Solution.

It was an elaborate typeface and I stood in the dark, in the wind outside of a sticking wooden door and read the label over and over and over again. Fitting, I thought. Serves me right. There was no bravery to be had here in this place, no courage to uncover, no rest for my wickedness. No pansies growing on the hill and no rain visible until I realized I was soaked right through. Just the wind, it never ever stopped and it forced me back inside my head because I couldn't hear him and that drove him into an unfathomable rage.

The door clattered open, Cole having shoved it hard from the inside. I wonder if he even realized how close I had been standing, for the edge of it grazed my nose and my toes as it flew open and smashed against the weathered clapboards. He stood in veritable darkness, a lantern in one hand.

Could you find it?

Yes, here. I passed him the bottle. He read the label and passed it back to me with a dark smile. He is exhausted and driven. He has been here at the shore house for nights and nights painting with no food and no rest.

Nice job, fidget. I'm going to finish cleaning up and then we'll celebrate. He pulled me into the dark with him and then reached back and pulled the door shut hard. My world is dark, save for the light he carries in his hands, and I follow him up the steps slowly to the second floor when he keeps the brightest room as his studio.

This painting was commissioned and constitutes the most money we have ever had and so I was instructed to go to the store and choose a nice wine from somewhere off the continent. I am anxious, the buyer was incredibly specific and demanding and Cole has been sending sketches regularly since the first of the year, now the summer is almost over and if all goes well we will be able to pay for the beach house and still have enough to get through what is generally a tight autumn. If not, then I guess Cole moves toward the shadows and I step into Caleb's focus. Either way we will manage the bill whether Cole prostitutes himself for his client or I do for his brother. Either way I somehow continue to count my own worth in dollars and cents.

Two more lanterns are burning in the studio. The power has been out for almost an hour. Cole turns after setting down the lantern he had been carrying and smiles wide. I am staring at the flame contained within the glass instead. I don't like this place at night. Odd, since I adore this house in the mornings right up until the shadows grow long and the traffic dies down and the birds begin their evening song and then the homesickness settles over me. Coupled with the storm tonight it seems as if the dark will never end.

He touches my hand, placing a full glass in it. I am staring at the red liquid now, reflecting nothing. Wine makes me sick but Cole is a poor artist and we can't afford any more than this yet. First the painting will be delivered and then the cheque will come, with a handwritten note on very good stationery tucked into an envelope that probably costs more than our wine.

He takes his own glass and raises it against mine.

To change.

To change. I take a sip. He drinks half the glass. He puts it down and then takes mine too. Are you ready?

Yes.

He pulls me over in front of the canvas and grabs the lantern, holding it high. It will look different in natural light, he cautions.

I am stunned. This is easily his best work and now I understand how his madness complements his efforts. How he is driven. We would lie in bed and he would describe what he wanted to achieve on a canvas or in a photograph but rarely could he translate it sufficiently in practice. Rarely was he pleased. Tonight was an exception, indeed. Only it wasn't what I was expecting.

Amazing.

You like it?

I can't even believe it.

But do you like it?

I love it. But, this isn't what he asked for, is it?

No, that one is on the table. This one I did for you.

We can keep it?

You can do whatever you want with it. He laughed and finished his wine in one long swallow. Except don't give it away. The laughter drained out of his face. I made this for you, Bridget. Don't give it to anyone.

I won't.

Promise me.

I promise.

A week later we were home from the rental and still unpacking. The cheque had been delivered by courier, too large to put into the mail, and no sooner had the courier left the driveway of the beach house then we were running out the front door with our suitcases and the easel and the half-empty basket of pears we had picked from the trees in the front yard of the house. We arrived home, threw our belongings in the front door and rushed down to the bank to deposit the cheque before closing time.

The whole week I had been waiting for Cole to unpack his paintings and I figured out a nice spot on the wall for mine, somewhere between two others, since we were seriously out of wall real estate but perhaps we could relegate some less-important works to other areas. My painting would have a place of honor.

I finally went looking for it but in thumbing through the works standing up against the wall in his home studio, I realized it wasn't there. I asked him about it and he shook his head, not speaking, and I knew better than to keep bothering him when he was working. I would ask later, maybe, eventually he would volunteer the answer.

