Facing music.

(Make this 2 of 2, or maybe it's part 2 of 3 if I'm lucky and it has a happy ending.)

    Time heals, time congeals around us
    Endless hours of wasted moments
    Understanding, not demanding
    Your eyes tell what you feel inside

    Setting sun can't shine, now you're gone
    Inside sleeping, my heart beating
    You know that you tried to hide it
    Shouldn't you have said what you meant
We're going down in flames here, bit by bit. Don't be surprised if I haven't answered many calls or emails. You may be angry with Jacob but in a few moments you'll be disappointed in me too.

Though oddly enough, most of you have been incredibly easy on Jacob based simply upon the kind of man he has been so far. For that you would be right. For that, I appreciate every last word you're sending me.

After the airport incident, we flew on to Toronto. I told the kids we were taking a few days to visit friends, and Jake was going to miss us and that's why he cried but we'd be home again soon. I was stone. And I couldn't reach Loch. Loch is supposed to be my emergency guy and he wasn't there. My big plan to run was falling apart already if I had nowhere to go, my arms full with the children, my head empty, focused on keeping the kids feeling a safety and security I have never had. I couldn't go home to the coast either.

Besides, I went hellbent on revenge.

Sadly, the only other people I knew in Toronto were Keira (Loch's ex-girlfriend who hates me), and Caleb. I reached Caleb, who sent a car for us and then showed us around his steel and glass executive apartment, so surprised by his good fortune he didn't bother trying to conceal the residual cocaine party that recently took place on his coffee table.

(Ohnoes. Bridgetwhyareyouhere?)

He was leering and smug and he scared the ever-loving fuck out of me, so I feigned exhaustion and locked the kids with me in his bedroom while he probably pouted outside the door on his leather couch the whole night through. I reached Loch early the next morning and he came to get us without stopping to breathe. We were whisked away to the other side of the city, away from the decadence and glass to the noise and combustion of Chinatown, to his new tiny apartment up on the fifth floor of a rickety little house.

Friday was the anniversary of Cole's death. Again to try and hold it together I locked the three of us in a room that night when the kids fell asleep and I just waited it out, the remainder of that day. Alone. So so alone.

Saturday it was sinking in. I lived through the year. I lived through Cole and I would live through Jacob too. Loch wanted to take the kids to the fair to distract them so we did and Loch unleashed all of his rage at Jake upon my head. Loch and Jacob have been at odds forever now. Jacob took Loch's place in my life. I used to go to Loch for everything. Then once I met Jacob I switched allegiances and Jacob became the knight. And then the king. Loch finally had a concrete reason to resent him and we both had an opportunity and a motive for payback of the worst kind.

Saturday night we put the kids to bed in Loch's room and went out on the balcony with plans to get completely shitfaced. He brought out some drinks and put his arms around me, settling me against the railing and I rested my head on his chest while I looked out and we counted stars and watched the city come out to play and talked and he soon sought to exploit the comfort I found in him and I let him.

I let him, up against the railing with his hands on my hips and it felt so good just to be loved by Loch. He was to be the least-painful choice in my foolish bid for revenge-lite, as if I could put a degree on it. I've gone to him a lot over the years, truth be told, to get away from Cole and then to get away from Caleb, who I've gone to to get away from Cole.

So, yes, I slept with Loch. The satisfaction of exacting payback was so fleeting before the remorse came flooding in on top of me and I drowned in shame. He made a half-assed offer that I could stay with him, one we both knew I'd turn down. Why can't we be like everyone else?

Everyone else always seems so happy and without guilt or fear or problems on the grand scale everything is with us. How do they do that?

Let's be them. Let's find out.

I don't like the answers I have now. They only bring more questions.

Sunday morning Jacob broke down the door. He knew the moment he saw me what I had done. He looked like hell, anguish painted in his eyes like a shroud and I realized he drove straight through to get me back and when he saw me he didn't want me anymore. He turned and left and I haven't seen him or talked to him. He hasn't called for the kids, nothing. No one will give him up if they know where he is.

And yes, Loch flew back with us. Because this is his problem now too. He wasn't about to send me back alone and watch me slide into oblivion, not knowing if Jake is coming home or not. He's not staying here, he's admirably facing the music bravely as a friend and answering to our other friends. I'm hardly answering the phone and not holding up at all, in contrast. I risked my heart and now it's close to dying. Bouncing back was never something I did well.

It still hurts to think about Jacob touching Sophie for a comfort I will never be able to give him as much as it does to know that I set out to break his heart. That I even wanted to break his heart. God help me, what in the fuck is wrong with me that I would do that?

I want my husband back. I don't care why he did it, I don't care why I did it, I just know that he is mine, and I am his and whatever else happens I want to be with him.

I am sorry.

Distract and crucify.

    As you look around this room tonight
    Settle in your seat and dim the lights
    Do you want my blood, do you want my tears
    What do you want
    What do you want from me
    Should I sing until I can't sing any more
    Play these strings until my fingers are raw
    You're so hard to please
    What do you want from me

Sure I can still write with a broken heart. Been doing it for a long time now.

Would you like all of it or should I just see what I can get through? Let's make it part one, then. I have to start somewhere.

