Friday 25 November 2011

Now I know he reads a fortnight behind.

I am the crisis
I am the bitter end
I'm gonna gun this down
I am divided
I am the razor edge
there is no easy now
Sam walked in through the front door and got busy shaking the rain off of his things and carefully hanging his coat on a free hook. I waited patiently in the archway for him to get organized. He straightened his hair and then his tie, ending with his collar and then he bent down and picked up his messenger bag and his travel mug and started to walk toward me. Maybe he wasn't expecting me to be right there but he stopped about three feet away and just smiled that sort of smile reserved for greeting the very truly insane when you don't know what to expect.

Hi, Bridget. His eyes are looking for something. Heartbreak? Backslides? Seasonal Affective Disorder? Deception?

Hi, Sam. Do you want me to switch your mug to tea?

That would be good, thank you. But he didn't give me the cup, he just kept staring. I assisted by waiting with my expressions mostly blank until he was satisfied that I wasn't rejecting the living in favor of hanging out with the dead and the mug was pressed into my hand. I turned and made my way back to the kitchen while Sam started to tell me his afternoon was a little quiet so he thought he would drop in and he kept prattling on in this weird formal manner and when I finally reached the counter by the window I whirled around and asked him to just get on with it.

On with?

Whatever's wrong, Samuel.

I'm just- well, they wanted me to talk to you again.

I'm not backsliding.

I got the distinct impression you might be, and the picture of the road-

Lochlan sprayed me with perfix and I had brain damage, that's all that was.

Bridget, I-

You should talk to new Jake. He's the weirdo around here.

Jake is not my concern! You are! And why in God's name is Loch spraying you with toxic substances?

I had charcoal on my nose and he thought it was so cute he threatened to make it stay forever. And you have a whole flock of sheep to deal with, I'll be fine. I don't know if you guys noticed but certain calendar dates are kind of rough and I imploded a little late, that's all.

Bridget, you know you can come and talk to me any time.

I do come and talk to you. But for emergency's sake, how about right in the middle of your next sermon?

Okay, not during a service, but-

See?

Does Lochlan need to come and talk to me?

Oh, probably, but he doesn't believe in God.

He believes in the werewolf boy and the bearded lady but not in....Jesus Christ.

Exactly. I smile and turn to wash the mug. Sam crosses around behind the island and looks out over the water.

Caleb and Daniel trading places in your daily routine isn't all that healthy, is it, Bridget?

I don't want to talk about it, Sam.

You haven't tripped back into such tangible writing about Jacob in a while.

Sure I have. Maybe you don't have time to read enough blogs.

I put the kettle on the stove to boil and then I turn back with my Everything's Eventual smile just for him and he looks right through me to see the thin spots where I am pinned and sewn back together.

Okay, how about I just leave the door open? If you want to come and talk, just find me. Or call and I'll come get you.

My smile changes from fixed to real. Warm. Genuine. I will, Samwise. I promise.

His face morphs into reluctant joy. Okay good. How is the tea coming? I still can't feel my legs.

Stupidly cold, isn't it?

For where I'm from, you wouldn't think it would be so bad but it is. Sam's face is so young and elastic. It changes once more into a pained sort of frustration and I start to laugh. I laugh so hard I start to cry and then I can't stop. I can remember years ago hanging around the door of the study while Jacob mentored him, he was so young. He always had a pencil behind his ear and a bad haircut that left curls and waves sticking out over his ears and he was so eager and green.

Sam is weary now and older too, having buried our dead, officiated our weddings, and taken over the faith of the entire collective while his own life fell apart with equal destruction. Still he clings to his faith blindly with his eyes open wide, toothpicks shoved in them to stay wakeful, stay alert, stay above and he fights a losing battle every damn day until we admit that life is too big and we need help.

And then he gives it with a quietly outrageous, enthusiastic joy that becomes contagious and all-encompassing.

He sips his tea slowly. He watches my expressions, reading them like bestsellers, hot off the presses while I struggle to prove that the poker-face theory holds, as does the theory of time and faith.

Thursday 24 November 2011

Easily reheated, in the microwave of evil!

My soul is painted
like the wings of butterflies
Fairy tales of yesterday
will grow but never die
I can fly, my friends!
I'm not sure if my throat hurts from an entire morning singing along with Freddy Mercury while incense burned and I cleaned the entire house or if I've managed to finally catch the cold that's been knocking down everyone in this house, one after another. When one of them stands back up the cold does a quick u-turn and knocks them down again. It's terrible and I don't want it. Apparently the hourly bleach-dippings aren't going to protect me anymore. Good, because my skin was beginning to disintegrate off my bones.

Daniel is here today. Batman is American so weirdly he gave everyone a holiday. Which is good because Lochlan is just about falling down and keeps calling in sick anyway. Did I tell you I spent most of my morning with him back in the hospital while he had some more x-rays on his arm? Idiot got his camper wheel unstuck, using his recently broken hand. Because Brains: You can't win them at the circus, or so I hear. I'm not sure why he had to posture like that and hurt himself again but they tell me if I was a guy I would understand. They also said if I were a guy they would cry all the damned time which made me laugh and laugh.

I have always wanted to write my name in the snow while peeing standing up.

That will be one of those unfulfilled wishes I take to my grave, I think, along with base jumping and swimming naked in a teacup full of cookie batter. Oh, and watching Paranormal Activity 2, because I can't get ANYONE to watch it with me.

I used to be the queen of horror movies and instead I've spent the last year quoting Megamind:

All men must choose between two paths. Good is the path of honour, heroism, and nobility. Evil... well, it's just cooler.

The doctor is going to call with the results later on (I hope) and in the meantime, Lochlan's no longer allowed outdoors. I like making rules too, and if I can't go outside, he can't either. He shouldn't be out there in the freezing rain with this stupid cold anyway, instead he can curl up with me and Daniel on the couch and we can watch extravagant travel shows and they can both cough on the top of my head and then Ben will get sick and start doing that thing where he spikes a high fever and becomes downright silly, talking nonsense around the clock.

I am ready with my quotes.
Yes, a very wickedly bad idea for the greater good of bad!
But I'm saying it's the kind of bad that... Okay, you might think is good from your bad perception, but from a good perception... It's just plain bad.
Oh, you don't know what's good for bad!

Wednesday 23 November 2011

To the ends of the world.

(Who's the juggler now?)

I'm sitting on the quilt. It's some sort of designer Egyptian affair and cost more than my car. I love the embroidery, it should be scratchy and too beautiful to touch but instead it's soft, it's like being enveloped in a cloud. I don't know what it's filled with. He said something about Icelandic eiderdown, but I'm pretty sure this devil reached down the throats of every cherub for a thousand miles and pulled heaven out of them and used that instead. Still, I never want to move. Not even a muscle.

He brings me a tiny silver toy dart and tells me to throw it.

I laugh and my stomach growls. Time to go.

I close my eyes and throw it at the map on the opposite wall. When I open my eyes he is pulling the dart out. It landed somewhere in the vicinity of the Clyclades. Greece. He's been. Twice.

Want to go?

What?

A vacation. Maybe right after Christmas.

No.

Why not?

I have..commitments.

Remember what you told me when you were younger?

I'm thinking. Oh, right, it was 'Can't wait until you're in jail'?

Bridget-

Why don't you just tell me what I said, then? He's ruining what was a fairly successful, although truncated visit. It's lunchtime and I have things to do.

You said you were excited to travel the world when Lochlan joined the show and invited you along. You had such wanderlust. I don't think it's ever really gone away, has it?

I have to go. Thanks for the visit.

Anytime, princess. Generously, he drops the subject. He is devastatingly Cole-like today. Flannel, jeans, beard. Retired now, Caleb has no need for expensive suits here in the house on the verge of the sea. The lines around his eyes and the few silver hairs in his beard only serve to make him more appealing than he was once upon a time and I need to go now.

So I leave. I don't invite him up to the house for lunch.

When I come down the outside stairs and hit the pavement, movement stops me. Lochlan comes around the side of the camper. He's home again. Still so sick with this stupid cold that makes him cough all night long but he won't stop tinkering. He has a wrench in one hand. He's been trying to fix the seized wheel. He stops when he sees me, smilling slightly. He's glad to see me but he's mad because I am coming from the boathouse. Thankfully, curiosity trumps outrage.

Hey, peanut.

Hey, Lochlan. Do you need some help?

What? Ha, no. I'll get it. Not like I want to take it out. I like having a place to hang my hat. I can take my time and fix it properly, you know?

I smile but it tastes bad. My adventurous spirit, my potential for wayfaring was all but swallowed by his need to make something permanent for us in the midst of such a nomadic, tumultuous life. To find home on the road, to have familiarity when nothing was ever the same. A foundation that could be dragged along behind us, freaks that we were, one that we could set up house on in every new seaside town we emptied of gold and laughter before moving on to the next.

