I wanted to talk with Caleb about his conversation with Lochlan last week but he is running late and asks me to drive him down to the park so he can meet his dive group. He proceeds to turn the radio up in the car and fiddle with his watch the whole trip and generally evade my questions, and then once we arrive in the lot everyone descends on him and I am forced to stand and wait, keys in hand.

Finally he comes back and says to me that it's going to take a few minutes for him to prep his gear and I can talk to him while he does that. He is half into his dive boots and not paying attention, over my head, drowning my frustration. I don't like the fact that he dives any more than I like the cigars and the constant travel and the stress because all of it seems as if it would be hard on his heart but the devil persists in a lot of things, doesn't he?

And he is still the devil. I believe he lasted almost ninety days and not a minute more.

I have four minutes, Bridget. What did you need?

Why did you make Lochlan that offer? 'Here's a bunch of money, go away.' What the hell are you doing?

Why does it matter? It's not like he took it. Unless...were you considering my offer after all this time? The price I quoted. My holdings become yours and you are mine exclusively. He winks and smiles at me and I lock my knees against his charm.

You don't get to torture him.

But he can torture me?

He avoids you.

Every time you leave the room he describes something he did to you the night before. You think I'm wicked. Christ.

I don't know if I should believe him or remain on the side I'm on already. I stand there considering both options, weighing the oxygen left on the dial to breathe when Caleb stands up and nods toward the group. We're going. I'll catch a ride home with someone. He pulls me in close against him and wraps his hand around my head. You fucking beautiful little whore. You really think I can just let you go? He pulls me up off my feet, kisses me hard and then drops me back to earth and walks away, grabbing his tanks off the tailgate on his way. I watch as he crosses the road and heads down the steps toward the water.

I decide to stop at a few places on the way back and run some errands so it's a couple hours before I return. Caleb is home already, in the driveway organizing his gear. I pointedly ignore him as I cross to the camper and knock on the door. Lochlan comes out and smiles. His hands are covered with pastels and he's blasting Saving, the song that's been stuck in both of our heads now for a week or more. He asks what's up, reminding me I never have to knock. Tells me I look gorgeous. Suggests a movie later on tonight. I keep interrupting him and finally he stops and waits for me to talk. I tattle all my tales at once.

He said when I'm not around you describe some of our time spent to him. That the torture goes both ways.

My doubt becomes my regret as the look on his face changes to one of pure outrage. I should not question the logical one. Straight-ahead lies now, hey? he yells and takes off across the driveway where he pulls up into a superman punch the likes of which I don't think I've seen from him before. I hear his fist connect to Caleb's face. Caleb is still half into his suit and slow on the uptake and gets the full force of Lochlan's punch. I am right behind him and I throw myself between them when he staggers back. I feel small and helpless and afraid but I yell at them to stop and they do. They're not going to fight if I won't get out of the way.

Lochlan kisses his bruised knuckles and turns to go back to the camper. I let my guard down and turn to see if Caleb is okay when a blur of red, white and blue moves past me and they are on the ground now. The door slams and Andrew and Dylan come out and get them up and apart. Both of them look to me to validation or forgiveness or excuse. I don't know if I have any. I'm happy they waited until the children were already at school. I'm happy some of the others were at home to break it up before it got worse. I'm disappointed that their tempers still rule.

I'm even more disappointed that Caleb even presumed to think that he could buy Lochlan's exodus from my life. Last time I checked there were no price tags on my head anymore.

I guess I was wrong.

Dashed.

Call no man foe, but never love a stranger. ~Stella Benson

New Jake is kicking at the smaller rocks along the water while I stay within reach and scowl at him. I am allowed to come down to the beach but only if I bring someone with me who can swim. Lovely. New Jake volunteered and when pressed to explain his eagerness he produced a pack of cigarettes and explained sheepishly that he is down to two a day. Two is good, he points out and so I am given the all-clear and now he is hellbent on ruining my daily inspection for beach glass with all the kicking and rearranging of the shoreline. Low tide doesn't match any convenient hours for me lately so every piece I find is an absolute marvel.

(I warned you it takes very little to entertain me but you persist in your skepticism. Why?)

He laughs and take a drag. He doesn't like you, he says and lifts his head up to check the angle of the sun.

Who doesn't like me? I am coy. I know the answer but it will be interesting to hear an outsider's perspective.

Garland.

I turn and beat my head repeatedly against New Jake's shoulder. He doesn't budge. I know, I wail briefly and he laughs again and puts his arm up around me and rubs my back consolingly.

It's okay, Bridget. Maybe he will warm up.

He leaves tomorrow, if he hasn't warmed up by now he's not going to. Besides, I don't think I like him either. I pull my fingers up over my mouth in surprise. Not sure I've ever met a man I didn't like, much less a friend of Jacob's.