Lunch with Joel was fine, He and Jacob have been colleagues for years. He even spoke of spending a little time with Jacob and Sophie during the conference in Newfoundland, something Jacob never mentioned to me.

Remember Jacob's conference trip last winter? The one he ended drunk, inexplicably? I blamed it on his fear of flying, his concern over us being alone. There was no actual concern. Jacob was drunk because he was full of remorse he somehow managed to swallow in the past eight months between that day and last Thursday, when he admitted that he slept with Sophie that weekend, during his trip. Out of the blue.

Who the hell is Sophie, you ask?

Jacob's ex-wife.

He further reduced me to nothing when he tried to explain it away as soothing his own pain from the whole baby subject being over in my mind because he still wants one more child with me and because he wanted a night where he was with someone who had their shit together, in a nutshell. Because his ex-wife is pulled together and not crazy like little Bridget is.

Dealbreakers, everywhere, baby girl, I'm so sorry but you're fucked up and I wanted to remember 'normal'.

Want a minute to absorb it before I go on or do you want to run, like I did because fuck, Jacob is the last person who would ever do something like that and I hit bottom before I was packed, my faith in everything destroyed?

Absolutely nothing left to cling to, even as I watched him being escorted out of the airport by the police when he tried to physically keep me from leaving him. He almost dragged me to the floor in his desperate bid to keep me from walking through the security gate, even after the kids had already passed through, his fear something I could taste.

Where was that desperation when he was holding Sophie in his arms? When he made a conscious effort to push me out of his thoughts for a night, because I am difficult? Because living with me is hard work.

When he's screaming down an airport concourse that he loves me, that he only wants me and I'm about to be very far away and not the least bit swayed by his pleas and promises I took his strength and walked away with all of it.

Update: I went back and read the entry I wrote the day after he came home drunk I can see it now. It's right there in front of my face and I've been so busy loving Jacob's 'perfect' that I failed to see his flaws at all.

My heart is...just broken. Completely destroyed. There is no point in trying to protect it.

No worries, guys. We're at Lochlan's. He let me borrow his laptop. If PJ is having fun with you at my house on my laptop please kill him for me, someone.

Caleb thought this was hilarious. I've never run before, and certainly not to him. Loch rescued us yesterday as soon as I could reach him. Caleb is a functional drug addict. Did you know? I didn't.

We'll be here for a bit yet. Maybe a week. Apparently Jake is on his way by truck which gives me at least three days to think, knowing how far he'll drive each day. And I'm not sorry I didn't stay and hash it out because he told me things I wished I never heard, and then for good measure he said he didn't want to be around me. So why is he coming?

Oh the fucking story I could tell but I won't today. I'm far too busy trying to keep my heart from falling onto the pavement while I try and keep the world upright and seek my retribution.

Comments are off and I have a flight booked for the kids and I tonight. We're going to Toronto. If you have a kind wish, fling it this way in spirit.

Apt and obvious.

From Dictionary.com so there's no mistake:

    pro∑found /pr?'fa?nd/ [pruh-found] Pronunciation Key
    -er, -est, noun
    ñadjective
    1. penetrating or entering deeply into subjects of thought or knowledge; having deep insight or understanding: a profound thinker.
    2. originating in or penetrating to the depths of one's being; profound grief.
    3. being or going far beneath what is superficial, external, or obvious: profound insight.
    4. of deep meaning; of great and broadly inclusive significance: a profound book.
    5. pervasive or intense; thorough; complete: a profound silence.
    6. extending, situated, or originating far down, or far beneath the surface: the profound depths of the ocean.
    7. low: a profound bow.
    8. deep.
    ñnoun Literary.
    9. something that is profound.
    10. the deep sea; ocean.
    11. depth; abyss.

Amantium irae amoris integratio est

(The quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love, it means.)

Floating on the wings of a cast-iron moth she crashed to earth and realized that nothing was changing. Nothing ebbed, nothing flowed. There was no air. The extreme joy and delight with which she looks at him still gives her pause, makes her goosebump all over and fills her up with thankfulness and gratefulness and incredulity. He is no less starstruck by their union and the perceived societal time-line imposed by those with no similar emotions fails to dent their spark.

Sometimes now that light is tinged with shadows, for she is wary of luck, suspicious of good fortune and used to worlds crashing into fire all around her. And so is this always the beginning of the end? Is it an eventual disaster biding time? Is it a price that will be paid at date to be determined later?

Are you running on borrowed time, Bridget?

No, I wasn't.

As long as you don't bring it up I'm not afraid to wake up breathless. I'm adjusting to those goosebumps and the lump that rises in my throat when he touches me. OhhessobeautifulsobeautifulIwanttocry.

I can hear him now when sometimes I'll head upstairs first in the evening. To wash my face, brush my teeth, put on a little eye cream to try to stave off the ravages of sun and time so he will always see me as he did that first night, well-lit in forgiving semi-darkness, reflected in the water, preparing to unwind in style with few cares in this world or the next.

I laugh, because alone I have ravaged myself and all the potions and hopes in the universe aren't going to lessen my damaged interior. They can't reach. It's simply too far.

