Deep end doubt.

I had Father's day breakfast with Lochlan and Caleb by the pool. I wheeled the pressure washer out across the grass to the yard next door and PJ, Andrew and New-Jake were all recruited to wake up early on a Sunday and mostly keep an eye on us from afar.

Caleb laughed when he arrived and saw the machine, but only briefly. Then he shook Lochlan's hand and wished him a Happy Father's Day. Loch nodded curtly and said Same but his eyes were lit up like Christmas and I could tell he was having a hell of a time not gloating. 

How is your nose?

No longer bleeding, Loch told him as they set about unpacking the picnic breakfast I made. Your chin?

I iced it for an hour. Probably won't shave for the week to cover the bruise. 

Loch nods again and goes quiet. He doesn't want to be here. Ruth will sleep for four more hours so this has nothing to do with Father's Day but I need to be able to be around Caleb without flinching, without it being awkward. I've done this before. I've cut him off. It resulted in a weird sort of emptiness in one spot in my head but that was different because back then he didn't live on the same property.

But I think he'll be fine. I might be too.

It doesn't affect Ben either. I have compartmentalized him down to a fine science and have room for him. Lots of it, since he's big. But right now he lives in the teevee and I turn on the Ben-channel and he smiles and tells me I did the right thing and I nod and the tears roll but he can't see them and so we talk about new music and old friends and he always signs off with see you soon as if I like lies. He said For once you did what you should have always done, Bumblebee and I can't wait to get home to you and to Loch, as if nothing's going to go wrong with this grand plan of ours.

I'm not hungry, even as I unwrap the toast from the foil and put a piece on my plate beside a soft boiled egg and some cantaloupe. Lochlan pours tea from the thermos and I put the plate down and take the cup in both hands instead, while Caleb ignores the food as well, walking around the perimeter of the pool, admiring (or critiquing) the workmanship. It's a fairly expansive kidney shape, tiled in dark blue, built into the side of a gentle hill so there is a whole new garden extending around one curve and up toward Daniel's house. It looks like it's been here forever, or it will as soon as the tractor marks fade from the lawn. The fence is up and lockable and Caleb even had a slide put in at the deep end, which is too high and terrifies me but I will make myself use it until I'm not afraid anymore. He said he will probably use the pool early in the mornings and late at night, but we are all free and encouraged to use it often, whenever. It's heated and private and actually kind of nice. I still regard the whirlpool with suspicion. I think that might be nice in the winter.

Eat something, Peanut. Loch prods me with his elbow very gently and I turn to look at him with my eyes wide. 

You promised you wouldn't do that. 

Eat something...please?

Marginally better. Last time I checked you were not my father. 

Last time I checked I was pretty much covering all the parts in this show.

I suppose you want extra pay then. 

I don't want his money. 

If she wants to finance your life you should let her. It turns out she's smarter than you. Caleb is back. Like a cat, stalking along the quiet lapping water. This water is redundant. When I look at it I can see the ocean in my peripheral vision. The blues and greens clash. This is not salt. It's chlorine. It's extravagant and he is not welcome in any discussion I have with Lochlan that isn't his specific business. 

Oh but it is because he pointed out all the caveats where I still must funnel my financial plans through him and he has the power to veto or have mediated anything he doesn't like. It's designed to keep Lochlan out. It's designed to keep me in. Don't worry. There are more lawyers and I'm paying them overtime to look this over because I don't think he's telling the truth. He was smiling the entire time he talked and that's when I know that he lies. 

He is right, Bridget. You should eat. Your hands are shaking. Pleased with himself for noticing, for scoring a point in the Who Knows Bridget Best contest, he turns to walk off again. 

It's from bringing the hose. It's heavy. 

It's from fear, Neamhchiontach. You're flailing. You have no idea what you want. I can see it. He sees it and Ben hears it in your voice when you ask him to come home soon. Nothing will change. 

I have changed. 

You can't change. You have no resources to improve yourself, no spare strength to make a move, no willpower to see anything through. You'll end up keeping everyone on the shortest leash imaginable because you like it that way and because you can't change it. You can't handle any more regrets, rejection or renewal. You're stuck and your life is quicksand. You'll always be just out of reach, up to your waist but if you don't move much you won't sink further. That's how I sleep at night. THAT'S WHY I HAVEN'T KILLED HIM YET FOR TAKING YOU AWAY FROM ME. 

He turned and walked out of the pool area, letting the gates swing behind him as he made his way back to the boathouse, and I could see PJ standing by the wall, having heard the shouting, waiting to be needed, just in case. I wait for the cold empty spot in my head to take over but it doesn't. It doesn't clash like the water colors, it just blends right in until I can't define it anymore. 

Loch kisses the top of my head and wonders out loud if we should go back to sleeping with the kitchen knife like we did in the camper in the not-so-good areas. 

He's wrong about you though, Bridgie. Letting go of two hundred pounds of bloated excess is a hell of a big improvement. 

He's still here. What are you talking about? 

Yeah but if he can't touch you he may as well be on the moon. So I'd say you have a huge capacity for getting better. And you get braver every year that I've known you, contrary to what you think.

What if it were you on the receiving end of my rejection? Would you be so encouraging? 

I wouldn't be able to speak or even breathe for that matter, so no, if you want me to be honest. 

Szegény (right back to thirteen and eighteen).

Lochlan looked at me late last night as we sat alone out front, shellshocked and porch-drunk, his glassy eyes sober and frightened and he said, In case you wondered. It's not that I didn't want this, it's that I'm scared to death I'll just fuck it up like everyone else has. 

Everyone's afraid, Locket.

Are you? 

Terrified.

Of me? 

Of us. 'Us' was always so much bigger than everything else. Bigger than the rides. Bigger than that sky. 

Still is. 

I know it. 

Us is what's right. Us is what's supposed to be, Bridgie.

What if I kill you?

You can't. I remember holding you and your fears, back when you were little. Your fear was so big it almost suffocated me but I figured out how to talk you out of it and eventually I would get so tired. I'd be talking and talking and in my head I'd be praying. Please, please let her go to sleep. I'm so tired, Lord. Jesus, if you can hear me just let her sleep and after a while you would stop answering me and I would look down at your face and your eyes would be closed but your hands would be clenching the front of my shirt so tightly it was as if they were still awake and I knew you were where you were supposed to be. With me. That I couldn't die or leave because it was my job to look after you. I just did a shitty job of it when I was younger. If I could take back leaving you I would. 

So would I. 

It might have saved all this. You never would have ended up with any of them. But we can't take things back. Maybe they do happen for a reason.

What was the reason for all of this then? 

Maybe it was to teach you that out of all the men you've loved, I'm not really so bad. He laughs so hard he falls out of his chair to the porch floor and then laughs even harder.

You sure about that? I stand up and hold out my hand but when I try to pull him up he pulls me down with him and he kisses the top of my head and squeezes me really hard and asks me if I'm really ready to live in a camper again because once Caleb is through rage-quitting me we'll probably have five dollars left over.

Maybe two campers so we can have room for the kids and my easel. We can make one big articulating camper. 

Or I could renovate a school bus. 

Yeah you could do that. 

But would you live in it? 

In a heartbeat. 

I fired my sugar daddy. What did you all do today?

(Jesus Christ. Drama.)

Lochlan is stretched out in the sun, sipping a glass of orange juice, reading a book. I'm close by in the shade, curled up in a chair in shorts and a hoodie. My book is too far away, upstairs beside the bed. I'm thirsty and he won't share, everyone is out, including the kids who write exams this week and this is the most beautiful weather so far this year.

So what did you say? You actually fired him? 

No, once he explained all the paperwork and gave me the files I...decommissioned him very gently. I didn't stay after that. We didn't watch a movie. 

Decommissioned. Ha. This is so ludicrous. The life you have led. 

Indeed. 

Now I can be your sugar daddy. He rolls his eyes.

You mean I can be yours. But back in the day you were literally my sugar daddy and I have a few stubborn cavities and near-diabetes to show for it. 

You either have diabetes or you don't, Bridget. 

I have a lethal sweet tooth and I blame you. Never use food as a reward. 

I didn't. I used candy. Candy isn't food. 

It is to me. 

Well, like I said. You ain't right, He drawled. No accent. It was my turn to laugh. He's only marginally able to joke about any of this. It cuts so close. I turned over and smiled at him. Maybe we'll get somewhere someday, I'm thinking, when the side gate flies open and Caleb barges into what was a perfectly good morning. Loch gets up fast.

This is your fault, Caleb tells him.

Huh? I didn't know she was going to put you out to pasture. That's what you do when a horse gets too old to be of use though..

Caleb stops and nods and then throws one of the best punches I've ever seen from him, honestly. Friday morning now features a bloodfall over Lochlan's lower face. Epic nosebleed. Holy cow.

Lochlan fires back and connects with Caleb's jaw and grabs the front of his shirt on the way out of the strike, dragging Caleb forward into his knee before letting go. I slide in between them. Loch scoops me right out of the way as gently as he can and I'm left with no choice. No one's home. I didn't even think Caleb was home. I look for weapons, distractions. The orange juice is half empty but the pressure washer is right there. Two birds, one stone. I can get them separated and blast all of the blood off Lochlan in one go. I fire it up and Caleb does a double take. He yells Don't you dare, Bridget. I've got my blackberry on me. 