He did not.

I figured it out this morning as I stood in Caleb's library, finally finished the transformation from austere masculine office with the dark walls and expensive furniture into a lighter, more friendly place with comfy furniture placed in the center of the room conversation-style, and new custom built bookshelves across two walls. The huge monolith of a desk is gone, the filing cabinets replaced with pull-out drawers under the shelves, a huge nubby area rug for the kids to stretch out on and read his prized second editions of Treasure Island and Stuart Little when the mood strikes them. Large floor lamps and light-diffusing blinds round it out, as does new artwork on the walls.

Like my painting.

MY Painting, the one Cole made for me, of me, fifteen years ago. A painting that should have been returned when all of the photographs and other works came back to me but it wasn't.

Why did Cole give that to you?

Give what? Oh, the painting of you? I asked for it.

When?

When? Jesus, probably fifteen or thirteen years ago, I don't remember exactly. Why?

Did he say no and you talked him into it?

Bridget, what is wrong with you?

It's mine. He made it for me. It was supposed to be for me and he told me not to give it away and then he gives it to you? Why would he do that?

Caleb lets his head roll around his shoulders as if he has an ache in his neck, as if he is reasoning slowly and simply, with a child.

I don't know, Bridget. Maybe Cole had a bad habit of giving away everything that was precious to him with little persuasion. I mean, look at you.

There would be more to this story but Duncan had to pick me up and carry me out of the condo over his shoulder. I was going for Caleb's heart. It's the weakest part, after all.

Shhhh. Someone is sleeping. With a bunneh.

Me. Haha. Hahahahahaha.

Cake people.

Gage.

You have to say it real slow, like in Practical Magic when Nicole Kidman's character Jilly is describing her new boyfriend to Sandra Bullock's Sally. Jimmy. Jimmy Annnnnnngelov.

Only Gage is no vampire cowboy, and yes, this is a fine time to point out there don't seem to be any Steves, Bills or Eds in my collective.

Hello no. We are children of the seventies, and our parents were determined to be different. It could be worse, I went to school with a lot of flowers, but instead my gypsy parents rebelled and named me after a French movie star and an Irish Saint (equally says mom), (hell no, it was the french starlet only, says dad).

Gage is Schuyler's brother (okay half-brother but good enough for me).

It all makes sense now, doesn't it?

Gage is here and I don't seem to have space for him, which is um, a new issue. Updates to follow as I think of something.

Update as promised: Gage gets the CAMPER. What a lucky duck. I would live in the camper but then everyone would complain and accuse me of living in the past blahblahblah. Snort. We actually had decided on him staying on the futon in Daniel and Schuy's living room but then Gage asked why there was a perfectly good house in the driveway and Lochlan said it was his to enjoy if he wanted it. Everyone is settled at last, just in time for sunset.

***

Yesterday while driving to get Thai food, we passed a cupcake shop. One of many we have seen and tried, which led to an interesting discussion on just how viable all of these cupcake shops are, considering we had no interest in returning to any of them, honestly. We're used to very good full-on cake or very bad cake sometimes too. Trendy designer cupcakes are interesting but the storebought (or boutique-bought ones, as it were) are generally too rich for my blood sugar and my wallet, sadly. They aren't worth the toothache for the price, in other words and in pointing out my curiosity at how they stay in business, Ben pointed out that someone is always having a birthday.

But what if they aren't?

What do you mean? It's always somebody's birthday.

But what if it isn't? What if there was one day that no one was ever born on?

There's multiple babies born every minute, Bridget.

Imagine though! The day no one was born. The darkest day that no one celebrates.

What would you do, then?

I would buy cupcakes just because and we would celebrate Happy Nobirthdays.

That's very emo of you, sweetheart.

Maybe they could make black cupcakes with black icing!

Gothcakes?

YES. Maybe with tiny white-icing filigree. Something really pretty. Because no one deserves it. And still the day needs something. Something to mark it as different.

Uh-huh.

You're just so stunned at my idea, you don't even know what to say, right?

Yeah, that's exactly right.

The room at the end of the hall.