I've been busy resenting Lochlan while he's been busy trying to make things feel like home. For himself, for me too.

When he turned his back to give the tire another go I pushed up my sleeves, reached down and picked up the lifeless crow that rested at my feet. I took a huge bite, gristle, feathers and all. And I chewed and chewed until I almost choked to death while the tears streamed down my face and seasoned the meat nicely.

Without looking up, Lochlan proclaims that he will have it fixed shortly. I smile and say that he shouldn't worry, I'll go find find Duncan and send him out to help. Together they'll have it finished before dinner. I'll cook but I won't be eating.

I am too full.

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Mad world.

I've never had a lecture while I was getting laid before. Ever. This is a first.

Ben's hands wrap around my hips as he drives his points home. I am crushed underneath him, locked against him and I am desperately trying not to pay attention. He's forcing me to with exquisitely sharp twinges of pain exacted as he pleases to maintain my focus.

He's incorrigible.

He's delicious.

He's maddeningly right, and I never saw it coming.

(Oh, there's a joke in there, a filthy pun. I'm not telling it).

Life isn't a fairytale, bee. It's a difficult climb up a steep hill and we're dirty and tired and demoralized but every now and then we get look at true beauty and a taste of the faith that makes us keep going.

More than once I have braved the red hot razor-burn of his three-week beard to look up into his eyes to confirm that he has not been replaced with a poet or a reverend. Maybe this is a dream. Ben's words are never so prophetic or reassuring or...logical. He writes angry music for a living. I would have been less surprised had he talked about how the devil would consume my soul as it burned on through the night, stoking the fires of hell or something.

(Oh, wait. Perhaps he is the prophetic one. After all, my soul was consumed and then spit out and returned to me. Currently it sits on a shelf behind Duncan's unworn, overpriced Oakley sunglasses and the rice cooker I bought that has to be returned because the capacity is nowhere sufficient for my kitchen.)

I wish Ben would shut the fuck up and save it for daylight. He pulls me back down and turns me over. Oh good, my ears are covered and I can't hear him.

But I can't breathe either.

(That's sometimes a fun game in itself, but only if the one in control is aware of the problem and timing a fix, otherwise you're just gunning for dead princesses and a whole lot of explaining to do.)

He pulls my head back up and I take a deep breath and I realize he's still talking. I start to laugh out loud. I don't know what else to do. Ben asks what's so funny. I point out I'm getting an attitude adjustment at the worst time ever.

He tells me he is multitasking, that while he's adjusting my internal organs into their new locations, he is also adjusting my outward attitude. Then he starts to laugh because he's got a very big ego when it comes to this department.

(Big like everything else.)

I roll back over and smile. Ben is taking this well. I mean me, he's taking me well. He stops talking at last and lets the dark take us both under. This is not the time for words. Words can wait for the sun.

Monday 21 November 2011

Part Two: Killing fairytales.

(Picking up from here.)

Once all of the doors to his rooms were locked and we were in the bedroom by the window, Lochlan held the envelope in front of him in shaking hands.

There would have been no fanfare if I wasn't, peanut.

Just open it.


I can't. He's a leaf in the wind, shaking, pale, serious. I'm not doing any better. My mind is racing, my heart is reeling. The house is so quiet. I am trying to plan for whatever happens next but I can't because I didn't expect to be in this place.

Ever.

He lets out a long quavering breath and rips the end off. He pulls out the papers. He's skimming and passing me pages as he reads. I throw them down, I only want the last one. Paper cuts and tension are making this unbearable.

Oh Jesus Christ. Bridget, she's mine.

The black pushed around my consciousness and then the light blew it all away as I fell apart. Finally. Something good.

There is no moment more bittersweet in life than when you go digging back through years of memories to understand how you missed experiencing things in the way that you were meant to, instead of from afar. I watched all of that play across his face but all I could think of is now everything makes sense to me.

Lochlan's not a religious man. Not by a long shot. He won't pray, he won't go to church unless it's Christmas, he doesn't believe in God anymore than you believe in the bearded lady (she is real, by the way) but for the second time in my life he got down on his knees and prayed for help. The last time he did that was in a ransacked, smashed-up camper on the outskirts of a carnival parking lot, holding me in his arms. This time I just stood quietly and watched. I'm trying to decide how I feel before his input skews it, like it does for everything.

(How's your pizza?

Yummy. What about you?

A little dry, isn't it, Bridgie?

Yeah, it is, actually. Now that you mention it.)

He stands up and picks up the papers again and sits down on the bed to read through everything again. There are no questions left save for the one on everyone's mind.

***

A month later and still the same question remains hanging in the air above me like a cloud with a pull-chain for a light to come on.

How do I feel?

Part of me is cartwheeling-happy, swinging from a rope, shouting from the rooftops ecstatic, and the other part of me is terrified of the thought of a little more of Cole slipping away from my psyche. I'm not ready for that. I might sell my soul to hang on to what I have left of him (I just got my soul back from Satan in an even trade and once I boil off the blackened outer shell I'm sure it will be as good as new). I know that's unforgivable and incomprehensible, but you didn't choose Cole.

I did, once upon a time.

Sometimes the death of a fairy tale is the most difficult death of all and here it is before me in glorious finality and I need to kiss it goodbye.

Sunday 20 November 2011

Aw for fucks sakes.

Eleah died. Amyrn's mother. The giraffe. Now only Jafari (dad) remains. They say she may have died of heartbreak.

I am so sad.


Friday 18 November 2011

Part One: This still doesn't tell you how I feel but OH WELL.

About that envelope.

(Bear with me. Some things are safer coming in bits and pieces.)

On this day I learned something interesting. (I find it weird that the link doesn't point to the title of the post, but says 'Lochlan'. That's bizarre.)

And on this day, we learned something once again. (See? The link has the title of the post in it, if FATE ISN'T PLAYING A HUGE JOKE ON ME NOW THEN PLEASE FILL ME IN.)

And that was a month ago and I wasn't even going to share it. I wasn't, for once. I don't know why other than I was trying to follow his wishes and I screwed that up too. Like I screw up everything. Like I really was pretty sure maybe Jacob might be Henry's father once upon a time but Ruth's was definitely Cole's and boy, I guess I'M CLEARLY IN DENIAL even though I daresay I've never denied a damned thing.

I was wrong on both counts.

Please excuse me while I find a bag to put over my head.

Ruth belongs to Lochlan. She is his daughter. To make a long story short, if you can understand the sort of power that Caleb has, you can understand how easy it was for him to wish to keep that power on his side. There is more to this, but I can't get into right now. To make a long story even shorter, heads have rolled, beginning with his. He has liquidated everything and signed it over to me and gotten the fuck out of the people-as-pawns game. He owned up to almost every last wrong. You don't mess with a child's sense of security. He destroyed mine, I wasn't going to stand by and watch him do it to Ruth's too.

He owes me everything, and I've decided to collect.

The collateral damage turned out to be quite different from what I expected. We are all closer. Except for Cole. He is even further away from me now. I have no ties to him anymore. He was no one's father. He rocked and raised two beautiful little humans who did not belong to him. Then he left them essentially fatherless at the ages of almost-seven and soon-to-be-five and all of his friends stepped in and took over and they've done so much for us I can't begin to express my gratitude. They've given up their lives for us.

Only Ruth was always slightly to the side with a chip on her shoulder, and I thought to myself, Oh, she has Cole's temper. His legendary silent treatment punishment that is him turning inward only it wasn't that at all. It was Lochlan and his Stoic Forbearance. Head down, picking battles, waiting until he has some breathing space and then filing it away, keeping it, balancing on it while he throws his fire.

That's what Lochlan does. He files everything away. Tomorrow's a new day, a new show, new crowd, a new chance, and a change in the weather, maybe a change in our fortune too. That's his take on just about everything. That's how he takes hardship, lighting it up and swallowing it whole while we all explode outwardly. That's how he drove me to the brink of despair when I realized he would not comfort me anymore, he just wanted to get through to the new day.

And that has changed again.

With this new addition to his universe Lochlan has resumed his role as the Gypsy King, fixing everything through magic and affection and attention. He is coming around. Finally. We reinforced some bridges and burned some to the ground. We have made amends and made decisions. We have resolved to do better, try harder and be so much less selfish.

We are getting help.

And Ruth is doing really well. She's happy. She grew up with Lochlan close by, a doting uncle, as it were. Always in her life, always trusted, always easier to talk to than most. When I look at her, acknowledging the parts that are so obviously Lochlan I must have been deluding myself to ever think otherwise, I see her smile and I don't doubt for a moment that this is better late than never. I know how to deal with that temper, now that I know for sure which one it is.

