Meet my lizard kings: Meriadoc and Peregrin.

Eight-fifteen and the kids have gone to school after failing to secure any rides whatsoever today. If it's raining they can easily convince any one of the boys to drive them up the hill. If it isn't raining they must walk, for it builds character to make your own way.

Or something like that.

We try not to spoil them.

Or rather, I try not to and everyone around me does their very best to ignore my attempts to make tough, resilient, self-reliant humans. You know, everything I am not.

Caleb comes around the side of the house to the front porch where we are languishing with the last of the contents of the teapot and the headlines and says Neamhchiontach. 

I see Duncan shake his head just once.

This won't be good.

Yes? I ask. I don't know what he wants, truth be told. It's early. It's Monday. I have no plans other than a trip down the road to the store because we need milk and juice. I drank all of the juice. All of it. Not sorry.

Come. I need you for the morning. 

Duncan says, she's busy. You can't see that she's busy?

She doesn't look busy, Caleb states.

Well, she's very busy today. Dalton confirms this with the most beautiful smirk.

My eyebrows go up and I look back at Caleb. I'm so busy. I'll have to catch you another day. 

What are you busy with, precisely?

She's busy with...things. 

Yes, things. 

I'm busy with things, Diabhal. If you give me a little warning next time I can try to fit in a little time for you. 

If we finish the things.

Yes, but these are ongoing things. 

Who do I have to thank for your bodyguards this morning? Pyro? Benjamin? 

I heard it was PJ. 

Really? I thought it was Sam. 

You said Batman! (I jump in because this is too much fun suddenly.)

Maybe it was...God himself. Dalton makes his chin quiver and I laugh.

Christ almighty. (Caleb is so done.)

That would be his son, yes, it could have been him too! Dalton suggests this and Duncan nods enthusiastically.

Bridget, I'll talk to you later today, when your fan club gets bored. 

We're not fans. To have fans you have to do extraordinary things. She doesn't do anything extraordinary. 

Well, not to us anyway. 

Probably for the best. That would be so distracting. 

Speak for yourself, idiot! 

(I called him the Hot-Ness Monster once. He did not approve.)

I drew a four of swords this morning and almost dropped the whole tarot deck on the kitchen floor. I always wanted the fortune teller's job as a child because she had all the answers if only you would ask her the questions. I wanted to wear big golden hoops in my ears and stand in the doorway just after sunset, accepting cash from the hopeful who would pay anything for me to tell them what to do. Nevermind that ninety percent of it was bullshit. Ten percent was still the truth and that's all that mattered.

I'm not feeling better today, in fact, I'm feeling a whole lot worse but I'm going to grin and bear it because that's what one does when one is me. Today feels a little edgy and whole lot helpless as if the tiny part of me that is missing Ben so badly but is hiding like a spark under a pile of dried twigs is just going to erupt and spread like wildfire until there is nothing left of anything.

I can't let that happen so the part that is angry at him prevails until further notice.

And Happy Mother's Day. For me it's like being a Christmas baby in that Mother's Day and my birthday are too close together to have two celebrations so other than eating dinner outside (a special treat because BUGS, they hate them) and perhaps a fire show at sunset from THAT guy, it's going to be quiet.

However, I'm going to stretch out in the shade and read all afternoon. I got the entire set of Outlander novels for my birthday and so far they are very good.

(So very, VERY good.)

A woman who's in love with two men, one of whom is a redheaded Scottish highlander who is difficult and one on the fringe? No, I don't know anyone who would want to read something like that.

Oh my GOD, this book is about us. 

Not hardly. I'm a Midlander, if anything. 

True. And I wouldn't miss Frank. Not even for a minute. 

Because he's boring?

Well, that and because he's no Jamie. 

What's so good about Jamie? She doesn't even know him. 

She doesn't have to! He has red hair and an accent! Nothing else is required! 

Maybe Claire is a little too shallow for her own good. 

Eh, she's holding out so I doubt it. 

She's holding out? Then what's the rub? 

I have no idea, they just had a drink together though so it's inevitable?

What is?

Torrid eighteenth-century sex, naturally.

Oh, I see. You're reading historical porn?

No, I told you. They just had a drink. Give me a few hundred pages and then probably, yes I am.

I wish the fortune teller could have told me that! 

Why? What would you have done differently?

I would never have taught you to read! 

I could read before I met you, Lochlan, Jesus! 

Dr. Seuss doesn't count, Bridget. 

Too bad. I could have written a sequel. Oh, the Assholes you know!

Is that right? But he's laughing. He's laughing and he didn't stop for half the morning. Every time he looked at me he would burst out laughing again.

Short rounds.

I spent part of my morning with the nice older Russian doctor today, since Caleb requested him as a favor. No doubt he'll have to pay that favor back but at least I wasn't subject to a laundry list of all the things I could enhance if only I wanted to look...better.

I just want to feel better, that's all. The kidney infection didn't clear up completely and came roaring back yesterday and by this morning I was ready to throw in the towel and start googling black market kidneys.

You probably just needed a stronger antibiotic, they said.

It will be fun, they said.

This is so not fun, I pointed out but they didn't want to hear that. I don't even want to say it.

But I'm on the mend (again). Ben called and is Concerned but Concern does little from there and if he comes home now he's out more than he'll make. I have lots of nursemaids in his absence. Big ones with beards and one Devil who bought stole my soul and was supposed to give me a perfect life in return but things keep getting stuck in the gears.

I'll be okay.

As always, it's beautiful when Loch and Caleb get along as they both fuss over me without turning it into a competition.

I may still google the possibility of buying a kidney or two. A pair and a spare? Just in case? Do you think they cost less than Cirque Du Soleil because that was so far out of my means I almost cried. Even with Batman's resources added in. It was phenomenal and it wasn't even remotely enough.

From Miele to melee.

Caleb elaborated on the pool/spa/sauna installation, saying it will be the perfect prescription for rehabilitation for Daniel once his cast comes off, and will be good for anything, really. That it's less recreation and more therapy. The pool itself isn't going to be very big. I'm kind of glad. I pictured a large sterile rectangular eyesore. This will be built into the landscape and be part of it, not apart from it.

The deep end will be nine feet maximum. Good. Any deeper than that and I scream because Cole convinced me there were sea monsters nipping at my legs under the surface when I was little and I still kind of believe him only it spilled over from the ocean to regular pools and it's very hard for me to go over my head without a lot of mental distractions, which is ironic considering I say I go off the deep end all the time. (Reap what you sow, Princess.)

Ben called, asked if I was good and then hung up. Then Loch's phone rang and he and Ben talked for over an hour. About Daniel, about me. About the Devil. About the arrangement we have and what state it will be in this August.

About that threat.

Lochlan downplayed it, which is so easy for him to do when he didn't tell Ben that he already ambushed Caleb at breakfast this morning, piledriving him into the dishwasher and then they rolled under the table, throwing fists so hard you would think someone was angry about something.

It took me over two hours to get the blood out of three shirts. The third shirt belonged to August, who put his hand up to block Lochlan from jumping back in and wound up flat on his back clutching Loch against him. Loch is still flailing at this point and had to be talked down. That fell to Sam, who has no use for Devils and was anxious to soothe Lochlan. I would have but Dalton carried me out of the room so that I wouldn't be hit by stray fists/chairs/plates. August would have but it was taking every ounce of energy he had just to hold Lochlan back.

Again, don't be too dismayed. They've been brawling on the floor since before puberty. So just about forty years, all told. Not a lot changes. They're competition. They're fine with it. Caleb throws out this bait and Loch takes it and runs because Loch is stubborn, obstinate and pure and Caleb is a reckless singularly-focused nightmare. They goad each other until the whole mess boils over. You should have heard them yelling as they struggled. I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I feel like I should maybe crawl off and down between the cracks in the floorboards and disappear but then they would find something else to fight over.

I guess soon they'll be able to do it in the pool. At least the water will be marginally softer than the kitchen appliances, one of which now needs to be replaced and better come before any ground-breaking for pools takes place. In the meantime, they can take turns washing dishes.

I don't even live here! complains Caleb.

Thank fuck, Loch says. He's gingerly feeling the top of his ear where he was clipped by a fist. It's the only good hit Caleb got in.

Caleb, on the other hand, looks like a prize-fighter fresh out of the ring. His face is wrecked and bruised but he wouldn't let me look at it.

Maybe I earned it, he said. But you're worth it.

Child of Bees.

Seventeen, all he's ever seen
Is living in between the lies
It's kind of funny how a mind
Can keep living in denial

Eighteen is a very strange scene
He's still playing with the past
Expelled, maybe someone could've helped
If someone had known to ask

Hey, look what you did to me
When you were taking me home
Getting me stoned
Leave me alone

The Devil is describing his plans for an in-ground lap pool/sauna/jacuzzi arrangement when I make my way out to the boys that are standing in a loose semi-circle. John bends at the knee and I jump on his back, looping my arms around his neck as he stands back up straight, his hands coming up under my knees. Caleb meets my eyes and loses his train of thought completely. PJ reminds him instantly and he continues on but he doesn't look at me again.

The pool will be in Daniel and Schuyler's yard, technically. They have a huge rock wall and a larger flatter expanse of yard before the cliff. I should know, I carved the whole damn thing up the night I took my epic naked motorcycle ride. So much room. It's going to be amazing. I nod along with everyone.

