I'm always asked if I would go back. The answer is always yes.

As you can imagine, it's been quite an adjustment but I have lots of help. My hearing aids are being replaced on Tuesday, Ben will be home by Sunday and my daydreams seem intact in spite of the rain.

Joel is suitably unreachable and August is more than a little rankled up at Lochlan, who is only doing his best to protect me in the best ways he knows how to, to shut out the real world because who needs it, first of all, and secondly it will be right where we left it when we open up again, right?

(He hasn't been wrong yet.)

And I'm not good with reality. It's a smack in the face, a slog through mud, an obstacle course when I am out of breath with broken limbs, expected to keep up always. Expected to finish just like everybody else.

Hmmph. I'm not everyone else but I'm not special either and I would much prefer if I could keep this mask on so that you can be entertained without me having to give up everything in return. Is that too much to ask? I don't think so but then again, I'm not one of you so I wouldn't know.

Beast.

I come to you this afternoon defeated, having given over control of the day very early on to Padraig, who mostly has control of me anyway, except in wardrobe considerations, after he suggested I wear his Totoro onesie for the rest of the afternoon. When I complained that it would be too warm, he said You're not supposed to wear anything underneath it, Bridget.

I checked the neck for a handling tag. When was the last time you washed it? 

It can be washed? 

We're not going to go there. Or rather, go back there. I threw it down the basement steps. Next person going can take it the rest of the way to the laundry room.

My hands are covered with eczema. There's a little patch of it under one of my eyes and behind each ear too. They say it's stress. Ha. Lochlan threw my hearing aids out of the truck yesterday so I'm muted and still. But BUT BUT BUT I strangely don't have a headache today so boy is that ever nice. PJ hands me a big cold glass of water every hour or two and I've done nothing but listen to music and follow him around all week so far trying not to be stressed out.

They won't let Ben talk to me on the phone. That's helping. Or maybe it's not helping. I don't know.

We finished the spring cleaning. We don't seem to need groceries for once and I put the kibosh on things like dental checkups and needless appointments for a little while because I really thought for sure that I would spend all of February doing taxes. Then I finished early and now what? It's too rainy out to paint the walls so I paint pictures. It's too warm and muddy for winter hiking and it's too ridiculous to shop here anymore so we're housebound and down and not saddened by it in the least.

I may walk the Duncan later if he seems restless but last I checked he was holed up in the movie theatre alone having an X-men marathon and wearing a strangely familiar onesie. I don't think I'll go there. Maybe I'll summon the headache and give Ben a call. Maybe I'll summon the ghosts and call Jake instead. Maybe the sky will fall and I'll chicken little or chicken lots. Maybe doesn't get me very far lately, does it?

You don't even know what death is, you fuckhead.

So tired this morning I dipped my paintbrush into Caleb's orange juice. He frowned and opened his mouth to say something but then thought the better of it and simply got up and took everything out to the kitchen, brush and all. He was back a few minutes later with a clean brush for me and a suggestion that I head home to see how Duncan is faring without his favorite meeting buddy to help him remember to actually attend those meetings, whether Ben is in town or not.

(Dylan has flown out to meet them. He's been recruited but I'm not allowed to talk about his life here so you didn't hear it from me.)

I'm painting with Caleb's blood today as when I arrived, sketchbooks in hand because I don't actually do any work on work-days, he laid on his relief so thickly I may mix it with the paint for a keen viscosity.

He says to me, and I quote to you now: I die when you leave, and I come back to life when you return. 

Ten years ago that would have ruined me.Thoroughly.

Today I rolled my eyes.

Why? I haven't slept. Lochlan wanted to fight instead of dream and so we waged through the night. All of our fears for inventory. All of our observations for effect. All of our insults for good measure. I came up short. Not going to kick a man while he's down but also loathe to point out his endless promise that my needs truly are not a dealbreaker for him. Because if we're going to fight and he sharpens his desire to leave then I'm running for cover while he's left threatening air.

It's not a fair fight. I can't be expected. I have no return threats, nothing I want to use that would be harmless enough. I'm not a good fighter. I'm a caver. I don't actually want to hurt him back and so I don't return what he sends across. I can't. I won't. I refuse to.

At least I have stubbornness going for me, as if that ever helped anyone at all.

This is karma, isn't it?

