Hot Damn.

Someone asked what my favorite song was. It sometimes changes by the hour and sometimes it sticks for weeks or years even, but right now?

It's this. 

(I would imbed the video but I'm a Luddite and mobile readers just see a blank white space. I don't know how to fix that so click through and watch. It's worth it!)

Growing up, love was contagious.

My dance card is super-full today and I love it.

 Nothing like everyone noticing I was starting to fall behind. Christmas is stressful. There's extra traffic/calories/projects/chores/errands/shopping/ and of course, bills.

I pay bills, thanks. In blood, sweat and tears, no less.

There's extra stress when you get bad news or when you can't just gather up every single person you love in one room. There are teenagers with broken hearts and men hanging on to a wagon with all their might. There are assumptions and expectations and there is ruinous greed. There is pure selflessness. There is heart. Magic. There is something.

There is something.

I always try to figure it out. It used to hit mid-Elementary school concert like a wallop from a fluffy snowball but now there are no more concerts because high schoolers. Picky, funny high schoolers who will hopefully love their presents and while I wanted to give them everything they've ever wanted, I didn't. Because you can't. You shouldn't, anyway.

And then there are the boys who have given up so much but yet take so much at the same time. No more motorbikes, loads more affection. No leaving at the end of the day/meal/activity traded for the glaringly obvious privacy issues. All the juggling and balancing I could ever want for in practice watching over a house full of different personalities even as they sometimes are not all that different, right down to having the same clothes, as I discovered when I went to put away laundry yesterday and found three of the same flannel shirts. I thought someone had lent his out. I thought they were playing tricks on me. I didn't realize maybe they are that much alike sometimes.

Makes them easier to love. I know what I'm up against.

They all kind of stop and wait at once, reaching back with encouragement and smiles and hands held out. Waiting for little Bridget to catch up, tripping on roots and scrambling over rocks as fast as her short little legs will carry her, face and knees filthy, shirt ruined, shoes and braids caked in mud.

It was one of those times where I just came to a skidding halt in the half-light, standing fifty feet back underneath and slightly behind the trees. Frustrated. Incompetent. Not as capable. Scared. And I would wait because I knew he would come back and then I would get a piggyback ride the rest of the way to the ball field and that would be easier than trying to keep up.

Late last night I finally had a chance to go and check on the Devil, who is settling back in and loved the special touches I took in preparing for his return. He kissed my cheek and told me my arrival called for something special and he opened a bottle of champagne, pouring two glasses. He brought one to me and suggested we take them outside to look at the lights.

Outside it was cool so he put his suitjacket around my shoulders, telling me to close my eyes.

Then he disappeared.

I waited forever, starting to shiver. Now it's raining in my champagne and yeah. I told him I could only wait another moment and I started to count. I heard him come back before I got to twenty-five and he said Open your eyes, Neamhchiontach.

When I did, the whole cove was lit up. The boat was lined with lights, the dock, the roof, the path (from what I could see) and then along the beach right around to the end of the point. Tiny white fairy lights, like the ones from Sam and Matt's wedding but on a much grander scale.

Wow.

Caleb held up his glass and said To being with family for the holidays, as if we are related. I clinked my glass to his and drank it all, even though I knew it would give me a blistering headache in the space of five minutes.

He watched my face until he couldn't bear to watch me struggle with my expressions any longer, and then he walked me back to the side door of my house, took his jacket back, kissed my cheek and shoved me inside.

He was always the one who came back for me. The one with endless patience and kindness and generosity where the others would be caring but anxious, always in a rush. always fed up with having to wait or go slow or keep checking. Caleb took it upon himself to carry me. He was the biggest, the oldest, the nicest.

Until the day Lochlan decided it was his job, and that's when everything changed. Now they struggle with who is allowed to care. Who is allowed to help or play the jester or who is allowed to occupy my time, what lines are drawn in front of which shoes and who is bad touch and who is not. Adult problems and childlike solutions. Nothing ever changes here.

Factory reject.

I'm not very good to myself.

I ration things for myself like coffee, warm baths, painkillers, alcohol, sleep, sweet dreams and breaks like a drill sergeant and then I wait until I'm hanging by a thread, til the nightmares catch up with me, til I'm not sleeping through the night more often than I am, until my nerves are riddled with holes, until I realize I walk around holding my breath and the headaches have reached critical mass and then I implode slowly, from the inside out, a distant scream sounding faintly in my ears that just grows louder and louder until I can't hear anyone anymore, can't do anything right and can't pull myself up over the edge of the hole I fell into because I'll suddenly weigh tons instead of ounces and it's too much for me to deal with by myself.

I wish sometimes that the screaming would just start on the outside and drive them crazy instead of me. They would hear it long before I do, before I even know what's happening.

That would be so nice.

But my brain doesn't work like that. Sometimes I think it doesn't work at all. Sometimes I think it was a practice brain with a wiring diagram posted beside it but no one checked to see that it was done right and hoo, boy, will they be surprised someday, when it's cracked open like a coconut and they will peer into its depths and nod somberly.

Yes, this explains everything. 