But really I'm not impressed.

(I hate pools.)

(Also hot tubs. I hate those too.)

(Did you know the province I was born and raised in has seven thousand, six hundred kilometres of seacoast? Right. Who needs pools? Salt trumps chlorine any day.)

(A sauna might be okay though)

Then they all head back inside and I am dropped gently back to ground. I stay in that spot though and Caleb turns back to stare at me. The wind is ruffling his hair ever so slightly. His medium blues are washed out in the cloudy brightness. His expression is terrible.

PJ grabs my hand. Come, Bridge.

In a minute.

Want me to wait with you?

No, I'm fine.

PJ looks at Caleb and Caleb meets his eyes. I won't keep her long, the Devil says, his words flat, expressionless. PJ accepts that for some reason I can't comprehend, heading inside. He knows better than to bite the hand that feeds him. He is the pet bird of the Devil and he doesn't even know it. I chew on that hand like a dog.

Happy Birthday, Dollface. I have something for you at the house. It seems there was a concentrated effort to keep me from you on your big day. 

It wasn't that big a day and it was pure coincidence. They weren't trying to prevent birthday wishes but you know that already. 

What is the plan, Neamhchiontach?

For what? I'm waiting for Ben to come back.

I'm well aware of what you're all doing. Don't play coy with me. I never liked that.

I'm waiting. For Ben. To come back. Was I not loud enough?

Belligerence isn't a good plan.

Neither are demands!

Is your plan to stick it to me by marrying Pyro before he turns fifty? Just to twist my screws a little more? Does he think you'll suddenly stop coming to me if you're married? Like you stopped with Jake except you didn't and we all know how that turned out. Hell, you've never dropped either of us in spite of any new husband you've taken up. I hope Lochlan doesn't expect that to change suddenly.

We're not getting married for a long long time, if at all.

Bridget, regardless of when, this is one life choice I can't allow and I have put up with a lot from you over the years. You left my brother and took away his childen, you took up with Jacob who assaulted me, you remained in league with Loch even as I warned you to stay away from him, and now you're slowly trying to shut me out again. I wouldn't advise that at this point in your life but you keep at it as if it's going to work somehow.

I wouldn't. We have to coparent. 

Then what? What is the plan?

Well, according to you I'm going to marry Lochlan and you're going to walk away from me. You've got it figured out already, I guess.

What about Cole?

He's gone. At some point I'll have to say goodbye. It isn't him that I come for anymore anyway. It's you.

Neamhchiontach, if you say things like that, don't expect me to walk away from you without the biggest fight Lochlan's ever seen. 

Wow. 

Yes, wow. Wow would be the biggest understatement of your lives. Bigger than an amusement park, bigger than the circus, bigger than anything you could even imagine. So yes. Wow. 

In his brother's absence Daniel became keeper of the pipes again and busted out an incredible (and terrible) rendition of Happy birthday, held up by Schuyler because he doesn't have a walking cast yet and you can't play bagpipes sitting on yer arse, as Loch helpfully pointed out.

Yes, he was still drunk. Why do you ask? He was rough and affectionate last night and told me point-blank that he's afraid of me. Afraid of the way I make him feel. And that he's got to deal with it before we take another step. There is so much baggage involved we might need to rent a van. Or perhaps a cargo plane.

And I don't know if I'm willing to tie him down in the way that people expect. I mean, I've tried in the past and it's blown up in my face. Fourth time's the charm or give up already because you can't pin down a man who manipulates fire for a living? Or took you with him when he ran off to join the circus for that matter? It's like pinning flames to a moving target.

You'll get burned.

I've been burned. I have scars. Maybe we just have to get to a place where we're older and wiser and less hung up on what's right or what's 'best'. Not sure if I know where that place is, though. The plane will know. The plane carrying our baggage. Maybe we can catch a ride on it.

In the meantime we listen to the agony bags squeezed like never before because birthdays, thank God there are two or three a month around here, because Daniel really needs the practice. 

The day Ben turned into someone mature and together.

Ben called first thing this morning.

Happy birthday, my Bumblebee. I wish I was there. 

I wish you were here too. 

You okay? 

I don't know. 

I'll be home soon. 

No you won't. You won't be home for months. 

Pretend I'm in treatment.

You probably will be by the end of this. I might be too. 

And Loch. Is he still smashed?

Yes he's still drunk in his sleep, if you can believe it. 

He's not good with pressure. How the hell did you guys ever manage to put on a show together if you both run full bore on pure terror all the time. 

Drugs and cash. 

Makes sense. 

I'm kidding. Jesus. That was instant gratification. This is a life decision, not a aerial performance and definitely not a magic show. 

He could be so cool but the paralysis really takes away from the whole picture. He's a huge fraidy-dork. 

Just like me. 

Naw. You're a tiny little fraidy-dork. You two are going to self-destruct before I even cross the ocean. 

Then why did you leave?

Because it's time to see if you can make this work together. You've waited your whole life for this show, Bridget. Go and be the star. 

I'm not a star. I'm a burned out asteroid, Ben. I'm a fragment. I'm not..

You're a 'naut? What kind of 'naut? 

A stupidnaut. Ridicu-naut. Lamenauts. Paralynauts.

How about fraidynauts for now. Tomorrow you can be bravenauts. 

Why tomorrow? 

Because today is your birthday and if anyone pressures you to do anything other than enjoy the day I'll fucking kill them from here.

Cold light.

I present to Batman this morning, because he was loud and insistent and I wanted him to just stop already.

He is pacing. He is upset. I don't even know why.

Let me see if I have this straight. He picked a fight and then went out again, not planning to be back until the end of next season, effectively leaving you and Lochlan legally married to each other and he did all of this two days before your birthday? 

I nod and sip my coffee. He looks so pained when he gets confirmation. I am barely upset.

I'll speak with him. 

You'll do nothing of the kind. This is what Ben does. Also we're not married to each other yet. Might not even bother. We'll see what happens.

Ben hasn't done this for five years. What gives? 

An opportunity he couldn't pass up right now. He has my blessing. 

No offence, Princess, but your blessing isn't enough. Who authorized him to do this? Especially right now? 

I told you, I did. I'm not going to stand between Ben and his livelihood. He needs a break from all this. 

What about you? Where's your break?

The Devil doesn't give me any space to have one. 

Sounds sometimes like you don't actually mind that. 

My turn to look pained.

He bit you again and they let it slide. 

I bit him back and this isn't your business. 

You are my business. The welfare of all of you is important to me. You need advocates who can be effective, Bridget. 

I have a whole army here, remember?

An army you talk out of action on a regular basis. You charm them, they look the other way.

I need to go. Lochlan's going to wake up soon. 

Is he going to spend the summer drunk, talking about the good old days when you were young and he got all your attention?

You're welcome to come for dinner tonight, as long as you precede your visit with an apology for what you just said. 

I won't apologize for speaking the truth, Bridget. 

Then eat by yourself! 

A road paved with diamonds and a road paved with dirt.

While I was in church this morning, dressed in my smart pale pink Chanel suitdress (courtesy of Caleb), trying to stay awake while parked between Duncan and Christian, Lochlan was sitting on the front steps sharing his morning worship with the bottle of Auchentoshan that we keep hidden for celebrations and emergencies alike. 

When we came home, he raised the bottle and I realized I had no idea which occasion this was, a celebration or an emergency. I'm not sure he did either, judging by his lack of clarity in speaking to me. 

Duncan and Christian went straight in after greeting him and telling him to not have any more, that it's early. Ruth might want to do something today. He nodded and gave up the bottle to Chris, who took it inside with him, leaving me halfway up the front steps waiting for an explanation. 

Sorry, Peanut. It's sometimes far better to check out of a stressful situation than to face it like a man. 

Is that what Ben did?

Ben? What? No, me. The drink. I mean, I'm sorry. He smiles and it disarms me, melting my resolve just enough for me to need to grip the railing because I'm guessing the resolve hardens in my knees. Now it's gone, and they're weak. Don't smile at me like that. Don't call me your circus peanut. Don't be so fucking cute and helpless and afraid and in love. This kills me and they'll blame you when they find my corpse. 

I don't think I can handle this.

What this do you mean, Locket? 

Look at you. You're so pretty and clean and sweet and high-class with your pretty designer dress and your fancy shoes and the cavalcade of cars going up the road in a neighborhood so fancy everyone has gates. Look at you sugar-babying your way through life running this sort of mean balance between princess and freak. I cannot give you this. This seems so you now though. Where's my girl with the sugar smile and the bloody knuckles from trying so hard to help me tear down rides so we could get home faster? My life won't have mansions and fancy dresses and big fridges stocked with groceries I can't pronounce. My life isn't this. I'm a transient in my own existence. What's going to happen when you decide you want that easy, pretty life and I can't provide it for you? You move so easily between being two people. Fancy Bridget of the point and Firebaby. My little filthy, hungry shadow. I can give the shadow everything. I don't even think I know the fancy girl. 

I strip out of my jacket and my shoes and call for Chris to bring the bottle back. He does in a few minutes with a confused look on his face. I thank him and he disappears again. I pull the cork out of the top and take a big gulp, letting it burn off my hypocrisy and and I tell Lochlan that I don't think I know the fancy girl either and I think he's forgotten that you can take the girl out of the circus but you can't ever take the circus out of the girl. 

