Sleeping giant.

The fragility seems to be waning in his eyes as this afternoon Jacob taught me how to use most of the power tools in the house on our way to making a new fence, gates and steps. We spent all afternoon in the sun quietly going over the best ways to do certain things, while Ruth and Henry blew bubbles for the dog to eat and visited with friends in the neighborhood as they would come by to see what was happening. The truck and the bike stayed parked, the phone went unanswered and it was fun. So much fun. Especially after a typically busy Sunday morning.

I think this afternoon Jacob worked too hard. He came in and said he was headed for a short nap and I heard his boots hit the floor upstairs and never heard another sound. I cleaned up the tools, got the kids their baths, made a light supper for the three of us and then put the kids to bed, figuring he needed the sleep so they tiptoed in and kissed his cheek.

When I checked him a little while ago, he was still sleeping hard. Flat on his back with his hands flung hither and yon like Henry when he's sacked out. Filthy flannel shirt over filthy white t-shirt. Jeans covered with dirt and grease. Sawdust all over the place.

And the sweetest, most contented sleep-expression I have ever seen.

I doubt he'll be back up tonight. He's going to be one hungry giant tomorrow morning.

Maverick angels.

(It's Saturday and I'm somehow needing cheat notes for conversations that should have been harder but weren't. Idn't dat fullish, b'y as Jake would say, untranslated by me. Yes, isn't that foolish.)

Jacob's look when he came inside and found me holding Gabe as he slept blissfully spoke volumes I've never read before. He came over and looked down at Gabe and then back at me and asked if I was okay.

I nodded.

I've pretty much managed to avoid so much contact with Gabe (and other babies) up until now. I've stayed home on dedication days through the winter and politely declined to attend baptisms and birthdays. I've sent dozens of presents out with other people. Mostly the dedications, because seeing Jacob holding a baby might tear my heart into pieces.

It did. It totally did.

Gabe woke up shortly after Jake returned and when he did I passed him to Jacob to hold while I sorted through the bag for a new diaper and when I turned back to get Gabe the sight of Jacob holding him hurt a hell of a lot more than I thought it would. He knew it did and he quickly put Gabe on the blanket on the floor that I had spread out to change him on.

It was yet another lesson in learning to pretend things don't hurt for the presence of future adults who have nothing to do with your own bullshit. Such is life, maybe I have more tools than I realize. I swallowed that pain like it was just a bitter lemon and it was gone.

Happy dysfunction, as we pretended everything was just ducky for the remainder of our afternoon with Gabe and when his mom picked him up we gave him back with a weird mixture of complete relief and a fleeting hint of agonizing regret. Jacob closed the door and I fell into a chair, worn out.

When suddenly I realized I hadn't been pretending to have fun, I did have fun.

I'm proud of you.

For what? Not trying to slip in my agenda of converting the world to cloth diapers?

Well, maybe that, but mostly for not making Gabe aware that it was hard for you to spend time with him.

It always worked for you.

Oh, Bridge.

I'm sure he knew. Babies sense things.

So do grown men.

Oh, that smarts.

You're beautiful.

So are you, Jacob. (losing it now, of course)

I must be. I got the call this morning. I'm booked in for early September. (Vasectomy! Oog.)

Oh God. Are we ready for this?

Are you kidding? As miraculous as Gabriel was, as any child would be, it's nice when they go home, and it's nice in the evenings when the kids go to bed and I have you all to myself, selfish bastard that I am. I've spent the winter dedicating new lives to God and watching families grow and we're growing in a different way, we're growing roots. We're building our foundation and making our permanence and we don't need a third child to do that. We've got everything we need. I have the most amazing wife and my children, my girl and my boy and we're complete. I got past the want, princess. It was one of those idealistic romanticized fool's errands and it's passed now. It's been gone for a long time.

Not a regret?

I have no regrets. You?

So, so many, Jake.

Let 'em go, baby girl. It's a weight you weren't meant to carry. Let's close that chapter and start a new one.

Now you sound like me.

Yeah, except I don't have your ridiculous Nova Scotia accent.

Hey now, calm your jealousy.

I'm pretending you didn't just say that.

No volunteers.

I took the picture down, thank you for the kind words, but it's easier to keep going if I don't have to look myself in the eye.

It's raining again, welcome this time after a round of tornado warnings and forty-degree nights had us escaping last evening to the suburbs to the McNally-Robinson store with the treehouse inside, for iced coffees and fresh reading materials. Summer reading for a summer that will hopefully allow for that kind of rest.

I'm convinced it won't, though so perhaps we'll just do our reading here on the porch while we pretend everything is fine when it isn't.

Go ahead and roll your eyes, you never got an engraved invitation to be here. Hell, I didn't get one either. It's a party I threw without a lick of planning or forethought.

I'm an enigma. Consistently looking for a way out of this world without affecting anyone and yet I go out of my way to live my life as excruciatingly as I can so I can feel it to pieces. All of it, good and bad. I don't want to be medicated. After the first two weeks I began to chew up the pills in my mouth and when no one was paying attention I'd pick the bits out of the backs of my teeth and rinse them down the sink. I'm not medicated any more than you are and I was caught.

