Esoteric.

Friday night after a few stops and starts and one incident in which the friendly giant couldn't help himself and took off, leaving me to navigate the hill alone after having never navigated a hill quite that large that didn't take place on skis and subsequently yelling at him when he caught up with me, he had a few more surprises up his sleeves.

Reservations at a dimly-lit upscale restaurant. Lobster. Sparkling water after which he asked me what I would like for a drink and after I said water I realized it was a test. A pretty velvet box that he put on the table after he ordered for us.

I'm thinking, what is this?

The high-maintenance princess who never is allowed out of my brain was hoping for a Breitling Starliner. Even though they're $6000 and Jacob isn't that kind of man. Heck, I'm not even that kind of girl. I saw one once in real life and it was beautiful. But it was also just a watch, nothing of any real consequence.

People say that about me too, I suppose. Beautiful but of no consequence.

The logical princess won out, to match her logical prince. There was no Breitling in the box. What was in the box was two new hearing aids. The tiny ones I wear inside my ears, replacements for the one I lost at the cabin and the one I threw away in a fit of frustration.

Jacob happily spent thousands on those. This man is unpredictably predictable.

Jewelry would have been more romantic.

You've got enough jewelry. Put them in, Bridge.

You make it hard to hate you.

Wouldn't it be easier to talk if you can hear me?

Sometimes.

Then put them in.
I excused myself and went to the powder room to do it. When I returned Jacob whispered to me.

Every man in the room watched you come back.

Sorry.

Don't be. I bet they've never seen a more beautiful woman, either.

Please, Jake. I look washed out in black, my eyes are tired...

You couldn't look bad if you tried.

None of my cute dresses fit anymore.

They aren't looking at your dress, Bridge.

They're probably all gay and seeing what the competition is for you, mister gorgeous.

Well this table is a veritable sugar bowl, isn't it?

If the shoe fits, preacher boy.

What would you like to do tonight?

What are my choices?

Anything you want.

Be careful what you...indulge me in.

Anything, princess. I mean that.
And with that, I knew it was going to be a long night.

Let's worry about all that after dinner.

It proved to be a two-hour dinner, we carried on the quietest conversation, savored the best food I have ever tasted and finally left to return to our room, where a fire had been built and chocolate-dipped strawberries had been delivered, a treat courtesy of Loch, who is in the Irish Mob along with Jacob and who may or may not have had a lot to do with the last-minute reservations.

Jake did indeed indulge me in anything and everything I asked him for and as usual he made himself stop because he has a herculean sense of self-control not seen often in mere mortals. And so Friday night ended in one of those stupid quiet arguments that we dropped in favor of pure simplistic intimacy in the end, easily found after losing our way over more awkward affections.

Damn that, anyways.

The next day we almost didn't leave the room, but we didn't want to miss the entire day and so we lounged around in bed until close to lunch, then ordered mimosas and brunch. Jacob coaxed me into the shower easily with a promise to wash my hair and then we hit the village to poke around a little, because we both adore nighttime snowboarding, it could wait a little longer. We got matching tattoos.

Oh, don't roll your eyes.

Matching. We're a set now permanently. Salt and Pepper. Bonnie and Clyde. Jacob & Bridget.

To commemorate the biggest single surprise and amazing moment of our lives because although he won't admit it, I'm positive there were times over the spring and summer where he really did second-guess his heart.

We somehow surpassed being comfortable with each other and graduated to completely exposed to each other, whether it hurt or not, cementing a mutual trust that we've been fighting for.

Maybe we just needed to find a safe place to achieve all this in a neutral setting. And I realize I'm not making any sense. Confidence can make everything sharper. Time makes everything better. Trust makes everything extraordinary. Exploratory time, successful or not, can be a catalyst for a positive change.

Jacob's innate goodness eradicates all things dark. Like me.

As God intended. I have resorted to laughing about it now because rather than curse out loud the constant barrage of tests God is putting me through, instead it's rather amusing to believe that maybe he put me here as one big test for Jacob. One that Jacob is determined to pass.

I may continue to sabotage his efforts. I laughed at a quote I saw last week while reading reviews of the new Switchfoot album, it said,

    Somewhere in there is the idea that good things happen to bad people, not bad things happen to good people.

In any case, Jake came back a very confident, trusting man, having confirmed to both of us that no matter how hard I try I can't break him, and me, well, I'm still melted butter and vaguely as depraved as ever.

And mostly unfixable.

Retrograde.

I don't think I know where to begin. Everything has an opposite, right? And so I bring many stories to the table, and I'm not sure which direction to head in first.

I could go with the awesome boarding, the amazing food, the hedonism, the sheer largess of the lavishness with which I lived the weekend, the..uh..(oh God, cheese alert) matching tattoos, losing my fingerprints all over that man, and not being permitted to join any clubs, mile-high or otherwise.

Party-pooper.

Or I could go with the name-calling, walking out, being ambushed and the exposed rawness of assorted emotions that run on full constantly, wearing us down, wearing us out. The tears which leave us dehydrated and depleted. The exhaustion of trying to make our relationship work the way it should instead of the way it does.

I think I'll start by saying my face is wind-burned and pink, my hair is straw again and I am happy to be home. I need new goggles, I scratched mine all to hell, and Jacob is limping just slightly, having twisted something or other in his hip on his final kamikaze run down the hill alone.

Hanging out with an adrenaline junkie is exhausting. But for all the yin and yang of the trip it turned out wonderfully and we worked out a bunch of things and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I'm just too worn out to talk about it tonight so I'm going to bed and I'll start tomorrow, after my run.

Everyone say goodnight to the stupid girl.

Restoration.

I feel like hardened pull-taffy. Stiff and vaguely sore in places that generally aren't sore but my insides are melted butter.

Your girl doesn't have a care in the world.

Dear God, can I just stay this way forever?

The snowboarding was groovy beyond words, the flights and drives went without a hitch, and everything here at home went smoothly. Jacob went so far as to have hot chocolate and warm cake brought to our room both nights at midnight, I had my very first hour-long massage. By him.

I have been loved so hard I think our fingerprints wore off some time over the weekend.

    Let your love be strong, and I donít care what goes down
    Let your love be strong enough to weather through the thunder cloud
    Fury and thunder clap like stealing the fire from your eyes
    All of my world hanging on your love

No rain, just words.

No rain, just words.

I'll start on the negative and end on the positive.

To the reader who attempted to rain on my parade by telling me I was a spoiled girl, throwing a brat-attack after your husband busts his ass to make magic for you, it was less of a bratty moment and more of a moment in which I had to do something before I cracked in half again and it would have occurred regardless. It's not like I was only attending therapy in hopes that he would reward me with a trip. Don't forget he tried to take us away for Christmas and I asked him not to, preferring not to travel during the holidays when things are so hectic. He likes to plan surprises, he doesn't dangle things in front of me. Attacking me while you have only half of the information is a fruitless endeavour, my friend, just because I post some revealing moments doesn't mean I share everything.

Jacob doesn't need anyone to defend him, I take his criticism when he gives it, he doesn't require help in that department. In fact, he's one of the few people in this world that I can't distract at all when it comes to having his say. He's not afraid to cut me down, piss me off or leave me sitting in a room by myself when he's had enough bullshit. Trust me, I can't fool him any more than I could lift him. He's good at handling life. He's good at...handling me.

And so on to the sunshine.

We're all packed! There is a mountain of gear in the back porch and all that's left now is to pick up Bailey after dinner tonight and then we leave very early tomorrow morning, back late on Sunday afternoon. I won't be posting again until Monday. Will you miss me?

We haven't had a block of alone-time like this for a while now and we're both looking forward to that moreso than anything else.

While I'm gone, here's something to tide you over, A list of 25 of my favorite bloggers. There is more, of course, which I'll save for another day. Enjoy!

Blue Poppy
The Boyfriend Files
Broken Cow
Diaries of a Pumpkin Princess
Elation
Evil Heshley is Dead
Geek, Inc.
Hard to Believe I did it Again, Eh? I know, not really.
In my Element...
Ice Queen on Defrost
Kikiville
{love, Joleen}the blog
Madhatter
Paravonia
Potor Can't Write
Rising With Grace
Rockstar Mommy
Rude Cactus
The Sound of your Heart
Thimble
Sweetpeas
Switchfeed
Waiter Rant
Waiting for my Husband
Yah Lah Yah Lah

Ollie ollie oxen free.

(Because normal isn't good enough for this man.)

I was sitting at Jacob's desk writing yesterday morning, stealing his laptop. Sunglasses perched on top of my head because I always forget to leave them by the door, pencil clenched sideways in my teeth, hair on top of my head in an updo that was half undone by then, turtleneck, snowpants, sipping a cup of coffee and singing Beautiful Day as loud as I could while I wrote, because I write with very loud music playing.

    Touch me
    Take me to that other place
    Teach me
    I know I'm not a hopeless case

Jacob walked past the den and I waved and said Hey handsome without looking up while I typed and resumed singing. He smiled and then stopped and stepped back to look at me.

You look adorable and happy, Bridge.

A temporary affliction, I'm sure it'll be fixed by tomorrow.

You're too hard on yourself.

No, I'm being prepared.

Girl Guide?

Brownie, actually. I never made it up to Guides, was too busy figure skating.

Oh, you know what we need?

Brownies? I could go for something right now.

No, a vacation.

What did you say?

Your New Year's eve, princess.

My new...It's January 9th, Jacob. We'll get a date night soon.

How about this weekend?

Sure, I can call a sitter.

Already have Bailey.

What? What do you mean?

Bailey's coming out.

Isn't that a lot of effort for a date night? I'll call PJ.

PJ can't really swing two nights.
I stopped typing and stared at him. Pencil still there, eyebrows to the moon, which made him laugh.

Take that thing out of your face, Bridge.

What are you up to?