I ask him if he's going to be okay with this. That we have received a gift from Ben and it would be a waste to let it sit. 

A gift? Naw, Peanut. We worked for this. We earned this, fair and square. I'm just trying to decide if I'm worthy to be in charge of you on my own.

Signed, sealed, delivered.

Well, the Devil doesn't like this. Not one bit. Ben finally addressed him, telling him what he could expect and what he expected in return because unlike Caleb, Ben has the full support of the entire point. Including Batman, though Caleb himself is responsible for furnishing the collective with what we have now. It's a fine balance and by giving me so much power in his weaker moments, Caleb essentially signed away his rights to be outraged, or to force issues at all in certain areas.

The politics here are exhausting.

But as Ben sees it, there's truly no downside for anyone here. 

Except for his glaring absence which will flay me alive. 

He doesn't think it will. 

We agreed to disagree. 

And with that he goes back on the road.

Just for a few months, he says.

Though a few months is a lifetime to me.

You're in such good hands, he says.

Good hands are a curse and a blessing to me.

I'll be home soon, he says.

You better, I threaten. But there's nothing behind my threats except the empty hole where he once took his place, promising me he would never leave again. 

Leave your baggage at the door. You're not going to need it on this trip.

Ben came home, as always in the middle of the night, by surprise, scaring me when I woke up smelling kerosene and I thought we were in our trailer on the road and Lochlan smelled like gas all the time. Everytime he lit a smoke I would close my eyes expecting to be blown to kingdom come by virtue of proximity but he would laugh and assure me he washed his hands. Or at least, he thought he had.

I was pulled up out of my sleepy fog and straight into Ben's lap and I put my head back down against his shoulder as his hands slid down underneath my hips and lifted me over and over. He whispered that he needed to plug in and recharge and I would have laughed but I didn't get it and asked him why he didn't go to sleep if he was so tired.

Missed my girl, he said.

Finally he put me down and I was back at the fair in seconds. Loch's arm went around me from somewhere in the dark and Ben sacked out flat on his back and yet I was still surprised to see him when I opened my eyes this morning.

***

Green cashmere underpants, skinny jeans and a striped t-shirt (so very Jean Seberg) today as I wait for my inspection by the Devil. He wants to know when Ben got back and I blush. He wants to inspect my shoulder from last week and I wince. Two stitches. The Devil is getting better. He had five stitches of his own this time. My teeth are small and sharp. I said we tore each other to bits and I wasn't kidding. We would kill each other if given half a chance but I don't even want a quarter of one. It was a mercy fuck. I just don't know who dispensed the mercy and who received it because we are equally pathetic and I was trying to prove a point.

(I did, in case you're wondering. Can't trust a carny.)

But the Devil doesn't want to compare healing speeds or plan his next assault. He wants to make sure I'm still of the proper mindset. The approved one. The satisfactory-smug one.

Hell, no, I laugh to cover my fear. Because now things have changed. Again.

I leave before he kills me. It seems like one of those days. A sunny inconsequential Friday is the perfect day to wring someone's skinny little neck, don't you think?

***

In between those things the three of us (no, not Caleb) lay in bed at sunrise talking. And listening. And plotting and planning and promising and working out kinks (not those kind) and coming to terms with change. And absence. And culminations. And last names.

And dreams too. Those stupid things you hang onto stubbornly, for so long you forget how it felt when you made them until the day arrives when they come true. All at once. Just like that.

(Don't be so foolish. It's never just like that. It took thirty-five years, all told and we're not done yet.)

Pluto is important.

(Who am I trying to convince here? Him? Myself? You?)

There is a polar ice cap on Pluto. Neat news to see the day AFTER I title an entry Polar Eyes, though that was more in relation to the polarizing effect Ben's tinkering with our arrangement has on the entire collective and how divided they will become over things that are not their concern.

But I get it. These things ARE their concern. Just as I am concerned that if Pluto has ice and NASA has interest, then perhaps it's time we reinstated it as an official planet. It belongs. Just like Ben belongs here and I daresay he better not have engineered this whole thing as a favor to a friend, eventually being in a good position to hand me over formally because if that's the case I'll be heartbroken. Touched but completely heartbroken.

I thought he needed me but it was the other way around and I am a little surprised at myself but it's very easy to say and do things when you have everything you ever wanted within reach. I'm aware that the circumstances of our arrangements leave me spoiled and in a position to pretend I don't have preferences. All I know is that when I fall asleep at night and everyone is home and I'm the bed meat in a manbread sandwich I have a smile on my face and that's an amazing turn from not so long ago.

However there is no sandwich right now as this week is just for two and one of the two is hardly speaking to the other one, locked in some sort of incredulous dismay that things aren't turning out as he expected.

I imagine that's exactly how Pluto felt when it didn't qualify as an official planet and had to be content to be backburnered.

But just like the space news tells me today, things can always change.

Polar eyes.

I'm watching endless replays of Nik Wallenda walking the new Orlando Eye. He did a graceful turn up there and I held my breath as always. He combined two of my favorite things in life and I wasn't going to miss it. Funambulism on a wheel? Yes, I'll get up at four in the morning to watch you conquer that any damn day of my life.

***

My house is full of flowers. Sam and Matt had the most beautiful bouquet sent to us to thank us for the help and the musical rooms. They're loving their close but private quarters here. Sometimes there are growing pains. I'm grateful for PJ's generosity and Sam and Matt's willingness to stick things out. Also I'm grateful for black and white arrangements because damn, these are amazing. It's the most striking bouquet I've ever seen. I put it on the big table in the front hall.

Caleb also sent flowers. To celebrate Lochlan not making any legal, official headway in his life. Nice. They are beautiful. Palest pink roses, as always from Caleb. Still in tight buds and not opened at all. His note was terrible. I had to burn it before anyone else saw it. The flowers I put in the library. The delicate bisque urn they came in goes with the walls in there.

Ben sent riotous rainbow roses for our belated anniversary. We both like black but he always buys rainbow roses if he can because I insisted once there is a place where they grow like that and it isn't that they are artificially colored. He said of course there is and now here we are. So loud. Like him. I love them. They are on the island in the kitchen so I can look at them until he gets back Friday.

***

You are competition
Take your happy childhood with you
When you leave you go completely mad
Weird concepts seemed to disappoint us
Anyone who hangs a life
In pursuit they all just break down

Head to the sky
I'm pointing at it
Sunshine illuminate the desert
Sleeping like friends and now we are all smiling again

Lochlan is trying to sort out Sunshine Illuminate on the piano this morning. He's so incredibly pissed at me. Says I jump for everyone else like a fucking baby goat. Says I don't trust him one lick. Says this is all just bullshit and maybe he should go. Says flowers make his nose stuff up and his throat close. Says we should never ever have come home. Says someday I'm going to regret all this time I wasted in keeping him at arms length. Says to turn the music off, he's done.

***

Daniel fell off the roof of the stables and broke his tibia. He was scraping moss off the shingles (we forgot to have it sprayed after it was built, oy) and landed on the raised flower beds and boom. His house is also full of flowers. The good news is it's a spiral-twist sort of fracture and he is cast and home resting. We have a late spring plan to watch netflix and gain weight together. Ben's going to cut his trip short so he can also come and look at Danny and his new puffy white leg. We've started calling him Baymax and asking him how he feels every three minutes.

You have fallen, I told him.

You think? He returned Hiro's line without hesitating. He'll be okay. So heartwarming watching everyone dote on him. He's our big baby. Even Schuy took the remainder of this week off. He's a little rattled. The fall was high. Daniel could have broken his neck. At least a leg we can fix. Unlike hearts or necks, they are pretty straightforward.

***

PJ said his disappointment in me ranks a solid 9 out of 10 today. He said it at least three times before I finally snapped at him that had I forged ahead with Ben's plans we'd all be homeless and in the shits right now and he'd be mad about that.

Do you really think Loch would do that? I don't think that's what Ben has in mind.

Yes, I do. I see him dismantling everything we spent the last five years building here and he wouldn't hesistate for even a second.

Wow.

Tell me you'd do something different if it were you.

I can't do that, Bridge. 

***

August was weirdly supportive. Maybe keeping to his Jake-allegiance. Maybe just being a jerk about things. His built-in moral outrage is loud and funny, in a way. Just like Jake's used to be.

For God's sake. Spend five minutes catching your breath, would you? 

I just threw my arms around his neck and hung on, because that's the most sense I've heard all week.

Emotional bellhops.

(All of this concerns a valiant attempt to make like easier for Lochlan. An attempt to give him legal standing instead of symbolic. It would be better for him financially and as a parent. Overall it's ideal. But it's not ideal in so many other ways and would create more problems than it would solve.)

What if you did nothing? Backburnered it for later when things have smoothed out a bit. They move too fast, you move too slow. Just give it a little more time and then meet them halfway. 

Batman's voice was full of reason. It showed no hint of taking sides or pressuring me one way or another. It just put out the fire and then offered me a good belt of Laphroaig, because it's better than the Lagavulin but still tastes exactly like you imagine licking a gravestone would taste.

(Peat whiskey is amazing stuff.)

I was taking a big old sip when I realized he was on the phone with Ben.

Oh fuck.