And when I see them standing side by side on the patio, both in their saggy-assed corduroy pants, long lank curls hanging down their backs, thin t-shirts, bony elbows and easy smiles it doesn't seem as if it was ever any other way. This is what happens when you take two beautiful, filthy circus runaways in danger of losing each other forever and make something better.

This made it all worthwhile.

This came just in time.

(Part two tomorrow. Possibly detailing everything I didn't say today.)

Thursday 17 November 2011

Show me a house with a window
One with a garage and five bedrooms
Form me a line so I can judge you
Call me a name if you want to

Show me a way to the exit
Look at my hands, see them shaking
Tell me apart from my shadow
Find me a life for this shadow
All of the fire has fallen and we have returned to the deepest greens of the ocean against the blues and greys of the sky. I missed color. I missed pine needles. I missed water and I missed maple leaves. Weirdly how grateful the familiar sights can make me feel, as if it makes up for everything being strange all the time, every waking moment and every sleeping one too.

This morning I am not paying attention as someone asks me about the circus as I am trying to make sure Henry has his lunch bag inside his backpack. I'm responding automatically and Lochlan abruptly points out to them that there's no difference between a sideshow and a freakshow. I stop and stare at him, because usually he's completely oblivious and today he is downright rude about it. I smooth it over and then on the way home I ask him why the outburst. Why then. Why just as people are beginning to see that I'm not such a freak and maybe we can start to fit in.

He doesn't respond until later, when he abruptly breaks out once more that he doesn't like the way that Caleb greets me every morning by putting the hood up on my coat and surreptitiously checking for my hearing aids, something almost everyone's been doing lately so they can talk as I walk in front of them or maybe not repeat everything four times.

Which part bothers you? The hood or the checking, Lochlan?

The hood. Both. Why does he have to try and pull that shit? You're an adult.

You have always put my hood up when it's windy.

You were eight fucking years old.

You never stopped.

You were mine.

Oh, Jesus, here we go.

Yeah. Oh, Jesus. Let's go, Bridget.

I don't know how much more I can give you. Is there anything left?

Sure there is. You never wrote about the envelope. I feel like I'm throwing blind here.

You hate it when I write about you.

I don't know how you feel anymore otherwise, Bridget! You never open your goddamned mouth! He gets to own everything until you put it down. Put it down. Let the world see. Tell me how you feel about it. The suspense is killing me.

It was sacred, I wasn't going to write about it.

You got pretty close.

Yeah and then I changed my mind.

Change it back.

You'd like that wouldn't you?

He stares out over my head at the bare trees and the goddamned leaves everywhere. Up to our knees. Huge sweeping drifts of them coating the walkway in fire. Yellow and red and everything in between and he frowns and he looks so annoyed and serious and handsome and direct I would agree to almost anything. He looks back at me and nods, gently at first, then more vigorously and he smiles.

Yeah. I would.

Wednesday 16 November 2011

Top tens.

Sam lets me drink coffee all damn day and play the music as loud as I want to in the sanctuary.

(Same as Jake always did.)

I will be here if anyone needs me. Playing secretary for ten bucks an hour, only the phone never rings and Sam has already done everything else.

Update: Awesome news. If you've never been, you should go. It's second to none, and certainly shouldn't be seventh, but I might be more than a little biased.

Monday 14 November 2011

Amyrn (on the right) 12/20/2007-11/14/2011

I was writing some stupid entry about nothing in particular when I stopped and looked at the news for a few minutes.

Oh, sadness.

I took this picture of Amyrn and his mother, Eleah in July and wrote about it here. Amyrn came right over to the fence when I stuck my head over the top of it. He stayed there staring at me forever and I stared right back. The first giraffe I ever saw with my own eyes and he was very gracious and patient while I took pictures and talked to him as if any second he might pick up the conversation and run with it.

I hope he had a good life, and I hope he didn't suffer.

I'm not going to debate anyone on the merits of animals living in relative captivity so stuff that for now and just enjoy the photo. There are more on the original post linked above.

Saturday 12 November 2011

Stay where you're to.

(Wait here for me, princess.)

I found him sitting on the bench on the darker side, just out of reach of the single fixture of light that swayed gently in the wind. The snow was falling steadily and still he seemed unprepared in jeans and his green corduroy jacket with the pale blue flannel shirt, white undershirt visible under his open collar, workboots unlaced and wide open. His hair is so long he's getting the seventies rockstar jokes and the admiration alike. He is beautiful inside and out, snow or sunshine, night or day.

He looks up when I walk over, snow falling against his eyelashes but he doesn't blink or shake his head. I wonder if it's actually snowing where he is or if the weather is a controlled non-issue, a parallel universe of seasonless, weatherless banality disguised as a mirror image when it is nothing of the kind. Imagine never being too warm or too cold. Imagine never seeing the leaves turn from a lush green to a crackly, frozen red overnight. Imagine a world where snow doesn't dictate how far you run and doesn't risk you running off the road for your foolishness besides.

Just imagine. That is heaven. Sometimes you are given a special pass to visit with someone on earth but not for long because then you are tethered and you are supposed to be free. Snow is a fond memory instead of a present curse and you can wear your favorite outfit every single day. It never gets dirty and the elbows and collar never wear out.

I sit down beside him and he smiles and stuffs his hands in his jacket pockets, hunching his shoulders with glee. He loved the snow. He thought it was hilarious. I always wanted to throttle him. I find it inconveniencing and dangerous and cold. Sinister snow, I called it and he would say, No, pig-a-let, it's silly snow. Just like string except you can't spray it from a-oh, wait yes you can, nevermind. And he would laugh and laugh and I got so frustrated.

It'll stop soon, princess. And it'll be gone by tomorrow.

Will you be?

Naw, I'm always around when you need me.

Tethered, I whisper under my breath.

Yes, for now, Bridget. But it's okay. When you stop needing me, I'll be gone. I'll watch you walk away down that road and never look back.

I made a sound halfway between an incredulous snort and a sob. What road?

That road, they say. I guess we'll know it when the time comes.

Am I on a time limit again?

No, no. Nothing of the sort. Just making conversation while it snows. I know you don't like to listen to it fall.

I smiled in the dark. He's right. I don't want to hear it, I just want to hear it stop.

Friday 11 November 2011

Tonight.

Tonight when the clouds came down to touch the earth, I was there.

Thursday 10 November 2011

The bondage opera gloves.

(For the record, they were too large and therefore never used.)

He's standing on the patio having another cigar. Slay me with a feather, for I still love the smell so much it hurts. But I can feel the spectre of Cole eroding a little more each day and I have to work so hard to remember dumb things. His voice. The mannerisms I only witness now through Caleb, and the memories I fight my way out of without the need for padlocks and straps, though he'll use them anyway. A figurative landscape of denial is painted and framed and people will file past it, quiet murmurs of appreciation filling the airwaves and still we deny that the only way I will go to him now is under duress.

Duress, well it weighs a ton but I skid into the room and stand accounted for, all the same. Bad habits don't die. Not like people do. It should be the other way around but it isn't.

And forced compliance is sometimes good for everyone. It teaches us our limitations and it teaches us our thresholds for danger and for pain. It teaches us how to be humble and how to endure. We learn the true meaning of love and gratitude.

We learn all kinds of things.

Right now I am teaching THEM something, and they are very good students. The first thing is you don't need to lock Bridget into your fantasies, she'll just show up anyway, and the second thing is that forgiveness goes a really really really really long way.

Wednesday 9 November 2011

The Angel of the Odd.

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
~Edgar Allan Poe
These random late-night vodka-fueled discourses usually put me in hot water anyway, what difference does it make?

Every afternoon I see Caleb and automatically invite him to the main house for dinner. Desperate for a normal family existence (HAR), he accepts. Every evening Lochlan appears to count the places set at the table, mentally assigning each one until he sees the leftover one. He swears under his breath and tells me he'll eat in his (former? present?) wing, maybe while he works. Every night I steadfastly refuse to allow him to take his plate anywhere but straight to the table and Ben cracks a joke about oil and water, without fail.

I wonder if Caleb is the oil or the water? I wonder if they''ll ever get along? I wonder when Ben's going to stop baiting the pair of them because he is thrilled not to be the one on the outside. He wasn't there through the worst of it. He has no concept of the degree to which we discovered hell. He's the odd man out and he doesn't like that any more than Lochlan likes eating his dinner with the devil. Still we shield Ben because he would break for the weight of our memories, combined.

I hope he never does. Sometimes he asks about them. Lochlan defers and I refuse. What a pair indeed. We sit and draw in the evenings sometimes while Ben and Henry and Andrew and PJ shoot things and we talk in staccato bursts, making sure in our shorthand, telepathic way that we are still centered, still moving forward, a slow pilgrimage to reality in which sometimes you're carrying on a conversation and you stop and wonder abruptly why you haven't had a reply and you look back and see your companion face-down on the dirt road.

Yes, it's like that. (Maybe next time don't ask.)