How does two nights in Whistler sound?

Oh my fucking god! Jake! Are you taking me snowboarding?

If you want to go.

Are you kidding me? Of course I want to go!

Pack your stuff, baby.

Oh, seriously. Are we?

Only if you can stand a few days of carving up the slopes and then afternoons at the spa and evenings by the fire with me.

I can stand that and the...Oh my God! Kidless trip! How in the world do you do this stuff?

I have connections.

You're in the mob, aren't you?

I can't tell you that.

Seriously, you're in the freaking Irish mob. You pull strings no one else can even reach.

No, I just know people who know people who like to help make you happy.

Jacob, I'm happy here with West Side Story on cable and the ghetto cake.

I know you are. Which is one of the reasons I want to make our life together memorable.

You already did. Seven times over, baby.

Well then let's make it eight. And then nine after that. We'll keep going til we reach twenty-nine hundred million, okay?

You don't need to do things like this to make me happy, Jacob. I'm happy. So happy.

I know that, princess. I don't ever want you to settle for happy when you could have breathtaking, because that's what you are to me.

You just never do anything halfway, do you?

Not when it comes to you, Bridget. And I think I'll keep it that way.

You do realize if I write about this no one is ever going to believe me.

Then stop writing about it on the computer.

No way! It's too good not to share.

I should check with my guys and see if we can whack the internet connection.

Oh, see, now, that's mob slang right there.

Just take the schwag, sweetheart, and don't ask questions.
He winked at me and left the room, and I couldn't write a freaking thing for the rest of the day.

Talking to herself.

Hey.

So tomorrow is Wednesday, girlie. Day of reckoning, if reckoning could be a weekly thing. If you're so inclined, maybe lend me a little strength and just a few extra good vibes so that I don't fall apart like I do every single time. I am working on it but it's slow going. It's hard to hold everything together when you get flayed wide open and picked apart until there is nothing remaining save for a pile of gristle left on the floor. A pathetic lump of former human bean.

Such is me.

The good news is that I have some good news, a wonderful, unexpected surprise, but in the event that tomorrow proves to be far too difficult to process, I'll leave it to tell you then.

Have a great night.

Layer cake.

    Privately divided by a world so undecided
    And there is nowhere to go

    In between the cover of another perfect wonder
    and it is so white as snow

    Running through the field where all my tracks will be concealed
    and there's nowhere to go


There's something to be said for waking up only to spend most of breakfast negotiating the quantity of clothes to be worn that day and a mini-lesson on temperatures. I feel like a hostage negotiator, keeping my kids' health as collateral against their imminent need to get outside to play more quickly at recess.

I win.

I always win.

I don't really have a choice. Someone has to be the bad guy.

And we lead by example. So today I'll give you a rundown of the average wardrobe today, because there will be no anthropologie swing dresses and stiletto heels on this day. Today is brought to you by Mountain Equipment Co-op. My second most exciting membership after Greenpeace, because I need to be warm while I help save the planet.

I'm sporting underwear, a camisole, two pairs of wool socks, silk longjohns, a thin t-shirt, a thick long-sleeved tshirt and a wool fairisle sweater. Flannel lined jeans. When I go outside I add a fleece shell, a windproof jacket, skipants, sorrels (my sorrels fit INSIDE Jacob's giant ones) and thin gloves inside line waterproof mitts, wool scarf and hat.

By the time I've got all this on, I can barely walk and you might not be able to tell if I'm a boy or a girl, it depends on if the braids wind up inside or outside of my coat.

This is why I run so goddamned fast. I can't wear all this stuff when I run and I freeze my ass off at first.

Yeah, living here is a just a riot.

The speed of sound.

It's a form of sensory deprivation.

Running for me is like being in a tunnel filled with water. I rarely look up, I hear nothing except for my songs, loud in my ears to feel them right through me and knock out everything else. I don't look around except to check for traffic. The city passes me by in a wet smear of urban grit. I count the intersections I cross, I don't make eye contact often and only when the pain starts do I look up at the moon that is still awake or the stars if it's clear and I beg for the release of endorphins, the inalienable runner's high, my rush, my prize for a grueling solitary marathon.

I am not allowed to run at night, for fear that I might be attacked. It's a big city.

I am not allowed to join a gym, because the fresh air is best. So sayeth those who know better than I.

When I get 45 minutes out in any direction, I must turn and come back, because sometimes I want to keep going and some day I might and so I turn.

When I'm out there, without rules to bind me and emotions to weigh me down, it's just me and my body (which responds nicely even when I take long breaks from running ) and the cold dark morning air, and I am free.

And I no longer think about anything when I run. Instead I tune into my senses. When you lack so much of one you want to overdevelop what you have. Sometimes it's a quiet obsession.

My nose begins. When I leave my neighborhood I inhale the woodsmoke from my own house and that of four nearby houses, rotten leaves, exposed once again by the melting snow. Newspaper, briefly and then my nose wrinkles up when confronted with fresh dogshit that someone failed to pick up. I smell my own patchouli oil, a gift from Jacob so I would stay out of his things, the warmer I get, the stronger it smells, beautiful stuff. And then cold snow, which stings my nasal passages with it's icy blandness. I run through hints of toxic clouds of gasoline and motor oil, the Ethiopian restaurant and their ever present lingering odor of cooking oil. Below my feet the wet asphalt smells like tar.

Taste. As I run the only tastes within my mouth are a film of toothpaste and the heady aftertaste of early-morning traffic. So instead I think about the tastes I like the most. Jacob's cognac kisses. Chocolate cake. Ruth's sour gummy worms and their skeptical assault on my tongue. The tart surprise from a plum or an orange, and the overwhelming sweetness of bananas and icing. The gooey bitterness of very good cheese mixed with the comfort dirt-taste of fresh mushrooms. Exquisite antipasto. Salty sweat from kissing Henry's forehead, hours after he has fallen asleep. Biting acrid champagne bubbles and not being able to describe the taste at all. Spicy cracked pepper chips and sharp rye bread.

Sight is easier. Kilometers of black and filthy grey wind an infinite ribbon beneath my sneakers. I see my socks bunched around my ankles but over my tights to keep blisters at bay. Trash, so much of it, discarded fast food wrappers and paper coffee cups and sale flyers that I wonder how anything ever makes it to the landfill. My reflection in glass windows, a blur of navy blue and blonde flies right by and I wonder if I really know her. Rocks of all sizes, sort of like people in their various shapes and colors. Dented traffic signs perched in the black snowbanks reflecting their warnings in headlights . My fists, balled into fury against my will, pumping in front of me like we are having a race. Shop owners, setting up their paper stands and changing their doorhangers from CLOSED to OPEN nodding to me as I pass, in a show of solidarity to a fellow early riser.

And then there is touch.

I have almost been run over turning this one over in my mind.

Jacob's hands sliding across my flesh underneath my clothes, a contradiction of gentle movements and calloused hands. Feeling his rough stubble on my lips, once past the initial barb of contact, a softness that belies the ruggedness of his demeanor. My fingertips fluttering a constant pulse on the car window as he drives and plays anything I want to hear on the truck stereo. Always fluttering, tactile thinking that I cannot seem to quit. Fierce battlehugs from my kids, who compete to see who can squeeze mommy until she squeals. Reaching under the deck for the shed key and brushing away months of long-abandoned cobwebs, now for rent if they survive the winter intact. Kissing Cole's warm cheek after he died, his face bloated from the efforts to keep him alive so that he would live to condemn me. The silken flax of my children's hair, precious gold spilling over their skulls to bring visual halos to their beautiful souls. The gritty paper of dollar bills. Jacob's skin, soft like a shell over granite. The feel of my own skin inside my running clothes, beginning to crawl ever so slightly as I begin to sweat. My bangs, grown down to the tip of my nose again, which stab my eyes whenever they get a chance and so I rake them out of my sight for the seven millionth time in a day. It isn't seven a.m. yet.

Of course the missing puzzle piece is the hearing. Eventually I will give away what I have left due to the constant assault of my headphones, because I want to feel those songs and the only way I can do that is to pull the volume as far as it will go. I miss the whispers and innuendo but I will anticipate your feelings because I study you even though you don't quite notice that I was. I will anticipate how you feel, what you need and why you need me and with few repetitions we will land on the same page and do what has to be done.

I have lived life in a gilded cage like a birdgirl, sheltered, protected. Everyone who heard my song was hypnotized and yet no one could set me free.

Until now.

Because I am not worldly does not mean that I am naive. When I was released from my subjugation I wasn't so sure and so I hung back when the world became too large and too loud, fishing for a way to balance that shelter and protection and attention with being free.

I stopped and I returned to the cage but I left the door open this time because I don't want to hear you and I don't want the fear of the unknown but it's certainly nice to step out and fly around for a bit and hone what senses I do possess.

And with that, I turn and run home.

Bridget emerged.

I was lying flat on my back on the hardwood floor in the front hallway.

(No, this isn't porn.)

Jacob walked by and stopped and we listened to the crackle of the fire from the living room. I can only hear it when I hold my breath.

What are you thinking, princess?

The usual existentialist thoughts.

I don't think you even know what that means.

It's one of my favorite words.

But can you define it? I have a hard time with it, which is why I'll never teach philosophy.

Mr. Kerouac, the point is not to define but to blow your mind.

You write just like him sometimes.

I come from a long line of hippies, gypsies, beatniks and freaks, preacher boy. It's expected. I'm just too cynical and jaded to admit it.

Right, and you're much easier to philosophize with over wine or hallucinogenics.

Since that day has long passed, let's mourn for it then, and find a new pastime.

Naked twister?

I was just going to say that.

Elevators.