Don't really care. I squeeze the trigger and they both holler at once but back off each other so I let go.

Lochlan moves to come to me so I blast him again. In the face.

FUCK, BRIDGET! 

I think it hurt. I think his nose is broken. Now he's wet with a river of red right down his whole front. Caleb is checking his blackberry to see if it works. Fucking whatever so I blast him again too to see if he gets my point.

He rolls his eyes and frisbees his phone off into the grass. He turns to me and asks me nicely to put the sprayer down.

Only if you two are done hurting each other. I hate it. I stop talking so I don't cry.

What's going to happen when Ben comes back and finds out you didn't wait for him after all? 

This has nothing to do with Ben. It's between you and I. 

It's Pyro inserting himself where he doesn't belong and holding undue influence over y-

He didn't even know until this morning! 

Lochlan takes his shirt off and uses it to try and clean up his face. Yeah, fucktard.

Caleb moves to lunge at him and I blast him. Just a little.

BRIDGET. 

Hurt him again and I'll flatten you with this. It's...it's a really high PSI. 

What does that mean?

I can take the paint off the space shuttle. From here. 

Where is the shuttle?

I don't fucking know! 

He puts his hands up and backs down. I don't need him charming you into an unstable situation. That's all.

Unstable? What the fuck, you asshole! Loch is ready to go again. Shirt's on the ground, a red puddle of surprise.

You don't have her best interests at heart, Loch. You want to be sixteen forever. She needs more than-

Are you two finished? I pulse the sprayer just once and they both look at me.

If you want a further explanation then come see me later. I look at Caleb. I'm sorry I did it on the heels of a net worth inventory but I had to make sure. You always tell me to make sure. So I did. And it looks bad. I'll give some of the money back if you want but otherwise I need to do this. I can't keep you here as Cole forever. I'm not getting anywhere. I need to get somewhere. This isn't working. 

You were in it for the money?

I was in it for revenge and for other reasons but none of them were ever about money.

You loved me at some point. 

Still do. 

You're going to kill me with these candid thoughts, Neamhchiontach.

I wish I could sometimes.

Lochlan snorts and I turn the sprayer toward him but don't turn it on. He puts his hands up and turns and walks away. Caleb stays put.

Don't you give him everything, Bridget. He betrayed you the worst of anyone. 

He's paid dearly for it already, Diabhal.

Who gets to decide that?

I DO! I FUCKING DO AND NO ONE ELSE! 

Should I call Ben and get him home now before there's nothing left for him to come back to?

Please don't act as if you have his best interests at heart. He wanted me to do this a long time ago. But I don't listen. I take forever and make up my own mind instead.

I think it's called bonding.

(Sometimes you just have to say the right words to me and then my thoughts fall neatly into place where they are supposed to be, instead of the way they usually are, scattered haphazardly all over the floor of my mind.)

But you do trust me. You trust me to make sure we don't starve, you trust me to be there on the platform at the other end of the wire. You trust me enough to always ask me first if I can help you even when I'm the biggest asshole alive, pushing you off out of fear, taking you for granted when I should  be counting my lucky stars. You know I'll be there even if I say I won't be. I'm the constant. I'm the sun, for Gods sake. I'll be there. Every morning come hell or high water. Every night until my death. 

We got a huge umbrella for over the Adirondack chairs on the stone patio. This girl burns like fire so it became a necessity. I love to sit outside. I'll read/eat/sleep there whenever possible but I found myself heading for shade more often than not as of late. The grotto in front is very buggy and also devoid of men so patio it is. They tan. Even Loch eventually burnishes a bit to go with his golden red curls. Even Ruth eventually tans.

But me? Nope. I'm a galaxy of giant freckles floating in a pink sky. 

So with the new umbrella situated just-so I resume life in the backyard and soon enough the Devil appears to inspect the latest purchase. He approves but most likely only because I can be touched if I'm not sunburnt. Priorities.

He passes me a whiskey on rocks and sits in the chair beside me.

Much better. He says. 

And how, I nod. 

Come watch a movie tonight? I heard your nineties dinosaurfest is over finally. Lochlan and I finished watching the third film late last evening. 

What movie?

Whatever you like. 

Chose from my wishlist then. He smiles and runs the bottom of his glass across my propped-up toes. I think he could have a foot fetish if he were any less regimented but nope, he keeps his weaknesses to tying & crying (me not him).

Maybe we could have a swim.

Can we talk too? 

About?

Just where I stand with the various allotments and property. I guess I felt as if it was connected to me continuing to work for you and now that I don't have to do that anymore since you've officially-officially retired then I don't know what assets are mine exactly or if there are any, what I should do with them? 

I'd be happy to advise you. We'll go over everything before dinner. I told you what was yours already. It surprises me that you don't consider it to be so. 

I guess I get distracted. A refresher would be great. Should I plan to be there for a while? 

A nightcap or late dessert after the movie would be nice. I won't keep you til morning or anything like that. I don't want to awaken the beast but I do need some time with my favorite girl. It will be worth your while. 

How's that?

Curious little thing today, aren't you?

You retiring has me thinking about the future, that's all. 

His eyebrows go up. He's amused. I never mention the future. I'm usually too busy living in the past.

I got to leapfrog right over Monday. Yay!

Sorry I didn't post yesterday. Over the weekend we worked our asses off, then we went to see Jurassic World (so fun!! Go!) and it inspired Lochlan and I to watch the other three movies too.

We seriously only came up for air long enough for sex and more nachos.

Kidding. We just locked the door and never bothered pausing the movies even once.

Then we called PJ to bring refreshments. The man commands a high price when he's waiting on me. If I don't want anything he brings me everything. If I want something I have to bid on it. Those nachos cost me a new stereo for his jeep.

They were worth every penny. He even put green onions on them. Spoiled rotten, I am.

Loch is, PJ says with a wink. Someone has to treat him right. 

Oh my G-

WHATEVER.

Today is another work day. There's no time to be dramatic or write or do anything. It's all work. We've scrubbed the floors, vacuumed all the levels with the swanky new vaccuum, watered all the gardens because it feels like it might never ever rain again (AHAHAHAHA) and changed the beds, which means four epic loads of laundry and a lot of climbing around trying to tuck in fitted sheets and also it means hauling the night owls out of their beds which is a little funny.

Yes I could let them deal with their own beds but if I do that PJ would next change his sheets either if he planned to bring a date home or sometime in 2020, whichever comes first.

(I kid. He doesn't bring dates home anymore. Would you?)

Duncan would never change his sheets at all. Yuck.

On the upside? We spun the music wheel and are listening to the Bee Gees while we work. Which is some sort of audible torture for some of the boys but not for Lochlan and August. They're both singing loudly in falsetto. I laughed so hard I almost wet my pants.

It's been a really good weekend and beginning of the week actually. Kind of like old times, in a way.

Saturdays like no other.

He wrapped one arm around my neck right in the middle of dessert out in the sunny vineyard at the long table when half the boys were carrying dishes back to the house and the other half were engaged in great conversation away from their seats. He kissed my temple, telling me I had a reprieve, that I did well in his absence not jumping ship on our arrangement, not digging myself a deep hole of grief to go into and not shutting him out upon his return. He worries, I should note, about what he's going to come home to when he travels, which is why he prefers to have me come along and then he always knows what to expect always, that it's easier on him.

It's not easier on me, I tell him as he lets go, just as he sees Lochlan coming down across the lawn. I take the last bite of my cake and pick up my dishes. Caleb grabs my wrist and my teacup drops to the ground. He says that because he loves me so much he'll delay our date until midweek. That my reprieve earned by being unpredictable, somewhat stable is a one-off, unlike our occasional evenings.

Lochlan reaches me just as Caleb lets go and takes my dishes from me. Movie? 

Yeah. 

Let's go then. It's nice and cool inside. 

I say my goodnights and follow him between the rows, back to the house.

A Saturday like any other.

When I present this morning, the Devil thanks me for having his car detailed.

We did it. I didn't have it done.

You did it?

Yes. And Sam. Keith helped. 

Ahh. Very good. I appreciate that but you didn't have to. I have a service for that.

It was cheaper. 

I left you money. 

I spent it on ice cream and glitter. 

He smiles just a little and then asks if I had a restful week in his absence. My composure hit the floor. Not really. It's shaky. I'm going to cry. I don't want to cry.

What happened? The fights?

Fights. Yeah. 

He isn't mature enough to handle you. 

Because a girl who spends hundreds on dessert and craft supplies is such a fucking enigma. 

EXACTLY. 

What?

Most women are into trips, purses and new kitchens at this age. You want to blow bubbles and spin in circles until you throw up. That's a difficult and wonderful thing to process for any man.

He never had trouble before. 

He grew up. You did not. 

You just said he wasn't mature. 

Emotionally he isn't prepared to take on an extra human when he can't look after himself.

Nice. I'm supposed to listen to you tell me this? It's a conflict of interest. 

You're a child with an extensive vocabulary and a knack for breaking hearts-

Stop that. 

It's an intoxicating, deadly combina-

KNOCK IT OFF! 

Cue the child, right on time. 

Did you have a nice trip?

I did but I missed my family. 

Okay good. Here's your car key. Henry will be over later. See you later too maybe. 