He walked away down the hall and came back ten minutes later. My sipping whiskey (and his) was in my belly five minutes ago. I figured Ben would be ragey as fuck but when I took the phone from Batman Ben was very concerned that I actually went over everyone's heads and consulted the supreme ruler of everything that we all deny is more of an adult then the rest of us and also more powerful than Caleb.

He asked if I was okay and I nodded and forgot to answer. Then he asked if I wanted to wait and work with the idea until this winter or maybe next spring we could, that he just figured I was digging in because of some misguided attempt to protect him and that I'm sweet but he's okay with it. And that if we wanted to celebrate our wedding anniversary when he comes back, we should because we missed it and seven years is supposed to be lucky.

Seven years we almost didn't make it to, honestly, because of this.

He apologized but said he was trying to make life easier. There is no rush. Lochlan won't be so happy but really nothing changes so he can't be too upset either. That Caleb will be thrilled and I could tell he was rolling his eyes in tandem with me. Then he asked if I would do him one small favor, right away.

I nodded again while I waited to hear what it was.

Go home, okay, Bridge? I don't like it when you're there. 

Already gone. I pass the phone back to Batman and finish the last drop in my glass.

Batman wraps up the call and winks at me.

Feel a little better?

Yes, thank you. 

Anytime. If you'd like to stay for dinner, I would love to cook for you. 

Among other things. No, but thank you. I have plans with Loch. 

Loch is working for me tonight. 

Habit. Whoops. I meant Sam and Matt. 

They went up to Whistler today. 

I have to go. If I stay that would be bad. You understand. 

Mostly, yes. But it makes me sad. 

Not impartial at all, are you? 

Not in the least.

Maybe, baby.

Will you ever learn, will you ever learn, will you ever learn, learn to listen?

Can you hear them calling?
You'll testify to justify, you have to find a way
Can you hear them calling?
With arcane eyes you're staring back at someone with no face
Can you hear them calling?

It's really hard when you need an impartial legal advocate in a fucking hurry and you can't find one because everyone is corrupt, opinionated or too well-paid to cross the line and give actual advice.

No one was going to bat for me here, they were too busy organizing my well-being, as if it were a record collection or a spice cabinet. This will work for now, they said.

What if it doesn't? Everyone's agreeable today. How do they feel when they're not agreeable? When they're mad about something. 

Loch tosses his papers on the table and gets up and walks out without a word.

He'll be fine.

He's posturing until it's done and then he's going to shut you out so fast your head will spin. 

He cares about me.

You're a means to an end. I'm the end. 

I thought you were the beginning. 

I'm the middle too. You're missing my point, Ben. 

So sort it out while I'm away. He smiles and when I blink he's on the other side of the country guaranteeing a lifetime of paycheques for himself while I founder around here in court.

Nice. Thank you, Benjamin.

I resorted to Batman. Do you have any attorneys that you trust that know nothing about me?

What kind of trouble are you in? 

I just need some advice. 

Caleb's a lawyer. 

This is very personal. 

Unless you killed someone, I can give you a list. If you killed someone all bets are off, Princess. 

(My inner mind laughs. He called me Princess. Only when he does it he sounds stilted. Like when Wolverine said it in the last movie and I laughed out loud in the theatre during a very quiet, very serious moment.)

I haven't directly killed anyone. I wait a beat. I feel like I'm responsible for death but it's like fourth degree. I drove them to die. I'm amazing, alright.

Bridget, talk to me. 

I can't talk to anyone except a lawyer who doesn't know me. Maybe a female just to make sure they stay impartial.

Maybe I'm just going to call an extended family meeting. 

Do that and I'll never speak to you again. If he was going to pull out the big threats then he twisted my arm and I was forced to do the same. His phone slid back in his pocket and he pointed at the chair.

Sit. Start talking.

The tears started before I even figured out how to begin.

The road to hell is paved in good intentions and apathy
What did you expect when common sense is your enemy?
I'd rather burn alive than drown inside your reality

Can you hear me?
Are you listening?

Spirit animals and hooky on Sundays.

This morning a bee flew into the collar of my hoodie and then down the front of my shirt underneath, hanging out in the hollow where my v-necked t-shirt met my skin. I tried to shoo it away but he wanted a ride, I guess. Loch came out to ask me something and I pulled out the front of my shirt wide, looked down and said go away and the bee flew out.

You didn't get stung? 

No, I think he just wanted a hug. 

That's fucking magical, right there. 

The bee proceeded to hang out around my shoulders and head the entire time I was weeding in the garden, for the rest of the morning. Sam said it was probably God, wondering why I missed church. I think it was probably Cole, wondering why I stuck Jake back in that room with him when he had the place all to himself for so long.

Cole started the whole Bee thing. Ben got it from him.

So yeah. It was Cole. Checking in. Making sure his brother didn't eat me whole, maybe.

They looked like superheroes in costume. I looked like a little piece of a vanilla bean.

Yesterday we put on wetsuits and tried out the wave runners. Jet skis? Whatever they are called, personal watercraft being too much of a mouthful. We stick in our own cove, to keep the peace with our neighbors around both corners (not part of our point but up the hill) and still there is enough room to have a lot of fun and that we did. It was freezing cold and horribly loud and miserable overall and yet still exhilarating. It took me almost forty-five minutes to peel myself out of the suit afterwards, though and when that didn't work, Ben picked me up and held me out straight and Loch took the top part of the suit and pulled and it hurt. A lot. Maybe it's a little too small and too thick and I need something a little more up to date but he said this was the warmest one possible and no.

I said he could wear it then. 

Ben said it would probably fit Lochlan anyway. 

That went over well. 

Original.

I question every part of who I am
I question every part of who I am
It's hard to tell which side of me is in the right
With these two different people inside of me
Fighting for my life
Fighting for my life

I'd like to say I had one drink and came back home after the game was off the air. I'd like to say that I was a good girl and didn't follow my mind down the rabbit hole I once saw Cole go down, where I've been looking for him ever since. I'd like to tell you I learn my lessons but I didn't, I'm not, and I can't.

Instead I tore into the devil as only a true disciple can and when the sun rose it found me standing in a ray of light still gnawing on his soul that I held with one hand, holding one broken wing in my other hand, dragging it behind me on the ground, face covered with figurative blood and a ridiculous look upon my face that took hours to scrub off. He was barely intact when I walked out the door and the light burned as I hissed in return to it.

Fuck off. I told it.

But it burned on, pressed hard against my flesh, fading right through my muscles into bones that ached with the leftover darkness. My eyes are translucent like a cat, my teeth sharpened, my brain switched off as my instinct kicks in to destroy what was given to me at his own request. Tear me down and make me whole again, he orders, and so I do.

One single Baby doll would have stopped it. One single gentle touch would have ended it on the spot but he knew better and kept everything twisted so high not once did I hear myself. Not once could I pick out the sounds from the roar of his desire, not once did I recognize the time or feel the pain when he tore my flesh with his own teeth, so much sharper than mine will ever be.

You're bleeding. I'm sorry. He whispered in a still moment and I read his lips because the noise. Oh, hell, the unholy noise.

I was already broken. It's fine this way. I dismiss his concern. Don't show me that you're human now or I'll lose my nerve.

But I didn't. I kept it clenched in my fists, white knuckles curled into claws to hold on as it slipped and scrambled for purchase against me. My resolve, now burned off, looks back on the way out and laughs. You're tougher than you look, it observes.

I know this. I whisper back and let go of everything to turn to dust.

Can you hear me?

If the rain comes they run and hide their heads
They might as well be dead

Down on the beach today I am careful, picking my way among the rocks. I am dressed in forbidden shoes and not enough layers by far in this almost-raining relentless wind. I miss the wind so I like to be in it when I can. Caleb is playing magnanimous hero today, affording me time for a leisurely walk on an average Thursday morning in spite of nothing. He continues past me and begins a wide eventual circle back as I stop on Watching Rock, a bigger rock than most with a flattish place to stand and look out to sea. Like Picnic Rock where Ben and I got married but here at home.

I'm facing the wrong way, forcing myself to look up at the cliffs instead of out at the beautiful ocean. Standing up on the platform between the end of the two backyards where we set up the telescope on clear nights is Lochlan. Arms crossed. Curls blowing straight. I can't see his expression but I know he disapproves. I wave and blow kisses but he doesn't move. Maybe he isn't looking at me. Maybe he's looking at the beautiful ocean. Maybe he's got his eyes closed just so he can feel the wind too.

Satisfied that I have figured him out I turn my face to look behind me, out to sea. Caleb is coming around and he'll take it personally that I turn away the moment he comes close but I need to seize the moment. I close my eyes and listen hard to the surf crashing against the shore. It's the most beautiful sound in the world, the best music, the heartbeat of a planet. My heartbeat matches in muffled cadence and I smile even though my eyes are still closed.

Caleb presses his head down against my temple and I smell vetiver and sage, mint and woodsy, heavy patchouli. My eyes fly open and he stands back slightly and asks if I had been hypnotized by the waves.

I shake my head and jump down off the rock, almost wiping out in my smooth-bottomed ballet flats. He grabs my arm and steadies me.

Okay?

I'm fine. Thanks for the help.

I don't want to see you lose any more teeth in this lifetime. He laughs, establishing provenance. I was famous as a child for demanding to try the boys' old Big Wheels/new ten-speed bikes/beloved skateboards and landing on the pavement on my face. I have no perfect, intact teeth in my head. They're all complicated composite reconstructions or simply chipped.  But it's endearing. I lucked out and unless you know you really can't tell except that they are pretty crooked straight on.