I draw figures. He draws mountains and the faces of people we met on the road, people with fistfuls of money and the love of temporary, artificial danger.

We trade and critique. I protest, he defuses, in favor of making me better at what I want to do. And I will forever be eight years old under his critical thirteen-year-old know-it-all eye. And Ben will forever watch these exchanges from the safety of his peripheral vision and wonder how to wedge himself more effectively between us.

But if he asked Lochlan, Lochlan could assure him he already has, and that the only one face down in the dust these days from a lack of information or acceptance is Satan himself, hellbent for redemption even if it means trading it for his own worth readily, pretension gone, humility raw and new.

It's a strange place to be, alright.

Tuesday 8 November 2011

Firewall.

I'll keep it short and mean. (Typically, you say). There never was anything sweet about our mutual blame game.

Note to self: Never piss off the one who controls the internet.

Because he can see that it's down and 'not have time' to fix it until he gets home, long after supper, long after Bridget's spent her online time sporadically squinting at the four-inch display on her phone, which retreated into an Edge connection in fright and really, that was the state of things for most of the day, sadly. I briefly, sweetly hijacked Duncan's iphone and then was discovered and suitably turned out for the sneak that I am. But when Lochlan returned he gave me back my wi-fi connection anyway, mostly because everyone sort of needed it.

In his defense, we switched plans at the house a month ago and it hasn't worked right since, so today's abrupt removal was to fix something major. It works now. So far so good anyway.

We are speaking again too. That's always nice. He got a little crazy when I finally pointed out his inability to comfort or console me VANISHED exactly at the same time that we had our world blown apart. So I had four years to soak up and fall in love with this guy who could soothe away the worst nightmares and fears, and make me feel safe always. After the explosions died down it was as if a door closed, and the subsequent twenty-eight years have been a sort of semi-hurtful, confused void where he does not seem to possess the capability for any comfort whatsoever.

I made a mistake and said it out loud, though. That was the problem.

He looked at me as if I couldn't possibly understand that bad things change people.

I don't know who understands that better of the two of us, or who had it harder, the one who endured such horror or the one who had to stand by and watch, and know he wasn't there when he promised he would be.

If we're still throwing poison-tipped arrows, that is. If not, then disregard all of the above. Water under the bridge and I'm still drowning in history to this day.

Monday 7 November 2011

The girl at the edge of heaven.

This morning I was again outside in the rain, this time restricted to the patio, for PJ was busy and couldn't come out. I always listen when he tells me I'm not allowed to set foot on the grass. I'm considering having a trapeze erected so that I can make my way to the cliff and still heed his instructions. Each time I threaten that he counters with the suggestion of charging people money to come and see the little freak again.

I point out money was easy to extract in exchange for my attention. He replies harshly that this house is not going to be my circus.

Oh, baby, it already is. Don't you see it?

This morning I slid down into the Adirondack chair, my legs dangling over the hump and I poured myself five fingers of the best Irish whiskey Caleb can import.

I sipped two and poured the other three into the dirt. Jacob always had three, even though he couldn't hold his liquor any better than I ever could, and would begin to add words to his conversations to the point where I would wonder if I were drunker than I realized, when I could no longer understand a word he said.

And he would just keep on talking. It was priceless and it was cherished too and now I am reduced to swinging my legs from a wet lawn chair on a patio in Lotusland, not allowed to touch the sea today because I am not in charge of my own life anymore because I haven't treated it with the respect it deserves.

Nope.

But I am not cold! That's one good thing about the drink. Or it could be the fact that I am still in three of yesterday's four dresses, mascara smudged below my eyes, hair damp, wavy straw, mind cracked in half and heart not far behind.

Happy birthday, Jacob. I whisper it to no one in particular, and as expected, no one replies.

Sunday 6 November 2011

Four years of figuring out how I'm supposed to be doing this. Still no luck.

Aw, Jakey. Why did you do it?

I'll stand out on the cliff as long as they allow it. I have black four dresses on. Two cotton, two wool. Thick black wool tights wrinkle around my knees and ankles and I've chosen my doc boots simply because the tights don't work with much else. My black shawl rounds out this fantastic ensemble and I have pinned up my hair but the wind had other plans so I'll just pull the ends of the shawl tightly around my shoulders and allow the locks of palest blond to escape until it all falls out and the pins crash into the sea below. I will stand here until I am frozen solid and then I'll take a step back.

Ben stands five feet behind me, hands jammed in his pockets, a look of utter misery and borderline panic on his face. He hasn't taken his eyes off me, I know. I can feel them, they weigh a ton. But he is determined to allow me to do this however I need to and if I can't be in Newfoundland or Nova Scotia to be surrounded by memories then I will stand on the highest point and show myself to heaven. I may still wear my mourning clothes and surprise people with how damaging, how fierce my sadness can be but I am here trying. I close my eyes and lift my face up to the night. The wind caresses my face. Rain begins to lick at my hair.

PJ yells something from the doorway. The house is warm, I know. Inviting. Comfortable. Dry. Softly-lit and welcoming. He repeats himself and I turn my head to look at him, curious now. He abruptly goes back inside and closes the door and I look at Benjamin. He is still staring at me but his left arm is out straight to one side, index finger raised.

Wait, PJ, is what that means.

Wait for my Bridget to sort through her dark little brain and toss memories around and kick things, denting them in and when she's made enough of a fuss and a big enough mess inside her head I'll take over. No worries, brother. That's the expanded, translated version of that one finger. I know because he's put the words with the gesture before.

I wouldn't trade Ben for the world or for heaven. Think about that very hard. I know I have. It takes one hell of a man to stand up and allow for this. I have yet to meet anyone else who could pull it off and remain intact. Ben may have a few cracks of his own from the strain but he's holding.

He's holding me.

Saturday 5 November 2011

Saving daylight.

Our bed we live, our bed we sleep
Making love and I become you
Flesh is warm with naked feet
Stabbing thorns and you become me
Oh, I'd beg for you.
Oh, you know I'll beg for you.
I didn't run. Well, I tried but then Ben was there and he reverse-engineered my itinerary and paced with me at the airport until my knees gave out and my phone died and I asked him if we could just go home and for one of the first times home wasn't on the other coast.

Huh. What the fuck is THAT about?

We played Scrabble on his phone and watched bad conspiracy television and stayed up late and then slept late this morning.

This afternoon Ben took me to Jericho beach and we walked along the water's edge, freezing to bits and we talked and we compared panoramic photographs as we took them and we counted oil tankers in the bay and watched people have their wedding pictures taken. When we got too cold we ducked into a tiny ramen shop and I ate every last bite, something I can never manage. Gyoza too. We drove home in the pitch dark and proclaimed it a perfect day, which it was. In spades forever and ever and I want to do it next Saturday again except that I will return to my favorite beach of the city because none of the other ones we have explored have any glass at all and that just won't do.

I have already gone around to set the clocks back, and I'm soon to collect all of the whiskey and weapons and I'll retire to the library, where I will push the heavy table across the doors to keep the world away and then I will sprawl out on the couch and drink Jack Daniels and sing Stone Temple Pilots lyrics to myself while I load and reload, blowing daylight holes in the night, shooting dreams like skeet, busting caps into my nightmares, slurring out encouragement to myself while the boys crouch outside the door in defensive positions.

Ben will probably suggest Scrabble instead. I wonder if I can play with one hand while balancing the bottle in the other, guns cocked across my knees?

With any luck I will let you know tomorrow.

Friday 4 November 2011

Can you hear me?
I was doing very well, you know.

I had ignored the calendar and I threw myself into watching a different history play out in front of my eyes as Caleb makes his home a stone-throw away and Lochlan rises to the challenge of everything before him with a determination I haven't seen from him in a while.

Ben. Ben's been around. He's been intuitive and funny and sweet as always. He puts up with an awful lot, I'm afraid. He knows I'm so on edge that when he holds me I leave cuts all over him for the sharpness of my moods.

So when the roses arrived this morning let's just say whatever house of cards I built for myself that I stood on in high wind was maybe doomed from the beginning. I couldn't do it. I couldn't read the card that told me how strong I was and how much you all love me and I couldn't see the pride on your faces for the fact that maybe we were out of the woods at last.

I don't want to say the flowers were the catalyst, though maybe it would have been better if they had come yesterday or maybe you simply counted your chickens before they were safely in the henhouse. Maybe going into this weekend and the fourth anniversary of Jacob flying (how can this be here already?) and his birthday on Monday and everything else finally caught me as I ran.

I run so fast, I don't understand how that's even possible, but then I tripped over the past because it's always in my way and I sprawled out on the road, rashed by the pavement, pride dented, hysteria still nipping at my heels.

Jacob leaned down and grabbed my good elbow, pulling me back to my feet. He leaned down and brushed the dust from my hair and he asked if I was okay.