Alright. Oh. Before you go. Here. He goes to the counter and shuffles through some papers and then comes back to me with a pewter envelope. And keep the car key. Just don't leave it where they can get to it.

I take the key and the envelope but I don't open it. I'm busy juggling composure and false bravado. Now he throws fear at me and I can barely hang on to it.

It's been a long week. I need to spend some time with you. 

It doesn't work like that. 

It works whatever way I say it works. 

Children don't take orders, they're exempt. 

Bring your glitter. I have some uses for it. 

I'm not coming. 

Yes. He smiles. You will. Besides, Pyro only seems to behave and treat you properly when you're in danger, so I'll just keep you there and it will be business as usual. 

When in doubt, feed the little beast.

He knocked on the door and I refused to say anything from within.

He knocked again.

Go away! 

Bridgie, I'm sorry. Could you come out? I'll buy you dinner. 

What is it?

If you could eat anything right now, what would you eat? 

A hot dog and a brownie! With some chocolate milk. 

Then that's what we'll get. 

Really?

Sure. 

I opened the door thirty years later and he was still there. Only I don't want a hot dog and a brownie anymore. I'd like to get some Vietnamese food and then maybe an ice cream cone with a walk down by the water.

Then that's what we'll do. 

Really?

Sure. 

"The herpes of the craft world", they call it.

While I slept fitfully last night in the windless ten-thousand degree heat, Sam was exacting his revenge. You would think his identity as a minister would mean he might have gone easy in matters of vengeance, but no, he did not.

All of my shoes? Full of glitter. But only the right one of each.

My purse? Full of glitter.

My favorite tea mug? Yup.

My shampoo contained a large amount of glitter.

My favorite lipstick was dipped in glitter.

The pockets of my hoodie were full of it.

Every chair in the house was coated in a fine layer. It was on the dog. It was on Dalton. It was in PJ's beard.

I finally had to get away from it. So I went down to the beach with Duncan.

And guess what I saw?

Yes. More glitter.

I almost cried. The vacuum cleaner I have isn't so great. Marginally better than the shop vac but not by much so I figured I would disentangle myself from the hoodie, borrow a pair of shoes from Ruth and drive to the store to buy a new vacuum cleaner. We came back up (I'm laugh-crying now) and I got organized and got into Caleb's car, figuring I was safe and didn't get any glitter in his precious R8.

Then I turned it on and twisted the air conditioner up high.

And glitter blew out the vents.

PB&J (Princess Butt of Jokes).

Don't ask me to write about him today. I'm not going to.

Instead I should tell you I snuck another handful of not-yet-ripe cherries off the tree only to realize when I was eating the last one that they had fruit fly larvae in them.

All told we lost half of that crop since after I was done quiet-screaming at PJ and he googled to show me I wasn't going to die, we picked the rest of the cherries, inspected every single one, and wound up with three whole cups of untainted fruit.

I'm going to make a pie, that way I can cut them all in half to be sure they're safe but I may only eat Twinkies, Kraft Dinner and pop-tarts until the end of time because critters. They're in just about everything else.

Thank you, Google.

In other news, Sam's Kia was glitter-bombed last night. Not in the vents, just thrown all over the outside for fun. Unfortunately the perpetrator (ahem) is rather short and had no idea the sunroof was open and so she's pretty sure the worms were some sort of Divine retaliation.

Did you  know the shop vac won't pick up glitter?

I didn't know that either.

At least Matt thought it was funny. He keeps texting me today, telling me there's glitter on everything now. Every time he lists a new place where he has found it I say GOOD because life should be covered in glitter.

But not bugs.

The child and the fool. Doesn't matter who's who. You can actually ignore this one. It's nothing new.

Break the inside
Hurt in a way you'll like it
Eager to find
Find me another heart

This is how we argue now and it's ludicrous. He does laps around me with the unicycle and I stand in the middle of his circle, eyes closed. We don't talk. I just stand there. It's dumb.

The minute he's in charge I am infantilized again, right back to the good old days.

Brush your teeth, Bridgie. 

Here, Peanut. Have some more carrots. Do you want some milk?

(Do I want milk? No, I don't want any fucking milk. I don't think I'm going to grow any more.)

I'll close this window. It's cooling off. You'll freeze. 

It's late. We need sleep. 

Come here. 

And on and on and I counted about ten or so direct orders in as many hours before I stopped listening altogether. The only reason I came outside tonight is because he asked nicely if I would. As in, Bridget, would you please come outside with me? If he hadn't said please I would still be inside tucked under PJ's arm, reading my book.

Here I am. And there he goes again in another circle. He's waiting for me to talk first. He'll be doing circles all night because I don't plan to.

Seven more circles and I sit down in place, legs crossed, shoulders folded in around me. Making myself small. Chin on my hands, elbows on my knees. PJ comes out, watches this spectacle for a moment and then goes back inside, shaking his head. He doesn't get involved unless he thinks I need protecting. I don't.

Well, some parts do. My heart. My head. And maybe Loch is right. If I would just listen to him, he could direct my life like a film and things would be that much easier.

For him.

I have a personal credo to do everything the hard way, it seems and so I rail against that.

You know, before he left, Ben talked to me too. We have a mutual approach to you. If it makes you happy, it's okay. 

Oh, bullshit. If that was the case I would sleep on the beach every night! Among other things! CHRIST.

That would be dangerous and you'd get cold and...what? What other things?

Things that would MAKE ME HAPPY! 

THEN PICK SOMETHING ELSE TO BE HAPPY ABOUT. Loch roars it back and PJ comes back to the screen door, watching him. I wave him away with one hand.

Treat me like an adult. 

He stops in the middle of an arc and jumps off the cycle. What did you say?

Treat me like an adult. An equal. 

Bridge, this is bes-

Jesus, you won't even CONSIDER it, will you?! I made it this far without you. Surely by now you can see that I'm not a child anymore. 

You made it this far without me? Consider that if you had been 'with' me it would have saved both of us a lot of pain. 

Who's fault is that? I'm on my feet again. He presses his nose down against mine and backs me right across the walkway. PJ comes out and starts to come down the front steps.

PJ, we really need some privacy here. Please.

Right back into the fire. Lochlan is the one who left. He's the one who refuses this role time and time again.

It's the Devil's fault, Bridge.

No, it's yours! 

Then let me try and fix it. For the last time.

What if it's too late? 

We're both here, aren't we? It's not too late, I swear it, Bridget. Jump like your life depends on it already because I think it might. 

What if you aren't there to catch me? 

What if I am? 

But what if you're not? 

Those who are on team Caleb will be pleased to know he didn't make a tactical error in leaving Lochlan and I alone to further bond in his and Ben's absences. True to three decades of historical precedence we can't actually get along long enough to do that.

Tattooed hallelujahs.

Summoned this morning early for a hasty driveway-goodbye, as based on yesterday's words and the general mood of the point Caleb has opted to fly to Toronto for almost all of this coming week to celebrate his retirement with his lawyer friends, some of whom he went to school with, some he worked with for years and years. This is his old boys' network, where letting your hair down involves rolling up your cuffs two whole times, loosening your tie but never actually taking it off and having that second whiskey. They will play golf and test drive each others' cars and talk women and song and it'll be boring to onlookers but great bonding for them. They're all sugar daddies to varying degrees. He's the only truly good-looking one though.

I presented in Hello Kitty shorts and a Rush Snakes & Arrows tour tank top, all bangs and knees. His whole cold attitude crumbled like a cookie when he saw me.

You look rested. 

I am. You? 

Didn't sleep. He pulls out a roll of bills and two cards. For emergencies. Both cards are black. (What sort of emergency will I have? I'm wondering.) I'll be back Friday night. Just need to go play a little golf and see some old faces. I do need you to rebook a meeting I had made for Wednesday. The info is on my desk, if you wouldn't mind. 

I don't mind. 

Thank you. Rebook for a week from now. And maybe by the time I come back the pool will be ready and we can have a late-night swim. 

Maybe. Maybe I'll throw you a Welcome Home pool party. 

That would be good to look forward to. 

Do you want to come up and see Henry before you go?

Let him sleep. I'll call him after lunch. 

Okay. 

Stay safe, Neamhchiontach.

He got into the jeep and PJ saluted me as they headed up the driveway. The Devil blew a kiss which I didn't return. Once they were out of sight I jumped up and punched the air with both fists.

YES! 

From the front porch Lochlan laughed, because he followed me right out the door this morning but I didn't hear him. A ninja in boxers and a Rush t-shirt from the same tour.

Well now, Peanut. Six days with only ourselves to blame for whatever happens next. 

Living the life of Reilly.

It's the colloquialism I hate most.

He's living the life of Reilly. 

No, he isn't, for Jake Reilly is dead and in his place stands his tiny blonde and deaf widow and she isn't in the mood for your wistfulness, your familiarity. Hilarity, it is to her, for she is held prisoner here in your memories instead of being free to go and remember her own. How dare you?

How dare you.

Lochlan and Caleb are both still alive, if it matters. Lochlan only went to tell Caleb to back off. Caleb laughed in his face and that was that, apparently. Lochlan's hands are tied, bound by our past and knotted up in our future and so he is helpless for now and I call the shots.

