Worth it.

I spent a couple of hours cleaning and catching up on laundry and business emails this morning. Bogged down and concentrating on wrapping it all up before lunch so we can head downtown this afternoon and surprise Jacob at school and take him out for dinner or something fun. Something different.

I went up to find the kids to tell them lunch was ready. They go off and play for hours alone now, creating fantastical play worlds or painstakingly building Lego villages or whatever captures their imaginations. They're independent.

I found them in the new guest room, the room that used to be the master bedroom before we moved to the back bedroom. The radio was on, playing classical music. Ruthie was in her ballerina costume and Henry was wearing Jacob's very best suit jacket, a tie knotted in a droopy bow around his neck. They were dancing in each other's arms. I stood and watched quietly as Henry spun Ruth around and then struggled to dip her as he has seen Jacob do to me.

And then I watched as the song faded to an end and Henry moved in very close to Ruth and put his hands on her cheeks and kissed her nose and smiled. As he has seen Jacob do to me.

That makes it worth it.

With friends like these.

   So clever, whatever, I'm done with these endeavors
    Alone I'll walk the winding way (here I stay)
    It's over, no longer, I feel it growing stronger
    I live to die another day, until I fade away

    Why give up? Why give in?
    It's not enough, it never is
    So I will go on until the end
    We've become desolate
    It's not enough, it never is
    But I will go on until the end

I suppose I need to get on with it now. Four of us know what happened, the rest would like the lights put on now. An existentialist, nihilistic turn of the tides today and a very uncomfortable post. I'm sure I'll leave something out.

It's long overdue. I'm always the last one to move. Turtle-girl. Jacob's morelasses lassy. Stuck in her fears. Spurred into action only through panic and pain. It makes me laugh because it sounds ridiculous but that's exactly what it is. What it was.

Lochlan and Benjamin will no longer be a part of our lives. We're done. It's over. I'm cutting ties and breaking hearts all over this country this week. You would be surprised at the lengths to which I am going to go to save this marriage.

Beginning with ending relationships that aren't healthy. There's two factors I've never given much thought to in my relationships and I finally see this. It's as clear as day. Jacob's been beating his head against a rock for years trying to make me see and I'd almost see it and then drop it like it burned.

The first thing is that I'm so used to not trusting people that I automatically come to not expect it. That allows a permissiveness. There's no accountability. I expect you've already failed or will fail me and so I let you off the hook without consequences. Doormat.

The second is that I refuse to make decisions. That has to stop. I'll move heaven and earth with my mighty little hands before I 'll choose. I'll sit forever on everything and never make the choices before me. I'll defer to you, to anyone. I'm so used to not being consulted after years of having choices made for me I am incapable of doing it anymore and it's coming back slowly. Oh so slowly. I only picked Jacob at long last because I would have died if he had left my life for good.

If I don't have to make choices I'll never have to be responsible for the outcomes. I'm never accountable. I'm delicate and above reproach. I was Cole's porcelain doll and I liked it that way. And then I was that to everyone. Hey, the more the merrier. No one's here for my mind or my heart. They like the doll and I like the attention. I don't care if it's negative. It could be the worst kind of negative and it would never be as bad as Cole and so I perpetuated the most unhealthy, destructive, sickly permissive friendships you'll ever imagine in your head. Letting them run my life and giving them access to touch. No respect for my body or my self. Loch. Such a long history with Loch.

Jacob came along and was a little weird on all of it. But he brought something else. Respect for me. A refusal to decide for me, instead forcing me to choose for myself, even if it took forever.

Of course everyone was still off listening to whatever Cole told them. He was the ultimate spinmaster. He was like an icon to my friends. They followed his word as law and so even in death they listened to him. And oh did he ever have a plan.

Sometime between Cole's attack on me and his suicide attempt he wrote letters to Jacob, Loch, Ben and I promising this plan for my future. Or so we think. When my letters were destroyed Ben and Loch decided to keep this secret against Jacob's will.

Cole wanted to mobilize our friends to take his place.

As a...group.

Cole offered them a polyfidelitous, polyandrous fantasy. With me.

Fucked-up, freaky, depressed, medicated, suicidal, deaf little Bridget.

Way to aim high, guys.

