(I mean, if you want me to be picky, I prefer the Sumatra or at least a darker roast, black and God, don't give me so much food but) Out loud a warm thank you (and a big tip) is fine.

Gloves hiding my knuckle tattoos with my pale green wool coat and a boughten coffee today in the cold icy sun as we embark on a little business first and then a little breakfast after and I tried to make butternauts but the butter was too soft to carve properly. Lochlan told me I should ask for cold butter but I wasn't about to do that. That's how the butternauts started and maybe this is how they will end, drowning to their deaths in the tiny square graves of my blueberry waffle, screaming silently until their little helmets melt into their little bodies and we'll never know of their myriads of adventures because they can no longer speak. 

Besides, unless something's really wrong I don't ask for extras, favours, substitutions or something different. That's a pretentious thing to do, I think and so I just don't do it. I worked in food service. People like that suck. I mean, of course I'd like double pickles on my MacDonalds hamburger but I'm not going to ask for them because that wastes their time and it messes things up and seriously I can put more on at home and-

You never did want for much. 

Still don't, I point out helpfully. We are tenuously getting along. It's so wonderful. I forgot how well we work when we're not arguing but also I should point out that things always work best when he is the dad and I am the child. That way no one can argue with him. Except I'm not a child and I found my own voice and my place in this world and goddammit, if I see a double-standard, a bluff or a just-plain-wrong, oh, you're going to hear about it. 

Hence, his attempts to distract me with the temperature of the butter and the unfortunate but completely predictable death of an entire platoon of melty little butternauts. 

Huh. 

Maybe we should have just grabbed a burger, after all.

Old standard.

 Since PJ has been cranky lately (a usual this time of year) and Lochlan and I are at odds, Ben has been sent to play fake guardian angel, keeping the true angels away while I flail through life bouncing off a flannel shirt or eight as I go. Better than an electric fence, I suppose as the zap and subsequent bark from the big black bear wandering out of the driveway kept me rapt in the early hours, between waking up and being allowed to actually leave the room long enough to have a shower. Then I had to wait for Ben to be able to go downstairs and get coffee, and now he is my shadow that blocks the sun. I don't exactly mind. I miss him when he's not around and he parked me within reach for two hours already this morning while he did a workout and ran through his morning routine which involves quashing cravings, healing traumatized brains and retraining short-term memory. 

(For both of us, truth be told. Only he makes real, visible progress and I am so jealous I could cry.)

The reward is a walk on the beach, a scream into the wind (still within reach) and a long talk about how I'm feeling. If you're wondering how that's going it's going great. They are forcing me to take the meds, they don't care if I can't think for myself or feel anything and I'm never alone so no privacy, no quiet time, no lunch being just what I wanted to have without either taking it to a vote or having to make enough for two or three people. I get it, I am a horrible little troll who needs to be babysat and also if I'm not I have a tendency to make ghosts my new best friends and in their place the devil, besides and no one is actually mad at me today. Sam thinks by staying I didn't get hurt worse, Lochlan can't even believe I called his bluff and went in the first place. Ben is mildly irritated that I didn't bring him along for kicks protection but at least he says how he feels upfront and doesn't expect me to fix it for him or do anything different, though I pointed out he was right and I should have and I won't do it again (without him, as if I am not tired enough already). He liked the apology even though he said it wasn't necessary and pointed out it's going to be a better year. 

Besides, more daylight, Bee. What does the sun come up at now? Seven?

Seven-fifty-seven. 

And it doesn't set til like six now? Right?

Four-fifty-four.

You still count down to the minute. 

Yes. 

Why, Bee?

I'm afraid of the dark. It's a frank statement. I am. I wasn't, once, but I am now. 

I think you should stay on these meds. 

This is a death sentence. 

Give your brain time to rest. Go off them later. 

I know. I know the logic. I don't want to live like a zombie.

You're not. 

How do you figure?

You're cranky today. That's a feeling. 

Lochlan said it's an attitude. 

He worries for you. Be comforted in that.

Jesus antlers.

He pressed his thumb against my lips, forcing it in gently until it came to rest against my front teeth. A smile spread across his face so slowly it poured like golden molasses in the late-morning hazy sunrise. 