Not such a good day here for Miss Bridget. I'm on an elevator that goes up and down and every time I try to get off someone tells me it's not my floor, or the doors simply close in my face. I could spend all my time sharing Jacob-stories but that doesn't get me anywhere, at least not anywhere else except here, clinging tenaciously to a beautiful and terrible past because I can't let it go because if I let go of all the bad things, then the good things might go with it and it's a risk I will not take.

Post traumatic phone disorder.

    Dear Jeff,

    How are you? I am fine. The next time you start a new job please don't give your workplace my cell phone number for your contact information, as I've spent most of the past few days fielding calls looking for you. They don't believe that you're not here and frankly if you've going to drag me into this then I suggest that you at least show up on your first day of work to make a good impression and not leave your coworkers high and dry. Because by now you're probably unemployed again, Jeff, and how are you going to get your own cell phone if you can't show up for work when you're supposed to?

    Yours truly,

    Bridget.

(I don't know anyone named Jeff.)

Say cheese.

I maintain there is absolutely nothing wrong with really really liking those $4 generic superstore pepperoni pizzas.

Zah is zah. But everyone else is having lamb. Which I don't like.

In other news, if you're going to have a Nirvana day, stupid girl, for gods sakes turn it off before you get to Lithium, because...damn.

    I like it
    I'm not gonna crack
    I miss you
    I'm not gonna crack
    I love you
    I'm not gonna crack
    I killed you
    I'm not gonna crack

Hollow.

  What else could I write
    I don't have the right
    What else should I be
    All apologies

I promised this memory to you a long time ago but life intervened and this morning I was reminded that people were still waiting. It's welcome now because I'm struggling today to find a bridge between my perfect morning mood and a draining week. Softer, sweeter we go now while I take you on the memory that was our first kiss. I very purposely left it out, you'll see why by the time you reach the end.

Jacob set the bar so very high with one kiss that I was never the same and he was never the same and it's one more piece to our puzzle that cemented us together forever as soulmates. I might still be where I was had it not been for the persistence and sheer tenacity of this guy and I tell him every day that I love him. When I describe our connection as lightning it's because our first kiss almost got us killed but I will never forget it even for a second.

One evening when Jake was free he took me down to the beach. He spread out my old quilt and we sat on the sand to watch the waves break. I was tired. I leaned against his shoulder and we talked about nothing, about his studies that he was looking forward to returning to, about life. We talked about how the air smelled like rain. The skies were overcast and there were no stars that night and he frowned and said we should go. I didn't want to go, I just knew this would be my last visit at the beach while it was still warm so I asked if he would get us some bottled water so we could stay just a little bit longer.

He walked down the beach to the canteen at the other end, strolling slowly, his feet in the water, his pant legs wet as usual. He turned a couple of times to check on me and smiled.

When he reached the canteen the heavens opened. I mean, it poured. One of those fast summer thunderstorms. The thunder rumbled right through me and I was completely deafened by the noise of the rain. Huge, driving drops were soaking everything. I forced myself to my feet and was trying to gather the quilt up without bringing so much sand with me and before I could make any progress at all Jacob was back beside me. The rain was coming down in sheets now. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his shirt soaked to his chest. I made a mental note to keep that picture in my head forever. He yelled that we needed to get out of the open and to leave the stuff. I said I wasn't leaving my things and that if he would just help instead of arguing with me, we'd be inside faster.

But I couldn't hear myself and it freaked me out and I grabbed at his sleeve.

That stopped him in his efforts and he just stared at me through the rain. Then he seized my face in his hands, pulling me into him, kissing me full-on, like a lover would, on the mouth. Hard. I kissed him back and when he stopped I didn't want him to stop and so I bit his bottom lip. He shook his head and then kissed me one more time, much more gently, one hand on the back of my neck and the other resting on my shoulder, with his thumb in the hollow at the base of my throat. When he pulled back the look in his eyes was despairing. He grabbed the quilt, took my hand and we hurried back to his truck. Once inside we slammed the doors just as a huge fork of lightning hit the beach. He looked at me and I looked at him.

This is the best night of my life.

Mine too.

And the worst, princess.

I know, Jake.

You can't tell Cole.

I wasn't going to.

Oh my God, this is wrong.

What's wrong is that the only thing keeping me from asking you to take me home is this baby.

Oh God, the baby.

I'm sorry, Jacob.

What are you sorry for? I did this.

We both did.

I'm supposed to be strong. I can't be strong around you.

No one asked you to.

Bridget, it doesn't matter. My God, I'm in love with you and you're pregnant and you've got a life already.

You're....you what?

I'm in love with you.

Oh, no. Jacob, no. Don't say it out loud.

You know this. You kissed me back, I know you feel the same thing I feel.

I know.

Then what?

You saying it out loud tears me apart.

Saying it, Bridge, saying it kills me. You should be with me.

Stop, Jake. Please!

Bridge, I would help you raise this baby.

I know you would.

So let me.

Take me home, please, Jacob.

You should be going home with me. Say you love me.

Stop it, Jake.

Say it!

I love you.

Can you hear yourself now, Bridget?

Yes.

Good. So there's no mistake then.

And with that he threw the truck into reverse and pulled out of the parking lot and drove me home. Eleven hours later I went into labor.

Ruth was born a day and a half later. Her first visitor was Jacob, dressed in a gown and mask that they make NICU visitors wear, proud to be a first-time godfather. He congratulated Cole and I and we stared at each other in agony over the tube and wires in Cole's presence and we kept our secret.

Until now.

Because that kiss Cole never knew about.

And now he never will because I have outlived him.

I still have that image of Jake, soaking wet to the skin, clothes plastered against his flesh, standing on the beach poised like he was about to grab my hand and run away with me forever. His thumbs tracing my cheekbones while I tried to breathe him in and my heart fluttered so hard I thought I might die. Every time I see him in the shower he looks at me with that same look and I'm transported back in time to that day.

Here's where I admit I didn't even bother trying to describe the emotion held in those moments. I couldn't if I tried. It wasn't all sneaking and trying to have my cake and eat it too, it was difficult and bitter and painful and emotionally draining. And at the same time it was euphoric, culminative, joyful and passionate in ways I will never share with another human being as long as I live, only Jacob. It held feelings I never felt with Cole in a million years and we were in love just as hard at one point. There's just no room for that experience more than once in this lifetime.

Most fairy tales don't end so happily. Happy being a relative term, we're working so hard at our happy ending, we will get there.

Cole and I took Ruthie home after a week spent in NICU and I tried to forget the image of Jacob in my head. I tried to forget the taste of his mouth, the way his beard felt against my cheek and his hands on my skin. I tried to forget the darkness and the rain. I tried to forget that night, instead concentrated on figuring out how to be a mom, how to exist on a few spare hours of sleep and how to somehow remember that I had a husband who needed me to focus on him and our new little family and not on his best friend.

I have had to live with my actions and even though it could have been much worse, I know damn well the only thing keeping me from sleeping with Jacob that rainy night was the fact that I was hugely pregnant. And that to me is way weirder than it might be to you. But it's there and it's how I feel.

Do I think Cole knew? Of course he did, maybe not times, places, details but he knew that I was torn, he knew that Jacob rocked me off my feet and he knew that he was loving me on borrowed time, right from the start.

Prophetic and spooky and sad. And incredibly telling, for after polling my male friends, they all proclaimed me to be akin to a glass weeble when I'm pregnant, irrefutably fragile but completely round, with rosy cheeks and tentative, difficult movement, usually very sick and very hungry and very demanding, cranky and stubborn and that they wouldn't have been attracted to any of it, and weren't and that Jacob is a singularly remarkable man.

Yes. He is.

Labelmaker.

Nonsensical rambling from a nonsensical girl. I apologize, this entry is poorly strung together. I just had to get it out.

Post-therapy thoughts are so difficult so please excuse me as I unload all over the place now that I have done all the things I'm supposed to do. It used to be just Wednesdays that were so bad, we're going to change it to Wednesdays and Fridays now. Oh, joy.

I've been trying to let it go but it won't let go of me. How much power did I claim for my own? Absolutely none if it wasn't sexual. I had no control, the submissive wife. How do I take power back that wasn't mine to begin with? How do I assert myself when I've been a puppet my whole life? A Barbie. Dress her up and watch her smile and she'll do anything you want but then expect her to make a decision from a choice of more than one and she freezes, numb in thoughts she isn't capable of processing.

My head doesn't seem to work in the right way anymore.

And now with Jacob, who has infinite patience to my face but none behind my back, who's heavy-handed approach to counseling and dry delivery of his comments and responses make it seem like I'll never make him happy. He's a tough nut to crack, easy to please but no nonsense too. Bridget is mostly all nonsense. He's my very own Brubaker and I'm the prison in need of reform.

Oops, ignore that, one more nickname will only confuse you, unless you've seen that movie and there you have Jacob in a nutshell. The warden of Bridget, and a dead ringer for the Robert Redford of the mid-seventies, but with a beard. And a much better wardrobe.

Oops, digression.

Jacob is all-encouragement but he wants it yesterday and then he refuses to let you turn the tables when you point out the...enabling. And god forbid he admit anymore how hard he struggles between trying to help me and wanting me to be the fun and unpredictably reckless girl that he knows so well.

We've been instructed to keep playing, keep expanding minds and boundaries, to find Bridget some more time by herself each day (I don't recall wanting that) and to structure said days rigidly, into blocks of time that won't get overwhelming, with routines. No more varying bedtimes, no sleeping in, meals at the same time each day which are to be eaten and not ignored and to talk as much as we can. Hobbies, chores, errands, my running, talk.

That's all we do.

Oh yes, and to have patience, because I may act in ways that aren't characteristic. I may stretch Jacob's understanding of me to the point of no return, I am getting a free pass on my behavior because that's what crazy people get. Bridget can't help herself, she's so messed up.

Oh and the whole wanting a baby thing?

