12:06 p.m.

Lunch. Yay. We're halfway through the day. Everything tastes like cardboard to me. Yum.

It doesn't matter, though. The past hour was awesome.

Finally got my nose to stop, Jacob called fourteen times because he knows I'm not so okay today and I finally put on some lipgloss and headed over to pick up the kids. There's a bit of a gap between when Kindergarten is let out and when the older kids are dismissed for lunch so we went to the activity room to hang out.

I met some moms.

Some real live moms. From this neighborhood, spilling out of the woodwork. Something I haven't really done yet is meet any moms my age and we moved to this neighborhood almost a year ago. And they're all around my age, with kids. With houses. On these streets. I didn't recognize anyone from church, but most of them have seen Jacob. They filled me in on what goes on in the room each weekday morning and welcomed me warmly.

Geez.

I haven't had girlfriends for years. I might have been even a little tiny bit shy for a couple of moments.

I think most of them are Catholic though. That's okay too.

I will promise not to swear so much, I don't really do that around the kids anyways.

Girlfriends, people. A place to hang out in the mornings if I so choose. With other women to talk to.

Yay Bridget.

Okay, back to dying now.

10:54

I don't recommend answering the door with bloody tissues stuck up one's nose but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

I swear the UPS guy still thinks I'm hot. He must be into low-maintenance chicks.

10:26 a.m.

Oh, joy. Nosebleed.

Wee.

Live sickblogging.

Because you love me. Or maybe you hate me. Come on. You hate to love me but you do anyway. Everyone feels that way.

Either way, you're back. Hi! Welcome.

I'm going to live-sickblog today, because I'm mostly home. And miserable. Wavering like a inebriated college boy after a birthday power hour.

Jacob put me in the shower, the big meanie. So I'm clean, dressed, wet hair. I took the kids to school and tried not to breathe on their little heads. Then I walked home fast in case I blacked out. I didn't think I was that sick but I am. The problem is if I take any cold medicine I will fall asleep and I can't do that today. Too much work. Jacob had to go to work too, he has meetings or sessions pretty much right through supper, though he has been phoning me every hour to tell me he wishes he could be home taking over.

Hell, really, it's one of those days where your skills honed as a mom kick into high gear. Moms don't get a lot of actual days off, they get a few quiet moments here and there.

I'll be okay. Hopefully this will be the worst day.

I'm acutally thinking if I wear myself to pieces today I'll achieve some sort of hallucinatory feverish state. Which could be fun, right?

Wish me luck.

    In dreams I see myself flying
    closer to the sun, and I'm climbing
    tried to touch the sun
    but the brightness burned my eyes
    unconscious, or am I conscious?
    fell from the sky like a star
    sometimes I feel as though I'm frozen in heaven
   

Piper down, buried with cheese.

Nothing says morning like being brought hot coffee, a cinnamon bun and your laptop while you're still in bed. My feet haven't touched the floor today, but I know I'll have to pee soon so the decadent illusion Jacob created for me will be ruined.

I'm so sick today. My nose is stuffy, my throat feels like daggers are sticking into it and my head is reeling. I'm flush, feverish and cranky. Ruth and Henry were both suffering from colds through the end of last week so it was inevitable. Something tells me we're going to be sick all year.

So instead of a journal entry, I will regale you with Jacob's shower karaoke this morning. Because he must have forgotten that I can hear him.

He was singing All for Love, from The Three Musketeers because the other night we were talking about great movies and I rattled off my ever honorary list of great medieval movies because come on...Bridget's a romantic from her head to the tips of her toes. And nothing says romance like castles and princesses and brave knights and swordfights. Right?

I'll give you the first two verses, because a good friend told me that printing the entire lyrics to a song is against copyright and I'm too tired to verify that so I'm rolling with it.

    When it's love you give
    (I'll be a man of good faith.)
    Then in love you live.
    (I'll make a stand. I won't break.)
    I'll be the rock you can build on,
    Be there when you're old,
    To have and to hold.

    When there's love inside
    (I swear I'll always be strong.)
    Then there's a reason why.
    (I'll prove to you we belong.)
    I'll be the wall that protects you
    From the wind and the rain,
    From the hurt and pain.


I'm feeling better already.

Failure to emulsify.

You know something?

I don't really want to talk about it.

Jacob wanted to talk. A lot. He has spent the past few days talking about nothing but that. And I held up as long as I possibly could. Then I just couldn't do it anymore. He pushed too hard. He does that sometimes. We get along so well that when we don't see eye to eye it's deeply frustrating and painful for both of us and we start bickering, though we usually save it for politics and matters that fall into the ethical gray area in life. We call it our failure to emulsify on a subject.

