions, further confessions from me, there aren't any. The night of the hayride constitutes the one time we lost control. That's it. Which is remarkable and I am fucking proud of that fact because no one, well okay everyone knows how often Jacob and I were alone together. We could have carried on the longest most intense affair of all time but it wasn't right to do so, and we are good people, in spite of our debiliatating flaws. Such damned good people, except when it comes to wanting each other. Oh my dear God, when it comes to each other we're a fucking trainwreck. Careening down a mountain pass with no brakes because. we. can.

We are.

And it shouldn't be so hard anymore but the temptation to continue at arms' length is so prevalent. Like snatching your hand back out of the fire so that you don't get burned. Only the fire, well, it's been out for ages. There's no danger anymore.

Bridget, enough with the analogies. Why can't you just write what you want to say?

WHY WHY WHY?

It's reverse-homesickness. Fucked-up. Bridget, you're SCREWED, girl. I'm so terribly sorry but I'm in a hurry to find out how it feels to be happily in love without twenty years of Cole's twisted definition of what a relationship should be hanging over my head. I want it undone. Faster. Now. I have no patience. I waited long enough and now it's my turn to express disappointment with having to wait for the gratification. For the simple profound love that Jacob offers me.

When I take it it's not mine. I have no ownership of this and I don't get it.

Hell, I can't even explain it.

I want the fluttering to stop.

I want to see him and be happy. Not see him and for a heartbreaking 10 seconds a million thoughts go through my head, starting with "Where is Cole?" and "Why am I not with this man?" and by the time I reconcile the past inside my head the moment is gone.

Lobotomy for one, please.

And he lies when he says he feels relief and overwhelming euphoria when he sees me. He lies because the first thing that he thinks is usually a wonderment of how fragile Miss Bridget is going to be today, or 10 seconds to reconcile that this is not a dream.

And so I bring out the demons. Put on the most angry music. Play it loud. Get out the acrimony and hold steady with a smoldering atttitude that is a total put-on. Give myself the only control I know I have, because some is better than nothing at all, in my eyes. At least I know how that works.

Because some days aren't great. But it's normal. No worries. It's getting better. Getting it out helps. Good girl. Good job Bridget! Yes, please, everyone pat me on the head for dragging out every last dreadful thought out of my head and terrifying myself with the endless parade of nightmarish outcomes from this. And foolishly Jacob promised me that he isn't leaving and he was so angry because he hates repeating himself even though he'll do it as many times as I need him to without showing an ounce of the frustration he must feel.

I would love it if he could share that patience with me, it's the patience that he has for my fear that he doesn't even have for anything else. How many times can you tell someone who has barely a idea of what sanctuary feels like that they have it at last. They can't see it but they feel it sometimes but they don't believe it's real, they're in perpetual shock and it's going to take time. Well, you do it when you love them, of course.

I will not fail him. Even on days like today when the optimism is an excruciating reach for me, I will not fail him. Because I love him.

Of course.

Tying down the butterfly.

Hmm...I think I like that phrase even better than Nose Butter. If you don't know what Nose butter means, you're not a snowboarder. If you don't know what it means to tie down a butterfly then you don't have to live with me.

Always fluttering. From one leaf to another, one of my absolute worst personality flaws is that I can't shut anything off at will. Especially my mind. It flutters and churns and click clacks away and I can't sleep, I can't run, I can't get any peace from it.

Friday night was no exception. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't even relax, I couldn't stay down. It was hot, so muggy and miserable in the house. Jake slept restlessly. Every time he tossed his giant frame I would snap wide awake. Finally I got up and opted to read in the porch. I think it was 2 a.m.

No sooner did I settle in when Jake appeared at the door with a tray. The tray held two plates of blueberry buckle with ice cream and two snifters of cognac. The cognac was Jacob's very adult bottle that he keeps locked in the desk in the study for Very Hard Times because he's very old-fashioned in that way, really very proper despite my repeated attempts to unravel his fabric with my total foolishness.

For example-my snifter contained about a quarter of the cognac that his held. Just because I'm really not supposed to drink and I asked him if he was looking for the wild Bridget and he laughed and said he figured since we were locked in the house and it was so late it was probably okay to have a little, just once. But that there wouldn't be any more for me.

He's feeling better. Good. I was glad because honestly I never really know what to do with him when he's upset over something that can't be changed. And to me that's very sad because he knows how to fix me. He knows how to make me feel better, when to leave me be, and how to make things bearable.

