Hey mom, I think I did better this time.

More flowers came today. Ethereal pale blue roses. I didn't know roses came in blue. I have been staring at them curiously. They're softer, more pastel than Jacob's washed blue eyes, but deeper grey undertones than the sky. This entire week is a glorious departure as I fight to catalogue the hundred million ways Jacob is proving his worth as the world's most romantic man and completely ignore all the other stuff that's going on in between his gestures. So far so good.

Last night was a tailgate party for two.

He's silly. He told me to bundle up good, there was something out in the garage that he needed help with. I swore at him mildly and he laughed. It was after 9 pm. I was warm, I was snuggled under a blanket embroidering pillowcases. Because my fingers always have to be doing things and it's not always convenient to have them trailing over his skin somewhere on his lanky frame all the time. Especially when he's ticklish. Ticklish and on the phone and slamming doors as he stomped back and forth between the den and outdoors.

He waited for me in the doorway, hands shoved into his pockets, wearing my favorite quilted flannel shirt that he wears. It's blue plaid and I steal it every chance I get because it smells like him and it's warm. Much warmer than his old corduroy jacket but not quite as cumbersome as the big Carhartt.

He smiled, his eyes full of mirth and pleading.

Just come, princess.

For you, I will, but if anyone else asks, forget it, buster.

I got ready and followed him out to the garage. I could hear music, he has music on constantly when he works. I picked out Bryter Later. Drake. Uh-oh, he's totally up to something.

Raise your hand if you've ever walked into a candlelit garage.

He had the tailgate down and the window up on the cap of the truck, a blanket spread in the box, and a picnic all set up. Champagne (a tiny bottle just for a toast). Take-out chinese. I don't know how he managed that. Apparently they deliver to our back door now. Cake. Our stadium blankets to put over our legs while we shared the meal.

We ate out of the boxes with chopsticks, snuggled together in the truck. I noticed the baby monitor on the workbench just as I was about to suggest we sneak in and check on the kids. I think he thought of everything.

After he cleared away our dessert plates and refilled my glass he got all flustery and weird for a moment. The same way he was when that hot air balloon rose up into the air and all I could think was, well, don't be stupid, he already proposed and you've been married forever, now.

Of course.

So I just watched the antics on his face as he tried on twenty different expressions and settled for sheepish pride. Or what appeared to be sheepish pride, maybe it was embarrassing gloat.

He raised his glass.

I...

Then he stopped and turned away and fumbled in his pocket and he turned back around and started over.

I really wanted you to have a new necklace that you can wear all the time because you can't wear your pearls every day and I know you always had your heart necklace on all the time before and..just open it, princess.

He passed me the box and took my glass.

A blue box, from Birks.

I opened it slowly and light poured out everywhere.

Look, if you don't like it I can take it back and we'll find you something different but I think it'll look pretty on you.
Bridget couldn't speak. She became a deer in the headlights. Bridget just sat there and stared at it and nodded. It was a diamond pendant, one that slides. He had a habit of sliding my old necklace around and around my neck when we were having conversations in bed and I haven't worn a necklace other than my pearls (but not to bed) since that night in May. We had looked at this one once before but I pulled him out of the store because it was a small fortune.

He put it around my neck and centered the pendant in the hollow, that hollow. The giant flaming erogenous zone that sends fireworks off inside my head when he touches it.

Now it's a permanent touch, and permanent fireworks.

He sat back and stared at me, relieved in reading my expression of dazed adoration.

You like it, then?

I nodded and put my hand up to touch it.

Good. Cause I kind of like you.

I'm very poor company at this point. A nodding speechless Bridget. Jacob is not the kind of man who buys diamonds. Ever. I don't think his first wife had an engagement ring even.

He laughed. Finished both the champagnes and then swore at the cold night and suggested we go inside and find some warmth. He blew out all the candles and turned off the stereo. We loaded the plates into the picnic basket and locked up. He told me I looked even prettier now and he didn't know how that was possible.

I briefly began a trip on a train of thought that involved remembering I don't deserve this, that no one should be buying me diamonds and putting an effort into making me happy, and he read my mind and he shook his head and whispered to me and I heard it clearly and I listened and followed his advice.

Don't, Bridget. Don't harbor any doubts about anything. Just know that I love you.
And then he laughed because I was crying. Because I was happy.

V is for the most valiant of knights. And Valentines Day. And victory over the hardest times.

Happy Valentine's Day.

I want the whole world to be in love, at least for this day. I'm teased mercilessly for my childlike idealism about love and I don't even care.

