Rhymes with glitch (it's okay, I know the way to hell).

Play it like a cameo, and watch her overflow
She’ll find a way to go down
Run like a candidate, like any minute made
You’ll find a way to go down

I’m sick of the faces, the scene and the light
We’ll be fine when the faces connect with the spine

Sophie called just as I tackled Daniel, ripping the very last gummy tarantula out of his hand and stuffing it in my mouth. My reward is to be flipped onto my back and held down while he lets a long string of spit descend from his mouth until it almost touches my nose and then he sucks it back in. I break into a laughing scream, because Ew! Dancooties! He has the worst ones. Just like his brother, he sees absolutely nothing wrong with sneezing on people or cornering someone to pass gas in their face. Did I mention they throw food as well?

Finally he lets me up and I feign throwing up and take the phone. Yes, my very sophisticated, pulled-together nemesis should be made to feel that much more superior by virtue of my ridiculous immaturity. I live in a frat house. Such is life here and I wouldn't change it for anything.

Hello?

Bridget, hi. Is this a difficult time to talk?

No, why?

I heard lots of...noises.

It's nothing. Why are you calling? (My God, look how fucking smooth I am!)

I wanted to...well, I wanted to see if you needed anything.

I'm guessing Caleb is there and you're discussing the state of my brain.

Well, actually-

Well, actually, Sophie, Caleb is the one who told me Jacob was still alive, and then he back-tracked just enough to make me seem crazy and then he made sure I am aware of what he is capable of doing by having some other very important documents altered. So there is no question in my mind what's wrong in my life. Clearly it's his presence. You might want to think about how knowing him might impact your own life. I would anyway, if I were you. Thankfully, I'm not.

*CLICK*

It felt so fucking good to hang up on her. Almost as good as not getting spit on by Danny.

Not often I indulge in this sort of total nonsense so here.

I am experimenting with the front-facing camera on my Nexus. I think it works well. What do you think? It was about time I got rid of the photo in my profile in which I am hiding behind a Blackberry. A curve 8300, no less. That was like three phones ago! Now I have FIVE mega-pixies! FIVE! I love me some pixies. Please bring me a crowd.

<-----------------Enjoy.

Not often you get to glimpse a real princess, hey?

(Oh, kiss my little arse, PJ.)

Value.

I am your satisfaction
I am your memory
I am your suffocation
I am your sanity

I was hurrying past him to get the pitcher of lemonade and he grabbed me, holding my arms. I stopped struggling instantly (in through the nose, out through the mouth.) He was in one of those moods and I had to watch myself. A little too enthusiastic. A little too loud. Fast and loose with the praise and the condemnations again. I spent the better part of twenty minutes watching him butt heads with Lochlan before I saw an escape window. Lemonade refills. I can make fresh.

Who's your monster, Bridget?

What?

Who's your monster? What keeps you awake in the dark?

There is but one answer, and it's right and wrong. I smile at him and ask for a kiss instead. I have discovered Bravery in my apron pocket. It has a best-before time stamped on it and I gobble it down, choking on gristle.

Cole grins and gives me a long hard kiss. Silence falls around the table. His intensity is a force to be reckoned with and I know there are unspoken questions as to whether or not I am managing it at all or maybe I'm just hiding his flaws behind my back so that his friends see his good side and continue to worship him. Maybe I am deluded and submerged, over my head. Maybe I am in danger. I drowned years ago, when no one was watching. Drowning is silent and pitiful. It's permanent, too.

When he pulls away the fleeting lust and complimentary tenderness in his eyes buries all of that for precious few seconds before the temperamental clouds roll in again. Jacob, ever watchful, asks if I need help with the drinks.

I shake my head, not taking my eyes away from Cole's. Right now, help would not be a good idea. Later on it will mean the difference between life and death and Jacob will be nowhere to be seen. Time's up. I hasten into the kitchen. Maybe there is another little bundle of Courage in a different pocket somewhere. I have time to search around a little if I hurry. Jacob drops his offer upon registering my expression. He will grill me later, for he carries a small bundle of Truth.

Not sure it's enough to outweigh Obedient, but whatever.

Bang.

I stood in the shadows near the door, breathing quietly. Waiting. Finally the sounds fell away from the room in front of me, and all was silent again. I stepped from the darkness, my pupils dilating. Huge black holes broadcasting my intentions to the night.

I walked carefully. These shoes are killer, the straps from my stockings digging into my skin. Biting my lip, I pause and reach down to unfasten the clips at my thighs. I need the extra focus, and no one's going to care when I am through. I slip out of my coat and let it fall in a puddle on the floor.

And then I raise the gun. I flip off the safety, squinting behind the sight. He is centered, one kill shot and everything is over. I straddle his lap. My chin begins to tremble and I shake my head once quickly, pulling my chin to the right and readjusting my balance. My chin starts again and my eyes begin to fill. I bite my lip harder and close my eyes, willing composure. It fails me but it's dark and he's not awake and I should hurry before they realize I am missing. I should hurry before I lose what's left of this nerve, this pretend courage.

I raise the gun once more, two little hands and a pocketful of determination this time, a far cry from how I look in tousled curls, lip gloss, long black eyelashes and his favorite outfit, the baby pink and black corset, worn as an unseen goodbye-kiss.

I squeeze my fingers around the trigger. I am aiming for right between his eyebrows, I don't want him to suffer any more than necessary. Tears fill my eyes to the brims and I resolve to shoot blindly, if need be.

He sighs and my heart screams out of my chest and runs off down the hall into utter black. My chin goes to the right again and I shake my head violently to clear my eyes. It isn't working. I have to get it right and I'm not going to. I admit a provisional defeat, stepping closer. I climb off his lap and stand beside his chair.

I run my hand lightly down his cool cheek and then pick up the cigar, still smoldering in the ashtray on the table next to him. I jam it between my teeth and turn away, putting the safety back on, jamming the regret home for coming here at all. I watch the rain slide down the windowpanes, blurring the city lights and I check the time. Time to go. I drop the cigar into the inch of warm whiskey left in his glass.

I turn to leave, my goosebumps turning to icicles when he quietly thanks me for not killing him.

I don't say a word or turn around, I just keeping walking until I am far enough away from him to exhale and I drop the gun on the narrow table in the hallway and enter the elevator. The lights are harsh, unforgiving. The night has grown old and I break into shivers. Time is up, fragile Miss. Now tell me, what have you done?

Caleb took the opportunity to disappear for the weekend, giving up his scheduled time with the children for once in favor of saving his own skin, even though if you want to be bitterly technical, I can't prove he is responsible for any of this. I should have known better but I am distracted in my nostalgia and still ridiculously under the weather with this endless sore throat and the full complement of habitual sleep deprivation that functions as my shadow.

Ben took us out and made sure we all did things. He bought me some watercolor paint supplies and fresh sharpies and a new phone (Nexus S! I am no longer a Blackberry girl and everyone is thrilled). He found Thai food and rainy-day drives. At night he closed and locked the door behind all three of us, keeping the nightmares at bay, holding the world, bathed in shades of red and gold, tightly in his arms and eventually Lochlan came around, the disappointment waning.

If there was one thing we would have known, it would be this. The timing was close enough but Ruth does not fit the mold of the circus man, she only consciously chooses to blend her logic with unexpected, impulsive silliness on rare occasions, just like he does. It's nurture, not nature that makes her this way and life will go on, like it always does. On the bumpiest, most-rutted, barely-passable, overgrown and fully trampled trail that passes for a road that I have ever seen. Caleb may not lose, but he's not going to win, either.

I am taking recommendations for new, uncorrupted lawyers, doctors, therapists, ex-brother-in-laws and grocers, as now everyone is regarded with a suspicion that should have been in place from the very beginning and instead I find myself trusting people who don't have a good grasp of precisely how evil evil can be. Bridget gets burned when she touches the fire and so she snatches her hands back and steps out of the heat and into the cool shade of doubt, where the surroundings are familiar and the hours go by so much more slowly.

At one point yesterday Ben reached out and put his hand on the back of Lochlan's neck and he told him that it would be okay, that nothing has changed, that everything is going to be fine. That we've been through worse and we will stick together. And I sank into a chair on the other side of the door, grateful for these two men in a way that leaves me breathless and determined. Lochlan nodded. He knows better than anyone else the difference between how nature can produce psychopathy the same way nurture can instill the will to survive it.

He knows.

(I jumped the gun. Caleb can win. Not even sure if I'll bother continuing to write. There is no point anymore, Lochlan is crushed and I have lost my orientation and no longer know which end is up.)

Time has run out. Ruth is due to be picked up shortly and you didn't do very well, princess. As entertaining as you all are, I won't risk the children to the extent that you seem to think I will.

