One, two and three.

The bears came over the fence, from the trees, just between the two main houses where the woods meet the front yard and take over. We didn't do a lot of cutting out there, leaving it the way it is, keeping it natural. They climbed down one by one, loping across the front walk and coming down around the driveway to greet me as I collected some dishes from the studio and spent a few minutes talking with August, who was just getting in.

PJ saw them from the porch and didn't know I was in the driveway. He wanted to see their pattern so he didn't shoo them out, instead coming back inside and heading to the window in the side door off just down from the kitchen to track their route. He saw me drop a coffee mug to the bricks between the garage and the door just as I realized it was a mama bringing her babies to meet me (this being the baby from last year, or perhaps the year before).

I dropped everything when I saw him and ran. He burst out of the door, running toward me. I guess he thought I would freeze like a statue so we pretty much crashed into each other ten feet from the door and while we were landing hard the bears turned tail and headed back up the way they came, mama between them.

August and Caleb both heard the first dish break and were outside in time to see me scrape my hip nicely on the edge of the brick, a meat-crayon girl, which freaked me out because all I can think is that now we need to pressure-wash the stonework again or they'll smell my blood and come back. Caleb was more concerned with getting in the house right now immediately yesterday, since he probably feared I would follow the bears into the dark wood and come out feral once again.

(I only do that for wolves.)

My hip doesn't hurt this morning and further it was nicely bandaged by Lochlan when he got home, who gets further credit for going back out in the dark. He picked up all the broken pieces of stoneware, pressure washed a large area of driveway and then sprayed some bleach on it for good measure and then dug out all the extra electric fence netting we had left over, stored in the garage. Tomorrow they'll make the electric part higher in that area, just to discourage this new breach in our perfect fortress. It's misguided. I don't mind the wild animals, it's the domestic ones that you have to worry about.

Short-lived ceasefire.

Neamhchiontach. 

I look over my shoulder from the swing. I was having a beautiful day. No headache. No rashes. No heartache. No noise. No hoverers. No beautiful helicopter men piloting around me trying to juggle space and fire, balance concern with autonomy, wage wars instead of peace. 

I exhale finally, hold tighter to the ropes and begin to pump my legs, headed for blue sky all the way. His voice breaks the horizon into bits and pieces and I allow the swing to slow, waiting for a complete stop before responding to him. 

Yes? 

Come here. 

My head is a war of its own. Little Miss Submissive screams GO GO BRIDGET GO! and Little Miss Carny screams back NO, HE'S BAD! And Bridget the adult resumes her sullen swing with a point made sharp that she's not a dog. She doesn't come when you ask. 

Yes, she does. He smiles slightly, making that finger-gun gesture, rubbing his fingers against his lips, barely covering his amusement. 

Jesus. I walked right into that one. I bite my lip and shake my head. Nothing takes this day from me. 

Bridget. Now, please. Don't make me ask again. 

My brain packs up and leaves for Stockholm as I drag my feet against the grass until the swing stops again and I stand up. 

Good girl. Caleb drops his hand and his smile. A satisfied cat. A dead little blonde canary. Did you know a deaf canary raised alone in a soundproof box will still sing a perfect song? Sounds lovely. Sounds familiar. 

Black clouds rush in to cover blue skies as the wind picks up and the temperatures plummet to ice. Caleb holds out his hand for me. 

I take it and follow him up over the hill, sliding on the ice, my fingers numb from the cold. He pulls hard. I can't keep up. It's slippery and melting and there are pools everywhere and I put my hand down in one to keep from falling and find the water warm. 

Not just warm, it's hot.

I look up and Lochlan is melting all of the ice with his fire. The ice shrinks until only steam remains, rising from the ground and he meets Caleb face to face. No one backs down. No one concedes. 

Thanks for bringing her back, Lochlan says. Then he's smiling at me. It makes my heart hurt and my knees buckle hard. I was just about to come looking for you. 