What do you think? I blurted out. What a stupid question. I hope nobody asks it ever again. Even him. I turn to inspect the road in case I'm bleeding and I haven't noticed yet.

I think, Piglet, that you should probably tell someone where you're headed.

They'll know, Pooh. There's only so many places I can feel you anymore. I turned back around and looked up into the sun but he was gone.
Can you hear me?

Thursday 3 November 2011

Captive audience.

Have no fear for when I'm alone
I'll be better off than I was before

I've got this light
I'll be around to grow
Who I was before I cannot recall

Long nights allow me to feel I'm falling
I am falling
The lights go out
Let me feel I'm falling
I am falling safely to the ground
He has moved on to singing Long Nights under his breath, and I'm left with the lyrics floating around in my mind, turning them over like shiny rocks in a stream, looking for feldspar or quartz or even pyrite among the muted greys and browns. Lochlan picks the strings too casually, almost aimlessly and I am annoyed, nose pressed against the glass, uncharacteristically trying to block out beautiful music.

Because I'm not allowed outside.

My driveway is full of activity and I am missing everything. Men in white shirts and jeans carrying Caleb's belongings into the boathouse. He is down further on the walkway, pacing just out of the way of the movers, gesturing angrily as he speaks on the phone.

I'm pretty sure he is speaking to Batman. There has been some overlap on projects that we thought we finished and sadly they're forced to work together for a few weeks and Ben even had to wade in and sort some things out and so today I am pinned to one place with strict instructions to listen to Lochlan, who is still sick and should be resting his voice instead of killing the next hour performing the soundtrack to Into the Wild. I hated that movie. Hated it with a special passion reserved for things like scorpions, ketchup chips and being stuck inside on a clear fall day when I could be out chasing leaves in the wind.

The lions at the zoo pacing back and forth behind the fence at feeding time, that's what I feel like. It doesn't help that Caleb keeps turning to stare at the house. He knows I am looking back at him. He knows who is home and who he must avoid but can't based on new extenuating circumstances that are clicking into place like the locks on the dial of a very heavy safe and here we are, together again at last only I am not a child anymore.

Or so I thought.

For fucks sakes. Stop singing. You're breaking my heart again and there isn't much of it left.
I'll take this soul that's inside me now
Like a brand new friend I'll forever know

I've got this light and the will to show
I will always be better than before

Long nights allow me to feel I'm falling
I am falling
The lights go out
Let me feel I'm falling
I am falling safely to the ground

Wednesday 2 November 2011

Unicorns in the front yard again.

I'm not gonna lie
I want you for mine
My blushing bride
My lover, be my lover

Don't be afraid
I didn't mean to scare you
So help me, Jesus
Oh my fuck. Lochlan's Elmer Fudd-rendition of Possum Kingdom is slaying me. He is home early. Everyone has bad colds. Welcome to Fall, right? The seasons change and the temperatures fluctuate just enough to tilt all the germs back into the house and now we have to go back to evaluating who we'll kiss and who we'll avoid. I can just weed them out by counting who sneezes on the top of my head as they pass me with boxes and various bits of furniture.

Schuyler and Daniel are all moved in to their house. Or rather, their stuff is there. I invited them for dinner but they have great plans to have pizza over a candle or some other equally amazing moving cliche. I feel shafted and used. Hahaha. Maybe I'll start inviting myself over there for dinner. I'm not phoning first and I'm not bringing anything either. Also, my table manners will be deplorable and I will throw things. Judging by the vast number of food fights Daniel has started here it's only fair right?

PJ is moved in to the main house too. He loves the space and the fact that I can now harass him twenty-four hours a day without even having to go find my shoes first. I never thought of that but since he pointed it out I set some extra alarms overnight just for that purpose. I will put Ben's bagpipes in the hall so I can grab them on my way downstairs to say hello. I hope he's excited. I can do a mean four a.m. solo. He wouldn't know, he's been living on the other side of the driveway for eighteen months, after all.

Caleb has called the service and has moved up his own move into the boathouse to tomorrow. Agony bags indeed. Whatthefuckever, it's going to be hell on earth having all three of them in the same space all the time. My thousand dollar bet from the wedding has been transferred to a new bet amongst the rest of us to see who throws the first punch. My money's on Ben because...well, because Ben likes to punch things stuff people.

But I can't think about that right now. Because right now I'm so high on fumes from waterproofing all the boots and hiking shoes that I might burst into flames at the top of the atmosphere as I make my reentry. If I never post again, you'll know what happened. Why I leave posting until I'm in this sort of condition I will never know but it's probably still better than the after-wine entries, right?

It's not?

Oh, I see. Typical. Snort.

I have a headache. See you tomorrow.

Tuesday 1 November 2011

I swear to God I am getting to that envelope. But first, an interlude.

Because Daniel and Schuyler are packing today to move to their house, because by Friday Satan will be residing here and because musical boys seem to be the order of the day, here: a fresh video for you by a band that I adore.

I know I seem very uptight and hard-edged and have this reputation as the tiny moody troll queen of heavy metal, I assure you that I'm not (okay, not all the time, anyway, and that makes Benjamin profoundly MOROSE, folks).

I really love this one, it's about time Switchfoot took us back to the beach.

Monday 31 October 2011

Nine white shirts to iron and put away.

This would be a love story, and for once it isn't mine. Come celebrate with me and I'll tell you a few things about our weekend.
I read bad poetry into your machine
I save your messages just to hear your voice.
You always listen carefully to awkward rhymes.
You always say your name like I wouldn't know it's you,
At your most beautiful.

I've found a way to make you
I've found a way
a way to make you smile

At my most beautiful I count your eyelashes secretly.
With every one, whisper I love you.
I let you sleep.
I know your closed eye watching me, listening.
I thought I saw a smile.
The men made their way across the beach slowly, quietly in the sunrise, the rain dancing off the tops of their black umbrellas and spit-shined shoes, dampening the sunshine but not the mood, as we all teetered on the edge of a newfound joy tinged with grace and gratitude. A strange place to be, as this wedding represents a new beginning for the entire collective. Change. Growth. Bravery, too.

Love. Always love above all else.

Ben clutched my hand against his chest while we waited and then when Sam gave him the signal he raised my hand to his lips, kissed it firmly and squeezed hard. He passed me into Lochlan's arm and retreated with Sam to the woods. Sam returned almost instantly and nodded to Corey, who began to play his guitar.

He played their song slowly, quietly. We turned to see Ben and Daniel emerge from the woods, their arms around each other's shoulders. Walking side by side, intent in whatever final words are exchanged between an older brother to his younger sibling. It was as if we weren't even there. As they passed us, Daniel paused and grabbed me up in a bear hug, smashing a kiss against my temple. We laughed and he let go, continuing forward to Sam and Schuyler.

Schuyler was waiting, a shy smile lurking under his pale beard, his hair curling in the humidity.

Schuyler was singing.

Clear as a bell. Corey had stopped only I hadn't realized. He kept looking down but the smile never left. Nerves. Uncharacteristic nerves. He needs to do right by everyone, there will be no room for bullshit. If anyone can rise to this moment, it's Schuy.

Daniel and Schuyler joined hands on the last three words and faced each other, Sam framed behind them. He talked about love being patient and kind. Ben returned to us, taking me back into his arms. I leaned against his soft suit coat and watched the exchange of vows. The rings. A tender kiss and a surprisingly manly embrace and then we were all rushing in for a group hug and I was buried in a crush of strong arms and had to duck out underneath to breathe. Daniel held himself together throughout and so I lost a thousand dollar bet that I was sure I would win.

Laughter and tears were in long supply on this day. We walked back to the main house where the champagne was already flowing. Cake, music, food and dancing followed until we couldn't dance or drink any more. The party lasted two nights under the cool crescent moon, on the grounds of the residence, decorated with pumpkins and black candelabras and scarecrows. Colored leaves fell endlessly, adding to the decorations. The reception included making our own masks, which quickly turned into making the ones we thought each other should have.

We danced. We danced and twirled under the moon and then under the sun. Why would the party end when it didn't have to? Not yet, anyway. We ate spiced carrot cake and had some tea and pancakes and then went back to dancing again, trading partners, trading pictures, trading wishes for happiness that bubbled up from deep inside somewhere I thought might have gotten lost. We sat bundled in blankets and watched Daniel and Schuyler dance together, nose to nose, smiles hardly contained on their faces, coattails discarded and one mask still shoved up on top of Schuyler's head until I finally pulled it off him sometime on Saturday evening.

I don't think I've ever been to a wedding with a two-day reception before but everyone they loved was there, people came and people went and the core group of us became fixtures of the days and nights, organizing meals and taking turns playing DJ and making impromptu speeches without any microphones, the sound amplified by the tears that flowed so freely.