I won't even tell you how I was woken up this morning. It's gloriously unprintable. But I would like to wake up that way forever, please and thank you. I have a smile chiseled into my face.

And every time I turned on a lamp or a ceiling light the bulb was red. He put red bulbs in every single fixture. I am thrilled. It's beautiful. We couldn't see a thing.

The kids were thrilled when they came downstairs for breakfast and found white teddy bears, new red pencils and heart-shaped chocolates by their places at the table. Today is a fun day planned at school, they went off with their backpacks loaded down with paper valentines and sugar cookies to distribute, taking no notice of the -41 degree windchill.

I dreaded starting today off with therapy and so I cancelled early, by voicemail, much to Jacob's swift and Claus' eventual disappointment. Things have smoothed out and I don't want today to be ruined. I don't seem to be holding my breath, maybe I am. Maybe ratcheting down to the basics and taking the pressure off and Caleb being far away and everyone just being present and yet slightly absent has helped. Routine helps. Running helps so much, even if it's on the stupid treadmill because it's too cold to be outside. Being busy helps, being happy helps. Oh my God, being happy is such a phenomenal accomplishment. I'm not standing at the airport waiting for the plane, weighed down by the specter of a past I never welcomed but wouldn't put down.

Life is good.

Is Jacob holding his breath?

He says no. He smiles very very wide so I can count at least twelve big white chiclet-teeth straight across the top row of his grin before I fall into the dimple holes. I know he says this for my benefit and that he does, anyway. But he is happy.

Claus is more hesitant, speaking only of Bridget being in a high and doing really well but he knows, as do we all, highs are followed by unspeakable depths. But for today, I'm okay. I am going back as I promised him I would, next week as scheduled, sooner if I need to.

First thing this morning also saw the delivery of the most breathtaking red roses ever. And Jacob smiled even wider then, at my surprise, because I figured three bouquets already was so amazing, I jumped on him, kissing every inch of his face that maybe I may have possibly missed before. I gave him his present early, because I wanted him to enjoy it for the whole day through. A new watch. A neat eco-drive with a blue face and this one is waterproof, his old swiss army fiasco was not because he smashed it against a rock and it was never reliable again but he just kept wearing it. This one is engraved. It suits him and he loves it.

Finally it was requested that I make no plans tonight, that plans had been established for us. No babysitter required, as these plans will commence after the kids go to bed and take place here at home.

Interesting...

He wouldn't tell me if it would involve Stoli on the dining room table because he wants people to think he is too buttoned-up for that. He grinned while he refused to answer any incriminating questions but he walked around most of the morning talking about how he really hoped it would warm up later on.

    If I could through myself
    Set your spirit free
    I'd lead your heart away
    See you break, break away
    Into the light
    And to the day

    To let it go
    And so to fade away
    To let it go
    And so fade away

    I'm wide awake
    I'm wide awake
    Wide awake
    I'm not sleeping
I'm almost convinced that if I looked outside the window right now, there might be a white horse tied up somewhere in the yard, a trusty steed for my knight in warm flannel.

Have a wonderful day. I hope you're in love.

War of the roses.

We're affecting a habit here. The flower shop deliveryman just left. He thinks this is a riot.

Today has brought lavender roses.

I've never even heard of lavender roses before.

And I am officially a rotten, no-good girl, having picked a fight with Mr. Incredible mere moments ago as he headed down to work for a little bit. Well, maybe that's harsh analysis, for it was mostly a disagreement about something that can't be fixed anyways, so my stance was not to even think about it, while he wants to process it, and deal with it and accept it. My apathy drives him up the wall. He thinks I don't care, and he refuses to accept that the apathy is my coping method. If I think about it I'll dissolve. 'What' I'll not think about will be left to another time, simply because I'm not ready to bring it up any further than I just did. My mistake.

So now I'm feeling guilty for not just giving in to everything he wants because he's being adorable. Balance is a difficult thing for me, I've made no secret about being easily influenced by Jacob to the point where he calls all the shots, micro-managing Bridget to the point where it could become unhealthy. I said could.

I'm just trying to not fall into old habits. He means well, he really does. And it would be a good move overall to deal with things, but perhaps it would also destroy whatever place I have come to emotionally, and I'm not willing to sacrifice this for the greater good. Would you?

In the meantime, my house smells like an English garden. I had forgotten how beautiful roses are, especially in the drab, cold days at the end of winter.

Turning pages.

The massage turned out to be a deeply appreciated early Valentine's Day present. He smiled all through the day, sliding under the door when he arrived back home and draping himself over various pieces of furniture. He said he didn't think he'd ever feel solid again and he was happy to have the gift of relaxation. Jacob seems so laid-back but I don't think he ever actually is so this was a welcome change.