Skip Jesus today. Please, Neamhchiontach.

What's in it for me, I mumble around his fingers. Christ. Hobble me and I'm yours. Easy catch. Fish out of water. Fawn in your highbeams, I'm roadkill before I even knew there was a highway underneath my legs.

Satan. Satan's in you. I mean, in it for you. He laughs softly. He leans forward and kisses my cheek. 

Jesus won't be very happy with me. 

I'll run interference for you, he whispers and pulls the blankets up over our heads.

***

I skid into breakfast late. Bedhead. Uh, bitemarks you can't see and they're not deep but they hurt nonetheless and I am chagrinned. I forgot about this. I forgot what day it was other than Sunday and then I started thinking about knowing Sam's sermon because he wrote it when I was present and then I remembered the late brunch we planned with a whole trunk full of mushrooms we got from a forager down in the valley who said we wouldn't regret it for a second so omelettes and a fritatta were planned and I knew last night's invitation was going to cut it too close and I was right. 

Or should I say, he was right. He is always right. Lochlan has never lost an argument in his life. He's abandoned a few of them but everyone still knew he was right. He isn't less than a hundred percent integrity unless he's stealing out of necessity and then it's still absolved via a good deed or a generous gift. His karma is straight up, level and replenished easily. 

And boy, is he mad. 

I throw myself into my chair. The plates are already on the table.

You're in rough shape-

I'm fine. 

He stabs his eggs with a fork. Sam needs to baptize you again, I bet and then you need a swim to heal those bites. I could see the way you were moving from the second floor landing. Before you checked yourself. 

He didn't mean to-

It doesn't matter what he meant to do. 

I asked for-

BRIDGET. 

I bite my lip. 

Just don't say anything. Do I need to look at the marks? He's not looking at me as he asks. It only serves to make me feel worse. He's never going to ask me to stop. If he did I just might. 

No. They're fine. Nothing's bleeding. (Except my heart. My heart is always the exception here.) 

We eat in stony silence. Jesus does not fill the space. Of course Lochlan didn't go to church. He stays home and works himself into a lather if I'm with Caleb. But he won't tell me not to go these days. Instead he nails himself to the floor and blames me for it. I have nothing to do with this. This is between the three of them: Caleb, Lochlan and Jesus.

La Moldau, though. Damn.

Moved. 

(Plus it's easier to talk about music than anything else. Ben taught me that.)

Something about playing piano before eight in the morning is beautiful. I think I've sat down with my coffee cup at hand every day for the past ten days and tried to bang out something or other. This morning was Merry Go Round of Life from Howl's Moving Castle. A gorgeous, upbeat piece, almost reminiscent of Vivaldi without the freneticism. Like Brahms without the jumpscares. More sophisticated somehow and less jarring. Always and forever flows better, and yet has a simple optimism that keeps you engaged right through to the end. 

It's like going to a museum Hemingway-style. Hungry. 

Half-awake Bridget appreciates things without perspicacity very early, before the day throws itself on me, making me bitter, picky.

It almost cured my headache so now I've moved on to some Debussy with a little of the quieter Dvorak sprinkled throughout. 

Okay, now Dvorak takes the fuck over.

A second cup of coffee, the first long forgotten and ice-cold poured out and replaced with a fresh hot cup and some toast would do me well right now even as the pain in my head is almost drowned out by the trumpets I can hear only on the inside as I play along.  Dvorak is king.  This is beautiful. The resonating strings-

Fuck this. Going to get my violin so I can do that beautiful climb. Maybe I just need a classical soundtrack to give me momentum because holy shit this works. 

(You know you loved it when you grieve at the end, because it's finished.)

No net no net no net no net oh there's the net.

 You know what happens to a candle when you find out it's counterfeit wax as in there's a birthday candle rolled in super-cheap wax. The middle burns down and the rest doesn't budge and eventually it smoothers itself because the melted wax has nowhere to go and so it eats the flame? 

That's me on drugs. 

