I heard shouting this afternoon and ran to look outside, wondering if some of the boys were home and had decided (against my wishes) to take matters into their own hands.

I see Batman standing at the bottom of the steps to the boathouse and Caleb at the top. They're both shouting and gesturing angrily and then Batman turns and sees me. He come straight over to the side door and I meet him there, where he sticks his finger up in my face and tells me to stop buying into Caleb's attempts to find a way to hurt me. That it's probably all bullshit anyway and I'm stoking the fire by even responding to him. That we maybe do belong together because between the two of us we create enough drama for a fucking soap opera. He says no more trips across the drive and if I miss Ben so badly I should call him and he'll do what he can to get home early or stay home or whatever he needs to do and do I understand?

I nod and he closes the door in his own face. He doesn't have time for this. I stand there staring up at my back door, listening to his footsteps as they fade.

But all I can think is he said probably.

It's called Defamation and I don't care.

But look at my hopes, look at my dreams
the currency we've spent
I love you
You pay my rent

Last night was a furious round of hate sex followed by restless sleep and I was up at five standing on the stupid thinking-patio (as Ben called it because he's right too) feeling the rain saturate through my skin until it mixed with my blood, diluting my life almost colorless. Lochlan came up behind me and I jumped fifty feet when his arms came around my ribs. I took out my (wet, broken) headphones but he was already three sentences in. Wants a mulligan on our fight, didn't mean to add to my stress. Is going to work on how to deal with the inevitable Devil. Is going to work on sharing. Is going to work on never threatening me with his absence.

This isn't even a Ben-coerced crow feast. No, this has Batman written all over it. Batman is so close I can taste him but far enough that you can't see him with the naked eye.

Ben is too busy for this. I forget what Ben looks like except for the expression on his face last week on the plane when I threw up in his shirt pocket and he was alternately charmed by my ingenuity and horrified by my sudden air sickness. He didn't quite know whether he should try and save the shirt or call it a loss and be grateful for the t-shirt underneath (we went for loss).

I nod and tell Loch that's a shame because he was right and this isn't working at all.

He reminds me that I already pointed out we got ourselves into this mess and we can't change it.

The weight hits my shoulders squarely, hammering me clear through the earth and I pop out in the water on the other side, immediately beginning to sink.

I don't even bother showing him the messages on my (wet, broken) phone from Caleb. A game of twenty questions spanning several days, back and forth, ranging from deep to sublime. What's your secret favorite color that you never tell people? and Is the reason you're like this because you hate me that much? 

And we took our sweet time answering (Lilac. No) before he lobbed a grenade out of the blue.

What would you do if you found out on Henry's 18th birthday that he wasn't mine? 

I'll show them. Probably later but I'm sure it will be dismissed as a game, that we have proof otherwise. We had our own testing done. Henry has genetic markers that match Caleb's to a tee, and sometimes the same attitude. That could be from the time they spend together. There's so much of it.

 But Henry looks nothing like Caleb. If I lined up everyone I've slept with over my lifetime I would still pin Henry to Jacob without hesitation and if Caleb isn't playing a game then Jake would have flown for nothing. Caleb would have kept me here for nothing. Loch would be tormented for nothing. Caleb would have won the worst game of payback for his brother's death that I could ever imagine.

And I wouldn't put it past him. Not even for one second.  Especially since I found out he is single-handedly responsible for Duncan not being able to stay on the wagon and is now focusing on Sam, who apparently is next on Caleb's To Ruin list.

Because he can. I guess Lochlan and I weren't enough. He isn't about to let anyone get close to me without paying a price. I don't know why I put up with this, Oh, right. I didn't get a choice.

Manipulating shadows but right every time.

Life is like a constant state of switching from light to dark as I am thrust back into the spotlight of the big top. Lochlan's gone full shutdown on me though, sitting in the darkness, top hat and drink at hand. He looks like The Shade character, slouched in the rain on the patio, refusing to speak until I conjure up enough helper phrases from family therapy to open him up just a crack. His skin is on inside out these days anyways, as is mine and Ben's too but Lochlan will never accept this. Never ever ever.

Can you help me? I finally ask and he turns sideways in the chair. I don't know how drunk he is.

I could help by leaving. Then you'd never have to feel bad. I wouldn't have to live like a norm anymore and you would be free to wear yourself to pieces rubbing up against the guy who ruined everything for us. What an extended reward for him. What a fucking curse for me. 

I'm not rewarding him, I'm taking something I need and punishing him too. (Woah, there goes that fleeting foolish misdireccted insane pride of mine again.)