So the world can rest easy now knowing I'm not charming another man to the breakfast table nor am I adding another character to the cast here. Therefore no description is required and no words will be spent. August has given up trying to force things and Garland leaves tomorrow. They did go out and tour the city and have a great time catching up so all is not lost, it just has so very little to do with me.

Maybe someday he'll come back or when I go to Newfoundland we can find some sort of common ground but that's far off in the future because he hates to travel and I hate to be around someone I make uncomfortable. I might be a little monster but if you ask for space you're going to get it.

I reach into New Jake's pocket and pull out his cigarettes, taking one out and replacing the pack. He raises his eyebrows and holds out his zippo to light it for me. I take a drag and then hold the cigarette out in front of me as if it's something I've never seen before. The familiar throb behind my eyes begins in earnest.

I thought cigarettes give you headaches, he reminds me.

They do. The pain will be a nice distraction, I tell him and turn back to my search for treasure. The sun is warm on the top of my head, and this is the purest form of Lochlan's Win some, lose some lesson that he used to try to make me understand back in the day when I thought I could conquer the world instead of merely surviving it.

Goodbye, Garland, and thanks for at least being honest. I didn't kill your friend though, he killed me. And there is no place on a ghost one which you can lay blame, it just slides off and falls to the floor every last time. Trust me, I've tried.

1986 was a really rough year for some people.

I might not say I'm sorry
Yeah, I might talk rough sometimes
And I might forget the little things
Or keep you hanging on the line

In a world that don't know Romeo and Juliet
Boy meets girl and promises we can't forget
We are cast from Eden's gate with no regrets
Into the fire we cry

Bon Jovi came on the stereo this morning while I was painting and Lochlan scowled when I started to sing. His only beef with them (aside from their eighties hair) was that their most prolific album came out in 1986 and that was the year he tried and failed to get me back from Cole (you would think he also holds grudges against 1987 through 2012. Oh wait, he does so NEVERMIND.)

Had he succeeded I'm pretty sure we would have spent our lives stacked in an airstream with three mischievous and filthy-wild little kids and fifty bucks in the bank and fought every goddamned day for the rest of our lives but it would have been true love forever nonetheless.

Alas, things have not worked out that way.

Save for the airstream. It's in the driveway. Oh and he has less than fifty dollars in the bank and he's perfectly happy, thank you very much. Oh and yes, WE STILL FIGHT EVERY DAMNED DAY, LOCHLAN.

What an odd thing to hold a grudge over. Bon Jovi. Hahahahahahah.

(I realize you want to know about Garland. So do I. August has been showing him the city, I have barely seen the guy. Hopefully on the weekend that will change.)

The little harbinger of all things warm.

I was roused, kicking and screaming from slumber this morning and dragged outside onto the damp grass in the fog-shrouded morning sun, still dressed in my pajamas with my knotted, wild hair. I fought my handlers tooth and nail to go back to my dream until I was shoved gently to the center of the circle, wider by one this morning.

I did not see my shadow.

Spring will be early this year.

Then I got my morning hugs which take a long time to dispense. Some people have to be tracked down, you know.

So happy groundhug day from down here on the ground, as the newly minted shortest person in the house. Thanks Henry. Sold your own mother out by growing taller than I am at last. On that note, I have to go. It was a busy day and there is a fun night ahead. I have a date with the tallest person in the house (Benjamin, naturally) to curl up and watch the hockey game. I'm taking it. Goodnight!

(Go Canucks Go!)

January must be over/everything is okay.

It's not even ten a.m. and all this has happened so far:

1. I dressed for painting and even wound my hair up in a bun and went downstairs and..

....and...

......I forgot that I forgot to buy paint.

2. Some idiot (Thank you Dalton!!) sent me a link to R.E.M. covering Don't Fear the Reaper and I squealed and squeaked for twenty minutes to the point where PJ wandered in looking for the hamster that must be loose in the house. Also Wicked Game. They cover Wicked Game. *cries*

3. I read something something 'interpretive fusion of yoga and circus immersion' and snorted coffee out my nose. Don't do that. It hurts.

4. I rolled my eyes when someone pointed out how awesome it is that I walk the kids to school so much. They live halfway between my house and the school and also drive to the gym. To exercise.

5. Ben gave Lochlan a hug. Groundhug day definitely is spooling up over here. Granted Lochlan could use a few more hugs and a lot less yelling. He is having a rough time and Ben's plan is to comfort him until things get better. Excuse me while I melt all over the floor.

6. I made the reference to Satan because Satan never really goes away, he just flits to the sideline and waits. Caleb's only promise was to stop making my life miserable. I didn't think we had to specify my life meaning 'everyone in the house'. We have now. And no worries, I have all kinds of recourse. I'm not dumb. Well, I'm dumb but I'm not stupid-dumb.

