Strangled with a pink velvet ribbon.

The civility is crushing and astounding all at once. Caleb is here to spend the majority of the day with us. Because it's Father's Day and the devil created a son who is as good and heavenly as they come and he can only stand in awe of the boy who someday will be King.

I escaped for much of the afternoon to the rainy dim verandah in a warm sweater and jeans but bare feet, hair tied in possibly the messiest braid ever with a treasured pink ribbon that is threatening to unravel (just like my evening) to draw with the new drafting pencils Ben bought for me yesterday and Lochlan's giant copy of Anatomy For The Artist.

I ventured inside only when it was time to begin cooking. New Jake will help because he tends to remain behind me on the fringe and Sam should be here soon and I'll let Duncan wake himself up from his nap whenever he wishes because I saw his light on long into the night when I ventured downstairs for orange juice.

Lochlan is somehow looking less purple-and-brown today and Ben is unwinding, beginning in a slow counter-clockwise spiral, now approaching out of control and I had to peel him off the sheets and wrap his hand around a cup of coffee and he is very jovial and noncommittal about the day overall so I believe that means he is as relaxed as one can be when forced to spend a day off with the devil in house. As usual when Ben has time off he bounces from one activity to the next. It's difficult to watch.

I'm sure I am blamed for the mass defection which will ultimately result in the company folding and I am used to the heat but at the same time it was not my decision. I had to be led into it, their hands held out, calling my name along with gentle words of encouragement as I walked forward to reach where they stood, again on the other side of a Big Decision. I still have my doubts. I still worry too much and I'm still going to hold my breath but I'm also going to start cooking dinner because when people are well fed they are a heck of a lot calmer and move slower, besides.

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads that are here, dads that are not here, stepdads, surrogate dads, and understudy dads too. You have no idea how much we appreciate and love you all. Now keep your fists to yourselves through dinner or else.

There was the brilliant world of hunting, tactics, fierce exhilaration, skill, and there was the world of longing and baffled common-sense.

It went better than I expected, actually.

This is a higher stakes version of the game you two played in high school, isn't it? You've developed such an obvious pattern. I wonder if your husband sees this. Oh, he wouldn't, would he? You chose yet another man who wasn't there to witness your history firsthand and so it's easier to escape detection.

Leave Ben out of this.

Ben is going to be a large amount of collateral damage. More than Jacob ever was. Are you ready for that, Bridget?

Just sign and date the letter so that you acknowledge Lochlan's resignation, please.

I'm not signing anything.

Then he will have to sue you.

You two don't want to play that game with me, dollface.

I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them again Caleb is still there. Fuck. Fuck reality. Fuck business. Fuck the past. I can't take this.

Yes, we do. Sign mine too. I don't want the company.

Too late. It's already yours.

I'll liquidate it and put it into a trust if you can't honor the release clause. I'm well within the time frame.

You'll put all of your boys out of work.

They are leaving as well. I have all the letters here to be signed.

Got him. Finally rocked. He just stared at me and I watched disbelief float across his blue eyes, and it morphed into some sort of quiet terror.

All of you.

Yes. Oh, and we'll be taking John with us, so you can call Mike back.

Quick recovery. He is smooth. He walks to the window in an attempt to not give away anything else via body language or the fact that I can read his face so easily these days even I am surprised. Back in control.

Your terms are up. Of course.

They've been up for months.

I was under the impression only Loch would be leaving.

Sometimes it's better that way.

And Ben?

Ben has already finished. This project was a bad idea and he won't be taking on any more for you.

You know what happens when he is idle.

Maybe we should move to the table so you can sign easily.

Just put them down, Bridget. I will go over them all today and you can pick them up later.

No, actually I have plans so I need to be out of here in thirty minutes.

And their packages? You can prepare those? Or should I call the bank?

I can look after them.

This is a betrayal.

Then you should have made the contracts longer. I appreciate what you did and I imagine it was hard to see me suffer but I know you did for my own good. I am happier here.