And boy that sounds stupid. One of the things that made me cringe about Cole is that if he was happy, everything was okay. Like everyone else's well-being hinged on whether or not he was in a good mood. And I'm smart enough to see that this is how my universe works as well. Cole used to say it wasn't him, it was I who made the planet rotate smoothly. Me with my legendary petulance and ineffectual, lethal gaze.

Right. What a crock.

When I test the theory to see if it holds, it does and boy that's scary. Almost as scary as Jake waking out of sound sleep because I was restless and he wanted to comfort me, while I couldn't sleep because I wanted to comfort him. So I get comfort in the form of warm food and warmer liquid solace and he feels better because I feel better and we all get a little sleep.

So the moral of this story is if a butterfly lands in cognac it will stop for a rest. Or something like that.

Bitter blessings.

Sorry to leave you hanging. There was no time earlier to come back. Why oh why didn't I keep the Vicodin? That would have helped today. Or something. A very stiff drink right now would be nice. No such luck. Jake gets one. He's not on antidepressants. Lucky guy.

Jacob is not Henry's biological father. 100% not. When the lawyer called to ask if we had the results she actually had the nerve to ask me if we were going to change Henry's middle name now. I promise I didn't swear at her out loud. I was a very good girl.

My relief was so fleeting. And then I realized that I was briefly given the bulletproof heart because someone had to hold us up. Because Jacob took his long overdue turn and fell apart. He went down in a spectacularly controlled measure of total anguish and it caught me by surprise because at no time did he reveal how much he wanted this because I wouldn't discuss it first. But Jake doesn't castigate me. He should, but he doesn't. I am unscathed. There is always the future. I'm done looking back now.

No, instead he got down on his knees beside the table and he asked God for comfort. And then he miserably looked at me like I was able to somehow channel it straight from heaven, as if it would come through me.

He says sometimes it does. And when the shock wears off, he'll be able to accept this as the best possible outcome under the circumstances. Jake is strong. A remarkable man. Just not a father yet. Not on this day.

Thanks for all the kind wishes. I'm off now to go breath very deeply and read some bedtime stories to the kids. The kids who are completely oblivious to all this. Oh to be five years old again.

Reasonable doubt.

I'm talking to myself this morning. A mile a minute. Ranting. Blubbering. You will fall behind. Sorry. Oh, and it's going to have to be a cliffhanger. I can't fucking do this. Somebody shut me up.

The first step would be to acquiesce and stop challenging the past, no, Bridget?

Jacob is at his office. The kids are playing up in the playroom and I just sat down to write for an hour and finish a pot of coffee and the doorbell rings and in the space of thirty seconds I am reeling again. And possibly more. Sitting in my lap is an envelope with our test results. Couriered over because we arranged to have them sent over rather than waiting and having to go to more appointments. I didn't expect it until Monday. I'm not opening this envelope. I want the cameras off. This is not reality TV, it's my fucking life.

Last week: A blow up an hour after we came back from the lab, in which Jacob lost his patience for my endless troubled chatter about how Henry couldn't possibly be his son brought it back around to reality.

Bridget. Stop.

Can't.

It's not such a big secret. The people who need to know, know and we can't change any of it.

It shouldn't have to count.

But it does and you have to admit it to yourself.

Again, Can't.

What if he's mine?

Then we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

We can cross it now. We need to deal with this.

We need to wait. Otherwise we waste time talking and find out our fears are unfounded. Then what?

Then at least everything is out in the open and we go forward. We keep getting held back by loose ends and unresolved arguments.

No, we're not being held back or we wouldn't have gone and had those tests.
And around it goes in a vicious circle that will cease today. Jacob is half-paralyzed with anxiety over this. It's so hard for him you can't even imagine. After everything there is still so much hell to go through and it's awful. It feels so awful and yet I feel the same paralysis. I really wish I could hold someone's hand right now. I'm going to throw up.

What would you do if you suddenly discovered a child you knew was yours?

What have you missed?

Sure Jacob has been here, he's been around, he's changed diapers and rocked babies to sleep and comforted and walked for miles and hours with the little reflux king and he's bought things and been there for first steps and fun times, and been the best godfather ever.

He's been out of sight for months when we moved, when he travelled, when things were okay and Cole and I called a moratorium on hurting each other and tried to be a better family.

He hasn't been there for ultrasounds, for frightening emergency c-sections, or well baby checkups and for the neverending dead-of-night feedings. He hasn't been able to stand there and look at Henry and say "That is my son." and feel the pride that only a father feels. He hasn't been able to claim that role. No one can give that time back to him if we find out he is Henry's father. Regrets I wish to bury forever and I can't.

