Hold me while I sleep.

After indulging in several wonderful days at home again, Jacob returned to work today, joining Sam down at the church, who graciously had a second desk brought into his office and encouraged Jake to just roll with the status quo and continue to consider the church his own, the place where he will always be welcome and made to feel at home in an understanding place when it comes to having needs met, just as Jacob originally intended this church to be, before it swallowed him whole.

That sentiment couldn't have been truer today by the phone call I received an hour ago.

How are you doing, Bridget? You were sleeping so restlessly when I left.

I'm okay. Not a hundred percent but not as bad as before.

Nightmares? I read your entry this morning.

Yes. The pills make them worse, Jake.

It's okay. I'm coming home in a little while.

Really? How come?

So I can hold you while you sleep. You won't have any more nightmares that way.

445 nights without you.

The damp leaves were slippery beneath my feet. My black pumps were treacherous, my long coat was drenched and my ponytail, curled inside the collar of my coat sat against my neck, damp and uncomfortable, cold. My umbrella was long discarded in a trashcan at the edge of the parking lot, having been turned inside out by the wind and rendered useless and yet the wind died down quickly as I entered the park. The old-fashioned Victorian streetlamps were lit to ward off the daylight's gloom and the park itself contained few people.

I've never encountered anyone using Cole's bench as a resting spot until today. As I turned left on the path that wound down past the cherry blossom trees I could see Cole sitting there. He had a suit on and an overcoat and polished black shoes and he read a newspaper. As if he was waiting for me.

My Cole only wore a suit three times in his life. Two job interviews and a funeral. Not to our wedding and not to his own cremation did I expect to see him in a suit and so to see him now, so stiff and formal only spoke of the unreality our life together had become at last. A figment of our collective imaginations, a make-believe farce, easily dissected.

The wind was picking up again, swirling wisps of hair out of my ponytail and lashing it into my mouth. That was Cole for sure, he never liked my hair up, he liked it loose and soft.

I pulled out the black ribbon and let it fall to the ground and I began to walk quickly, I wanted a little time with him now, before I got caught up in school and life and Halloween and therapy and Jacob and no one seems to understand that sometimes I need time alone with Cole and then it makes me feel so much better and I can go a little longer and a little further away from him and things aren't so bad.

I reached the bench and stuck my hand out to pull away the paper from his face to kiss him and it wasn't Cole.

It was Caleb.

Sitting on Cole's bench, waiting for me.

Hello, Bridget.

First fall day.

This year brought a quieter, gentler start to the fall. A roaring fire to see us through breakfast, and a big thunder and rainstorm. Then a quiet morning reading and drawing and watching the leaves flutter down to the sidewalk in front of our house, as the skies cleared and the honking geese bade their goodbyes on the wind, en route to warmer shores. Jacob playing Gordon Lightfoot songs on his guitar but not singing the words today as he rests his voice, as he tries to decide how sick he might be. My throat was on fire this morning, daggers all the way down with each swallow and I can't wait to get better.

The toothbrush-holder cup has been replaced with four travel cases and each brush now has it's own sterile spot and there are four cups along the counter for each of us to have our own. We have a cupboard full of homeopathic remedies, tinctures and capsules to offset the regimented prescriptions and newfangled medicine and between all of that we'll beat this illness sometime during the week to come, if we are lucky. The doctor told us to remember to wash our hands even more, now that the cold weather has come and I reminded him of last year when my fingertips cracked and bled every day and I couldn't hold them together and I would bandage them up and just keep typing and he asked if I wanted to be sick like this or just use some extra moisturizer.

Inside my head I politely told him where he could stuff the moisturizer.

It's now around 30 degrees and heavy in the skies and so I'm guessing the rain is going to make it's return so I closed the windows in the bedrooms but left the others open for now. Soon the temperature will drop and Jacob will light the fire he laid just now and we'll curl up again together once the kids are in bed and talk about nothing, just read with our heads touching again, Jacob with his copy of Kerouac's Good Blonde and Others and me with a whole stack of helpful books from Joel's library on learning how to live with myself that I will ignore in favor of starting a new embroidery project. Ruth has two pairs of jeans she'd like personalized and I wanted to do the pillows upstairs so that they match, they're all different shades of green so if I use a cream thread and embroider the same design on each one, I think it'll look very nice.

