Pumpkins.

I am up early. There's a party to get ready for, tonight.

Notes of Immortality drifting up from Duncan's guitar this morning. He was up early to light the stove for me (I can do it, he just wanted it to be warm and cozy downstairs when I woke), sticking around to see how things were. This week in particular is the one made of glass, made of thorns and poison, despair and longing and a cold ache from so far away now I think I might never find my way back home. It's as if my calendar is cleared and my brain decides that it's time to pick a fight with my heart and lose, as ever, a weak competitor in the face of a mighty warrior. 

(This heart is a keeper, it's a keepsake, it's a rare find.)

Lochlan said that to me once. I was ten years old and I never forgot that because everyone said he was such an old soul it was hard in this day and time to understand what he meant when he said certain things but now on this side of life I get it, and he's right. 

This heart is pinned to my sleeve with a rusted safety pin. It's been hanging by a thread for a hundred years now but every so often he comes back and readjusts the pin and it's a little more secure again and everyone lets out a long breath. 

Do you have another song, Poet? It's a request that's kind and necessary as I can't do that so he starts playing Black, of all things.

Jesus, Dunk, please. Find something unrelated.

Transmission. Perfect. I test it and it doesn't hurt, a song with blunted fangs that push against my skin instead of breaking through. It will hold. I won't die from listening, a threat if ever there was one. 

It's Halloween-day. No one comes down here. The driveways are yards and yards apart. They're all steep, mostly gated and it's so dark at night you can't see your hand in front of your face outside. It's not historically a trick-or-treating neighborhood save for the occasional folks who preclear it with everyone and dance their costumed grandchildren down the street at six sharp, only hitting houses with opened gates that welcome them in. So the gate is open, there's a bowl of candy out in case, but odds are PJ will have finished it off by three sharp and I will have to scramble for granola bars, if I am not already out in the gazebo impaled by my own sharp wit and the burning logs from this raging fire in my heart, rendering everything to ashes, unrecognizable, ruined beyond repair.

Also I just noticed...Michael Myers is standing out at the end of the lawn. I wondered where my scarecrow went. Now I see he's in costume.

Nice, guys. He's my FAVOURITE.

Ben specifically requested a goofy post so here.

Today is brought to you by my handknit pale blue sweater and this stoneware bowl full of dried cranberries that I am snacking on while I review, for my Collective, all the shitty horror movies currently on Netflix in hopes that if I someday see them all then only good ones will be ahead of me. 

I don't know if any of these are on Netflix but horror movies I love include Thirteen Ghosts, The Town That Dreaded Sundown and any and all versions, sequels and reimaginings of the franchises Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Jeepers Creepers.

Safe to say I'm a slasher fan (though Thirteen Ghosts is just about every single genre of horror movie at once and it remains forever my absolute favorite scary movie), through and through, raised on Friday the Thirteenth and Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Scary meant a mysterious man in a mask, killing at random but mostly at night. Small idyllic towns that suddenly weren't so safe anymore and screams that would split your head open if only they weren't abruptly cut off by a violent death.

And while I have no use for terrible horrible movies or unimaginative or unscary ones, I have to vet the available offerings from Netflix for the boys every Halloween. Or rather, they let me. Ruth also participates though she makes better choices. I go straight for the bad ones on purpose. 

Like yesterday's Friend Request.

Oh my LAWD. 

It was so bad. The only good thing I could come up with (a requirement in these reviews, for sporting sake) was that it was like some VFX student raised his hand and told his instructor I can animate bees! and so they wrote a movie around that talent, using the Angelfire online diary of a preteen who watched an old VHS copy of The Craft once. It belonged to her mom.

That bad? Dalton laughs.

That bad. Maybe worse. Jesus. It stared the girl who plays Lexa in The 100 and also was in Fear the Walking Dead (I think). She was great. Everything else was tropey-tropes. I almost need to watch an old favourite as a palate-cleanser but instead I will soldier on. Today's offering is...uh..Searching. Which apparently might be better. Here's hoping it at least sucks less.

Update before dinner: Searching was fantastic and very stressful. Not my genre type but reallly good!

Lion.

We're making turkey sandwiches for lunch. Lochlan likes his on white bread, regular mayo, no lettuce. Turkey slices with salt and pepper. Sandwich cut on an angle. He makes mine the way I like it. The heel of the loaf of bread, and a regular piece. Rye or pumpernickle, never white. British mustard, preferably. A huge stack of lettuce. Okay, maybe a little salt and pepper. He doesn't cut mine, I like to hold the whole thing at once. 

After lunch Caleb takes our plates and then asks me if I want to go for a run later. Maybe before dinner to burn off some nervous energy (is there any other kind?) and I automatically say no. He takes my arms, centering me in front of him, looking down into my eyes to see if I'm doing okay Right Now. 

I am. I don't want to run though. My sauconies have holes in the toes and I'm bitterly unimpressed with how quickly they wore right through and so to punish the company I'm taking the winter off. 

Clocks go back this weekend, Diabhal. It's a warning not to push but he finds it hilarious.

Same time every year, Doll. 

I shake my head. Maybe later in the week. 

Let's go today-

LET'S NOT! I struggle out of his grasp. He looks surprised and freezes for a second before recovering, his expression changing to boss mode, almost parental before my eyes. I wish I could do that. If you stare at me long enough I simply self-destruct. 

I can't go today, Diabhal. I need to move slow. 

I can distract you, he says softly, before landing a soft kiss on my temple and letting me go. He heads outside.

Lochlan is on his phone on the other side of the kitchen. PJ is running through the grocery list that's on the side of the fridge. We have a paper list and then add those things to an app that we share, synced to everyone's phones. You always have your phone when you're out but not always when you realize at two a.m. that we're almost out of rice krispies. Ergo: paper list on fridge. 

PJ shoots a look at me and I catch him. 

What a mood, Bridge. It's forceful and sexy. I like it. 

Lochlan snorts. 

PJ takes the hint, puts the list back in it's place and goes down the hall. For the moment, everything is good and I don't need to be three-deep in boys for safekeeping (not during the day, anyway). The meeting organized a loose all-hands-on-deck scenario where everyone has agreed to float in and out to be handy in case I break free or break down. To make sure there are arms everywhere. Like a human playpen for an adventurous toddler, I can bounce around in this soft but hard bouncy castle made of guys watching me reel from grief while we point out we've finally moved on.

But have we moved on? 

They closed the loophole that let Jake in but they'll never be done with the interloper himself and I think that is the part that Lochlan will never forgive himself for. He saw it coming and he had a small window in between Jacob moving against Cole and when Caleb came back but he left it closed and he tried to be so hands off and it didn't work. He tried to go out and live his life too and it just. didn't. work. He's supposed to be here with me. We're supposed to be sick of each other's beautiful faces and of my immaturity and rigidness and his stubborn perfection. 

But we're not. 