(I never smile with my mouth open unless there are no cameras present.)

He tucks past-me along with present-me into his arm, under his coat with him, away from the wind as we head back toward the steps. He's warm, it's nice. Future-me should run while she can.

Neamhchiontach.

Yes.

Come see me tonight for a nightcap. It's been a long time.

Lochlan-

I'll speak to him. 

I don't think that will help. 

You would be surprised what he would do for you. 

He took my hand and helped me up across the gap between the rocks and the platform at the bottom of the steps and then we climbed in silence. Him probably confident that his plans are set in stone, me wondering if he thinks I would be so foolish as to think he could ever talk Loch into anything. But when we get to the top Loch is gone and we're here in our beautiful little commune by the sea and I realize that he can or all of this would simply be a dream.

Fair (of face).

Wreckles. 

Frinkles! 

(Yes, we're arguing over which portmanteau is going to emerge victorious, to be used from here on out to describe the curious state of Bridget's face now that her freckles have come out of hibernation to fill some color into the wrinkles around her eyes because she squints in the sun on the water and also because she's a tiny vampire and hardly sleeps. If she isn't waking up to pee every three hours someone is molesting her and wakes her up anyway.)

Frinkles wins because it's mine and it's cute, though Loch's term of Wreckles is funnier and more logical. Wreckles indeed. My kingdom for a fountain of youth instead of concrete out there in the driveway.

***

PJ and Caleb replaced the barbed wire on the swing with new ropes. PJ did while Caleb...supervised but the ropes are strong and nice and white and Ben has been instructed to not do that anymore. He does the biting thing for kicks, don't worry. He doesn't have oral fetishes. Well, okay not like that anyway. Apparently he and Daniel were talking while he was cleaning up in the orchard and at one point he pretended to bite down on the rope to indicate how much he hated putting up with something (probably me) but bit the rope in half instead of letting go. He has jaws like a steel trap. Very strong.

He figured I would love the metal edge to the pretty swing. I did but you can't actually hold on to it. He said he expected me to write a story of a girl who lingered on a barbed wire swing so long she became part of it with blood dripping down her fingers, off her elbows but that she had to remain on it until she touched heaven.

I can't write that story. 

How come?

Because you just did. How does it end? Does she get there?

I don't know, Bee. She said she'd let me know when she's done scowling at her face in the mirror. What if it sticks like that?

Oh, God, you've been with Lochlan too long. That's what he says. 

You worry too much about the way you look. 

I don't, actually, but I don't think I'm going to attract anyone with my shining personality either. 

You'd be surprised. And you don't need to attract anyone because I'm right here.

Right. You married me because I'm sweet and pleasant?

Well...no, not really. I married you because you're my best friend. 

And he smiled with that polar-ice-melting shy smile that floors me and reached out to pull me in. I touched heaven when his arms closed around me. I didn't bleed. I expected him to say something x-rated and he didn't. Wonders never cease.

I tell him this and he laughs out loud and squeezes me tighter.

You won't have to wait long to hear something x-rated. Trust me, Bee.

Then he whispered something in my ear and I'll have to figure out how to work blushing into that portmaneau. My poor face is just a whirlwind of everything written all over it these days. Can't hide a thing and seriously, Ben's glorious imagination beats mine by miles and miles.

Flames in five, sadly but not surprisingly is the growing prediction.

I watched the clouds cover up the blue with purpose this morning. With decided vengeance they advanced. No more sunny days! was their battle cry. The birds listened and went indoors and I finished bringing in all of my non-waterproof things just in time for the first huge drops to strike the patio. Just in time to remember it's not summer yet even though I've been in bare legs and warm sunshine for a week now. Just in time to remember the weather is more like the endless fall of the concrete room than the smooth sailing I keep telling myself we've earned and are getting even though I haven't seen those fair winds up close, no sir.

Sam is keeping watch today. Boundaries are fine but we are still trying to be close from afar. He's driving me stark raving mad with his horrible rendition of Take me to Church. He changed all the lyrics. He's pretending to sing it quietly but he knows damn well I can hear him and I'd like to knock him off his chair but instead I'm busy placing my bets on tonight's game with the rest. The stakes are things like sexual favors that will never in a million years be fulfilled and large amounts of cold hard cash, which will be fulfilled, except I will pay out in five dollar bills because I have a purse full of them somehow. 

And since I know I'll lose the bets I wanted those favors to him to be doable. Ben just likes to up the ante in all aspects of his life. Because life is supposed to be fun and Ben saved mine so he could play with it, not keep it on a shelf. 

Taxed and pricked.

Dalton and Duncan didn't do their taxes even though they both swore up and down that they could manage their own shit and I was to stop momming them. I still didn't get an answer from Keith yet either so it's probably a trifecta of stupidity today as I order them all to produce me with receipts by three pm and then I'm handing the whole mess off to Jasper to take to Batman's accountant because he (Batman) said I shouldn't have to do it.

Jasper didn't want to come and said he would check with Batman at his usual time.

I threatened to staple his nuts to the forms if he wasn't here at 2:55 in my front hall. I called him a little bitch and he said I was a whore and yet we hung up on good terms.

Yeah, I don't understand my life either.

Ben also bit the rope on the swing in half for no reason other than he is weird. But he said it's okay because he fixed it with barbed wire. Now it's the Swing of Death.

*throws horns*

I think I'll go back to bed. It's Monday again isn't it? I can tell.

Nine: completion of the process.

The noise outside the concrete room startled me as I sat on the wet floor, close to Jake but far enough that I could retain just a little sanity where no sanity remains save for a bit if you get a butter knife and scrap up along the inside edge. Jake sat with his head on his arms, crossed on his knees. Lanky and faded now, he is where he will always be forever and ever until Bridget dies which sometimes I hope is in ten minutes and other times I'm ready to take the devil's offer and live forever.

I don't want to be here. I want to be closer.

No. Sorry.

But the noise. It drives me out into the hall. When I exit the room, I see Loch coming down the hall, flashlight beam bobbing, rope clinking. He's taken the climbing ropes and clipped them around his waist so he doesn't get lost in here. He's taken every precaution to get us both out safely. He's here. He's never here and he's here.

He looks so scared and angry though.

I try so hard to keep you in the light, my whole life, up above ground where the lights twinkle and they make you dizzy as they go around. Every color of the rainbow in the night and then I find you down here where there's no color. Just ghosts and black and white. Don't do this, Bridge. Don't be here anymore. Come back with me. 

***

Nine years ago today I left Cole.

For Jake.

Then Jake left me.

For God.

(Or the Devil.)

(I won't know which until the end.)

Even though the Devil offered me immortality in exchange for my soul back I refused.

You have that wrong. He offered to give me back my soul if I would agree to live forever and I told him to keep it.

And then Ben saved my life and I saved his and Lochlan came bursting out of my memories to be present again and this is Happily ever after, after all.

Who knew?

Good morning.

They want you to be Jesus
They'll go down on one knee
But they'll want their money back
If you're alive at thirty-three
And you're turning tricks
With your crucifix
You're a star

It's Saturday morning and I wake up perfectly. My eyes don't hurt. My feet are sticking out from the bottom of the sheet and the quilt and my pillow is comfortably under my neck instead of pressing against the top of my head but not supporting it. Loch and Ben are still sleeping and don't stir as I crawl up out of the covers and down the center of the bed to climb down to the floor. My skin is filthy with the long night behind us and I turn on the shower, waiting for the hot water to reach the top floor of the house. While I wait I poke around inside my brain. Testing doors, cleaning up a little, tidying errant thoughts scattered haphazardly around the cold concrete hallways. Jacob is sitting in the concrete room with the big metal door and I have propped the door open with the stick I found outside in the fall, above ground where the wind blows and it's always dark and just about to rain, brown and burgundy leaves twisting, trying to hang on as long as they can to avoid the winter that never comes. I keep it just so, you see.

The door used to be closed and I kept him in there but then he wanted to be closer but that wasn't good for me and since I'm the one who is alive I had to make the decision to put him back in the concrete room. It's a lot further for me to go if I want to see him but it's what I need, and I left the stick there so if he wants to he can come and go. He likes having that option, I think. I haven't heard a word.

Cole can't get out. He is still in that room. He'll never get out. He can just linger there until forever, perched up high against the ceiling the endless shadows. He can't get out because I won't let him out. His permissions are far different than for anyone else, as they always were.

When I am satisfied that the memory thief hasn't been back to see me I get in the shower. It feels so nice. Super hot. I use all of my fancy scrubs and soaps that I don't bother with when it's not just me. I shave my legs and deep condition my hair, grown out now from the gamine Jean Seberg pixie to a flippy little almost-bob, just as soon as it makes it past my ears again. The curls are pronounced at this stage and will disappear completely once the length pulls them out eventually as I make the slow return to my mermaid hair. It was fun to chop it off and now it's time to grow it back.

(Loch smiled when I came to that conclusion. My braid was his security blanket/leash/lifeline for years.)

When I get out of the shower my skin is raw and I'm fresh and brand new to greet such a beautiful day. I should do so formally, before the baggage takes over and pulls me back under.  I find a dress and a cardigan and skip the shoes completely. I put my lipgloss and my rabbit's foot in my pocket and I head downstairs to steal sips from everyone's coffee all the while denying that I drink it anymore.