It's a tiny room, overall. It's where Nolan stays when he visits and my parents stay there too. A room bathed in full light, looking out toward the rose bushes and the evening sunset. It has no closet but a brand new bed and there is a hutch for storage that came with the house and they offered to take it when I called to complain to the realtor that a lot of things were still here but I said I would keep the hutch, just nothing else.

(I should have gotten them to take the stupid cans of hot pink primer paint with them from where the basement was finished. Yes, full-on magenta. The walls are beige, luckily enough. The cans are full, they clearly bought too much. I'll have to ask where I can dispose of it the next time we go to the hardware store. Currently I don't like hardware stores still, they remind me of the castle and so the hot pink paint sits in a box near the tools, in the laundry room. Because the laundry room is easily as large as the living room, and it's virtually empty. I think it would make a great workshop once we replace the floor with tile and put in cupboards. Oo! Derail.)

The little room at the end of the hall is now known as New Jake's room. I'm not sure what I'm going to do when company comes next. I am officially out of space.

He drove up from God knows where on that gorgeous old motorcycle, without a map or a plan or letting anyone know where he was. He said the weather mostly sucked but the roads were good and his entire worldly possessions fit in a backpack and a couple of leather saddlebags strapped to the back of the bike.

He's going to stay on indefinitely. He said he felt like he was coming home. We are happy to have him. Or have him back, as it were. I didn't think we would ever see him again, truthfully, but he kept his promise and here he is.

Talking up a storm already.

Oh, sweet magnificent surprise.

Eighteen weeks of absolutely hardly anything and guess who just pulled into my driveway on a schweet vintage Sunbeam?

The talker, that's who.

(I was given legs and I ran and ran until I become tired of that, and I stopped to consider the line in the sand, frosted glass mixed with seaweed, left behind from high tide, a trail of glass breadcrumbs to show me the way home.

I tried to hide my scales with pretty dresses. I tried to keep my long hair tied up so it would be so much less obvious. I deferred at pearls and chose diamonds to fit in. I exhaled in long hot bubble baths where I could lock the door and return to my true form.

I ate cod with a straight face and refused calamari with a laugh. I flung starfish into the air to simulate the sky above and only I could hear their squeals of glee from the ride.

I made a valiant attempt to be human, and yet it's clearly obvious I am not, distracted by the shoreline and the waves on a whim, measuring days in terms of tides instead of hours. Breathing the deep cool water beneath the waves. Enduring the silence of a thousand sunken ships. Being whole.)

To you.

When he arrived back at the camper he had a large cardboard box in his arms. I was already stressed. It was dark. I didn't know how to light the lantern, he never let me touch it and I wasn't allowed to remain outside if he wasn't handy. It wasn't often that we were apart so late in the evening but Lochlan had been recruited reluctantly to help break down a temperamental, rusty structure. The rain had finally let up after four days and we were pulling up stakes tomorrow. An unholy mess at this point. Everyone was demoralized and exhausted.

Um..okay, just turn around and close your eyes.

I can't see, it's okay.

Just do it, Bridge.

I put my hands over my eyes and began to sing. He laughed and asked me if I was peeking so I turned away and put my back to him to prove I wasn't looking.

He crashed around for a good seven, eight minutes and boy, did I ever get tired standing there listening to my stomach growl. It was my thirteenth birthday, well, for another three hours at least.

It's ready. You can look now.

I turned around slowly and opened my eyes. Lochlan had lit a candle. A single white taper but we didn't have any candle holders so he jammed it down into the center of the potted ivy plant I set outside the camper every morning in the sun and brought in every evening at dusk. Lochlan regularly emptied the last drops of his beer into it and still it persisted, sort of like we did.

He had found a small white tablecloth to cover the drop leaf table and real plates! Real china plates were on the table. On the counter was a bag that I could smell before he told me to open my eyes. Chinese take out. And a big cold bottle of Dr. Pepper and something else. A bundle wrapped in a cloth that I couldn't identify at all. Maybe his laundry. Sometimes he took it and hung it on the line behind the poker game tents to dry.

He grinned.

Happy birthday, little lady.

I smiled back. Huge. I counted four boxes of take-out. My stomach groaned at the delay.

Thank you.

A speech before we eat?

No, after. Starved.