He doesn't trust me. It's a desperate attempt to hold on to me because I'm less likely to leap off the gingerbread if someone needs me and also if I do make the leap, why, he'd have a piece of me left here on earth after I'm long cold.

Nice. Sweet even. Way to go, Jake, on the trust issues. If I say I'm not going to do anything drastic then I won't. Even if I said I might. Of course it makes no sense. I wouldn't trust me either.

But on the other hand, the wild girl stopped and stared at Jake for a few minutes, completely and utterly dumbstruck because that was the most touching and totally fucked up thing he has ever come out with.

I'm still....wow.

Oh, and then they turned the screws and changed everything and maybe made it worse. I was dismissed like a broken toy. Right in front of me, they didn't have the decency to let me leave the room while they discussed me and I am forever branded in his eyes.

God, which one would you like first? The mentally ill one, or perhaps the one that hurt more, the depersonalization designation, that when Jacob heard that one he stopped talking and did a double take at my psychiatrist and it took him way too long to finish his thought. All along he had been just fine with my atrocious disregard for my chemical imbalances, my freaky depression that would come and go out of the blue. For the first time he saw what he's going to have to live with forever and I don't even know what his reaction is. I got stuck on the mentally ill part, too.

And to think all this time I thought I might be okay.

So just add delusional to the list, please.

I have a way of pretending I'm normal without really doing it at all. Which I knew..I'm not that fucked up that I don't see it.

We were both rather stunned. Apparently we've been speeding along at a rate that isn't productive, it's counterproductive, and Jacob's new duties mean that right off the bat we'll be fighting a chaotic schedule that isn't very routine. He gets calls at strange hours, but I am to forge ahead, eat when I'm supposed to, sleep when I should and keep going. I knew damn well I was sabotaging myself all along, which is part of the whole illness. That pesky mental one.

Oh and Jacob pulled another fast one on me that I've been waiting for for years and was almost bound to the conclusion that maybe he really didn't want to know. He does, he wants to know everything. Not to be content with knowing what Cole didn't do, he wants everything out there and there are few ways I can do that short of storytelling here. If I just say it all out loud I might disintegrate into little pieces that never fit back together ever again. If I have to tell him looking into his eyes I'll take so much away from him, things I don't want to ever lose.

Of course the team agrees. So either they're all perverts or they're all better than I thought they were and I will get away with nothing. I'm going to be drawn and quartered psychologically and they're going to dump me upside down and pound on my feet until I'm completely empty.

And I looked at Jacob and ignored them all and I whispered to him that I didn't think I would survive that. He smiled gently at me and told me I already did.

He only thinks I did.

I asked them if I was normal at all. If I would ever be less flinchy, less startling, less messed up, less depraved and less able to turn on and off different areas of my personality because Jake doesn't really know what the hell he's going to wake up with each morning.

Mentally ill.

They assured us once again in their soothing tones that time and hard work will fix me.

I asked if time alone will do it and they said no. Because I think I would rather die now than tell him things that Cole did. Or Caleb for that matter.

Dammit.

I didn't want to be humiliated or ashamed anymore. I don't want him to have that information in his head, I don't want him to picture those things. If I quit now I look like I'm not trying to get better. My hands are tied.

Bridget gets backed into a corner and then scooped into a box for safekeeping. Until she's retrained to be released into the wild. I'm my own monkey on my back now, look at that.

The only way out is through and that's not an option because I went through all of it for one single reason and then I got caught up and couldn't do it and then I couldn't do anything and now..well...now I don't even know what to do.

I believe I've been just about finished off here. I'm not really sure what the fuck end is up or how I went from trying to hold on to a destructive marriage with a violent man that I was completely in love with and possibly brainwashed to ending that life and beginning a new one that was supposed to be full of happiness and love and romance to winding up dismissed as mentally ill while they sat there and talked about my options to learn how to live with this and not wind up worse, further incapacitated. I was sitting there saying, I'm not incapacitated! Fuck, just help me deal with all this shit, and then help me deal with the shit that comes from nowhere!

It's really fucking unbelievable. It explains a lot and it ruins more.

I've been assured I most definitely can come home and continue to write my sweet little stories and continue to spin wool and read to my kids and make lunch and dust the musical instruments and do bookkeeping for the church and drive my friends up the wall because hey, life has to go on.

Just take the pills and continue the therapy forever.

Incredible.

I said very little after that, and mostly tried to pretend I didn't exist.

At the end of the afternoon yesterday when it started to get dark I went into the den to draw the curtains and Jacob was sitting at the desk, no lights on. Just sitting in his chair staring out the window into the snow.

Why are you in the dark, Jake?

I'm thinking, princess.

About how quickly you'd like to run away?

No, about vacations and revelations and second opinions and a lot more sleep.

Heavy stuff.

Oh, it's very serious stuff.

Do you regret marrying me?

Please don't tell me you think I'm that kind of guy.

Hey, at this point I would say you've had more than your fair share of this bullshit and no one would blame you if you bailed.

Then you don't know me very well, princess.

Boy, am I happy to hear that.

I aim to please.

Ah. Charity for the mentally ill.

You're really stuck on that, aren't you? It only means you're depressed. Christ, Bridge, I see twenty people a week who fall into that category too. They're teachers and representatives and cops and some of your friends, even.

I know. I was just hoping we could build a rubber room.

So you can thrash around and go apeshit in one?

No, so we can play naked twister and not get hurt. Silly man.

Why did I know you'd find a way to pervert that?

Because I have to laugh about it or I'll lose what's left of myself.

Then naked twister it is.

For the record, we've never played naked twister. Somewhere along the way it became a running joke that never stops. There are lots of those. Happy memories.

So there you have it. Pretty, loves to write, loves to tell you stories about Jacob and how romantic he is, but mentally ill. Way to go, Fragile Miss B.

Oh! Psychiatry.

Can I phone it in this morning and do a solitary karaoke entry instead of publishing my explanation for yesterday's bitterness that is still present? Thanks, I appreciate it ever so much.

Jacob's been singing Circles as he walks around in....circles around the house getting ready this morning and he just belts out the bridge. I love it when he sings, it means he's content or at least not one hundred percent unhappy.

    I've lost all that I wanted to leave
    I've lost all that I wanted to be
    Don't believe that there's nothing that's true
    Don't believe in this modern machine
    The modern machine

No, I can't phone it in today? Well, don't blame a girl for trying. I almost wrote that I hate to be a tease but that would be a lie, and so to tease you I'm going to go get all my work done first while I wallow in the mood and then hopefully I'll have time to tell you what happened yesterday that left me so bitter. There's a dulled edge (called time) to the sharpness of yesterday's revelations and so it's a bit easier today to process all of it.

Oh and for fucks sakes, if there's a chance in hell that my neighbors who live 3 km east (down along the river beside the pretty tudor-style house with all the ivy on the gate in the summer)read here could you PLEASE stop shovelling down to the concrete, there's just enough film remaining to freeze each night and make your section of the sidewalk a virtual skating rink and I really don't want to be in the snow and the traffic is too heavy for me to move to the street. Or find some salt, sand, kitty litter, anything. There's little room left on my body that isn't bruised now from falling in front of your house.

Or perhaps it's a game now. But ha! I'm going to go west tomorrow. So screw you, OCD neighbors!

I hate therapy.

Right now I think I hate just about everything else, too.

Except my children. I'm going to go out with them and play in the snow now because every second word I write stabs me in the head. If I'm outside no one can call me either, so consider yourself told.

Cancelling the noise.

    Does it have to start with a broken heart
    Broken dreams and bleeding parts
    We were young and world was clear
    But young ambition disappears
    I swore it would never come to this
    The average, the obvious
    I'm still discontented down here
    I'm still discontented

Up before the sunrise and out into the cold hushed air I went this morning, in my technical tights and fleece, plugged into my zen player and ready to burn off excess energy in the dim light of the beginning of this day. I hate Wednesdays, I don't sleep much. It's Big Therapy day, in which the whole team and Jacob is present and they all look at me so expectantly as I speak and I get angry so easily because it's the one time I can be in a room with four men, and I have their undivided attention and I can't do a thing with it.

    A spark ignites
    In time and space
    Limping through this human race
    You fight and crawl your way back home
    But you're running the wrong way
Oh yeah, except get better. Good girl, Bridget.

    The future is a question mark
    Of kerosene and electric sparks
    There's still fire in you yet
    Yeah there's still fire in you

But my god, the run felt so good. Right up until that part when I wiped out on a freshly scraped sidewalk and bruised the hell out of my hip. Running after that really sucked but at that point I was only fifteen blocks from home.

    I keep cleaning up the mess I've made
    I won't run away
    I can't sleep in the bed I've made
More later if I survive my appointment. Blah.

    If we've only got one try
    If we've only got one life
    If time was never on our side
    Then before I die
    I want to burn out bright

Cruel and gentle things.

Progress, as Bridget moves onward and upward, purging herself of the best and the worst memories to make room for new ones that don't involve monsters and mistakes.

    She said I tried to mind my own business
    But that sad look on your face was a challenge to my faith
    Made me wanna chase the dark out of your room
    So she smiled and said hello; little did she know
    He would take over her soul and never never never let go

    He was fine before he met her
    Eyes like faded jeans, soft and blue and he had seen
    Everything, and he had been everywhere
    Til he turned his gaze away, longed to see it every day
    Heard a voice inside him say you'll never never never be the same

I'm pulling out my CDs this week, a sort of ritual performed each new year to remind me that my own personal soundtrack never stops playing, it just advances and recedes like a lyrical tide to give me strength and soothe my wounds, to lift me up and drag me out. Listening to music I haven't heard for a long time helps me categorize these memories, because I don't have to suppress it all anymore.

My brain is a virtual HMV store, arranged by artist, alphabetically. Feeling music, because there is so much I don't hear and that's a travesty.

This morning I pulled out Volcano, my favorite Edie Brickell album, and one that has seen it's fair share of memories made.

