The concessions stand.

I had no idea an elephant and a Christmas tree could peacefully coexist in my living room, but they can.

Between last night and this morning, Santa sent his largest, cutest group of elves in pairs and groups here to make sure the surviving Reilly family has Christmas no matter what decisions I make. I was told that, many times over. There will be no more pressure in either direction from any of the guys.

A tree arrived. It was lit and then decorated, mostly by Ruth and Henry, who were handed various ornaments and the other more touching ornaments were quietly re-wrapped and put away again. There's a wreath on the front door and one on the back gate. The lights are on outside. There's a small mountain of presents under the tree and stockings are hung on the banisters because if we put them on the woodstove we'll burn the house down.

Someone put reindeer antlers on the dog. The cat did not go for hers at all. I laughed until I cried and then I did both at once.

There are brownies defrosting and a turkey freezing. There are invitations that I can accept or not, depending on what I decide about going away for Christmas. There was PJ, Joel, Christian, Mark, Rob, Sam & Lisabeth, Andrew, John, Jason and his wife Julie, August and even a phone call from a busy, sleepless Lochlan letting me now that life is going to go on and they'll make sure I am not left behind. I could hear Hope crying in the background and I was so warm.

There was only one absent elf, for he owns the elephant that is crowding me out of my own head.

Except that children don't drink coffee.

Two sweaters, a wool coat, softened wool scarf tightly tied around my neck, my hair pulled back in a smooth chignon, only my gloves are off as I sit across from him in total silence, both of us lost in quiet habits as I twirl my wedding band around in circles on my ring finger using my thumb and the side of my little finger, an action that sometimes ends in fluttering, and he plays notes on an imaginary fretboard, left hand only. It's like having coffee with Buckethead, and I'm tempted to laugh out loud but instead I put on my sorry face and focus my attentions on the frosted window and the wintery city beyond the glass.

Why is the light so dim in here, and the coffee so rich? Why has all the color drained out of his once-warm golden brown eyes as we meet on neutral territory to try and find some peace? Why is it all so pointless and why can I never get warm? Why won't he just talk to me and better still, why won't I talk to him?

We don't talk, instead I stop twirling my ring and reach across the table to stop his fingers and he covers my tiny hand with his big one and he stares at me and I notice the circles under his washed-out eyes and the set of his face. His own sorry face mirrors mine and I abruptly decide that I can't look at it anymore.

He sees the change in my eyes and grabs my hand tighter but I pull away in spite of his efforts and before he can consider saying whatever he wouldn't say when we had each other's full attention, I am gone in a blur of colors, scents and emotions written all over me: robin's egg blue, brown, sandalwood, blonde, mourning and despair. Thankfully he doesn't chase me.

Thankfully.

I hailed a taxi to take me home, settling in the back seat and taking my phone out of my pocket, reaching PJ who had agreed to look after the kids at the last minute. His curiosity was rich in his words but he didn't ask me any questions other than how long I would take to get home. I guessed ten minutes and we hung up. I slipped my phone back into my pocket and then realized I left my gloves on the table beside Ben.

I pulled my phone out again and stared at his name on the already vibrating phone. I answered without speaking, and he said only that he had my gloves and he would bring them the next time he saw me, without making any plans as to time or place. He told me to put my hands in my pockets, that it was cold. An instruction you give to children who don't listen. Careful, deliberate instructions as if they don't know any better. He hung up.

I hadn't even noticed how cold my hands were. I put I them in my pockets.

I didn't watch the game so the Leafs lost.

Good distractions today included oath-inducing windchill temperatures, an offer of full help in grocery shopping, an afternoon in a dark movie theatre watching The Golden Compass and dinner with royalty (Burger King). It was kind of a fairtytale-hamburgery wintery day.

It was nice. Christian made me laugh not once but twice and now I'm typing away wedged in the crook of his arm on the couch while he flips through every channel on my TV and spoilt boy that he is, points out I need satellite TV and then there would be something to watch.

I'll be asleep in about fifteen minutes I bet. I need to send him home.