Oh, but Bridge, you were so convinced that he couldn't possibly be Henry's father. (Just like I talked myself into being happily married to Cole. Wow, I'm that good. Guileful. Huh.)

No, sorry, I'm only convinced he cannot be Ruth's father.

Henry? Oh, there's a very tiny small possibility. A loss of control. We lost our fucking minds for around five minutes that resulted in nothing except for, well, admitting we lost control. A moment where we couldn't step away from each other so we stepped in closer until we fit together like a puzzle that was finally complete. Fireworks all the way around. Too close. Too hot. Too much. So right. So fucking right.

What in the hell are we doing?

We stopped before we had barely started and we never acknowledged it out loud to each other ever again until earlier this week. Jake took the high road and I walked the low alone.

That alone is where the outside chance comes from and why I can never let myself off the hook for being a bad wife. Rolling over in bed and finding Jacob there because he fell asleep sitting up watching me sleep because I was so damned tired. This was the morning after the hayride and that kiss because when I composed myself and finally drove back to the cottage and sent the neighbor home and got Ruth tucked in that night, Jake showed up, full of apologies for forcing himself on me. He wasn't to be blamed-I didn't stop him, did I?

He asked me if I really did love him.

Of course I did. What a stupid question and I'm in so far over my head I may as well fall apart, which I did. I cried so hard and he held me. When I woke up he was still there. I started to ask him if he was okay and he kissed me instead. Again.

We're just full of great ideas, you know.

It felt so good to be in his arms. From that moment on there would never be another place I ever want to be more than right there. The kissing led to shirts being pulled up and jeans being pulled off, and oh my god what the hell are we doing? But it was five minutes of heaven before we remembered that I was married and not to him and we stopped cold. Reluctantly. Hesitantly. Nothing was completed, if you know what I mean. Bittersweet? That doesn't come close to describing those minutes.

But technically, it counts on all fronts. I cheated. I cheated but was cheated out of my cheating by our collective conscience and so I allowed myself to pretend it never happened. But it counts as the outside chance that Henry could be Jacob's son. I took sex education. Withdrawal? Doesn't make you safe. It only makes it easier to sleep at night because you can say you never did the deed, my friend. Bridget, you're a liar.

Cole knew. Because I had to tell him. I didn't tell him about the kiss because I didn't want him to know about it for some crazy reason I still don't understand but I did tell him I slept with Jake. I didn't want to tell him, Jake wanted to and he said if I didn't, he would have to. Jake was never afraid of Cole, Jake is only afraid of himself. So I did, verbally tripping and visibly shaking. Cole was not surprised, only angry, everything you would expect. But he forgave me after he forgave Jacob first. Because he could use this. Against me.

Where do you think Cole got the fodder for all his sexual fantasy stories?

He knew I liked it. He knew I wished he was Jake and he knew I wanted more. One bite, one taste of Jake-cake wasn't nearly enough. I wanted the whole plateful. Cole forgives too fucking easily.

I wasn't even looking for payback. I'm impossible to contain, and hard to love. Because I'm easily distracted by beauty just as much as everyone around me. And while they're all watching every move I make I am prone to huge life-altering mistakes. It's a history. It's a mess.

The timing. The timing is what destroys all hopes of redemption because it was perfect.

And as much as we both crave having a child that is part of us and what we have, in this case it would be better if Henry is Cole's biological son because it will prevent a fresh helping of pain. We learned our lesson. These admissions, both so publically now and privately become a tangible proof to us that we didn't go through all of this for nothing. We're taking our knocks for not being good people when we were supposed to be. I will take being judged because oh my god, he is so worth it. No one will ever possibly come close to understanding these feelings I hold for Jacob. That deflects the harsh judgement of those around me. For once in my life my heart is kevlar. I am impervious to your derision. You can't hurt me with your supposition anymore.

No, it wasn't a crush.

No, it wasn't boredom.

No, it wasn't even opportunity.

It was love. I didn't expect it and neither did he but it happened in spite of everything I did to try and keep him away from me. I couldn't. I didn't want to. I never even made a half-assed attempt to be proper.

And I won't apologize for that any longer. Nope. Done. Letting it go. I don't believe there are any more secrets aside from whatever is contained within this envelope.

Now if nobody minds I'm going to go squeeze my eyes tightly closed and ball up my little fists and steady myself for the outcome here. Can't stop it now, we're on a roll here. With magnificent fallout. Magnificent.