7. PJ smiled without being weird about it. Also rough time. Long story, don't ask.

8. They started work on the giant marina/deck/dock/waterside restaurant/personal yacht club or whatever the hell behemoth is being built at the bottom of the cliff so it's safer (Hello BC assessements? Yes, right this way. Eight pages you say? Give the bill to the guy with the horns). I can't wait to see how they will pull this off. The engineering so far is fascinating.

9. Garland is here. Well, he texted August from the airport so he's on his way to the house. You will meet him later. I am terrified and excited to finally meet August and Jacob's university roommate. And no, I don't have any friends with normal names. Just BEN, ROB, CHRIS and MARK. MIKE if you want to stretch the word 'friends'. DYLAN seems pretty common now. ANDREW who I've been blabbering about since the age of three. Yeesh, people, you get stuck on the weirdest things. Never once have I been called out for my wicked polyandry but every day someone goes wtf is with their names?

10. Did I mention that Ben gave Lochlan a hug and pretty much nothing else is important right now? Ever ever ever again. Nope, nothing else.

Have a good day. Happy February.

Changing the subject.

It's for Groundhug Day. Ben holds up a new flannel shirt. His old ones are all on nineties life-support.

I am trying so hard not to laugh. And what is this groundhug day, exactly?

A day where you get a lot of hugs and if you get enough, spring is just around the corner.

Around the corner, like six weeks away?

Yes. About that.

I wonder what a groundhug looks like.

I can give you an early preview, if you want.

Yeah, I could use one right now. The hug part anyway.

I'll try and get a picture of the elusive groundhug before Thursday though. So you know exactly what to expect.

Oh, thank you. I bet it's cute.

It is. Just like you.

Haha. Do I have to be dragged out into the light to confront my shadow every year?

Pretty much, little bee. It's quite a spectacle, actually.

Death by pop lovesong from the king of fire and easy listening. Christ.

I warned you. Criteria for living here is that you must be thoroughly and hopelessly afflicted with Romantic Tourettes.

I just want you to know who I am.

He's been singing all day, at top volume, from his place flat on his back on the floor. Every twelve minutes he raises himself up on his elbows and takes a big gulp of whiskey* and he makes that stupid noise, some sort of Scottish click-version of tsk, and then he flattens himself to the floor again.

So he can keep singing Iris.

I think I hate this song. I didn't used to but I do now.

*(For the record Lochlan isn't drunk anymore, the kids did not see him, I would have started drinking too had I been told what he was told (nothing to do with the children, in case you were jumping to conclusions) and Caleb is still evil.)

Das modell.

I'm a little bit insolent today.

I'm shooting another single cover this morning for a band, friends of Ben's (and sadly Caleb) from overseas (Industrial death metal. I can't spell or pronounce their name. I don't even have those characters on my keyboard.) Same group as last time though, they want to keep the theme.

I don't know why they don't just use any picture they already have from the last shoot and change it in post. They add so much I never recognize myself. I'm fascinated that the photographer can take a relatively pretty photograph of me standing on a cliff and then it goes off to Los Angeles or Berlin and a team makes it into the angel of death or the harbinger of pain or something totally freaky and I become unrecognizable.

I like that. I really do. So today I'm in concrete false eyelashes and hair blown out to the rafters and some white gauzy number that I have been sewn into because it was miles too big when I tried it on. The makeup artist is a poet. I'll give him that. I've been put into a raincoat and given a cup of coffee for a quick break while they see if the snow will come back or if we can resume working outside. Oh yes, being outside on the cliff edge in zero-degree wind, rain and snow is total fucking glamorous.

While fourteen total strangers take over my house and driveway no less.

While Lochlan stands in the kitchen drinking whiskey for breakfast and frowning at the spectacle.

Soon he will be the spectacle and I will be scrubbed of my look and returned to the house while the boys remark that people will think it's someone's child on the cover of the album. And what happened to using tall models? The tall models cost too much, let's just use Bridget again.

Thank you. So much. Really. Herzlichen Dank. Clearly discount death metal is the most hardcore of all. Didn't you know that?

Yeah, let's just use Bridget again. Forever the prize of consolation only I'm the one who needs consoling most of the time because I may look like the creepy little angel of death in the record store but out here in the rain I am soaking wet with a freakishly sweet scowl and a massive terror that I'm going to slip. That's what the wire is for. Just like the circus only I'm not permitted to walk on this one. Instead of holding me up, it holds me down.

That's probably the only thing that fits today. That sentence, right there.

Outsider (thirty two years and three months in).

I need something to fly over my grave again
I need something to breathe

I will try not to burden you
I can hold these inside. I will hold my breath
Until all these shivers subside,
Just look in my eyes

Yesterday morning he wordlessly queued up Automatic for the People on the stereo, since he gets easily tired and tense of the endless heavy metal, the endless noise I perpetrate against the relative solitude of the house. He wants to hear more beautiful words today. I don't hear anything and so I block it all out of spite. He sings it under his breath, accent unmasked. Not often that happens. I believe it's only detectable now in his frustration. People are surprised when they hear it, still.