He laughed again and pulled my chair out. I sat down and he brought over the bag and took everything out. Sweet and sour chicken. Fried rice. Chow mein. Two egg rolls. Two fortune cookies. A feast! He poured us each a tall glass of Dr. Pepper and began to dish up the food. We ate and drank and laughed until all of the food was gone as he described the men's jokes as they fought to pry the bolts loose earlier to dismantle the ride and failed at so many the torches were brought in. The jokes were crass and nasty. Carnival humor. There is no room for delicate sensibilities or offense in a place such as this. There's very little room for newly-thirteen year old girls either. But out of two different sorts of desperation I had been accepted into the fold, into the gypsy family and mostly I felt at home.

I laughed when Lochlan laughed and acted outraged when he did. And then I burped really loud and he laughed so hard he almost fell off his chair.

That was beautiful. Here, birthday girl. What's your fortune?

"You create your own stage and your audience is waiting."

Uncanny. Mine: "Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence." (He would later have this Mencken quote tattooed from shoulder to wrist.)

That's beautiful. And true.

And how. And I have another surprise for you, Bridget.

I am too stuffed for surprises now.

Not this one.

He went back to the counter and took the bundle and brought it carefully to the table. He unwrapped it slowly and then I realized why as he removed the last sheets of plastic only to be confronted with a final toothpick defense which he quickly removed, using a plastic spoon to smooth away the tiny holes. One that he licked clean first.

A cake. Chocolate cake with chocolate icing. That he made.

For me.

For my birthday. Still warm, which meant that he hadn't been tearing down machinery in the dwindling rain and light. He had been baking. Baking! My eyes filled up. He pointed out he did help tear down the machinery and then they let him off early so he could get the cake done. And then he went back out in the rain while it baked but kept such a close eye on his watch that they began to tease him for it. He sang Happy Birthday to me quite seriously. It would be the first time.

Later on, after I was so full I moved slower than usual, I sacked out on the bed, the sugar high taking over, fatigue not far behind. Best night of my life.

There's more.

I can't eat anymore. I might die.

It's not food.

I'm surprised. We must have had a better week than I realized. I am slurring sleep into our conversation. What is it?

A trip.

A trip? Different show or new one?

Not a show, a trip. Just you and me. We'll get away from it all. He laughed at the cheesiness of his own words. We were perpetually away from it all. The circus was an imaginary landscape, life in costume distilled into a freakshow and a high-wire act, punctuated with his batons, lighting the night on fire, outshining the stars.

Where will we go?

That's the best part, Bridget. It doesn't matter. The whole world is ours.

Remnants.

No one keeps a secret so well as a child.
~Victor Hugo

I was on my second cup of tea, rocking slowly back and forth in the chair that Jacob kept on his back balcony, overlooking the sand below. I wasn't supposed to be here, the balcony is only accessible through the bedroom, but he said the rocker was left by the previous owner, and he found it the best vantage point from which to watch the water and talk. Later on he would tell me that I was the only person other than himself to go out there the entire time he lived in the beach house, thus admitting he really did spend as much time talking to himself as I always suspected.

Maybe I should take you home.

Maybe I should just wait for a bit. This is really nice, Jake.

Mmm. He was non-committal. Something was on his mind and I was patient. I knew him well-enough by now to wait for him to say it, that he would eventually. Somehow we did better with brutal honestly, talking deeper, just knowing things would hurt or bring relief through the words. He's one of the few who really treat the words with the gravity and reverence they deserve.

Tell me about him, Bridget.

Him who?

Cole's brother.

***

Caleb showed up around ten last night. Schuyler met him at the front door and pointed out Henry and Ruth were long asleep, maybe he should wait until tomorrow. The warning came swiftly when he opened his mouth, slurring out a request to see me.

Schuyler went and let Ben know but Lochlan beat them both back to the front door, able to sense tension in the house, highly affected by it and unable to do anything much until it's resolved. He picked the wrong house to live in, clearly. He's a superhero without a plan. I don't know what he is aside from being classified as perpetually in the throes of a midlife crisis that's been going on since he was sixteen years old. I watch and wait, fascinated by his intensity toward what he loves and positively astounded by his careless attitudes toward everything else.

Caleb wasn't interested in Lochlan's misdirected apathy. He told him to go away, that he was here to see me.