The only time I ever openly, purposefully defied Lochlan was the day they were short a clown, and so they asked me to fill in. The only thing I had to do is run in circles during introductions, cue the audience around me to laugh or clap when appropriate and get shot out of a cannon at the end of the clown show itself, just like the others.

I was in full costume and makeup. Lochlan was on labour/vehicle duty that day (fixing trucks, hooking up trailers and such). I didn't think he would even find out. No one had any reason to share it with him but on a break he came in and stood in the back of the big tent just as the spring platform shoved me out of the cannon at a hundred miles an hour. I shrieked as I flew through the air, hitting the net (which hurt a lot more than I would admit at the time) and fell into the horizontal net. Lochlan came around and pulled the net down, pulled me out by my ankles and told me to change and wait for him at the camper. Someone asked how he knew it was me and he said the scream was distinct. That he knows what I sound like when I fly like that, having made me fall (via LETTING GO a hundred times from the aerial bars so that I would trust the nets and now suddenly he doesn't trust the nets at all.

That's because there's force in this. Falling doesn't have the same danger.

Death is the same result. 

What kind of show shoots teenagers? Jesus Christ. I ought to call them in but we need this job. You ever keep secrets that could get you hurt again and I'll...I'll...

You'll what?

He never answered.

This morning Matt was eating breakfast in the kitchen when I came down.

No food downstairs?

Sorry. Sam doesn't shop much, does he?

No need. He eats with us most of the time now. Nice to see you home. 

It's not....

My eyebrows go up while I wait for him to trivialize his own presence here.

...not permanent. We talked late and he asked me to stay the night. 

And?

I accepted. 

BOOM. Matt flies through the air and Sam catches him in his heart and the relief sets them both back a hundred years in therapy over splitting up. Some cannon this is.

Lochlan comes down. We have a Skype with Ben in five. Oh, hey, Matt. You back?

No. Well, Maybe, I don't know yet. 

They're...talking, I tell Lochlan.

Mmmmm. I see. He lifts his eyebrows at me and says, ready? 

Yes. 

I didn't last long in the call, I'm afraid. Ben's trip extends another week and after that he's accepted a job offer to work a run with Dalton close by and he took it before he ran it by us because as he said, it was a time-sensitive thing and it's good money and better exposure and who am I to get in the way of Ben's....uh..networking? You know, that same Ben who said he was 'retired' now who suddenly is dusting off his CV and pressing flesh, playing notes, getting invites and becoming some kind of hot commodity in a genre he has zero use for anyway. One he says he hates but of course it pays better than most.

It's for less than a year, Bee.

I only hung up on him..four? Maybe five times. Tops. Okay it was eight times but no one's counting.

I climbed into the cannon since Matt was through with it and was told to hang tight. They're inspecting the net before any more runs.

I said not to bother. I'm so good I don't even need the net. Just fling me into oblivion and hopefully by the time I've found my way back here they will have learned what it means to keep their words to me and to each other. Not like I don't keep all of mine, here for the world to see.

The beautiful storm (Witness me even as I offer you this bouquet of forgeries. Believe me even as I drown in your lies.).

He's awake. Hair in flames. Fingers tracing the tip of my nose. His mouth still tastes of chocolate. Chocolate and sleep and yet his eyes are still full of dreams in the instant he opened them, before closing them again. The rainy morning persists beyond the glass but we are warm and alone and safe with the door locked, a fire blazing and the favorite (though threadbare) quilts pulled up high.

The last thing I remember is the whiskey chasing the chocolate with a clarified burn down my throat, my own eyes heavy, listening to him read aloud from a journal he kept in 1994. All of his hopes and plans and daily routines mixed with his observations of me, of us. Of the rest of the world as seen through the eyes of a man on the verge of thirty, a man with the persistent grand plan to run away and join the circus, something he did every summer without fail up until he realized, somewhat abruptly that he would have to choose eventually, between coming home for good and never coming home again.

Within a few years he was no longer coming home, keeping a small apartment in the centre of North America and seeing us at Christmas or Easter. Then he got injured and got a job as a graphic artist/web developer and bought a bed and a table for the apartment with only a couch up until that point. Then he got a fiancee too and a new baby and then that imploded because it wasn't real life, it wasn't his life because his life was here with me, waiting for him and we've been punishing each other for the past in between epic bouts of making up for lost time ever since.

