Still raining.

Screaming our screenplay, off the cuff
We were both stuck pretending our dreams were enough
I awoke in the morning wanting the day
I thought I could have you,
Miles away from falling in love
To find stalling sweet enough

Please don’t call it love

Neutral territory for lunch. The kitchen island. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches on raisin cheese bread. Hot chocolate. Caleb sits down and frowns at his plate briefly before deciding to make the best of it.

If he were truly honest, as he says he is now, he would have pointed out his desire for something a little less rustic and note the fact that he probably hasn't had hot chocolate since 1976, but he humors me with my own brand of Spyri-influenced menu choices for a rainforest deluge at the base of a mountain where the waves lick the brae smooth, a treacherous combination for sheep and people alike.

We don't have any sheep. Or any horses either, sadly. I go and visit some new ones in the valley sometimes now, cursing the devil every chance I get.

I do that over a lot of things, but at the same time here we are, having lunch because he asked if we could talk and I pointed out I was hungry so he may as well come and eat something that isn't a fusion of four-star nonsense from one of his ridiculous haunts downtown. He obliged without even asking what was on the menu. I knew I should have made Kraft Dinner just to horrify him as much as humanly possible.

You like making him squirm. I say it in between choking back the thick peanut butter on heavy bread.

My words have nothing to do with him. There are certain truths in life, Bridget. This is just one of them.

'They're going to kill you' is another.

He laughs nervously. I'll probably choke on lunch and then no one will have to worry.

Oh, yay! Burial at sea. I give him my darkest stare. He catches on quickly. We are morbid and black with humor more often than not.

What's with your hair?

I'm annoying Lochlan with it, that's what.

He bursts out laughing. No doubt. You should go to the spa and have a day.

Why in the hell do you all want me to cut my hair? And why the subject change?

You look so sweet when your hair doesn't take over everything with the bad-weather ringlets. And I'm trying to mark my position and move forward from here.

I see.

Should I have not confirmed what you already know? I've had no other lasting relationships. I have my son and I have you. I am focused.

You're obsessive.

It's sweet when it's anyone else but when I make a declaration everyone runs for cover.

Because they aren't evil.

He drinks his hot chocolate. When he puts the mug down he has a pale brown mustache on his upper lip. Neither am I.

Then why are you pushing now? Why don't you just leave well enough alone?

Because I'll be fifty in less than a year and I'm not going to be alone when that happens.

I hear Sophie is free.

Yes, well, good luck to her.

I'm not anyone's bucket list, Caleb.

The hell you aren't.

Can we change the subject?

Of course. What would you like to talk about, Bridget?

Tell me some of your regrets instead.

Oh. Well. I regret the first time we went to Vegas. When you turned eighteen.

The prince of darkness goes for a terrible memory right off the bat. Should I have expected more from him or less?

Why? Should we not have gone?

No, we should have kept going. I should have never brought you back home.

Kidnapping?

Rescue.

The burning of a heavy heart surrenders like a dream.

I was let out, I can't walk away
There were eyes all over me
I stopped breathing only just half way
There were eyes all over me

Well, now that the thrill of Sunday night is ebbing slightly I suppose I need to pick up where I left off, only I'm not sure where that is, exactly. Perched on the edge of the wall in the wind, staring out to sea, where you can always find me when I'm thinking, earphones jammed tightly into my head to block out everything but the view.

I chose to ignore the words, the letter and everything since. Ben asked me if he should just make it easy for me and ban me from going near the devil. Then he wondered if he should just do it in spite of my answer because that's what he wants to do. Lochlan got all bothered and hot and threatened a bunch of things I won't even repeat, and Andrew wanted to know if this changed anything.

No, I told him. This is not new information, if you think about it.

But still he looked sad when he left and I don't think I like the new honesty-at-any-price version of Caleb that I'm seeing now. He's just too hard to predict and too hard to resist when he's telling me his deepest darkest secrets. He's vulnerable and open and transparent and far too much like Cole when he does that and I can't process that at all. My brain just shuts down and says, Oh, pretty wave every time I take a running start at attempting to sort out what he's doing now while I continue to stare at the blue-green whitecaps on the windy pacific. I'd rather focus on the sea but all the loose ends and tight confines need to be fixed. I need to deal with this. I don't think things can go on the way they are and I don't know how we all managed to make it to this point in the first place.