Jacob passed it back to me over coffee once upon a time, here in this city several months after he moved here, which would have been around the time I left Cole very temporarily and with no regret and was promptly returned to him, soundly rejected by Jacob who was married by this time and struggling just to keep his own head on straight.

That would be the new years eve that Cole lost me in a snooker game. He lost me to Jacob and Jacob took him up on his offer simply to teach him a lesson, but he wound up learning one instead. We were set up and we took it and ran with it anyway, our mistake. All the way to Jacob's house, shortly before midnight. We went inside and he turned off the porch lights. My eyebrows went up, because up until that moment I hadn't considered the gravity of the situation. We had all been drinking, a night long planned, complete with all-night babysitting by Cole's mom.

I'll teach that asshole to treat you this way.

What are you talking about?

You're staying here with me tonight, princess.

Right. You took me home. I'm yours for the night. Make him pay, Jake. Make him pay by having me.

Stop it. Just be quiet.

I'll do whatever you want me too.

There's a word for this, Bridget.

Extraordinary?

Pathetic. I'm not going to touch you. You're not the prize. The prize for me is teaching him a lesson.

It's because you're married isn't it? Jacob, who is ever going to know? This is sanctioned, it's permissible.

Not by me, it isn't.

So you don't want me?

Oh, I want you. Bridget, I have wanted you forever but it isn't going to be this way.

So why am I here? Fuck, I need to be far away from both of you.

I told you, you came home with me and you're spending the night and I'm going to show Cole a thing or two about treating you the way he does. I'm sick of it. Come in out of the hall and we'll get some tea.

I don't want any, thank you.
He put on the stereo. Our eyes met just as the announcer started counting down the final 10 seconds to 2005.

Auld Lang Syne came on. True to form, my eyes welled up, standing there in the middle of Jacob's tiny living room, staring up at him.

Bridget don't cry over this song. It's a song about times that have long passed. We're in the here and now.

Maybe that's not why I'm crying.

Happy New Year, beautiful.

It won't be for me, but Happy New Year, Jacob.

Have hope, princess.

I'm running low on that particular commodity right at this moment.

He put his arms around me and kissed my forehead (lord) and held me until the song was over. Then he smiled and asked me if I wanted the bed or the couch. I just kind of looked at him, surprised.

What is it?

We've done this before, Jacob. We can just share the bed.

Right and that wasn't a good idea before, either, Bridget. Just pick one.

Could I have the bed? It's warmer in there.

Sure, princess. Let me get some blankets first and I'll be out of your hair.

We're going to sleep right now?

You're half shot and I'm headed that way. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll take you out for breakfast before I bring you home.
All business. I'm standing in his living room, his for the night and he's worried about whether or not I'm eating, goddammit. I just nodded. It's Lochlan all over again.

He walked me to the bedroom door, kissed the tip of my nose and told me if I needed anything, just to holler. I closed the door and took off my dress, hanging it in his closet and got in bed with my camisole and undies. For some reason I didn't want to sleep that naked so I got out one of his organic undershirts and put that on too. It was huge on me but so soft. I slid between the sheets of his bed and it smelled like him. Out in the living room, I heard him put a CD on the stereo. The one I had with me when we left that had been a belated Christmas present from Jacob. A copy of Edie Brickell's Volcano that he knew I wanted. The music was familiar and I was asleep in moments.

I woke up at 3 am, not knowing where I was, terrified.

Jacob was sitting in the chair in the corner watching me sleep, an expression on his face I could hardly describe, it was a mixture of anguish and longing. He wasn't moving, he was just sitting with his elbows on his knees, still dressed in jeans and a plain white button down shirt with another of those soft tshirts underneath, bare feet, hair messed up as if he had been tossing and turning instead of ever sleeping. I sat up.

Jacob. What's wrong?

You make me so crazy, Bridget. Being near you, touching you, talking to you. It drives me crazy and I don't know what to do about it.

He was so distraught, I flew out of the bed and put my arms around him. He held on to me so gently and then he pulled away with a confused look.

Why are you wearing my shirt?

I was cold, I'm still cold. Will you lie down with me?

Oh, God, Bridge, I can't do this. You're wearing pink underwear. Oh my God.

I'm only asking you to be here. Not to do anything but be here.

Sometimes that's the hardest part.

His voice was thick with desperation, but he didn't talk anymore. We climbed back into his bed and settled in with our arms around each other, my nose to his chest, his breathing on the top of my head, blankets up over our heads.

Jake?

Yeah, princess?

Are you really going to sleep fully-clothed?

He took off his shirt and jeans and left everything else on, tshirt and boxers, and settled back down against me. And he sat up again and rubbed his eyes.

Princess, this is a bad idea.

Sleep, Jacob, just sleep with me. Please.

He lay back down and pulled me even closer. We were breathing the same space now and he held me so tightly against him. More than once that night we lost our way and began kissing each other and at one point he had me flat on my back, both hands hooked under the hips of my underwear about to pull them off and he stopped. At one point he had the tshirt I had on yanked up over my breasts and he licked one of my nipples and then he stopped. At one point he pulled my hair back and kissed my throat and pressed his body against mine but then he stopped.

I woke up around 5:30 am, completely tangled in his arms and legs, his face turned into my shoulder, arms locked around me, his hands clasping me to him almost exactly the same way we had woken up the last time we slept together, in the hammock.

I'm beginning to love sleeping with him at this point. Even if very little happens. Even if it all feels so unfamiliar and is heavily laden with guilt and grief for a life I was deliberately throwing away.

He opened his eyes when I shook him awake and smiled at me bitterly. He said quietly that he knew now that I wasn't so much a prize won but a screw turned and that Cole had succeeded in hurting him worse than anything I could ever do or say to Jacob, he had dangled a forbidden need in front of Jacob and it was about to be yanked away again.

Oh God, there's that look again. The one that speaks volumes, that says Jacob will die if he doesn't get his way, and he pushed me down onto my back again and pushed up my tshirt and kissed my belly and then right down my thighs and I wanted to scream. I thought for sure he was going to give up and just take everything I was offering him right there. Instead he stood up abruptly, pulled his jeans back on, shrugged into the infamous moss green blazer and ran his fingers through his hair in an attempt to look less distraught.

Which failed.

I got up and put my party dress back on and tried to fix the smudges of black underneath my eyes. I gave up and just scrubbed my face raw instead. I dreaded going home.

My God, you look so pretty.

Is that pretty cute or pretty pathetic, Jake?

There were eleven missed calls from Cole on my cell phone when I turned it on. Jacob had turned it off sometime after I went to sleep the first time. I didn't question him, I just followed him outside and got into the truck beside him and we found a diner far outside of town and took a booth and drank coffee in silence, both of us pushing hashbrowns around on our plates half-heartedly, not sure how to keep going forward but knowing we had somehow crossed an imaginary line with each other and we couldn't continue down this road.

The guilt that was crushing him was absent in me, I was still angry with Cole and in shock that Jacob once again held me all night long.

Don't forget your CD, princess.

Thanks.
We didn't say any more words to each other during the meal. I ate nothing. Then Jacob let out a long shaky sigh and suggested he drive me home.

I don't want to go home.

Well, I don't want to be around you right now, princess.

Oh my god. Fine, get mean. That helps, Jacob.

You're killing me.

You're married, how can I have this effect on you anymore?

Yeah well, I can get unmarried. You seem to be having trouble with that.

Jacob, don't be like this.

Be like what, Bridget? I just had a heartbreaking night in which I almost exploded because I wanted you so damn bad, a night where I thought I was going to go half-crazy every time you moved in your sleep. What sort of romantic dream will you make this night into inside your head so that you can live with what you do to me? It's terrible. All of it. Cole wins. I fail, and you're so fucked up you don't even know the difference between right and wrong anymore. I'm disgusted with all of us but the little voice inside my head is screaming for you and right now I just want it to stop, and I want you to go away.

Fuck you, Jacob.

Oh, fuck you too, princess. Now shut up and eat something so we can leave. Christ, you're too thin.

If you think being mean will make me stop loving you then you're mistaken, preacher boy.

If I thought you would ever love me enough to do something about it, then I'd try anything at this point. This isn't mean, princess, it's frustration talking.

It's mean. You're making me cry in a fucking truckstop in the middle of nowhere because you held me in your arms all night and you want me and I want you but I don't want to leave Cole.

Bridget, you can't have both of us. And I don't understand why you stay with him. He's bad for you.

Maybe you're bad for me.

Maybe I'm the only thing that's good for you but you can't see that and I don't know why you can't see it after all this time.

Then maybe you should just take me home.

Fine, put on your coat.

He stood up, threw some bills on the table, and took my hand, walking too quickly for me, I had to rush to keep up. He drove me right to my front door and I went inside alone and Jacob roared off. I walked up the steps and reached out to open the door when it flew open from the inside, Cole meeting me on the threshold with a smug, angry face, but a look that also screamed relief because I came back. He told me the kids would be brought home after his mom took them out for lunch and then he asked me how my night went.

And he didn't believe me when I told him.

I didn't fuck him, if that's what you were worried about.

Oh, no worries, I was well aware that I would pay for my Judas kiss either way. Even with lies of omission.

And I paid for it, in spades.

Jacob called later on, exchanging some terse words with Cole. Cole wouldn't even let him talk to me.

And Jacob never forgave himself for whatever way he imagined that Cole made me pay for that night. But he remains protected because whatever he came up with most likely wasn't half as bad as what actually took place but I would never put him in the place of having to feel any worse, he's paid his price just like I have.

But somehow, something Jacob gave me in that one night in which we struggled with ourselves and with each other made me find the hope and the strength he had wished for me. And I hear it now when I listen to songs I heard then.