Lochlan shook his head, not saying a word. He wasn't going to move. Ben appeared from downstairs and headed for the front door, unimpressed. The whole time I am standing in the alcove between the kitchen and the hallway asking them what's going on. I grabbed at Ben's hand as he walked past me, but instead he threw a command over his shoulder.

You stay put.

I crept to the far end of the front hall but I still couldn't hear anything so I went up to the staircase and cracked open one of the windows over the verandah instead. I peered down. Caleb is pacing on the brightly lit walkway below. As he turns to come back he overcorrects, weaving. This is an effort, this decorum. I don't even understand how he got here or why he's loaded out of the blue like this but I am severely unnerved. He rarely does this. Very, very rarely.

The roar came out of nowhere and I flinched.

BRIDGET!!!

I put my head down against the wall and closed my eyes. I could be anywhere right now, I can hide in plain sight inside my head just like I have always done with Caleb. But his voice keeps pulling me back to the task at hand. I can hear Ben's soft words but I can't make out what he's saying and Caleb keeps interrupting him anyway.

I can also feel the footfalls as Ben is joined on the verandah by the others, having made their way from different parts of the house. I know when they are all outside, the vibrations stop. Everything is still again and I know this army is ready, at the gate. This is what they do.

***

I am reluctant, mildly evasive, insolent. Jacob picks up on this immediately.

What happened to him?

He went away. Moved away. He lives in Toronto now, he's a CFO. Self-made millionaire asshole.

Does he contact you?

He hasn't for a long time.

Good.

Yes. It is. I get up and cross to the rail. I'm watching the icy teal saltwater break in waves onto the wet sand. Night has fallen on the shoreline and the beach is deserted. The wind is warm against my skin but I am chilled and unable to understand why I lied about something that was so long ago but it's been beaten into my head since forever that I am not allowed to tell people. If I tell anyone everything will change. I finish my wine in one gulp.

***

For the first time in my life I watch as Caleb makes a mistake.

She was mine. Did he tell you that? SHE. WAS. MINE. Did she tell you she ran away from him and came to me? She wanted to be with ME. Not with him. Not with anyone else. ME.

I have put my hands up over my ears now, squeezing my eyes shut tight but his voice infiltrates my senses and takes over. He is screaming my name now. I can hear footsteps on the steps and on the concrete. Struggling sounds. They're going to make him stop before the neighbors call the police. He is lying. Can they take him to jail for lying?

***

What in the hell went on between you two, Bridget?

Jake is pacing behind the kitchen chair where I sit, my hands wrapped around a glass of brandy that he poured for me after yet another series of presumptive invitations from Caleb to me were delivered in the mail. So formal, Caleb is. Engraved invitations to a party for two. He does not care that I have moved on. Cole's death was license for him to return in his truest form of evil. I thought this would be over but according to him it is just beginning. Nothing has been resolved. The past crowds into the present and threatens to smother the future.

Nothing could go on, Jacob. I was twelve years old. Jesus. The lies keep on coming. I learned from the best.

***

When I stop shaking and take my hands away from my ears the yelling is directly below me now. Inside the house. Listening very carefully I can pick out Ben, Lochlan, PJ, Christian, Andrew, Duncan. Lochlan is deflecting the questions they fire at him. No one's going to give us any leeway or any breathing space on this ever again.

Then I realize his resolve is holding. This is the only thing he cares about. Me. Us. Our memories. Maybe our secrets are safe after all.

I didn't think it would turn out like this. I never thought I would get this far from Caleb, almost home free. A child's dream, just like the one I had of living in a pink castle made entirely of cotton candy, complete with a midway at my disposal all day long, and a circus scrubbed and shining of her inevitable dark and seedy underpinnings. Light in dark places, with my knights at the ready.

Okay, so maybe that one last part came true.

***

What do you want from her? Jacob roars in Caleb's face. They are nose to nose, for Jacob has Caleb several inches off the ground and pinned to the wall. It hurts, I know it hurts, I can see it all over Caleb's face but only because I am the only one who knows what the devil looks like in pain.

I want her to tell the truth.

What truth?

I am shaking my head, horrified that they are doing this. Terrified that Caleb is going to ruin everything but he isn't that insane. If he takes Lochlan down then he goes down too. Nobody wins, he'll never get close to me again. He isn't going to risk that but I'm not so sure anymore.