It was perfect. It rained half the time, the endless drizzle shorting out at least seven sets of the tiny white and orange lights we strung the day before, and it didn't matter. I finally understand the protectiveness they all feel toward each other. The panicked need to make everything perfect, to keep each other safe, to make sure nothing could possible derail a memory that is so important.

The fervent wish for things to be right.

Sunday 30 October 2011

You missed me, didn't you?

We are home.

I need to unpack, do a whole lot of laundry, carve pumpkins (I wrote crave pumpkins three times there before I could get it straight and now I can't stop laughing) and maybe sleep for the first time since about last Monday.

Yes.

Good times. Such good times.

So...more tomorrow! Thanks for your patience. Sorry for the mixed up emails to those of you who got responses tonight. I'm really not good at coming back down to earth, am I?

Wednesday 26 October 2011

Save the date (October 28, 2011).

I always wonder why did we bother,
Distanced from one, deaf to the other.
Oh but sweetness follows
It's these little things, they can pull you under.
Live your life filled with joy and wonder.
I always knew this altogether thunder
Was lost in our little lives.
Everything is in. Everything is done. I've flipped the last latch, buckled the cases, triple-confirmed all the deliveries, crossed off the list and I stick my notes between my teeth while I struggle to hang on to Ben's hand and zip up Henry's backpack at the same time. We walk out on the tarmac and the children run ahead to the tiny plane and I roll my eyes. I hate this aircraft. It feels like a tin-can with my fate rattling around on the inside. It feels like certain death only it's better than flying commercial because I have become spoiled and rotten and wealthy beyond what most people will ever see and yet I would trade it in an instant for an old Kawasaki and fistful of midway tickets because I don't think I deserve this. Not a minute of it.

We're flying out now. Flying to a remote island owned by someone with more money than I will ever be able to fathom who deals favors like cards and owes us this time and we'll take it and make more memories and dry the tears from Daniel's face as he says his vows to Schuyler and I hope to God they remember this forever because for some reasons those precise moments tend to get lost in the day.

We'll dance and sing and eat and drink and cry and forget that we have all this history for once and we'll work together to make good memories. Sometimes those get lost too, in the hierarchy of all the wrongs and all the water under the bridges. We have to learn that putting the good things first is better.

I traded dresses again. A last minute request from Ben, who reached into the closet and pulled out the most delicate blush pink cocktail dress and asked if I would wear it instead of the black. He thinks it will look better in photographs, I think he loves pink, secretly because it looks less harsh against my alabaster skin and blue-marble veins. He would be right but the contrast against his dark suit, eyes and hair will be jarring all the same, like it is in every photograph of us. Opposites attract, they say, which is how Daniel and Schuyler came to this place where we are all going to get to have a hand in the first day of their future together.

I am so excited even this tin can with wings can't take away my happiness. And that's saying something. I really hate flying lately. And I have a perfectly good oceanside bluff at home just begging for a wedding ceremony but WHATEVER, BOYS.

Everything is going to be okay.

I love you both so very much.

Tuesday 25 October 2011

Heads or tails.

I sat in the corner trying not to laugh while the boys have the final fittings of their suits. The tailors kept asking me if I was excited. Finally one of them asked point-blank how it felt to be the bride because I seemed so calm. I smiled and pointed to Daniel.

He's the bride.

That was all the encouragement they needed to go full-on flattery to the boys instead of being so professional it was almost uncomfortable. They started to fuss over Daniel and Schuyler as if they were celebrities, and when they found out Ben was giving Daniel away they asked who was going to give Ben away and could they make offers because they would take him if he's available.

Oh, dear. Help me.

Someone made the joke from Bridesmaids, about climbing him like a tree. By now I am smiling helplessly because they've turned the music up louder and this has become a bit of a party and I am so not cut out for wedding planning even though I think I could do it in my sleep at this point. This is the fifth one I have organized, if you count three of my own and Sam's. Our track record is deplorable, only one of the four couples is still together and that's only because God hasn't found a way to kill Ben yet without it being blatantly obvious that he's shooting firebolts at my life for some perceived slight at this point.

My advice to anyone planning a wedding? Skip ninety percent of what they tell you you NEED and spend it on something you want. Also? Make it yours. Because nothing is worse than a cookie-cutter classic wedding in which you can predict everything right down to the colors and nothing reflects the happy couple except for the gleam on the teeth of the smiling, well-paid impersonal wedding coordinator.

Our own next-time will be different. Ben's been threatening to organize a renewal of our vows. Probably for our fifth anniversary if God doesn't catch him first and take him out. I'll let him plan it since he takes my breath away with the quietest moments. And now if Daniel would just stop crying all the time we could get this show on the road. Yeesh. He's a big leaking fool. Thank heavens he is so adorable or I would smack him right now and tell him to smarten up.

(Also in news!! The dress! It fits! Mine, silly. Daniel isn't wearing a dress. He should be. That would be awesome. They have morning coats, or as I spelled them for the first two weeks, mourning coats. Sorry. Couldn't help it, that sort of thing just happens. And yes, of course the coats are black. Why do you ask?)

Monday 24 October 2011

Cue the hero, please.

He's already given me his hoodie. I am wrapped up in it, hood up, hands pulled back into the sleeves, warm and comfortable. I'm watching Lochlan alternate between emptying his beer bottle and making paper airplanes to sail off the cliff. I'm sitting on the Adirondack chair a good ten feet back from the cliff. He is sitting on the edge. I don't worry that he'll tumble over the edge, I figure I've already beat the odds on tragedy for a while.

He's been lighting the airplanes on fire before he flies them for close to an hour. I lost count somewhere after sixteen or maybe eighteen planes. He's talking quietly. I can't hear him, he's facing the other direction. I am getting unrelated ramblings and disjointed cursewords and loving diatribes aimed painfully right at the center of my being. It's nothing new. I'm a little concerned he's going to set his hair on fire, that's about it. Otherwise I'm enjoying the moon, the stars and the flames as they spiral down into the sea. I'm trying not to focus intently on the words. I'm trying not to focus on the past. Lochlan thought the past would save him. Funny how one man's ruin is another's salvation.

Abruptly I am lifted to my feet. Ben's chin appears when I look straight up over my head and he doesn't let go.

Been looking for you for twenty minutes, Bee.

Lochlan stands up. You should have checked with me, she's usually within reach.

Ben nods and looks out over the water. Probably considering pushing both of us over the cliff. How easy life would be after that moment. Except it wouldn't be. He'd spend the rest of it in jail. It would just be one more thing to tie Lochlan and I together for all eternity.

One more thing. A last straw, plucked from a strawman that Ben has created as a defense for his temper, because I chose him and I continue to choose him even while he shoves me away and then denies it and takes everyone else to task for filling in.

Yeah, thanks, brother.

Ben picks the high road, surprisingly, bringing me along, grabbing my hand, pulling me back up the walkway to the house. He stops halfway and strips Lochlan's hoodie off me, leaving it on the concrete, and takes off his own flannel shirt, wrapping me in it and tying the sleeves in a knot around me instead of waiting for me to find them to shove my arms inside. I laugh and he smiles at last and puts his arm around me, steering me back up to the house, back through the warm, softly lit hallways until we reach our room.

He tells me that he's taken a couple of weeks away from his latest project to spend some time with me, to help me navigate the next two weeks as I drop into year five. Already. I wasn't sure he remembered that today marks exactly four years since Jacob walked out on me but Ben always seems to remember everything and he steps in to shoulder the heavy load just when everyone else runs out of patience and begins to check their watches.

Ben doesn't wear a watch. He wants to know what it's for.

To tell the time
, I say.

Tell it to do what?
He always responds with a twisted grin. He doesn't give a shit. He never will.

This morning he buried us in pillows on the couch, cued up a list of old movies and locked the door. He fell asleep, holding my hand, halfway through A Place in the Sun with a slurred instruction not to move until he wakes up.

I hope it's soon. He's going to miss North by Northwest. That's his favorite.

Saturday 22 October 2011

Peter Cetera was singing about what he would do the next time he fell in love. Apparently I wasn't taking notes.

I was an alarming sight when he found me, sitting in the back of the pickup truck, holding my crown in one fist and a bottle of vodka in the other. I was at least two sheets to the wind, my mascara was exiting my face at a rapid pace, and my prom dress was edged with grease. I kicked my shoes off in my efforts to climb into the back of the truck unnoticed. So barefoot, drunk and clearly out of my league.

What a little prize of a prom queen. And the prom king was the eighteen-year-old soon-to-graduate captain of the football team. We made a fairytale couple in pictures but in reality I hardly knew him. He was a little too old for me, and too busy to have much more than arm candy for a girlfriend anyway, and I wasn't looking for a poster-boyfriend, I just wanted to get back at Lochlan for ruining my life by moving on. Dumping me during fair week and taking up with every older girl who looked at him sideways, and trust me, they all did. The way his hair turns strawberry blonde in summer, coupled with the easy smile, charming accent and free-wheeling independent life on the midway, who would refuse?