He did make pancakes too, heart-shaped ones. I can't even fathom. He decorated the plates with strawberries and drizzled syrup hearts over everything. Lots of butter. I love butter.

And more flowers came, just after lunch. Yellow roses. A dozen. They're huge and gloriously sweet-smelling. I don't know where to put them, since the pink ones are on the dining room table, so they're on the kitchen table and I keep having to scoop the cat away from them. She loves to eat flowers. Jacob swore at her mightily but laughed and audibly hoped for a rose-smelling litter box by the end of the day.

This morning he took me to the bookstore after we took the kids to school and we surrendered to our inner yuppies, drinking complicated coffees and splitting a piece of cake and he asked me to choose a book for us for him to read aloud. I chose Fitzgerald, surprising Jacob, who had expected me to chose the darker Hawthorne. We have the greatest discussions about writing sometimes that lead us down some very unexpected paths.

He said we would start it tonight. After a long bubblebath.

Which is just what I need. I hope it's for two.

For the record, he really wasn't all that impressed with my heavy spending yesterday and so I relented slightly, ordering just the dress in the end. He did say he was also looking forward to seeing me in it, so all is well.

Roses and Thai.

I feel like I'm live-blogging the romance of the century here, some days.

Last night brought me a delivery of a dozen baby-pink roses, and a plea elicited from Jacob that I would feed the kids but not eat and he would bring home Pad Thai later on. He knows the way to my heart. I have a thing for it. I have a little squeal of delight whenever he offers it. Pad Thai! Pad Thai! Pad Thai! I only had to promise him a late night lapdance.

Oh, please, preacher boy, you can have one of those anytime your big heart desires, my head said. My mouth played coy.

I promise, Jake.

Good, I've got a little present for you to wear.
The present turned out to be a very incredibly cute pink bra and panties set with white embroidery that I was loathe to let him take off me because they were so very pretty.

But Jacob gets what he wants, always. And to tell you the truth, by the time they were off I had forgotten all about everything, save for his hands on me.

I have no idea what today will bring. It's his day off and right now he's walking around in his longjohns again, flexing his muscles and talking about making pancakes. He's a clown today. He keeps interrupting me with kisses that have reduced me to mush. Bridget the marshmallow. Aw. S'more, please, honey. Snort. He could cover me in chocolate and I would never complain.

What he doesn't know is that since today is his day off I'm sending him for an hour-long massage this afternoon. He had one while we were in Whistler and loved it. I know he'll be surprised. I love to spoil him rotten, for he has earned it living with me.

Easy like Sunday morning.

Who am I kidding? Sundays are the busiest day of the week around here. Which is why I'm losing bagel crumbs all over my keyboard and typing standing up while I pull up my tights and try and keep my skirt from sticking itself to my legs with all the static I carry around. I'm balancing my cell phone and my coffee cup and trying to reassure Jacob that yes, we're leaving in five minutes, honey.

He'll be already pacing in the vestibule, not looking at his watch but instead checking the sidewalk for his three favorite blondes, bundled up and rushing furiously.

Stacked on the table in front of me are 64 Winnie-the-Pooh valentine cards, 24 chocolate cupids, wrapped individually and 36 heart-shaped sugar cookies. Henry has a party for his day at Kindergarten and Ruth expressed her wishes to fill up her friends with cards and chocolate.

They have a short week this week with inservices and report cards going out and it's hard to believe it was a year ago that I called the school for a tour and subsequently registered the kids for public school, thereby hanging up my hat as a homeschooling mom. It's still the best decision I ever made and the kids are thriving and having fun, making friends and absorbing so much information that each night I have to wring them out so they can start fresh the next day. Ruth has advanced 15 reading levels in the past 3 months and Henry writes all his letters with ease and loves to choose books to bring home for Ruth and I to read to him.

Jacob has announced that this year Valentine's Day will be abandoned in favor of Valentine's Week. I don't know what this means for me, but I have several surprises up my sleeves for him, and we're both buoyed by the news that it will be thirty degrees warmer by the end of this week anyway. That's enough reason to celebrate, don't you think?

Yes, I'm well aware that the King of Romance has thrown down a promise the likes of which will become legend in our universe. I'm a little bit floaty off the ground with tingling thoughts of anticipation and trying desperately to ignore it, because I won't get anything done this way!

Yes, so now I'm late. Shit.

King, clown, bear or braids.

Those were the choices I gave the kids tonight on the way home from hockey. Nothing says successful comedienne like a captive audience, and by 6 pm, after being on the go since early this morning, I was worn out and not in the mood to come home and wait another thirty minutes to get dinner on the table.