And I can't do it. I can't write. I can't sing. I can't paint. I can't settle enough to read a book or kayak. I just float around like a shell, a breathing ghost. The cheap wax on the outside. Have you seen the past few weeks? Paralyzed by stationery, indifferent to ghosts and the living alike? It's almost better to feel everything than nothing. It's better to suffer for this art of a life, it's better to not be immune, untouchable and hard. A jar of hearts won't help me like this. Lochlan hates it but feels desperate. Caleb can just buy better. PJ can't even be in the same room with me, he says it's a stranger, but he doesn't say that to me directly, just to them. Ben tells me to shhhh, that it's necessary to stabilize everything and then maybe we can see about trying tiny changes but to leave it for now because they can't have me standing on the edge of a proverbial, figurative cliff 24/7, that they are tired. 

That they worry. 

That they can't control the ghost without the pills. 

It makes me laugh. 

Jacob is not a ghost. He's real and it's my dreams trying to clue me in. It's my intuition, feeling him near. It's some magnificent attempt to drive Lochlan away for good to pay him back for being a scared teenager. It's a wish for a do-over and had Jacob even come near me I would have shouted for him to stop, shielding my eyes, hand up as if I could physically keep him away. 

If I could go back I would and I never would have met him and Caleb can't BUY that but oh what if he could, instead of golden rings and glass houses and other mens' loyalties? 

Thanks to my metabolism for medications this casual, chemical lobotomy isn't going to be enough. My brain is four minutes into Everglow, my brain is down the block screaming so loud you can't even hear it from here. My fingers are back to fluttering and I am not at peace right now, I don't care what your eyes are telling you. 

I look at Sam, sitting at the table writing sermons in his field notebook, his favourite stubby little Kaweco pen glowing warm from overuse and I want to scream in his face but I haven't come back from down the block yet. 

I need my outlets-

Right now you need peace of mind, he says gently. 

Lochlan nods. It will all come back. 

And in the meantime?

Bounce off the walls, Peanut. I'll catch you.

Half alive.

And it took so long just to feel alright
Remember how to put back the light in my eyes
I wish I had missed the first time that we kissed
'Cause you broke all your promises
And now you're back
You don't get to get me back

Caleb has no time for cinema, he's busy. It's spring and this is birthday season. We'll skip right past Valentine's Day and skip past the upcoming but lesser-known Burns Night because those are Lochlan-holidays and he doesn't get those. And he's becoming a lot less regimented and a lot less formal and way more fun the older he gets, but I probably couldn't get him to sit through a Ghibli movie if I tried, though he did offer to watch one if I really needed him to. He's Howl. Super-agreeable. Can provide whatever your imagination spits out and pushes far too hard until things are trepidous but still highly escapable.  

He'll be fifty-eight this year. Still the same age as Tom Cruise but decidedly nothing like Tom Cruise, who doesn't actually age. Caleb has laugh lines and frown lines and is turning light grey around the edges, fully half his beard is white now when he doesn't shave and he lives a practiced, scheduled life, favourites within easy reach, hardly deviating except in that one way and he's as charming as ever, sitting here. 

Choose something else. 

He wants to buy me something..significant, in his words, with an obviously capital S. Since Christmas did not work out the way he planned. Anything. Name it.

But not the thing I ask for. It's okay, I have a list. I want to sing. 

You have a beautiful voice-

I want to hear it. It's so hard to hear it without a half-hour of setup for the monitors and the mix-

I would give you that if I could, Neamhchiontach. 

I turn to the edge of the bench. I've been working on Jar of Hearts all morning. It's a little bit of an easier reach for me, which is encouraging because I sat down to work on Speak to Me and it's a lot harder so I was discouraged and when that happens I'll do anything to make that feeling go away. 

He sits beside me. Whats happening?

I need to nail the piano and then I can work on vocals.

Then play, he orders. 

I start the song and he sings it. 

Now your turn. 

I'm more than surprised. He sounds pretty good. I've never seen so many of his teeth. I'm usually in his mouth.

Now will you play? Until I get this part down. 

Yes. 

He played (he plays! They all play, I know, I tell you nothing as I tell you everything) and I sang and we ran through it three times and I finally was happy with it and took over piano and by then those who like the song were in the doorway and those who hate it had to leave the point, because I play so loud. I'm a smasher, I push against the keys, against the pedals, I pound and flourish and one of my tricks to hit the notes I can't hit as a supremely shitty mezzo-soprano is to go louder as I go higher. 