What do you NEED that you can't get in this house?

Cole. 

Cole's dead, Bridget. Fucking his brother isn't going to bring him back. 

But it does. And thinking that is the only way I can deal with Caleb.

Then you need more help then you're getting, Neamhchiontach, but you know that already. 

It works. You're supposed to look the other way. And don't ever call me that again.

You're walking around telling everyone I'm you're one and only. Clearly it's a line from an act and I think I've seen it before. He takes another drink.

It's not an act. 

Then leave Diabhal alone. 

I can't. If I don't go he'll take Henry from me. 

We can fight him. No judge is going to separate a boy from his mother. 

They will if it's me. All he has to list everything that's wrong with me, everything I've done and no judge is going to leave a boy with his fucked up mother. 

He takes another drink.

We're fucked, Locket. 

No. You're fucked. I could just walk away. 

Ruth needs you. 

She has a whole collection of better fathers than I could ever be right here. 

That isn't true. 

I missed her childhood because I was off trying to forget about you because I forget how much this hurts. Then I come back for more and I'm still not exactly raising her. He pays for everything. PJ looks after the rest. Kind of like with you.

None of this is going to change until Henry is a legal adult. 

I don't have to live with it. I could go. Start over. Go back to the show. Live out my days from a suitcase, in front of a crowd. This isn't me. 

You need to stay here. With me.

With who? You aren't yourself. My Bridget doesn't sweep around in a Valentino gown pressing buttons for fire. My Bridget stands in the pouring rain, shivering from the cold, her stomach growling, in the same clothes she's worn for two weeks straight and she can't keep the lighters dry but she smiles so big for me I think my heart shattered every time I looked at her. She looked SO HAPPY. She sure doesn't look so happy now, Miss Millionaire. 

I'm not, because you're not.

THEN FIX THIS, BRIDGET. Because, Baby, I've got one foot out the door and if I go I won't come back this time. You'll have to come to me and dammit, I don't think I can wait forever for your loyalty to them all to fucking die already.

THIS ISN'T REALLY THE BEST WEEK TO SAY THAT TO ME, LOCHLAN.

IT'S A BETTER TIME THAN ANY OTHER BECAUSE MAYBE, FOR ONCE, YOU'LL HEAR ME.

Worth it in the end.

(Halloween is a gimme for the Devil. Obviously.)

He wanted to shrink the world. 

I held my breath and stood very close as it got smaller and smaller until it was no bigger than a footprint for two and there was just enough air for both of us and just enough cognitive awareness to remain in the present but no room for the past or the future.

Then he turned, asking me if I was ready. I nodded somewhat hesitantly. There is room for worry. Will it be like the last time? What if he's worse? What if I can't play my part with the Corporate Cowboy to his satisfaction? What if satisfying him is as difficult as ever?

I close my eyes to keep my balance on the ledge in front of him and focus on my breath, forcing it to come slowly, just like the rest of me as he smiles and my brain edges in on my heart, shoving it violently out of the way in an effort to force just a little space for the past. Come on now, it teases. Just a memory or two won't hurt a thing. His hands are the same. His blood, the one and only. Five years apart but it might have been five minutes for how alike they are in certain ways.

My heart shoves right back. You don't get to choose. She's ruled by me. 

But my head just laughs out loud and the cowboy takes it as approval, kicking into a faster pace. His hands slide down my throat, down my arms, over my backside to my legs. He tightens his fingers around me and the past blooms in full color now, just long enough for me to say the wrong name and my heart withers and blackens while my head hisses Told you so spitefully.

Goddamnit. He stops and asks for clarification. Neamhchiontach. Don't lose your focus. 

I shake my head. I can't keep my balance on this tiny space. The past is bigger than the present and the future is nothing more than a black hole gaping dangerously before us. We're speeding straight for it, a race to a dead end.

Dead end.

I say the correct name and feel his relief like a dark warm blanket all around me. His arms tighten once more and his teeth press against my skull. He's not going to hurt me, he just needs me. He needs someone to hold. He needs time to process and absorb how he let me slip through his fingers, hammering himself into this tiny postage stamp of ground where we left off. The present is a difficult puzzle, as shrouded in mystery as the future, as tangled as the past. His lips force against mine, his hands holding my head. He is out of breath and headed home to the bigger world where we have room to run when abruptly he drops this kiss and whispers a plea for me to never leave him.

And in that tiny patch of darkness I smile because that's exactly what I'm always going to do until the day I die too.

Threesomes but with two.