However, based on the way today has gone so far, I imagine I'll wind up resting my head on Jacob's shoulder and falling asleep like I did last night (missing the last fifteen crucial minutes of The Departed) and doing absolutely nothing at all.

Van gogh and good tea.

We're home, a long day so far and still a few hours to go before I can sleep. I went to bed around eight o'clock last night after struggling through chills and a raging fever and I couldn't hold a cup of the final mystery tea so Jacob gently ordered me to bed. It would have been wonderful to sleep but I was up at twelve to get water for Henry, who still wakes up coughing here and there, and then again at 3 when my stomach decided that antibiotics were the worst thing ever and I woke the whole house up with wonderful retching sounds. Always fun.

This morning we had family therapy, then medical checkups to make sure Henry is clearing up (he is) and the rest of us haven't gotten any worse (we're not) and then we went to a Van Gogh mixed media tribute installment at a gallery with Joel. Afterward he took us all to lunch, where I had the best cup of tea in the world. Maybe it was simply better for having followed the works of a painter that gives me the chills when I look closely at his work, as when I looked at the paper this morning, reading about his final piece going up for public sale, I was struck by how light and colorful it was but also by how much homesickness it conveyed to me. Amazing. Did you know he tried and failed to become a minister before taking up painting in his late twenties? That's where his spirituality speaks, in his brush strokes. Phenomenal.

This afternoon we went for groceries and bought more tea and more soup makings and a giant combo pack of day/nyquil for me to dive into and we're not going to church tomorrow either, having been told by Sam to stay home and get well and then Jacob can conduct services next weekend which will be fun and comforting to have him back where he belongs. Plus Sam is scared to death of germs and avoids people who are under the weather while Joel is so important he never gets colds and therefore doesn't care. It's funny but what is wonderful is they both care about what is good for us, and that will always be a fine arts exhibition for Bridget and a day off for Jake.

I'm off now with yet another cup of tea (fully labeled!) to go and snuggle in beside Jacob while he writes in front of the fire. He's a much better writer than I am anyway, only not when he writes about life. His words turn to lyrics only when he waxes on the big picture, the philosophical nature of life itself, God, love, eternal happiness. Not so much when writing about tea.

We're a pretty diverse and interesting bunch, I think.

And yes, I happily bought him a case of his favorite cookies today. Only he wants to keep them on top of the fridge from now on. Fine by me.

Oh and for the scorekeepers of irrational reactions, you will be pleased to know that Ruth pointed out as we drove home that the geese were flying south for the winter. Sure enough, I looked out the truck window and saw the great wide v-formations in the sky and promptly burst into tears. It's sort of becoming a tradition.

Seven very long days.

I was taken to therapy anyway. I kept coughing and within 15 minutes our productive discussion had devolved into some old-boys network jokes about how my coughing sounded like the barking of a new puppy and I finally let my eyes come to rest on Jake and I motioned for him to fuck off, that we needed to go home. I'm really not sure how I was supposed to navigate therapy sessions with my charades and nodding and constant coughing but Jacob was more concerned in the end that I not do any backsliding. Remind me of this the next time he is as sick as I am now.

He made it up to me, making lunch when we came home (for the kids, we're not much hungry) and then once they were installed on the couch with a good movie he took me upstairs and we crawled under the blankets, where he stripped off my clothes and explored my feverish skin. He remarked on how my weight gain has meant rounded out elbows and knees and belly and how I'm thin but not sticks and bone anymore. He turned me over and pulled my hair back and his other hand held my ribcage up off the bed and he was slower and heavier from being sick and it was so difficult to find energy to return his affections but I tried. Now he's sleeping and I am back downstairs while the rest of the world chants TGIF as if it's a religion. Tomorrow we have doctor checkups, family therapy and groceries so it will be a busy morning.

Hopefully we'll all feel better by then.

The Reilly family on autopilot.

