To the ends of the world.

(Who's the juggler now?)

I'm sitting on the quilt. It's some sort of designer Egyptian affair and cost more than my car. I love the embroidery, it should be scratchy and too beautiful to touch but instead it's soft, it's like being enveloped in a cloud. I don't know what it's filled with. He said something about Icelandic eiderdown, but I'm pretty sure this devil reached down the throats of every cherub for a thousand miles and pulled heaven out of them and used that instead. Still, I never want to move. Not even a muscle.

He brings me a tiny silver toy dart and tells me to throw it.

I laugh and my stomach growls. Time to go.

I close my eyes and throw it at the map on the opposite wall. When I open my eyes he is pulling the dart out. It landed somewhere in the vicinity of the Clyclades. Greece. He's been. Twice.

Want to go?

What?

A vacation. Maybe right after Christmas.

No.

Why not?

I have..commitments.

Remember what you told me when you were younger?

I'm thinking. Oh, right, it was 'Can't wait until you're in jail'?

Bridget-

Why don't you just tell me what I said, then? He's ruining what was a fairly successful, although truncated visit. It's lunchtime and I have things to do.

You said you were excited to travel the world when Lochlan joined the show and invited you along. You had such wanderlust. I don't think it's ever really gone away, has it?

I have to go. Thanks for the visit.

Anytime, princess. Generously, he drops the subject. He is devastatingly Cole-like today. Flannel, jeans, beard. Retired now, Caleb has no need for expensive suits here in the house on the verge of the sea. The lines around his eyes and the few silver hairs in his beard only serve to make him more appealing than he was once upon a time and I need to go now.

So I leave. I don't invite him up to the house for lunch.

When I come down the outside stairs and hit the pavement, movement stops me. Lochlan comes around the side of the camper. He's home again. Still so sick with this stupid cold that makes him cough all night long but he won't stop tinkering. He has a wrench in one hand. He's been trying to fix the seized wheel. He stops when he sees me, smilling slightly. He's glad to see me but he's mad because I am coming from the boathouse. Thankfully, curiosity trumps outrage.

Hey, peanut.

Hey, Lochlan. Do you need some help?

What? Ha, no. I'll get it. Not like I want to take it out. I like having a place to hang my hat. I can take my time and fix it properly, you know?

I smile but it tastes bad. My adventurous spirit, my potential for wayfaring was all but swallowed by his need to make something permanent for us in the midst of such a nomadic, tumultuous life. To find home on the road, to have familiarity when nothing was ever the same. A foundation that could be dragged along behind us, freaks that we were, one that we could set up house on in every new seaside town we emptied of gold and laughter before moving on to the next.

I've been busy resenting Lochlan while he's been busy trying to make things feel like home. For himself, for me too.

When he turned his back to give the tire another go I pushed up my sleeves, reached down and picked up the lifeless crow that rested at my feet. I took a huge bite, gristle, feathers and all. And I chewed and chewed until I almost choked to death while the tears streamed down my face and seasoned the meat nicely.

Without looking up, Lochlan proclaims that he will have it fixed shortly. I smile and say that he shouldn't worry, I'll go find find Duncan and send him out to help. Together they'll have it finished before dinner. I'll cook but I won't be eating.

I am too full.

Mad world.

I've never had a lecture while I was getting laid before. Ever. This is a first.

Ben's hands wrap around my hips as he drives his points home. I am crushed underneath him, locked against him and I am desperately trying not to pay attention. He's forcing me to with exquisitely sharp twinges of pain exacted as he pleases to maintain my focus.

He's incorrigible.

He's delicious.

He's maddeningly right, and I never saw it coming.

(Oh, there's a joke in there, a filthy pun. I'm not telling it).

Life isn't a fairytale, bee. It's a difficult climb up a steep hill and we're dirty and tired and demoralized but every now and then we get look at true beauty and a taste of the faith that makes us keep going.

More than once I have braved the red hot razor-burn of his three-week beard to look up into his eyes to confirm that he has not been replaced with a poet or a reverend. Maybe this is a dream. Ben's words are never so prophetic or reassuring or...logical. He writes angry music for a living. I would have been less surprised had he talked about how the devil would consume my soul as it burned on through the night, stoking the fires of hell or something.

(Oh, wait. Perhaps he is the prophetic one. After all, my soul was consumed and then spit out and returned to me. Currently it sits on a shelf behind Duncan's unworn, overpriced Oakley sunglasses and the rice cooker I bought that has to be returned because the capacity is nowhere sufficient for my kitchen.)