So I called them as Caleb loaded them in by name. Every bullet is named Bridget, every aim will kill. If he squeezes even a little I will be crushed and a memory unto myself. I don't know if he would ever be frustrated enough to do so, I don't want to be around to find out.

I went to see him and he held the memories to my head, safety off and I told him this isn't how he's going to make me love him, that there are nights and weeks and months and hours between Lochlan and I that no one can supersede. That no one can possibly comprehend.

That's in the past, Neamhchiontach. 

No, that's in the future, Diabhal. It's a future without you. 

He squeezes the trigger and my head explodes, showering us both in glitter and blood. Bits of my heart slide down the walls for who knew that my heart was in my head while my brain thumps against my chest like a drum?

I did, he tells me and he keeps squeezing until the clip is empty and so is my fucking head.

Swimming with the enemy.

Yeah. 

He's going to be my shadow. 

Nine on the dot and he arrives at the kitchen door with a bottle of leftover champagne, two towels and his wetsuit. 

Let's go try the toys I haven't played with yet. 

PJ's eyebrow went up but he didn't say anything. 

Can't. I have a mug of tea in my face so I talk behind it. I have to take Daniel in for his appointment. 

Afterward, perhaps.

Movie date with Joel this afternoon. That's YOUR fault, remember? 

Tonight? 

I stare hard at him. I need notice. Maybe you should do up an envelope.

When are you free next? 

Tomorrow morning. It's Saturday. I don't have any plans. 

Would you like to try the waverunners with me tomorrow then?

I would love to. Also I'll try to pop in and see you later for the field trip and clothes money. And to give you the exam schedule for the kids. 

That would be great. I think I'm going to go try these things out on my own then. No time like the present. 

PJ can't take it and tells Caleb he'll go with him. No one is supposed to go alone and really, he is free since I'm taking Daniel in town.

Really? Okay great. Let's go. Some company would be great. I've got the warming drink for afterward.

Okay but I have to warn you. I look like a naval mine in my wetsuit. 

Is that so?

Yeah but she looks like a vanilla bean in hers so I consider myself lucky. 

What's up? Loch walks in and grabs a mug to pour some tea. 

I'm heading out to take Daniel to the doctor and PJ and Caleb are going to use the wave runners. 

Got room for a third? 

I was about to say no when I realized he wasn't looking at me. 

Caleb's eyes flicker briefly just once and then he turns into a teenager. Yeah. Come on! 

And I wander next door in a daze. 

Hey Bridge. I'm ready. Daniel is putting his wallet and phone in his pocket. He grabs his crutches and waits for me to open the door for him. 

What's wrong?

Nothing. Loch and Caleb and PJ are going waverunning. 

Ah. Nice. 

No, I said Loch and CALEB. 

Oh, I missed that part somehow. 

Yeah. 

Should we stay? Send in reinforcements? Call the military?

No. I guess PJ is there so no one will die. But really, what is Caleb up to? 

He invited Loch and Loch said yes?

No, he invited me and I couldn't go so PJ said he would spot him and then Lochlan walked in and invited himself. It was weird. 

That is weird. But maybe they're trying to be friends. 

I don't know. I'm pretty sure those days are over. 

Then just wait and see. Things will be okay. 

He passes me and I lock the door behind us. I feel like I'm going to cry and I don't know why. Things haven't been okay for thirty-six years. Why would that change now? 

(The bluebird in Winnie the Pooh.)

I'm hung over today and ashamed. Champagne is not friendly fire, it's a weapon of mass destruction and I am a hell of a lightweight target. I couldn't speak in simple sentences by the time Lochlan carried me upstairs.

You'rnt Pooh Bear. You're Owl. Owl knows thing. 'Watch out for the jagulars!' you say. I'm listen. I try.

Oh, Jesus, Bridge, come here.

He opted for a cool shower for both of us while I worked on coherent speech. I felt okay, par for the course as my inebriations seem to affect my verbal and motor-skills first always.

Better?

Possotly.

Time for sleep.

He should haven't named me Kessie. Whyyyyyy.

The bird?

Yeah. Why am me Pigalit?

The annoyance factor, probably.

Thank fuck you.

Yep. Sleepy time, baby.

And lights out for me but then the Devil came to breakfast and he was attentive and helpful and he saw the kids off to school while I gingerly cradled my skull from the inside by gritting my teeth which worked for a time until the rest of the collective appeared and found out I was feeling poorly this morning. They began to talk loudly and slam things around the kitchen as hard as possible because they think it's funny.

I won't ever do that again but rarely do any of us drink to excess these days.

Caleb waits until everyone wanders off with coffee/juice/toast and Lochlan has gone to fetch Daniel and then he looks at me. He hasn't shaved. He's in a slate blue t-shirt and jeans. Bare feet. I kind of want to stare for a while but also I still want to barf.

You should have stayed last night. I would have made sure you remained awake until you felt better.

Such concern for someone who must have refilled my drink six times over.

We were having fun.

Too much fun.

Not enough fun. He stares at my eyes. It's hurting me. I look out at the water.

Are you going to follow me around all the time now that you're retired? Is this what it's going to be like?

Yes. I think I will. At least until the novelty wears off. 

Great. 

It is, indeed. I'm having fun so far. What about you? 

A warning that you wanted.

I invade you now
I take you down
I make you now
I erase you now

Here's to actual retirement, said the Devil, raising his glass, just shy of his original teenage goal in Freedom Fifty-five. This took forever with three false starts in which he poured his assets into one thing after another instead of taking his toys and going home already. He has enough toys. What he needs is a break. This came a complete surprise. I thought he would hold out on me forever and keep working.

I actually didn't think he was serious when I was nine, when in one of the early, numerous fist fights between himself and Lochlan he threw Lochlan down in the dirt and proclaimed his bravado, the kind only utilized by your average egotistical seventeen-year-old.

At least I'm going to be somebody!

Lochlan got up and took Caleb down in a running tackle, oh he of only fourteen tender years at that time and said he was too.

The were both covered with dust, Christian and Cole pulled them apart and told them both they should grow up first of all, before anything else.

And so Caleb became somebody rich and Lochlan became somebody famous but only if you read the local financial papers and only if you know your friendly neighborhood freaks. Otherwise they are just two desperate men looking to grab that brass ring of a heart that belongs to me and only seems to beat really loudly just before it breaks.

Lochlan is going to kill me with books. This will be how I die. He brought home Finders Keepers, the sequel to Mr. Mercedes and I squealed, half in dismay because I put aside King's Revival in order to dig into the Outlander series. I'm never going to catch up.

That's totally fine.

:)

I couldn't talk to Ben today. I didn't have any courage. I couldn't put on a happy face. I can't even think of him without bursting into tears and wondering why my loyalties only seem to ever extend to whatever is within arm's reach instead of what my heart has already mapped out without waiting to consult my brain, who logically went in a completely different direction and is now lost, stranded somewhere I can't easily see.

It isn't fair that I now count Sam as being more forthright with affection in Ben's absence. Making up the difference. Filling in the gaps. An incendiary device in thought, let alone in practice.

And yet still, Lochlan doesn't say a word.

When Matt comes home early I am handed off quietly. Back to PJ, or Duncan or Daniel until Loch comes inside and cleans up. I feel like I'm the national treasure to be guarded. I feel like meat. I feel spent and all cried out and here I was, such a brave little asshole telling Ben to go. Standing up to him as he looked for ways to tear me down, refusing to give in to his plea to say the word and he would stay.

I'm not going to be his regret, keeping him from doing what he lives for.

But maybe I already am.

He says that's insane and I nod because of course it is if it comes from me. He says if things stay this way then we'll be okay when he comes back. We tell ourselves these stupid reasonings so that we can sleep at night but really it's because we have no idea what we're doing here.

I don't see how tomorrow will be different. June wasn't. July won't be. August is over the garage biding his own time until I collapse from this weight and September is a lifetime away.

The Devil took the call in my place and probably told so many lies Ben will never bother coming back at all if it weren't for Daniel but that remains to be seen. Ben won't just accept whatever Caleb tells him but Caleb has a long history of promising to help Ben all the while twisting a knife in his back. I can't count on the Devil to smooth things over. I made this mess myself and I'm not mature or decisive enough to sort it out now so what do I do?

I pick up the phone and stare at Ben's picture. Five missed calls and eighty-one text messages and I press the button again to turn the screen off while I turn my face back in against Sam's blazer because it's better than trying to be brave.

For me it's not memory lane. It's more like an eight-lane highway. It's the TransBridget.

(A seventeen and twelve to offset the aftertaste from yesterday's twenty-four and seventeen.)

Overdue, where did it all go wrong
and I'm too soon, where did it all go wrong?

I wasn't allowed to order french fries just now. My nose is really stuffed up, my throat raw to the point where I cried out for a drink at three in the morning and Loch resorted to giving me a tiny sip of very warm beer.

He was gone and back at six with groceries as a result. Cough medicine. Juice. An ice pack and tylenol. Today I'm only leaving the camper for lunch. He'll bring dinner home with him but since I feel okay right this second, he risks putting me behind him on the motorcycle for the eight-minute trip down the highway to the diner.