Nothing hurts right now. Even pulling memories out of the dark and bonking myself over the head with my own foolishness, for the first time it doesn't ache. Listening to songs and thinking about difficult moments and somehow I'm not bleeding.

Point with no exclamation.

I know, I said nothing about therapy yesterday.

Because I quit again.

    And if I don't make it
    Know that I loved you all along
    Just like sunny days that
    We ignore because
    We're all dumb and jaded
    And I hope to God I figure out what's wrong
    And I hope to God I figure out what's wrong
    I hope to God I figure out what's wrong

Don't say it.

I walked out less than a third of the way into the morning's festivities and around 15 minutes after that I noticed Jacob's shoes under the table where I sat staring into a cup of coffee in the window of our favorite little lunch spot downtown. I didn't look up, instead I picked imaginary fuzz off the lap of my vintage coat and tapped the toes of my boots slowly on the floor. I was gearing up to be lectured to like a runaway teenager but instead he held out his hand and asked me if I was ready to go home.

I spent about four hours anticipating the fatherly ultimatums, the inevitable lecture, the request for some cooperation, and instead I got a very wonderful kiss and I was held and he asked if I was planning to continue to take the medication.

And like a child testing their boundaries I said I might, that I wasn't sure.

He confirmed a surprising new lack of boundaries by not commenting on that and said that we needed to start packing because Friday morning is going to start very early and that the trip couldn't have come at a better time. I looked at him and asked him if this was running. He said it was nothing of the kind, instead it was simply a coincidence and that if we just hold our breath long maybe the hiccups in our new year will be over soon, that he's got to try something new because forcing me to go and sit there and be ripped apart in the name of healing isn't helping at all.

It took me forever to meet his eyes, and what I saw in them wasn't disappointment, it was relief. Relief that barely begins to ease my own guilt at letting him down because I can't get my head on straight. He told me to throw away my guilt, that we're just going to hold on tight and if I have a bad day, then it's a bad day and if it's good then the world is a beautiful place and now we're going to see what time and love is going to do for fragile miss Bridget. In my waiting for the other shoe to drop I didn't notice Jake had both feet already firmly planted on the floor.

He's a trained counselor. This is a highly unorthodox and unusual step for someone who has such a close interest in my health and happiness, for someone who is such a stickler for going by the book, for being proactive and aggressively trying to righten the world using a single hand. He's jumping with his eyes closed, which says more than I ever dreamed, maybe he trusts me after all.

He's giving me back my control and I'm floored by how this feels. It feels good. It feels normal. It feels a little risky to go in this direction right this moment, but that speaks louder than any words I could write about it.

When you mix light and dark your goal is to wind up with medium, and that's what I'd like. A happy medium.

Superhero moments.

    "What's the frequency, Kenneth?" is your Benzedrine
    Butterfly decal, rear-view mirror, dogging the scene
    You smile like the cartoon, tooth for a tooth
    You said that irony was the shackles of youth
    You wore a shirt of violent green
    I never understood the frequency
    You wore our expectations like an armored suit
    I couldn't understand
    You said that irony was the shackles of youth
    I couldn't understand
    You wore a shirt of violent green
    I couldn't understand
    I never understood, don't fuck with me
I'd like to know what the sign is that I should be looking for when I wake up with a song stuck in my head every day for weeks on end. A song I haven't heard in twelve years.

Life can be strange.

Life is good, too. Love is grand and Jacob is feeling better this morning, trading in his feverish chattering for a drawn and weary face this morning when I brought breakfast up for him. His fever broke sometime around 2 am with a whole litany of incoherent ramblings and I had to get up and pull him back onto the bed because he was half on the floor and he pulled me back into his arms because he wasn't burning hot for once and he kissed my ear and slid his hand down between my thighs and promptly fell asleep again. I think I pulled something. He weighs eighty pounds more than I do.

Happy New Year indeed. There's absolutely nothing better right now than sipping a hot cup of coffee and watching a giant hunk of a guy walk around the house in his waffleweave long johns. We keep smiling at each other like stupid fools.

And I'd kiss him but he keeps sneezing. He did warn me once that he has a lot more snot than I do. And you know something? He really wasn't kidding.

The long kiss goodnight, or goodbye 2006. Forever.

For my final post of the year, I could have copped out and written down my resolutions for 2007. I could have detailed the previous seven out of eight New Years Eves, which is what I originally sat down to write about, spent with Jacob in attendance (except for one) and a maddening record of forehead kisses, ones I held an exemplary disdain for.

Hell, I could write about that one year we all drank too much and Cole lost me in a game of snooker. What fun. I think I'll save that story for another day. Maybe tomorrow.

Life was a confusing blend of pure comfort and total awkwardness when Cole and Jacob were in the same room and we all refused to acknowledge it but put ourselves in our familiar places year after year, seeking out the same pain all the while hoping for some magical promise that the year we were starting together would be different at last.

Bridget and Jacob survived long enough to see that promise find the light of day, and Cole will not.

Everything is going to be okay.

Jacob said that to me back in April and I still believe him.

Very early this morning I looked outside and the steps and sidewalk were shovelled and I saw Ben's truck pulling away. On the porch just inside the door was a big bag of our favorite coffee beans and a note to us. An apology and a hand given because he knows how sick Jacob is, because the grapevine is alive and well in this small-town neighborhood wrapped in a big city shell. And Caleb sent a very long letter and all the presents back to us again because he said he was trying to find some way to continue to give me everything on Cole's behalf and oddly I believe him, if only because he had the guts to do this even after Jacob humiliated him spectacularly, without meaning to be quite that mean.

No, that doesn't mean anyone has been forgiven, it just means I'm in a generous mood. Or maybe they were, for Bridget's sugar daddies rarely seem to drop the ball.

Before this year went to hell I had some very close friends who love me in their own ways, fucked up as they might be and I love them right back, like I loved Cole when he hurt me. Misguided as it all is, and sordid and messed up, these are my friends. They just have no clue where all the boundaries went. It all blew up and we're all going to start over. All of us. Together. Well, not really, but the enemies have somehow turned back into acquaintances and may well re-earn their friend status if they can keep their own perversions in check.

Hell, if I can do it, maybe they can too.

    The outcome was predictable
    Our banditos were despicable
    Of blood we lost a dozen litres
    A small price to pay for las senoritas
    The town mayor was happy but his face was glum
    The maidens numbered only one
    But there weren't seven brides for seven brothers
    I knew I had to get rid of the others
This morning Jacob struggled through his opening remarks and had to leave the pulpit mid-sentence, unable to breathe, leaving his lay minister to finish the service and to read the sermon Jacob had prepared, because Jacob was sitting in his office doubled over and attempting not to cough. I found him there around 1 pm and drove us home and made him more soup. He is tired of soup and unwilling to slow down any more than absolutely necessary but I'm forcing him to stop and rest, at last.

He's too sick to kiss me, for fear of my struggle with pneumonia returning because I'm rundown. He's too sick to make love, too sick to play, too sick to lie awake and talk late at night, instead sleeping lightly, feverishly, talking in his sleep and waking often. He has relented and has resorted to just holding me close to him and being here. He's more miserable from the lack of affection than from the sickness itself, frustrated and miserable.

In a few days he'll feel better and he said he wants to take me out for a decadent night of dinner and dancing, a delayed celebration of the promise fulfilled, and maybe possibly a few perversions of his own.

It's a huge promise, but I'm just as happy to stay in tonight and have a very understated evening at home with my family. I've been to more than my share of champagne-swilling, fireworks-watching, auld lang syne singing, celebratory black-tie New Years parties and I don't think I want to go to any more of those.

But the promise remains.

One that tells me 2007 is going to be better. A normal year, just once. Happy. Contented. Appreciated. Pain-free. Commonplace, even. Oh, bring it, please, God.

    Love is stronger than justice
    Love is thicker than blood
    Love is stronger than justice
    Love is a big fat river in flood

Would that be too much to ask or have I earned it?

Is this a promise that will be kept?

I guess 365 days from now, I'll have my answer.

Happy New Year, everyone.

And I really hope I don't get a forehead kiss again. I hope we're past that now.

    It all ended so happily
    I settled down with the family
    I look forward to a better day
    But ethical stuff never got in my way
    And though there used to be brothers seven
    There other six are singing in heaven

Stormbringer.

We're snowed in.

This is awesome. The kids have three movies to watch, Jacob woke up with the worst cold he's ever had and I'm tired. Just worn out. He's going to work from home in his flannels and I'm going to spoil him with chicken soup and later we're going to pile on the couch and rot out our brains.

I couldn't think of a better way to spend a Saturday. I don't even have to shovel, it's still snowing too hard.

This is very cozy.

Yes, there's lots of cake left. Emergency provisions and all...


    In this life I'm stubborn to the core
    In this life I've been burning after more
    We both know what these open arms are for
    You're everything that's fair
    In this life, you're my only one

Bridget's game face.

(This post got lost and should be listed before the last one, if you're wondering.)

I've had a busy morning.

First I drove down to the fire station and gave away all the cases of wine and assorted new bottles of vodka that found their way into my house over the holidays. Whatever was open I poured out. Alone.

Because I'm trying.

Then I went to therapy. Alone. Which is great. It's my confessional, only I'm not given a gamut of counted sorrows to run, instead I'm forced to confront everything I hate about myself and everything that scares me. So much fun.

But the alcohol is gone which means the anti-depressants make their welcome return.

See look! I said welcome. I'm trying.

Then I hit the doctors office, alone, for my IUD. Why? Because nothing else works. I can't keep track of anything and anything Jacob can get his hands on will of course, be sabotaged or debated until it's meaningless. He can't talk me out of an IUD every night so it was the next logical step. Because vasectomies in this province carry year-long waiting lists and he doesn't want one and the simple fact that Jacob has not fathered any biological children is making the urologist hum and haw anyway so it's not something we're going to explore any further, frankly.