Twelve, maybe less.

If you could eat anything, what would it be? 

A huge plate of the hash browns from the diner. A chocolate milkshake and some cake. 

What kind of cake?

There's only one kind of cake, Lochie. 

Strawberry shortcake?

No, silly. Fruit and cake don't belong together. Try again. 

Cheesecake? 

Gross! No one's going to make a cake with cheese! 

Hot dog cake? 

That would go good with cheese cake. 

That would go well. 

That's what I said! 

You don't use the word 'good', you use 'well'. That would go 'well'. 

Well, it would go good. 

He let out a long breath. So what if we did that? 

Got some cheese and baked a cheesy cake? 

No, went and got huge plates of hash browns and milkshakes and cake that is only chocolate forever and ever. 

It's expensive. 

It will cost us twelve dollars. I have eighteen. 

What about tomorrow?

Tomorrow we make more money. And then we can do it again. 

I wonder if cheesy cake costs more than chocolate. 

I think it does, Peanut. 

Why? 

They have to shake the cows to make the cheese. Labor costs. 

How do they get the cheese out?

Don't even ask. But that adds to the price as well. 

At least with chocolate someone just has to go pick the chocolate beans off the tree.

He laughed out loud. It's my favorite noise of his thus far. And I'm humoring him just to hear it. Because I know chocolate beans don't grow on a tree, they grow on bushes, duh.

Arcane fire.

The Canucks lost their first game against the Flames last night in a heartbreaking straight shot with about forty seconds left. They couldn't pull off a play in forty seconds to even it up and so it was over. I tried not to be too smug about it as I was reminded hourly that my team didn't even MAKE the playoffs.

They don't need to. The Leafs have won the Stanley Cup fourteen times already. They're having a rest. 

*rolls eyes*

But on the upside, Hearthstone came out for the iPhone! And there's a new Star Wars teaser out today.  And the sun is shining and the breeze is blowing and the frogs were croaking last night in the woods around the front yard and it feels more as if everyone is sharing the heavy weight that is Jacob on a day like this and I don't have to carry him alone. They're like mental pallbearers sometimes, shouldering an odd projectile of a memory or a crushing sense of deja vu so I don't have to by myself and on a day like today it feels nice to just let go a little. Just a little. Maybe I'll keep one hand touching Jacob's edge so I don't lose him. Just in case.

For a few minutes. That's all.

See how it feels. 

Joel will take credit, I bet.

Princess training wheels.

She showed him all her teeth. He saw a smile.
                  ~Joanna Russ, in The Female Man.

They're all moved in, amazingly enough. We left all of the dishes in the kitchen downstairs because PJ doesn't need them. Matt thanked us for not stepping in too closely but supporting them both objectively, lovingly. And he apologized for hurting Sam. Sam apologized for hurting him before he could finish. We all found things we needed to go and do so we could leave them to their new home. I stole out to the boathouse and boldly pilfered a bottle of Dom from Caleb's extra-secret stash and came back, knocked on their door and when Sam opened it, I said Happy housewarming!, thrust the bottle into his arms and turned and left. Boundaries. They end at that door right there.

And hey, we got something right for once as a group.

Sam has promised he won't be a stranger. I hope he keeps it.

***

Today was special breakfast sesh with PsychoJoel, and surprisingly I didn't get a single word of protest about it, which means I am as insane as I thought.

There were no butternauts. We went to a diner that had those little individual butter containers that were round and you had to peel the lid off and underneath the lid these ones were ice-cold. Butter-concrete. We asked if they could be warmed and got an almost-eyeroll. The effort the server put into controlling her judgement of our pretension earned her a forty percent tip because it was masterful and I made a little hacked up butter inukshuk to say I was there.

We made no progress because I'm not feeling even forty percent of usual myself so when I got home my relative paleness and the fact that I am mostly exhausted and refusing to eat much because it just wreaks havoc on my whole system bought me an appointment with scary Russian pseudodoc.

(Who loved my stitches on Lochlan's face and said I would have made a terrific field nurse. Except that I couldn't hear him because his accent is so thick, I thought he was calling me a field mouse and I agreed heartily with that, except I couldn't understand what that had to do with Lochlan's stitches.)

I have more pills because pills. They fix everything. Except I'm famous for not taking pills so he gave me a list of good dietary things to bring me back around, and the usual reminders to get more rest, take better care, slow down, that I'm not out of the woods yet with  my kidneys, that all of these wonderful men should be doing my bidding, etc.

When he left I turned to Loch and said, See? You're all supposed to be looking after me! 

He nods and says dryly, You won't let us, you little fuckhead. I haven't been able to look after you properly since the eighties. Stubborn as a bull. You're impossible. 

I just want a vacation. 

Name a place. 

I'll have to get back to you. Maybe we can just drive to Malibu. (Unless there are pills that will make me happy to fly. Oh I know what they are, thanks and I'm not interested in those either.)

Sam came up (already! Yay!) and asked if I had any fish sauce, that he is going to make a special dinner for him and Matt tonight. I asked how the champagne was and he said they were saving it for tonight because tonight will be so much more relaxing than last night.

Then he asked if his laundry was ready because boys. No one has taken this chore off my hands after five years of living within this collective, while they all stand here with their arms crossed and tell me I need a break.

Right.

I'm going to start a chore chart.

Yes, that will work.

*cross fingers*

Get on my level.

Matt is coming home.

I would have sent Luke to collect all of this things from his rental condo and arrange for cleaning and for the paperwork to be forwarded here but Matt said he could look after it all and would wrap everything up by the end of this week. I only let him because boundaries, I am trying to learn some.

Further to that we are spending the next few days playing musical rooms. I do that anyway but PJ so very generously offered to trade wings so that Sam and Matt could be afforded the privacy they need. Should have done this a while ago but I like to spoil PJ because he spoils me so I made sure he had a space that was just his. I'm there all the time anyway, now I just won't have to go as far.

Sam and Matt's wing was a bedroom, den, hallway and bathroom just off the front hall. Lochlan's former space, remember? Their door locked but that isn't privacy for two people. PJ's apartment, in contrast, is two bedrooms, plus a den, bathroom, full kitchen and walkout patio. Not sure he used most of it. It is the only actual living space downstairs, the rest of that floor being home to the movie theatre, Ben's studio and the biggest laundry room you ever saw. The door is lockable too and the whole basement is understandably soundproof because we're a loud family.

It's going to be perfect for Matt and Sam. They never have to come upstairs if they so choose.

(Here's where I point out that yes, I do the laundry for the whole house. Yes even Gage. Even Duncan. Even August who lives in the gatehouse/garage/whatever we call it, though I like gatehouse. I can cartwheel through the laundry room. It's very necessarily huge. I spend my life hanging up flannel shirts on a rack so they don't shrink and untwisting sheets from the dryer. And convincing whoever is in the kitchen to come downstairs and bring up the baskets pleeeeeease. It's so fun! Not.)

At least there are eight strong guys here to move furniture! At this rate they'll be switched in half an hour.

Better hide your porn collection, PJ. 

No worries, it's all on my computer now. This is the golden age of porn, Bridget. 

Duncan has magazines. 

Duncan's a retro hipster. It's a image thing for him. 

So your image is that of a tech wizard? 

Yes. Yes, I totally look like a tech wizard, don't I? 

Yeah but at least now you won't be a basement-dwelling tech wizard. I hear that's the demographic that gets picked on most. 

It is. Right behind self-important sexpot pseudo-princesses. 

Ouch, PJ. 

If the shoe fits. 

Is that a porn euphemism? 

Somewhere it is, yes. 

Okay, I don't want to see those movies. 

And I don't want to show them to you, so we're good.

Surprisingly, I'm happy PJ will be even closer to us. He's the glue, the keeper of this castle. He's my wingman. Actually I think I'm his. Though I won't be touching his computer anymore.

I'm gonna save your life.

Lying in bed this morning in our cage listening to the furnace and the rain take turns filling my broken ears with glorious noise, Lochlan conjured up memories in the dark, memories of sailing through the air to be caught by his hands, memories of falling into the net and cracking my fear-set face into a rigid smile for the crowd, recollections of people that would see us in town after the week or after they had been to a show and being surprised we were lovers, but then exclaiming that they just knew we were because we had a bond, a chemistry that was so tangible, even to the audience. No one is that good of a performer otherwise.

We would smile and pose for pictures sometimes. Mostly we would wearily grin and tell them to come back and see us again, briefly slipping into barker-lite. Briefly hawking the board with no loyalties past the paycheque. There was never a reason to let the rubes see the downsides, they just wanted the magic, the wistfulness of wondering what life is like when you actually run away and join the circus.

Who am I to tell them it's not what they expect? Who am I to burst all the bubbles you can blow? Who am I to under-romanticize the one thing that requires no help at all in being the ultimate escapist daydream shared by so many people?

It changes people. It stretches them too. I became worse for it and better for it too. I learned my true capabilities and the extent of my courage. I learned what I will and won't put up with in life. I learned who I was. Everyone is always talking of finding yourself. Join the circus. Get out while you're still alive and look in the mirror now. There. That's who you are. Shoulders back. Smile fixed. Nails caked with chalk. Cheeks caked with soot. Feet blistered and cramped. Stomach rumbling, brain expanded along with your pupils because there's always some bad shit around on your day off and scary rich men trying to buy you as a novelty for their own amusement.