I don't want to talk about it anymore.

I can take you over to the station now if you're ready.

I'm not ready.

Well, then when do you want to go? Or I can call Mike and he can send someone here, if you'd rather.

No, Jacob.

Bridget, just tell me when.

Never. I'm done.

What?

I said-

I heard you but I really don't understand.

I'm not doing anything.

You have to. He sexually assaulted you. My God, baby, please.

Stop talking about it, Jake. I can't talk about it.

He has to be punished. Are you going to let him get away with this?

Yes. I am. His punishment is that he's gone from my life and this time there are no second chances.

I don't believe you. How can you not do this?

Because if I drag this out I'll lose my mind.

Drag it out? Jesus, Bridget, HE HURT YOU.

He didn't hurt me, Jake. He couldn't help himself. He was drunk.

He almost raped you. And I only just barely didn't kill him. I wish I had.

What did you do to him, Jacob?

Bridge, don't worry about me or him, I only care about you. I need answers.

Well then we're even aren't we?
He stormed out of the room. He's incredulous. Everyone is. Except for me and most likely Ben. Ben probably knows the last thing I would ever want is to go round two of courts and lawyers and doctors and police. He probably thought Jacob would steer me to do it all anyways but Jacob doesn't override my actions. He doesn't want to have to live like that and I don't either.

But I can't do it.

I can't go through all that again. I knew I wouldn't press charges about ten minutes after Jacob steered Ben out the back door. I just didn't say anything because no one listens to what I want when things are bad, they're all too busy doing damage control while I stand in the middle and try to preserve my equanimity. It's uncannily familiar territory. So in the interest of my need for normalcy and progress at last I have to drop it and walk away and if Jacob wants to swallow that bitter pill the hard way, well, I'll wait him out. Ben losing his entire circle of friends with his unforgivable actions is enough, trust me. He crossed a line he was barely toeing in the first place. And as always, and you're going to hate this comment, it could have been so much worse.

It can always be worse.

Save your energies for the people who have been hurt very badly, I have support and I'm okay. As usual I'll haul myself up on the shoulders of those around me and keep going, because I can.

Trust me, Ben is not even half as scary as Cole was. This part is easy.

And I'm done, I'm not talking about Ben anymore. When someone has been in my shoes then they can weigh in with opinions, and that's that. I'm doing what I need to do, and not worrying about the rest. I really have to allow life to move along.

So here's the post I really had ready for today. Thinking about this makes me smile, it makes me feel warm.

It involves part of a dream I had last night.

What if when you traveled or were on your own in a strange place there would be a way to get comfort on the run? I had a vision of a special room or area at the airport, with yellow lights above a stark white hallway and if you needed someone or wanted comfort you would go and stand under those lights and anyone who saw you there would approach you and invite you to have a meal with them, share a cab or simply give you a long hug. I realize it's an impossibility, a horribly invasive and assumptive series of events but at the same time if you have ever navigated an airport alone and felt as if what was inside your own skin brought the only familiarity in an alien sea of people then you'd probably agree that this would be a splendid invention.

Jacob's church is like that, you know.

Like a sea of yellow lights above us, and beneath it a group of amazing, cohesive people who love (meaning support) each other as much as you can love someone you don't know. And it's mind blowing. Like a warm hug in a cold airport, you can take solace from it when you need it and when you don't you give that comfort to others.

Maybe my dream is a less-familial version than the church but it would force people to think outside their universe.

I should know, I'm known for living in my own 'here and now' just a little too much. My world revolves around me and for once I'd like to walk past those lights instead of always being forced to stop and wait for the inevitable hugs from everyone who finds me there. Enough already.

A fistful of oxygen.

I was loaned a novel to read, it's called A Fistful of Rain by Greg Rucka. I think I stared at the cover for half an hour, looking at the title.

How clever.

Really clever.

I love it when words are spun, conveying an impossibility, finding a new angle from which to light an idea or thought that lends a new brilliance, previously unacknowledged.

The book was a well-meant luxury, an effort to convince me that while the kids are in school today I am to do something for me. Just me. Henry will spend his first entire morning at school today and we pick up them for lunch and then return Ruth to school for the second half while Henry is home in the afternoons.

Which gives me from shortly after nine until almost eleven-thirty kidless.

And it's Monday.

I know someone who has Mondays off.