And there he is. Right there within reach when by now in the year usually he's found something to do and can't watch as I regress backward to the point where he needs to take the knife and I can't even spread mustard on my own sandwich. Just in case I turn around and plunge it into my ribs to stop the hurting that blooms with every single breath. Just in case I want to turn and look up at the one who came back to deal with the mess that is me, the one with the red mane and the stoic green eyes. The freckles and the capable hands. The one who told me God was make-believe and preachers were snake oil salesmen, nothing more, but who goes to church anyway just in case he turns out to be wrong, the one who stood at the meeting yesterday and thanked everyone for holding both of us up while we get through the hard parts, saying this is his religion, and this is his flock. That we will be safe, and happy, at last. Sam let him take it, let him run with it. Sam knows he'll be back.

Jacob stood in the doorway and smiled proudly at Lochlan too, but I don't think Lochlan saw him at all.

And I'm not going to commit any mustard-knife crimes. Not in this life, anyway.

Lamb.

 It's a family meeting. I sit, knees together, perched on the chaise in front of Ben, who has ninety percent of it to my ten. The small copper box rests in my hands, as my fingers rub the little enamel bluebird who after thirteen years glows with an attention paid in spades, enamel gone, beautiful warm copper and no blue remaining. My fingers are nervous, trembling, rubbing the bird in a steady circle, a worry stone to replace the oval adventurine one Lochlan found for me on the beach in Cape Tormentine when I was nine. I wore it right through. I still have it.

My brain is screaming the opening lyrics to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. I should tell them I can't hear them but they're so focused and attentive right now. 

Lochlan has the bridge of his nose held by his thumb and middle finger. His index finger has disappeared into his waves. Curls on the bottom, waves on top. It's grown so much since summer. It's getting darker on top for the lack of sun. 

(I'm going back to my plough back to the howling old owl in the woooooooooooods hunting the horny backed toad oh I've finally decided my future lies beyond the yellow brick roaaaaaaaaaad)

Hold the line, he says.

She needs more-

He lets go and stares at August. We need to hold it. She'll be okay. 

He knows I can't hear him so he's kindly shoved me right outside of the conversation. I don't need to have any input. Not anymore.

She'll be okay. He repeats it to reassure them and I feel soothed by that. I hand Jacob back to Ben, who takes the box in one hand. I resume rubbing my fingertips with my fingers. I have no fingerprints left.

 Face pressed against the frigid window this morning. The world has gone out of focus now from the condensation from breathing and some moments I can't believe I still am even able to breathe when the ground is quicksand, my limbs are concrete, my heart a shattered mess, my brain a disaster in a bone bowl, rattling around trying to outrun the memories as they come, direct hits, killshots, certain ruin every waking moment. 

I turn my cheek away and press my forehead on the pane, hard. Lochlan says my name from the darkness on the other side of the room. I laugh. Save yourself, I tell him, as if it's an option that he didn't already take once but he came back and God bless him for that. I don't know why though. I am not lovable, not manageable or useful or good. I'm kind though. I love magic. I love fire and I love love itself and once I thought everything was going to be okay and goddammit, it was the best feeling in the world. 

Kind of like when you press your skin against ice-cold glass.

My best defense.

Don Henley is singing our life over the shitty speakers from the jukebox in the diner. My eighteen-year-old self believes in Don, believes this truly will be the last worthless evening, and that the life ahead of me is full of promise, stability and excitement. That everything would soon change and become wonderful, as if Don was about to just snap his fingers and fix it all with one single catchy ballad tonight. 

I took Don at his word. I was a hopeless romantic, sitting there ignoring the french fries left on my plate, staring at the window watching our reflections while a twenty-three-year-old Lochlan smoked a cigarette and wrote out our midway working hours in his notebook with a pen that was almost out of ink. All of this provided by the last round of pickpocketing I did while he did teardown last night, zigzagging through the dispersing crowd, bumping into people, trying to squeeze around people, thinking I had three wallets when I zagged away from the crowd again, only to find out one of them was a soft leather cigarette-pack holder with a fresh unopened pack of Player's Light inside. 

I wish he wouldn't smoke before my milkshake is finished. 

We can leave after this, he says suddenly, putting out his cigarette in the clear glass ashtray by the window. Don starts a new song, singing about how he's learning to live without her now, but he misses her, baby. 

The only person who calls me baby is Caleb and he can't find us now. We've only been staying with a show for a few weeks at a time now. We don't use the camper, we rent motel rooms in town. We call home more and lie better than ever, and our friends are fed a constant stream of benign disinformation in order to make it work. 

But it doesn't change the fact that I am not the person I used to be. Lochlan used to tell me to eat my vegetables and to not be afraid of the dark, and that he would love me forever. Eighteen-year-old me now knows the world is different. That vegetables aren't important. The dark is something that one should be afraid of, for that's where the monsters hide. And that love is fickle and difficult and hard to make consistently, especially when those monsters get in the goddamned way.

I go back to the jukebox at the end of the diner and feed another few quarters in, hitting the same numbers I hit twenty minutes ago. I come back to the booth and fish out a cigarette. Lochlan's eyebrows go up but he lights it for me and I sit back against the glitter vinyl and take a long drag as I stare at the strangers in the reflection.

Someday I'm going to buy a piano and learn to play this song, I think to myself. Poisoned by fairy tales? Me? Never. Now I want to believe in them more than ever.

Jesus delinquent.

Today's t-shirt says SALTWATER HEALS EVERYTHING on it and my pajama pants are an all-over moose print. I've got some coffee that is supposedly a 'pioneer blend' and true to form, I have earned it today, breakfasting on fresh homemade bread AND last years final bottle of jam. I'm listening to Nickelback ballads (yes even that one, that's the litmus test for this moment) on repeat, reading the news of the NDP landslide (I voted! For the winner even!) and singing along at the top of my lungs. 

Ben walks into the room and watches me for a moment, rolls his eyes and says How Canadian. 

I shrug. He is jealous. His culture is Disneyland and guns, he once told me. He is Canadian now, by choice.

Today I'm planning to skip church and will get speed-blessed instead, as sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. I listened to the new Missio album twice already, prior to switching over to the 'back and I still love eighty percent of it, and the other twenty percent of songs are only mildly weird. And now after the laundry is done, I drew a few seasonal but also difficult chores that I want to tackle right away. I also have more bread to go in the oven later and yes, I'm pretty sure someone put something in my juice because I feel like I can slay the whole fucking world right now and that feeling is absolutely NOT my default. 

Still on antibiotics though. I really am one of those horrible people you need to shoot with a tranquilizer dart to get them to stop moving. And then they will still crawl.

Good things. Sam, is this what you mean?

Nine years ago this coming Wednesday Schuyler and Daniel got married. It feels like yesterday but also like a thousand years ago in a way. They are the constants in a life of endless upheaval, a safe haven in a chronic storm. They love their privacy but also maintain a modified open-door policy for the lost lambs around them (mostly me). They are Godfearing men, free-spirited and beautiful and I love them both in a way I can't even articulate these days. Schuyler retired finally and they are having the time of their lives. Daniel is so content, so happy to have Schuyler around more and so far Schuyler hasn't tried to work past returning a couple of phone calls for some creative brainstorming, both of which he pulled Lochlan in on.

It's amazing. 

