What a weird and beautifully terrible place I'm in.

You don't need to bother
I don't need to be
I'll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on
I won't let go 'til it bleeds

We are toe to toe, hands to hands, fingers knitted, eyes focused, foreheads pressed together and he pushes me right across the polished tiles of the kitchen floor and into the hall.

Ben thinks this a riot.

What part?

That I'm angry. 

Ben doesn't understand the fuss, maybe. 

Do you? Jesus! Do either one of you see how fucked up this is? GARGHHH! I can't STAND this.

Loch. Stop it. I wait for him to get control of his fury. He drags his hands down his face and focuses on me and I can continue. There's no room here for judgement, especially from you.

Oh but there is. Especially where the Devil is concerned!

PJ comes to the door, every inch house enforcement. Princess protection detail. Care, in bearded form. You okay, Bridge?

Lochlan whirls around on him. Jesus, Padraig! She doesn't need protection from ME. If you want to be useful you should have stuck around New Year's Eve when the vultures set about her!

PJ reddens and turns away, saying nothing. I jump back into the fray. Jesus, Loch! Leave him alone!

Maybe he wants in! Maybe I'm the only one with any common sense anymore, baby!

Instead of standing up to him, I shrink like a violet in hot water. I feel very small suddenly and not very powerful. Just very ashamed. I don't like it when anyone makes me feel that way. I shut down, stop talking, stop meeting his eyes.

Aw, Jesus, Bridge, I'm sorry. He pulls me into the front of his shirt and I disappear against the flannel, blending in with the plaid. Shutting down because it's Lochlan yelling at me and all I ever wanted and all I ever seem to fight against is his approval and the moment I step out of his control he can't handle it. I put my head up against his cheek as he bows his head down and I wrap my arms around his neck.

I'm sorry, Locket. I don't mean to hurt you.

Do you do it for Ben? Is that what it is?

Oh God. The rage, it's emanating off him in waves.

I wait long and hard to answer that question, weighing the truth against an easy way out. And then I give him my answer. He has to accept it because he knows it's the truth and he knows that I would never hurt him intentionally. He doesn't let go. He doesn't cast me away and hurry out the door. He doesn't yell anymore or admonish me or try and force me to bend back the other way, he just holds on as tight as ever.

Abruptly he pulls away, looking down at me, reaching up to smooth away the hair in my eyes (fucking bangs). He laughs so ruefully. You age me, Peanut. And you're not ever going to do that again.

I age myself, Locket. And you don't get to decide these things.

Like hell I don't. You've been through enough. It's done.

Bombshells and curveballs.

The reminder was more of a warning, a clean cut, slicing night into day, 2012 into 2013 and right into wrong but no one found it sinister. Only compelling. Hauntingly so.

This is about Bridget. It's about what she needs. 

(Only I'm right here. I can hear you speak. I can hear you breathe. I can distinguish between your heartbeats and between the voices in your own heads and I'd better do it quickly because my own heartbeat is thumping between my ears, pounding a rhythm to a dance I don't think I remember all that well or maybe I do and maybe I would have liked to forget.)

A head bends down and kisses the space between my nose and my mouth. Softly. No razor burn. No expectation. Butterfly kisses in the new darkness. The fireworks have ended, the sparklers have fizzled out and the guests have all gone home. Black takes over, cool sophisticated black the color of unstrung bowties and tuxedo jackets. Everything else is pure white gold. The champagne. My earrings. The stars, I bet, but I can't see them because of the clouds in between the earth and heaven.

Breath against my lips, waiting for a sign. I exhale slowly, nodding my head up higher still for a kiss on target. The breathing excites me, held in control, anticipating, halted and measured. My hands are brought behind my back and held as lips trace along my neck. My shoulders. I lean back against a wall of solid muscle. I am kept there. My shoulders are squared, my neck extended and my eyes are slow to focus through the haze of sparkling bubbles.

No regrets, little Bumblebee, mumbled softly, a kiss planted on top of my head as if I might grow from it. Surrounded by love, enveloped in their hearts, I don't need a net right here because they are the net. I reach up, taking the end of a tie. I pull it away from a collar in exchange for a smile. I tie the bowtie around my neck and pick up my glass to finish that one last drink that's been refilled twice since. The glass is taken away, handed off. I don't know where it goes, I have champagne-brain again and don't have to be responsible. Instead I feel powerful. I say the word. I want to test it. Immediately all movements stop, concern replacing need.