And he dated every last one of them, sometimes several at once, sometimes running weeks with one in particular, breaking hearts up and down the east coast all goddamned fall and through the winter into the spring and now here it was May again and I was fifteen finally and he would soon be twenty. Here was another summer staring us in the face, but this one promising pain instead of our customary welcome escape from reality.

While he stared me in the eye, I held up my middle fingers together in front of my face and fell over sideways against the wheel hump. I would have sworn at him but I couldn't remember the words.

He hopped up into the truck bed easily and sat down beside me, propping me up against his shoulder. He looked up into the stars. I put my head on his shoulder and he reached out and touched my face. He took the bottle from me and took a long drink.

What in the hell are you doing here, peanut?

Living up to my duties as the youngest prom queen in the history of this school.

I see that. How is it working for you?

Clearly I am a natural.

He laughed in spite of his dismay and asked again. What are you really doing?

Paying you back for leaving me.

By getting drunk?

By sleeping with the captain of the team. I'm popular now, I don't need anyone to judge me.

You slept with him?

Yesterday. What are you up to now? Dozens? Hundreds?

Jesus, Bridget. That was payback? Come on, we're leaving. He jumped back out of the truck and stood beside it.

No, you're leaving. You don't go to the school and you don't have an invitation so that means you're trespassing. I have to go back inside anyway. People will wonder where I am.

I see their concern, where are they? Yeah, INSIDE. I'm not letting you go back in there in this condition, Bridget. You're fifteen. They're too old for you.

Like you are, you mean? Fuck you, okay, Lochlan? Fuck you. You couldn't take the pressure and you left me to deal with all of it and I've been alone ever since. Fuck you and your fucking perfectly oblivious carnival life, Lochie. Just fuck you. I stood up and fell out of the truck bed straight into his arms. He stood me up against the side of the truck and got right down in my face.

I'm here, Bridget. I haven't left you. I've been nearby every time you leave your house. I wish I could have been man enough. It's exhausting. I've had help. I've had others watching you so that we can keep you safe. You haven't been alone. It wasn't enough though.

Who? Who helps you? Who would bother volunteering to keep track of the little fucking neighborhood nuisance who is of no use to anyone? Who wants to be a babysitter? Tell me their name so I can laugh in their face for the fool that they are.

Cole stepped out from the shadows of the building, hands in his pockets, hair still too long, face as familiar as ever. I hadn't seen him in a long time, not since I turned away from the boys after Lochlan humiliated me. I ran to Cole, throwing myself into his arms. He lifted me easily off the ground and spoke into my hair.

I do. I've been watching over you, Bridget. For a very long time now. Not to be a babysitter, though. You're not a little girl anymore.

The look in his eyes was the only thing I needed to see to know that I wouldn't be returning to the prom that night or bothering to continue to date lunkhead football players anymore. I just found the biggest knife to twist into Lochlan's back in the space of a heartbeat. I would seduce his best friend, and as a side bonus, the brother of the monster of my dreams.

I nodded to Cole, vindicated. I turned to Lochlan and smiled with drunken satisfaction.

What I didn't expect was that I would fall for Cole so hard. I didn't mean to. I only wanted to pay back Lochlan the worst way I knew how and the whole thing backfired and the joke was on me. I was pretty sure Lochlan was the only person I would ever love in my lifetime. It pisses me off that I was wrong.

He will tell you I'm not wrong.

Friday 21 October 2011

Fifteen days ago.

(I am trying to make you see things but you refuse. How easily he moves from devil to angel, how quiet and loving and frightening the shift from captor to savior can be. How scared they would be on the day that balance tips and I fail to keep everything in mind.

I was taught from such a young age to keep things to myself and to keep my head down, my thoughts to myself and to always be ready to run. Be ready to pick up and go. Don't leave any traces that I was ever there, don't get comfortable and learn to find comfort where I can.
The rules and the lessons become a part of who I am and the brightly-lit, painfully sunny, noisy universe of the freak show was the perfect antidote for the oppressively dark, silent nights in which fear blew up, taking over everything.

There is only one safe place in the entire world for me.

It is the only place I can close my eyes, or dream or take a deep enough breath to keep on living and most of the time I am prevented from accessing it. Most of the time it is not available. Most of the time it is covered with paint, hidden by nostalgia or betrayal, obscured from the new half-light in which sound mixes with silence and the colors blend into a sepia sprawl.
Most of the time it is forbidden, and so I search on. While I search I write about things I need to think through and they are woefully out of order, sometimes out of date, and more importantly, mostly out of my mind.)

Caleb is pleased with himself. I stir my tea mindlessly, watching the raindrops race down the window. I hate this hotel, with its overly-kind staff and overly-fragrant jasmine butterfly tea. Everyone here treats Caleb as if he's some sort of celebrity just because he flashed his black card at them and they wouldn't know him from Adam. Money buys sycophancy from strangers and nothing more. When people are employed to see to your comfort it is easy to become jaded and ridiculous.

And I feel like a freak sitting here, I feel like I should jump up on the furniture and start demanding that this move faster or that we are given some sandwiches or profiteroles maybe because I'm starving and while we're at it, some tea that I can't taste the flowers in, because that's what I am used to but I am well-trained so I sit and count the drops instead.

Lochlan sits on the other side of me. He hasn't said a word, he hasn't touched his tea. He is staring at the floor. He doesn't have or want any money so no one pays attention to him. He doesn't care how people act when it comes to money. He knows he can get some by throwing his fire and for him that will always suffice. He would like answers instead. Those are worth more than cash.

The truth will set you free. The question is how much will it cost?

Caleb still knows what I'm thinking after all these years and instead of acknowledging my legendary self-control in this moment he congratulates himself on the ire Lochlan feels for the simple fact that he never wanted to be controlled by anyone and here Caleb is, still calling the shots after all this time.

The door opens and I look up. Another stranger stands there, this one with an envelope. He looks at Caleb and Caleb nods and then the envelope is presented to me. I stare at it. Is this where everything changes or is this where nothing changes once again? How do I trust him to tell the truth when my world has been nothing but lies since he walked into it?

I take the envelope finally, jamming it deep into the bottom of my handbag. I stand up and thank Caleb for the tea and I leave the conference room, walking unsteadily down the marble hallway. I know Lochlan is ten steps behind me, hands fighting with the tie I made him wear, pulling it off and jamming it into his pocket. He will have that look on his face, half incredulous and half concerned, out of his league but unwilling to play the games, outraged and quietly, madly curious too.

We made a deal in the car not to open the envelope until we are safely in the house, and we stick to it.

When we arrive at the house, Lochlan exits the car before Mike can come around and open the door for us and he holds the door for me, barking an order at Mike not to worry about it. He takes my hand and pulls me up the walkway, up the steps and into the house and we retreat to Lochlan's rooms. He locks doors as we run through them.

It's a moment of truth, if ever there was one and I don't know how to feel. I don't know how to act and suddenly I realize I don't know which way I want things to turn out.

I only know that someone is going to get hurt. I just don't know who.

Thursday 20 October 2011

Killing horizon.

Hanging from the stars
Living by default
Catch me like a dog
Slipping through your arms
I am searching by touch. Blackout blinds cover the windows. The music is too loud. Not uncomfortably so, just enough that I can't make out sound, I don't know where he is. He likes these sensory limitations, testing me to see if I can find him first with my mind or with my hands.

But he is impatient tonight*, not willing to wait. Not willing to settle or fight. Not now. Now he has seven hours of darkness left, unwilling to waste a minute. Precious seconds have already been spent in the time it took to change his mind and he takes my hands and pulls them up around his neck, pulling me against him, his arms sliding around me. It's so abrupt I cry out loud and he pulls one arm back and puts his hand over my mouth. I am bent backwards slightly now as his other hand slides up my back and into my hair. He forces my mouth against his. I can't breathe through the brutal kiss and so I wait, throwing myself into it. I will come back to life later, with the sunrise. What he wants is my response, and I will never ever disappoint him again.

The music changes and he drags his fingers gently down my face, dancing over my eyelashes, pulling my lower lip down, running his index finger across my tongue and chasing it with his lips. I have learned how to breathe through this shallowly and he smiles in the dark. I can't see him, I feel it.

He begins to walk, me pressed against him, until we reach the smooth wall. He presses me against it and then lets go. I know this part. I am going to kiss another favorite dress goodbye. He kisses my shoulder, hooks both fingers under the straps and pulls hard. The delicate satin rips easily and he takes up a handful of fabric and peels me out of it roughly. My eyes are adjusting to the wonder on his face, the barest glint from his eyes, flashing dark, teeth, skin, his white shirt reflecting my anticipation. I reach out with my fingers to unbutton his shirt but he takes my hands, forcing them up over my head and my feet leave the ground. Helpless. The point of no return.