I wish Ben would shut the fuck up and save it for daylight. He pulls me back down and turns me over. Oh good, my ears are covered and I can't hear him.

But I can't breathe either.

(That's sometimes a fun game in itself, but only if the one in control is aware of the problem and timing a fix, otherwise you're just gunning for dead princesses and a whole lot of explaining to do.)

He pulls my head back up and I take a deep breath and I realize he's still talking. I start to laugh out loud. I don't know what else to do. Ben asks what's so funny. I point out I'm getting an attitude adjustment at the worst time ever.

He tells me he is multitasking, that while he's adjusting my internal organs into their new locations, he is also adjusting my outward attitude. Then he starts to laugh because he's got a very big ego when it comes to this department.

(Big like everything else.)

I roll back over and smile. Ben is taking this well. I mean me, he's taking me well. He stops talking at last and lets the dark take us both under. This is not the time for words. Words can wait for the sun.

Part Two: Killing fairytales.

(Picking up from here.)

Once all of the doors to his rooms were locked and we were in the bedroom by the window, Lochlan held the envelope in front of him in shaking hands.

There would have been no fanfare if I wasn't, peanut.

Just open it.

I can't. He's a leaf in the wind, shaking, pale, serious. I'm not doing any better. My mind is racing, my heart is reeling. The house is so quiet. I am trying to plan for whatever happens next but I can't because I didn't expect to be in this place.

Ever.

He lets out a long quavering breath and rips the end off. He pulls out the papers. He's skimming and passing me pages as he reads. I throw them down, I only want the last one. Paper cuts and tension are making this unbearable.

Oh Jesus Christ. Bridget, she's mine.

The black pushed around my consciousness and then the light blew it all away as I fell apart. Finally. Something good.

There is no moment more bittersweet in life than when you go digging back through years of memories to understand how you missed experiencing things in the way that you were meant to, instead of from afar. I watched all of that play across his face but all I could think of is now everything makes sense to me.

Lochlan's not a religious man. Not by a long shot. He won't pray, he won't go to church unless it's Christmas, he doesn't believe in God anymore than you believe in the bearded lady (she is real, by the way) but for the second time in my life he got down on his knees and prayed for help. The last time he did that was in a ransacked, smashed-up camper on the outskirts of a carnival parking lot, holding me in his arms. This time I just stood quietly and watched. I'm trying to decide how I feel before his input skews it, like it does for everything.

(How's your pizza?

Yummy. What about you?

A little dry, isn't it, Bridgie?

Yeah, it is, actually. Now that you mention it.)

He stands up and picks up the papers again and sits down on the bed to read through everything again. There are no questions left save for the one on everyone's mind.

***

A month later and still the same question remains hanging in the air above me like a cloud with a pull-chain for a light to come on.

How do I feel?

Part of me is cartwheeling-happy, swinging from a rope, shouting from the rooftops ecstatic, and the other part of me is terrified of the thought of a little more of Cole slipping away from my psyche. I'm not ready for that. I might sell my soul to hang on to what I have left of him (I just got my soul back from Satan in an even trade and once I boil off the blackened outer shell I'm sure it will be as good as new). I know that's unforgivable and incomprehensible, but you didn't choose Cole.

I did, once upon a time.

Sometimes the death of a fairy tale is the most difficult death of all and here it is before me in glorious finality and I need to kiss it goodbye.

Aw for fucks sakes.

Eleah died. Amyrn's mother. The giraffe. Now only Jafari (dad) remains. They say she may have died of heartbreak.

I am so sad.

Part One: This still doesn't tell you how I feel but OH WELL.

About that envelope.

(Bear with me. Some things are safer coming in bits and pieces.)

On this day I learned something interesting. (I find it weird that the link doesn't point to the title of the post, but says 'Lochlan'. That's bizarre.)

And on this day, we learned something once again. (See? The link has the title of the post in it, if FATE ISN'T PLAYING A HUGE JOKE ON ME NOW THEN PLEASE FILL ME IN.)

And that was a month ago and I wasn't even going to share it. I wasn't, for once. I don't know why other than I was trying to follow his wishes and I screwed that up too. Like I screw up everything. Like I really was pretty sure maybe Jacob might be Henry's father once upon a time but Ruth's was definitely Cole's and boy, I guess I'M CLEARLY IN DENIAL even though I daresay I've never denied a damned thing.