Ninety days since the last big shift in the collective and not enough has changed except that he has kept most of his promises and others he broke deliberately, immediately. I am left in awe of his ability to rule the emotions of the whole household with such few words. Surely there's a name for a gift such as this. Surely it means something so very important it's starred in red and marked at the top. Confidential. Top Secret. Keep this, but we don't know why yet.

Yesterday morning in the cold wind I turned my face into the neck of his hoodie, and his arms came up around me out of habit, a kiss landing on the side of my head. I'm sure the scowl from across the driveway came and went unnoticed as Caleb waited for the children to buckle themselves into his car for the short trip to school. I was turned out again just as quickly and rushed back to the house behind Lochlan as he walked faster than I ever could. Once inside I asked what day it was. Not quite yet, he laughs, three months being a sort of hallmark, a date anticipated on the calendar in which we would be settled and organized and not frustrated anymore.

That has not happened as of yet. Maybe one hundred days. Maybe a thousand instead. Maybe never. I know the thought of that made him want to run. I know him through and through. Family keeps him here. Promises keep him here. Otherwise he would already be gone. He is a balloon tethered to the ground by his heart strings and nothing more.

I can't breathe with him here, Bridget. When did you start being able to exist with him so close all the time?

When I stopped fighting him.

Fire flooded his eyes with light and then as quickly as I saw it it was gone. Bridget-

But I have already turned and gone back outside to the wind. We don't finish conversations anymore. Caleb's car is back already. I told you it was a short trip to make the loop to drop the children off outside the school grounds. I walk around the truck parked closest to the garage. PJ's big red Ram. It's a darker richer red than Jacob's flaming cherry one was. PJ parks so that I have to hold my breath to get the key in the lock of the garage door, as I stand wedged between the filthy bumper and the cold morning.

I slip inside.

I can hear Lochlan calling my name and I step back out. He comes around the side of the truck with relief on his face.

Let's get out of here.

What do you mean? For lunch?

Forever. Let's just go. Cash in our chips. Find something better. He said this word for word when I was thirteen and look where it got us. Fractured. Lost and never found again.

Who?

You, me and the kids.

Henry-

I can raise another man's child. I love Henry. You know this stuff, Bridge. Let's just go. We can start again and do it right this time.

Have you been drinking?

No, nothing. Why?

You always ask me this when you're drunk.

I know. He says it steadily. Uncomfortable as the truth is he's owning it right now. I give him credit for that.

You only want the fun parts of life, Lochlan.

That's not true.

You told me yourself you can't take the way my brain works most of the time now.

I said that to hurt you. He winces but holds his ground.

We need to talk about this later. I take a page from his best habit and start to head back to the garage but he grabs my shoulders and stops me.

We need to talk about this NOW, Bridget! Color me surprised. This NEVER happens and I am rendered speechless. Again.

Caleb steps to the bottom of the stairs from the boathouse but lingers there. Everything okay, Bridget?

Lochlan turns and starts to head toward Caleb but I grab onto the front of his hoodie and try and pull him back. You need to go back inside. This doesn't concern you.

You just yanked someone far smaller than you off her feet, and you won't let her leave. That's my business, Loch. Caleb says it with measured control.

She's safe with me. Can't say the same for you.

Let her go. Now.

Or what? What are you gonna do? You're in over your head here, you know that? You're not welcome here. She'd be better off if you just went away.

Last time I went away Bridget spiraled into a tailspin because none of you are capable of looking after her. How many chances would you like, Lochlan? Do you want to risk her life like you used to? Does nothing ever change for you?

We would have been fine if it wasn't for you, Caleb.

Caleb laughed and I braced myself for Lochlan in ballistic missile form. Only he never launched. He left. He's predictable like that. He won't engage. He makes his point and walks the fuck out and that's why I won't go with him. I've done that. I've been there. All he does is leave a thousand frayed loose ends and a lot of unfinished business, a lot of unfinished conversations filled with unspoken beautiful words. I am still waiting for those, in spite of knowing they'll never come.

For thirty two years and three months now.

(You're not the only one, Locket. )

Late night + Redhead + REM = Certain Disaster.

I will try not to worry you
I have seen things that you will never see
Leave it to memory me. Don’t dare me to breathe
I want you to remember, oh (you will never see)
I need something to fly (something to fly)
Over my grave again (you will never see)
I need something to breathe (something to breathe)
Baby, don’t shiver now. Why do you shiver now?
(I will see things you will never see)
I need something to breathe
Something to breathe
(I have seen things you will never see)
I want you to remember