Masochist. Yes. Yes I am.

And so I'm sipping my petulant bitter coffee this morning, flying on caffeine and savoring the tiniest of failure-victories. That seems to be the only kind I can produce right now.

Until we hit on something that works, well, none of it is going to work. My work suffers when I take pills and if I can't work then I don't want to bother with the rest of it. And yes I know if I hit a low and go running off looking for trains to fling myself into or blowtorches to set myself alight there won't be any work left to produce anyway.

I had to give new examples so Jacob doesn't nail the upstairs windows shut. Christ, he's already taken all the knives away and I've been reduced to asking for him to slice cucumbers for me when we're making dinner which demoralizes me to no end.

I never said I had it all figured out.

The idea that I could leave without affecting anyone is completely ridiculous.

Besides. what would everyone do all day?

He follows me when I run.

Which makes the medication issues pale significantly. Because I'm allowed to betray everyone but no one is allowed to betray me. It's been done and it's my turn to fall apart and no one else gets my spotlight.

I left the office, with Claus and Jacob sitting there with smug Rob (marriage guy) after Jacob unloaded all the stuff he keeps inside that I knew but I really didn't know after all and I turned and told him not to move and I left and walked for about six blocks before I realized I was going to ruin my shoes and I didn't need to be soaking wet when I was just getting over a cold and I hailed my very first taxi and took myself home.

Because I may not be able to trust myself but I'll take my chances, the other options aren't looking very solid right now. Jacob isn't looking very solid right now. Life isn't looking very solid right now. But I am holding on.

For once.

Surprises.

Jacob's going to get a big surprise when he gets home, because we have a visitor.

One of my neighbors asked me if I could watch her eight-month-old son, Gabe. Gabe is a handsome little guy with blonde hair and blue eyes and a very easy-going disposition and he was handed to me about fifteen minutes after Jacob left for downtown, this time to get the papers he didn't actually get when he ambushed me with the accompanied serenade on Monday. So I'm not entirely sure who's babysitting who right now and I'm not entirely sure what look will play across Jacob's face when he gets home that I maybe might not want to see but for now it's awfully nice to sit here and watch Gabe sleep through lunch, one fist curled around his ear.

He smells like heaven.

I will never have another baby.

Perhaps I can arrange to borrow him more often. I haven't been this relaxed in years.

The well.

I have it.

It isn't a movie. It's a music video. Set to some loud, desperate power ballad, most likely in the pouring rain, an epic life or death struggle that ends well, if we're lucky.

That's my life. Fuck Christian's snowglobe or PJ's optimism and dogged reminders. Fuck Loch's midlife crisis. Fuck Jacob's faith and rejection of yestermorrow in favor of today. Fuck me already.

It's a four minute music video on a loop. Played over and over only the tape never wears out and no one ever gets tired because my god, listen to the emotion in the singer's voice, look at the fear and the love in his gorgeous eyes, watch the perfect girl that has his heart as she fleshes the song out visually so you know exactly how much he wants her and how she will always be his.

There is no reality here. I'm looking for the lights, the set, the script. I'd pay millions I don't even have to get a crack at that script to spoil my own ending.

And the stupid rain never stops.

The tears never stopped. I had another lovely multi-hour session with Claus and sometimes I really wonder when I'm going to stop crying. There's no end to the tears. They. just. keep. coming. and the music keeps playing in my head and we never have dry hair anymore or dry eyes, it's a metaphor. Maybe we should change the channel. I heard there's a comedy on the other one.

I hear we might see the sun this weekend. That would be nice because after a while, it isn't just snow that drives people mad. It's life. Life without tools to help you live it. Tools I can't seem to hold in my little hands long enough to learn how to use them.

But they gave me a film canister and I opened it up and words spilled out and this is what it said.

Exactly. Absolutely nothing.

    September sun glowing golden hair
    Now keep in mind son she was never there
    Octoberís rust bisecting black storm clouds
    Only the deaf hear my silent shouts

Please just collect them.

The abject comparisons. I can't take them anymore. Take with it the reciprocal altruism, if you would. I know what it means. I know that it's real and it's waiting for me and that's why I can't move.

Once upon a time in a rare and fleeting show of confidence I could bring Cole to a standstill with my contempt for his cataclysmic lack of demonstrative emotional skills.

He would cave, he would fall apart trying to make me talk to him when he crossed a verbal line. He was never sorry for his physical missteps but he watched his words. He hated my disparagement of myself. He hated when I shut him out, he would joke and chide and try to draw me out, almost as if he wanted me to forgive him on the spot or he'd die miserably.

Ironic. Both the emotional eruptions and his death even. It still reels me right out over a ledge.