So let me get this straight. All of you are going to give up this massive amount of earning potential and security and recognition.

The recognition does not come from your efforts, Cale. It comes from their talent.

What about the money, Bridget?

I shook my head. He is so single-minded sometimes it makes me sick.

They have jobs to go to. We'll have money.

It's not enough, Bridget.

It will have to be enough. It was before.

And you always talked about starving. It kills me. That's why I helped.

It shouldn't. You won't be the one going hungry. And you didn't help. You bought me. Cole sold me out from under him.

I won't let you struggle, or the children. I promised him that much.

They will be fine. And you MAKE me struggle. You get off on it.

Bridget, I think that you're upset and-

You know what, Caleb? I think you're right. I'll leave everything here and you can sign and send it over later. Everything is in order.

Don't do this.

It's too late. It's done.

You're going to starve.

It's clearly the better choice because you're killing me anyway. At least this way I can do it on my own terms with my own methods.

Your maturity level really is stuck at twelve years old, isn't it, Princess?

I wonder why, Caleb? Do you really want me to explain that for everyone here today?

He turned back from the window and remembered the entire board of directors was sitting at the table watching as everything went up in flames. The company can't survive as a shell. I want to care because he looks so sad, but I don't understand a thing about business at such a tender age. The only thing I know is that I want to protect my boys and it is a reflex to do so, a Lord of the Flies instinct that they instilled in me from the very beginning.

Caleb was not used, he volunteered himself as the facilitator. The boys carried this on their backs. They don't have to do that anymore.

And as Lochlan said to me many years ago as we lay in the back of the pickup truck on a warm night at the end of the summer watching shooting stars,

The real world is scary but it's exciting too, peanut. You can't grow in a circus. It's a bubble. There's no air. Remember in the book? The part about needing to have rules to obey? That we're not savages? This is that part of life now. And we're going to be okay.

A short little fairy-fail for you.

Met a man
I was overwhelmed
Met a man
And yes
He helped
Met a man and he helped my cry the driest tears out from my eyes

Met a man and he looked so kind
Understanding I was blind
Met a man covered in red and he found a way inside my head

Met a man on top of the hill
Met a man and his cup was spilled
Met a man and he took me home and he made me feel alone
Alone

The jovial glad-to-be-alive mindset has been replaced with epic frustration. He's spending the evening trying to juggle fire with one hand. His bandages are blackened, his mouth is set in a line that I wouldn't cross if someone paid me and either he's going to burn down the house, the yard or most likely and deliberately the garage because the garage is now enemy number one, holding his remaining motorcycles. The plan is to sell all but one and keep one for tooling around the bay only because I had a giant panic attack when they began to talk about when Lochlan was going to have enough healing in his fingers to get back on a bike, because they are firm believers in getting right back into things. That's why when I was twenty-one and I crashed my mom's SUV, Cole came and got me and made me drive his car home. So I wouldn't be afraid and never drive again. I took that advice when I got married as well. Right back into things! Don't be afraid, stupid!

But sadly, I am still afraid of extending hearts too far, lest they break and stop working and make people die. Right, Cole? There's one chance I won't take, okay, sweetheart? Except maybe with your brother. I've been trying to kill him subtly for years now.

So Lochlan has grand plans to keep riding and I am constantly scanning the sales pages telling them precisely how much money they would get if they sold all of the bikes because from here on out Bridget is attempting to mandate air bags, roll cages, seatbelts, and certain life, instead of death. Teams of ninja assassins to scope out all danger would be nice too, if you know of any.

I'm pretty sure my hair will now grow in completely white after last week and I can't seem to leave Lochlan alone for even a minute, sitting on the edge of his knee while he eats his cereal and reads the paper, sitting on the floor of his closet while he chooses t-shirts with one good hand and shoves the rest of the pile back against the wall on the shelf, loitering in the bathroom doorway when he's clearly *ahem* otherwise engaged trying to take a pee, all manner of insanely clingy behaviors that attest to one fear I can't and won't overcome.