Hell, I'm just trying to keep the peace for a little while. My doctor warned me today that couples who have difficulty coming to some sort of agreement when it comes to how many children to have often wind up unhappy and divorced as a result. He knows our struggles, knows our history and frankly I know we're in danger and it's from far more than just deciding on one more baby. Far more.

But we're trying to fight for it.

Surprisingly, couples therapy went better than anything else. My proactiveness was duly noted and I got my verbal pat on the head and appreciative murmurs from everyone in the room and then we proceeded to dissect Bridget without benefit of painkillers, which hurt like hell, like it always does. There's a pain I now look forward to because it's become my replacement for the pain I felt with Cole. I can simply carry it around and lavish it onto a new aspect of my life. I dove right in today and was the first to agree with the assessments levelled on me that I'm playing with fire.

Yes, I know that. Old habits die hard and fire brought forth Jacob, now, didn't it?

He is having no luck losing his good-boy, savior-complexed, hands-tied bystander image. For some reason he holds back. Maybe it's because he can't believe his wish to hold me in his arms brought with it all this other...stuff that's going to take up so much space he can hardly hold on to me anymore.

Why is life more complicated now than it was before? Maybe it just seems like it is because I'm writing it all down now and working on it, instead of pretending it doesn't exist. That is a world of difference, doing it. It makes me see it all and I don't like what I see and I want things to be better.

Onward and upward. We left the office, not in tears, but in love. Somehow the worst, most honest revelations tend to kickstart a fresh new morning, a proverbial proving ground from which we seem to take three steps forward. We did it this morning and we'll do it every morning until the past recedes again and until we can do it without trying to bring each other down. Because when I stop and look at Jacob I love him. I don't see or care about anything else, I just see him and I love him and I want everything else to just go away now.

I told him that and his eyes welled up and he said,

Now you finally know what happens every time I look at you, princess.

Deepest blue.

Nights like these make life worth living a hundred times over. Jacob was home in time for a late supper and went to read a book to each child separately as he does on days when we've had few spare moments to give to each individually.

He never came back. I went looking for him after he had been upstairs for over an hour and found him stretched out full on Henry's bed, the tattered story of Rip Van Winkle (how ironic) opened face down on his chest, one arm around Henry, who was snoring in tandem with Jake's deep breathing, arms flung out in total trust, one across the pillow and one right across Jacob's face. I took just one moment to reflect on how alike they are in appearance, all eyelashes and blonde curls. Reluctantly I had to wake up Jacob, he moves so much when he sleeps I could see him landing on the floor, a sea of matchbox cars, hurting himself and waking Henry up.

I shook his shoulder and he opened his eyes so sleepily and I told him maybe he should go to bed.

Come with?

Not yet, Jake. It's only 8:30.

So? You have better plans?

Maybe. Peace, quiet, and writing?

Sure, but sex and cake and a warm bath would probably be nice.

Maybe I can have both?

Huh? Cake in the bathtub?

No, a half hour of writing and then bed?

Done, princess. I'll wait for you up here then. Wake me up if I goof off again.

Okay. Be up soon.
I don't have the heart to wake him up again. He was asleep before I wrote the end of one sentence because I snuck back upstairs to look.

Rifling through.

(I found this, written last night but not published. If you want to look inside my head, then know that sometimes I sit down and write miles and miles of words, but only a few steps will ever reach your eyes. Most of it just sits here, in drafts, forever. Some of it cuts too close to the quick, like this one.)

    Maybe what Caleb said about me still walking the tightrope while everyone watches me struggle and teeter sparked the wheels. I don't know. In any event, I'm coming down into some sort of valley of miserable frustration tonight that is sucking the life out of me.

    So long. So long to keep secrets that explode and then you knew them anyway and still you're simply dumbstruck. Floored and hurt and blown apart once again by things you knew already, things that get confirmed along the way and still knock you on your ass.

    I think therapy is going to kill me. Why is it beneficial for me to know that Jacob did indeed love his ex-wife? Why do I need to know this? Why do I need confirmation that Cole slept with people I knew he slept with?

    This shit, this meaningless bullshit is what drags me down, and again I come home and I get through the remainder of the day and all I can think of is that if I can just kill myself I can avoid such a terrible onslaught of pain.

    And then I look in Jacob's eyes and I see him shaking his head because he's going to force me to endure all of it because he's selfish.

    Selfish.

    And yes, I threw the other hearing aid in the garbage. I had a high, noble week that week when I got them. I thought I could change the rotation of the planet. I was pregnant, married, fresh off vacation and on a high that I never thought would go away but it did.

    It went away, along with the baby and the one hearing aid that worked really well.

    But he is still here.

    And maybe I'm selfish. Maybe I don't want to hear everything. Maybe I don't want to take pills and tell all my secrets to some overpaid sap in a houndstooth coat. Maybe I don't need to be forced to admit shit that I don't need in my life.

    Maybe I need something else.

    I don't even know. I just know that he is still here and I'm wary and weird and I didn't sleep last night and I''m tired of everyone checking in to see if Bridget went crazy yet. Poke her and see if she yelps. Covet her and see if she wavers. Break her and see if she heals. Crack her, watch her crumble. Fragile Miss Bridget doesn't need this. What she needs is continuance, and consistency and caring. Support. Love. The right kind, not the difficult kind. I wasn't crazy, I wasn't fragile. I was doing okay. Jacob blew the lid off all of it. Somehow he gave me permission to stop holding it together all the time and so I let it fall apart and now I can't get it back together for any length of time and I can't do this anymore. And what he thought he fixed, he broke more. Only I can't tell him that. Somehow being with him is a license to not be very strong at all.

    I can't..do this. It has to stop.

    And soon he'll be back. Stroking my hair, telling me shhhhhhh, baby, it's okay, everything's okay. Holding me while I cry and not letting the demons anywhere near me. And then he's gone again and what happens then? Huh? Who fixes that?

    Crumbling is the perfect description, and it's exactly what I've tried not to do since Saturday night.

    And I can't. I can't figure any of this out. It shouldn't be hard, but it is. I shouldn't be conflicted but I am. I don't know why I would want to take that key and fuck up my life and I took it. And I knew he was smiling but I didn't look back. Caleb knew that I knew his hotel room number, he always stays in the same room, I've been in that room, I've felt the sexual tension between us, hell it was there for 2o years. One of the reasons I couldn't spend much time around him. One of the reasons our first meeting after Cole's death was so fucking awkward.

    Yup, I've got a laundry list of guys. One drops out, the next queue up to take his place.

    Such a lucky girl.

    Only I stopped that. Because I don't want any of them. Only one. Only Jake. Jake who laughs at me when I'm drunk, like now, because he turned off my phone and locked the door and the children are asleep and I'm allowed to have a sanctioned drink spiel because I fucking earned it and he hasn't figured out any other safe way to blow off steam. He loves the fact that I fail to measure my words or contain my emotions, I simply dump it all on top of him and then spin off to the other side of the desk and take another sip.

    He's on the phone now making some calls while I empty the remainder of the Stoli and blow off more steam than he ever imagined.

    Hey, write a little bit, honey, see what you come up with.
    Okay.

    Sure.

    Will do.

    Oops, he didn't mean online.

    He really should have fallen for someone less freaky.

    Because...

    Oh, Christ. He is still too good for me. I can't stop my brain from thinking about what a night with Caleb would be like. He knows what bad girls like. He cultivates a repetoire that would fulfill desires that Jacob can't manage because he's too nice.

    Bridget likes nice everywhere but one place and that place is very very important to her.

    And I'm sorry. I can't help it. Sure, I caught the eye of the unreachable, unshakable preacher boy, and all his friends laughed and teased him to no end as he was visibly taken by Bridget, the whore, Cole's bride, the freakishly psychotic wife with the streak of utter depravity. Cole had the ride of his fucking life on me and it was painfully obvious that Jacob wanted a piece of that action and he got it. Oh boy did he get it. He fell so hard and I love him for it. And it's obvious that he thought he could fix it but that isn't working so well because it didn't go away. It's not fading, we still struggle, we fight, we get thrown when out of the blue an offer comes to fix it all and I want that and I can't have it and Jacob is horrified and territorial and scared that after everything that has happened he might lose me now.But he won't because I'm not her anymore.I just hope he loves who he ended up with after all.

I let him read it first and then he asked somberly if I really felt like that. Most of the time I don't and yet still I wrote it down. And still I post it because it's here, in my head and I'm just trying to deal with everything. Still. And I printed it and put it in my bag and tomorrow I want to talk about it in therapy. I just don't want to talk about it tonight.

Headcase.

It's not all rage and drunkeness and woe around the Reilly household. Oh no. I feel fine this morning. I was trashed late last night and the hazard of keeping a laptop handy in case I get struck by a momentary inspiration also means that even my mom knows just how drunk I got last night.

I was sober enough to be fun though, so Jacob gets as much out of those kind of nights as I do. I feel like a million bucks today, six ways from Sunday. Rather than crack like an egg, I used my other method of blowing off steam. The methods that help me forget painful stuff.

Those are easy to discuss. Hey, I find it easier to share those stories some days than the ones that involve Bridget waking up on Christmas morning, flying out of bed in an effort to reach the bathroom before my bladder explodes and then falling spectacularly into the toilet bowl because...

...because men who live alone for as long as Jacob did often develop some serious laughter-inducing new-swear-word-creating habits like leaving the seat up.

Or I could point out in my quest to try and squeeze some pennies for all the cash outlay recently thanks to things like Christmas, new trucks and second homes (okay, tiny cottages, just let me have my fantasy) I bought generic Oreos, which apparently heralded the beginnings of the rapture in this household.

Jacob ate one, made a face, and asked me if I would kindly eat the rest of the Poor-reos because they're awful. Hmmph. Mr. flashy truck is becoming a brand snob.