I donated my body to science after I die but at this rate I'm going to give it to them early, just rip off my skull and hand it to them and say here, it's a present. Just tell me I was right. Tell me you'll never let a practice brain go off the assembly line without being inspected ever again, because it really wasn't fair to me or to the people I love. 

But they're not real so they'll just stand there unfeeling, still nodding robotically like mass-produced bobble-heads. Like me. The test subject. The practice girl. The not-quite-ready-for-the-real-world girl after all.

With no off switch, no filters, hearing messed up completely and the weird uncanny ability to conjure up imaginary holes that she then falls into for real, breaking all her limbs and all of her resolve too.

Why would you fight over that? 

Hooks and loops.

I didn't realize how much I was missed until Caleb came home last night and then proceeded to show up bright and early for breakfast today and after helping to clean up he has proceeded to follow me around for half the day.

My reaction to this? Horrifically, brutally flattered.

I'm that awesome? DAMN RIGHT I AM.

Ben actually told him to skedaddle at one point. I wonder if anyone even uses that word anymore. Oh wait, BEN does. Ben was as impressed as Lochlan was with Caleb's attempts to 'catch up' and 'get ahead of all the news here at home' and various sundry bits of information about how much Henry grew in the few weeks Caleb was away and what the kids got for marks and how Duncan is doing with being home from camp.

(They call it 'camp'. Ben does. Caleb does. Pretty much everyone does as if you can drink your face off, go on a nice cushy woodsy vacation and then come home and be coddled forever. It makes me want to cry. You should have seen the dirty looks when I corrected them by saying re-hab-il-it-ta-tion really slowly like a little asshole.)

Duncan is doing great. As long as *I* don't talk to him he does great. If I talk to him he gets all shaky and weird and 911s someone else to take him to a meeting.

Because camp. Maybe he should have stayed longer. Unless this is going to be one of those things where we spend the money three times over before it takes. I think they throw a wrench in the works just before they send everyone home the first few times just to keep the money train rolling.

But like I said, I'm a little asshole.

Especially when I'm trying to catch the Devil up on news about his son and everyone keeps redirecting me, or telling him to leave. Let me get this done and then I'll send him home. All it did is drag it out for the whole morning and then finally I ran out of news and told Caleb that any further information could be had from Joel who did his due diligence in Caleb's absence and probably has a host of interesting 'notes' about me.

But Caleb looked so sad when I said it and there, I should just wear a sign that says 'Little Asshole. Enquire within'.

I'll make it when he leaves, which at this rate will be never. I missed him a lot too but YEESH. He's doing that thing where he's super-perfect and he's smiling and that's how we know he's up to something. Couldn't even make it a whole day before that happened.

Well. Wow. Here's a longtime wish coming true.

U2 tickets-CHECK.

The Devil is in the details.

Ben calls it Loched. 

The way I wake up barricaded in Lochlan's arms. Stuck against him. Overheated. Completely limber, fluid. Hot. He doesn't let go, not anymore and I sleep wrapped up in his arms with his hand cradling the back of my head, my cheek against his collarbone, my eyes heavy and seeing in dreams.

My toes stick out the bottom of the quilt in the middle, though. I wouldn't be able to do it otherwise. I would self-immolate. I would perish.

In spite of Ben's cutesy term for it, I still don't think he appreciates it at all even as he says he doesn't mind, because he can't sleep any way but flat on his back like a vampire. I don't think that's exactly true because I remember things differently and he often revises small bits of history just to keep the peace.

And it was peaceful but now the Devil is on his way home, having been picked up at the airport by Joel, eager to report, no doubt, trying and failing to straddle the line between trusted and turncoat.

This exasperates me and at the same time I had a great weekend and am looking forward to seeing Caleb because it's been several weeks and I've had more than a few moments where I felt very cold and open, sick to my stomach thanks to his absence only because I can't stand to have anyone missing.

He will take it personally.

I'll let him.

He is on his way (any minute now) and I'm beating double-time from the inside out, fairly thrumming with anticipation. He says he bought all our Christmas gifts overseas and that he can't wait to give them to us. He says he can read and that we didn't have to have his house cleaned and stocked in his absence, that he's decided to extend his time off until the beginning of the new year because enough is enough and his exhaustion was barely touched by a week of rest. That maybe he will let go of some things.

I wonder if he means me.

The boys here are not as anxious to see him, stuck between loyalty to the one who pays the lions' share of this life altogether (me) and the need for autonomy within. Torn by their strong desire to protect me while at the same time respecting history and my own desires to flout the past and find a future in this, somehow.

Maybe.

We shall see.

I have a proposal of my own to present. And while absolutely no one is going to like it, I think it's perfect.

How I spent my day.

Naughty or...yeah, you know how this goes.

Shhhh. 

While the team of people are cleaning all three houses (because Merry Christmas, guys) I had New Jake help me cart all of the boys and kids presents into the library (cleaned first) and I'm wrapping and labeling today, up to my neck in ribbon, having gone through four rolls of tape already.