As is the case with life, eventually the whole house will succumb to the sickness that comes into it. Considering the toothbrushes sit beside the bathroom sink in a ceramic coffee cup, more often touching than not. Considering the kisses and long embraces and cold air that makes for closed windows and the return of school days in which I'm beginning to suspect they pipe germs through the ventilation system for compliance from the older grades.

I can't get my head off the table today. I can't hear a thing and I can't speak. One of those days where you burst into tears only because you feel so damned sick and you're frustrated. Because you know that you still have to cook and clean and work and comfort everyone else and you're down to the painful stub of your own resources. We're not even getting dressed today and I'm jumping through phone hoops to cancel therapy this morning because the idea of putting on clothes and driving downtown to sit in a dry room to be dissected for ninety minutes would be more painful than decapitation at this point, I think.

I was washing dishes earlier, leaning heavily against the counter, doing an awful job, when Jacob's arms came around me and he took over and told me to take it easy. I pointed out that he was sick too and should get some rest and he laughed and told me I wasn't in this alone. That he loves being able to cancel days and say out loud that his wife and children are sick, instead of pretending to have a family, or wishing he did. To be able to find that sort of perverted glee in a bad cold/flu made me laugh but I was touched at the same time. He still has so much joy in being here, in being part of this family, even in being sick along with us that makes me feel a whole lot better. It almost makes up for the sicknesses that can't be cured with prescriptions, rest and liquids. It makes up for so many things.

It makes me feel a little more normal and a lot more grateful.

Off to rest and drink tea for the rest of the day, and sleep, hopefully. One of my favorite things in the world these days is crawling under a warm blanket into Jacob's arms and having a late afternoon nap. I hope there's one in here somewhere today.

If you have any ideas for getting through the rest of the winter without our usual rounds of colds and flu bugs drop me a line. I would like to tackle this season head on, instead of playing catch-up until May.

Snowflakes.

See you when I'm there
Are you right where you belong?

Thank you for your kind 'feel better' emails about Henry. Once we surpass his strep throat/double ear infection and resulting all-night coughing I'll feel much better. He gets very sick very quickly and we have to be so vigilant living here. The cold wreaks havoc on more than just our dispositions.

He has medicine to take and will be home the remainder of the week, which works well. Jake is home and will take Ruth to school and bask in my rare strength at the same time. I'm going to sleep it away when I can. The week, not the strength. I need this week to end.

Ben went out to Toronto to meet up with the rest of the guys, hooking up with Caleb as well. An all-night party led to all sorts of admissions from Ben about where he gets his inspiration and Caleb took it and ran with it. He publicized it. Curiosity and judgment has been swift. Let's just say I suspected as much but I didn't feed enough of my ego in to fully entertain these possibilities and it pretty much destroys another large portion of my life and it left Jacob reeling, even though he always suspected as much. Right down to calling Ben out on his tattoo of a B that didn't stand for Ben. Yup. even that. Oh, yes, and there's more but I don't plan to ruin it for Ben's supporters. Yes, he is a genius but at what price?

The funny part is, this is done. It can't be fixed. We know, it's over and it's out there so we have to just swallow it or ignore it or somehow come to accept it and accept Ben's position on it and Caleb's utter glee over it and keep moving ahead.

Caleb decided to make Ben his best friend and built him a snowman. Ben, one half of the infamous toxic twins, has always wanted to make the leap and is now in a difficult position, probably about to lose everything he's ever done for himself and then some if he isn't careful. Oh, he's having fun now and Caleb has his own puppet. A puppet full of secrets that he has now blown wide open. Open secrets. No worries, Caleb cannot touch me. Ben will enjoy a brief surge in creativity now until the snow melts and he dies, maybe.

I won't be helping Ben.

I can't help him.

Ben broke every deal we've ever made and as bad as we were for each other, he's old enough to know better and my hands are tied, legally and otherwise. I already let him go and I'm done.

Everyone seems very proud of me right now and confirms that I'll get over the guilt. Guilt holds on tight and I keep turning this around. What if it were me? How many chances would I get?

The answer doesn't bring much comfort, honestly and I'm not above immersing myself in pain.

Another night of no sleep brought me to the den, where I could slip on my giant headphones and escape into Ben's world, to see exactly how bad it was. Applying myself to his work with purpose, so that I could see what everyone else now sees.