Cole was always obsessed with the subjects of open marriages, polygamy, polyamory, and the aspects of cheating versus nurturing multiple deep relationships. Maybe he knew Jacob and I better than we know ourselves, each other even. Maybe we are puppets. After all, my indiscretions with Loch set it into motion and my previous indiscretions (holy whore) with Jacob probably fueled Cole's fire. The road was now paved with permission, to move in and close ranks. To fight each other off while they promised me I'd be okay.

Ben told me the only reason he left now was because he felt left out, like he would never have a chance. Like he would always be last and so he was the first to cave in, especially since he feared someone or all of us would wind up hurt. Ben cracked first at the thought of leaving my life for the next four months.

Cole never trusted anyone one hundred percent but he did always want me to feel taken care of, financially, physically, emotionally. To solve that issue, ensure my comfort and satisfy his twisted bent for sexual deviancy, he wanted to form a collective, a group arrangement whereby I would be cared for and loved and kept safe and supported and everyone would get something for their efforts, for their cooperation.

A piece of Bridget.

I was to sleep with all of them regularly and exclusively, and Jacob and I would share parenting of the kids besides. No one would be above the other in relation to me and they would be faithful to me. I would be exclusive property of not one, but three men, who would all be accountable in their actions to each other. Something he knew would destroy Jacob if it didn't destroy me first.

They were taking their time, he asked them to take it slowly. He knew I would adjust to change so slowly. He knew I would warm to it. Eventually.

He knew me so well. Did he ever know me at all? I knew him and I wasn't surprised by his invention, what surprised me was Loch and Ben running with the ball like they have. Hungrily so.

I went from party favor to timeshare. And I never even knew. I'm embarrassed, ashamed and confused. I'm disappointed in Cole. I'm disappointed in all of them for never telling me.

Cole asked Loch and Ben to quietly infiltrate (destroy) my relationship with Jacob so that I would see him as only part of a larger image, instead of as the whole picture. Hence the offers, the admissions and the awful conversations, the situations and the encounters. How many times did I write here that both of them were so weird now? Jacob was told that he was only part of my life and that he'd never be everything so not to fight it.

They were never looking to ease my grief or give me a better life, they wanted their share.

And Jacob became possessive and angry, waging a one-man battle, sleeping with one eye open, aware of the betrayal lurking behind the scenes but unable to tell me. Watching me flit from man to man like a wounded butterfly, watching me fuck up.

He couldn't tell me and they wouldn't tell me. They would have denied it, leaving me to question Jacob. The damage was being done, don't you see? As much as I relished his unusual, breathless devotion, his actions would have eroded the trust we've tried to build. And I trust that all of his romance and all of his words were because he loved me and not because he wanted to win. Because he has already won.

So God knows what was in my letters. Frankly I no longer care.

I was too fragile to be trusted and too blind to believe. And he was forced to live in agony because if I didn't figure it out for myself I never would have figured it out at all.

I am too fragile to withstand this but I'm going to do it anyway. It's not a bad thing, just something that was long overdue.

This is weird and cold and so uncomfortable and I was afraid. At the end of the day this is exactly how Cole always wanted me to feel. It's the type of thing he would do. A half-misguided, totally fucked up way to ensure that his little Bridget never wants for anything and the perfect way to keep his closest rival from ever having it all. He was a dangerous man and right now I'm glad he's dead.

All of it fucked up and doomed to fail. And I told this to all three of them and they stared at me expectantly. Like they were still stupidly waiting for me to accept or reject Cole's instructions for my future. Pressure keeping me from having a choice. My own twisted definition of love and how it works working against me for the first time ever. My own sick unspoken curiosities scaring the fuck out of my husband, who doesn't want this. He left the room, unable to breath, to keep from panicking, his fears rendering him incapacitated. I don't often see him like that. I never want to see it again.

I know running through his head right then was a litany of prayers to please please let me stay with him. Possessive and stubborn to a fault. Hopeful to no end. Selfish enough to not even consider how wrong this feels. Or how unacceptable it really is. He knows he couldn't fight this one with religion for backup, knowing Cole fucked me up that much.

That I would consider this because of what's in it FOR ME.

Standing there surrounded by the men I've loved almost my whole life I balled the letters up and threw them to the floor and turned my back on three of those men. Loch and Ben are as gone as Cole. Three strikes you're out, third times the charm.