Now that we're here, he has ordered for both of us. Spicy chicken soup. It comes with a roll, butter and a drink of choice. He ordered orange juice for me and for himself too. He's going to get sick within the week. I always seem to get it first. He said that's because I'm smaller and weaker, but he's not saying it to be mean, that's just the way it is.

While we pick at our rolls waiting for soup I start carving a little army out of my pat of butter. It's as hard as a rock. Soon the tiny standing army has taken shape and Loch is mesmerized for a long time before talking about nothing, like we always do when we're waiting for food. We've covered everything there is to say so the only thing we have left is the same questions with more entertaining, surprising answers. It's fun.

What do you want to be when you grow up, Bridgie? 

I think I'll be an astronaut. 

Oh, hey now, what gives? Last week you were going to be a ballerina!

I've decided it looks boring and I get wedgies really easily so no. 

But tutus! 

I will wear them with my astronaut costume. 

Is it a costume? 

A uniform? No-a suit! It's a spacesuit. 

So a spacesuit with a tutu. I'll be able to figure out which one you are from my telescope. 

I'll wave. You'll know it's me. (I am serious. Also naive..)

True. You'll probably be the smallest. I'll find you. What will your job be in space? 

I will choose new colors and paint the planets. I bet they are overdue for a fresh paintjob.

All of them? You're going to be gone a while. 

No, see, I'm making an army of butter astronauts. Butter-nauts. They will be tasked with doing my bidding in space. 

You're going to rule space now? 

Maybe. 

A little mean ballerina-naut?

Ballerinaut. And I won't be mean. Everyone will get lots of space soup to eat. I will be friendly AND generous. 

Nice. So you're going to bring these guys with you into space instead of spreading them on the roll?

No, silly. These ones know their fate already. Onto the roll they go. I squish them flat against the bread with a very serious expression and we both laugh. I start coughing, barking like a seal and everyone in the diner turns to look at me.

I guess we'd better go back home so you can have a sleep and feel better. 

I feel fine, Locket.

But if you have a dream you can finalize your plans for space. Maybe pick some of your colors out. If you like. 

Will you stay with me? 

Of course. I'm going to be the first one who hears what colors the plantets are going to be next. That's an honor, you know. 

It is. Hey, Loch? 

Yes? 

Thank you for the soup. It's really good. 

You don't have to thank me. It's probably my fault you're sick in the first place. It's still not very warm at night yet in the camper. 

Yes it is. 

You think so? 

Well, you are warm and I sleep right there, I point at his chest, and so I'm warm too. 

He smiles but he doesn't say anything and I pick up my bowl to make sure I eat every last drop of soup.

Not proud but not sorry either.

Raised by wolves
Stronger than fear
If I open my eyes,
You disappear

Yesterday's round of cliches and mounting egos ended abruptly in the dark as memories drowned us once again. We only ever get so far before we're yanked back by the leash of our past. It's not a leash, it's a noose, jerking me off my feet, out of the present, far away from the future. So much for hope.

Ciúnas, Neamhchiontach. Ciúnas.

Lochlan-

Just don't say it. Let me have this night.

He kissed my earlobe. My nose. My forehead. He smoothed his thumbs across my cheeks and cupped my head in his hands. His top hat puts his eyes into shadow. His eyeliner is smeared down his cheeks and across his lips. He's covered with fuel. I can smell it in his hair and on his skin. I reach up with one hand and try and wipe away the black. Underneath this is the light. Underneath all of these trappings of the Demon Juggler of Embro is my Lochlan. Or at least I hope so.

He keeps talking in other languages. Gaelic mixed with French mixed with Romanian. His hands are everywhere, his mouth everywhere. My clothes are landing on the filthy hotel floor one article at a time until I am naked and overheated and flush. There is no air conditioning, no standards for cleanliness and no identification required when you check in to this hotel. It's a dive. It's a forgotten strip of loneliness underneath a highway overpass in a city I wouldn't go back to on a dare. It's a shame.

He leaves his hat on as his hands come back up to cradle my face. Our clothes have made a sea on the floor, one of familiarity and small comfort. I wash them out each night in the bathtub and hang them on a string that Lochlan tied between the shower head and the window blinds. It only takes a few days in this heavy beach air to dry things and we each have four outfits plus our show costumes. We can't wash those. There's only one for each of us and we wear them every night. Loch's black pants are heavy with fuel and I worry that one of these nights he's going to go up in smoke but he tells me he's so careful, that he would never leave me alone here. He promises.

I take the whiskey and warn him that he'd better keep that promise and he smiles.

Are you happy, Neamhchiontach? Are you okay now? 

I nod and swallow three times, then two more. I'll numb myself right out until I am. Then he will be happy too. He wants me to lie when he asks. That much I have learned. The whiskey holds truth's head underwater. Truth is drowning. Truth is dead.

He lifts me up in his arms and wraps my legs around his waist. He walks to the bed and dumps us both down onto it. A kiss to distract and then he has turned me inside out. There are no lies here now. There would be no place to put them. He pulls his hat off and sails it toward the table on the other side of the room just as I reach up to smooth his curls out of his eyes. I want to see him. It's still light out and so I want to see his expressions. They are so incredible as he goes through desire, passion, euphoria and then contentment.

We are almost to euphoria when the knocks start against the door. What begins as a polite rap soon turns to a steady pounding as he ignores it in favor of one last time making love in this place we'll never come back to. He stole the cash box yesterday while I made up an argument with the boss about how I should be paid more because I'm a performer now and not just a grunt. Lochlan took half the contents and then I picked another fight while he put the box back in place. We came back to the hotel long enough to collect our laundry and steal a map but now the hotel manager has realized that we're about to skip town without paying our bill and he wants to make sure we don't leave.

Lochlan takes me to the ceiling and holds me there while he finds his place beside me as the pounding on the door takes on the same rhythm as my pounding heart. I am shaky and spent. He lies down beside me smiling. Eyes flashing, face in an all-out grin.

This is not the life I planned for us but if you can bear with me, someday it will be, he says with a wink. We jump up and dress as fast as possible, buttoning buttons while we throw clothes into our bags, tying ribbons while I walk around exactly five times, checking the room to make sure we've left nothing behind. This is how we operate. Loch takes my hand and pulls me into the bathroom where he cuts down the string line and then takes the screen out of the window. He lifts me up and I go through easily to the dirt lot on the outside. He passes through my bag, then his bag and he starts to climb through when abruptly he stops and says one second, disappearing back into the room.

I can still hear the pounding on the door. I hear him yell One second! toward the door and then he is back. He passes through his top hat and then he climbs through the window. He loads both bags on his shoulder, puts his top hat on my head and takes my hand as we start to run. If we're fast enough there's a bus that stops just before the underpass to get back on the highway and we can leave this godforsaken place behind.

Saturdays are for sabbaticals and for strawberry-blondes too.

Batman came down to the house this morning to tour Lochlan's latest refurb (he's been restoring vintage camper trailers and even a few RVs, did I tell you this already?) and said that Lochlan would have the summer off because there isn't enough work for him right now, that Batman likes to slow down every now and then and appreciate the beauty in life.

(The camper thing is Lochlan's own endeavour and is not what he does for Batman. Batman has him doing a sort of tech support, set-up computers job. It's completely unnecessary. Don't even ask.)

Love my semi-retired millionaires, yes I do.

Lochlan has his own sugar daddy to level the field too now, in that he keeps his pay with benefits and come September he may have a slightly different role in working for Batman. Also a raise.

And Batman enjoyed his little tour of the airstream, pulling open drawers and testing the fridge and they talked about labour costs versus materials and the markups involved (not much) and Batman was quite taken with Lochlan's efforts to give people a fair deal on old campers while still making enough money to almost live on.

Almost.

Well, he could live on it but not here.

Batman said that if we needed anything he would be available around the clock. I'm sure I know what he meant but it still surprises me when he leans in to my ear and says,

Even the most neutral countries, when pushed, will pick a side. I like the one I'm on. 

Who wouldn't?, I think to myself as I watch Lochlan struggle with a stuck drawer. His hair has lightened at last to match his scruffy beard. He's so beautiful and delicately-boned and fierce I want to cry. He looks up and gives me a self-effacing grin and tells Batman he'll fix that tomorrow and Batman nods because he knows Lochlan will fix it.

Maybe he'll finally fix some other stuff too.

This was Batman's way of apologizing for agreeing with Caleb and the others in not allowing me to go to New York on short notice to see Ben, however briefly it would have been for.)

When Batman leaves I pull the drawer out and chalk it so Loch can see where it's sticking. I put it back in but can't even get it to go as far as he could. Loch reaches in around me, gives the drawer a shove home and then spins me around, pinning me against the little counter. The walls are close, the ghosts of amusements past are all around us and he kisses up under my nose and then full on my mouth and he says that this is amazing, that we ended up on our feet here beside the ocean in a pretty little trailer with two children running around and all our friends close by and that we have three cheques coming in regularly and that maybe this is it. Maybe we made it after all. Maybe after a summer alone together this will feel right even if it feels unbelievably weird right now.

That this is what we always hoped for.

And now we have it and we both suddenly decide we can't jinx it, that we will get used to it, not take it for granted and respect the circumstances that led to this moment right here.

I wanted to hate him for pole-vaulting right over the subject of Benjamin but Loch is right.