So this morning we got invited to their big anniversary party to be held next Saturday night, Halloween, to be exact. Which is great because we have no other plans and the night is open, as we don't go out anymore, don't entertain anyone off the point save for Ruth's boyfriend and Henry's two best friends who are also safe and not a covid risk so this is a full Point Perdition soiree and I'm excited. 

The theme is To The Nines, (a pun on their years married which is CLEVER) which means tuxes and gowns. I don't know which of the boys will wear gowns but I'm hoping all of them because that would be fun, I think, I get tired of being the only one who has to hike up her entire outfit to manage stairs, truck siderails and just life in general. I got caught in a fridge door once getting more champagne and had to call for help and it's still a favourite joke around here so damn right I want them all to wear what I wear. 

But also with heels because why not up the difficulty across the board?

(Don't worry, I don't think they make stilettos in Ben's shoe size (fourteen) or he would probably already wear them.) 

And so this week the house next door (Andrew and Christian are co-hosting the party as they live in half of the house) have asked for assistance in decorating. Specifically in carving all two hundred of the little basketball-sized pumpkins that were dropped off this morning next door in the driveway for the party because they have a decorating plan in mind. 

 And I volunteered! I hate carving pumpkins with a passion but I love the roasted seeds, I love the fact that I don't have to host a party this big and I love love LOVE the fact that suddenly I am looking forward to Halloween instead of dreading it. The wish remains. We want things to be right.

And for them, it's all that and more.

Counting the words I never said to you.

Distant memories
Form constellations of despair
Guiding through the state of disrepair
Illuminate
All the hurts that have accrued
Unlock the cage, holding back the truth

Oh, wonderful. Pallbearer puts out a new album (their fourth) this morning and I can absolutely tread water in my misery with it. It's stunningly beautiful, slow and mega-heavy with gorgeous, sophisticated lyrics and memorable albeit slightly softened hooks. It's not overproduced but it's no sophomore effort either, in fact, it's exactly what I needed, and the singing is all clean so I can join in if I like. 

It's perfect for standing just under the eave of the roof by the patio doors while the rain pours down just out of reach, headphone cord snaking down the hall behind me. A hazard if you come too close. A tether, if you stop to consider. 

I should be planning a fiftieth birthday party. I should be getting ready for Halloween. I should be happier right now and not weighed down by this terrible past. I should be a lot of things I am not. 

And I should not be a lot of the things that I am. 

I should learn some voodoo, some kind of resurrection science or afterlife technology, some way to conjure him home in a more tangible form. I want to see him wet from the rain. I want to see him age. I want to see him bond with the others in a way he never truly did and I want him to see the children, not children anymore but beautiful adults, one who looks exactly like Lochlan with her slight graceful form, angular features, fierce personality and long wavy red hair, and one who looks like him, but also me, somehow, with his ridiculously tall and lanky form, his beautiful blonde hair that won't behave no matter what and his focused, gentle demeanor. 

I want to shove Henry over to him and yell at Jake that he was yours after all and you checked out and guess what? We raised him without you and it turns out we didn't need you after all. We wanted you, though. I wanted you. I've decided that this is the final birthday of yours that I'm going to mark. You're going to stop growing old right here. I will fight my way through the next two weeks like a prize and then I'm done. Finally. Because I can't wish for you. You're not coming back, there is no point to any of this anymore.

You built a gazebo where I put him and then act surprised when he's there.

Loch is on the beach. The fisherman-knit aran sweater has been taken off the shelf and put on over his flannel shirt and waffle-weave long-sleeved t-shirt. His hair is tied back loosely, errant pieces too short or too stubborn to be coralled by a leather cord make for a halo of red around his face in the wind. His jeans are dark blue and wet up to the knees with saltwater and he is threatening to swim if I don't tell him exactly what's on my mind. 

Only it's too cold to swim and he is doing this to prove a point. The point is that I am so desensitized, inappropriate and jaded that it takes these big dramatic moments to get me to move on something. That I am all or nothing now. That I used to be content with the smallest of gestures and now I want it all.

No, you're wro-

Am I though? He scoops up water with both hands and sprays me. 

Stop it.

Tell me I'm wrong again. He's ready to soak me, too. Only I am holding our phones, my keys that were in the pocket of my dress from earlier and the lantern that was left the other night that we forgot. It needs more fuel so I'll bring it up, at least and then it's ready for the next twilight trip. 

I drop everything to the sand and put my hands on my hips. You're....WRONG.

I close my eyes waiting for the impending soaking. It takes four seconds and I am drenched and frozen, gasping for air as he continues to scoop water at me as fast as he can. The one fun thing about Lochlan is that he never ever bluffs, and I will never fail to call him on one. So I'll have to program a new keyfob and we'll have to rinse our phones in distilled water and hope for the best. The lantern can take it, much like the girl. 

He wades back in to me almost in slow motion and takes me into his arms, soaked or not. How am I wrong?

This. This is everything. 

Following a Big Gesture, you mean. 

Nope. You didn't need to do that, Locket.

Wish you'd told me that before I wrecked my phone. 

I feel like we should just buy them in bulk. 

So why did you say he was there? 

Because he is there. 

Don't scare me, Bridget. 

You said if I don't tell you it's worse. 

I'm sorry I said that, right now at least. How long has he been there, again?

Eleven years. 

Jesus, Peanut.

I'm FINE (Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional).

It covers the back of his hand, ink mixed with blood against alabaster flesh

 The day is done, and the darkness falls from the wings of night

I love it. It's from The Day is Done, one of the Longfellow poems I can easily recite from memory and most of the boys can too. Caleb had it tattooed this morning. He has a bunch of hand tattoos but this is a full back of his right hand, all the way across in three lines, a neat block of gothic script that suits him to a tee. 

I can't take my eyes off it. It's a nice cheer-me-up on a day that sees me in my Cinnamoroll pajamas, fever still chugging along, kidney infection raging on full blast this morning, after yesterday went downhill rather quickly all of the sudden because that's how I operate. I go go go and wonder if more sleep is all I need only to find out my body wants to betray me like my mind already has. Everything is just jumping ship altogether and I can't say I blame any of it, these days.

The tiredness is not only the not sleeping, the perimenopause, the mental exhaustion that never quits, it was far more sinister. Lochlan called the doctor who made yet another house call and now I'm on these giant bumblebee antibiotics that have finally slowed me down and I'm going back to bed here before eleven in the morning. PJ has the conn. 

Hey, Bridge, want to go car-shopping with me? Caleb's heading out to get his new vehicle which should be fun. With his hand wrapped up like that he looks like he's been in a bar fight. Besides, he's not shopping, he's just trading his in on a new one, and so it's just a quick drop and go. 

No, PJ can keep you company, as I said. I'm going back up to sleep. I'm not feeling good. 

Can I bring you home lunch?

Is it Vietnamese?

If that's what you'd like. 

Then yes. Duh. 

Ha. That's what I thought you'd say.

You're the one place I call home.

 He slept sitting up. 

I asked for help before breakfast and what I got was a rare and wonderful change in that he didn't find someone to babysit my brain, someone to hide all the weapons and keep me from running outside to jump off the cliff and shock myself in the sea until I felt something better than this. He made me sit on the couch in the bathroom until he was ready, hair combed back behind his ears while wet only to spring up into crazy curls no matter what the minute it's dry. I only wish I was as resilient as Lochlan's curls. Nothing could flatten me ever. I would just jump back up and keep going. 