That what Lochlan did was just as bad. And that I mean something to her.

Yeah, you do. You're her nightmare.

Jacob lets go and Caleb drops to the floor on his knees. Jacob storms across the room, grabbing me by the hand and we leave. I look over my shoulder but it's apparent that Caleb has given up, for now. He'll only go so far and somehow I realize that he's as stuck as I am, as Lochlan is, the three of us locked into a secret history that no one is willing to blow the lid off.

I am flooded with relief and I wonder how long it will hold. Jacob looks at me and my expression is vacant, lost in thought, overwhelmed. He thinks I have gone into shock and he panics. He pulls me roughly against his shoulder, tightly in his arm and takes out his phone. I forget who he called, I just remember eventually falling asleep in his arms while we waited. And I remember thinking nothing bad would ever happen again. I never expected the army to remain so close.

***

Ben finds me sitting on the second step from the top, arms wrapped around my knees, rocking like I did in the chair on Jacob's balcony before the past came back in a rush to destroy everything we have built since.

I looked up into his face, my eyes burning, tears eroding a path down each cheek. Unable to pull myself together, I bring my hands up to cover my face.

I'm so sorry, Benny. It was a whisper.

He put his arm around me, pulling me off the step and into his lap and he wrapped both arms around me, compressing me against his chest. Kissing my cheeks, ears, the top of my head.

I don't care, bee. I don't fucking care what happened, I don't care what's in the past, I don't care who you were with or what you felt or what you did. I love you. No matter what happens. I love you now.

That last part is still reverberating through my brain. I love you now.

Solar coaster.

Saw you crucify your mind
Your soul left unsung
Heard you death-defy your eyes
Saw you crawl inside the blind

He was walking up the beach toward the house when I arrived. Shirt flapping in the wind, the huge smile showing every last one of his big white chiclet teeth. Hair blowing all over. When he saw me he quickened his pace and I ran down to him because I didn't feel like taking my time.

What do you think?

It's nice. I'm always amazed at the pine trees, the cedars, in proximity to the shore.

We're used to bedrock.

Yes. That's it. The grin, widened, if it were possible.

You're going to get in so much trouble, princess.

That isn't my problem, Jake.

But it is, princess.

Can we talk about something else now?

Sure.

But he's no longer interested in the words, and I follow his eyes to where he is watching Caleb leave the house and quickly walk to his car. Breakfast is over, Caleb can make an easy, almost invisible exit and go home.

He shakes his head, the smile turning rueful now as he looks back at me, his hair over his eyes, which have turned dark and concerned.

Why can't you just stay away from the brothers Grimm, princess? At least with Lochlan he isn't trying to dismantle your soul, taking a piece every time.

My soul has been gone for a while now.

Jacob winces and turns back toward the water. You need to rethink this. This isn't good for you.

Caleb? I know a lot of the boys would choose dealing with Caleb over everything else. Somehow it's easier for them to manage.

Only because they can't fight me anymore.

They wouldn't fight with you.

You have a short memory, princess. Don't you remember the Zero the Hero dinner?

Yes but that was different.

How exactly?

That time I chose you.

And now?

Ben. I say it softly, with tears rolling down my face. Jacob nods. It would be bitter save for the fact that he made this decision for us. I would not have forced his hand the way he forced mine and things have changed so drastically I regularly check my driver's license to make sure my name is still the same but it isn't and yet the face is still the one I recognize.

Good. He's been good to you. He's selfless in a way none of the others are. Less controlling too. Safer.

I laugh. This has become a parody.

You should go back, princess. They worry about you.

I'm fine.

I know that and they know that. Maybe care is a better word than worry.

Do you care?

Yes, but I worry too.

You have just destroyed all of my hopes for Heaven, Jacob.

It's a different kind of worry, Bridget.

Not where you seem to think I am, honestly.

The evening is getting away from me, the house is a bit of a noisy place currently, and so in lieu of a post, enjoy some of my birthday flowers, both indoors and out. Never said I was any good with making things look pretty on a page, so excuse the miserable formatting. I will be back tomorrow. You can relax now. Smell the roses.