Eating out on Saturday night is as much a part of the day as shrugging Henry into gear that costs more than my entire wardrobe and the kids use the supper as their cue to sack out all over the table and begin a chorus of whines and droopy eyes that signify that they have had enough of the day and would like it to end, please.

I wrestled them from the restaurant to the car and from the car into the house where they gave me big huge sighs of happy exhaustion in their showers and they were both asleep before 7:30. I called Jake to let him know we were home, he had a wedding this afternoon and was still deeply ensconced in work and was thrilled we had fun today and sad that he had to miss it. He won't be home for another hour so I'll heat up the shepherd's pie and we'll settle in for a movie and a long snuggle.

I like days when I'm too busy to think much. Jacob has a neat way of ensuring that I remain on an incline by filling up our spare time with fun activities and events and making sure that life runs smoothly in a way that allows me to breath, and rest and run and enjoy, above all else. He's amazing in his ability to find balance when I stop resisting his efforts. He even jokingly chided me for not bringing a burger home to heat up for him later, despite my assurances that none of it is healthy or organic and the only thing worse than fast food is reheated fast food. He prefers healthier fare but we can get him to eat all kinds of junk far too easily, much to his chagrin.

Right now I've got an hour to myself, and I'm going to restring my violin and play until the alarm beeps to tell me Jacob is home.

For the record, the kids unanimously choose the bear.

Secretly I like the bear the best.

And no worries, I wasn't driving, PJ played chauffeur for us, which was nice. He'll do pretty much anything for a trip to see the Root bear.

A very big accomplishment for a very tiny girl.

In the past twenty-four hours I have hand-hemmed four pairs of sheers, and scaled a very tiny part of a forty-foot wall.

The first because a hundred year old Victorian house has no business having blinds instead of sheers under the drapes.

The second because I married the mother of all adrenaline junkies.

He wasn't present on the day in which three teenage McDonald's employees had to rescue me from a tube at the top of an indoor playland back in 2004. He insists that once I conquer some heights I will gain more confidence (I don't have a fear of heights. I just hate being up high now. It wasn't this way when I traveled with the shows.) He has waxed so hard on the mental strength climbing brings that I can see my reflection in our conversations. And he's confessed that he wants a climbing buddy whose ass he actually enjoys looking at on the way up.

Who can argue with that?

And so Bridget goes to Beginner Climbing Lessons for Adults for the next six months and Mr. Junkie here is taking a ice climbing course because he couldn't sit still if you stapled him to a chair.

Here's the part where I admit I had a ball. And also, the sheers, they look fantastic. And I cannot lift my arms anymore so this is it. Call it an entry.

Go me! (Waves tiny chalky fists).

TGIF.

Incendiary.

The day we left the east coast for the middle of the country, I drove down to the beach house at sunrise to say goodbye. I'll never forget that day. Poetic in its sadness, some days I wish I could have it wiped from my memory and some days I wish I could have wallowed in it longer.

When I came up the stairs, Jacob was sitting on a chair on the deck, baggy jeans hiked up to his knees, his feet up on the railing, tilting the chair back while he worked through Incubus' Drive, a song I hear now and wallow for the entire three minutes and fifty-two seconds that it plays.

    It's driven me before and it seems to be the way
    that everyone else gets around.
    But lately I'm beginning to find that when
    I drive myself my light is found
    Whatever tomorrow brings
    I'll be there with open arms and open eyes
    Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there
    I'll be there.
    Would you choose water over wine
    Hold the wheel and drive

He stopped playing in the middle of the song and put the guitar down, standing up and turning to face me. Forever I wanted to remember that Jacob never wears shoes, if he can help it. He hates shoes. Then I wondered why I was searching for such unremarkable details to remember when the remarkable one was standing right in front of me.

I stood riveted to one spot, the wind whipping my hair around my face, stinging my eyes, exposed to the elements in hopes that they would consume me. It was a moment of truth. Inevitable.

He stood in front of me, leaning on the rail, his pale blue shirt worn around the edges of the collar, the brand new sky reflected in faded cotton to match his endless eyes. He was angry but we were still formal enough to be civilized in what had to be the most shameful and gratifying moment of our relationship, where he would finally step forward to confirm what I knew, that it wasn't goodbye by any means, and it never would be.

I looked down, unable to meet his eyes. Hoping he wouldn't see the tears that had welled up in my eyes when he turned around as I tried to tightly clutch every last detail of him to my heart.