I say it was a test and feel the relief replace the brief concern. Hands slide around my head until my face is held up close to another and I reach up and free another tie for my stylish new collection. Everything will be fine, Babydoll, I am told as I am turned away once more. This is my own private carousel where I can stand amongst the prettiest horses where the music is the perfect volume only the lights are leaving tiny trails in my eyes as I turn faster. I reach out to hold on. To keep balance.

I nod. I understand but this is only the beginning so I might test again.

My hands are released and I am handed into arms and held tightly. Possessively. You're okay, Peanut? I am asked. Wanted is the reassurance I was just looking for. I nod again and pull another tie out from under a collar but it is taken back from me, stuffed into a pocket. Included but continuing to be kept apart. I go to work on the shirt studs and fail miserably as kisses rain down along my temple, as I am held so tightly that if I didn't have to breathe I might never let go again. I put my head down against a shoulder and the hold is further tightened until I am gently pried away. This night will come so easy for some and so haltingly slowly for others. This night will never ever happen again.

In the morning I have two bracelets, one earring and two bowties still on. I look in the mirror and the night stares back, judging me. I tell it harshly to walk a mile in my shoes and it tells me with contempt that it wears my shoes every time the sun goes down, until it comes back up again, to not even pretend that I will be absolved for this, that when the bubbles wear off there will be hell to pay.

I lean in very close and remind the night that I have been saving up for years, that I have more than enough to cover whatever price it can come up with.

I want to remind it that it should pay me for my cost. That the scales are tipped in its favor and that isn't right. That the curses of favoritism and dignity and terror and need are all at price points neither one of us can even touch.

But then I remember there were moments. I made it from one end of my high wire to the other intact. So many moments. I take one more look at the carousel before I turn to leave. I turn back to the mirror and I stand up on my tiptoes, reaching up with my lipstick, writing NO REGRETS on the mirror in Dior's 752 Cherry Red. I smile at myself and for the briefest moment I feel like I conquered the world.

Then I reach up again and smear the words until you can't read them anymore, because I know better than that. 

Point Perdition.

Finally, our peninsula/headland has a name. No one likes it. I think it's fucking perfect. The big gates have been moved up to the top of the road and now it's all mine.

I'm supposed to write my resolutions now but instead I'm foggy, down and out from these stupid allergy pills that I have to take or my skin becomes a sea of hives and crawls right off my bones, shrieking as it slides across the floor and down into the heating vents. I'm at the point in winter in which I can no longer tolerate fabric softener, shower gel or perfume or in some moments plain old air.

At least it isn't exacerbated by incredibly dry Prairie air though. So I still win, right? Sadly my body shuns my native damp seaside air too, no worries. There will be no winners today, we've called a draw.

Shriek. Shriek. Shriek. It's silent but I feel the screams. 

And Lochlan has put Wish You Were Here on repeat to soothe my brain at least, if my body is unwilling to unclench. It's the unintentional lullaby he chose for me when I was too young to appreciate it. It has changed for me over the decades, from not even knowing what the heck David Gilmour meant as he sang to knowing all too well.

And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

It's still more of a comfort than most things, same as Lochlan is.

I will still end 2012 with no apologies. And I do have a handful of resolutions. The usual ones to eat better, but eat more pizza. Read more but read less online. Take better care of myself. Allow for more downtime. Draw more cartoons and draw less life. Drink more tea and less...erm..Everclear (BLAME MATTHEW). Wear the hearing aids to wring every last note and every breath out of all these songs and always, above everything, keep close to my boys. Get more Ben-time, somehow. Forgive my redhead when I said I have but then I act like I haven't. Be a better human.

I can do these things.

Happy New Year to you all. Thanks for reading. I'll be back next year, or tomorrow, as it were.

Low maintenance.

I spent today eating wasabi-flavoured edamame beans. Every sixth one was a nostril-burning, oxygen-gasping event that would cause me to vow to never eat another one again but then I would reach back into the bag for another handful to crunch on while I read.

I'm reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

It's been on my bedside table for several years now so I thought, what the heck?

I'm into it, and I'm alternately stunned by the beauty of his words in places and prepared to stab myself in the eyes with a fork for how stilted, bleak and forceful it is.

I also painted my nails a lovely shade of medium slate blue and then for fun I added a few coats of this silver glitter polish with huge flakes. I love it. Caleb's going to hate it because it isn't tasteful or age-appropriate. Lochlan will hate it because it's makeup, period and he can't tolerate any of it even though I have persisted with the lipgloss for thirty years now. Ben might not notice, but if he does notice he might try to eat it off my fingers.

Maybe he'll think they are blue edamame beans. Sparkly ones. My nails look like radioactive jellybeans.