What do you mean? I can hear the exhaustion creeping into my own voice.

Do you really think your little tests were independent? And do you really think that returning Lochlan's diaries absolves him of anything at all? And don't you think if your precious preacherman was still alive, he wouldn't move heaven and earth to be with you? I am so disappointed in you, Bridget. You take everything at face value all the while assuring the world that you trust no one. Lochlan has no claim to my brother's child. Oh, and the next time you try to best me in this little game of life remember this week. Remember the damage done to your better half, remember the risk you took in creating new upheaval with the children and remember one more thing.

I am nodding.

Are you listening, princess?

Yes.

I don't lose.

Pinetree line.

Finding Lochlan's midway diaries proved to be the catalyst for a lot of things.

Lochlan logged meticulous proof in his neat loopy handwriting and without that proof in his possession, Caleb can no longer keep Lochlan under his thumb. Brief little victories unraveled in the shadow of something new.

Before PJ put Caleb to sleep (I never ever want to be a boy because they hit each other so hard) Caleb ripped the rug right out from underneath me. He said that maybe Jacob was still alive, because Jacob was always very good at disappearing for very long blocks of time, and then he gave me proof that I am easy to fool.

If you have read for a while, you'll remember my unsettled dismay at receiving one single cryptic piece of paper confirming Henry's paternity four years ago. Just one page. No information about Ruth, which meant that she was Cole's.

Except that there were two other pages, pages that Caleb intercepted and kept for himself. The cover letter, explaining the results, and the sheet detailing Ruth's results.

Because Ruth belongs to Lochlan, confirmed with new testing, because I didn't even want the old papers back. I don't trust anything past the end of my nose today.

And while we waited for those tests I went to Newfoundland with Ben to nail down the leads I was given regarding Jake. I found nothing but I will go back soon. The boys are not happy about this at all. I figure if Caleb can keep a secret like that for over four years running then he's probably hiding more. Hiding big things like whole men who are supposed to be dead but wouldn't be. Jacob wouldn't do what I was told he did. That much I always knew. I figured Caleb pushed him if he really was gone, but I always hoped I was wrong.

So go ahead and level your judgements, make your proclamations about therapy and trash. I'm too busy feeling to have any energy left to listen. Fuck this, fuck everything else too.

Kindling and lullabies.

It would've been hard to do something else, to as it were, run away from the circus and become an accountant.
~Samuel West

In the midst of this mess that the devil has made, there are very good things indeed. Because when God closes a door, Satan detonates another bomb and blows a hole in the wall, after all.

In spite of his efforts, good things. Maybe even better by tonight.

Ruth leaves for band camp this morning. I can hardly believe it when I look at her. She is all lip gloss and Hello Kitty and strange elaborate hair styles one day and still forgetting to even brush the next day. She is her mother in slightly (hardly) smaller form. Almost twelve. The witching age, by my definition, kept from her in order to allow her to practice flight without the weight of a history that doesn't need to be shared.

Last night Lochlan put on one hell of a show as a sendoff for her. Fire on the cliff. Any hint of rust on his talent has been rubbed away and he is the showman once again. Hardly an eighth as loud as Ben without a mic, a more visceral, touchable awe surrounds him. He encourages massive involvement, we have to clap, cheer and follow his instructions or it doesn't come off as well but it isn't hard, for he is very very good at this, and was doing it long before anyone else I know.

By the end he had taken off his shirt, his curls were wet with the effort even but his smile never faltered and his focus never wavered, locked on the task at hand. The batons flew higher and higher still as his stories kept up a pace that left me gloriously dizzy until I remembered to watch him and not the fire. Fire is hypnotic. Fire is warm. Just like Lochlan. The man who exists at one hundred and five degrees on paper and a thousand degrees in reality is wrapping up his show and my brain has gone off on another tangent and when I bring it back around the final baton has been caught and he is extinguishing them and cleaning up. He jams his t-shirt in his back pocket and tells the children that it's time to go inside and get ready for bed. There will be another show on the weekend, when Ruth returns. When everything changes once again.

I saw a hint of who Lochlan used to be right then and there. Before everything changed and then continued to change until we were slipping off the carousel horses with nothing to hold onto, as it spun faster and the music rushed in to fill the void. That's what life has been for us, an out of control merry-go-round where the horses with their wild painted faces loom large in our eyes and then rotate back into the endless parade. My hair is tangling around the pole and I will never reach the brass rings and on principle no one must ever do it for you or it won't count.

And there he is again.

A much older version of that perfect seventeen-year-old boy, who walked across the beach and stuck his face directly into the yellow cotton candy I was holding until he could grasp the paper cone with his teeth. I started laughing, not the least bit upset because the yellow candy was banana-flavored and I didn't like it at all but then I started to choke and he tried to get his face back out of the candy floss and couldn't and he resorted to pulling off huge strands and putting them in my hair and the harder I fought him the more he covered me until it was all over both of us and we peeled off our clothes and jumped, naked, into the sea and I picked the rest of the bits of floss out of his beard while he held me afloat in a wave, far out from shore.

You coming in?

I snapped out of my reverie and nodded up at him automatically. In the light his hair is the color of brass. The rings I tried so hard to reach once upon a time so that I could share one with him. The luck that never held for Lochlan. I have my fingers crossed that maybe there was simply an unusual and unforeseen twenty-eight year delay.

20/20.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
~Edgar Allan Poe

Jacob is sitting on the back steps of the church, beside the ramp. He has one leg on the step below where he sits and the other is stretched out straight almost down to the ground. He's in worn jeans and a flannel shirt that only has two buttons still fastened. He has his head back, eyes closed, elbows propping him up. He is soaking up the sun. It is three hours past the service and he is worn out but satisfied.

Sam doesn't think this should be so exhausting, he says without opening his eyes.

And what did you tell him? I pause, looking up from where I have been furiously scribbling in my journal, stuffing raspberries into my mouth every fourth word, unable to stop eating them because they are warm from the sun.

That if it doesn't wear him out he's doing it wrong.

Maybe he is confusing being worn out with being worn down.

Think there is really a difference?

I don't know, Jake. Maybe there isn't and he's right.

Then I'm in the wrong line of work.

What would you be if you gave up your post here?

A carpenter. No, wait. A mailman.

Seriously.

A mailman. Outside all day, petting puppies and chatting up the neighbors? It's be perfect.

What else?

Professional surfer, maybe.

I like that one, but it's so dangerous.

So says the queen of falling down the stairs.

The stairs are dumb.

Yes, they are, princess. He is laughing now. But you also don't pay attention. Ever.

I have it, then. You can be my keeper.

Oh, geez, Bridge, that's a helluva responsibility.

I know. But you would be perfect because you know me so well.

That right there would prove there is no difference between being worn out and being worn down.

Gee, thanks.

Anytime, beautiful.

Home sweet fucked-up home.

We're home. I am enervated and anesthetized. I chased a malevolent whim across the continent and returned an utter failure of the highest magnitude. I may have to go back. I couldn't breathe so I came home.

Ben talked me back. He is here too. In case the rumor mill is churning into overdrive, he's been really pretty amazing. I think a lesser man would have packed up and checked out of this circus a long time ago, which leads me to believe I was spot-on when I discerned him to be a freak from the get-go.

Thank God for big freaks. That's all I can say at present. I need some sleep and tomorrow hopefully I can talk without screaming. You know? I always thought Caleb was evil and then sometimes I doubt myself, maybe I've been so harsh. Maybe he doesn't deserve it.

Then he does things like this. No holds barred. Gloves are off. Apparently it's going to be a fight to the finish. I guess I knew that already. Denial is such a lovely place to be, though, isn't it?

Made it to St. John's. The explanations have gotten so long at this point I don't think I'll ever be able to sort the words out. I am running on adrenaline, panic and I don't even know what else. I just want to get to the bottom of this. I wanted to extract Lochlan from a mess and instead it blew up in my face and I don't know if I wished for this, after all. I really don't. Can't think. Gotta go.

Hold tight.

(this is going to be the hard part. How to continue to talk without giving things away.)

She is everything to me
The unrequited dream
A song that no one sings
The unattainable
She's a myth that I have to believe in
All I need to make it real is one more reason

The gate did not keep him out and neither did the line of knights standing in front of me grimly, distilled down to their singular purpose, shields up, swords drawn. But evil is not bound by the same constraints as man. Evil can dissolve and reassemble on the other side, evil can seep in through the cracks of your psyche and eat away at your brain until a putrid, rotting mass remains only evil stopped right in front of me, James Bond in his three-piece suit and his dumbed-down, kindly patience when he is very, very angry indeed.

Bridget, what have you done?