He refused to allow me that one small grace, instead lifting my chin with his hand to meet his pained expression, his thumb tracing my bottom lip in a gesture I knew was meant to soothe me and bring me comfort but instead it caused wracking pain that radiated right through me, to the bottom of my soul. And I shook my head and refused to divulge my emotions, for once. Out of fear of so many things, I stood my ground.

If I told you all the things he did to me, you'd never touch me like that again.

I would touch you, Bridget. I would die for you, princess. That's how much I love you.

I love you and that's why I need to go. I can't do this. I can't be here anymore.

You need to be here. How can you tell me you love me and then leave here to go with him? Is this fair? How can you stand here and make this choice when, if you're telling me the truth, you don't love him as much as you love me?

I need to go. I don't have a choice.

You're killing me, Bridget.

I'm sorry.

I whispered it as I pushed past him and he grabbed my arm but I wrenched it out of his grasp and ran, down the stairs and then out on to the boardwalk and down the beach, where I found my car and drove home recklessly, gasping for air, every breath searing my lungs, matching the agony in my heart. I couldn't see.

I didn't touch him, hold him, kiss him or look at him.

I ran instead.

I didn't see him for close to a year. He missed Ruth's birthday and Henry's too, he got married in what had to be the grandest effort ever to forget about me after being dealt a blow that was only surpassed by the one Cole dealt, the one in which he packed us up and moved us far away to a new place. With no Jacob, no Caleb, no Lochlan, no family, no familiarity at all and we started over again in a last ditch effort to make things work. I didn't want things to work but I was told that they would, if we were away. I was terrified, and Jacob was beside himself with fear but somehow we all swallowed it down and did what we had to do to survive and what we needed to do to hurt each other so that it would be easier to get on with our lives.

He lasted ten months, having instantly regretted that route. So he packed up his life and moved here, buying a house a few blocks away from us. It was the best news I've ever heard.

And now just about every week or so we have an argument that degenerates into one of those ugly conversations in which you drag all the issues in and invariably this is the biggest one that remains outside of my issues with being sexually depraved, or maybe it's all related anyway because Jacob wanted to know how Cole was able to control me and how he hurt me so that I ended up this way and I still can't tell him very much at all.

I'm hoping it will just go away, that time will fade it to the point where I can no longer read my own memories and that it will become a fog that I have few details about, and that he will relax and breath deeply and not feel as if he must somehow conquer time-travel in order to return to our past, prevent the pain, prevent whatever happened that changed Bridget forever, and then bring us forward into the future without fracturing our intact lives as we know them. What I wouldn't give to take the moment where I snapped and became less of a person and rewind it so that it never happened.

The moment was when I ran from Jacob. He doesn't realize.

This isn't a time-traveling world and instead the planet spins on and we try to digest the past, consume the present and prepare the feast of the future, in hopes that it will be the best repast of our lives.

And for some reason known only to us, that moment in which he said he would still touch me became a golden shining moment of joy for me. That he would willingly take a broken, injured, flawed and bruised Bridget anyway, no matter what had happened, no matter what she had done or what had been done to her, he wanted her anyway. She said goodbye and he refused to accept it as a permanent gesture, working towards their reunion instead, however long and difficult the trip back proved to be, we made it.

This kind of love doesn't happen very often, of that I'm sure.

Right under his nose.

Raise your hand if you've ever completely failed to see something because your significant other refused to allow it, in fear that you might somehow be offended.

This is the same man who pees on me in the shower and sometimes will absentmindedly eat food that I might have already sampled, licked or otherwise consumed and then changed my mind and put back.

This morning when we came in outdoors two of my fingertips cracked again. My god, it's so cold. And the wind. The merciless fucking wind! Jacob turned around just inside the kitchen door and gathered up my fingertips in his hands and he blew on them until they were warm. I love it when he does that, it's very tender and intimate.

And no I didn't get bored staring into his crazily blue twinkly eyes, I was simply studying his face.

And what the....

Huh?

Oh. Hahahahaha.

I started to laugh.

What?

There's something under your nose, Jacob.
I didn't mean the goofy mustacheish type swatch of blonde stubble he pairs with that shaggy beard. This was....

Something else.

Well, shit!

He dropped my hands and went upstairs and I didn't see him for 15 minutes. When he returned it was gone. He was pinkish and sheepish, mumbling something about having forgotten to look after it before it reached that point.

His nose hair.

And we're even. Because I do mine too. Like once a year when I notice it actually exists.

He didn't think that was funny. I pointed out he could have worse secrets to keep.

He covered his ears and turned pinker, if it were even possible.

It's okay, Jake. I noticed your ear-hair years ago.