Caleb had a huge vase of cattails on the island this morning when I arrived at the loft. I asked him if that represented the remains of his weekend. He gifted me with his unabashed laughter. Pure joy, a rare display from someone who checks every last nuance obsessively. He told me Sophie had been in town for the weekend and a weird stabbing pain shot right through my body like a bolt of agony and disappeared into the floor.
I would have said something incredibly unladylike but I couldn't. It's Sophie. I don't have anything over her. She can run circles around me with...well, everything. The one person who still can make me feel like an incredibly unpulled-together chaotic mess and short and ungraceful to boot.
That and I'm weirdly jealous that she was with him for the weekend.
Oh my God, I am insane.
I'm not all that sure which part I'm jealous of. Maybe just that they had a fun weekend where I was at the farm feeling disconnected and shut out while the boys bonded and did man things and I was sort of an afterthought until late into the evenings and I am so short on affection and time and support right now it was almost an attempt to thumb my nose at Benjamin, coming here, only Benjamin wouldn't notice because he is busy being taken care of so he can be whole and manage without so much handholding.
I'm not sure it ever matters what I do because their eyes are blind and then other times I feel like every move is going to be the wrong one or a lesser one or a total incendiary action that will blow up my world again.
So I go to see Cale and feel even smaller and even less significant but vaguely evil and it's enough to keep a spark lit so that I feel like I have something to offer or withhold from SOMEONE only he isn't really doing it for me so I come home early and Benjamin is playing Sufjan covers and hardly looks up which means he is processing things and this is a good sign. So I go and track down PJ and PJ is all about food and what food should I make and I hesitate one second too long and so we wind up going out for Thai takeout and Ben doesn't say much and the kids are lost in their own worlds and PJ starts to zone out on me and I slip. Just a little. Knuckle to wristbone. Enough so that I get another jolt, only this time it's less jealousy and more plain old vanilla fear.
Stop it, Bridget.
Hmm?
You're worrying yourself to death.
Right, Lochlan. Think it will work this time?
Not funny.
No one cares.
I care.
I don't care that you care.
Stop being difficult.
Stop being an opportunist.
Okay.
Just like that?
Sure. If that's what you want.
I never ever get what I want.
You got all of us.
Okay, then I get everything I want.
Except?
Ben.
Bridget, I had this conversation with Ben word for word three years ago. This is hilarious.
What's so funny about it?
That you two are married and you're acting like he's dead.
We're all dead.
It's going to be one of those nights, isn't it?
Yes, Lochlan, it is.
What can I do?
Put a heated floor in Narnia for me.
What?
Nevermind.
Bridget?
Yes?
Time for some sleep.
Is it ever. Good night.