Caleb is planning a small soiree on the boat tomorrow night, headaches be damned, a proper host to the bitter end of the year. He's invited the occupants of the point (AKA both households), plus Matt, Sam, Keith and...oh my fu...BATMAN down for an early dinner and drinks and some music to kick off the night, maybe a few sparklers at midnight and then we'll begin 2013.

I hope.

I still have to write my resolutions. I still think it's too cold to hang out on a boat at this time of year and I'm pretty sure this nail polish clashes quite mightily with my Valentino dress that I save for this time of year and haven't worn yet because as I told you already, I've decided that living in my Hello Kitty pajamas is the shit, but only during the day.

Currents.

Very happy today to be reminded that I live in a country that has had same-sex marriage laws in place for almost a full decade already and watching as the same rights are passed into law by popular vote (!) in another handful of states in the US today. Slow and steady, guys, keep up that march toward equality for all.

And DAMN, you should have seen the little look that passed between Sam and Matt (over for early weekend breakfast) as Dalton read aloud from the paper this morning about this subject.

But for the record! And I know the answer to this one! Sam cannot officiate at his own wedding. Should Matt propose, that is.

I know this because I married Sam's mentor once, a minister just like him. At one point Jake thought he could marry us because he couldn't find any paperwork to the contrary and finally had to make some calls to get an answer.

I don't know if you knew Jake but he left around five hundred letters for me to find after the fact but he certainly wasn't all that good about having anything important in order. I still don't have everything of his sorted out and I'm finally at a place where I can speak of his shortcomings without wanting to hurt everything in sight. Let's face it. He was a lot like Sam. Paper EVERYWHERE.Thank heavens Sam seems more organized with his personal life.

For the record, Sam is sure I still don't have all of the letters Jake wrote to me.

Ow.

And for the record Sam and Matt are still not living together. I think Sam could possibly be the runaway bride, his feet are so cold all the time. He's terrified of commitment.

I show him commitment. Commitment is a death certificate that you carry in your wallet because things keep coming up. Commitment is a day carved in bronze on a plaque bolted to the rocks, worn shiny by the salt and constant battering of the sea. Commitment is dreaming about Jacob's touch and waking up and saying nothing but vowing to never sleep again because it's frightening how bad I want to feel that touch again. Commitment is choosing to put your trust in someone again when you trust nothing, not even the nose on the end of your face, to still be there when you wake up from those dreams.

So stop stalling and fucking jump already, Sam. It's been over a year now since you started dating Matt exclusively. You once told me I could be happy. It would not be the same but it might be just as wonderful and I'm telling you that right back: Matt is a Good Human. It's okay.

Jump.

Coffee beans and pitchforks. Just another day on the point. Oh my God. Come back when I'm awake.

(Never give a girl a keyboard outlet when she's still in dreamland.)

Tomorrow will have forty-six seconds more of daylight than today, if you're interested.

That's how he taught me to measure seasons. The amount of daylight left. Daylight featured an abrupt shift in how games were called and how marks were targeted. In the dark all bets were off. In the dark we were different people.

Who isn't?

Wait. Should I name names here?

Lochlan is not working today as self-scheduled. He's pretending to be sick because he's irritated that I once again called out his inherent lack of empathy for my emotional well-being, or whatever the hell he called it. I don't remember, it was before coffee. You see, life is cognitively divided into Before Coffee and After Breakfast. If you talk to me BC you will be treated to confused, sleepy looks and tiny noncommittal grunts. Talk to me AB and...you'll probably get the same thing so nevermind, I forgot where I was going with this.

Anyway! He is home so that he can follow me around all day, harping on my insensitivities to his efforts, and because he seriously needs to blow off some steam because yesterday almost did him in, being kind to the Devil while the Devil tries to dance around him to stick his pitchfork in Lochlan's back. Metaphorically speaking anyway. Lochlan's like that. He will save his worst enemies and then spend the rest of his life plotting to ruin them.

The difference is Lochlan only plots. The Devil carries things out.

So there you go.

Doer versus Dreamer, I guess.

Still have no idea where I was going with this. Bear with me! I'll figure it out eventually. Maybe after more coffee.

Someday I'll share all the codes with you.

I secretly think that Caleb's short, quiet bursts of pure evil are responsible for his now-debilitating headaches.

Very early yesterday he 911'd himself on us (he didn't call 911, the emergency service, he called us with a code that we use amongst the group for various things. An SMS shorthand known only to the collective. In this case it was for help.) and then asked me for a raincheck*, which I gladly gave, seeing as how he was down for the count from the time he woke up until late into the end of the afternoon.