But I got flattened. He shook out a pill and then he shook out another and he laughed bitterly but it didn't reach his eyes, which remained a green concern in a face fighting to keep a neutral expression, because if he worries then I worry and I'm not able to add any more load to the current right now. 

What should we do today? He's asking questions as he holds a glass of water in one hand and my chin in the other. Drink. I can't answer. I want to hold on to today so I don't get flung right off or trampled underneath it. That's what I want. 

(And the kids aren't like this. They miss Jake like he's a close uncle they haven't seen in a while. It has faded for them though, mercifully. They are more sad for me. And I try so hard with them but sometimes I can't get it together and somehow they understand, the 'somehow' being useful, intensive therapy to make sure he didn't fuck them up to but by virtue of proximity to me, he did.)

He continued to ask me questions all day, and I was noncommittal and sometimes silent. Sometimes I had an opinion. Once I tried to wrench myself away but for that I was clotheslined by his arm that shot out so fast I didn't have time to take a second step but there must have been force behind the first. 

Bridget. Stay here. Stay put. He said it gently, outside of his usual penchant to bark things at me out of his own fear that creeps in when things get bad. He is so pragmatic, so necessary in an emergency but it's also the one time you won't find him, as he can't stand by helplessly and watch. If he can't lead he sure as hell isn't going to follow. That's one thing about Lochlan you might not know and people usually find that out the hard way. 

Let's find a new distraction. We painted a picture together. We went for a long walk along the beach, finding treasures and tiny sea stars. We napped. We made some pancakes together for lunch and then he cleaned up while I sat on the corner of the island and watched, because he just wasn't comfortable with me any further away. We did indeed watch a couple of really bad horror movies we found on Netflix and then we went up to our room. Lochlan poured himself a whiskey and settled in, pillows behind his back, jeans still crisp, flannel shirt still soft, always with the white t-shirt underneath. Still with his knife clipped in his pocket, brown hair tie around his wrist in case he has to get down to business. He told me to come and snuggle in with him and I put my head down against his chest, face in on the glorious winter flannel, his arm around my back. He took my sweater and tied it around me and his one leg, which was something else you didn't know. He would do that to childproof me when I was ten. To make sure he didn't sleep too deeply and fail to see if I got up or left. He was in charge and he wasn't going to screw it up and even though he did, we did, we ruined everything, we're not going to give up this incredible second chance to get it right, ghosts or no ghosts.

It was a comfort and I didn't wake up until this morning, still tied into the sweater, still with the lights on, him still dressed and still propped against the pillows. My head is an empty paper bag blowing down the road, my memories absent. My limbs are jello and yet my soul feels rejuvenated somehow, as if his presence alone was all I needed. Just an intense amount of time together like when I was little and I hung off every word he said, content to believe that he was right, that he knew everything, that all I had to do was listen to him and everything would be okay. 

After testing that theory I can tell you he's been right all along.

The only book on how to navigate this is the one I write for you.

 I almost took it down this morning. The post I just went and reread for the seven thousandth time. It's called Run like Hell and it's from October of 2007, detailing the night Jacob left. The night I never thought a single human could endure so much fear and despair and still come out alive. And I still have moments where I just stop and sob like a motherfucker for that horrible feeling of helplessness where Jacob had some sort of break with his handle on life and decided he couldn't handle my baggage when he had so much of his own and he left and he never came back and then the guilt ate him right through and he died by his own hand (there's a phrase I have never written before. I write that he flew because it sounds more magical and less final) and these memories are quicksand and lava and...pain. 

Sometimes the rabbit hole is so deep it goes right through to the other side. You can look in and see stars but you can't see Bridget. She doesn't even cling to the ledge just out of the light, she lets go. She falls right through, into the void and she's still in there somewhere.

Maybe I'm meaner now. Maybe I don't believe you when you say you're going to stay forever. Maybe I'm afraid of death now in a way that would make Jacob ashamed, because the guilt he felt for leaving when I needed him the most, when we were just figuring out how to live together and make it work, when my children had finally accepted him and settled in with a love for him that surprised even me, well, it's nothing compared with the guilt he would have had to see this now. To see what he's done. See how I've changed. I don't trust anyone. I will cut you off if you move too close or pry too hard. I will shut down without warning like a faulty robot and stop talking. And I'll hate you for taking that beautiful new stability and trust away from my children because you changed them too and I see it now. And they talk about it now with a horrible pain I can't take from them and this is your fault. You were supposed to be the strong one and you weren't. 

It was me.

Lead me down the path they went.

Come here, Bridget, said the Devil.

And I did, and I was lifted up into his arms and I didn't touch the ground for the next three hours and I didn't know which end was the sky and which was the sea or which hands belonged to whom and in my high I just focused on breathing and climbing out of the waves to get back to the stars, only to be pulled back in until my flesh was numb and my limbs exhausted. I believe Caleb and Ben did the heavy (or maybe I'm light) lifting and Lochlan drifted in and out of my periphery and Sam prayed right against me for his own soul in the face of temptation he could not fight off. 

This morning I will join him, more than a little bothered that I can't with certainty tell you if Matt was there or not. 

Do I ask? My eyes drift to Caleb, who winks and lifts up his coffee cup to take a sip, never breaking his gaze. I shift my head and look at Lochlan's hands. He is reading the news on his ipad, eyes scanning the words on the screen. His breathing is even and content. He is relaxed and warm. 

Ben is still asleep. 

Sam went home (I think) and his car is gone so he's most likely at church. 

I don't dare go, lest I burst into flames inside the front door, one foot over the threshold, purse singed as it drops to the tile floor, the one who held it vaporized by God in an flash. 

An example, he will say, of the sinner I wish to purge from your precious souls. Unable to be sanctified properly I have expunged her from this heaven on earth because she's far too edacious and wanted too much to make up for everything she has lost, instead of understanding that by losing everything she now has everything. She can't be consecrated like this. Guys, I've got nothing to work with here.

Oh, well, hello, you're right, God and I'm sorry. No more early Sunday morning orgies for me! I have seen the error of my ways. 

Lochlan snorts abruptly and I realize he's listening in. 

But I still love you most, I think, not to myself but broadcasting it wide.

He smiles but doesn't say anything, kissing the top of my head for a long time instead. I stretch like a cat and get up to go get more coffee. Matt falls through the back door, in wrinkled chinos and a shirt that shows he maybe got dressed for church but then fell asleep and didn't make it. He meets my eyes and it's a vaguely weird but appreciative look on his face that I know well, oddly enough and I am suddenly grateful I don't have to ask.

Oops. Clearly he was there too.

The one skill I wish for now is necromancy (come listen to the words of dead men and the clinically insane).