Oh, wait, nevermind the 'trying' part of that analysis.

Everyone wants a pet freak. Absolutely everyone. It's second in daydreams only to the escape ones. If you can't run away you should lock away someone else and then you won't feel so alone.

Just ask the Devil. I'm sure that's exactly what it was like for him. Only instead of a habitat we have a whole point to be contained in.

Matt was in church when we all arrived.

They are talking right now. I'm hopeful. So hopeful.

Alphadog.

Sam cancelled my coffee date with Matt (on my behalf) and then didn't tell me in order to...

1) Make Matt look bad.
2) Waste my time.
3) Cause everyone else to jump in and cheer me up because being stood up is the worst and nobody puts Bridget in the corner! 

Wait, I mean..it's just shitty all around. It's shittier still when you've crossed a bridge and sat in traffic and it took until this morning to find out exactly who crossed a Bridge, indeed.

Why, Sam?

I need you to not get involved. 

I wasn't. He invited me. 

I don't want you to pick sides. 

This has nothing to do with picking sides. I want to support both of you and your marriage. I love you both. 

Burning building? Pick one of us.

The dog. I'm saving the dog because I'm sick of my loyalties being traded like currency. 

Wow. You're going to save a seven-year old arthritic dog?

YUP. I'll die trying. I'm leaving everything to him anyway. He never complains. 

I didn't want to complain. 

What are you hiding then?

Depends. If you're going to leave that chip on your shoulder while we talk then nevermind. 

God will absorb the chip. Start talking. 

It's my fault. 

I knew that. 

How did you know?

Sam, I've lived with you for years now. You're me with a penis. This isn't rocket science.

Now all I can picture is you with a penis. Great. 

It would be! I've said this many times! 

I'm sorry, Bridget. I didn't mean to cause so much trouble. 

Then apologize to your husband. And you owe me a coffee date!

We can go right now if you like. 

I'll get my things. 

Superzeroes.

I scrubbed the baseboards of the entire house today. And finished the windows outside that I could reach. I ran some errands. I'm still looking for shoes but I may just order online. I stitched up Lochlan's eyebrow from where Caleb sliced it open with a good right cross and the steristrips weren't doing the job of keeping the wound closed. This because I had blood in my hair this morning from his face. It stained my hair red. He laughed and said that's how he could do it. Then I will match him and Ruth.

Yes, I'm the seamstress. Even to their bodies when and if required. Told you they fight alot.

I finished a different sewing project and made some calls. I ate a muffin. I tried deep breathing and failed at calming myself. I feel like a very quiet lunatic ninety-nine percent of the time and the other one percent I am awesome.

I got stood up.

I cried for three seconds and then said fuck you too to no one in particular.

I finished the Trudeau biography.

I planted pansies all around the border of the front gardens. I ripped out all of the ivy and replaced it with big rhododendren bushes. I lugged bags of dirt without help, the only way to move them being to clutch them in both arms, close against me and tripod-walk across the lawn.

They're so heavy.

I've also been up and down to the beach a hundred times in the past day checking for signs that the fuel spill has reached us but so far we are safe. Thank God for that. If something happens to my point I'll be very angry and then I would go from nursemaid to pixie-hulk in the space of ten seconds. It wouldn't be pretty but then again neither is anyone else right this second.

A special place in hell for those who sing on repeat.

But tell me, did the wind sweep you off your feet?
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way?
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind?
Was it everything you wanted to find?
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?

Loch has headphones in while he washes his truck. He has been singing Drops of Jupiter at the top of his lungs on repeat for close to an hour now. The Devil has been standing directly behind Lochlan in the driveway watching him for at least twenty minutes and I don't even want to go outside for fear of what is about to go down. I just know that only one of those two is capable of being happy and content at a time but never concurrently. I know that I don't know what made them tick before I arrived in the neighborhood and tore everything apart but I know I'm the reason now.

Oh, he's starting up again anew and the Devil has crossed his arms. I sent PJ and August both heads ups. PJ said to let them kill each other and get it out of their systems and then the rest of us can get on with our lives. Then he ammended his words to please me and said he would go check in a bit.

He isn't rushing though.

I guess August is still asleep. I would be too if anyone would let me.

I'm not budging right now to go and try and sort them out. Sam finally fell asleep after what seemed to be a two-hour exhausting session about grief and change and moving forward and by the end we didn't know if I was the counsellor or he was. We both got a lot out and made some space for fresh pain or fresh joy or whatever the heck it is that rushes in with a whoosh when there is room.

I haven't seen Sam cry like that before. But I told him once he fell asleep that I would keep watch over him and maybe he can heal from the inside out. Of course it isn't depression when he sleeps, it's renewal. Whatever, Baby Preacher. Just get some rest for once. I smoothed his curls down with my hand and kissed the top of his head but he is too far gone now to appreciate my efforts to soothe him.

I don't think Matt is coming back. I'm having coffee with him downtown tomorrow. He said he has some things he needs to say (it's not me, it's you, no doubt) and frankly I have some things to say too.

I've been thinking a lot about the things I want to say while I sit here and watch life through the glass. This week seems like it's been all about jumping hurdles and clearing out cobwebs and it's exciting and also terrifying, as always.

Ambush romance, Bridget-style.

(Told you Monday was better off waning.)

Alone with this vision
Alone with this sound
Alone in my dreams
I carry around

I will not take from you and you will not owe
I will protect you from the fire below
It’s not in my mind
It’s here at my side
Go tell the world that I am alive

Been a while, Bumblebee, he says as he pours sparkling water into my glass. There is a blanket held down by four big rocks and on it I have laid out a feast that I brought from the top of the cliff. In stages. It took FOREVER, especially to roll the rocks over to anchor the quilt.

We have cheese and crackers and caviar and potato salad and roast beef. French bread. Chocolate cake. Cookies too.

I light the lanterns that I brought too, shoving candles hastily behind the little glass doors before they're blown out.  The wind is light tonight. It's getting dark. It's mild out but I even brought extra blankets in case we get cold.

The tide tries to reach us but it won't. We're just above the high water mark on the dry sand where the larger rocks eat the beach for dinner. The seagulls are calling. The sun is going down and I am stalling.

Just have to wait for one more thing, Benny.

He sits back against a log and picks up his glass and smiles. I watch him and sip my own water and then I hear a yell.

And there's Loch coming across the beach. Wearing a really nice shirt. And a tie. He's got a cooler bag over his shoulder and a big goofy grin on his face. Matched only by the one on Ben's face when they see each other.

In the cooler there are steamed vegetables, salmon, plates and cutlery and a thermos of tea. And the radio, as per my instructions to PJ and Lochlan didn't know what he was bringing until just now.  He sits down to unpack the bag and hands me the radio. I find a quiet station and leave the music on low, propped on top of the two logs to the side.

Ben takes a plate and asks me what I would like. I point to things and he ladles out a little of each. Too much food. I take my plate and sit and wait for them to fill their plates and glasses too and then I make a toast. They have their glasses ready.

To love. I could only hope to give you both a memory like some of the ones you have given me. To more of this and less strife. To a better life. To loving without limits. To life. To the here and now. 

To love. Ben says.

Here and now, echoes Loch.

They both look touched. I'm going to cry and choke on my potato salad. I can't eat. I don't know what I'm thinking. Too nervous. Too anxious for everything to be perfect. To a casual observer it's a picnic dinner. To me it's everything I can never give back to them because they won't let me and this was a huge operation to try and surprise them.

Loch is wearing a tie. If I were standing, my knees would be jello. I left a card for him with his instructions on the dresser. Meet me on the beach. Dress nice. PJ will give you what you need to bring.

I brought Ben with me down to the beach on my last trip with supplies. He took the bottle from me, tucking it under his arm. What are you up to, Little Bee?

This. This is what I was up to.

But Ben hasn't stopped staring at me like I'm the most fascinating thing he has ever seen and I don't want him to ever stop but at the same time I'm staring back because I hardly ever get to see him anymore. He works too much. He refuses to take breaks sometimes even when he is supposed to. He smiles so big and there's an epic Pacific sunset going on right behind us and I don't plan to turn around because looking at him is better.

He finally stops and looks at my plate. Eat something, Bee. Loch nods. He's missing the sunset too. Gosh. I have it all right here.

The plate swims on the other side of my tears and the sea roars in waves washing over my soul and I never ever ever want to go a minute further in life. We can stop right here, freeze it like this. They both look so happy. Just please, just this one thing right here.

Nobody pinch me, I whisper.

They can't hear it.

That's okay.

If it's okay with you, I'm just going to go ahead and slide into Tuesday.

This force is in love with you
It wants you safe
It wants you well
This force knows what you can do
And what you can make
With your tattered shell

Faith in your device
So quiet and precise
Just when, not how
You can feel it now
Deep beneath the light
A spark will now ignite
And you will see me now
This is our world now

Dreaming of omelets and angels today. Cold to a fault. Frustrated with being sick and feeling weak and achey and dizzy. Not in the mood for anything it seems and yet life demands that I sit up and pay attention when I just want to fight it, push it away and crawl under the covers in order to sleep for a year.

Sam calls that depression. I just call it Monday.