The smile drops off his face again and he moves in against me. So strong. His determination slides over my features and I turn my face away from the burn of his beard. He mistakes my pain for acceptance and tightens his brace against the door. I force my legs together and he forces them apart. It's a game to him and I play it better than anyone.

And then he lets go.

This is the best part, perfectly timed and I grab for his shoulders while he wraps his arms around my legs and drives me against the wall until whatever breath I thought I gained back disappears forever. I bite my lip and taste blood. He kisses me, tasting the iron. It drives him into a frenzy. I squeeze my eyes closed. I'm not supposed to be here, I wasn't caught leaving and the penalty will be harsh but the music is so loud I can feel it in my bones and there's a thrill in the danger of knowing how close to death I am right now I don't think I could ever turn down the invitation if I wanted to. He's a drug and the high is too much for me to bear but I want it anyway. I want it so bad I begin to fight him for control but he locks me down. That's exactly what I was hoping for.

He slows to a grind and reaches out for the remote for the music and he turns it so loud I fear for my skull exploding from total overload now. His lips are against my eyes, his breath steaming up my brain, his fingers digging deep grooves into my skin, his onslaught endless, tireless and violent, on through the night, the dark horseman of my nightmares rides.

In the morning, I stand naked in front of the full-length mirror, inspecting for marks I will have to invent excuses for. There is a set of three deep scratches and a bruise shaped like his thumb on my left hip bone (that one is going to hurt when it is touched later) and my eyes don't look the same. The color is a little more faded, the dark circles underneath a little deeper, the deceit is a little richer and I still haven't managed to find a face that looks good in an innocent expression.

He appears behind me in my reflection, his chin coming down to rest on my head. He smiles and reaches around to smudge off the bruise and heal the scratches with his fingers. It fades and disappears. He puts his hands up over my eyes and kisses the back of my head hard, holding his lips against my hair for a long count, and when he releases me, dropping his hands and walking away toward the bathroom, I look at my eyes again and the color is restored, the rich bottle-green, with no dark circles. As a bonus the excuse of an early meeting is planted securely in my head to explain away my morning absence from home and the beginnings of the thought of the next meeting are beginning to seep into my brain from somewhere I can't access to shut it down.

Not that I would want to, he tells me to think. Only he hasn't said anything out loud. He doesn't need to, I guess that's one of the perks of being who he is.

(*The night in reference was fifteen years ago. Get a life. Now write about it. Harder than it looks, isn't it?)

Wednesday 19 October 2011

The best-dressed Red Delicious.

Here. I made an apple cozy for Sam.

You know you want one but I am not taking orders, sorry. We both carry an apple or pear in case we get hungry and have remarked many times how bruised they get in the bottom of a backpack (him) or very large handbag (me, silly). I have fixed the problem at last.

Voila!

I might make a few more for the others but they tend to bring their bruised and battered apples back to me at the end of the day. Fruit isn't high on the priority list of rock stars and artists, I guess.

(But I digress. I think you've heard enough domestic fuckery from me lately anyway. Look, things sometimes move really quickly around here. Too quickly and I never am able to keep up so I post total useless nonsense until I can get my brain wrapped around new thoughts securely enough to spit them out.)

The condo has sold and wouldn't you know it, Caleb is currently homeless. Karma. Or something. Poetic justice?

I offered to let him stay here. In the house. With...all of us. I threw it out there and Lochlan hollered at the top of his lungs for me to stop talking and take it back and he swore and he yelled and he acted really awful but he's still having a hard time adjusting to all of the changes.

(I've only told you about some of them, after all. Give me a little credit here. More to follow, eventually, as always.)

So either Caleb could hear Lochlan or perhaps he's just smarter than me (not a chance) so he politely declined and will spend the next two weeks at the Fairmont instead. His olive branches were burning when he offered them and Lochlan and I are still busy wiping soot off each others faces, tenderly, with a small white cloth folded many times and dampened with our spirits because we can deal with Caleb as Satan, but he is very hard to deal with as just Caleb. This new humility and complete transparency has been incredibly unsettling.

So I am hiding out in Sam's office most of the time lately. Helping him here and there but mostly just making clothes for his lunch.

Tuesday 18 October 2011

Offside.

I was going to post something but the game is on and I really want to watch it instead. I miss going to the games since the boys aren't playing this year so TSN is the next best thing. As of this posting both the Rangers and Canucks are scoreless with two minutes left in the second period.

And tomorrow night the Jets take on my beloved Maple Leafs. You might not see me until spring.

Monday 17 October 2011

Miracles and Mondays.

If ever there was such a walking disaster, always as close to tears as smiles, teetering along on her tiny shoes with her too-heavy handbag and threatening-to-smudge mascara, hair coming unpinned as it sees fit to escape, not paying attention while claiming to have everything covered, organized but unsure, it might be me.

I have a burn from touching the vent pipe on the stove while the oven hummed along at 700 degrees, cleaning itself. I have a blood blister on the other hand from forgetting to move my fingers when I fastened a latch yesterday afternoon and I'm surprised I still have any eyebrows after tonight's fiasco, which included opening the valve on the barbecue, turning on the burners, closing the lid and walking away only to take three steps and remember, so back I went, flipped open the lid and hit the ON button.

Oh, dear. With a whoosh of a fireball I had my comeuppance in flames.

Even more surprising?

That I'm not DEAD because I'm currently covered with paint thinner residue, from an earlier experiment today involving oil-based wood stain and a decided lack of a plan to clean up afterward, until I was up to my elbows in brown paint, forced to make an emergency trip to the hardware store, cash in hand, hands in gloves.

Because no one was home, and because clearly when left unsupervised I get into trouble.

On the other hand, dinner is delicious and the verandah is done. Both amazing. The boys were equally horrified and impressed. I am nothing if not completely remarkable.

And happy to be alive, in my normal shade of palest alabaster, and just barely singed and so very glad Monday is just about over.

Saturday 15 October 2011

Food for thought.

The differences are clear. Refined versus rustic. Surface versus undercurrent. In the east the fine white sand and red globes of dulse contrast brightly with the darker granular sand and dried brown eel grass in the west.

And the wind is the same spitfire of a gal who pulls my hair and laughs her pain into my ears.


The plan was simply to explore. Drive and drive and drive, checking in here and there to see something new. Have lunch somewhere completely different. Maybe get as far as Seaside, but Seaside turned out to be slightly further than I expected. So White Rock, then, and we'll leave our passports at home.

It didn't disappoint, though I'm still getting used to the darker sand and the fact that no one is ever swimming. Like, EVER. (Shh. Do I LOOK like I care that it's the middle of October? No, I do not.)

We explored. We took the whole day. The beaches were fascinating and unforgiving and full of glass. The children finally took an interest in the game of seeing who could collect more, giving special bonus points for the palest and darkest blues.


Lochlan found a fish and chips place right up our alley, if our alley were located in the past, in days we hardly speak of lest their ghosts come and drag us, screaming and laughing, back to a freak show of days gone by where he ate fire for cash and I hid from the authorities by day and walked a fine line by night to the sound of not a pin dropping, as everyone held their breath.


I watched his face light up and then darken, as if a shadow had passed across his features, clouds in front of the sun. He covered it with a well-timed subject change but as usual I can read him like a deck of cards. He taught me too well for my own good and we dropped the moment on the sidewalk as we strolled up the boardwalk. I didn't hear it break on the concrete but I'm sure that it did and the sound was masked by the endless wind.

And on the way home, Ben threatened a new date spot, because we didn't even know they had these in Canada. The kids weren't interested but the grownups lapsed into an excited sort of surprise reserved for incredibly good news or the perfect gift received.


Just what I need. Loud jangly colorful places full of tiny keyed-up children, something I'm not as patient for these days as my own children step into their preteen years where they can go to nicer restaurants and to 14A movies without stepping aside for a moment of hard thought beforehand. Hell, no, I won't go but Ben is hilarious like that. Every time we head out to choose a restaurant for a romantic date he'll say, Okay, baby girl: King, Queen, Clown or Bear? and every time I'll pretend to be outraged. I'm not spending a dinner date at a fast food joint, thank you very much.

Secretly, however, I would probably pick the bear. We haven't been to that place in a long time. I'd pick it over the mouse, that's for sure. Though I'd probably head back to White Rock, and find a little hole in the wall beside the beach, near Coney Island. Maybe at The Sandpiper or Charlie Don't Surf. Maybe Iguana's. I don't know. They all looked good.

I think that's the difference. I am the tourist, willing to try places without a three-decade knowledge that they serve day-old clams or jack up the prices to milk visitors and that the locals will always go somewhere else. I don't know any better and now that I've figured that out, I'm having a lot of fun.