 Lipstick on my headphone cord, coffee in my blood, Mick Moss crooning in my ears and the rain continues to soften the ghosts out on the lawn, making them easier for the boys to digest without rough edges. When the rain let up I studied Jake intently, and that's when I noticed Cole far behind him, standing in black, just on the rough sideline of my vision. He's hard to find because he is darker while Jacob glows with the moon. They were always night and day and now they are somewhere between but I didn't expect them to travel as a team now, of all times. At one point I thought they might even be friends but looking back, where things are always clearer I can see that that was wishful, selfish thinking.

You have it, if they're here. Lochlan's voice tells my brain. And it's the one gift I wish you didn't even know of. His voice disappears back into sleep and I turn back to watch Jacob, watch him frown as he gestures for me to stop chewing on the cord, when he knows damn well I don't bite on it. I just blot my lips and it's there for the tactile sensation. It grounds me when I get distracted.

God, Mick's on Liquid Light and it's the one with that line from my title (come listen) and he lets his voice break over the words like waves and I feel like he knows how I feel. If he doesn't then he's written the perfect accompaniment to my grief, which never seems to shift into anything workable, anything new. 

Anything even remotely navigable, ever.

Coastal Friday photographs, spilled on a hardwood floor.

Prisoned am I to this shell of the dust
It speaks of only fiction that I could never trust
Captured alive in this sinful estate
Vexed am I to see I do the things that I hate

 Rip out the framework leave no stone unturned
Until my heart forgets all that my flesh ever learned
Tear down the structure till nothing is left
God deliver me from this body of death

 

This morning before I woke up Ben pulled me backwards, underneath him, facedown in the quilts, lifting me up back up against his chest in the dark, practiced hands all over, until we were back to where we like to be. He turned my head to the side for a painful, thorough kiss just as he brought us over the edge into heaven and I looked for Jake (I always do) but then Ben pushed my head back down and brought us home. 

***

Sam sitting at the piano after dinner last night. Matt is helping in the kitchen but Sam has finished his jobs and so he sits, picking out the notes before Lochlan finally offered to play the song if Sam would sing. They proceeded to bash out an impromptu and beautiful version of  Wolves At The Gate's Lowly that saw us all stop to listen, almost at once. Sam was somewhat shy about the attention but unfaltering in his choice of song, Lochlan was not shy, never is. As ever Lochlan is a showman and will volunteer to entertain at any given moment but he loves to give the spotlight away just as much. 

(Someone asked me last week if I liked being a carny or a sideshow performer more. I would pick carny any day. I never liked the schedule for the circus. So much training. So much preparation and then you had to be waiting forever for your show to begin. In contrast, I had so much more freedom on the midway. I was a lot younger and far more naive and I just remember the lights and how I had to stay within sight of Lochlan, which gave me a good six hundred yard latitude in at least two directions from the wheel and I could daydream because I had no weight, no responsibility. Performing is focus and discipline. Fairs? Fairytales, through and through.)

***

Late last evening the rain held off so we had a bonfire on the beach, bringing our picnic basket with glasses and a forty of the good whiskey for those who drink, and bottles of cream soda for those who don't. We sat around the fire and talked softly, if at all, eight of us available to wash ourselves in smoke and salt, the stuff of dreams and the best way to fall asleep, bathed in the acrid sting of fire and water. It's magical to me and I'm pretty sure it's what set Ben off this morning, still on a high from yesterday's strides and major victories, both physically and mentally. He is almost at his best at this point and my heart has stopped skipping beats, trembling, hesitating and tripping, running flat out ahead while looking behind me just in case he isn't keeping up. 

He is again, at last.

***

 I went down and had a coffee this morning, early, after Ben went back to sleep and Lochlan failed to stir at all. In the dark by myself. I sat on the bench where we put on our wetsuits by the big patio doors in winter (when it's too cold to do it on the docks) and I watched Jacob pacing the rock wall at the end of the yard. At first I'm annoyed that he didn't let me know he was here, didn't come in, didn't wade into my dreams, pantlegs and sleeves rolled up but still soaked from the surf, didn't wake me up. Now he's just there and I'll see him all of the sudden and that's how I know my brain is still broken, tenderized and then stuffed with my own heart, rolled up, pinned and burned until blackenend, whereupon they will tell me to 'smarten up' and 'stop scaring us' but I can't help it. 

I run and run, as always looking back over my shoulders for the monsters to catch up with me, and I turn and fall flat on my face. When I jump up, yelling I'm okay, he shakes his head sadly and then I can't see him any more because the rain is too heavy.

And Caleb? He's a retrocasuality. Or something. LOL

 No, we're not baby x-men over here. Okay, maybe we are. A lot of you asked about the pyrokinesis mention made yesterday, as if you simply fell from the sky, opened the internet and read the first entry of mine you've ever seen.

*rolls eyes* 

If you ask Lochlan directly he's a fire 'artist', nothing more, that's all. 

I know better. 

Jacob bent forks, the more stress he was under the less chance we had of returning the forks to a usable condition. I'm an easy clairvoyant, automatic writer and a reluctant but completely proficient psychometric (the paranormal kind, not the scientific kind). 

Sam is a prophet. He doesn't need anything else but he talks to us from his mind too.

All of the boys are practised in divination and varying levels of psychic abilities and telepathy. By the telepathy levels I mean most of us can have entire conversations with each other without speaking and that's one of the problems I reference continually when I talk about privacy here on the point. 

It's also one of the reasons we all have such a ridiculous, close bond with each other. It's one of the ways I've picked my friends and it's another way that I can shut you out completely (see Corey. Mark. Rob. Anyone I've talked about who doesn't live here currently.)

No one can teleport though, sadly, and I've been trying to raise up my mediumship skills for exactly fourteen years and it's rough going and I'm not at all happy with where they are, clearly. I talk about that every fucking day so if you haven't noticed by now and need it all spelled out like this then go away. 

You can hone your own psychic abilities if you work at it. It's just easier for some people. I don't choose to believe we are special. We are to each other, of course but to you we're nothing. We just have opened ourselves to a lot of things most people wouldn't dare. 

***

Speaking of the retrocasualist, Caleb came roaring back this morning with an armful of mea culpas. Apparently he has a whole plot on the other side of the orchard where he grows them because this year has been a bumper crop for sure. 

I overstepped. 

Dude, you went off in a flat run. 

Dude?

Blame PJ. The more time I spend with him the more I'll call you that. 

It's funny. 

Probably. 

Bridget, I don't mean to hurt you. I want to make new memories with you. Fun ones. The kind of memories that last forever and make us think fondly of each other. 

We have the ones that last forever but they're all wrong.

Not from my perspective.

And we know your perspective is warped and twisted. 

Help me straighten it.

Go help yourself. 

He walks away. He knows I'm not in the mood to accept a thing from him, let alone his charming words as a way of asking for forgiveness. I am a brick wall today. An unmoving stone cliff and he can bash his head bloody against it but it doesn't move. That is me today. Strong and beautiful and I have no time for your bullshit, can't you see I'm over here holding my own heart up in both hands, blood and sinew dripping down my elbows, making an offering to a ghost who keeps his own schedule and shows up only when I'm at my weakest? 

No, of course you can't, and I'm far worse at this than I thought I would be.

White fire is made with magnesium or melamine, and ethanol. Don't try it unless you have a pyrokinetic at home.