I resumed my role as moving target on the other side of the wall, my blonde crown invisible as I paced quickly behind their backs, coming to rest directly behind Benjamin, where I could curl my hands into the back of his shirt and hold on for dear life. He broke the line long enough to reach back and squeeze me against him, but only very briefly. He patted me and let go. He is concerned. My eardrum burst, I am still not feeling well, I'm down to scraping up the last of my reserves.

Time to go, Cale. We're not going to do this here. Ben said it quietly. You don't want Ben to be quiet-angry back at you, that's when he's at his most dangerous. I took the cue and let go of his shirt, not wanting to go for a ride if he lunged, even though he has been warned to leave it. We won't solve this with his brawn or his heart. Only with his attorneys.

This isn't over.

Ben nodded. Lochlan stared at the floor. I know him so well. He is biting his tongue so hard I'm sure his mouth is filled with the taste of iron. His arms are loose, elastic. We are struggling desperately to contain an effervescent, almost comical relief that wants to burst forth but that would be premature. Preliminary thoughts are that this will go well for Lochlan, how it goes for Caleb remain shrouded in uncertainty. I am still struggling with how much damage I want to do. I know I will toss and turn and fret and weigh and balance and maybe I will wait to be told my options so I don't jump the gun, slide off the end of the barrel and wind up getting shot in the process.

So I will leave it to fate as I have done all along, holding to building up my defenses instead of seeking retribution. I will wait and see. Maybe crossing our fingers and staying quiet and true all these years won't have been for nothing.

The grapes of wrath (a fear beyond every other).

This morning I rolled out of bed and into a nightmare of coughing that followed me all the way around the block with the dog in the pre-dawn darkness. I came in and dragged myself through the motions of making honey toast and sweetened coffee for Ben. I kissed him goodbye and rested my head against the front of his jacket for as long as he would allow.

When he was gone I locked up again and headed back upstairs where I spent a good thirty minutes in the steamy shower, breathing in the warm air, unclenching my lungs and clearing my head. When I felt my skin begin to protest I got out reluctantly, slipping into my jeans and a warm hoodie and I ran a comb through my hair, gently. I returned to the main floor, poured myself a cup of coffee and holed up in the corner reading until the rest of the house awakened, one room at a time.

Such a marked difference between one tiny light casting a quiet glow on the side of a cliff and a house with every light on, everyone talking at once, waiting for turns at the coffee maker, asking me how I am feeling while I try to focus on getting the children fed and organized and out the door in time for school. Maybe I will be April's perpetual fool, attempting to live at 33 rpm in a 78 rpm world, running in slow motion when fast-forward has become de rigueur.

I changed my clothes, jumping on the 78, skidding across the vinyl on my way to the loft to check on some business. I will stay on this song as long as I need to and no more.

Ben is back to his usual hours for the next little while and I grateful for that. When he works long hours I feel disconnected and lost. When he is home I feel whole. Lochlan will tell you that is wrong but for him it is simply sour grapes. I watched him watching me as PJ gave me a hug upon hearing that I am feeling slightly better this morning and he visibly winced when PJ's arms closed around me. As if he can't bear this existence. Well, he doesn't have to be like this. He could let go but he doesn't. He could relax but he won't. He could live but he prefers to exist in the past.

Sometimes I don't blame him. The simplicity of a hot shower or a good cup of coffee is something we don't take for granted. The luxury of being able to get better without doing it under a gun still feels like a gift from heaven. The nights when two weeks into a new set up, it had been raining for days and I was so sick I was ordered not to get out of bed unless the camper was on fire, and Lochlan was as sick as I was but he would do all of our work and then head into town for soup for me and by the time he came back I would be asleep and the soup would be tepid and he would throw it out. We both lost weight and gave up hope and then the sun would make a surprise appearance and the show would be bustling and suddenly everything was going to be okay again.

But that same bittersweet history holds all of the reasons why we are the way we are now, forever and life goes on, we are the fools, time heals nothing. Time serves to twist screws and force change. Time serves to corrupt and skew the facts and warp reality. Fuck time, time is a ticking bomb in the face of relative peace.

Time is the cadence of the devil breathing down my neck. I am outrunning time once again.

The night after Lochlan brought my things to the fair in his backpack after breaking up with me, the borrowed camper burned. I was relieved he was not inside when it went up in flames and then suspected he or Caleb burned it right up until the moment he told me his journals were gone, right up until the fire department confirmed that it was accidental. He never would have burned those books, they are his definitive soul.

Only they aren't gone. I found them this morning, here at Caleb's loft and like I promised back in 1981 when I first saw Lochlan with one, I won't look in them, Lochie and no, this isn't a fucking April Fool's joke and I just need to figure out the right way or the right time to tell him they are safe but fuck it, half the time the right time never takes place because time is wrong and I am just about to leave and bring them back to their rightful owner.*

*******************

*(I wrote that this morning while I was still at the loft looking after some paperwork and I chickened out of posting it, in the very real risk that Caleb might read it before I could be safely underway with property that, while incredibly value to Caleb, belongs to someone else. Lochlan has his books now, clutched into shaking hands, I am home safe and sound and for good measure I closed the front gate and changed the code again, which is very frustrating for everyone. It won't keep Caleb out but it might slow him down, and that's all I need for now. This was one piece of the puzzle that's been missing for a long time. I would like to see the whole picture now.)

Will return on the day of fools.

I am working today at just trying to get well, moving slowly, sitting at the edge of the dark in the soft sunlight to stay warm, walking the dim quiet hallways at the hospital (I was sent for chest x-rays, because this cold doesn't seem to be getting better ever), teaching Ruth to sew with small, even stitches and a better needle than the one she first chose and wondering if the paint all over Henry's pants from his big class project will come out in the wash or if the pants will be added to the scrap fabric pile to be used to make more of the little stuffed-heart garlands we have been working on as of late.

I have hidden myself away from drama but she does not appear to be coming around today to play hide and seek, in spite of my newfound hiding place, out here in plain sight. I am keeping my head down, mouth closed, argument off. I just want to feel better. It's been so long.

So excuse me if you came today looking to see if you could have a peek into the life of someone who overdresses but always in shocking black, throws dishes at the minister, openly adores and defies the rockstar all at the same time, courts the mafia, misses the dead and still seeks the approval of a formal career carnival man before she will make a move, well, sorry but she isn't taking visitors today.

Secondary orbit.

She seems dressed in all the rings
Of past fatalities
So fragile yet so devious
She continues to see it
Climatic hands that press
Her temples and my chest
Enter the night that she came home
Forever

Oh (She's the only one that makes me sad)

She is everything and more
The solemn hypnotic
My Dahlia bathed in possession
She is home to me

I get nervous, perverse, when I see her it's worse
But the stress is astounding
It's now or never she's coming home
Forever

Oh (She's the only one that makes me sad)

Sam waits nervously at the door but I am busy throwing things that don't seem to want to break and I have no intentions of stopping until everything does. Every toss gets a name or a reason cursed upon it before I let it fly. Every word comes out in a scream. Sam adjusts his vest. Such a nerd. He's holding Jacob's well-worn, fingerprint-embossed, still achingly-warm bible against his chest as if he's considering an exorcism.

Good, I would do the same thing if I were in his shoes. Only I haven't been taken over by demons. I am just angry. Angry in a ferocious, uncharacteristic way.

In between unintentional frisbees, I ask him questions as they come to me. I'm not sure if he knows any of this stuff or not. I do. I'm only asking so he feels less weird. Because weird is the habitual state of affairs in this family, like days that end in y and the heart-shaped ice cubes in the freezer. Next to the little blocky little tombstone ones.

Do you know what color vermillion actually is, Samwise?

Yes, it's an orangey-re-

It's the color of my blood. I laugh, so inappropriately.

He looks at the floor. It's going to be a long day. He tries again. Bridge-

How many letters has Jacob left for me, all told?

He counted briefly in silence and then shouted his answer. I don't know.

How many times did Queen play at Wembley, Sam?

Oh, Bridget, I have no idea.

Success. The plate hit the wall just over the door, shattering into a million fragments and Jake's bible is now muted-black with dust. Sam squeezed his eyes shut but to his credit he didn't duck or freak out.

Next. If you get it wrong you have to go. Why can't we ever act like normal human beings?

Sam just rolled his eyes and turned and walked out as Lochlan was walking in. They don't exchange words, just looks. We've come too far to need any more words.

I sit down on the floor in the midst of a room full of would-be ruin that I didn't have enough strength to break and I realize I don't recognize myself anymore.