Oh Christ, listen to what's on the stereo:

    Heaven bent to take my hand
    And lead me through the fire
    Be the long awaited answer
    To a long and painful fight

    Truth be told I've tried my best
    But somewhere along the way
    I got caught up in all there was to offer
    And the cost was so much more than I could bear

Jacob will be home for lunch and we'll open it then. No, I'm going to call him now because I can't breathe anymore and maybe I shouldn't have posted.

Wish us luck.

Coleridge over coffee, the Renaissance man part II.

Did you think I would leave you hanging with a snippet about chocolate for the whole day?

Don't be so silly.

It's course night. Jacob is teaching a course at the university this summer. I mentioned here that he was a little nervous about it. He has no fears of public speaking so what has him tense is the subject matter.

Romantic Poetry.

You have know it hits close to home when he didn't even have to look very hard to come up with poems for the course material. He had his favorites all picked out. He's been quoting them to me for years. He can stand up on the church roof with his hammer all summer and recite dozens of Shakespeare's sonnets and drive everyone crazy, in between the neverending singing, of course. He uses the poems in weddings and usually has a selection at hand if couples want one printed on their service bulletins or used within their ceremony. He always knows the perfect one for any particular couple.

He's nervous because he has to incorporate the history in with it-the broader scope on how society and politics enters into the dialogues created by the poets of those centuries in which their best works were created. Or something. No small potatoes, that task.

However, he's going for history-lite because the poems themselves are to be the centerpiece. Here's a snippet of what I hear over coffee each morning, a willing assistant/victim in Jacob's master plan to single-handedly revive and rekindle romance in the universe. Romance as dispensed by gruff, serious men with hearts of pure gold (or jello possibly). He's doing this for fun.

These four are my favorites:

At Last

At last, when all the summer shine
That warmed life's early hours is past,
Your loving fingers seek for mine
And hold them close, at last, óat last!
Not oft the robin comes to build
Its nest upon the leafless bough
By autumn robbed, by winter chilled,
But you, dear heart, you love me now.

Though there are shadows on my brow
And furrows on my cheek, in truth,
The marks where Time's remorseless plough
Broke up the blooming sward of Youth,
Though fled is every girlish grace
Might win or hold a lover's vow,
Despite my sad and faded face,
And darkened heart, you love me now!

I count no more my wasted tears;
They left no echo of their fall;
I mourn no more my lonesome years;
This blessed hour atones for all.
I fear not all that Time or Fate
May bring to burden heart or brow,
Strong in the love that came so late,
Our souls shall keep it always now!

~ Elizabeth Akers Allen

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills and fields,
Woods or steepy mountains yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses,
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool,
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair-lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning;
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

~Christopher Marlowe

I loved her for that she was beautiful

I loved her for that she was beautiful;
And that to me she seem'd to be all Nature,
And all varieties of things in one:
Would set at night in clouds of tears, and rise
All light and laughter in the morning; fear
No petty customs nor appearances;
But think what others only dream'd about;
And say what others did but think; and do
What others dared not do: so pure withal
In soul; in heart and act such conscious yet
Such perfect innocence, she made round her
A halo of delight. 'Twas these which won me;ó
And that she never school'd within her breast
One thought or feeling, but gave holiday
To all; and that she made all even mine
In the communion of love: and we
Grew like each other, for we loved each other;
She, mild and generous as the air in spring;
And I, like earth all budding out with love.

~Philip James Bailey

Bright Star, Would I Were Steadfast as Thou Art

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou artó
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient sleepless eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors;
No, yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever, or else swoon to death.
~John Keats

He writes his own as well but I'm not permitted to share any of them. In any event, what a lucky bunch of students. I feel like I'm auditing it now and it's been really educational. In between the starry-eyed adulation of listening to him deliver the lines, that is. My god, it's better than sex.

Sweet tooth

Ruth has a memory like an elephant. If we bring home a box of cookies or a chocolate bar and put it in the cupboard she knows it's there and she'll ask about it until you tell her it isn't there anymore. The other day she was quite exasperated by the lack of chocolate snacks in the house. Jake offered her a granny smith apple. I suggested raisins or dried cranberries. Oh no. Not good enough for little Miss Ruth. Not good enough at all. The chocolate love appears to be genetic.

Who keeps taking all the chocolate then, Mommy?

Why, that would be the chocolate fairy, Ruth.

Who is the chocolate fairy?

She's a tiny brown fairy with wings and at night when we're asleep she pushes herself through the holes in the window screen and eats all the chocolate. She can't help herself, she loves chocolate so much.

Jacob?

Hmmm Ruthie?

Is Mommy the chocolate fairy?

Possibly, honey, possibly.