He takes my hand and loops his easy teenage affection around my shoulder, pulling me in close, keeping me up in spite of my knees, turning us around to go back to the house. The fire is the horizon now, a wall behind us that roars so loudly in my ears I never did catch what Caleb was shouting. 

Every time I yawn someone sticks their finger in my mouth because they think it's funny. Let's see what happens when I bite the next one right off.

Grr.

The seventy hour headache is finally waning and I'm due to get a whopping five hours of sleep tonight thanks to an airport run tonight followed by early errands tomorrow.

Great. That should help in spades.

And as it turns out my skin is hypersensitive to chlorine and I have to limit my swim time and shower immediately upon leaving the water. I'm just going to start spiking my OJ with hydrocortisone cream and see how that goes instead. The only thing I'm not allergic to? The redhead, I think.

Life could be worse, right?

Sure it could. I could be Caleb, who volleyed for yet another night and failed to secure one and is now pacing his warpath, plotting our ruin and being a real jerk, frankly.

Magical creatures.

I found the perfect pair of overalls today. A mid-faded blue denim, bib pocket, carpenter style with legs I can roll up a bit so that they look cute with a pink ballerina top and pink glitter flip flops. I put my hair in the tiniest ponytail but it was half out within the hour. 

Lochlan sees me and says What the hel- and then breaks into a huge grin. You look fourteen again. 

I know. I tell him with despair. Until you reach my actual face. 

Bridget, I don't know what you're talking about. He's blind to the dark circles, the furrowed pain-brow that speaks of a sixty-five hour migraine that has had around ten or twelve hours of sleep within it, not enough to conquer it by far. Blind to the fact that I gave up on all of my pain meds already, pretending it doesn't bother me one minute while the next finds me gritting my teeth just trying to brush them. I rip out the ponytail and put the tie back on my wrist. 

Ow. 

That ratchets you down to twelve. He smiles again. My bangs are in my eyes and the rest is wild waves. You okay?

Still have a headache. 

Want me to call the doctor?

He's not a doctor. 

I'll bite. Want to go to the other doctor? Clinic? ER? 

Maybe all three. 

He stirs to get up. No, stay put. I'm just thinking about it.

Bridget-

It's fine. I just have to sleep. 

So sleep. 

I hate sleeping. I might miss something. 

Now you're ten. 

Why? 

Because that's what you always used to say. Remember I said it's like you think every night is Christmas Eve and you think you might see Santa if you stay up long enough but I told you he only shows up on one of those over three hundred nights in a year so you may as well close your eyes. 

I remember. 

So close your eyes, Peanut. Sleep away the pain. 

I'm trying. 

Your eyes are still open. 

This is a long habit to break, Locket. 

Well, it's either sleep now or after you see Santa in about six and a half months. But you'll be a raving lunatic by then. 

And I'm not now?

Half loon, half circus child. I'll take it, either way. I feel like that top is a leotard (because in the nineties all ballerina tops were bodysuits. God I'm old) and if you take the overalls off you'll be ready for the swings. 

Well it isn't and I don't have any underwear on so if I take off my overalls I'll put on a show alright.

Cease & quiet.

I need some room to breath
You can stay asleep if you wanted to
They say that's nothings free
You can run with me if you wanted to
Yeah you can run with me if you wanted to

There's nothing better than waking up to hear the first Foo Fighters song I've liked in a decade. It's called Run and it's really good. Not since The Pretender in 2007 has one of their songs hooked me from the first chorus like that.

***

Sam is a song I can't hear, playing softly on the radio on the kitchen counter by the open window where a warm midmorning summer breeze lifts the curtains just enough to let the memory thief slip between them, straight back into my head.

What about the letters, Bridget?

He's codependent, enabling, needing me to need him and today I don't need anyone.

You read them. 

I have. 

Great. You can do me a book report. Like in grade five when I did one on The Great Brain and by the end I realized it was a book about Lochlan. 