I'm a slave, and I am a master
No restraints and, unchecked collectors
I exist through my need, to self oblige
She is something in me, that I despise

I won't let this build up inside of me
I won't let this build up inside of me
I won't let this build up inside of me
I won't let this build up inside of me

(All the stops have now been pulled and the train resumes the slow journey around the water to where I am resting, bound and gagged, stretched over the tracks with my knees and my head resting on the rails, blonde hair tangled in the gravel, creosote and arsenic from the sleepers soaking into my skin through my dress.

My eyes watch the stars. My head will be filled with beauty when the light comes to blind me.)

Lochlan and Ben have abandoned me as muse and taken each other on as...as male furies. The most difficult dynamic of their relationship leaves me on the floor dividing my devotions with a dull butter knife, in a block of sunlight tinged a bright shade of vexation. I've been here for hours, measuring it out and it always comes out lopsided and unfair and I'm running out of ideas.

The devil has some incredibly aberrant solutions but I hold no interest in those. He is entertained by my efforts nevertheless.

You can't make this fair and just, princess. No one's going to be happy in the end.

Be quiet, will you? I'm counting.

The noise-canceling husband and a ride in the clouds.

I find comfort in strange places today. In Mason Jar lights and in the freezer section at the grocery store, where I saw rows of teeny-tiny gourmet treat containers, in a new Kleenex on a pink nose and in Ben's arms, my contagious face shoved right up under his chin hard where it burns and where I am complete in blocking everything else out. Sigh.

Yeah.

I managed to either win back some sort of bonus round with the stupid fucking cold I had two weeks ago or it's holding onto me for dear life. I guess I know how it feels. Am now on a hideous poison cocktail of ginseng, zinc, vitamin C, etc. etc. etc. and copious amounts of tea, vitamin water and very good leftover Chinese food.

In other news, the exhibition here (permanent which means ANY TIME WE WANT) is getting a Star Flyer.

A freaking Star Flyer!

It's like the icing on the best cake I've ever had.

There is a stack of brochures on his desk and all I have to do is pick one and bring it to him and he will make the arrangements.

There is a bowl of sliced melon in the fridge, and half a magnum of champagne, which will be thrown out rather than finished. A large container of yogurt and a basket of strawberries remain untouched on the top shelf. My stomach growls with hunger but my brain misses the cue.

Fresh flowers are everywhere. In the bathrooms. The credenza by his desk. The island in the kitchen and also in the entryway. Those had to be moved and rearranged because they were huge and the spray ended at eye level with me and I feared I might lose my vision. I didn't say anything, he noticed and had it changed.

I was given a key. I already had a key. He is clearly unprepared for the proximity and unnerved by my total compliance.

He dismisses the small neatly print-labeled bottles on his vanity with excuses I know to be lies and I accept them with distraction. This is not a comfortable place to be, in the realization that someone who held so much power is prepared to release me. The white flag flaps violent against the glass and I can only watch it because I don't know if it's real or just one of those things my imagination puts into place to help me understand things that my mind knows but my heart simply can't manage.

There is a difference and it is stark. To me at least.

He is amused by my hands. Rings sliding loosely over my knuckles, my fingers flutter a never-ending ode in air piano. Fidgeting, counting beads on the bracelet I wear, tapping on the table, pulling wayward strands of blonde out of my lip gloss, which attracts my hair like static cling, fascinating him to the point where he sits motionless in a low chair by the window, bourbon in hand, watching me move. Watching my nervous motions. Checking for the holes through which he will reveal my deception or my conviction.

I offer none of either. I am waiting him out.

I can bend him a little and he bends me back. I give up and he moves in to suggest decadence. I pretend to take it for granted and he exudes clear, silent exasperation. He talks to the walls and then his whole face drops when I ask him to repeat himself. He seeks perfection in my flaws as a singular and unfair definition. This is not who I am.

He held up his remorse, looking for a reflection and I gave him back cold detachment. In this light he is not who I want him to be either. This new revelation tore him apart.

I dropped my hands to my sides and turned, marching off only there is no place else to go and when I pointed that out from between gritted teeth, seething with pretend patience he made a call and twenty-minutes later I heard low rumblings in the hallway. He returned with this thick pile of choices for me, if I want them. He is the new mother and I am the inconsolable child and he does not know how to quiet my cries. He is becoming desperate.

Instead I take the flowers from the front hall and carry them outside to the balcony. My heart stops every time I step onto it, more than thirty-six stories high but that's the only coincidence I will acknowledge and I turn the vase upside down and let the water and the lilies fall. The wind does not take them. Someone on the sidewalk below will think that angels are throwing flowers at them. They would be correct.

I turn to come back inside and he is frowning. A misstep. The flowers should have simply been removed, not fixed and returned. You can't fix things when they don't work the first time. You can't make it better and you can't pretend you didn't lose an eye when clearly it's missing and the only thing left in your head is a few pretty glass marbles rolling around in your head.

He is eager to make this okay. Nothing is okay. And nothing he does is going to change that.

Would you like to go out for lunch?

Yes, I lie.

He goes to get our coats. I wonder if maybe I'll find my mind in one of the pockets. I hope so, but life holds no guarantees.

Acoustic pine.

We were seventeen markers to the end. I have always counted. I rolled my head back against the soft leather headrest, feeling his eyes on me briefly in between keeping watch on the road, I'm sure he thought I had fallen asleep but my eyes were wide open, tracking Orion, tracking little bear and the dipper too. The stars were fixed and we were in motion, on a ribbon of black lit by halogen, winding through trees lit by the moon, on a ball that spins so slowly you fail to notice until the sunrise.

I stick both arms up above my head to catch the wind and he laughs. We need Nick Drake to sing us home, I suggest and he shakes his head. We need the peace and the quiet, too, Bridget. I pout but I can play the songs in my head any time I want to, I think to myself and the music floods in, cutting off whatever I was planning to think about next.

The rest of the drive was in silence for him, just the way he likes it.

Endless spring.

We've been here for a year today. And I'm surprised at how quickly time flies and not at all surprised by how slowly I spend it. I have loved getting to know the entire West Coast and the amazing beauty that exists here that I really wasn't conscious of in my visits. It's impossible to truly appreciate how amazing a place is until you don't have to leave it to go home because it IS home.

I love the ocean. I love the giant happy-face slugs on the trees that Ben always threatens to lick. I love the pine trees and the cleanliness and the snow-capped mountains and the cold clear streams that you can rinse your hands in and not have them come away worse than when you started. I love the small-town vibe in a big city backdrop and I love how everything is simplicity demanded by a population that is heading out for a hike and doesn't want to screw around.

The rain hasn't gotten to me yet, surprisingly. The hours may have, as the boys are working harder than they've ever worked before but they're also getting more recognition than ever and they seem a little more at ease now that we are a little more settled and things are ironing out.

I even found a place to have my skates sharpened, just today. Took 3 minutes, cost five bucks.
Then I went around and around on the ice with no gloves on, sailing across the smooth surface of the frozen layers with the cheesy piped-in music drowning out our words and I tried to keep Henry upright when he was determined to keep falling and I tried to keep Ruthie happy when she got tired and hurt her knee but refused to slow down and I realized abruptly that I have certain muscles whose memories are as badly flawed as the ones in my head because they had forgotten how to skate and wow, everything is always new, but you know what?

Someday it won't be.

I really do like it here.

Nerves of Jell-O.

Lochlan has a lower-ranged Fix You queued up on the guitar this morning. I think I might have to avoid him today, too.

When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

I was a slow convert to Coldplay, and while I've barely grazed the surface of their catalogue, I still maintain my position that Lochlan finds his music the same way I do, picking and choosing from among the most profound of lyrics or melodies to augment his emotional release, whatever it may be.

I don't know why that is, I'm guessing it's nurture over nature, as it would make sense that the one who taught me to embrace the music this way would do it as well. And I don't mean to be so grumpy lately. I miss my horses. I miss the beach because I haven't been down in a while. I think I miss new Jake just enough to make everyone vaguely angry and I'm angry at Caleb for forcing this weird formal parenting arrangement on me when what the mediators and the judge can't see is his position standing on my back. I am face down in a puddle of dirty water and I can't breathe because he won't let me up. I miss Ben most of all. Ben works a lot. Madness in artistry, artistry in madness, we have it all covered up here under a canopy of rain-soaked trees.

I get stressed and I start to pick on everything and everyone. I lash out and I'll try not to. That's all I can promise. I will try not to. I won't back down but I'll attempt to look at things from your perspective and you can look at them from mine.

My patience with just about everything was flung off a roof and then with epic, mistaken regret, Jacob chased it all the way down to street level. And I'm very sorry but I didn't have any in reserves and I have forgotten the recipe to make more.

Lochlan can thaw me out with this beautiful song (one of so many and I am only thankful today for the health of my children and the music that people have created that I can still hear) and I will be here if you need me but you don't, because the world turns in perfect circles whether I am leaning into the curve or not.

Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes

Sweet little hypocrites.

I am sitting on the edge of a long couch in a Vietnamese nail salon near the edge of nowhere downtown patiently waiting for Caleb to finish with his metrosexual grooming errands. He is getting a manicure in which they do little more than file a few ragged edges and buff and then collect a hundred dollars from him. Four times I have refused to be umm...treated so instead I am listening to the women who are waiting for their appointments as they seem to arrive in groups and I am getting an earful.

They have all decided Caleb is exceedingly hot and then helpfully the shop owner whispered something at the largest group and then pointed to me and a sea of falsely-tanned, overly-streaked blinged-out blondes gave me their heavily-practiced 'disappointment' faces. One of them mouths She's so LUCKY! to her friend.

Oh, girls. If only you knew.

But I did not correct them out loud. I will let them live in their bubbles. I haven't opened my mouth short of asking Caleb directly how long he would be and he responded that I may as well sit down for a moment but don't leave. Fine.

The tanned girls are reading celebrity magazines and discussing other nail salons. They are complaining about the place that ran out of the right color and the one where the water for the pedicures wasn't warm enough and at another place the horror was in having to wait ten minutes past her appointment time and her time is valuable, she had tanning afterward and it got messed up and she had to reschedule for fifteen minutes later. Yet another was downright PISSED because her nail technician got up once to answer the phone and it took two extra minutes to have her polish finished but she didn't get a discount after all that trauma. Still another won't go to her favorite former haunt anymore because their Sex and the City reruns are 'annoying'.

If he takes much longer I might slip off the end of the couch into sheer stupification, perhaps to rock myself back and forth and I remind myself this is why I don't have girlfriends (other than the obvious glaring reasons). Because I will go buy a bottle of pretty color and paint my own nails a hundred times for $3.99 and it takes very little time (Sally Hansen Insta-Dry) and then I have nothing to complain about and no one's going to take my hundred dollars only to make me wait five minutes or force me to endure dumb television shows and gossip magazines. And....tepid water.

I consider that very good value. I just don't understand how you can be so spoiled as to pay someone to regularly paint your nails and then have the nerve to complain that you weren't pampered enough.

I really hope he's finished soon though. I really fear I might punch somebody in the face.

Let me get some things straight.

-Yes, we did see the supermoon last night from the back deck! It came up right over the trees by the road and rose higher and higher and turned paler and it became cold so we gave up around ten. The geese were coming home at the same time, flying in the dark, honking softly. It was beautiful and funny, I thought they were on the roof. The telescope is still taking up most of the back entryway. Something tells me there is more stargazing in our future, now that Ben has had time to tinker with the bolts on it and get it set up just right.

-I realize Ben needs a haircut. Thank you for pointing that out. He's been very busy. However my main goal is to get him in the woods today because for some reason that has turned out to be total and utter decompression for us as a family and we love it. I'm pretty sure the bears love it too, and as we walk by they most likely take inventory: blonde meat, blonde meat, blonde meat, metal meat OM NOM NOM.

-The Lululemon bug has hit me. I don't really like the clothes but I'm dying to know what my ass would look like in those famous Groove pants. It will be a spectator sport too, since everyone else is wondering as well. But really, I can't justify $98 for a pair of yoga pants. Ones that pill, according to the reviews because I wouldn't be washing them separately. I won't buy anything I can't chuck in the washer along with everything else, though I'm fine with drying things in special snowflake ways. So fail but the curiosity remains.

-I finally figured out the #^@%@*# goshdarned fucking curtain tracks. They're I-beam single tracks for pinch-pleated valances. Which means I can either buy the little sliding eyes to put hooks through or see if I can find where to buy the curtains that have the plastic track-sliders sewn right on. You know what? Never mind. You know how long it takes me to cover all the windows in a new house and I'd really like to work with the hardware that is already installed if I can. Yeah...never mind. I need to go to IKEA but I can't seem to drive there by myself.

-Stop with the baby rumors. They don't hurt or anything, they're just so pointless and baseless. I am done. I've been done since 2001 if you want to be truly technical. It's great to get up late on a Sunday morning and find your children in the kitchen making themselves hot breakfasts. Ruth shuns juice this morning and I know I don't have to care because they eat well and I have to know draw on my recall powers, remembering what it felt like to be twelve. We all know I remember exactly what it feels like to be twelve.

-Ben and I are plotting a road trip. I'm excited. It may not for a while but we are developing some grand plans to drive to San Diego and back again. I haven't been so excited about an idea since forever. We just have to save our gas money up first. No, really, we do. Haha. $1.47 a litre!

-I think I screwed myself with this English toffee syrup in my coffee. I'll probably never be able to drink coffee without it ever again. Thank you Daniel, I think, or maybe curse you, Daniel. I had black coffee in a styrofoam cup at a roadside truckstop down to a science and now I'm all high-maintenance again. Pfft.

-I'm going to go enjoy my Sunday now. See ya. Have a good day.

Supermoon.

Ben is playing his guitar. He's sitting at the table while the children finish their dinner and he's playing from memory, his head thrown back, eyes closed. He's taking a nap. Such is life here. Soon he'll be played out and he'll move to a more comfortable chair and he'll motion for me to join him and I'll run and curl up in his arms and fall asleep with my head on his heartbeat. When I wake up at sunrise he will sleep on for hours still.

These precious moments are like oxygen when we have been drowning in waves of obligation.

More distracting things for both of us.

It's the last day of winter. Next week we'll celebrate our first full year of living here on the west coast and I plan to celebrate, because it's been a year of adjustments and more courage and more growth overall, learning how to put myself out there and meet some people and get what I need and find a little familiarity in the face of all things new. More on that next week, not today.

Some winter it was, too. It snowed precisely four times, the last of which caught us downtown on Davie street with a bus sliding backward toward my little car. We turned off into an alley and made our way out of downtown easily with the snow tires no one here seems to own because...well, it only snows four times a year.

In January I wore a hoodie to walk the dog, mostly. I think I put on gloves twice. My ears froze once and the power went out three times, all for less than the time it took me to get annoyed and pull out the lanterns. I opened the windows every single day for a couple of hours, in every room to air out the entire house. When I do I can hear the birds singing. That's how close we are. That's how loud they are.

The ivy never turned brown in the garden. The snowdrops were blooming on Valentine's day. The grass remained green and Bridget learned that perhaps, just maybe, she might never have to put up with winter again.

But I will still welcome the first day of spring tomorrow, for spring brings Easter and maybe just shirts instead of sweaters buttoned up high and maybe the windows can stay open in my bedroom while I sleep and maybe I can start planning for a few more plants to try from the nursery because the ones we have aren't going to cut it.

I can look forward to late nights on the verandah with beer and guitars or maybe just guitars and swimming will start again for the kids and everyone will get excited about fishing up at Camp Crystal lake (my name for it) and boy, I want to go there at night just to see, but the gates are closed at dusk and I have no interest in walking in, thank you.

The big bears and the cougars will return for another run at our garbage cans and soon the blackberries will bloom and fill in the bare patches from the past four months, competing with the cherry blossoms and filling the whole mainland with a riot of pink confetti set against an endless blue ocean sky.

And then what happens?

Oh, yeah. Summer! I can't wait.

A diaphanous cheer (under my breath).

Yesterday didn't turn out nearly as fun as I had hoped. I watched five proposals and only cried through the most recent one (Brad and...Emily? who have already broken up, as is tradition for the Bachelor series and this is why I hate television) and then a call came that said I had an appointment downtown and it was for three. Three. So...in three hours? Yes.

SHIT.

And DRUNK.

Eleven cups of coffee later and a giant danish and Andrew brushed my hair while I waved him away and I was off with a run in my stockings, a pinstripe suitdress (TIGHT. ARGH.) and my kitten heels because newly-soberish is no way to wear stilettos.

I met Ben in the lobby. He laughed and said sorry for ruining my grand plans. I felt dumb for having such ridiculous plans in the first place but he is working around the clock and we are wasting time as fast as we can.

Yes, so anyway. The meeting went very well and then all of it turned out to be for naught this morning when Caleb found another way around me, as usual. While I am busy charming the front lines and melting hearts with my vulnerability, Caleb is chewing the skin off my back, exposing raw nerve endings to string up and pull tightly into bows until I scream with rage and pain.

(Why, yes, we have a very cordial relationship. Why do you ask?)

In any event, we will do what we need to do and get where we're going and muddle through like we always do. Plans are still in place (aka can't talk), Ben is still spending every waking hour trying to find a way around some things that seem to be carved in stone but may have been spray-painted on after all, and I have a tiny ace up my sleeve in that one of the horses Caleb sold did not belong to him and so boy is he in trouble and he's going to have to answer to Nolan for that.