I was wrong on both counts.

Please excuse me while I find a bag to put over my head.

Ruth belongs to Lochlan. She is his daughter. To make a long story short, if you can understand the sort of power that Caleb has, you can understand how easy it was for him to wish to keep that power on his side. There is more to this, but I can't get into right now. To make a long story even shorter, heads have rolled, beginning with his. He has liquidated everything and signed it over to me and gotten the fuck out of the people-as-pawns game. He owned up to almost every last wrong. You don't mess with a child's sense of security. He destroyed mine, I wasn't going to stand by and watch him do it to Ruth's too.

He owes me everything, and I've decided to collect.

The collateral damage turned out to be quite different from what I expected. We are all closer. Except for Cole. He is even further away from me now. I have no ties to him anymore. He was no one's father. He rocked and raised two beautiful little humans who did not belong to him. Then he left them essentially fatherless at the ages of almost-seven and soon-to-be-five and all of his friends stepped in and took over and they've done so much for us I can't begin to express my gratitude. They've given up their lives for us.

Only Ruth was always slightly to the side with a chip on her shoulder, and I thought to myself, Oh, she has Cole's temper. His legendary silent treatment punishment that is him turning inward only it wasn't that at all. It was Lochlan and his Stoic Forbearance. Head down, picking battles, waiting until he has some breathing space and then filing it away, keeping it, balancing on it while he throws his fire.

That's what Lochlan does. He files everything away. Tomorrow's a new day, a new show, new crowd, a new chance, and a change in the weather, maybe a change in our fortune too. That's his take on just about everything. That's how he takes hardship, lighting it up and swallowing it whole while we all explode outwardly. That's how he drove me to the brink of despair when I realized he would not comfort me anymore, he just wanted to get through to the new day.

And that has changed again.

With this new addition to his universe Lochlan has resumed his role as the Gypsy King, fixing everything through magic and affection and attention. He is coming around. Finally. We reinforced some bridges and burned some to the ground. We have made amends and made decisions. We have resolved to do better, try harder and be so much less selfish.

We are getting help.

And Ruth is doing really well. She's happy. She grew up with Lochlan close by, a doting uncle, as it were. Always in her life, always trusted, always easier to talk to than most. When I look at her, acknowledging the parts that are so obviously Lochlan I must have been deluding myself to ever think otherwise, I see her smile and I don't doubt for a moment that this is better late than never. I know how to deal with that temper, now that I know for sure which one it is.

And when I see them standing side by side on the patio, both in their saggy-assed corduroy pants, long lank curls hanging down their backs, thin t-shirts, bony elbows and easy smiles it doesn't seem as if it was ever any other way. This is what happens when you take two beautiful, filthy circus runaways in danger of losing each other forever and make something better.

This made it all worthwhile.

This came just in time.

(Part two tomorrow. Possibly detailing everything I didn't say today.)

Show me a house with a window
One with a garage and five bedrooms
Form me a line so I can judge you
Call me a name if you want to

Show me a way to the exit
Look at my hands, see them shaking
Tell me apart from my shadow
Find me a life for this shadow

All of the fire has fallen and we have returned to the deepest greens of the ocean against the blues and greys of the sky. I missed color. I missed pine needles. I missed water and I missed maple leaves. Weirdly how grateful the familiar sights can make me feel, as if it makes up for everything being strange all the time, every waking moment and every sleeping one too.

This morning I am not paying attention as someone asks me about the circus as I am trying to make sure Henry has his lunch bag inside his backpack. I'm responding automatically and Lochlan abruptly points out to them that there's no difference between a sideshow and a freakshow. I stop and stare at him, because usually he's completely oblivious and today he is downright rude about it. I smooth it over and then on the way home I ask him why the outburst. Why then. Why just as people are beginning to see that I'm not such a freak and maybe we can start to fit in.

He doesn't respond until later, when he abruptly breaks out once more that he doesn't like the way that Caleb greets me every morning by putting the hood up on my coat and surreptitiously checking for my hearing aids, something almost everyone's been doing lately so they can talk as I walk in front of them or maybe not repeat everything four times.

Which part bothers you? The hood or the checking, Lochlan?

The hood. Both. Why does he have to try and pull that shit? You're an adult.

You have always put my hood up when it's windy.