I don't know how to fix this frustration. Wait to get better? Go easy? Naw. I was changing beds all morning and hauling weeds all afternoon. I daresay I made a hint of progress on both fronts and can do it all again in a week. Invisible chores. Like cleaning windows and the tops of cupboards. All the things no one sees but appreciates like mad the second they lapse. Bah, humbug.

Bah Mondays.

They should be stricken from the record.

I'm going to go put on wool socks and a big fuzzy grey sweater and try and thaw Lochlan, who won't thaw at all but is gentle and sweet even if he's mad. I can't say I blame him but he agreed to this and it's working so why fuck with a good arrangement? Why not just stay away from the Devil? Why eat angels when you can eat eggs instead? Why be sick when you could be better? Why be awake when I could just sleep and then my brain wouldn't forge a mutiny on me at the start of each brand new week?

Wouldn't I love to have the answers, but the questions aren't even real.

Here is patheos. Happy Easter.

Caleb's hands were warm and strong as he pulled my face up to his. I warn him but he never cares. I want him but that wouldn't matter. I love him and hate him with equal force.

Diabhal. Don't.

I know you miss Cole, Neamhchiontach. Take your time. 

But I struggle like a bee in a spider's web before he forces me still. Straight-ahead affection is so uncharacteristic of him, I want to soak it up like a sponge. Usually he's too rough, bordering on violent. He won't let me face him, won't let me move, won't kiss me or hold me. He bites. He twists me until I cry and then he is satisfied that he's exhausted all of me. So when he takes his time and he's sweet it throws me off my game of defense. Even though I'm still not sure precisely which way this is going to go.

Then I decide it's not going to go and I stop.

He puts his head down all the way until the top of it is against my collarbone (the one his brother broke in half when he threw me at a wall) and he pleads for me. I am half out of my clothes, he is so warm. What's the harm? I think as he liquifies my resolve.

(Oh. Dumb girl. There's so much harm and it's not just to you.)

His hands tighten against my skin and he starts whispering in Gaelic. A mile a minute. I can't catch all the words, I'm chasing them but they're getting away and I'm running slower and slower down this dark road and I just want a way out. I want a map. I need a ride, dammit.

And then it strikes me. He's praying.

(The boys were once Irish Catholic. Before one became a psycho and the other, the Devil himself.)

(Oh, he's praying hard and I am trapped still in his web and I'll never get out. Shalom, Shalob.)

Oh my Diabhal. You can't just wish for things. Or people. Or ask God to give you anything you haven't earned. It doesn't matter what words you say. I should know. I tried them all.

Spoiler.

Yes, that's exactly what it looked like:

Two rows of teary-eyed men and one drowny-eyed lady at the movie theatre when the lights came up at the end of Furious Seven.

I wasn't sure I was up to going, it's two hours and seventeen minutes and I have a blistering headache from the antibiotics but I'm glad I saw it. I forgot about how sick I felt as I held my breath through some of the craziest action scenes (the BUS! JESUS!) and then..well, and then when that white car peels off I lost my shit.

It was fun. Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham had far too much screen time. Lucas Black had a whopping one-minute cameo. Michelle Rodriguez finally had a whole bunch of screen just like in old times!

But Paul.

Man.

He lit up the screen like a celluloid heartbeat and he will be missed.

This is a day of nothing.

I didn't really get up today except for the part where Ben led me to a warm bath and then into fresh pajamas. He washed my hair for me and then I leaned back against him in the broiling water and I closed my eyes. So tired. Head hurts so bad. Far too sick to pull this off alone.

He dried me off. He picked out pretty blue leggings with waves all over them and a long-sleeved white Amaranthe Massive Addictive t-shirt and I am good to go for another day. Then he disappeared.

PJ brought up more tea and sat for a while showing me funny videos. True facts about Seahorses. That was the best one.

I watched a documentary with Duncan. I can't remember what it was about. I took my pills as scheduled. I slept hard but I still feel like I've been kicked in the soul.

Caleb offered a drive in his R8. He knows I love the car. He knows I get cabin fever but I just wasn't up to it. He graciously took a raincheck and also said if I wasn't a lot better in a day or two he would summon the doctor back.

Sam cuddled with me for hours and we didn't talk at all, we just sat together in the big double chair and watched the fire, his arm looped around my neck. He seemed content to not talk or listen to music  or do anything for hours but then he disappeared too (Good Friday services) and I went back upstairs.

I think I slept but then Loch sat down on the bed. He rubbed my back and told me a story about a little girl who runs away and joins the circus but she doesn't want to work, all she wants to do is ride the amusement rides next door and pick flowers and never ever talks to anyone unless she's on stage or on caller duty and she's so silly and he loves her so.

Hey. I know that story.

Outside the rain continued endlessly. I hardly noticed.

Echo in the wells.

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

This morning I came down to a Mexican standoff. Batman and Caleb in my kitchen staring each other down, face to face, words fired, wounds filled with letter-shrapnel, and PJ is playing Simon & Garfunkel which made the whole mess all the more absurd.

They both turned as I reached the bottom steps with my feverish face and hair sticking up, in soaking wet pajamas. Loch made me come down for food (orders via phone, he is working today) and then I'm to go right straight back to bed. I need my antibiotic for the morning and Daniel promised to come up and snuggle. PJ said maybe and Sam said he would be up straightaway after work.

But these two, well, they're not invited.

They don't even live here, though by virtue of circumstance, good fortune, bad luck and ridiculous timing they afforded me this life, though both alternately claim credit and refuse to acknowledge their investment at all. It's kind of dumb and I'm too sick to deal with it today so PJ hands me a plate with a blueberry muffin all buttered but cold the way I like it and a half-cup of black tea. I take it and walk right between them to sit at the island right in the middle because that's my seat. I'm almost too weak to climb up on the stool but I manage and I sit and eat quietly while everyone stares at me. When I'm finished I give PJ my dishes and he kisses my forehead and I turn and go back upstairs without a word.

I don't care why they're arguing, as long as it doesn't wake me up.

I must be sicker than I thought.

I'll take a black-market kidney if you have one though.

Hotel Rio is still my favorite, though iTunes keeps sliding right into the Happy In Galoshes album after this one and Missing Cleveland is worth another look if you haven't.

I wish I could figure out the words.

***
Some things don't change.

I sat up nice and pretty for the scary Russian doctor (not the older one) this morning. I'm fine. It's just another kidney infection. Hurts and I'm rundown, hence the crankiness of late. Lochlan swears he can sense when I'm about to get very sick based on my moods.

I don't believe that for even a second.

The doctor has less interest in my current ailments and more in what his connections might be able to do for me. He doesn't speak the language much and Caleb had left to afford me a little privacy. Lucky for me. I felt very sophisticated coming back down the hall with a container full of my pee to be tested.

Your hair. Did someone cut it?

I had it cut. 

You wanted it like this?

Yes. 

Oh. He flinched as if he couldn't believe that and then tried something else in stilted English. I have a guy. He can do your...your backside. 

Excuse me?

Surgery. So you have a bigger backside. A...booty, if you will. 

Oh! No thank you. I like it the way it is. 

Do it for the mans?

Hell no. 

Seriously? You would not to want change this to be bigger? They like it. 

No, they would not. No plastic surgery. 

That's a shame. You could be so pretty. You have the face. But you're a little on small side, no? I'd have to, what do they say? Throw you back.

Blast radius.

I am still awfully cranky.

Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts' debut album Blaster came out this morning. Jeremy Brown died last night. I'm not so sure the timing could have been worse to birth an album but never get to meet it properly, in the hands of the public who adores you but there is no good timing for death. It just grabs someone you love while you're looking the other way, at something stupid or inconsequential.

Either way, guys, Blaster is a surprising masterpiece of an album. Hotel Rio is my favorite on the first listen but it's ALL good and over the next five listens I'll change my mind five times.

So yes, I'm still crabby. We should be celebrating, not mourning. Life is so short and we waste so much of it fighting to control feelings that seem to do little more than waste our time. 

Rest in peace, Brown. (I hope they bury you with one of your hats.)

And Matt moved off the point yesterday, deciding Batman's house was still too close to be 'space'. 

Spoiler: she didn't go to the boathouse!

Last night and today featured a full-point internet blackout until we were finished dinner and could watch the season finale of The Walking Dead. 

That's how ridiculously rude and disrespectful the internet has become, friends. They can't wait to prove they saw the show FIRST! so they have to vomit all the spoilers before half the country has even seen it. Nice.

Movie reviews take note and learn how to review a movie without giving things away. God. All of you, just use your fucking manners for once, could you?

Anyway, we finally got to see it and the blackout is over. But it's also late so posting will resume tomorrow.

(Notice I didn't spoil it, because there are still people out there who haven't seen it. This isn't hard! It's common sense and good graces. Jesus Christ. Chill. So annoyed by life. Goodnight.)

'What rhymes with soul?' He asked and before I could answer he said 'Cole.'

The Devil drowned in my nostalgia this morning after reading yesterday's entry and I let him. I stood in the kitchen of his house while he held me and let himself be sad, let himself miss his little brother. He let himself float on a wave of history for a little while and then he stood up straight, wiped his eyes and thanked me for letting him just have a moment, that it was just what he needed. He invited me for lunch after church and then over tonight maybe to watch home movies. I agreed to lunch (it was delicious) and am considering tonight, but I'm hoping I can talk him into watching The Babadook with maybe a little more gravestone juice. Maybe not. We shall see.