As always, running a million miles an hour on shock and feeling without a plan.

Only I won't talk to them in my sleep.

Their hands. Why do I remember hands? Loch's hot hands on me, parked in a cornfield when he chose the hottest night of the summer to make me scream and never look back. Ben's icy hands curled around my knees the night we lost a tent in a snowstorm on our first group winter camping trip and we opted to sleep packed like sardines in the one remaining tent for warmth. Jacob's perfect hands, rough and larger than my head. Cole's beautiful soft artistic hands.

Jacob came back into the room, composed and resigned. To wait for the inevitable cue from me. He knows me well and didn't have to wait long. It's my life and no one, especially someone who's dead is going to decide how I'll live it. I looked at Jacob and whispered to him,

Fix it, please, Jake.

He shook his head sadly and waited and I stared at him for the longest time in total silence.

No, Bridget. You have to fix this.

I threw Loch and Ben out and told them not to come back. I said the time has come. I'm not going to stand by and let things happen, or let people close to me who aren't good for me or don't want what's best for me and if they want to think he's controlling, well, then I don't really fucking care anymore but from now on I come first and this sick game is over because Cole is dead and he doesn't run this show anymore. I do. I'm going to, from now on.

They left. I went down. Hard. I have now buried three of the people close to me and I'm running out of arms to run into.

I turned around and the biggest, most loving arms were wide open for me.

He held me all night. My last vestiges of comfort, my last memories of life before Jacob taken to the same place the ones with Cole now rest. Right there, but beyond my grasp. A place I can visit but I don't have to live there anymore.

I asked for and received some seriously illegal sedatives. I think we evaded what could have been much worse and things are so very quiet now. While I slept all traces of Lochlan and Benjamin were obliterated from this house. We explained to the kids that they wouldn't be around any more and we were truthful with them. God, that's what hurts the most because the boys had close relationships with Ruth and Henry, who have now lost three people and they're too young to have to deal with this but onward we go as a family.

It just adds to the load my heart must carry but I can handle this. It is with relief when I wake in the mornings. Not grief. I thought it would be grief but it isn't.

Jacob pulled another moment out of thin air to keep me from catching my breath as long as I live.

I asked him why he didn't just boot them out, cut them off, overrule me or somehow give up Cole's secret a year ago? Even as I also kept Cole's dirty little secrets to protect my friends, why shouldn't Jacob keep Cole's secrets to protect me?

He said that more important to him than us, is me. Simply me. And if I am happy, then he is happy and that is all that matters. That I come first, before his wishes and even before what he sees as good for me or not. That I'm not his to control but yes, he's going to do everything he can to protect me until the end of time. That we've made so many mistakes but we're going to learn together and decide together and be together and it's going to be healthy. For me.

He promised me I'll never be lonesome, I'll never want for anything, and I'll never be used or hurt ever again. And he said that he was even prouder of me now than he was when I jumped out of an airplane on our anniversary, because I'm learning how to step outside of my uncomfortable zone and take leaps of faith. It's just so fucking hard.

I know I haven't written what you want to read.

I'm thinking.

I'm thinking I'm never going to have a normal relationship with a man, ever. Everything is so fucked up, but mostly it's me. I'm fucked up. And I don't think Cole made me this way sometimes, you know that?

Asleep at the wheel.

I can't even tell you about it. Not today. Perhaps tomorrow. But I do have some lightbulbs coming on over here, just when everyone was ready to toss me aside for sitting in the dark all the time. Because the dark loves me so.

    Just when you think that you're all right
    I'm calling out from the inside
    I never hurt anyone
    I never listen at all

They were never good for me, really, I counted them as family. I tried to protect their friendship with Cole and I never let them see what kind of man he was because they were friends first, before I was part of the equation. And they promised me when I left him at last that I would be safe, that they would never let anything like that happen to me ever again. They stepped in admirably as big brothers, close friends, incestuous landmarks I have run around for years.

But they fought Jake every step of the way, suddenly concerned with my every move, with his temper, with my emotional state, with my mental state. With how I lived and who I loved, who I spent time with, decisions I had to make. I could tell them anything and they'd move heaven and earth to ensure my comfort and sometimes decisions were made on my behalf. For a time, I was spoiled rotten.