Light a candle, blow the world away
Table for two on a TV tray
It ain't fancy, baby that's OK
Our time, our way

Lochlan and I managed to fit in another brief milestone celebration in between meetings and barfing. Three years (sorta) married!

We're never going to catch a break, that's for certain but we caught low tide, taking a bottle of cheap pink champagne back down to the beach to crack open, as is tradition in our verse. Forget glasses, we passed the bottle a couple of five times and then I was almost sick again. Ben missed it completely though he promised to make it up to us later. Loch kissed my fingers, held tight in his hand and lamented the fact that this probably wasn't the best week in the world but it was an attempt to find some good in so much bad and I will forever love him for that, if I didn't love him for everything else already.

Take that silver spoon and dig your grave.

Well, did she make you cry
Make you break down
Shatter your illusions of love?
And is it over now?
Do you know how?
Pick up the pieces and go home

I threw up on the plane. I came home and slept from late right through most of today. Caleb sent me a note alternately conveying his ire at me leaving in the first place with his desire to have his share, dangling the offer of a new bottle of Lagavulin in front of me.

I adore Lagavulin. But I'd be better off right now with flat ginger ale.

It's nerves. That's all.

Specific coast highway.

Heaven is on the way
You could feel the hate
but I guess you never will
I'm on a roll again
and I want an end
'cause I feel you creeping in

Ben's solution was to drag me to California for what will be possibly the fourth longest day of my young life, because he woke me up at two-thirty this morning holding up my shoes asking which ones I would pack if I was going to spend the day in Los Angeles?

I shook my head. I don't like travel dreams, I told him, they suck and in them you never give me any time to pack.

Lochlan rubbed his eyes and pointed to the stilettos on the left and said if I wasn't going to wear those he would.

He came too (and Schuyler!) so we could graze around while Ben is in meetings and also because there's still a stupid moratorium on me traveling alone with Ben and also because this afternoon Ben will take me to the beach while Loch and Sky have THEIR meeting and this is just dumb and so I asked Batman if he would stand by in case I need a ride home because at some point someone will forget me.

(Run-on sentence. Sorry. Yeesh, Bridget)

The text from the Devil (who intercepted my brainwaves) assured me that will never ever happen in this life or the next.

I suppose he would know.

Batman never replied.

I have chosen either Nobu or Moonshadows for lunch. We'll see if I'm still awake in two more hours. I might just go curl up under a table instead of eat.

(PS Loch looks so out of place here. Especially in a dress shirt and wool pants. I should have never talked him into leaving the show but Schuyler seems to be able to keep him busy with projects so I suppose it's good enough.)

(PSS Batman finally replied but only to point out most of the restaurants I like don't open for lunch. I think I knew this. It's fine, McDonalds is across the street from Nobu. Ask me how I know this. Better yet ask Caleb.)

(PSSS Loch wore his All-Stars. Not my stilettos. I wore the stilettos so I could blend in. I don't blend in. I should have worn breast implants and THEN I would have blended in.)

(Updated) PJ, I love you so much.

I can feel it coming.

It's like my stomach has clenched up and my heart is bursting to tear itself apart. It's starting to take a huge effort to get a deep breath, answering people normally, without a catch in my voice is almost unbearable and everyone is crowding in so close. I just wish I could get some air here.

And it's been seven years, Jake. I've remarried. Twice, if you want to be specific, once for technicalities. And still there you are in heaven looking down, demanding to be front and center and my heart suddenly knows no different even though I would blame you now for not doing the heavy lifting. You did it all for Cole but Cole's death was a relief when all was said and done but yours was unwarranted, unnecessary and out of character. You sucking me in for such a brief beautiful moment now a cruel joke behind my back and a bitter taste in my mouth, poison I can't spit out or swallow.

PJ is behind me on the grass as I ask him to at least allow me to look at the light. The icy, blinding clouds and the driving rain is something I think I've never seen before, not properly.

It's time to go in. He won't look up, only down. At me. Forced with taking care of someone with no regard for her own safety or sanity must be such a fucking chore.

You're fired. Go have a fun life. 

I've got it right here. Well, most of the time.

I'm not worth it, Peej. 

You let me be the judge of that. 

Will you be the jury too?

Sure. 

What about the executioner, PJ. Will you be him too?

That's enough. He charges forward and dips low, grabbing me around the hips and lifting me right off the ground. He marches back into the house. So help me, Bridget, you want drama, we'll do charades in the living room. It's getting really fucking cold out. 

You know who's probably cold?

He can't feel it, Bridget-

You know what he probably feels?