Luckily I am a Capricorn rising and not the least bit shy which to me is already a freaking superpower as in I am the one who will make the speech/pick up the phone/take charge/make a fool of myself first and then everyone else will feel more comfortable. I've never cared once what anyone thinks of me and so one of my goals for the future is to get my singing to a place where I don't mostly hate it. 

You would think by now I would be there but I am not.

Garden of Words.

 Finally. A main character who shares my super power. 

I went from wondering if we were watching a low-level fetish anime to realizing that boy, everyone is pissed off, and everyone hates Miss Yukino because all men fall in love with her. She feels powerless to control her own life and then she says fuck it and follows her own damn heart. It was short, beautifully done and the music and environment paintovers were just delicious. I finished it alone because PJ bailed to go to sleep early and left me alone in front of the screen. He said he'll finish the half-hour he is lacking right away so we can forge ahead, though we did get Amazon Prime TV or whatever it's called and now I have to get through my immediately long and varied list on it, too. Lochlan took his place and had no idea what was happening but I quickly filled him in and he said it was good.

Last night the wind howled, the house rocked, the dog cowered and the power flicked and disappeared, not returning forEVER for the second time in as many weeks. 

I am almost done with the west coast and I have to admit I laughed so hard when the movie spooled up and the first thing they mentioned was that it's rainy season and it featured a windy, blustery moment that almost marked the absolute change in both characters. 

So maybe I made it happen but whatever. Next up is Spirited Away. I've seen it before but I don't remember much of it so adding it back in.

Overshare, over land.

Today will be a good day. Today we're picking the next movie out of a hat (at least three days a week PJ and I have committed to consuming the entire Studio Ghibli catalogue this season, so we put all of the names in a jar, and pull one out to watch each time. We've watched My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Howl's Moving Castle so far. Someone pointed out Christian Bale does the voice of Howl and it took me a few hours of wondering around amazed that he can speak fluent Japanese before realizing they meant the dub. 

Never ever watch the dubs, if you can help it.

I have all of Ben's rings on and I'm in leopard print leggings and a long black t-shirt, tattoos on display and my hair...is...well...jesus, it's grown right out from the pixie cut into this flippy shag that just..actually doesn't look so bad, I don't think. PJ's hair is to his waist but he keeps it in a braid. His beard is catching up but he won't braid it even though I have offered to buy him silver beads to put in it. Man, if I had a beard like that I would go full pirate but he says he's afraid if he puts it in a braid that I will be tempted to swing off it like a little monkey and I don't know where he gets that from. That sounds like it would hurt.

PJ is also in a full Seasonal Affective Disorder spectrum right this minute. Like me. He hid it for years but there is a distinct sea-change in this non-pirate, one that little seems to help. Just before Christmas it's almost like the lights go out for him and they don't come back on until late February so we are attempting to surround him and keep him cheered. He takes some low-level meds and he sleeps too much and yet he has stopped drinking as much as he once did (Getting old, Bridge) and at least that's good and he's working on losing a few pounds and finding more purpose and he's really having a go at helping to look after Ben now that his regular role is waning. 

(It's difficult to be a full-time live-in nanny and favourite uncle to a twenty-one and a nineteen-year-old who both work and do university courses all the time. And yet we plan to never formally end the role because in my opinion PJ has been the most consistent father figure of all time, part of their lives since birth and that is worth more than gold. 

Between he and Ben and me and my feral brain our hands are full on yet another rainy Tuesday here in the trees by the sea. 

We pulled The Garden of Words for today.

8:02/4:34

 I am drawing in the gazebo, left along for moments as Lochlan runs in to grab us coffee. He is reading and catching up on news, I'm trying to do a simple storyboard for a short film idea I pitched to someone who wanted to do one and had no ideas and I've never done one before so I struggle and it's overdetailed and almost painful and yet it's the dumbest, most innocent thing. 

Yup, just described myself. I laugh out loud at the thought.