But really, you know you want to hear about last night, after drink number four, because three is the absolute cutoff, and I did not reach for the Christmas tree to keep myself upright and not miss.

Causing said tree to fall over. All nine feet dry needled goodness. Yup. Which didn't bring down the bookshelves and dump all four hundred CDs and change into a pile on the floor. Nope.

Oh noes.

Oh this is bigger than oh-noes, princess. You're not going to be able to 'cute' yourself out of this one.

Aw, come on, Jakey.

Jakey, nothing. Sober up and help me clean up this mess.

Or we could leave it for the morning because I think it's bedtime.

You could use some sleep.

Oh, I don't want sleep, handsome.

Oh Lord. Bridget, you're like a runaway train tonight.

No, but you could be, if you want to make a girl happy.

Okay let me prop up the tree using my muscles that subsist on your generic food-like substitutions.

At least you didn't spend Christmas morning with festive wet-butt.

Oh let it go already, please.

Done. Now come up stairs and get out of these jeans before I pass out.

Well, now, that might be fun too. Maybe I'll wait.

Jacob!

Okay, okay, a guy has to have some fun.

Oh, you'll have fun, no worries.

Who said I was worried?

Well-meaning neighbors who gift Bridget with cases of alcohol should be shot.

Bad night.

Oh yes, bring vodka and cake.

That fixes everything. Jacob isn't stupid. He knows what makes it better.Bridget feeling no pain is always better than any alternative. Or maybe just don't ask.

Except now the vodka is empty and I'm staring down the fnal drink of the evening. And my fingers are getting clumsy and I have to bite my lip to concentrate and Jakey keeps looking at me over the top of his book and just staring like I am either themost beautiful creature in the whole world to him or he's just astounded at the amount of alcohol such a tiny person can consume and still write legibly.

Er...

Ha. I promsie I won't ha ve anymore. BEcause it's gone anway and he's taking me up to bed now because drunken sex with me is fucking fantastic. in a way that watching me write is just not.

Yup. Bye.

Hey and I'm well aware that everone thinks Im fragile. WHat would be so different about that?

Oh wait, and for Chase, who wanted to know what the tattoo is on the back of my neck, it's a letter B, a beautiful B in a calligraphical script with ivy entwining it. Pretty.

Nightg.

Destroy all monsters.

Writing this gives me a headache.

There's always two sides to every story. This would be Jacob's. Jacob who has finally become fed up with my mutinous male friends who have all suddenly confessed their secret agendas because my life was simply blown wide open this year.

I'm so glad to kiss this year good-bye. You have no idea. I've been gathering thoughts and plotting resolutions and finalities for days. I'll be celebrating the end of possibly the best and worst year of my whole life. The very essence, the bittersweet taste of life few people ever get to experience firsthand the way I have. If I could I would wish all this romance on you with none of the pain attached. None of this came easily for us, none of it was free.

Saturday night after I fell asleep, after reaffirming my loyalty to and my love for Jacob and assuring him that Caleb is not a threat to him to him, Jacob, well, he went out.

Because I had grabbed Caleb's card key on my way past him and he was probably waiting for me, and I sent Jacob instead. Jacob who was in a very confrontational mood after a very stressful evening where he was helpless once again.

Only he isn't helpless and Caleb picked a bad moment to offer me some sideline submissiveness.

Ouch, yeah, I know.

If there's one huge difference between Caleb and Cole in a world of similarities, it's that Cole would have sooner swung first and asked questions later, and Caleb would sooner back down and run before he'd risk bleeding all over his lovely Hugo Boss wardrobe, and so I knew there would be words exchanged but I didn't worry that bodily harm would come to anyone. I don't worry about Jacob anyway. No one could hurt him, even if they tried.

And considering Caleb met with Jake a whole six weeks ago for lunch to agree that Bridget would not be hurt, that my heart would be protected at all costs, Caleb failed to hold up his end of the bargain the first moment he saw an in, and Jacob wasn't about to let that slide past him. Stunned as he was when I told him what took place, he was quick to recover and even faster to fix it.

He fixes everything. Thank god. I walk a shaky line as it is. Caleb is bad for me, but I only want Jake and this whole mess just makes me laugh. It's gone past ridiculous and slammed right into outrageous.

I don't think he'll be calling again any time soon. Caleb tried Ben's trick of talking trash to Jacob and for his troubles he got pinned to a door and threatened within an inch of his life and his name and if I know Caleb he won't mess with that. His reputation is very important to him. So is his personal safety. Jacob was ashamed of himself when he came home because he said when he slammed Caleb into the door Caleb pissed himself. That's why Jacob left without inflicting any further psychological damage on Caleb. The goal was achieved, Caleb was scared.

Because Jacob can be very scary and he doesn't realize exactly just how scary he can be because he's never been on the receiving end of his own rage. He doesn't get that mad very often in his life.

I have very little sympathy for Caleb right now. I know how it feels, only worse. He was put up against a door, but he had been expecting a visitor. He just received the wrong one. Me, I was thrown into a door and smashed around when I wasn't expecting anyone. It's my own sick twist on poetic justice. I want Caleb to leave me alone. I never should have gone with him in the first place and my lesson is that I had to subject Jacob to once again working through feelings that he shouldn't have to. I never baited Caleb, I thought he was going to make things easy, not make them worse.

He did succeed in doing one thing. He brought Jacob and I even closer, yet again, united in our efforts to be together despite distractions and histories and baggage, despite outside attempts to drive a wedge between us.

And for that gift I will thank Caleb. Just not in person.

Poets, kisses and keys.

My, you're an inquisitive bunch. And that's okay by me, I love questions. So many people wanted to know what Jacob gave me for Christmas.

This holiday didn't turn out to be nearly as minimalistic as I originally planned. Or maybe it did, but in a sweet, simply wonderful kind of way.

Somewhere late last night between washing dishes and sleeping, Jacob pulled a blanket down onto the floor by the fireplace and patted it while I stared at him in surprise.

What are you doing, Jacob?

Constructing a cliche, Bridget.

Oh, I see.

So come here, beautiful.

And?

You'll find out.
First I grabbed the bottle of wine, almost empty anyway, and our glasses and then I snuggled down into his arms. My favorite place of all. I asked Jacob if he had had a good Christmas and he said it was the best he'd ever spent. The whole time he talked he was pulling me out of my clothes. And sipping wine. Being silly. There hasn't been a lot of silly lately. Soon we only had that blanket between us and the rest of the world and there wasn't anything left that we hadn't done. But then he reached up to the table and pulled down a small yellow envelope.

For you, princess.

What is it?

Hold out your hand and see.
A small rusty key fell into my hand. I held it up curiously. No idea. Hints required.

Key to your heart, Jakey?

You've held that key for years. This is the key to your summer castle.

I don't get it.
He explained that my unspoken dismay at his acceptance of the university job sent him on a mission. Please understand I'm so proud of him, the job is a terrific opportunity, the problem lies in the fact that it means we stay here. I didn't want to stay here. Maybe until the end of the school year but this job is a good chance for Jacob to do something wonderful and if all goes well we won't be moving for years. Years.

So, true to form, Jacob fixed that.

He bought a cottage for us. Back home. A tiny windblown little frame house by the ocean, just a stone's throw from some of my favorite childhood beaches on the south shore. A retreat, an escape. A place to call our own that is uniquely ours. Castle indeed.

He bought it weeks ago and has been arranging to have it painted, furnished, repaired, and now it's ready. He had his sister take pictures and send them up and it's so beautiful. Floors and woodwork are white, the main rooms are my favorite shade of celadon and it's less than fifty steps to sand. There's a well with a bucket and an ancient cellar. There's a tire swing and a blueberry bush. A porch, screened in, with a lantern hanging on a hook by the door. He had a woodstove put in. And tin-punch cabinet doors. Because I saw it in a magazine once and said it was pretty.

But he wasn't done there.

He bought the land on either side of the cottage, too.

And he promised me someday we'll build a big house there.

I don't even remember what happened next because my brain snapped with a happiness overload. I do know I made him smile, I tired him out and I believe I proclaimed him to be something out of a book that I couldn't write if I wanted to, he's that incredible.

Jacob laughed and said that's exactly what he was shooting for, which was funny because he is too humble for words, he puts himself down, he dismisses his actions most of the time, one of the reasons I love to share his grand romantic gestures. On the way to bed, with my small hand disappearing into his larger one, he stopped and hung the key on a hook by the kitchen door, where it will stay until it's warm enough for us to go and visit the cottage for the very first time.

I keep going to look at it. Not the pictures of the cottage, but the rusty key itself. That key fascinates me. But then again, so does Jacob. Because just when I think he's outdone himself with his own brand of earth-shattering romance he conquers that too, and just keeps finding more ways to surprise me. That key signifies our future. A plan. A new dream for us. Sorely needed after a difficult year.

The ironic part is that I thought I had outdone him for gifts, finding and hiding a rare edition book of Marlowe plays, one of his favorites, having bought it months ago, knowing he would be positively dumbstruck by it and he was.

Just not as much as I was by that key.

Noel.

The biggest Christmas miracle of all would be two children who slept until 8 am.

On Christmas day.

Yeah, I'm kinda wow too.

Saturday night has a whole part two that followed but I refuse to spoil what is shaping up to be a wonderful, cozy, quiet day by writing about it right now.

Harry Connick Jr. and vintage Glen Campbell are taking turns singing Christmas songs on the stereo, turkey is in the oven, and the fire is crackling and popping, warming up the whole house. Jacob just made a fresh pot of coffee and is busy doing nothing but watching the kids play with new board games while he sips from his cup and traces the tattoo on the back of my neck, the one that surprises people when I wear my hair up.

His phone didn't ring much yesterday and these have been two very close, very warm and devoted days.

I hope you're warm and happy too.