The doors are locked, the music is loud (I'm playing Pallbearer's version of Gloomy Sunday on a loop) and I still have half a thermos full of coffee. Yay! 

He's a hunter.

I feel like the universe is trying to tell me something today. My lipstick is called 'Underage Red'. My nailpolish? 'Black Out". 

***

Christian was over bright and early to scope out the kitchen before going to work. I'm not sure how his, Daniel's and John's first turn to cook involved wrecking MY kitchen when they have a larger one next door, technically speaking. Ours is more of a great room with a whole open seating thing plus a den with a fireplace so you can actually hang out there all day and be perfectly content. I have normal sized appliances. There is never enough fridge or oven space and we'll fix that in the future but not until something breaks because I'm not one of those people who just magically decides they hate what they have and replaces it all.

It has to be necessary.

But next door they have a butler's pantry and a separate station for baking and a cold storage section in the cupboards and a giant double fridge and a gas stove. Marble-topped everything. It's a cooks dream.

I never go in there.

Christian tells me dinner is pork tenderloin, grilled. Rice and maybe turnip. Fresh tomato slices and cake for dessert.

I did stick around for the meal last night and it didn't disappoint. I wasn't sure Keith had any kitchen skills past opening beers. I filed that away for future reference because when I ask for help usually he is magically busy or 'not so good with that stuff' as he told me point blank once.

The big LIAR. It was perfect.

I actually think they're easily intimidated by two things. Firstly, the sheer number of people sitting down to a meal here. In two shifts no less so not only do you cook for a dozen or two but you have to figure out how to keep enough and make sure it's still hot for round two without drying out.

Secondly, Caleb and Ben over the years have taken me to some pretty exciting places where I have proven myself to be both adventurous and discerning when it comes to dinner so there are standards to keep.

?

This is at odds with my incredible love of breakfast sandwiches and deep-fried anything and Kraft Dinner, I know.

I can have both, can't I?

And PJ wasn't watching porn when I went down to see how he was enjoying his break.

He was watching Pitch Perfect. Which just about made my day. That's where the title of my post came from. Worth it just for that one line.

Rises and sets. Rises and sets.

Here I am
Playing with those memories again

A final set of x-rays this morning and Lochlan has gotten his all-clear. No permanent damage that we know of. No lasting effects from inhaling fuel at Ruth's birthday party during his fire-breathing show and most important of all, no well-meaning lectures about considering putting his torches away for good. It won't happen. This man is made of flames.

The relief? Palpable. Tangible. Heavy. I was crushed underneath it just walking out of the hospital and then was pulled out by my hand just as my last breath began to leak my life away.

Told you I was fine, he says. There's no room for gratitude here, he has already moved on. I run to catch up.

There's no harm in feeling grateful that you weren't hurt worse. 

What purpose does it serve? I'll take responsibility for what I do to myself. 

I trip on his words and fall behind but I don't think he's even noticed. He's done with this. Done with doctors and hospitals and machines and instead of thanking his lucky stars that he's in a time and place where he can get help if he needs it he just laments the wasting of the time that he could have used in a better way. When he drops me off in the driveway at home before heading in to Schuyler's office he tells me I worry too fucking much and he doesn't know where I get that from. I turn around ready to tell him exactly where it came from but then he drives off before I even get an I love you or a See you soon out of my mouth, if I would have picked something nice to say instead.

When I go inside Keith and Gage are...making dinner.

And not just any dinner. They are making coleslaw from scratch, eggplant parmesan and actual bread. It's rising on the windowsill with my favorite Irish linen tea towel over it. Duncan is slicing cabbage at the sideboard and Dalton is filling ice cube trays. I am speechless. Gage smiles and elbows Duncan who starts talking as if he is a little kid reading from a cue card, words all mashed together and robot-like. It's adorable.

We decided as a group that since you do so much for us and work so hard that we're going to take turns cooking dinner each night in order to give you the break that you deserve. We love you, Bridget.

Ben appears from the side door. He has some jars of spices stolen from Caleb's house. He doesn't know where I keep mine. I'll need to fix that.

Where is PJ? 

We sent him to a spa. 

No, seriously. What have you done with him?

I don't know, Bridge! He's probably downstairs watching porn. 

Why would you think that?

Wouldn't you be doing that if you didn't have to cook dinner right now?

Yes. That's exactly what I'd be doing. Watching porn.

Ben shoos me out of the kitchen. Then get at it. We have work to do. 

I look at the single casserole dish that Keith is layering food into and ask How many for dinner? 

Huh? He asks.

What's the headcount for tonight?

 Twelve. Give or take John and Loch if they make it home in time. 

You're going to need two more of those pans then. 

Seriously?

Dude. This is like a prison kitchen.

Told ya, Ben says. (So proud, this one.)

I have a headache, I tell him. I think I'll skip the porn and quite possibly the meal if that's okay. 

Five sets of eyes tell me the disappointment they show won't be worth the break I get.

Okay, maybe I'll stay for a little. 

Five sets happy.

Loch is better, I point out. Eyes shoot all over the place.

Just in time for the Devil to come back, Duncan says.

Yeah, I know.