If he spends the rest of his life juggling fire by the sea, telling me to cut my bangs already and asking me to make the foods he likes the most as he paints pictures that come from the inside of his mad mind, I will be so happy.

Now I just have to work on the big one, who figures he is immortal and would dent a truck before a truck dents him and doesn't take any time to think about death because there are places Ben's mind does not need to go, who will happily invite company in when he's in the bathroom and tries to do awful things to me when I am trying to pee and he plays the guitar all damn day where I can't hear it and I wish he would just do it at home instead, sell his bikes too and never ever leave again.

I will bring the words, Ben will supply the melody and Lochlan will paint the surroundings in glorious color. Nothing will change, everyone will be safe and I won't have to worry ever again.

Yes, I know. Good luck to me.

Oh, but what you don't know is the tides are shifting as we speak. More tomorrow. I have another meeting to go to.

You're troubled and boy you are desperate
You're troubled at home and I know what's wrong
I see you fading so I'll help you up tonight
Come up here in the air
Come up here in the air
Come up here in the air tonight

Well, now.

For those taking offense to my care and coddling of Lochlan, my refusal to write about Ben under siege, my inside joke with the boys that I am one wife to a dozen men and hell, even the color of my toothbrush, well I just have two words.

Hahaha, no not those ones. I already said those ones and clearly you didn't listen.

Don't read.

I don't know what else I can say.

I don't do current events so well, I despise politics and I'm not going to mommy-blog unless I'm absolutely bursting over something and really I don't have enough talents to pull off a gardening/cooking/home decorating Marth Stewart blog but I have my boys and my words.

That's what I know.

Since I was eight years old these boys, as a collective, have been the center of my universe. They're men now but they are still MY boys because they were boys once, in the beginning anyway.

So that's what I write about.

Some come and go. Some die and some live. Some love and some fight. Some drink and some heal. Some create and some destroy. There are other journals you can read. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

While Vancouver burned.

Real men shake hands after a game. Real men turn off the television and go back to life after pointing out that maybe next year will be the year. Real men downplay the violence and point out that it's finished and now we get back to living decently. Real men KEEP THEIR BEARDS ALL YEAR ROUND, people. (I'm kidding. Go ahead and shave now. Just be prepared for my sad face when I see you.)

Congratulations to the Bruins. They played incredibly well, especially Tim Thomas. He was so fun to watch. Unlike the news footage from downtown after the game was over. There will be enough coverage available to you should you want to see for yourselves. I came in here ready to point out that life is not like the movies, and then I saw this photo (click to make it bigger).

And I changed my mind.

(Photo credit: Richard Lam)

Due to collective family superstition I can't talk about the game so here. Have this instead.

He said, "Come here kid and I'm gonna teach you with all my fancy fire.
Come here kid and I'm gonna seat you on top of this hill.
I can 'cause you are blind and boy you are desperate.
You're troubled at home and I know what's wrong.
I see you fading so I'll help you up tonight.
Come up here in the air tonight."

There's a beautiful huge wall of rhododendron on my street and the boys are fascinated by it presently. Apparently it's a living hornets nest through and through. Ben said the sound was positively unreal, almost like an engine or an aircraft when you are standing right beside it. The boys are stunned that no one has been chased down the street by a swarm of hornets already.

They told me to check it out. Not because I would get stung (odds are I won't because I grew up in a beekeeping environment and have exactly one sting to my credit in life) but because this was an interesting thing to check out. The dog walk gets boring sometimes, especially when we can't go into the wood (forbidden due to current black bear density and the whole love affair with The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon)

I stood beside the wall of fading flowers. Nothing. I could see the hornets. I could see dozens of the little fuckers. I just couldn't hear them. At all. I went home and put in my hearing aids and I went back. Still NOTHING. Cranked them up all the way. Nothing. Dragged PJ back with me. He was all JESUS. Can you believe that roar?