He's very tall, very blonde and very sweet.

And we'll be home alone. Together.

Ha.

Something tells me A Fistful of Rain isn't going to find my attention today. I'll save it for the end of the week.

Digital sin.

I won a bet last night. Because I know who Axel Braun is.

Why do I know this stuff? I can't remember very important phone numbers and yet I have the entire biography of Axel Braun in my head taking up valuable space?

I don't think I have ever laughed so hard and it felt good.

Textbook.

My therapist has spoken with me at length about disassociating. It's when you fraction parts of your personality so that some parts can pretend or ignore the bad things that happen or emotions you really don't want to deal with. Good temporarily but very dangerous in the long run.

I don't know ANYONE who's doing that.

Do you?

In the meantime, I'm going to spend today wondering how long my self-anesthetizing will last this time. Because I still can't feel anything from Thursday except very mild bitterness at losing a friend (again) for good.

That isn't right.

Thirty-five days.

Last night was a departure from life's most recent betrayal, romance to the extreme, a sharp contrast designed by my husband to offset the misery of recent life. I did say that Jacob is proactive, fixing things as soon as they have to be fixed, well, you really have no idea. The timing of this night couldn't have been better.

He decided that being married to me for 35 whole days was something we needed to celebrate in fine style and that it was planned long before Ben crossed me so acutely.

I didn't see this coming.

After we put the kids to bed last night, PJ called and said he was on his way. Huh? Why? He chuckled and told me to ask Jacob. When I hung up I asked Jake and he smiled smugly and told me to go put on my best dress, because tonight was to be a black tie occasion.

So I did, with my swing coat too because nights are cold now.

I was putting on a little makeup and he walks in to find his hairbrush and he's in his very best suit and tie. Drop dead gorgeous. I stopped mid-gloss, that's how handsome he is.

PJ arrives to babysit and we leave. We drove over past the waterfront market and Jake parked the truck and then we walked down to the lawns and docks that stretch out beside the river. We got to the top of the stone steps leading to the boardwalk and Jake asked me to close my eyes. Then he led me down the steps slowly (this was scary-dark night, high heels, and my eyes are closed, on hundred year old stone steps set into grass. You try it!) and when my shoes hit wood he told me I could open my eyes.

Wow.

A beautiful table set for two. On the boardwalk right beside the water. Candles, white table linens, a tiny vase with a single white rose. And all the way around the table, strung from the lampposts were tiny white lights, sparkling and twinkling. It was breathtaking. He walked me to the table and took the rose, passing it to me. He told me the past thirty five days with me as his wife have been the greatest days of his life. He said he couldn't wait until we were celebrating thirty five years inside of mere days, and that things were going to get better because we have everything together.

I didn't even realize I had started to cry. Jacob wiped the tears away with his hands on my face. And he smiled at me.

He pulled my chair out for me and then he sat down too and a server appeared from nowhere. We had a tiny champagne toast, then stuffed mushrooms. Then orange-glazed cornish hen. I'm not understanding how he pulls these things off. I wasn't a great dinner partner, practically stunned into silence by the decadence of this night. From the edges of my vision I could see couples walking on the boardwalk and stopping to watch and I had that ever-present feeling that always strikes me about life continuing all around me while mine stands perfectly still.

Then Jake stood up and came around the table and offered me his hand. More surprises. We walked up to the pavilion, where there were more tiny white lights everywhere and then I heard what he would have heard while we were still seated: the classical guitar player. Playing for us.

I think I died and went to heaven. We danced, under the lights, under the stars and the low no-longer-new moon. It was so cold. The music flowed from slow to slower, and then back a little and when I wasn't being twirled around I could rest my head on Jacob's chest. He held me against him with his hand on the small of my back, his other hand holding my hand firmly.

We didn't talk while we danced. We didn't have too. I'm learning to live in the moment. I can do this. Jacob already knows how to do this. I'm still learning, an eager student.

Just as the last strains drifted away he offered me his arm. We returned to our table, where Jacob cemented the proof that he knows me best. Warm chocolate cake and coffee. Because by now we were freezing and so we ate quickly.

We took the water route back, talking about nothing of importance to anyone outside of our reach. Promising each other that we were going to take all the sorrow and drive it back far behind us, and that we were going to reach out and seize the future and break off huge portions of it, to be consumed in our ravenous need to move ahead.

It's nice to write about a night where everything is good. It's even nicer to tell you that I am making arrangements to blow Jacob away. This night was for me, and now I want to plan one for him.