Oh right, I do. Ben refused to pin me down the way Jacob had and I took my unexpected freedom and ran with it. I made a mess. I made mistakes and now I need help fixing things and now help is nowhere to be found. I know what will fix this, I just can't seem to do it. I know what will end this, but I don't have the guts to put it into play anymore. I'm paralyzed and I'm angry at myself and he's taking advantage of my position to drive home his own agenda, this means to an end. Break her down and in the end she'll be unable to resist you. Destroy her and she'll give in.

Who would want that?

Don't answer, okay? I already know their names and I know their faces like I know the sea. Sometimes through and through and sometimes not even remotely well enough to recognize familiar features.

We are behind the tent in the wind. The canvas ripples and flaps violently and the sun has taken on a quiet pink glow. It's twilight. The time of day that finds homesickness rising up like a tide inside my throat until it drowns the memories of the day into blackness.

Lochlan takes my left hand tightly in his right hand. His hands are so warm the rest of my skin feels cool now by comparison. Maria takes my right hand gently but firmly. She looks after the animals and is the carnival grandmother to most of us. Lochlan squeezes my hand and I squeeze both of my hands in response. We are standing in a circle with fourteen others.

Gregory begins the evening prayer, though it's not really a prayer, since by nature circus people are somewhat secular. It's a bonding ritual that is part pep-talk, part prayer, and part planning session. There's a little of everything. Some reminders, a little discipline, some reassurance and all of our hopes and dreams too. Surprisingly by the end of each run we usually have it down to seven, eight minutes tops. I remain silent, or my hopes and dreams would take years to list and dissect.

The prayers almost always begin with asking for strength for Lochlan and end with asking for safety for me, because they all know I am young and escaping reality and trying to live on love and they're scared to death on my behalf and his too but in that relentless wind and staggeringly beautiful sunset I am daydreaming still, my mind at the beach, jarred back ever so briefly when someone says my name, continuing to squeeze both hands as tightly as I can, waiting for the predictable part of the night to be over so that the fun can begin.

Dreaming out (sigh).

Oh hi. I'm so NOT awake.

I went to Switchfoot last night at the Commodore and just wow. It was bonkers. Thanks to the prodding just to run, Bridget once we made it through the door, we made it to the front row again because I'm such a huge, huge fan but short so I need to be way down front and we proceeded to jump up and down and sway and sing with the band until close to eleven. There is no squinting at a tiny stage far off in the distance when you go to a Switchfoot show, let me tell you. You're right in the middle of everything. You get it all. This was the tour highlighting Vice Verses, so it was extra-awesome because VV is their heaviest album yet and I like where they're going with this, frankly.

I'd put up a setlist but I'm still coming down off a high here and I have no idea. I know they played The War Inside and Dare you to Move and Where I Belong and those are my three favorites so everything else just became an added bonus, okay? (Also I took so many pictures I broke my phone, but again, that's neither here nor there.) The opener was The Rocket Summer, and they were tight, like a younger Our Lady Peace. I was impressed. Better live than what I could find online to preview beforehand.

After the show ended we waited behind the venue, watching the load-out and eventually Jon came out and did a little aftershow with his acoustic guitar. It was beautiful and a big treat for me because the other shows we've been to saw us bring the children and kids don't want to wait in back alleys three hours past their bedtimes for anything so we would always come home when the concert proper was over. But not last night.



The aftershow featured:

1. Wouldn't it be Nice (Beach boys cover)
2. Thrive
3. Vice Verses
4. Learning How to Die (from Jon's Spring EP)
   
5. Your Love is Strong (from his Winter EP)
   

I think we were spoiled rotten. He usually only plays three songs out back but we were gifted five. It was truly an incredible night. If you haven't checked them out yet now is the time. Start with Vice Verses and work your way backward. You won't be sorry, I promise.

(Previous Switchfoot show reviews here, here, and argh, the other one was from 2007 and those archives are offline, my apologies but it was the first show for me so it was extra-amazing.)

I'll resume with regular programming tomorrow. :)

Lost in translation.

The dinner party was an easy cleanup thanks to the barbecue and everyone eating everything. No leftovers save for a tiny bit of cake and every wine bottle in the house emptied and rinsed and packed into a box by Dalton, who is good at those things. When they were all outside on the porch I wiped down the counters and tables and then I went upstairs to sit in the walk-in closet and I opened my envelope from Caleb.