And Nolan thinks all of this is bullshit as it is, he has no time for Caleb's rich-man games of cat and mouse and he wishes Jake was still alive because Jake did pretty well at deflecting Caleb and I know Caleb was afraid of Jacob in a way he should be of Ben, but isn't. Why? He's already been inside Ben's head and he knows where the weak spots are. There aren't very many but the ones that exist are profound and frightening and wouldn't you know Caleb would exploit them to get to me. Only I won't have that and so I give Caleb whatever he wants and he'll leave Ben alone. He'll leave Lochlan alone.

Oh, he won't leave me alone, though. In case you thought I would write that next.

Nope. You see, when Cole died I didn't do the one thing Caleb thought I would. I didn't cancel my plans to get on with my life. Caleb expected me to stop moving forward and hunker down and take solace in the fact that I was still irrevocably tied to Cole, that the fact that we hadn't actually managed to start divorce proceedings yet would give me comfort and I would spend the rest of my life taking Caleb's guidance and deferring to him, as things should be.

And I didn't. Boy, didn't I EVER.

I didn't give him the time to move in and take over and somehow fix the past and engineer my future on my behalf and well, Jesus H. Gotta pay for that now too.

Herrings in a crimson hue.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

My own personal saint Padraig (PJ!) is sick today and has not ventured out of his boathouse cave (though I've had several SOS texts), and so Daniel and I have retired to Daniel and Schuyler's bed to pour the rest of the Baileys into our coffee, eat all the cupcakes iced in green and alternately play U2 and snark at the canned proposals from all fifteen seasons of The Bachelor.

Hopefully by lunchtime we will be positively shitfaced but in my experience life just never gets that good, now does it?

P.S. Duncan, we saved you a spot. Bring more cupcakes though. Daniel can shove them into his face whole. Amazing what being Ben's little brother can do for one's appetite. Could be worse, at least he's never tried to take a bite of my Macbook.

See ya. Have fun. Avoid the green beer, it's lethal. Okay, by lunch? I meant breakfast. Clearly. Here, maybe he should eat the laptop after all.

Opto-mechanical.

(In my rush to ignore the front lawn that faces the woods and focus on the orchard, the grapevines and the Pacific ocean in my backyard, I failed to notice the two beautiful cherry trees that flank my front walk. All I saw were some sort of previously-bloomed trees when we moved in, I figured early Dogwood, maybe Magnolia if I was very lucky indeed but lo and behold they are baby-pink cherry blossoms and they are EVERYWHERE.)

Here we are with your obsession
Should I, could I

Heave the silver hollow sliver
Piercing through another victim
Turn and tremble be judgmental
Ignorant to all the symbols
Blind the face with beauty paste
Eventually you'll one day know

Change my attempt good intentions
Limbs tied, skin tight
Self inflicted his perdition

He bent down and smoothed my hair back. I think he wanted to see my face. As soon as I felt his eyes fall on my skin I mouthed a curse at him, sure he got the message without a sound. I failed to stand however. I'm going to remain here, crouched in the corner of a dark room with my back to the world until something changes. Only I can't do it in these heels forever. I'm going to have to change my shoes. And the bones of my corset are digging into my flesh and really people should only pull petulant stunts such as these in pajamas.

But I don't have any pajamas.

And so I will do it in full graveyard dress. Sped up and full of film grain, you'll get bored easily and turn off the projector and walk out of the room, leaving the curtains drawn and the air heavy with cigar smoke.

(I'm already dead.)

I did not say that out loud either but he responds as if I have.

Not true.

I nod, slowly. Tears are dripping off my chin, mascara mixed with salt forming cloudy pools on the floor all around me. Soon I will be Alice in the drowning pool. I cast my gaze around for some cookies to eat in order to grow big but let's face it, magic isn't going to save me now. When confronted with a stressful choice I pick the inappropriate choice every single time, as if I am bound and determined to make things more difficult than they have to be.

Yes. You could have been a trophy. You could have been paraded around the world collecting admiration. You could have been fed. You could have been given the best of everything. You could have let your secrets go, and let the chips fall where they may instead of trying to arrange them in the shape of a heart and you could have been mine.

But instead you gave everything to my brother.

This time I nod. I know all this. This is nothing new. I rise up onto my toes in an effort to make my imprint even smaller. At this point I could disappear into his open hand and no one would ever find me but today is not going to play out that way. The strip is flapping off the feeder and no one recognizes the family in these home movies.

(Stop reading my mind.)

But it's so...entertaining, Bridget. As is how when pushed you run straight to me. That touches me. He pulls me up with one hand and I am wedged in between him and the wall. Flames lick up my limbs. It burns. The blue in his eyes is cool and I dive inside before I can be scarred from heat. Sweet relief.

A knock on the door startles him to the point where he loosens his grip and then turns back to give me a look. A look that says put on your public face, we have company and I wipe the backs of my hands across my cheeks and sniff and turn to head for the bathroom to wash my face before anyone can see me.

I am too late and now must present myself in this decorum, which is none at all. Caleb walks back into the room and gestures toward me. Then he steps aside and Cole is standing in the doorway. Relieved that I have been found. An odd emotion for him, considering when he is painting he has a tendency to hand me a twenty-dollar bill and tell me to go find PJ or Christian to take me out for a coffee, that I shouldn't bother him anymore, that he knows I'll turn up sooner or later.

Cole crosses the room to me quickly.

What's wrong? He takes my hand and turns to block me from Caleb. He's standing in front of me and facing Caleb down and I don't really understand why the conversation Caleb and I have at least once every single month is suddenly front page news.

Nothing. I'm fine. Just a momentary lapse.

Overwhelmed?

Yes.

I'll take you home. You need sleep.

I nod and defy Caleb to read my mind this time. Cole's false concern is a mask he wears for the benefit of his friends. Everything is just bullshit and I am knee-deep. He knows damn well his brother has caught on and he knows Caleb doesn't like what he's seeing. He knows his days are numbered and he knows it isn't Caleb who will reap the rewards when I finally find the courage.

The film is changed and suddenly the faces are familiar again. Happy, smiling, fake. Comfort in assumed roles, succor in experience. Nightmares in my future. As we leave I am careful not to place myself directly between them. There's a reason for that. I wave my hand in front of my face to dissipate the cloying cigar smoke and I try to pretend that Caleb can't bring me to tears with his stupid uncanny ability to read my mind as easily as his brother transcribes my heart.

The angel of Highway One.

Jacob is watching me as he stabs the few potatoes left on the plate. He still has his boots on. They're leaving puddles under the table on the tiles. He did take his coat off, however. His collar is standing up, along with his hair, and his sleeves are rolled up. Dinner is serious business. Abandon all pursuits and appearances and dig in.

He points his fork at the radio on the counter.

Want to turn that on for the news, why don't you, Piglet?

No, I don't like the news, Jake.

He shoots me a look of affectionate disdain and impales another piece of potato. He is talking with his mouth full. I can hardly understand him between the food and the heavy Newfoundland accent.

Current events are necessary, Bridget. You need to keep up with what's going on in this world.

At least that's what I think he said.

Maybe the world should keep up with me.

I think it already does.

Good, then. We won't have any more problems.

He laughed loudly and pushed back from the table, finishing a beer in one gulp and standing up. He gathered his dishes and brought them to the counter, turning on the hot water.

I can do those, Jacob.

So can I, piglet. He smiled at me as he poured a little soap into the sink and washed the dishes efficiently, putting everything in the rack. I always forget Jacob was a bachelor for so long and a very good housekeeper besides. Except for the glasses. When he puts the glasses away they are right-side up. I always put them away upside-down. I don't know why but I like my way better.

Want to keep me company in the garage?

Sure.

Get yer coat.

I went to the back porch to collect my coat and Jacob headed down the hall to the guest room to ask Lochlan to keep an ear out for the children, that we might go for a little drive. I didn't hear the response but Lochlan does not have any problems with that. After all, he is currently living here rent-free and so I'm going to take full advantage of him the same way I have perpetually since 1983. He owes me, but for what I can't articulate anymore. It's been too long.

I follow Jacob out through the snow into the dimly-lit garage. He fires up the work light and opens the hood on the Chevy. It's my truck. It's a rusted albatross and an impulsive hunk of waste. It will never run the way I imagine it does in my head as I rumble down the highway firing on hopes and sketchy mechanical skills and a CAA card clenched tightly in my fist knowing full well that every man I know will be positively incensed if I called for roadside assistance from a company instead of calling one of them.