It was beautiful. I was beautiful.

He knows exactly who I am. And I feel sorry for him for that.

This morning Jacob picked a new song, and it instantly became my favorite. Black Cloud. Jacob sings it with his early-morning ragged voice that catches on the long notes and sounds perfect. His own ego seems to receive the confirmation it requires on a daily basis. Somehow though, Jacob is not a man who lets his pride overtake his gratitude and I wish the other guys could pull that off.

No, scratch that. It keeps him above all this. So that I can find him easily. So that he can lift me up. And hold me there. I figure if we do that long enough I won't stick out like a sore thumb anymore. I might be accepted and given a place of my own.

And wouldn't that be lovely?

I think for today, Caleb and Ben can go fuck themselves.

Henry is very sick and so there will be no post today. Perhaps tomorrow when we exit Night of the Living Dead. I'm so tired.

You know nothing about me.

Look for the weak points and attack from there.

It's standard logic in matters of war. Hit where it will hurt, get in any way you can. Lie if you must, ethics and common decency be damned, turn her screws and ruin her and maybe you'll feel better when she's destroyed because she took away your little brother.

Ben called me. Ben is a royal mess, beyond words, beyond common decency but he called me. I am the Contact of Last Resort and he called me because he needs me. Which means it's very, very bad.

He is at Caleb's, having been staying there while he prepares to head out on the road. Caleb has been supplying him with just enough fun to fuck him up beyond repair.

Out of a hundred million questions that could be asked at this point, the most important one appears to be: Will Bridget take the bait?

Bridget Hill.

Last winter we watched hundreds of movies here at home. I love the movie channels. I hardly ever buy or rent movies but I religiously check the networks and specialty stations for new releases. Especially since it costs a good $50 for a family of four to go to the movies these days and it will be eons before the kids are old enough for my taste in psychotic horror movies.

We'll just ignore that fact that I was watching the Exorcist and Halloween when I was Ruth's age. Ruth was weirded out by Pirates of the Caribbean so let's just say she's not ready for Hostel.

So one night after the kids were long asleep Jacob and I turned out all the lights and watched Silent Hill.
Which, on it's own? Not so scary.

However...the nurses.

Oh, those frightening, twitchy nurses. (Which you can enjoy now, thanks to Youtube.)

Jacob laughed out loud when he saw them. The noises. The tight uniforms. He said I should have been in that scene, I would have killed it (oh god, yes he makes horrible puns) and that it had to be the most ludicrous thing in a horror movie ever.

But of course, like the Jackal in Thirteen Ghosts, those nurses have stayed with me a long time. And Jacob is a joker and loves to capitalize on my nonsense and for the past five months when we go to bed at night he'll wait until I'm halfway up the stairs and then he'll shut off all the lights, plunging me into darkness and then he runs up the stairs behind me and grabs me.

And then I scream, we wake the kids and I pretend I'm mad. A few times I might have peed myself and I swear I did indeed kick him once because the minute the lights go out...he's a nurse. A huge, twitchy bearded nurse.

Argh.

So anyway, payback took place this morning. I told him I was going to try to get in a quick run. I know for a fact that when I go out for a run he heads straight for the pantry and gets oatmeal chocolate chip cookies by the handful (HUGE handfuls) and eats them. For an hour. He denies, the kids don't like the organic free-range cookies he does so funny how I go through 2 boxes a week if no one eats them, right?

Instead of going out I opened and closed the back door and then tiptoed in and shut myself in the pantry cupboard. Because I fit. And it's low and deep so Jacob just reaches in, grabs the box without looking and takes his snack to the den. and then pretends he doesn't eat much for breakfast later on.

I heard him whistling down the stairs, and then heard him agreeing with PJ, who was on the phone with him, and he started to say something about the weekend yard work as he opened the cupboard. He reached in and I grabbed his arm with both hands and growled at him.

Most priceless moment ever. He screamed at an octave I didn't think he had. A very high one.

It was magical.

He forgets how small I am, and how well I fit into strange little places.

And that will be the downfall of the friendly giant, because I was tired of dreaming about scary nurses with beards.