Futures.

 I slept for nine hours straight and then the phone rang but it was Schuyler and his soothing voice telling me Ben is doing great and everything is fine, so don't rush, take some time to be at home and rest a little more. I'm more glad that I was at the hospital for the first more frightening days so that I didn't have to wait for the boys to tell me news in their roundabout, slowed-down way. That's too hard. This works better. Either way, our cautious but hopeful approach is working and today instead of church Sam is going to go in with Matt to pray with Ben. Ben has been asking for Sam.

I called Ben's old manager to put him in the loop and ask him to try to reach out to some of the people Ben was working with. Not like I know how to get a hold of them. He said not to worry about a thing. Ben's projects will be heavily delayed or delivered in fragments and they'll have to make do though he is not a procrastinator when it comes to work and is probably ready to send everything out if he hadn't already. 

I saw Caleb and I would not stop long enough to see him dissolve into his own sorrow nor listen to his lament, I only asked him to contact Emmett (NOT RANSOM) and see about arranging to put in some better accessibility points on the property, especially around the main house. We need stair railings indoors, rails in the bathroom, a second ladder and rails at the other end of the pool and I'm putting a auxiliary driveway that comes around and isn't such a bottleneck way on the other side where our property hooks around (surprise, the waterfront is all mine), about forty feet past where Batman's property ends, in order to facilitate both deliveries and emergencies. 

Caleb nodded, absolutely hobbled by my refusal to hear his confession. 

He's not a stupid man, though.

Maybe we won't need any of that stuff but if we do, it will be there. 

When can I see him?

When he asks for you.

 Ben's improvements are coming by the hour now and they say if it continues he'll be out of ICU perhaps early next week. They're so cautious but optimistic, it makes me crazy but at the same time I crave more and more, hanging off every word. 

I'm home for the night. Daniel and Schuyler are trading off tonight. I need to not be there right this second. I got physically sick this morning and Lochlan came back to collect me, sending me out to the truck while he took a few minutes to talk to Ben. Ben is mostly drifting between commands, playing trained seal, hitting his tests with an ease he didn't have even two days ago so I'm excited. 

Still sick though, not too sure why but I've also been sitting in a hard chair in the cold wearing a mask for a week in a terrible environment for getting sick, eating like crap, sleeping five minutes every three or four hours and I need a break, though my argument this week is that Ben doesn't get a break. 

But I am more at ease now with being able to leave him for a little bit, and a little more heartened that he might be okay, or at least better in short order and when I go back I'll be slept and fresh and ready to take on next week.

I'm home for a moment to have a hot shower and wolf down some dinner and then I'm going back to the hospital. Ben has stabilized finally. The nurses said he is full of surprises and doing really well. He's had three surgeries, two frightening setbacks and a lot of really really good care over the past six days (it happened Sunday morning) and God bless the staff, they've been looking after me too.They're already talking about all the things he's going to do when he comes home but I can see on their faces that they say that as a thing to keep our spirits up. Half the time Ben is sleeping and not listening anyway. The other half I am too despondent to pretend that I am cheered from their effort but I get it. It's part of the job. 

May not be posting a lot but people wanted to know that he's alive. It's kind of all I want to know too. They said it's too soon to tell the future but I just need to know he's in it. That's all I care about right now.

Not going to ask for prayers, I'm just going to take them. Thank you in advance.

Sitting in an ice cold waiting room right now. Caleb and Ben had a shoving match by the pool, Ben was off-balance and when Caleb suckerpunched him Ben fell and cracked his head on the concrete and didn't respond didn't get up for so long I went completely numb and didn't even scream. I froze. I probably wasted so much time but Caleb did not and called 911 the second he could get to his phone.

Ben has not woken up yet. 

Update: he's awake.

I'll find a way home.

Watching my life on a detuned TV,

The pictures I see are just shapes on a screen,

Come shake me out of my slow motion dream

https://lyricstranslate.com

Watching my life on a detuned TV,

The pictures I see are just shapes on a screen,

Come shake me out of my slow motion dream

https://lyricstranslate.com

Watching my life on a detuned TV,

The pictures I see are just shapes on a screen,

Come shake me out of my slow motion dream

Ha. I broke my heart learning the opening notes for Wish I Was Here. Falling for a song so hard I break bones and my own heart on the way down is truly the way I want to die. 