We played truth or dare with the Devil last night and smartly packed it in early as it escalated far too quickly, even for a trio so bent on self-destruction as we are. They admitted that they miss each others' friendships but also that we can't go back from here, only forward. Caleb dared us to stay, we called time on the game and walked home. His face alone would have sent me running back, if not for the literal hold Lochlan had me in, aware of how easy it is for me to cave in when it comes to Caleb and how easy it is for Lochlan to cave in when it comes to me.

If behaving correctly is so wonderful then why do we feel so raw this morning, as if we are weighed down by the keen awareness of a feeling of loneliness so overwhelming it escapes the confines of the boathouse only to seep in through almost-shut windows and underneath the solid doors of where we are? Like a thick smoke only in emotional form it threatens to choke off our collective breath.

Not my problem, Lochlan mutters, landing another kiss against my top lip, right on the checkmark scar. Approved, my skin screams while the skin underneath me that I am wrapped in fades and stings from the healing burn of an effort to change history.

I know, I tell him. It isn't. But my mind has no regard for things like locks or rules or propriety or plans and it wanders back across the drive to drift outside the glass watching loneliness in Devil-form. My heart is having none of it, firmly clutching Lochlan's heart like a life preserver or a four-year-old with a favorite toy that is about to be sent to the washing machine. My heart is stubborn and stamps its feet and I give in to the tantrum, weary and warm.

It never seems to stop raining here anymore. It's as if it's a metaphor too, like us. Or a cautionary tale. Depends on the day, the genre and the audience, as usual. I close my eyes and I'm back. In a filthy leotard with my eyes on the clock, fist closed over a handful of tattered bills, Lochlan's voice against my ear telling me to give it everything so we can find a better offer from a better show than this. This isn't what we were meant for, it's just a stepping stone, a rung up overhand and hanging on for dear life before we can find safer purchase, the sort of rock and hard place we always find ourselves in.

When I wake up later the fire is out and the room is empty and it doesn't seem as if danger could lurk in a place as beautiful as this but it does and I've seen it and yet I can't tear my eyes away.

YES

Aaaaaaaaand I was able to pay my note back in less than thirty hours, as my lowly Leafs beat the Canucks tonight 5-2. The most unlikely outcome of the season and I bet it all.

Good move, me!

Ice/cubed.

He's all pewter-tipped white roses and incredulity today. All bemused smiles and french cuffs shot until I'm bleeding on the floor of the car for their charm, his thumb just under his chin, index finger over his lips as if he wants to hide that smile as he drives.

I'm disappointed that you were worried I would leave you for your lies of omission. About money? I knew damn well you kept all of it. How else did you buy that white-marble mausoleum except with more money, Cale?

Somehow I imagine few women would write someone off because they had more money instead of less. 

Oh, now, wait a minute-

Bridget, I'm merely toying with you now. I know you're not like that. Sometimes I wish you were, seeing as how you live when left to his devices.

I can be like that. It depends.

Yes, I saw that note. You need to pick a better team. 

I'll pay you back. 

Just so happens, I'm free this evening. 

I turn up the radio and sit back, leaning back against the headrest, closing my eyes and not answering him. We always get into massive amounts of trouble when Ben goes away. Why would tonight be any different? It seems as if Lochlan and Ben somehow temper each other perfectly and when one of them is missing it all goes to shit. Three is either my lucky number or my unlucky one, I never know which.

Bells and whistles and IEDs.

At six this morning Caleb barged into our bedroom and threw a folder on the bed. Lochlan sat up and swore at him and I squeezed my eyes shut and hid under the pillow. If I can't see the boogeyman, he can't see me, right?

There's the big secret you've been worried about. Remember when I told you all of my holdings were tied up in these houses and the rest was transferred to you? That wasn't quite true. Everything is mirrored. I just wasn't sure what steps you would take and didn't want them to wind up in control of everything. 

Then he left, closing the door on the way out.

Lochlan rifled through the paperwork and then looked at me. Too easy. That's not it. He passed me the folder and I looked through it too.

Wow. There's a lot here. 

We all knew he didn't sign everything over to you. He wouldn't do that. You don't have the experience and he doesn't trust the rest of us. 

Exactly. But still. Wow. It's more than I thought. 

But the more I think about it the more I realize he signed everything (or so I thought) over to me as a matter of honor and this means he isn't true to his word. That would be a huge risk, in that I might have walked away from him, hence his efforts to nail down his place in my life before I found out.