It's nice to hear you laughing, Princess. Jake is sitting on the steps, just beyond the reach of the overhang. getting soaked. I stare at him as his shirt grows dark, from the shoulders and back down. He doesn't seem to mind. I don't think he ever did. He's a Big Feeler. Like me. Maybe not dumb or innocent but definitely overly cognizant of the weather and the moon and the stars and all the feelings to be felt whether you welcomed them (and him) or not. 

I don't think you're supposed to be here. I start packing up. He's just watching now. 

Nice supplies. Who bought you those? 

Don't you have somewhere to be? 

I'm where I need to be. Shadowing my girl. 

I shove everything in the nylon tote I used to carry it all out here. Don't follow me in! 

Piglet, I-

You're not actually here. You're not real. You're not talking to me and I need to call Lochlan back outside-

Peanut who are you talking to? I turn around, clutching up my things, ready to run and Lochlan's back with a cup of hot coffee in each hand. He's been indulging me in self-care where I can't. Lots of breaks. Lots of treats and quiet moments. Lots of time, just doing nothing. Is it working? I thought it was but it isn't if Jacob is here and suddenly three's a crowd. 

I have a headache. I'm trying to talk myself out of it before I talk myself into it. 

You're not crazy, Bridget. 

Tell that to him, I point to the far wall of the gazebo where Jacob leans against it, wet-shirted, concern all over his face. 

Schuyler walks into view, coming across the lawn. Perfect timing. Lochlan thinks I mean Sky and not Jake.

You guys have a disagreement I need to know about? 

No, I'm resigned. I just think I'm still really really tired, Lochlan.

Well then stop carrying that arse around. He points to Jake. He's too big for you anyways.

Fire rush.

Lochlan went downstairs for coffee for us this morning and I fell asleep waiting for him to come back. It took so long and I am so tired. The rain makes me tired, life makes me tired and it dawned on me last night that we have settled into a definite delineation of chores somehow leaving me with the lions share of cooking (AKA Lochlan's). Even last night everyone was too tired to go out for food runs so we cobbled together a wonderful feast of cheese, sausages, peppers, onions, pasta and garlic with raw veggies on the side and it was really good but I ended up cooking. Again. PJ bailed on me too so I told everyone who has this week (bailed, that is) to go pick out a pretty piece of jewellery because I'll never act like your wife for free. Maybe your lover but she's not going to cook, now, is she? So they have until Wednesday next week to produce the goods or make it up to me by catching up on their cooking nights. 

I don't know which way it's going to go but if they are as lazy as I think they're becoming with this one chore should I buy some Tiffany stock or would that be considered insider trading at this point?

(Fun fact, precious metals are still (always) a really good bet. Real estate, banks and farming commodities, not so much, IMO and I haven't been wrong yet.)

(My wishlist is on the group chat. Snort.) 

Lochlan doesn't believe in Tiffany jewellery but figures we can sell it later. Which is interesting given the argument we had two weeks ago. He came back forty minutes later with fresh hot coffee and...Monte Cristos! Okay, I should have asked for sandwiches instead of jewellery because DAMN. This was the best thing I have ever eaten in my life. I ate mine and a quarter of his. He finds them really rich. But I did note that he used my favourite bread for them (rye) and even included a dime-sized drop of ketchup because that's how I eat the last corner, I dip it in ketchup. 

So good. We should have had these last night. 

Every meal. Every day. We need to make a Monte machine that just churns these out. Making french toast is so tedious and if I make these myself they don't taste as good. I know it's the adage of someone else making it but oh my God. So good. 

After we were fed and lying back again against the pillows sipping coffee I asked if he checked on Ben. 

Yes. I took him down a sandwich too. He's really back into it, Bridge.

I know. It's kind of reassuring even though I hate it. 

Yeah. I agree. 

Thanks for taking him breakfast.

I would have anyway. 

I know. 

I do like having you all to myself sometimes though. I live for these moments.

You do? 

I do. 

Aw. Me too. This was my dream. 

Eating sandwiches in our bed? 

Yes, because you never let me eat in bed growing up. 

This bed is big enough that we can move away from the crumbs. That bed just became a huge taco shell with us in it. 

Yeah but it was nice. 

Not with the crumbs but yes, you're right. 

We smile at each other stupidly.