Fuck off, Bridge. Sam isn't playing this morning and I am stubborn, a pile of dust and ragged pieces of myself on the floor. The curtains are thrown wide to highlight the dust motes floating in the morning sun. We're supposed to have thunderstorms later today, first for God to smite me with and second for my bones to fuse back together in the light. Then and only then will I be able to move again. 

Sam reaches down into the dust, picks up a pinch between his fingers and draws the sign of the cross on my forehead.

He doesn't have room for me, Sam. That's why I live here in the dark. 

It isn't dark right now, is it?

Sure it is. You just need to look behind my eyes. 

What will it take, Bridget?

If I knew I would buy it. 

Faith doesn't come for sale. 

None of the virtues do, Sam. Or we would have some. 

You're too hard on yourself. He whispers it. He makes me sad. He came over to see if I wanted to tag along to exceedingly-hot church (NO) and then he said I didn't actually have a choice. He's concerned because yesterday I had Saturday kayak with Matt and maybe made some casual statements that scared the fuck out of Matt because he knows me very well but apparently not enough.

I'm fine. As always. Some days are harder than others. Most of them follow tough nights.

Came back from the void (with the void still in me).

 You can't just hand me a new album and a good pair of headphones and leave me to drift, floating on a bed suspended by heavy ropes for fifty four minutes (which stretched into a hundred and eight so I could listen to it again) and blow me away with an easy breath for the profundity some men can reach with a piano and a pen. 

I am so readily in love with those men. Sort of like men who speak Gaelic fluently. This is my kryptonite, it's my biggest flaw because those are the men who navigate their own charms, wielding a power immeasurable, a stunning display of emotional peacock feathers by which we are levelled flat. 

Hello, Mick Moss. Welcome to the inside of my brain.

He's what I wished Pearl Jam would have been but isn't. Like a hotter, deeper version. Tighter instruments, but he's just...let the fuck go with his words, something I wish more people would do. That's something I require, it's a dealbreaker, in fact. If you want to talk to me you have to drop your walls. You have to tell me of your deepest darkest thoughts, fears and wants. You have to go one step further, opening yourself, being vulnerable, being unabashed, shameless and pure. I don't care if it makes you look bad. I don't care if you're embarrassed, just give me what I crave. 

 Like this. This is fucking awesome. Antimatter's Black Market Enlightenment is now safely ensconced in my top ten Most Perfect Albums of all time. 

(If you want to check him out listen to Wish I was Here. GodDAMN.)

(Happy Saturday. Our virus cases here in the southern half of the province have tripled every day over the past week and I'm never leaving the house again but as long as I have some amazing music and my deepest boys around I'm good for the rest of my life, thanks. Deliver Vietnamese food and I'll not complain with a single word. August laughs when I tell him this. I was so drunk when I explained exactly how I work, to his amused face as he nodded. I know all this, he reminded me, but I told him again anyway.)

Judas summer.

Henry and Lochlan were outside until around midnight last night, as Henry continues to learn to handle fire. It looks cool, he says. He's enjoying the process of learning and trying and getting it, finally after dozens of attempts. Then it's on to the next level, as practice is everything. Henry's not a perfectionist and doesn't worry if he can't do something, but he is also exceedingly quiet and contemplative. He feels things twice as deep as your average human, which is a hindrance and a help. Henry is exactly like Jake but with my stubbornness and pragmatism, and so Lochlan has no trouble at all crafting a plan to teach him in a way that will work both for Lochlan's capacity for risk and patience and for Henry's confidence in himself and desire to expand his decidedly too-safe horizons.

As this week wraps up we've really settled into a new sort of dynamic here on the point. It's all good, all positive, all healthy which is the most you can ask for, right Joel? Joel came by last evening but we were busy hanging out with the kids and didn't want to break away to go and talk. I don't want to talk to him right now anyway. He is not for the good times. He is for the hard times (or as I call them, the heart times). He is for emergencies. He is just a textbook we can flip open if we need a reference but otherwise he can wait. 