I just can't hear them and now I'm wondering what other sounds are gone.

Lightswitches and lemonade and ducks, all in a row.

(I still want to dress up like the nurses from Silent Hill, just so you know it's one of the best things, forever and ever.)

She tells me things, I listen well
Drink the wine and save the water
Skin is smooth, I steal a glance
Dragon flies are gliding over
Oh, I'll beg for you
Oh, you know I'll beg for you

I was always good at anticipating what Lochlan needed, even when I couldn't be all that much help at such a young age, running ahead, blonde braids flying out behind me along with the ties on my dress to wait by the garage door for him to catch up so he could push the heavy metal door across the crumbled concrete threshold. Once inside I would reach way up to hit all the light switches along the wall. I turned on the radio and he would smile, half pleased, half confused. The little downy duckling was imprinted thoroughly and no one ever questioned it again. They still don't, if they know what's good for them.

He would unscrew the thermos and pour cold lemonade into the cup, passing it to me first, warning me not to spill it. He would smile wider when I drank it all, holding carefully with two hands, breathless afterward. It was a hot summer. He was always careful to see that I didn't get dehydrated.

I poured him a tall glass of lemonade over ice last evening and put it just above his right hand on the table. He took a long drink and thanked me and I say you're welcome and we are formal with manners and utterly non-verbally familiar with everything else.

Caleb rolls his eyes. He has one eye on the game but we are losing so one eye only. Do you spoon feed him too, Bridget?

If someone wants lemonade in this house, I am happy to fetch it for them.

Like a puppy.

Like a wife.

Except you're not his wife.

I stop. I'm not doing this now, here.

Lochlan reaches over with his good hand and squeezes my fingers and fires a question about the game to PJ, who is still sitting three inches from the front of the television blocking the whole damn thing, weeping softly, wearing his LUONGO 1 jersey and his lucky gloves. PJ's head drops but he doesn't answer. PJ is taking the Stanley Cup a little too seriously and we are going to ignore his dramatics as long as we dare.

By now Jacob would have been looking down into Caleb's face from about kissing distance, letting him know it was time to call it a night and I hate comparisons but Ben has one eye on the game and one on tuning his guitar and he's ignoring the brewing argument. He is satisfied and has stopped yelling now that they have replaced Roberto with Cory in the net only it's too late and the game comes back to Vancouver on Wednesday. He is too tired to wade into the gathering storm this time.

And I don't want the shoving to start. I don't want Caleb to start making his ice-cold observations and Lochlan to start throwing his red-hot punches with one good hand and I don't want any wars in my kitchen since the children are still awake. So far everything PJ says about the game is parroted by Henry, who is enjoying a testosterone-infused month with all the hockey on TV to extend the hockey in real life that has been over for a little while now.

Lochlan feels the tension and refuses to engage. Instead he makes a move to take off his hoodie and I jump up to help him. Caleb shakes his head as I gingerly stretch the cuff over Loch's casted hand.

Better? I ask Lochlan.

Yeah, thanks, peanut. He squeezes my hand once more and then lets go, taking his sweater from me and standing up. He is going to go and do some work, he's still playing catchup from missing so many days. He and I are spending a lot of time sitting together quietly while he heals. He has gone from bad to worse as of yesterday. His hand hurts, his head still hurts, the bruising is downright spectacular and he has weird all-over aches.

I know he will go to his wing, lock the door, take his pain meds and sit up all night trying to outrun the pain and not sleep to keep the nightmares away and he'll throw in the towel around five this morning, unlocking the door and waiting for me to magically appear in the early-dawn light to help him struggle out of his clothes and get him into bed. We tell each other that eventually he will get used to functioning with one hand proficiently and by then his cast will be off but for now he bites his tongue and lets me help him with even the most basic things.