All these broken souls
Each one more beautiful
They don't, they don't know my heart
They don't know my heart

I'll send out my soul
To worlds more beautiful
But they won't, they won't know my heart
It's the darkest part 

When I came in he was already hungry. The fire roared in the hearth, biting back the chill of the night, reflecting in his eyes, making him look like a lion in the dark. He pulls me in for a kiss and then walks us backward, pulling me down into his lap, kissing the space up underneath my ear with a groan that sent a shiver right up my spine. I reached my hands up into his curls to hold on to his face when he came back for the kiss on the lips and he laughed. 

There's my girl. 

I forced him all the way back and his eyebrows went up, the grin remaining on his face for the next hour or two as we devoured each other in our practised familiarity, every curl, every freckle, every tattoo so well known at this point we have forged a well-travelled route and if you look closely in the light, beyond the scars and the burns of the past you'll see a worn path along our limbs that shows where we travel and how we get home.

There's my Locket.

His eyes fill up suddenly. Jesus, Bridge. How did I get so lucky? I have nothing to give you. 

You give me everything. You give me you. That's all I want. 

And your ghosts.

Only in the white fire. 

I'll only ever throw the red, then. 

I look up at him and he's no longer smiling. Sometimes he gets very serious and we have very meaningful talks and we make promises and plans and fun of each other and then we're back on track. We fight too much. We struggle too much. We call each other horrible things and we wish we had never met. And we wouldn't have it any other way at this point. 

I might save Ben first. I might wish for Jacob on an absolutely hourly basis sometimes and I might dance with the Devil a little too close but if I take one step backwards I will crash into Lochlan and he's promised me I always will. 

Even as he hates all of it. So, so much.

***

Caleb never threw the mug, never brought up how much he loved me being high, how much he adored being in control, dusting me with angels or snow, watching me check out in slow motion. He listened to my unspoken directive as I attempt to control my own narrative with him for what always feels like the first time in my life even though it's been nothing but a magnificent struggle over the past fourteen years since he came back into it. 

I never thought he'd come back. I never thought it would be this hard to get past certain things. I never thought I would fail so spectacularly at it most of the time. 

I didn't yesterday though. So I'll call that a victory and hope it's the first of many.

(They also call it 'embalming fluid' on the street but that's just fucking wrong.)

 I can fix you. 

I bet you could fix me but it's never for very long and never in a way I want to be fixed.

Caleb stares at me, holding his whole coffee mug in his hand, ignoring the handle part in a way that makes me think he's about to throw it. 

We used to be able to block out the world. Easily. 

 Ah. He's looking to reminisce about the good old days when happiness came in a needle or a vial or a baggie and he would sound out the name of what it was and while I couldn't get my brain or my mouth around that word (phen-cyc-li-dine) I fell in love with the nickname for it. I thought it would solve all my problems. But instead of that happening I would get almost two days of real live Disney birds around my head and an unwillingness to say much, because I just wanted to enjoy the happiness and not worry about everything but then it would all come rushing back far too soon.

Caleb decided eventually that it was time for a change and switched to cocaine or heroin or whatever looked like fun and moreover, could keep Bridget dancing all night every night until the party stopped (or Caleb said it did) without creating any permanent problems (but it did). He wanted a machine to match his own but I'm not a robot and he would give me the same hit he'd give himself in spite of the close to a one-hundred-pound weight difference between us.

And he couldn't understand why it hit me different, and to this day he thinks it would be fun to revisit the past, as if we had such good times instead of what it actually was, including whatever permanent brain damage I suffered being given so many drugs for so long. I still stare off into space. I still have weird cravings for bad things, and I still have debilitating depression. Apparently half of that is from the drug use and the other half? His abuse of me. One cancels the other out but honestly, I'll take the latter because at least it's now predictable behaviour. Sex addiction and the fears borne out of that pivotal time period are far easier to manage than the holes in my memory and the ridiculous sadness because of the fucked up chemicals, burned off on a street paved with gold, snorted up the holes in my head with a holler of recklessness and abandon.

Angel dust, I would point out, fingers in my own mouth, eyes wild. 

Touched by the heavens, he would whisper and I would laugh and laugh. 

Not true, I shake my head, fingers still against my lips. Touched by hell. No one's laughing now but my worries have disappeared and left pink clouds behind for me to sail through.

It didn't happen like that, Bridge-

Let's go dancing. 

I never let him finish because I know he's trying to revise our history as we make it and I don't plan to let him. I wouldn't then, and I won't now. 

You want more coffee?

Yes, please. He knows the subject's closed. I know he'll bring it up again.

For fucks sake part II: Happy Thanksgiving!

Firstly, some Internet housekeeping. We just learned this morning you don't have to suffer through dubbed versions of shows on Netflix (To the Lake, if you're wondering). I learned this after suggesting to Netflix that we have a choice, as I know the visually impaired would also like to enjoy shows and not have to try and learn the language first. I went to look up why dub editions of things are so goddamned BAD and found a link to an article from Digital Spy on how to enjoy originals without overdubbing.

From two years ago.

(Sacre bleu! *holds head in hands*)

In this house we range from extremely technologically proficient to...me. 

And no one knew this. NO. ONE.

Jesus Christ.

(What do you mean you don't look up questions that have been haunting you for all time? What's the difference between a gamble and a gambit? Why don't the outer halves of my eyebrows grow? Why do people have to tell me their dog is a rescue when I pass them with my own dog (also...a...rescue? But I don't need to point that out. I thought maybe I did, but as it turns out they are either virtue signalling or they're scared people will assume they bought from a mill.)

(I still can't believe you don't look up these hard-hitting questions. Man, if I had had access to the internet growing up instead of the little blue library tucked off a side street behind the diner in my hometown I would be so fucking smart. SO smart.

Instead I learned how to be a teenager from watching Bon Jovi videos, which clearly didn't do me any favours.)

 ***

Also I am not feeling better but sadly the internet just keeps telling me that menopause is fun and absolutely every symptom that exists right now, if you're a woman my age is literally just menopause and nothing more. Hot flashes? Perimenopause. Never sleeping again? Perimenopause, you idiot. Oh, chopped your leg off trying to jam tree branches into that chipper machine? Clearly perimenopause, you fucking dingbat.

God, I hate it so much. 

Oh and according to the internet it can take five years or more to complete and then once you haven't had a single period for over a year you get your congratulatory beard! Can't wait for that, because finally, a payoff for everything I've been going through.

For fucks sake.

 This is a designated do-nothing day by degree even though I've already changed three beds, done two loads of laundry, made breakfast for nine people and am about to water all of the plants. I plunged out the shower drain, which started filling up with water around my toes as I finished my shower this morning and I tested the furnace because it's dropped five degrees in the past two hours temperature-wise and all is well. I had checked the filter yesterday and she's good for another month and took the turkey out to thaw for tomorrow's big full Collective Thanksgiving dinner. 