Sometimes I just stand and watch and I can't believe the way things turned out. Jacob, you baptized your own son and you didn't know he was yours. And now he's learning to throw fireballs into the night because of Lochlan's encouragement, and because mom was so disappointed in the lack of meteor showers, so let's make one for her and she can enjoy a personalized experience and God bless them both it was the greatest round of shooting stars I think I've ever seen and not only does Lochlan not see Jake in Henry (he lies but he insists: Only you, Peanut. Only you) he doesn't even hesitate to be his father. Never has, never will and I love him for that, even when Jake was still alive and had no idea, Lochlan would talk about his kids which drove them all batshit. This is the life we wanted, only the camper's a tad bigger than we expected but the kids are too. Pinch me, I'm dreaming. 

No, you know the rules. Get away from me and just leave me like this. Please.

We're not talking about the invisible meteors today.

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Overcast achillean paradises and stars that won't light up the whole way.

 PJ took the entire beer cooler to his wing, Duncan and Dalton helped bring the food back to the house and we left the blankets in the pool house to bring back out tonight, as last night the only thing I saw was muddied shooting clouds, I guess and after a fifteen-minute insistence on me adjusting my eyes properly to the dark after pulling the switch on all of the exterior lights, Lochlan very gently suggested we try tomorrow. 

But wouldn't you know, I'm stubborn and I made him wait a further thirty minutes just in case, you know, it cleared up or something.

I double-checked this morning and yes, it's supposed to be clear tonight and yes, PJ is punch-drunk this morning, having worked his way through a bunch of beers (there weren't that many in there, I just call it a cooler full of beers because it's easier to describe than saying 'an assorted galvanized tub full of ice and assorted beverages' or something. Most of the point doesn't drink or is in recovery. We're technically happier dry but then I like to get shitfaced and...be cute and PJ likes to drown his loneliness and Caleb measures his worth by how much his whiskey costs but THAT isn't even in the bucket and Lochlan isn't even picky if you hand him whatever and then there is ginger-ale for Benjamin and canned pellegrino with orange for Dalton who is a lot snootier than one might suspect. I don't even aspire to the sparkling water and I'm the queen of your very best dry champagne) and you should probably too now, after reading that huge parentheses section, I bet.

What was I going to say? Oh yeah! The meteor shower that never was. I planned my whole week around being gobsmacked by it and I've yet to lay eyes on a single star. 

Lochlan thinks I am funny and yet it's also his fault. 

(The legendary story of how he made me fall in love with him (he didn't, I already had) by showing me a path straight from the sky to his heart, stopping at all of the constellations along the way. GOSH. Such a romantic to my little elementary-school heart, I never had a chance, I don't think and this is why today my glaring lack of maturity causes so many problems. He promised me a fairytale but he didn't know there would be such a price to pay to get it and we're just now debt-free and realizing this gift after years of hard work, years of adversity and miles between us, both literally and figuratively.)

He is the north star, and anyone who says different can fuck off.

How many beers have you had today, Bumblebutt?

Two. No, three. I don't know. Maybe three. I have to pee, did you need something?

And the moon brought her the stars and she gave one to each of them.

Lochlan laughed at me when I struggled past him dragging a lawn chair. Where you going, Peanut?

I'm setting up for the Perseids, I remind him. 

Duncan jogs past. Hey Bee, what's for dinner?

Pop-tarts, I call back and he stops in his tracks.

Seriously?

The meteor shower is tonight!

So why didn't you trade nights? (my turn to cook)

I tried and no one would trade. Can one of you help me with these?

Sure, why didn't you ask?

I've been asking for a week now. 

They look suitably chagrined. Guilty. But it's true. And now I'm left with five hours to spare having to do it all myself. 

Here, Bee. Give it over.

Got it. 

Grab that end? 

I watch them whip into action to set up a viewing station that will see us through a twelve-degree night with wind but clear as a bell and the telescope is ready, the pile of blankets is folded and sitting on the rock wall and my plan is to bring the firepit down but put it back behind us so those who want to can have have hot dogs and s'smores but those who want to watch for shooting stars won't be bothered by the light. There's a cooler full of beer and one of the heaters down there too. I'm kind of ready. Surprise. 

It works and they get excited. 

Got the good buns? 

I'll go bring out the mustard and chips. 

 Is this enough blankets?