All of the big things I put on my list when I was twelve have materialized abruptly right in front of me and I don't know what to do with it all. I don't know how I should feel. Grateful? Guilty? Saddened? Elated? Peaceful?

I look at Lochlan for my cue. He runs this show, after all.

Feel hopeful, Bridgie. Like Sam said. Hope is here whether you decide to acknowledge it or not. 

We head outside and Loch's phone beeps. Batman has sent Lochlan a message which he reads out loud. 'I forgot to mention I give my employees a summer bonus when I shut down for the season. Enjoy.'

Lochlan whoops really loudly and picks me up, spinning me around. As I go around the sun reflecting off the airstream blinds me, so I can barely see the form of Caleb standing at the top of his stairs watching us.

Spending all my time today twisting in the sunny breeze on the swing in the orchard. I asked Caleb if I could paint it and he said that would be nice so on the board there is a mermaid, only she isn't smiling, she's got a flat expression like she isn't sure.

I don't know where she got that from.

Oh, yes, I do.

If I'm out there I have no cell service for whatever reason and so I can ignore the phone in my pocket, ignore the boys since they have to trudge out here instead of calling, it's just too far, too tucked down the hill. I can stop time and just think about nothing but the wind and the water and the crow that's been watching me the whole time from the top of a branch nearby. He is not a sentry, he's a scavenger. I'm not a person, I'm a fragment. I'm a meal.

This is not life, this is a dream. I would say nightmare but Lochlan brought me home a mood ring and PJ made soft boiled eggs and toast points for lunch and you'll never find those sorts of comforts in a nightmare.

Not mine, anyway. Mine are filled with underground tunnels and concrete floors and single flickering bulbs and ghosts that tell me all the things I want to hear and all the things I don't.

Rock and sway.

We are the living souls
With terminal hearts, terminal parts
Flickering like candles
Fatally flawed, Fatally flawed

Every time Sam turns around I take a sip of his coffee. It's instant, don't worry. It's terrible. It was from a jar probably opened in 2010 and missed by me in my efforts to look after Sam just a little bit better than any one ever has.

I have on my deadhead floor-length patchwork skirt, a tank top and August's chiseled Ohm necklace that I stole last night from his neck and I can't stay still with Terminal on. Sam gave me permission to introduce him to The Wonderlands: Sunlight via the church's sound system and we both decided we'll just leave this song on repeat forever. So sad but bobbing and catchy too. It's gorgeous, layered and so loud.

Maybe like me. Except for the gorgeous part. I've decided suddenly that my Furiosa haircut just doesn't work with my wardrobe and has taken all of my power away. I look fragile. I look sick and small and now I can't get away with anything. I'll grow it all back out and then they will be so distracted I will once again hold influence over the whole collective.

Sam is swaying too, rocking back and forth on his heels while he talks on the phone. They're giving him a person. Another minister. Permanently. Someone to help share the load. Sam is going to be the boss. He's going to be so boss, though I doubt he'll give directives at all. Instead he'll ask for help because that's what he does and what he's taught me to do.

I get distracted staring at the back of his head where his hair almost curls and he turns around before I remember to put the cup back down.

I offered to make you some.

I'm fine, thank you. 

He bursts out laughing but then his face turns serious. Who are you avoiding today? 

No one. 

No one named Loch?

Maybe. 

Why? 

He's so INTENSE. I lean in and widen my eyes. It's a line from Practical Magic. Sam knows it and he nods.

That he is. He's never changed though, has he?

Nope. And I will never ever ever figure him out. 

Just know that he truly does have your best interests at heart. 

I know he does. 

So what do you plan to do?

Nothing. 

Going to pick up where you left off when Ben comes home?

Yep. 

What if he doesn't come back?

Why wouldn't he come back?

I'm playing the Devil's advocate. 

The Devil doesn't need anyone to advocate for him, Sam. He does just fine on his own. 

So then why ARE you avoiding Lochlan?

I shake my head and pretend to be busy. I can't answer that without tears.

Get your bag. We're going to go out for real coffee. We can talk about it there. 

Let's be forthright from here on out.

Oops.

Caleb didn't like the answer I gave to some of his colleagues over breakfast when presented to them like a goddamned trophy wife. When they asked what I do, I said that when I'm not functioning as Mr. C_____'s personal assistant I teach all the men I live with how to put the toilet seat down.

They thought it was funny.

He didn't.

(Seriously. I believe this is somehow my job now. 8/10 men in my life can manage this simple but important task. So really 16 out of 20. Four of them are just troublemakers.)

"Some things are true whether you believe them or not."

The ocean is so still this morning, silent and cold. I've resumed life in a bathing suit with a hoodie for the time being because these are the things I want to embrace, like when you get pine needles stuck to your bare feet or get a hint of the scent of lilacs when you step out your front door.

The sand is ice cold, the rocks somewhat warmer but uncomfortable and I wade along in the water, numb from my ankles to my toes. I won't leave her.  I won't leave her ever again. That makes me the most dedicated lover to my ocean. She doesn't have to look up one day, reaching for the morning with the highest tide she can muster, wondering where I went.

I will be right here.

***

Lochlan spoke a warning in the dark that changed things ever so profoundly.

He's telling you one story and I'm getting another.

I know this.

And?

And I need to see how it ends.

Why.

Curiosity. Remember? It will be what kills me. I'd like it in my obituary, if there is one. 'She was born into the fair. She wrote a whole shitload of horror stories, she loved really really hard and then curiosity killed her. What an amazing poignant life. What a show.' Put that in, please.

Can't. He's gone rigid, removed. Bridget's mortality isn't something Lochlan can deal with.

Yes you can.

Someone else will have to. There's no life if you aren't here. Nothing before you and so there will be nothing after you.

Pulling out the big guns today, I see.

I never said I wasn't armed.

(That. That was the sentence that changed things once again. Never saw it coming.)

***

Resistant to living in the moment and yet learning ever so slowly precisely how to do just that. Stop, Bridget, slow down. Re-plant some peppers that never sprouted. Inspect the grapevines and take a deep breath in the orchard. Take a stick and poke into the ant hill. Learn the names of all the plants in the grotto. Buy more lilacs. Walk the beach three times a day instead of once. Wear sunscreen but put it on in the morning and then it's not an issue to try and remember to bring.

Breathe.

Think about Jake without being drowned in grief.

Think about Cole without guilt.

Think about Caleb, who is not evil, just debilitatingly lonely.

Think about PJ, so selfless and kind to me.

Think about Sam who is stretched so thin but who always takes the time to remind me not to hyperventilate or to panic when around the corner hope waits, held out by God. Just take it, he says, Sam will help you learn to use it.

Think about Ben, who is attempting to fix everything in his own way. With emotional pyrotechnics. With jangling guitar leads and absent-presence.

Think about Lochlan.

Lochlan.

The sun. The constant. I open my eyes, he's there. Every good morning since 1983. If that wasn't a sign then I will paint it myself.

Think about life and what it means. Life is peppers and orchards and ants and lilacs and sunscreen and love. Life is not mourning for those who can't care but for loving those who do. Life is lights and magic and fire and exhilaration and wristbands and freaks.

Life is weird.

This one is mine.

Up at three thirty and down to the library so I can Skype with Ben before he heads out for his afternoon (very small windows to talk and they aren't convenient with the time difference) and he is disappointed and mostly crushed that I assume the worst.

He says just because it's the first time out in forever doesn't mean it's a slide. Maybe it's a ladder instead.

Are there snakes?

Everywhere, he laughs.

He tells me Loch told him the balloon animal was an alligator and I point out that demotes me from twelve to possibly eight. He laughs again and says he misses me. He asks if I'm staying out of the garage. Off the cliffs. Away from the water. Out of Sam and Matt's hair. He asks if I am looking after Daniel. I ask him if there is anything wonderful about my presence anywhere and he says he has no way to gauge how I'm really doing without him.

Then ask. I tell him. I'm met with silence.

I'm too afraid to do that. 

That's too bad. I could tell you a story though. I met this guy once and he was pretty cool. He still is. He was here for a long time but he keeps going away and I think he thinks he's doing it to give everyone a break but I miss him so much. He is the centerpiece of my heart and since he's not here there's a hole straight through and when the wind blows it howls right through my heart with the most unbelievable sound and it aches something fierce. I think it might kill me yet. 

Hope not, he whispers.

Then don't be too long, I whisper back.

He made me a balloon animal.

To cheer me up.

'Cause I'm twelve.

(It's a cat. I think?)

Didn't run. Didn't do anything.

Ben has made a grand effort to push away or completely alienate as many of us as possible here and it's working to the point where, when I ask why they aren't backing up their brother in arms they shrug and say he's making it too hard, and that Ben is Ben. He'll eventually come back and they will deal with him then. 

And it's true. He has a long colorful history of being an asshole, picking fights and then taking off for endless tours only to come back and charm everyone to death, fitting right back in amongst us in the most loving way, a giant among mostly regular-sized folk. 

I keep clinging to the hope that this is how it will go but somewhere in there I know that there is a chance that when he comes back we'll have to put him back together before he can fit in properly, that maybe he'll pick up old habits..

Maybe? Probably, I mean. Because he will. Because he set me free beforehand so this wouldn't be my burden which is misguided and mistaken. It still will be. He's still mine. I acknowledge none of his bullshit. He's still mine. 