(Prettyontheoutside)

I hear him talk easily, a guarded film coating his voice when he can't find the right words but still so much better than before. We made it to this place. The together-place and so everything after will eventually sort out.

He is still amazed that he can touch her and she goosebumps all over, that he can tell her he loves her so and it brings her to tears when it should make her happy and she assures him it does but then why is she sad?

He knows, I think he knows. And I thought I was adjusting.

Had I had half a chance I would have presented myself perfectly. Oh my, the love then! Could you imagine it, if only for a moment to indulge me, if he and I had met and there would have been no others. No commitments, no baggage, no details, no established flaws in her being, none of this to work through. Oh sure I would have been depressed but hopefully only mildly so, well-managed and not stifled by the games of another without my best interests in his heart. Oh no.

It would have been perfect. Imagining perfect is what you ride through imperfect. It's what buoys you through rough seas and long hurricane nights. It's what, foolishly, we cling to. All of us.

It's a poor description of faith, he tells me. A joke, a cop-out. An excuse for lack of trying. A despicable thought. Faith doesn't come with a price. There is no eventual crash-landing, God doesn't exist on an iron moth any more than Bridget has to pay for her sins anymore.

Some would argue that he does and she will.

Jacob would argue that she already did and not to stick God in metaphors to suit one's will. God is God and that is that.

Bridget has paid, and there is no longer a cloud over her head. His year is up and he is no longer taking a back seat to dead abusive husbands, petulance or princesses with peas up their arses. Nor stupid friends, counselors who wish to carry out experiments or any definition of what appears to be right or wrong to the greater population. Life is now. Life starts here. Goosebumps are welcome, appreciated and so freakin' neat.

In other words, we haven't gotten anywhere but I don't feel like spelling that out. It's becoming so painfully obvious.

Butterflies are deaf.

The morning, for your imagination's pleasure.

    She's all that I see
    And all that I breathe
    Take a breath and hold her in
    As the shadows whispering

    And I can hear the laughter
    Knowing what they're after
    While she flies beside me
    A man with broken wings

There is a crack that runs from the floor to the ceiling in a lazy zigzag in the front hallway. The pictures on the walls are never straight. There might be muddy paw prints on the kitchen floor and the sun comes beaming through the sheer curtains each morning, beginning in the front hall and working through the house to dip below the fence that separates our yard from the next.

There are dirty teacups in the sink, and stack of books on the steps waiting to be put away on the crowded shelves upstairs. A giant Nova Scotia flag flutters gently in the porch window now and a giant Newfoundlander sings Gravedancer in the music room downstairs, because the kids appear to be sleeping in today. We leave the basement door open in the summer and the laundry's thundering in the ever-noisy dryer but Jacob sings above it, never shy about singing as loud as he feels the urge. I can hear him perfectly.

Perhaps instead of the carpentry as a new career he could go back to being a rock star.

Well, a fledgling rock star anyway. I can hear the girlies screaming again now. God how they screamed. Oh I was so happy when he gave it up and he didn't even belong to me then.

The coffeepot is full, and so is my heart this morning. All is well.

I meet Joel for lunch at 1 pm sharp.

    And everytime that we feel it
    It's just another long wasted night
    And the dance that we tear
    Is just another way for you to roll over me
    And the bed that we're sharing
    Is the home that I wanna bring you
    Want to feel you
    I don't want to hear you

Berry extravaganza update.

We now have six pies and will soon have eight jars of jam for the dry pantry. I froze the rest. I don't think I'll ever need to see another strawberry in my lifetime. Pies have been dispatched to PJ's mom, one to Ben, one to the new neighbors on our right, one to Chris if he uses two hands to eat it, one to creepy Jack down the street (long story) and one to keep for late night snacks for Jacob, who has already pointed out he plans to eat the whole thing for dinner so maybe we shouldn't have given one to Chris.

Them's sour berries, I said.

I need a recipe for Strawberry cake because I would have rather had that. Unfortunately I have a knack for scratch pie crust. Who knew?

Tomorrow is lunch with Joel. Should give me lots to write about.

Endless afternoons.

He smiled at me from across the porch as I sat in the sun on the peeling boards of the steps we never find time to paint, hulling strawberries with his jackknife, my lips stained full and red from eating as many as I put in the bowl, cheeks burned pink from sun and wind, my hair tangled into knots and full of dirt. My legs were bare, splayed out in front of me as I sat trying to keep the newspaper and the big tin bowl centered so the mess stayed in one place. Dirt under my nails, even, dirt on the hem of my dress.

You look beautiful. Are you going to do jam or pies?

Thank you, and both, I think. There's enough.
He laughed and went back to reading his paper.

We've been busy working on our communication skills, like allowing each other time to get the words out before we jump all over context. And doing Five Things, which is when we verbally list five things we are thankful for in that day or moment before daring to complain about something we don't have or can't seem to reach.

For some reason we're always strolling through the farmer's market when we come up with the best lists and then we get distracted, forget to complain at all and wind up bringing home strange things like parsnips (no one in this house really enjoys a parsnip) or twenty pounds of berries, like yesterday.

Want some?