Today I'm just happy he is feeling better and today we actually had to work, though it was greatly reduced thanks to his continued need to rest and look after himself. He isn't the rabid CFO he was in the early two-thousands, clawing his way through hundred-hour work weeks, keeping his toothbrush in the office, loathe to waste a minute in which he could be making money instead of spending it.

I'm not actually sure where the balance tips back to reasonable favor but I'm guessing it's now. He just can't work all the time, not anymore but he tries to. Caleb will never be accused of giving less than 500% when only 75% is ever required.

Due to my fears of a repeat of this incident, Lochlan took the lion's share of Caleb's care throughout the day yesterday, oddly great at illness triage where he fails so stupendously at the injurious or emotional types. Practice makes perfect, I guess and by the time I returned with Henry and Ruth to say a quick hello and thank Caleb again for their presents, Loch was reading aloud to Caleb, who was interjecting with some anecdote or another and they both laughed, quite gently. The children walked in and did double-takes and then threw themselves on their dads before I could remind Henry (easily the size of me) to take it easy. That his father wasn't feeling well.

You would never have known he was sick while Henry was present.

In any case, we were royally spoiled this Christmas. I am busy tonight taking down everything (with lots of help I might add) save for the tree itself and the outside lights. Both can remain up another week or so. Maybe less for the tree but forever for the lights because I like them. They remind me that in between those practiced bursts of evil and the inevitable catastophes, calamities and chaos, things can be calm and peaceful, downright wonderful even. We had a good Christmas, all things considered. I hope you did too.

(* There won't actually be a raincheck shopping date. There were other gifts I did not share here that he squeezed in around the edges when I wasn't looking. Mystery deposits and things done around the house that were on a list that I never thought would be complete (thanks to Ben's own workaholic tendencies) and things are falling into place now with a few well-placed phonecalls. Things that help me and help all of us, frankly. Much better than a pretty pen, I think.)

Psychic circus.

The box was empty.

I look up at him, slightly confused.

Your wishes were to put any funds I had allocated for a Christmas gift for you in Henry's University account. I followed your directives to the letter. I want to know what to do next. He says this with his maddeningly handsome, bemused smile fixed in place.

Then why the box? Why the ribbon?

Because I wanted to confirm that you only said that to be difficult, and that secretly you hoped for something anyway. Maybe earrings or a pen or....a diamond ring?

A pen..I had hoped for the pen. 

The pink one we looked at? I'll buy it for you tomorrow then.

No...I stammer. I don't want you to buy it. I just think you didn't need to do this, with a box and everything. I got the car service and-

What would you have done if there had been a ring in the box?

Nothing. You can't give me a ring. 

I can do whatever I damn well please and we both know it. You'll have your pen before lunchtime tomorrow, or perhaps if you wish we can make use of your actual present and be driven downtown to make it a shopping and lunch date. Do you think Cartier does Boxing Day sales?

I shake my head.

He walks over to the door and opens it, waiting. Thank you for a wonderful day. I'm just glad I still know you better than you think I do. 

I walk to the door. I can buy my own pen. It's just-

-not the same. Yes, I understand that quite well. He smiles and softens, becoming so quiet it hurts to listen. Merry Christmas Babydoll. Neamhchiontach. 

I knit my brows in confusion and follow his lead, right out his front door. Merry Christmas, Diabhal.

 See you at ten sharp. We'll get an early start on our bargain hunting. 

I put the box in his hand, ribbon and all and walk out into the rainy Christmas night. I feel humilated, caught redhanded. I feel childish and I feel tricked into making Boxing Day a day spent with him now. I feel unprepared and sometimes I wish I could read his mind as easily as he reads mine.

Exchange or credit only (let me tell you something, baby).

You don’t know how hard I fought to survive
Waking up alone when I was left to die
You don’t know about this life I’ve led
All these roads I’ve walked
All these tears I’ve bled

By the size of the box I assumed he finally caved in and bought me the Diabolo (hahahah) pink lacquer pen I have been lusting after for the past several weeks.

I couldn't have been more wrong. I suppose remaining on my own guard would have been wise but he's so good at this, you see. We don't stand a chance.

I walked him home tonight since he said my present was on his desk. I was so proud that everyone behaved. So proud that he got a little bit buzzy but had cut himself off, asking permission to make tea for himself and the other tea-drinkers since he wanted to restore his sobriety before the evening's end. He's not supposed to drink, thanks to his merry-go-round of prescriptions right now and when I reminded him of this he gazed at me and told me I was right.