Not like I'm allowed to drive it on the highway here anyway. Here the highway is an infinite ribbon that leads to nowhere after hours of white-knuckle white-out navigation. It is a drive through hell and back out the other side, as we have checked out of civilization and are living in an alternate reality. Lochlan says every time he drives from here to Toronto that he think he has somehow missed the city because it's just nothing but highway for so many hours it's stupid and we really should move already.

Jacob breaks the news to me. She's never going to run well, or run like I am used to with his Ram. Or even the Suburban. She is on life support and everyone has signed her away. We should pull the plug. I am stubborn and I say no.

Jacob is exasperated with my recalcitrance and begins to yell. I should just listen. Maybe he does know better. Maybe I should step back and let someone who is unbiased give me some guidance. Well, shit, he's put on his preacher digs and I'm getting a lecture only it's cold and I thought we were going for a drive.

Objective? Snort.

I pull up the garage door. It takes more strength than I actually have but I'm mad. It flies up easily with a loud clang and Jacob looks up. I walk around and get into the truck and I fire it up. On the third try it actually starts and Jacob begins to walk around to my side just as I throw it into reverse.

I ignore him and back out. On the way I hit the mirror on the door frame and the garbage at the end of the driveway.

He is still yelling but the window is up and I can't hear a word. Good. It's just another lecture anyway about how independence isn't necessary and I should just mind him because he knows better and I'm wondering how I manage to collect these men who think they can just run the show and what it is about me that makes them just take over and do everything?

I drive until I hit the edge of town and then I turn left toward Lochlan's highway of hypnotism, the ribbon that chokes off my escape and lulls me into an endless field of nightmares.

I've never been on this road before, but the first rule of decision making is to just pick something. And left is East. East is never a bad decision.

Except when I turn I pull off into a gas station (fill 'er up, just in case) and I turn off the truck. It doesn't start again because he was in the middle of fixing it and boy, look how foolish I am, just making sure I confirm it for all, with my impulsive actions and rash moments because I never learned how to deal with frustrations and it's some sort of wild instinct that sends me into a spiral and they know how I am better than I do so I won't even try to understand it.

A knock on the window makes me jump out of my skin. Lochlan is there. His truck is idling beside mine. Jake is using his old trick. If a dog runs away you don't chase it or it will just run further. I am the most unloyal pet ever, I guess.

Come on. We'll come back and tow your piece of shit home tomorrow.

I swear. Every bad word I know. I hit the steering wheel for emphasis once or twelve hundred times. Lochlan nods and waits.

You done? Because you make him fucking crazy. Just like you did to me.

You're still here.

Tell me about it. You know, Bridge, I fucked up a lot. More than anyone. But Jacob doesn't deserve to have to deal with the fallout from that.

Then maybe you should apologize to him, because you did this. You and Caleb and Cole. I could have been a normal human being but I'm fucking not, am I?

He doesn't speak to me for the trip home, except to tell me the headline that will be spoken on tomorrow's news report will be something like this:

BRIDGET FAILS TO LISTEN AGAIN. ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.

The paper has the same headline every day. And as I'm falling asleep in the truck on the way home beside Lochlan, I remind myself to get another bag of potatoes. Jacob averages ten pounds a week, by himself.

That can't be normal either.

Words like violence break the silence
Come crashing in into my little world
Painful to me, pierce right through me
Can't you understand, oh my little girl?

All I ever wanted, all I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Vows are spoken to be broken
Feelings are intense, words are trivial
Pleasures remain, so does their pain
Words are meaningless and forgettable

I'm really disappointed. I thought I could go to the man who bought my horses and buy them back for more. Apparently I can't.

Blameless (I can see the moon and it seems so clear).

Lochlan has my hand in both of his. He won't let go, clutching it against his chest, thumping it for emphasis. He's been shouting at Ben for the better part of the afternoon, in between everything else. PJ has tried to calm him down without infringing on our issues but it's a moot point. Everyone has a say, it seems, and none of it is good.

Last night I left my regret in Caleb's hands, my hair tangled in one strong fist as he slid his other hand across my throat and over my shoulder, pulling me closer to him, breathing me in with palpable relief. It's been a long time. I did not resist. I only did what he expects and Ben watched quietly from the balcony, smoking cigarette after cigarette in the pitch black night tinged with a yellow glow from the ambient city lights in the rain.

I listened carefully as Caleb whispered urgently against my ear, I played along as he instructed and I knew that all I had to do if he went too far was scream and everything would be okay because there is no way in hell Ben is going to let Caleb have more than this night. He doesn't get my life. He doesn't get my heart. What he gets is something different. I call him Cole and he responds in kind and the homesick chill bleeds out of my veins in a rush. The relief of being in Caleb's arms is a sick covert thrill I will fail to acknowledge properly because it's reprehensible. But here it is now again, just like the endless rooftop lights of the glass walls he calls home now.

He rises and pours three glasses of red wine, taking one out to Ben. Ben sets it on the table and ignores it. It was still there when I woke up this morning, tangled in limbs, my hair tightly wound around Ben's fingers instead, holding my place in the night.

My head pounds. My skin is raw and flushed. I have forgotten where we are.

Contrition comes flooding back in along with the muted sepia morning light. Caleb is in the kitchen pouring coffee now instead of wine. He is casually dressed in what I call his driving clothes. Black chinos and a white t-shirt. He'll add a black fleece jacket and his sunglasses (rain or shine) and he'll begin to glower now gradually as the day progresses, lifted only by a visit with the children and then a return to the realization that he has begun to wait again for the next time Benjamin surrenders to my pressure when confronted with the perfect chance to turn back time. When reminded that it's not only me we are saving.

These ideals are not shared across the board, obviously and here comes Mr. Outrage to rile against Ben, layering blame upon him until he is buried. Ben who is still working to untangle the mess that Lochlan made so long ago but sometimes Ben is human, easily swayed by his pretty girl and when am I not human? There we were on the balcony, whispering quietly beforehand. Feverishly, in order to ascertain whether we should just cancel this and leave. No harm done. Bridget remains intact.

No, we're here. On with it. I make the decision with my last measure of courage in the face of evil. I talk Ben into things he isn't comfortable with because I know he will come around. At least I hope he will. Life holds no guarantees now, does it, Princess?

If Lochlan thinks we have any less doubt then he is dead wrong. If he thinks I can ever change he is also dead wrong. If he thinks Ben is going to change and become more like Jacob, or worse, more like Lochlan, then he's so wrong he's beyond dead and back to life in a zombie-shuffle-fight-to-the-bitter-end.

When I am moved in the dark, my head hanging upside-down off the edge into the lights while Caleb's hands slide around my neck once more, I see Ben look away briefly. I see him put his hands up to his face as if he is horrified by what he sees and then I see him drop his shame on the floor beside his dignity as he chooses from among his various degrees of excitement instead. And I smile inside my head. In a moment he will come inside. In a moment the guard will change. In a moment I will be liberated from my transgressions. In a moment I will be safe. The homesick will slide back in around my shoulders to complete his embrace but I will be safe.

As Caleb was leaving tonight from his brief stop to see the children, I walked him out to the front hall. We were still talking about Henry's report card as if nothing ever happened. As if there is no abject chronicle written of our lives thus far and he abruptly tells me he has sold the horses. That he had an opportunity to turn a profit and he took it and if the children miss them we can arrange for time at the nearby riding school.

I am so dumbfounded by this I can't speak as he kisses the top of my head and leaves. Eight minutes later I am still standing by the door, tears rolling down my cheeks when Ben comes into the foyer and asks what's wrong and I tell him, woodenly. I am still numb. I love my horses and they've been sold out from under me.

Just as I thought we had smoothed over the bumpy road we traveled when I failed to allow for a smooth spring quarter with the company and delayed his time with me as long as I could and I worked so hard last night to make it up to him and see that he is happy and leaves the boys alone, this is how I am rewarded.

Business as usual. Only it's so personal. You don't understand.

I don't know how many times I've tried to tell you, Bridget. This is what happens. You think you keep him under control and he just erodes a little more of you. He's not going to stop until there's nothing left. WHY CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? Lochlan's voice has returned to a low simmer, seething desperation. I try to pull my hand away and I can't.

I'm not willing to see what happens if I don't engage Caleb. Clearly he's adept at removing things I love when I don't obey his word. I don't see why that's so hard for them to understand. If he requests me, I have to go. Eventually. Inevitably. It's not a difficult concept. I don't have a choice. I never have. Just a reprieve here and there, and look where that has gotten me.

You can take the road that takes you to the stars now
I can take a road that’ll see me through.

Cold water pressure.

This morning the bright yellow grey sky heralds summer in a campground by the sea, the cool damp air seeping into the cracks of the trailer but hunger and the need to pee precludes burrowing deeper under the covers. I grab my hoodie and shrug into it quickly while I search for my jeans, finding shorts instead. I pull them on and zip up the hoodie and head outside.