But I've also been up since five because I don't sleep any more but I did get my slice of pumpkin pie, which was delicious. We ate pumpkin pie and had tea in bed with Schuyler and Daniel while watching the first two Nightmare on Elm Street movies to get into the Halloween mood. They have tiny fairy lights lining every wall, doorframe and window in their huge bedroom overlooking the ocean and when you turn those on while the movie is on it looks so incredible. Their heat was already on in their house and Schuyler even snuck a forbidden dollop of whipped cream onto my slice of pie even though I skip it now because dairy and after I ate half of it on a forkful Lochlan took the other half off the top so that I wouldn't feel sick. 

But I did anyway. And that's why I've been awake since five. 

The good news is I finished all the chores and even went in and cuddled with Duncan for thirty minutes, almost falling asleep (he was asleep and I don't think he really knew that I was there) and my plan now is to relax. There are leftovers for today in the fridge for anyone and everyone, and so cooking is off the table for today and there is only one bed left to be changed, as soon as Henry gets out of it and I can do the last load of laundry for the day, or even leave it for tomorrow if I want. 

I'm not so good at relaxing. This is not news. But Ben said we'll have a nap later on and I'm holding him to it. I told him that and he agreed and said he would hold me to him too. 

Took me far too long to figure out what he meant. I need to learn to how to sleep more than five hours at a time.

A whole new man.

When they came over I was wearing my new cute print dress from H&M with the long bell sleeves that is so comfortable I live in it now and my doc martens, unlaced. One leg thrown over the arm of the chair, other leg stretched out against the bottom on the same side for decency. 

Daniel laughed. They like your hair? 

I nod. I let him chop it all off again but this time he left my bangs super long. They are driving Lochlan crazy but he likes it shorter these days, only since he said it makes me look adorable and maybe that's not a bad thing, and also because when I grew my hair out again I never left it alone, as it's a tic, after a fashion and I would twist it up, pin it and promptly take it down and do it over again. A nervous habit that was very physical and distracting. We're not going to mention the long hair left behind on everyone's sleeves, in their beards, wrapped around their fingers. 

Schuyler pulls me to my feet. Oh my God. So cute. Let's go to our place. It's a holiday. 

I need to be here to make dinner. 

That's on Monday, Bridget. It's Saturday. Tonight, you are dinner.

Oh. 

Oh boy, you mean. 

Shouldn't that be Oh boys? 

He laughs. He's had so much free time being retired, I think he's bored. He reads my mind. We're not bored. We're just having fun. Schuyler looks at Daniel and they both laugh again. Wow.

I can see that. 

So grab your Lochlan and come with us. 

When will we be back?

Who cares?

Rose petal vodka.

Indeed I am going to begin working as Caleb's assistant again this fall, starting mid-next week. We've narrowed my role to a scant fifteen hours a week to keep him organized, three days a week and no more. He is not allowed to lock me in his suite either. Seems simple. I am to keep track of my hours worked and prepare to work hard during the times when I am working as he agreed that it's not a lot of hours but it's a fair lot of work, as he points out and he wouldn't have anyone else do it.

(WTF! Oh, he means, he wouldn't trust anyone to do as good a job. OH, well, thanks for clarifying after I threw my phone at his head. WOW. Also, may I have my phone back, please, for the second time this week? What do you mean, no? I only threw it at you onc-

Thanks.)

I already dug out a beautiful brand new pink silk-covered notebook and same-coloured pen to carry when I follow him around. If I don't write it down it's gone forever. My brain is a like a beach towel that's lost it's absorbency due to the weight of sunscreen. Eventually I should probably soak my brain in vinegar too to strip off the coating and then maybe I can absorb more info but for now my mind is hard-coated in sunblock 60, so I write it all down. He likes that though. He says it feels official. 

He helped me hang the dozen cowboy hats on long racks above each side table in the foyer this morning and I have set out a few dozen pumpkins on the front steps, both sets so it looks super 'weeny around here now. There is a round table in the middle of the front hall with a big arrangement of fresh lilies. I think it might last until Sunday, and then I can choose something more hardy for the remainder of the month. Probably dyed zinnias and dark roses and a lot of heavy greenery. 

I put the good vodka in the flower water and they last a very long time with it, which is good because I don't like wasting money on things but who doesn't love fresh flowers and besides, the few months we tried to go without on that table, weird things started to appear on it and the weirdness multiplied the longer it went empty. It started with a nickel, then a cookie and then a sweater no one claimed to own, followed by a single cross-country ski, and then a full easel with charcoal on the lip so people could add to a communal drawing (it got hilariously ugly fast, as you would imagine), followed by a stuffed snail wearing sunglasses that remained for WEEKS until I ordered flowers again starting in September. 

I suppose it could have been worse. 

But I do like the hats. Also this frees up half a closet shelf. Which is nicer than anything else in a house full of people. I try to stay organized in the common areas of the house to a military degree, so I think I get how Caleb feels.

It's also Friday so I am pre-weekending/gaming, and though I thought about drinking the water from the big round vase before I changed it out, I didn't because the vase is too heavy for me to lift, and also because people judge. Judge me for my giant foyer instead. Biggest necessary waste of space ever, and I wish I had it when I used to try and wrestle both kids in their snowsuits when they were so little. God, that feels like a million years ago now, and now they are both older than me.

Lies (and fries).

 Caleb won't dare go up against Lochlan. He'll take what he needs, if I give it to him, and then he'll fade back into the shadows on the sidelines before he riles the lion, unwilling to cross my allegiance, since he knows it isn't to him ever and never will be. 

Didn't stop him from taking my phone away and locking the door, keeping me with him for too long to be overlooked.

And when Lochlan got me back the very first thing he did was undress me and check me all over. He found two brief imprints. One on my shoulder, one on my hand where I fought back briefly before I was told to give in and when I did it got better, and neither one broke the skin and I said I was fine and Lochlan believed me. He's trying to trust me and trust that I know Caleb well enough in that way that I know I won't be hurt again even though the self-control Caleb swore he had was hanging by thread there, at the end. And that's when I asked that he open the door and he did, if only to protect me from that. 

Because he knows. 

They all know. 

But I am fine and I figured out how to put myself back together (in Lochlan's arms) and now things are mostly ironed out, and I don't have to worry about another shoving match (not allowed, and every single person here will throw themselves in between two who start, because we're not about to ever risk any more surprise punches, head injuries, or long recoveries on a moment when things got too heated to use our words) because they've already spoken, if only to agree on the day on which we will celebrate Thanksgiving, Sunday or Monday (they chose Monday). 

We're having turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet carrots and cranberry sauce, along with butter rolls and pumpkin pie for dessert. I am excited. We have no plans at all, except for the meal. Last year at this same time I told Caleb that if I were planted I wondered what would grow, a tall flower or a stumpy turnip. He laughed and laughed and still calls me his little turnip every now and then but last night we finished the last of our homegrown potatoes from the garden, an irony considering I keep finding them in the dirt, gathering them up in the hem of my dress to bring back inside by the dirty dozen. 

A rotten potato, kicked around the garden but enjoying the very last moments of sun before winter sets in and the soil grows cold. 

 That makes me sad, Neamhchiontach. 

Me too, Diabhal.

You know where I've been.