Still mine. 

Still. 

I don't care what he says.

He called Caleb, Batman, Lochlan and PJ too and gave them all a piece of his mind with regards to not allowing me to come and meet him in New York. Even though PJ had nothing to do with it and I was going to bring Lochlan with me. 

And money wasn't an issue. I could have come without Caleb's card, I do have my own hard-earned money. It was the fact that they probably would have physically prevented me from leaving if it had come to that. 

But it didn't. Because they're right. I miss Ben like crazy but it would have been rushed and stressful. We don't know what condition he's in or what state of mine. He's a great liar on the phone. On Skype. I would have not weathered a visit so well only to have to leave him again. 

But he's still mine. 

Still ours. 

(Lochlan hasn't said a word. Not a single word.  I think I love him more than ever just for that.) 

Anchor hocking.

He used to say the same things over and over again to me. Nevermind the hypocrisy of it all, the words have hardly changed, beginning on the midway when I was eleven and he came to see us when we would venture close to home on the circuit.

You're so brown. So thin. So tall. He smiled and I knew he was buttering me up. I turned pink in the sun. I still had all of my baby fat, kept innocently rounded on the hard edges via a diet of sugar&fried, and I hadn't grown in three weeks. My jeans still hit the tops of my laces. That's the measurer, you see. When they part ways it's time for bigger clothes. It's a rule. Lochlan told it to me. I checked every day but nope. I never ever grew.

(Had I known I would get no taller I would have have been crushed so I'm pretty sure height was a religion back in that day.)

You're old. I return the favor. He shaves every day, I bet, but hasn't since at least last weekend. He looks wiser and handsome and a little tired and something else, only I don't know what the else is. Maybe he will volunteer it. That's what you do when you're twenty and not eleven.

This isn't a safe place for a little girl. He said it with a new look. Concern. I pay him no mind. He said it before. My parents think I'm at Lochlan's family's summer cottage. His parents think he's at mine. This is the eighties. No one checks in. Everything's great.

Are you going to stay and get a wristband for the week? I have a guy. You can get a discount. 

He smiled. No, I'm interning at a firm in Toronto. I just wanted to see you before I went. I'm driving up in a few days.

Do you have to?

Yes, if I want to be a lawyer. What does he feed you?

I want to be a mermaid. You don't intern for that. You just go swim. 

But what's the purpose? And you didn't answer the question, 

To make the ocean even more beautiful. And he makes me eat so many vegetables. He made me eat turnip and sweet potato. Bustle sprouts and pork roast but I didn't eat the pork because it's meat so he makes me eat an egg if I don't have what the meat is.

Just today? 

No, vegetables every day. At least three. Also three fruits and then two things that have to be a meat or egg and then the rest can be sugar. 

I see. 

Have you said hi to him yet? 

No, I wanted to check in with you. 

The phrase you want is 'check up on' me. 

He's got you on the defensive. 

I'm never allowed to play football or road hockey so no, he's got me on the side. 

Sidelines. 

Yes, behind the line so I don't get in the way. 

I missed you while I was at school, Bridget.

I missed you too. 

You did?

Yes. We walk everywhere now. I miss your car.

He broke out laughing. I gotta go. Gotta head back home to see Mom and Dad and Cole before they find out I'm back in the province from someone else. 

What about Lochlan? 

I'll be back tomorrow night. Tell him I didn't buy the line he taught you about the vegetables and I'll take you out to dinner somewhere nice. Be ready at six. I'll bring the car so we don't have to walk. 

Only if you come back and stay for some rides afterward. 

I promise. 

Cross your heart and hope to die? 

If I do that who's going to ride the rides with you?

Lochlan, like always. You know he doesn't have a dress shirt so let's not make it too fancy a place, okay?

Who said he's invited?

BLAH.

You say you want
Diamonds on a ring of gold
You say you want
Your story to remain untold

But all the promises we make
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you

Caleb said no.

I threw the pepper grinder at him. He swore and ducked and then yelled for a truce. That he could say yes and then I would go and see Ben and spend time with him and get even more messed up when I came back. He said he was doing it to protect me. He said he might even be giving Loch the advantage by doing so but it's better than having me halfway across the country when I hit the ground next.

I'm fine, I told him.

You are, if fine means knocking knees and a quivering lip. 

Not like you could fix it. 

You never let me try, Neamhchiontach.

It's not your job, it's mine and I could have fixed it if I can just go see Ben. 

Yesterday you were going to fix it by bringing Jake back from the de-

DON'T SAY IT. 

And there resumes the quivering lip. Let me know if you need anything, because I already had your cards frozen in case you decide to leave without permission. 

That's fine. I don't need them. 

And Batman will not be enabling you as he agrees with my reasoning. 

GODDAMMIT, CALEB! 

The B&B Carousell.

That extraordinary life of yours. Almost touching a bear. Here I thought I was the one with all the adventure. 

No, you're a basement-dwelling wannabe, that's all. I'm excelsior personified. 

That you are. Will you be in one piece when I get home or will I have to look for the stain on the driveway where you last stood? 

I don't think they're going to let me go outside anymore. I'll soon be so pale I'll be translucent and you'll have to put stickers on me to make me more visible to the naked eye. 

I like you naked. 

Just my eye. 

Oh. You have pretty eyes. 

No, just one eye. The other eye has clothes on. 

I can get those off. 

No, they're very small. 

I will use my tiny man-hands. 

Okay! You win. 

With tiny man-hands I don't think I'm winning. 

They aren't tiny. 

Then your eye will stay clothed and decent for all eternity. 

Good enough. 

I didn't actually call about the bear. 

Oh. Okay then. Are we going to discuss the weather? 

No, we should discuss the weekend though. I have a few days off coming up and I think we should meet in New York. 

You have meetings? 

No, but Coney Island is nice this time of year. 

*BLINKS*

Bridget?

Yes? 

What are you doing? You disappeared for a minute. I thought you hung up. 

Sorry, I couldn't hear you. I was BUSY PACKING. 

That's my girl. Don't bring any clothes though.

They won't let me in nude, Ben. 

So we stay at the hotel instead. 

NO FUCKING WAY, BENNY. 

Are you excited for me or the amusements? 

You...okay..both. But your giant man-hands are enough of an amusement all on their own. 

Good. I call my huge hands the eye-strippers. 

That's weird. And we don't call them strippers. They are peelers. 

The eye-peelers! 

See, that sounds yucky. 

Nothing yucky about wanting to see your naked eyes and hold you in my arms. 

The rides just fell to a distant second, Ben. 

Yup, that's my girl. 

I'm always in trouble right up until they make my excuses for me and then suddenly I'm not responsible. It's a roller coaster. I hate extreme rides. Give me the rickety little Ferris wheel off to one side and you know where I'll be for the rest of that day and the ones that follow.

I put my hands up over my ears and Sam pulled them off. He's in my face. I'm still in the trouble part of this. 

Why were you even there? He's beside himself. He doesn't understand this part of me. How could he? I don't. 

I stare back evenly but my brain wanders back to the bear. I thought it was small. I thought I was safe. It told me I was safe and yet when Caleb came out to make sure I was safe to walk the fifty feet from the bottom of his steps to the kitchen door I was a foot from it and it was big.

Maybe he magnified it. 

I didn't magnify it, Neamhchiontach. It was real. I think you minimized it somehow to withstand the shock. He strokes my head and Sam stands back. They're all rattled. I almost feel like I've achieved some higher level of understanding, sifting through the mundane, the inconsequential to discover life has this whole profound stage where everything is magnified. Everything feels bigger and the little things dissolve entirely. These big things are life and death, love and hate, risk and safety. Survival. Awareness. Faith, or maybe not. Maybe letting go of everything I believe in and seeing what comes to me next. 

Sam calls it something else entirely. He says I have broken with reality, that it's shock. Nothing more. That I will come around. I'll feel better. I'll be myself again instead of whoever this is. He says I was vulnerable to it, that between Ben's abdication and Lochlan's efforts to also stand back and see what happens, I'm doing that thing where I coast. 

Coast. 

I feel raw. I feel like I'm about to shatter. I feel like I might throw up. 

John says You saw a fucking bear, Bridget. Up close and personal. Make your peace with this and get some rest. 

PJ said I'm going to pour you a drink. You'll be fine. You need sleep.

But there's no peace and I'm not tired suddenly and I don't want any more alcohol. Sam takes over again. God bless him, he tries. Jacob left him a riddle with no answer in me.

If Jake came back, I'll be fine. If he doesn't, nothing's every going to change. 

You love too hard, Bridget. You leave yourself unprotected. 

You can't love someone if you're locked down like that. If you aren't willing to take the risk. Let's face it, I'm the bravest person you'll ever meet. 

If brave means foolish, then yes, Princess. You're brave as hell. 

(Hell isn't brave. I was there Sunday night. Hell is paved in pewter silk, five o'clock shadow and a hunger that never diminishes. Hell is a monster and damn, does he ever feel good, but brave? No.)

But I nod because I'm above all this and I can't seem to come down. I'm still worried about exploding into a firework of broken glass. I'm worried Sam might be standing too close when I do. 

The girl who loved.