I smell burned coffee and pine trees and salt. The ash of last night's campfire is fragile and has already blown over the grass. I ignore the beer bottles stacked against the steps and head toward the row of outhouses out on the bluff. What a dumb place for them. It's only when you're exiting that you really get a sense of the wonderful view of wide open Atlantic.

When I return to the camper Lochlan is awake. He has his threadbare white t-shirt on inside-out and his jeans on but the buttons aren't fastened. He is filling the kettle for his coffee. I am too young to drink coffee still. His curls threaten a revolt as he smiles at me. He drinks it in one gulp. He's always been a fast coffee drinker. Breaks are short. It becomes a habit.

Want to go out for breakfast?

It's an old joke. We never have breakfast here. We don't have any food. We get on the motorcycle and drive to the diner once or twice a day and sit in a booth with a scratch-polished table and ripped leather seats and the waitress always frowns because we sit on the same side, Bridget on the inside. And I don't speak even when she asks me a direct question, which if she is anything like me, leads her to believe that he is my captor and I am his unwilling victim, instructed to remain silent lest I give away his crimes.

For my compliance, hash browns. And when we leave he'll turn to me, pull up the hood on my green sweater and make sure the zipper is all the way up, because it's still cold, you see. Especially on the bike.

Friday gloss.

This week I'm well on my way to being organized. I have almost finished Full Dark, No Stars and a Revlon Creme Gloss in cherry tart. The kids and I decorated cupcakes and made some plans for spring break and I've been to a birthday party, parenting mediation and a tsunami warning.

I think this weekend we may go out for Chinese food and see Battle: Los Angeles, which I keep calling The Battle of Los Angeles as if it's a Rage Against the Machine album title (it isn't, just close).

I printed out reams of concert tickets too. Rush and Switchfoot, to name a couple. It's going to be as good a spring for shows as it is for films (Suckerpunch, Fast Five, Thor, Super 8, Circo and that's just for a start).

I have stifled memories, burst into laughter and held my tongue, hanging on for dear life, sitting on it, tucking the bits back inside that threaten to stay out, shoving, sweating, pushing and swearing and throwing latches as quickly as I can catch air. That's hard for me. I am stubborn, but sometimes waiting them out is the only way to travel light.

I have listened to the lawyers when they told me not to write about the devil, because the devil stands to burn everything I know and love down to cinders and the only thing left will be a faded poster still flapping against a power pole in town, held fast by a single rusted staple.

I have tucked myself under Ben's arm as he sleeps unaware, putting my head down against his heart, wishing he had forty-two hours in the day instead of twenty-four, and I have memorized his heart beat so I can play it through my skull when I miss him, even though we have grown fresh skin over the raw open wounds of a year ago, skin that stretches uneasily and bends to accommodate his long days and my penchant for using proximity as a emotional weapon in taking one too many hugs from Lochlan. Too frequent and too long in duration, too close. Enough time to match breathing patterns and unlock muscle tension. Enough time to forget that aching wedge with its twenty-five years of moss, rain and circus flyers stacked up, making the weight unbearable.

I have dutifully sat in the desks of Ruth and Henry's classrooms and listened carefully as their teachers assure me they are doing well. I have exclaimed with delight as their marks have risen dramatically since last term and they both are labeled voracious readers and creative writers. I beam with pride. I can't ask for more from them and yet, this is nurture, not nature. Nature does not beget small humans of this caliber and I can lie awake at night wondering if my choices and my behavior stunt their emotions or perhaps set the stage for decades of therapy when they join adulthood and for now, I am content that so far things working out very well, which means I will earn a temporary reprieve from Caleb's ever-present threat of English boarding schools.

I have admitted to Sam that I really don't want the stress with Caleb's company and he arranged for the decisions to be revisited in the fall, on my behalf. I booked Nolan on a flight here for Easter and I spent a small fortune on new umbrellas. Good umbrellas, because when you pay $25 for a single umbrella it works better and doesn't fall apart within days and I can get on board with that, even though sometimes the boys tell me I am cheaper than a tin can in a one dollar grocery.

Hear it with a soft, slight Scottish accent and it sounds better, believe me.

I have made decisions about things I want. Bucket list stuff. Stuff I really wanted to do before I turned forty or maybe just before I die but no one's listening while they decide what I should do instead so sometimes I wait out my own life with the patience of the sphinx. Only I still have my nose. The rest of me is disintegrating in the elements and across the street is a Pizza Hut. It's a tourist wasteland. Come and visit, always remember.

And I'm melodramatic without even trying, as I'm actually rather content right now.

*rolls eyes*

I don't have a coffee craving or a imminent narcoleptic event brewing and the boys are beginning to trickle home in a slow river of beards and total utter decompression disguised in flannel and denim and tattoo ink, resplendent in the knowledge that I still have my shit together. Something I somehow manage to do better than most people, even when I can't string together the simplest of words.

No one will claim this masterpiece that I found on the table this morning. I wonder who the drawing represents. She looks rather stunned.

Tying up loose friends.

My apologies. I didn't make it back in time to write anything. The day tilted up dangerously on an axis I wasn't prepared for and I hung on with the tips of my fingers until things straightened back out. I don't feel like I did much more than set my mouth in a determined social expression and withstand and wait. That leaves me under the impression that it would be best, just now, if I don't say anything more. Just call the day done and go to bed.

Maturity! A rare thing, like the Aurora Borealis or Daniel singing out loud.

Goodnight.

Long gone.

And when I'm gone
Who will break your fall?
Who will you blame?

I can't go on
And let you lose it all
It's more than I can take
Who'll ease your pain?
Ease your pain

I am heading out into the rain to practice scuba driving and also to shop for umbrellas. Because they all seem to self-destruct on the same day. The very very very rainiest one. Actual post to follow later.

Priorities.

As per this recent post, I did indeed find a coat this morning. And I learned I can't find curtains at all unless they're very generic patio-door-sized rod-pocket panel jobs in the dullest colors on earth, which is how people decorate their homes, I am guessing.

I wouldn't know. I don't seem to harbor any decorating skills at all. And I'm creative but when it comes to the house I don't want neutral, I want....

Carnival.

But you can't dress a house in circus. No one would come to the show. Boo. Hoo.

I'm okay with that for now, I'll leave everything white. What isn't white is beige. It's so neutral it's Switzerland.

As for my coat, I got EXACTLY what I envisioned in my head. That doesn't happen so often. Visions, people! I have a vision in my head of how I would like this house to be decorated and not a sweet clue of how to go about accomplishing that. I just...well, my incredibly...er.. minimalistic/proletarian/gypsy formative teenaged/early adultood years preclude the ability to do ridiculous daredevil things like pay $15 for a coordinating bath mat because what a waste, we already have a bath mat, it just doesn't....match, but at the end of the day when death, drama and dues take up so much of our precious time, who the fuck cares if the bath mat matches the shower curtain?

(The shower curtain is clear in the bathroom I am speaking of. I told you I can't make decisions on such dumb things.)

However!

I can make decisions on big huge things.

And so I quit my job again.

You see, on Saturday we threw a birthday party picnic for Caleb, at Henry's request. It went very well. Everyone had fun. (Civilized! Co-! Parenting! FUCK!) Apparently time with Bridget wasn't plentiful enough and so Caleb sent along a pewter envelope later in the evening. I accepted for us (because I am immature, remember?) and then Ben declined for us and we stayed home and made out with Lochlan instead (because I could say just about anything and that's all you ever think about anymore anyway). Sunday Caleb attempted to reach us once more and I ignored my phone. Monday I attended the board meeting he called as he moves to finalize his retirement and I don't know if it was low blood sugar, fear or just general immaturity (ding ding ding!) but I'm afraid I didn't last very long and I walked out in the middle of the meeting and embarrassed the fuck out of him and accomplished nothing since undoing this will take a lot more than just leaving the building, I'd have to spend another ninety minutes signing papers at the lawyer's office. I hate the lawyers. They have no senses of humor.

Maybe tomorrow I'll do that. Today I am busy picking colors for the circus/beach house, and enjoying my new coat and temporary Pretty Vagrant status. Oh, and making out with Lochlan.

Yes, this is totally working for me.

Those are great, princess.

What are?

Your sneezes. They're just orgasmic.

What are you talking about?

The breathless buildup and then climax and then the afterglowish bless-you thanks.

Wow.

What? I appreciate them, that's all.

Are you that bored?

Yup. Can I play with your phone?

Yes. On second thought, no, don't touch my stuff.

Why? My hands are clean.

I know your hands are clean, but your brain is positively filthy, Padraig.