Three words on the page in his handwriting. Those very predictable three little words you think of when someone says think of three words.

Not I am fine.

Or How are you?

Or even Just a minute.

Or help me please.

It said I love you.

I just don't understand what he means.

Oh there it is. Plain as day. The catch.

Revealed during lunch, just as my plate is placed in front of me and I contemplate asking the server how I'm supposed to eat what I thought was going to be a Reuben sandwich and some fries and instead is some sort of deconstructed essence of bread possibly with a drizzle of something precious and a curlicue piece of carrot on top. The fries are organized vertically, in a glass. There are eight of them.

This is not food, this is sculpture and I don't know why in the hell Caleb can't just take me to A&W like all the others and then I can horrify him with how positively fast I can pound back a bag full of giant salted onion rings and still walk out of the restaurant under my own power.

I pull out a french fry and bite into it suspiciously and he starts to talk, only I missed the beginning of his thoughts because with great dismay I realize the fries are parsnips because the menu was in a different language so I merely pointed at the list provided and hoped instead of asking because when I ask it's almost as if I am giving the staff license to spout contempt. And I wasn't about to let him order or he would be all champagne and caviar on me and I can't eat those things for lunch anymore. Too rich. Too much.

Sort of like Caleb.

But parsnips are the unholiest of vegetables, in my big list of what vegetables are good and what ones should just be ignored, avoided or outrun entirely.

Suddenly I catch him saying ....and what has he done for you recently except cause more strife?

Oh...WHAT? You want to know what he's done for me.

If he isn't good for you or to you, then what is the point exactly?

This is not your business.

Sure it is. You're the mother of my-

Leave Henry out of this.

He looks down at his napkin. He has finished his carrot curl and whatever abomination of a vegetable he was given. I apologize. I want to know that you are being looked after and that you are happy. Aside from the boys coming to the new house, and it being almost summer, I mean. If Lochlan can't find his common ground with Ben anymore than that puts an extraordinary amount of stress on you. If he can't make an effort-

He's fine. I lie.

How fine?

Fine.

I see. Smile and nod, right, Bridget?

I smile at him. God, I'm such a brat. The server comes back and I tell her to take my plate. She frowns and I ignore her. Caleb makes a note of my one parsnip bite of lunch and frowns too. Great. Frowny faces all around. Parsnips bring everybody down.

I see how you place all blame squarely on one and not the other.

Ben is justified in-

What? This was Ben's idea! Ben's bright ideas rise and set with the fucking sun, don't they? As long as he's shining everything's a go, one too many bad days and everything is off. We can't live like that. I had to make a stand.

You could make a bigger stand, Bridget. You could end their contest. You could have the happiness you deserve. He reaches out and touches my face. You could show a little gratitude for the life you have been given.

I stop arguing and nod. I get it now. We're not going to mince words forever. Some of them must be swallowed whole. The house he bought is going to cost me dearly.

Caleb reaches into his breast pocket and removes a small deep-grey envelope. He places it in front of me. There is a small letter b engraved on the front. Great. He special-orders his stationery now.

I pick it up and tuck it into my handbag. He stands. I know. You have to go. Read this one after your dinner party. Please. You know where I'll be.

Vanishing points.

So the plan as it stands now is to move the big electric gate from the end of the driveway to the top of the road proper. Possibly even rerouting the driveway so that it isn't so close to the highway. Right now it's almost beside the actual road, as in when you turn off the highway to drive down my street, my driveway is right there. It's almost it's own road. I'm not sure if the city will allow that due to municipal work and such but Caleb assures me money can buy anything.

When he says that I always point out his marital status. He will retort that it's just a matter of time and we drop the whole thing and pick up the features of the new house instead. Like how come our porches and patios are all wood-trimmed and next door is all glass panels and who the hell picked that color for the kitchen floor tiles, they must be a genius and taking turns looking up the rangehood over the island cooktop or touching the natural stone feature walls throughout.

The plan is for Schuyler and Danny to sell their beautiful little house upneighborhood for what they paid for it, to get out from underneath their crushing mistake of a mortgage, and Christian (!) and Andrew (!!) will sell their places to move into the new house. Corey (!!!) is going to sublet his condo and give it a trial run. Sam (!!!!) is considering swapping his parish digs for a housing allowance and is waiting for approval for that before he can even consider living here.