I stood outside when the roof gave in
You crawled from the wreckage you were lying in
You're out of reach and we're out of time
But I took it all and toed that line
You held my hand and pulled me down with you

I told you what would happen. I give him a moment and he tries to take a lifetime. He sets the world on fire and I'm reduced to this in the early dark hours, finally free, sitting at the piano slackjawed and trembling, wrapped in a blanket, picking out notes with a blank mind and a ruined heart. He finds things stuck in that heart. Dark things, bad things and he tastes them, he takes them out and plays with them and he breaks them, leaving the pieces strewn all over the room and then I'm forced to picked them up and stuff them back in but they're sticking out all over and it hurts. 

It hurts. 

He hurts. And he's a biter. He's the kind of man that always promises you he'll be better this time and then he isn't. He bites and he forces and his eyes burn right through me and he bends my limbs far past what they can manage and breathing is a privilege not a right. My eyes are bloodshot, my head hurts and her little brain doesn't even understand why I let him get to her. 

Do I though? Or do I put up a defence and he can destroy me instead but she will be okay?

She won't talk to me right now so I can't answer that. 

When I was ten he looked me in the eye and told me that if I was his, he would eat me up. I thought he was scary and a chill ran down my spine but I was at the same time thoroughly fascinated, flattered even, by his intensity. 

Still am.

Jesus Admin. Asst.

 Ben wanted to go to church so off we went. We stopped at a drive-thru and got hot pumpkin-y fall drinks. I wore a dress + tights + sweater + scarf and my docs and felt pulled together but also look like I might take a running jump into the nearest leaf pile if you let go of my hand. I sat between Ben and Lochlan and held my cup in two hands. We don't sing in church anymore but it was nice to sit and listen to Sam and then we left without waiting in the line, distanced on lovely peel-and-stick stained glass floor tiles, because it looks nicer. We wore our masks when we weren't sitting down. We took them off in Lochlan's truck and drove home through the leaves, listening to some rainy jazz and being quiet. 

(Normally we would have found a diner and had breakfast out but that didn't happen because takeout is difficult with some cravings and honestly I want a monte cristo and nothing else these days but I don't like to make them at home.) 

The dog is lying at my feet beans-out and my cup is long empty now. The woodstove is burning out but the lights are on. Boys in sweaters. I love this. I have to tailor a pair of Ruth's pants, take out the garbage and make dinner tonight-probably monte cristos- and I have to talk to Caleb about his latest offer. October fifth is back to routine for him and falls are reasonably busy with his various business dabblings and he does indeed need an assistant. I would be mostly filing, cleaning and answering his phone, screening emails and entering figures on spreadsheets. That's not that any one of those is hard, per se, it's just a lot to juggle and I don't know if I'm up for it this time around. He pays very well and we do work well together but then we settle into bad habits and that's the part that I'd like to avoid. To his credit it's busywork, a distraction from the upcoming unlucky anniversary but it's also a way to spend hours with me almost every day, a side benefit being that he will be impeccably organized once again. That's a good thing. 

Right?

Broken lies I still believe.

Below the willow tree

I get hung up on my insecurities
Rose-coloured dopamine
My soul feels like it could be make believe

 

Below the willow tree
I search to find some sense of identity
This weeping willow tree
Sits in silence, sheds no tears for me

 

Last night on a walk I saw the moon with Mars and I knew they wanted privacy, a rare coupling that I haven't seen for a while and I'm not cuckold and so I turned back in the cold, crunching through the brown leaves all the way back to the house where the warm lights beckoned me home. 

 

We did go LED to save energy, money and effort in changing bulbs all the time. It was an ice-cold light and so everything was changed to warm. It took a while and I am still finding fixtures that were missed. 

You're looking up cuckold because you haven't seen that word in a while, aren't you? You don't care about my lights or the planets or my crunchy-leaves walk. 

Ah, she admitted it. 

It's holdover teenage curiosity, that's all. You see someone and you stop and watch and rarely will you move until it ends, someone catches you, or you risk being seen by them. 

That was me and Mars. I turned away first.

Ghosts and...and..pirates.

My heart is pierced by Cupid

I disdain all glittering gold

There is nothing can console me

But my jolly sailor bold

 

His hair it hangs in ringlets

His eyes as black as coal

My happiness attend him

Wherever he may go

https://lyricstranslate.com

My heart is pierced by Cupid

I disdain all glittering gold

There is nothing can console me

But my jolly sailor bold

 

His hair it hangs in ringlets

His eyes as black as coal

My happiness attend him

Wherever he may go

https://lyricstranslate.com

My heart is pierced by Cupid

I disdain all glittering gold

There is nothing can console me

But my jolly sailor bold

 

His hair it hangs in ringlets

His eyes as black as coal

My happiness attend him

Wherever he may go

https://lyricstranslate.comMy heart is pierced by Cupid

His hair it hangs in ringlets
His eyes as black as coal
My happiness attend him
Wherever he may go.

I am startled out of a sound sleep. It's almost light out and Ben is gone. He gets up very early now to go and have coffee with August. Maybe that's what woke me. Him closing the door.

Who is your allegiance to, Princess?

I survey the empty room. It was Lochlan's hand on my cheek and Jake's voice in my head. I knew it wasn't Lochlan's words because he reached out in his deep slumber to make sure I was still there and besides, he doesn't call me that and rarely says the word out of a reluctance to put the focus on a spectral memory when a real one is taking place as we speak. 

I wouldn't leave you, you know. If Jake was alive and came right through that door after lunch I wouldn't leave you. Never again would I stray out of your reach because this is where I belong.

Hmmmm? Lochlan heard my answer and woke up. You okay?

I stare at him. I can't focus. He is not awake. Yeah, go back to sleep. 

Just for a half hour. 

Okay. 

By the way? I wouldn't leave you either so tell Jake piss off.

Can't even bum a bite of bacon off these jerks.

October one. The first day of the rest of my life, to be sure. I'd like to make some time for hot chocolate and drawing. I'm going to do a little sewing and a little gardening. I'm going to be thrilled at the fall leaves and cozy in warm sweaters and I'm going to cook and bake right through. I've already started sewing Halloween costumes and shopping for  Christmas presents and I wouldn't even dream of being sad that the sun goes down now before we have the curtains drawn or supper cleaned up each night now because that would be ironic and pointless.

It's going to choose it's time and I don't get a say and suddenly I find myself mourning summer all the while I hug myself in these oversize sweaters and hold my mug close. 

Dumb, is what it is but completely normal, Joel tells me. He, August and Sam are going to take Ben out for breakfast, which will consist of takeout that they bring back and eat in the gazebo or probably the patio, heaters on, hours spent while they sort out exactly who Ben can rage at and why he needs to get a handle on this because we're all understanding but Jesus Christ. 

This is why he got punched in the first place. 

And I'm about to punch him again, if not for the fact that we're giving him patience he might not even deserve but does at the same time.

I don't get to sit in on the meetings because I am distracting and too emotional.

Too...emotional. 

Huh. 

I'd rather be that than not emotional enough.  

It's okay though, like I said I have things to do and if you can even believe it this week I am the glue and they are the cracks. Go figure. I just hope they get it together before the first week of November because that's when I might need help. 

But then again, I might not.