He crawls into his bed and finds a comfortable position and I cover him with the sheet and then the duvet. Just the way he likes them. He is asleep before I can find a goodnight kiss from him in the dark. I open the window a little bit and turn off the lights on my way out. He will sleep until hunger wakes him at lunchtime and then he will eat a grilled cheese sandwich at the counter and then struggle through a shower, complaining that his hair is too long and tangled and call for me repeated to help with ridiculous things again that should come easy.

I tell him to just leave the shampoo open and to use the conditioner for once so that he'll be able to comb his hair instead of just leaving it and he won't listen because then he won't need me so much. He'll struggle into jeans and another hoodie, skipping the t-shirt this time because he has run out of patience for the day and he'll ask what I'm doing and if I can come and spend my time on him instead of banking it for later and I will but only for a little while because I am struggling to keep up still. I turn off eleven million lights a day, it seems as if the switches are always on his left so he just doesn't bother anymore. Little things.

I will bring him a lemonade so he doesn't get dehydrated and get a hug that lasts forever and it makes it all worth the weird feelings of trying to look after him when he has always been the one looking after me.

(For the record, from 1989 until 2003 we could not afford lemonade. Period. There was water and there was milk.)

Rainy Monday. Game 6. We could get the cup tonight so I have no time for fluff.

Oh lord. Only I could fall in love with a nine-hundred-dollar backpack. Suffice it to say, this falls into the category of still not worth the price despite being cute.

Again, just like Bridget.

My dentist can now afford the bag, however, after what I paid this morning to have my pearly whites looked after properly. My one consolation (if my teeth ever stop aching) is that my health insurance company and I are even for the year, or rather, I am ahead. I got my money's worth, in any case.

Good til Spring 2012 though they want to see me back mid-fall for another cleaning, so I have ninety days once again to change my name and dye my hair and find a rock to hide under because that was the first time I didn't come out of the dentist feeling just fine. I even had needles. I never ever get the needles, proclaiming to be tougher than the boys when it comes to pain.

Wait, maybe I'd feel a lot better had I skipped those freaking needles...

Okay, notes for next time, I guess.

Big Ben is next. Every prince needs a crown, after all.

Snort.

Distract, then rob them blind, Bridgie.

Instead of swimming? Or riding?

They know how to swim. They can ride whenever.

What does it have?

Everything. Unicycle, trapeze, juggling, acro.

We can teach them, Bridge. You and me.

We don't have trapeze equipment here, Loch.

We can get some.

You're crazy.

Just think how much fun they would have. That $700 would buy a lot of gear, peanut.

Yeah.

But?

Nothing.

You worried about living vicariously through them?

No, I just know the experience would never be the same.

Naw. Can't be, can it? That show is closed.

Yeah.

But this would give them the skills, Bridget. Think about it. It's in their blood, too, you know.

Okay but on one condition.

What is it, peanut?

I get to teach them the unicycle.

Good luck to you.

Yeah, okay, you can have that. Tightrope for me, then. And pickpocketing.

Oh here we go. I thought you were done with that.

Never. Want your phone back?

What the fuck? I didn't even feel that!

I know. I've still got mad skills, babe.

Saved for the truly contrite.

So while you sit back and wonder why
I got this fucking thorn in my side
Oh my God, it's a mirage
I'm telling y'all, it's a sabotage

My mercy brought his release in the dark once again as we squared off, seeking the upper hand and finding no handholds, nothing to gain ground with, equal without sight. Perceptions reduced to touch and hearing so, yes, just touch for me, please and thank you.

His hand slides down around my neck, pinning me down to the cool sheets without purchase or fight. I hold my breath and wait. There is no time in the dark. Minutes slide into hours, seconds into years. One life slides into another. The dark extends to the four walls, pushing into and filling up the corners, the cracks under the doors, the screen holes in the open windows. It drips down my throat and violates my soul and I don't fight the dark, I welcome it.

Morning comes and the sun erases every last trace of the opaque night in favor of a clear day. Time resumes a measured march across my flesh and I am awake, reluctantly, once more.