I have been walking around smiling for days due to these wonderful turns of events.

Batman did a little financial postmortem on Caleb's wheelings and dealings and said Caleb has a knack for coming out ahead no matter what. Caleb has paid Batman in full plus interest for his uh..mafia bailout and has liquidated so much besides that he's now sitting flush on a pile of Robert Bordens taller than the pine trees out front and then some. He still has a lot invested in Ben. He still has the remains of the umbrella company (which is technically mine now I suppose) and his profits from his newer forays into venture capitalism. He plays the stock market. He does consulting. He works pretty much twenty-four hours a day and he's very very good at what he does so it was less of a surprise than you might have expected.

I don't care, I was busy trying to ascertain how the clear glass washbasins in the master ensuite are sealed. Because I will be forever curious and eager to learn about all things construction thanks to my hundred-year-old castle in the grass back home (Huh. I wrote home. It wasn't home but I will leave it in.)

Caleb walked around behind me with his shirtsleeves rolled up, hands in his pockets and a genuinely pleased look on his face.

Does this make it better? He asked at one point.

What, exactly?

You'll have everyone here.

You did this just for me?

No, I did it for the land. For the dollar figure. As a side benefit, I get to see you happier than you've been in weeks. Can you fault me for that?

No. I admit it and then there is the sound of a doorbell and he smiles and turns away, heading to the front to see who it is. Probably Sam, he was going to come on his lunch hour and see what everything looks like.

As he walks away down the hall Caleb calls back to me, Now you've truly got yourself a commune, Princess and I frown at myself in the wall-to-wall bathroom mirror. This is not the commune I imagined. That one had chickens running loose and I would ride around the yard naked on a motorcycle while the boys fixed their cars and chased ten toddlers around. We would grow our own vegetables and be off the grid completely.

This is some sort of completely different commune with expensive marble floors, Macbook Pros, guitar sponsorship, two very refined children and a bunch of fortysomething hipsters with portfolios and nice boots and new trucks instead. The obligations to and reliance on the outside world staggers me. It's unwelcome. I thought there would be more camper-vans and cookouts involved. More stars. More iced tea. More time to spend together instead of time spent apart.

I guess sometimes when wishes come true it's not always in the form you pictured. Sometimes it's something else altogether. But it's still very very very good because I like it when we're all here. All home.

All in, as Lochlan said the other day. Yes, all in.

B sides.

PJ has put on his epic little-boy frown. Can't hardly see it behind his full beard but I know it's there. I reassure him that he is not moving again. He can keep the suite downstairs. He's very happy there. He is plotting his future there, or something, since I have graduated to not needing care and keeping twenty-four hours a day save for certain scenarios as detailed in the rules that they have about me/for me. I need to be escorted when on the grounds or at the water. Otherwise I am free to confront bears in the woods, play in traffic or just stick close to home to wallow in my own misery as I see fit.

At this rate I should just walk around naked for all the privacy I suddenly have.

But I don't like it much and frankly if PJ wanted to move to the new house I'd probably shut that down with some sort of fairytale emergency just to keep him close by because he's my big bearded shadow. I would grow a beard just to lead the PJ fanclub but when I tell him that he pretends to be touched but mildly horrified at the thought of a beard on my face because wow.

That would be something.

Checking for the blast (here, then, take this instead).

She once believed in every story he had to tell
One day she stiffened, took the other side
Empty stares from each corner of a shared prison cell
One just escapes, one's left inside the well
And he who forgets will be destined to remember

He came back today, cleanshaven and freshly shorn. He rivals Henry for his military cuts only Ben's hair is finer and less likely to behave, haircut or not. He looks like my Ben again. His eyes have dark circles, his irises see ghosts when he closes his lids over them and his brain is ruined, pickled and fried like carnival food, having seen too many things he would like to forget and now he exists in a space where he lives for himself, owning no one anything at all, while at the same time needing an almost debilitating unspoken amount of reassurance and support. He has been through as much as I have but that isn't why I'm with him.