No one flipped any tables, shoved anyone else into the Christmas tree or left the room in man-tears (which is when you leave the room, punctuating it by punching the wall or doorframe on your way out but also fight back tears squeezed out by rage and the fact that you may have broken your hand with that punch because fuuuuuck it hurts so bad).

I know all their tricks. Wish I knew all of his.

Caleb gives me a neat foil-wrapped package and inside is one of those delightful red leather boxes with the gold trim, tied with a red and white Cartier-branded ribbon.

My brain starts thinking Pen! Pen! Pen! while he stands there wearing a dangerous smile, ducking his head down slightly, his thumb and index finger under his mouth as if he was about to laugh when he shouldn't be laughing. I pulled the bow with a flourish and started to talk as I opened the box.

This will be great to use every day when I'm...oh my God.

It was not a pen.
 

An early Christmas gift.

The ultimatums began shortly after school started in the fall.

Wear your hearing aids, Bridget.

No. Not to be rude, but I really don't like them. They amplify my heartbeat, your fingerprints and the guy fifteen blocks down swearing under his breath at a broken photocopier. I can hear people's ideas, regrets and deepest longings when I wear them. I hear grass grow. I hear the stars clinking off, one by one by two.

They're exhausting. They're startling. They're just plain stupid. They cost two thousand dollars apiece and they're worthless hunks of utter shit. They've been adjusted, changed, swapped out, serviced, and tested.

But it's not them, it's me.

So I haven't really worn them much past the six week window I promised the boys earlier this year. I wore them all the time and at the end of forty-five days I slid my back down the wall in the corner with a big bottle of vodka in my hands, my nerves shattered to bits and I swore to myself I would never wear them again. I've learned to deal with what is missing in other ways. I feel. I see. I taste. But mostly I just feel, as you well know already.

And now I fill my ears with so much music that enough might get through so that I am okay with it all. It's not that hard to cope when you've been doing it this long, so no sympathy is required. It's very matter-of-fact to me and as long as everyone doesn't talk at once I'm okay with that.

Except that a couple weeks ago I was driving Lochlan's truck and I missed a siren, not knowing there was an ambulance there until the last possible moment. I got out of the way but I like a little more notice than that. I owned up to it, when asked how my day went. I promised to turn the music down when I drive alone. I promised to pay better attention/get more sleep/be careful but this day was sort of very long in the making, especially here, where every trip is a dark rainy night on a high-speed highway, and that's just to buy milk.

But instead of revoking my driving privileges, this morning I was given a present of sorts.

Caleb's driver, Mike. On call for me now as his primary charge.

Because Caleb likes to be independent here, driving himself virtually everywhere. Mike is on retainer and bored out of his skull. Caleb wants him to have work to do and everyone wants me to be safe and not constantly stressing over driving and hearing or the lack thereof.

And privately I was pulled aside and told I would have to get over whatever creepy stalkerish impressions I have had of Mike up until now, that he is a consummate professional who is just doing his job. That job at one point being spying on me at close range for the Devil who used to be so terribly misguided and now is just simply terrible and misguided and I am no longer spied upon, though I fully understand the ramifications of enlisting someone who reports to Satan himself.

I am not permitted to use the word goonage anymore either, Caleb told me.

I guess I simply bring out the visceral side in everyone, my mere presence being enough for them to somehow feel safe enough to unload all of their deepest darkest secrets, fears and wants on me. To do things they wouldn't normally do and say things they wouldn't dream of saying to anyone else. I'm not sure why that happens but it does, and I'd like to turn it off.

Maybe in a few years time Mike can listen to music on my behalf and tell me I really liked that song, or something.  

In the interim, I have a number I call when I want to go out and Mike will be idling out front in fifteen minutes or less to take me wherever I want, and that goes for taking the children to school or running errands for me. As in, I don't have to do it, he will do it for me. I was assured it's part of the job, that he is already paid handsomely and enjoys his job, there just hasn't been enough for him to do since we moved here. Caleb hopes that will change, that this will be helpful to me and better for Mike.

Helpful doesn't begin to cover what it is. It's positively decadent, something reserved for film and music stars and people..well, people like Caleb. People who are important.

Not me. I'm not important. I'm just a girl from a town so small there wasn't even a wrong side of the tracks because there were no tracks. Just ocean, as far as the eye could see. That girl never thought she'd see the day where she had a permanent driver assigned to her. I'm not sure where I should go first but I'm guessing it should be somewhere pretty significant.