That's funny but that's changing the subject. 

You're fucking gaslighting me, Sam. 

August has you in a good spot, then. Sam concedes, backing off as I think about precisely the spot August had me in last time I saw him, wedged up against the door under his hands, my head pressed against the night latch. I think I have a dent in my temple from it, truth be told, and I reach up to rub it while Sam remains oblivious.

I'll keep them for you. Someday you may change your mind. I'm just trying to keep your best interests at heart. 

God. He fits in here so nicely. So well, as they all get along like brothers, barely breaking the mold of their teenage years which came to mean passing me around like a bottle of forbidden alcohol, risking a sip here, a swallow there, hiding me away, bringing me out to fight over, angry young drunks with a bone to pick, when mine were clean and so easily plucked, bent like bows to shoot arrows through all of them until I had a stack of hearts a mile long, my arrow so weighed down it headed in the wrong direction, taking me so long to get back here I arrive bitter, tired and suspicious, resentful as hell.

(I didn't mean to write all that today but there it is.)

I reach out and turn the radio off and close the window and the silence that echoes back to me is deafening.

If it's going to be limited edition I'm going to have to make my own after this.

We found them!! BEST. THING. EVER. (Ignore the blurry photo. It's actually a stellar iphone7 portrait mode photo but Blogger has to quash it beyond belief and the same guy who enables my candy issues won't tell me how to make it better.)

If I could breed I'd show you all my infantile obsessions
If I could sleep I'd hold you in my head
If I was strong I'd keep you close and render you defenseless
If I was gone I'd hope you'd take my place

I know what he's going to say before he says it. I know him like I know my own face in a mirror.

Neamhchiontach. Leave things alone. Later on it will just add more heartache when you have to go through all these hoops to change it back.

I won't be changing it back. This is it. This is my final form. 

He laughs. If I were to bet money on that, I'd wager you'll have a name you'd had before. 

You're bringing Jacob back. 

Not his. And no. Stop it. I can't. Even if I could I wouldn't. 

Because you don't want me to be happy. 

What I WANT is for you to be mine. My name looked good on you. 

Don't make things complicated. 

It made things easy, actually. How many doors opened for you with my name? How easy was it to pretend? It can be real. 

The age of monsters is over, sorry. 

You going to talk like him all afternoon?

Will it make you stop? If so, then, yes. Sure.

What is it the age of now? Destitute carnies? 

Hell yes it is. 

A very long and roundabout way to get to the name I used to write out in my notebook over and over again, trying it on for size.

So.

So? 

Lochlan is filthy, finishing detailing the engine on the latest and greatest. The minute he said he was selling the camper, he had a buyer. They say I'll buy it, just tell me how much and he smiles to himself as if he can't believe what he thinks is his good fortune instead of his skill at restoring these things. 

He grins. You going to change your name? 

Yeah. I figured I should match the kids. I laugh when his face falls.

It's a bad joke but he realizes it right away and he yells JESUS CHRIST. HAHAHAHA. That actually didn't cross my mind. Wait. Is that what you're doing? 

(The kids share a last name with Caleb and Cole. Because they were brothers. Because Cole was their father until it was discovered that he wasn't but that's okay, he wasn't alive to find that out and I didn't want to take their memories of him as their father away.)

No. I figured I need to belong to the living. I deserve it. 

Come here, Mrs. M.

I get a hug and now I'm filthy too. 

Death of the party.

Too hot. Can't post. Spent all day in the pool. Have a rash from the sunscreen, a rash from the sun itself and a rash from the chlorine. Have a rash from Caleb's stubble. Have a rash from the Strawberry slushy. Have a rash from heat. Too hot. Can't post. Too tired. Going to take my rashy self down to sleep in the hanging chair naked with no blankets because it's cool down here in the studio and I can just curl up like a cat and have Ben for company. It's only 7:15 pm. Figures.