You gotta stop this, Bridge-

You know who can't stop because he's doomed to a life in the hereafter?

I fucking give up. He takes my arm and somewhat not gently pulls me down the hall to the library. He tells me not to move and he leaves. Then he comes back ten seconds later with Ben's ipod and headphones. He scrolls through the music until he finds what he wants and then he pushes me down into a chair, drops the headphones over my ears and presses play. In the seconds before the music takes over he says I can wait there for Ben. And if I need anything just holler.

I nod to let him know I hear him and then he pauses and smiles just a little. He runs his hand down my cheek and then the smile drops off his chin and he leaves, locking the door behind him.

***

Three hours later when I was blissed out on metal I couldn't even decipher (so much Finnish yelling) PJ unlocked the door and peeked in.

Safe? He asked.

Safe, I nodded.

The calm before the storm though, Bridget. I'm going to have to staple you to the back of my shirt. 

That actually sounds like fun. 

And it doubles as a Halloween costume! 

We high-fived each other, and I was free to go.

A round world with hard edges.

Corey is outside tossing the football around with Henry, who brought his school pictures home today and looks more and more like a muted, scrappy blonde version of his father every single day. He's as tall as Lochlan finally and has my incredible streak of pure stubbornness so I'm sure Caleb's pride in regard to his son is tinged with regret that he didn't find someone more passive or docile to procreate with.

I do what I'm told, I remind him as he stares with dismay at pure attitude emanating off the glossy portraits. I love these pictures. Henry is getting so big so fast. It seems like yesterday we were kicking snowballs all the way to school in the minus forty bleak sunlight.

Come on, Henry. You're going to get frostbite. 

No I won't, Mommy. The school's right there! 

I watch from the steps of the boathouse. If I step down any further I won't be able to see over the fence into the backyard. If I step up higher I'll be cozily in the arms of the Devil, who stands two steps above me, a hand on each rail.

Corey doesn't go easy on Henry. No one does. They're going to make a man out of him. They've never coddled him a day in his life at my request because I can teach him to be thoughtful and empathic, gentle and respectful, they can teach him to be tough, to stand up for himself and to take the hard knocks and keep on standing. Then we switch and do it all again so he doesn't have any illusions of gender stereotypes.

He will be a Good Human.

The football hits Henry square in the chest, knocking him back a step and his face knits in irritation as he turns to go and get the ball. Corey calls him a name that isn't remotely kid-friendly. Caleb lets out a long hiss of a breath as he watches. He steps down further so he is right behind me.

He's a beautiful child. Thank you for bringing over the pictures. 

No problem. But he's not a child anymore. He's a man. Same as you all were at that age. 

If only. Caleb chuckles. They weren't men. They were goofballs with raging hormones and temper issues. Nothing has changed. I hope Henry fares better.

I nod. He's amazing. They both are. He knows I don't mean Corey. He knows I mean Ruth.

Corey clocks Henry in the head with the ball next and I grit my teeth. Henry's grown too big too fast to factor in easy coordination so he's a bit awkward yet. Standard operating procedure will be to beat that out of him, just like they did with each other. Hard lessons and rough plays all the way.

Henry calls time and then just as Corey turns away Henry drills the ball right into the backs of Corey's knees. Corey yells MotherFUCKER, giving me a helpless look. Henry laughs. He holds his own. He's one of them now.

He's just not allowed to swear yet.

Naked pretenses.

I woke up because it was hard to breathe. There's Lochlan, in my face, all of his weight pinning me to the bed. He seems comfortable. He smiles. You're staying right here today because I'm making you, Peanut. Oh. He's going to assert his authority without any clothes on even.  

Why?

Because I can.

What about church?

Sam can pray for your soul. You don't have to be present. You have connections. 

The kids-

It's Caleb's day. 

Ben-

Has already gone. 

I have some things I want to do. 

He grins. They can wait. 

I have to pee. 

Nope, he laughs.

I try a different tack. People will be looking for me! They know I'm here-

Nice try, Bridge. 

I give up and he remains there. Kissing my eyelashes, nuzzling his nose up under mine. All low and quiet. Content.

I have to wreck this. Just because I need to win and I really want to get up.

Locket? I'm...so.....so hungry. 

Oh come on! So not fair. He lifts off and throws his weight down beside me. Why you have to play THAT card? 

(Loch has massive PTSD from the summers when we didn't actually make enough to eat properly and had to steal instead. He calls it battle fatigue though.)

Because I can. 

Wow. You win. But I will return! He shakes his fist mightily.

Right, okay then. Want some waffles?

Oh yeah. That would be good right now.