And I was the very last person to find out what was really going on.

They didn't have my best interests at heart and things weren't nearly as cut and dried as they told me it was. Behind my back they were plotting to wreck everything I fought for and they made Jacob crazy and no wonder he's been on edge so goddamned long and no wonder things have been so, so difficult.

In any event, it's done now. Because I have to get better, we have to move on and we can't do it this way.

They set out to ruin it all and I can't forgive this. I'll forgive so much your head might spin with the permissiveness with which I exist but it's over.

All of my relationships were born in a toxic hell, save for one.

And you know something?

It's not all that healthy either.

But at least we can give it a chance now.

Jacob can breathe now that he has everything. Protection orders, memories with deadlines, no more wars to wage except with my brain (which doesn't put up much of a fight, having been tranquilized into entropy) and a promise from me that I'll be here. Forever. It's like Christmas.

But what would I know? I just woke up two hours ago. After sleeping for twenty.

And it's a brand new day. Only it's really quiet and I really hope I'm making the right decisions here.

Meant for greater things.

I forgot to tell you something.

The strangest thing happened in my dream last night that I was sure was real and it might very well be.

I puffed my cheeks out full and held my breath. I squeezed my eyes closed and forced my hands into tight fists and I concentrated. I concentrated so hard I think I broke something in my soul.

And then in a blinding flash of white nuclear light and total silence and the absence of all earthly forms, something extraordinary happened.

A tiny white feather popped out of the skin on my right shoulder.

It hurt like hell but it was there. Because this morning when I woke up Jacob's hand was there. And he was stroking it and praying softly, wide awake for no reason at all.

Control of nothing.

Then touch my tears with your lips
Touch my world with your fingertips
    And we can have forever
    And we can love forever
    Forever is our today

Reality resumes when Jacob pulls me in against his chest and wraps his arms around my head, rocking back and forth because the simplest of unconscious comforts reveal themselves when everything else gets stripped away. It's why a mother hums and rubs her child's back in times of crisis, why men pace in emergencies and why people offer mere hugs when your world has been ripped away.

He resorts to praying aloud. Beautifully, endlessly. He never wanted this for me. He tried to stop it the whole time and I wasn't ever aware.

This opens up wounds that I haven't had time to get used to the rawness of yet, let alone heal. Bad memories that I thought I had cast out were waiting for me and come flooding in, ready to drown anything in their path. I should have known Cole could still have this kind of power over people and control from hell. Why wouldn't he?

It's a Hitchcockian zoom in all the way back to square one but in my water-filled soundless cage I reached out and told Jake it doesn't matter because he is here and I am so grateful and could he please do something because I can't breathe. The panic makes it hard to breathe because I know waiting behind the panic for a turn is more sadness and oh God I can't take anymore.

Jacob. Help me.

I may have to take a few days away from writing. I'm not in charge anymore so I don't know for sure. Who am I kidding? I've never been in charge.

I can't breathe. Why can't I breathe?

Every time I try to write my eyes fill up and I can't do it.

I've gotten good at taking pills and writing distracted and playing the music so loud I miss the lyrics again because it's distorted. I've gotten good at blocking out harmless conversations and grief that goes on far too long and anything remotely uncomfortable. I'll never be good at being alone or dealing with bullshit or making do.

Send me an email. I could use some love. Yes, you.

Sweetness.

A bright spot in the day for this actress. Ruth and Henry are delighted that the boys are going to be here later. Especially at the same time. This was in between Henry telling me all through lunch that he would eat it only if I would let him have two "think noodles" afterward. He meant fig newtons. He can have whatever his little heart desires, he's maybe the only guy I trust anymore. There's a fun cross to bear for a six year old.

Resignation.

Ben and Loch are coming out this weekend for a family meeting. So far it appears that only Ben, Loch and Jacob were recipients of this letter. Surprise. No one else will admit to having one and Ben said that the letter itself spells that out clearly.

I did say bad things happen in threes, right?

Jacob refuses to say a word about it for now.

But now I think I know why Ben left and why Loch has been the way he has and why Jacob is on such a mission to win this imaginary fight.

Because it wasn't imaginary after all.

Oh fuck, scrap that. He just called again and said they'll be here in time for dinner. Tonight.