Three forty-five and I'm tracing the B in DIABHAL on his back while he sleeps, facedown in dreams.   I can't cover the whole letter with my hand flat, that's how big the word is hammered into his flesh drop by drop with permanent ink so he never forgets who he is to me. The letters are half solid, half filigree, so ornate if you didn't know what it said you'd be hard-pressed to read it outright. It's a beautiful piece, making up for such an ugly event that we relive over and over again.

In contrast, my neamhchiontach tattoo contains two of the letter C. One for Caleb, one for Cole. It's tattooed across the top of my back in Caleb's handwriting, freakishly neat and flourished in a masculine yet beautiful way. It had to be his hand that wrote it. That was part of the deal.

His dream must be good. Usually if I wake up, he wakes up, if he even sleeps at all.

*
Five forty-five and he has turned but not acknowledged me in his sleep as I quietly dress and let myself out. When I make it to the bottom of the steps there is a bear in the driveway.

Not a big one, but big enough. Maybe three years old. Probably a hundred and fifty pounds.

I'm not allowed to dance with you, I whispered and he stopped and looked in my direction, sniffing the air.

It took a step and waited for instructions. If it wasn't going to be a dance, then what? What are you out here for in a night that belongs to all the things that can destroy you? the bear said to me.

It's daylight now. Nothing can hurt me, I told it as Caleb picked me up right off the ground so violently I lost my breath, rushing us both back up the steps and into the house, locking the door, choking on adrenaline. In the dark my estimate of a hundred and fifty pounds was off by double or more, I found out later.

*

Seven forty-five and I watch as the boys fan out across the property in search of the bear itself and then the breach in our supposedly well-fortified fence efforts.

The gate was open between the stone walls on the way across to Daniel and Schuyler's. Daniel couldn't manage it with his crutches on the way back last evening. He was rife with dread and apologetic to a fault.

Dan. We said. Stop it. The bear would have climbed the walls had he not walked right through.

But still.

Plans were drawn up for new self-closing hardware on all the gates and a top rail drilled into the stone to make things even less appealing. There is a trap on the road up the street from our gates. This is a nuisance bear and has been in other yards already.

And we have a fortress now, moreso than ever.

Lochlan's arms closed around my neck from behind me as I stood watching the sudden frenzy of work, still a little dazed that I could have reached out to pet something that would have killed me.

Twice in the same night.

All 10 games, 66 goals and just like that Canada takes the World Hockey Championship.

YEAH.

SUCK IT, EVERYONE ELSE.

Sorry. Realllllly drunk fight now.

Maybe it's starting to sink in finally, and maybe I am still sicker than I thought.

Ben never entered into this to try and fix things or make up for things or change things. He and I were attracted to each other probably more physically than anything and the love part was slow in coming. We had a lot of growing pains. He had a huge substance abuse problem and an ego problem and was immature and sometimes selfish to a fault. He never wanted to be conventional even as he found it fun in the way that anything becomes a novelty in its infancy. He wanted Loch on board for the parts he couldn't cover. The serious parts. The tough parts. Any part that contained his absence, really. Lochlan was an easy sell. A duplex marriage. Polyamory. Divide the love and it grows instead of fractioning off. Split life evenly down the middle and watch it flourish.

We're good at this. This works. Ben has no ego with me, with us. He is patient and generous, perpetually distracted and hopelessly in love with Lochlan.

He keeps saying that this will give us a chance to sort everything out, but that isn't what this is. This is a test and it's one for Ben to find out if he has a place here. If there is room for him in the big overwhelming teenage love that is Lochlan and Bridget.

I know there is, we've been doing this for years.

I have been pretending for days now that he is just downstairs working and everything is business as usual. It's better than thinking he's walked away. Better than thinking he might come back and everything would be different or that he might not come back at all.

Better than waiting for him when he's barely left.

Better than losing my mind.

Better than feeling my heart break again when sometimes it feels as if there are hardly any pieces left, big enough to fracture. Most of what is left has been pounded into dust. I'm not capable of weathering any more but Ben knew that if he left me choices that it would be okay. So August came back. Joel didn't go very far, Daniel and Schuyler crowded right in and Sam set up a command post downstairs to conduct the whole mess like a song. Lochlan held back, held his breath while Ben gingerly pulled the trigger on the legal side of things because he wanted to all along, and now who knows?

Who knows?

First.

The sea knows where are the rocks
And drowning is no sin
You know where my heart is
The same place that yours has been
We know that we fear to win
And so we end before we begin
Before we begin

DUDE.

Hands down easily the best show I've ever seen. The band brought all the class. The sound was great, the crowd was nice, the merch was fast, the projection screen/concept (innocence and experience tour so the stage was an i and an e connected by a catwalk) was original and well-executed and the band was..well,

They were U2.

They sounded precisely like their albums. No lie. I was stunned at the quality of the show. They brought humor, politics and raw given talent. They brought it all.

I cried like a fucking baby during Pride. I got three songs off my list (Pride, Vertigo and City of Blinding Light) plus a little bonus because at the end of The Miracle of Joey Ramone, Bono took his first little walk out into the crowd singing Radio, radio, radio from the end of Promenade and I lost my shit.

Every Breaking Wave and Raised by Wolves are now both easy favorites.

Edge fell off the stage at the end. I didn't see it until I read about it later and watched the video. He's okay. Sucks to be scratched up for tonight's show. Makes me remember how fragile these guys are and how ambitious to embark on a huge tour knowing that things happen, people get injured or sick. Cancelling is expensive and trepidatious.

But yeah. That was a life-altering show and I'm grateful for having gone. Here are the requisite pics from our once-thought-to-be-terrible seats which turned out to be the best view in the house. I never sat down once but still had to go up on tip-toes to see over arms and heads.

(The pictures are watermarked because the internet is a terrible place and these are my memories but enjoy them in all their fully-compressed Blogger quality nonetheless.)

For those who are not U2 fans and come for the drama, there was none. Both Caleb and Lochlan were on their best behavior. Lochlan had an absolute blast and Caleb even let his hair down for a couple of hours, drinking beer and grinning his face off. He may have danced. I'll never tell.

Okay, he totally fucking danced.

Radio radio radio.

1. Bad
2. Pride (in the name of love)
3. One
4. City of Blinding Lightss
5. Stuck in a moment you can't get out of
6. Hold me Thrill me Kiss me Kill me (I know it's from Batman Forever. Don't judge.)
7. New Years Day
8. Vertigo
9. 40
10. Promenade

That's it. That's my dream list of songs (maybe they're in order, maybe they're not) that I want to hear tonight at the U2 concert. It's the first show of the entire world tour and I'm already just about to throw up from excitement. I contemplated driving into town to pick up merch yesterday instead of waiting and then I decided to listen to a few more songs first and changed my mind. 

40 seems like it would be the best song to save for last. I now I'm going to cry a bunch of times. I know I'll sing. I'm just a little worried that I will explode from excitement between now and tonight. I hope I don't. That would be a tragedy. 

Also sad is that I had to give away Ben's ticket because Ben isn't here. He was supposed to go with Loch and I. He saw them before anyway. I gave his ticket to the Devil (also a fan), who promptly looked at Lochlan and said, 

How about that, Sparky? Looks like we're going on a date.

I also worry about cars that have blue teeth because it sounds so ridiculous, does it not?

Hello from Sam's bed. I'm taking up Sam's side (smells like teen spirit, wouldn't you know) while Matt sleeps soundly on the other side. Matt has a really really bad cold and called in sick and I offered to make him the Polish (very strong paint thinner-like) tea he makes when I'm sick but we both declined in favor of more sleep.

Every man I know can just put his head down and fall asleep. Is it penis related? I lie down and the worries smother me alive and I have to spend an hour or two shutting them down one by one like warehouse lights until I can finally have enough peace to let go. It takes forever. It's mental. It's anguishing. It isn't fair.

Matt smells like patchouli, if you wondered, like I did. He smells like Jake. I think they wear the same scents. Essential oil blends, not aftershave or cologne because we're hippies first and refined folks second.

I smell like antibiotics and despair as usual. It must be addictive if you have a penis. I don't know. No one will let me borrow one for a bit to try it out. I don't think my dresses would hang right if I had one anyway and besides, they pop up (not the dresses, silly) when you wish they wouldn't and who needs that madness?

So yep, just lying here trying to have a nap. As soon as I get rid of all these needless penis worries. Not like I'm going to grow one any time soon and wait, there was an earthquake in Japan and another one in Nepal and suddenly anatomical worries seem so shallow and I can do so much better and worry about the big things and...and...

Note to self: Next time someone offers you a blackout drink to help you sleep, fucking take it, idiot girl.

Princess bitters.

Daniel is such a good sport. He let me paint flowers all over his cast and then I painted his toenails hot pink.

Ben watched via Facetime while he and Daniel spent time together. 

I said nothing but after he tried and failed to engage me five times over I gave him the middle finger. 

I'd eat that right off you if I was there. 

Then come and get it. I told him. The look on his face said he understands exactly how I feel about his absence and how it's finally beginning to sink in. 

When Daniel's cast and toes were dry I hung up on Ben and made some ham sandwiches and tea for lunch, brought on a tray in to the living room. We're going to watch musicals and fall asleep on each other because it is the best way to heal from everything. Broken bones and kidneys and everything in between. 

Like hearts maybe. Or spirits. Or promises!