I never gave him the silent treatment. I would just process whatever he said and just think about it. I go quiet. I learned a lifetime ago not to beat things to death verbally and now it's something I do every day. More comparisons in living with night and day, moon and sun, dark and now light. Jacob likes to put words on everything. He draws me back out agonizingly to talk even though sometimes we leave it. Cole would go insane leaving it. Jacob has more patience and more confidence in his relationship with me. Something he never had until Cole was gone. Cole was his shadow in love and his rival in life. It's as freeing for him as it is for me to be out from under that intense scrutiny.

Emerging as the winner in a close race is my one private, final question for Cole. One question I asked him constantly and never got an answer to, one bit of closure and peace of mind he took with him to the grave in a rare show of secrecy that leaves me devastated forever. Simply devastated.

He never once gave me an answer. Jacob, with his heart in my hands will run out of breath giving me answers, epic ones, silly ones. The moon will rise and our eyes will grow so heavy and he'll be slurring reasons as he falls into sleep but I know when he wakes up he'll have thought of more ways.

Life is day from night. Light years and lifetimes different from before. Beautiful. Loving, so loving and passionate and overwhelming compared to before and so why would I keep this particular question in my heart? Why did it become more important than maybe asking why he had to be so quietly cruel?

Maybe because he answered that one, with laughter and spite. Otherwise, whatever answers he knew, he kept to himself. Maybe because he didn't know why. Because I was there. Because I loved him enough for both of us, maybe he didn't understand how that worked. He always came back to me even when he hated me, when there were better girls, when he had more fun without me.

Somehow my love was enough to spread across many hearts. So one would remain in the dark and the other would grow toward the light, eventually becoming too tired to hang on anymore and dropping the other heart down down into the black spiral that wouldn't let go of him long enough to give him to me, or long enough to give me that answer. It was the only thing I ever wanted from him and it would have made all the difference in the world.

Breaking Jake.

Jacob believes in evil. Which isn't a stretch of his imagination, he's a minister. He has seen things and he knows things that humble him, that break life down into basics, and importants and the rest is just gravy, fluff and distractions. He believes in the devil, not as Satan but as evil inside all of us, or more simply, the absence of good.

Oh, and he's a lightweight. This morning he picked Breaking Benjamin for his breakfast-making karaoke in the kitchen and what floors me is how he knows all the words, he can't get through the song. I've been listening to him try and he can't, his voice keeps breaking and so he stops and puts it on again. He's not going to let a few words best him, not when they're lodged firmly in his head. I love that he can't do it, I can't explain it. I love that his faith brings him to his very knees.

    Here I stand, helpless and left for dead
    Close your eyes, so many days go by
    Easy to find what's wrong
    Harder to find what's right

    I believe in you
    I can show you that I can see right through
    All your empty lies, I won't stay long
    In this world so wrong

    Say goodbye,
    As we dance with the devil tonight
    Don't you dare look at him in the eye
    As we dance with the devil tonight

    Trembling, crawling across my skin
    Feeling your cold, dead eyes
    Stealing the life of mine

    I believe in you
    I can show you that I can see right through
    All your empty lies, I won't last long
    In this world so wrong

    Say goodbye,
    As we dance with the devil tonight
    Don't you dare look at him in the eye
    As we dance with the devil tonight

    Hold on
    Hold on

Joel's been fired! YES! The last thing I ever want in my life is any more decaf with that guy. I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a dull spoon and eat them for lunch. It's been a miserable three weeks.

Seeing Claus is enough. Claus is terrific. Maybe moreso now that he stopped tiptoeing around and brought out the heavy meds. Apparently you have to be two steps away from the edge of the roof before people take you seriously. I don't fault him. I have a gift for deception and he mostly sees through it. It's taken almost a year but I have liked him from the get-go. I wish he wasn't retiring.

I wish I didn't need help.

You'll thank me later.

I found my brain, it had been poked full of holes and kicked into the corner. Weee. A lobotomy. Just what I've always wished for. And Jacob found his little wife and pulled her hands off the doorframe where her nails had dug in and forced her to drive downtown with him to attend her stupid session.

Today Joel wanted blood and instead I gave him tears. I went nowhere with anything. I sat in the chair and just held on to my stupid coffee cup for dear life and tried to tune him out. Jacob wasn't there, Claus wasn't there and I didn't want to be there. Every time he asked me to look at him it was as if I was seeing him through a window sheeted in rain and it was miserable and it didn't matter which direction he tried to take me in, I couldn't seem to go and so he stopped it early. He talked about his divorce. He's trying to make me trust him and I don't.

I don't trust anyone, for the record. Absolutely no one.

I came home and there was a message on the machine from Caleb to say hello to the kids and politely pretend that all is still well between everyone. The new neighbors left a bottle of wine on our back step, they make their own and they don't know us well yet and so I brought it inside and Jacob said it looked like it was shaping up to be a long day.

I hope not. But I have such a headache. It must be from the lobotomy.

    And if there's something wrong
    Who would have guessed it
    And I have left alone
    Everything that I own
    To make you feel like
    It's not too late
    It's never too late

    Even if I say
    It'll be alright


If I type really quietly maybe he won't find me in time to go to to counseling. I'd really rather not go.

Don'twanttogodon'twanttogo.

FUCK.