You were eight fucking years old.

You never stopped.

You were mine.

Oh, Jesus, here we go.

Yeah. Oh, Jesus. Let's go, Bridget.

I don't know how much more I can give you. Is there anything left?

Sure there is. You never wrote about the envelope. I feel like I'm throwing blind here.

You hate it when I write about you.

I don't know how you feel anymore otherwise, Bridget! You never open your goddamned mouth! He gets to own everything until you put it down. Put it down. Let the world see. Tell me how you feel about it. The suspense is killing me.

It was sacred, I wasn't going to write about it.

You got pretty close.

Yeah and then I changed my mind.

Change it back.

You'd like that wouldn't you?

He stares out over my head at the bare trees and the goddamned leaves everywhere. Up to our knees. Huge sweeping drifts of them coating the walkway in fire. Yellow and red and everything in between and he frowns and he looks so annoyed and serious and handsome and direct I would agree to almost anything. He looks back at me and nods, gently at first, then more vigorously and he smiles.

Yeah. I would.

Top tens.

Sam lets me drink coffee all damn day and play the music as loud as I want to in the sanctuary.

(Same as Jake always did.)

I will be here if anyone needs me. Playing secretary for ten bucks an hour, only the phone never rings and Sam has already done everything else.

Update: Awesome news. If you've never been, you should go. It's second to none, and certainly shouldn't be seventh, but I might be more than a little biased.

Amyrn (on the right) 12/20/2007-11/14/2011

I was writing some stupid entry about nothing in particular when I stopped and looked at the news for a few minutes.

Oh, sadness.

I took this picture of Amyrn and his mother, Eleah in July and wrote about it here. Amyrn came right over to the fence when I stuck my head over the top of it. He stayed there staring at me forever and I stared right back. The first giraffe I ever saw with my own eyes and he was very gracious and patient while I took pictures and talked to him as if any second he might pick up the conversation and run with it.

I hope he had a good life, and I hope he didn't suffer.

I'm not going to debate anyone on the merits of animals living in relative captivity so stuff that for now and just enjoy the photo. There are more on the original post linked above.

Stay where you're to.

(Wait here for me, princess.)

I found him sitting on the bench on the darker side, just out of reach of the single fixture of light that swayed gently in the wind. The snow was falling steadily and still he seemed unprepared in jeans and his green corduroy jacket with the pale blue flannel shirt, white undershirt visible under his open collar, workboots unlaced and wide open. His hair is so long he's getting the seventies rockstar jokes and the admiration alike. He is beautiful inside and out, snow or sunshine, night or day.

He looks up when I walk over, snow falling against his eyelashes but he doesn't blink or shake his head. I wonder if it's actually snowing where he is or if the weather is a controlled non-issue, a parallel universe of seasonless, weatherless banality disguised as a mirror image when it is nothing of the kind. Imagine never being too warm or too cold. Imagine never seeing the leaves turn from a lush green to a crackly, frozen red overnight. Imagine a world where snow doesn't dictate how far you run and doesn't risk you running off the road for your foolishness besides.

Just imagine. That is heaven. Sometimes you are given a special pass to visit with someone on earth but not for long because then you are tethered and you are supposed to be free. Snow is a fond memory instead of a present curse and you can wear your favorite outfit every single day. It never gets dirty and the elbows and collar never wear out.

I sit down beside him and he smiles and stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets, hunching his shoulders with glee. He loved the snow. He thought it was hilarious. I always wanted to throttle him. I find it inconveniencing and dangerous and cold. Sinister snow, I called it and he would say, No, pig-a-let, it's silly snow. Just like string except you can't spray it from a-oh, wait yes you can, nevermind. And he would laugh and laugh and I got so frustrated.

It'll stop soon, princess. And it'll be gone by tomorrow.

Will you be?

Naw, I'm always around when you need me.

Tethered, I whisper under my breath.

Yes, for now, Bridget. But it's okay. When you stop needing me, I'll be gone. I'll watch you walk away down that road and never look back.

I made a sound halfway between an incredulous snort and a sob. What road?

That road, they say. I guess we'll know it when the time comes.

Am I on a time limit again?

No, no. Nothing of the sort. Just making conversation while it snows. I know you don't like to listen to it fall.

I smiled in the dark. He's right. I don't want to hear it, I just want to hear it stop.

Tonight.

Tonight when the clouds came down to touch the earth, I was there.