I'm with him because he demonstrates a clear ability to comfort me. To love me. He can hold me and smile and everything vanishes. He is kind and sweet and incredibly silly and passionate too. He's a good hockey player and an okay guitar player. He can make me laugh with enough in-jokes that we have our own language that we send each other messages in and no one else knows what is going on. Ever.

I'm with him because I. love. him.

He does not give up even when the going gets tough. He doesn't back down but he'll back off to keep the peace. He keeps everyone on an emotional leash that helps him navigate this new blown-out tilted world we live in.

He's certifiable. Crazy. Hilarious. He's started food fights in each and every high-end restaurant we've ever visited (across the continent) and been banned from almost as many hotels for throwing furniture, people and drunken rages (sorry). He has always paid for the things he's broken and then some.

He does not fit in my car but he'll drive it anyway because I suck at things like overpasses, parking garages and drive-thru lineups. He crunches down with his knees around his shoulders and pretends to hold his breath while he steers with his fingertips. He'll talk in a high breathless voice until he gets out. I laugh so hard I cry.

He loves me, in a time where I am incredibly difficult to love, selfish and ignorant, to boot. He ignores all that and just says some day things will be different. While he says that he's busy eating my lip balms because he HATES when I wear them. He literally hates kissing me when I'm slathered in sticky, slippery gloss so if he eats them then I have nothing to wear. It's not working, I just buy more. Someday he's going to die of pink glitter poisoning, I can feel it.

I hope I'm a thousand years old and don't hear them when they come to tell me that he's gone. That's the only wish I have left is that I don't outlive any more of them, but especially him because he is different, he is mine and I am his and frankly I don't care what you think of our arrangements or my love life or polyamory or communes or musicians or circus rats or anything else.

He's downstairs now teaching himself Nothingman because it's a song I can sway to in place and he laughs when I do that. He notices when I do that. Not sure anyone else ever has.

And he doesn't like to be written about because he only cares what I think of him. No one else. So that makes it seem as if he is absent, or forgotten or lesser somehow.

Don't make that mistake anymore, okay?

I asked him about what happened with his devastating plans and the camping trip and the loss of his courage and everything else and I'm satisfied with the answers he gave me, whispered into my hair where all secrets go to hide.

At least the ones that don't belong here for all to see.

I know I haven't said much about the purchase of the house next door. I've been very busy juggling hearts and I haven't had time to even think about it and then Satan sends a message this morning telling me it is closing day and did I want a tour now that he has the keys?

That was fast. Doesn't it take longer to move furniture out of a house that size? Apparently they were mostly out the door anyway and the staging was all that was there, removed the day after the sale was approved. We probably could have gone in before now but Caleb is in no rush.

Also, change the locks first. Always change the locks first. I was going to tell him this until I saw New Jake heading out with him this morning. Jake will look after putting new locks on and then Caleb can pay him for doing so. Unless Jake goes to live in the new house too and then it can come off his rent. Don't ask me what their plans are, I'm never told anything until it's too late to change anyway.

***

Fortunately for him, Lochlan did not have his cat that swallowed the canary expression on when I saw him. His look was pure concern.

Where were you last night?

Theater.

You could have messaged me.

I don't think that would have been appropriate. Besides, I left my phone on the desk.

Are you okay?

Why wouldn't I be okay?

I can read, Bridget.

Then why did you ask where I was?

He looks up at the sky abruptly. It's an exasperated, almost eye-roll. Because I was hoping you would have a little more to say than this. Don't shut me out.

What would you like me to say?

Have you talked to Ben?

I really wish people would stop asking me that.

Does he know you know?

I'm guessing yes, since he can read too. In spite of everyone's assumptions that he can't.

When are you going to talk to him?

If and when he brings it up. It's not an issue. He didn't go through with it. Everything remains the same. If you want to push him around then that's your problem. Don't make it mine.

You want to stay with someone who would give you away.

I want to stay with someone who considered being unselfish and letting me out if I wanted out but in the end couldn't let go? Hell yes. Yes, I do.

I'm not sure who is more fucked up, you or Ben.

Then we make a good couple. So if you're so perfect, why are you with us?

Can't let go.

Then you understand him perfectly. And me. Are we done here?

He nods, eyes glassy, words forgotten.

Good. I have a house tour to get to. Want to come? It'll piss Satan off.

Sure. Just give me a minute.

Okay. I soften and try to smile for him and it fails. What a mess. What a godawful fucked-up mess.