Oh.

So maybe this is it? I don't know. But it's good nonetheless because the Leafs sit in last place and I wager a lot on standings and scores and I have a significant payout to make this morning (they have 47 points. FORTY SEVEN) and so I'll be asking for some sugar anyway, if you get my drift.

Also I keep forgetting to get my key back from Caleb. I need to look after that today. Lochlan's already threatening to set trip wires and landmines.

Just to be on the safe side, he says.

Is there one? I ask him and he just stares at me.

I have a headache. It's six two with blue eyes.

We have a bunch of things to sort out so Caleb wants to go for a walk on the beach. It's truth serum. It's private. It's cold and rainy and not at all as comforting as the boathouse this morning with the fire blazing, the coffee pot just beginning to signal that it's ready and the lights on low in the living room.

I didn't think I'd be able to pull you away from the wolves this week. 

They tried their best. Ben is away this week (left yesterday :( :( :( BLAH) so everyone else has practically been sitting on me. PJ was reluctant but I reminded him I'm an adult and he's not on the hook for anything here. I don't say anything toward Caleb's observation. I just shrug.

Lochlan doesn't have any information that you don't have, in his defense. 

Since when do you defend Lochlan?

Since it favors the truth. 

Since when do you favor the truth?

If it doesn't hurt, I'm all for it. 

Then tell me whatever you haven't. 

Eventually. 

Then fuck off. 

Wow. Nice. I need to remind you that your compliance is part of the deal. 

Not if you're going to dangle secrets just out of reach. 

I never planned to do that but your dogs are digging around and they dug too deeply. 

So Batman knows. 

I haven't been asked for formal confirmation so I doubt he knows anything for certain and he hasn't shared his theories with me so your guess is as good as mine. I'm not inclined to admit there's any real secret to be shared here, if you want brutal honesty. I just want to save my place, as it were.

Except that I'm actually guessing and you have all the answers. 

Look. I just want to absolve Lochlan. 

It seems to me it would be better for you if we're at odds with each other. 

You need him. 

I do. 

I'm trying to help you here, Bridget. Trying to, as they say, do right by you. 

Well then try harder. 

Comfort and security outside of financial means isn't my forte, Neamhchiontach. 

I noticed.

Juice break.

Busy day.

This morning Sam made the cross in ashes on my forehead and repeated a verse from Genesis that ended in 'And to dust you shall return' and I burst into tears and so did he briefly before continuing on to someone else. I went to his service this morning because he's in charge even though he's a little bit harried but the alternative was Batman and he would have marked his name on my forehead under 'Property of' and we don't want to go there today. He offered me Jasper's job last evening but I was a little pancake-drunk, blood sugar through the roof so I smartly ignored him and he said big mistake to those actions but left anyway. He fancies himself a savior of sorts too and I don't have the heart to tell him he's not. Better still to let Sam mark him too and maybe he can spend the next month and a bit thinking about the things he's done wrong like the rest of us.

PJ collected me after his dentist appointment and we came home to start tackling the big list of spring cleaning, something we wouldn't even consider until April-ish in any other province but the flowers are blooming here and Ruth wore shorts out on Sunday and so tick-tock, let's get this show on the road. I would prefer to be outside in the pouring rain cleaning up the gardens but PJ said once the inside is finished we'll head outside and begin the long slog of trying to keep up with the landscaping until Halloween.

We need more people. People with stamina. PJ snorts when I say that but this house is too big for us to clean and the yard is too huge to look after on our own but since these are good problems we persist. When things get really tough the others step in but those who work outside the home get to do less in keeping. We're really old-fashioned. Housewives and breadwinners. Please stop laughing, I realize there's precisely nothing old-fashioned about living in an intentional chosen family complete with open relationships but you would be surprised at some of the standards we adhere to.

Like ashes on my forehead. Even Caleb did a double-take, asking me if the priest shouldn't have done an exorcism instead of a blessing and I stuck my tongue out at him and pointed out Sam has ashes now. He asked if they were Jake's before he could catch himself and I'm pretty much done talking to him for the week or maybe if I'm really lucky, the rest of my life and Duncan rolled his eyes and told Caleb to eat shit which was a bit lowbrow even for him and so it's probably safer to be cleaning and ignoring the lot of them, I think. Besides, we have a huge list for the next couple days. I'd better get back to it.