I seem to have survived my first full day alone in spite of the ever-choking grapevine now clamoring to let me know that Ben is telling people he is now planning on moving.

Inevitabilities.

Fridays are supposed to be easier days. Days that are light on working hard, days where I can almost breathe and hearts beat on my behalf and I don't have to lift a finger, I don't have to go to therapy, I don't have to answer to anyone.

Ben's days off, that he spends here with me.

Only early this morning as I called Ben and told him he was free from babysitting me for the day because I was going to keep my two coughing-and-miserable kids home on this bone-chilling day, an argument developed over my ability to spend a day home alone. One compounded by my assumption that he'd be relieved to not come over.

Since we both know better, I did it as a formality, a reminder that I am keeping whatever boundaries I worked so hard to build while Jacob was here. Nothing changes and lately there's been so much collective input in my life I'm trying to reel it back in. One of my biggest challenges in life now seems to be not giving over control to everyone else.

I'm finding as the shock wears off and the gravity sets in that aside from losing a good two or three hours a day to dry tears and breathless panic, I'm well versed in faking it and can cope, mostly. Mostly if I only think about Jacob in terms of the shallowest waters of my ocean. If I think too deeply I drown. He was the ocean. It spilled from his hands, it swam in his eyes and I am changed.

Constantly changing. Like the ocean. Carving a landscape with a motion that is relentless and cold.

But back on dry land, my abrupt change in Ben's plans caused a wrinkle and he wasn't happy to let it go and so we fought and it escalated and we both said some amazingly awful things and virtually hung up on each other, me in tears, angry ones that aren't touching in the least. Him with a broken voice spitting hurtfulness that leaves me dumbfounded.

And now I spend my day alone, probably with the kids on the couch, watching movies and snoozing and watching my phone vibrate across the table when people realize that I've shirked the schedule and broken the rules. Maybe it's something I needed to do. I just wish I could have done it while still being on speaking terms with Ben.

Lyrics and legal drugs.

(I'm writing late today, because it's been a long one. I took a dayquil and am borderline narcoleptic so please give me due credit for whatever nonsense you're forced to read next.)

    Sing it for me
    I can't erase the stupid things I say

Jacob and my heart were broken into pieces and everyone got two, one of each:

Joel heads up the professional, what's best for you piece.

Ben is the romantic, the affectionate one. He wields the guitar now.

PJ is the non-procrastinator, the logic. The everyday.

Chris is in bodyguard/secret service mode.

And Caleb is still the devil.

No worries, I didn't give any of my heart to the devil. He just took it and I don't have any pieces left, as I'm sure Jacob swallowed the rest of it right before he stepped off the edge of my world. And if they all get together and try to connect their pieces, they invariably begin to fight over who has the biggest piece, or maybe who has the warmest piece, which piece is the prettiest and which doesn't seem to be part of a heart after all.

Some of them keep trying to destroy their portion. I hate that.

I wish they wouldn't remind me of Jake. I wish they would stop fighting over me. I wish people would stop holding their breath when it comes to Ben. His piece is not larger, or warmer or better than anyone's. There's nothing going on, he's just got open arms and a thorough knowledge of our dear princess so it gives, no, I give him more latitude, I guess. If you want to vilify me for a hug or a cheek-kiss then you're so far off the mark it's not even funny.

I take advantage, as it were. Not the other way around.

Which means that each of those pieces of my heart is lovingly wrapped in yards of misdirected resentment, tied with bows of unease and distrust.

Andante Cantabile.

Maybe in the spring.

It's become my mantra, my answer to everything, my get-out-of-jail-free card. They are slow to catch on. I discovered the effectiveness of those four little words when Ben stopped in last night, only staying long enough to gift us with dinner for three (he didn't stay) and a rosin cake for my bow, asking if I would consider bringing my violin on our trip. I didn't have to say I was still considering whether or not we would be going on the trip in the first place, that would be assumed at this point and hence his reason for talking about it. If he can get me to confirm that we will go then he will feel better.

Instead I said maybe I would play again in the spring, giving him nothing to grasp onto as a confirmation or a denial.

Works for me. Worked for him too. He dropped the subject, told me I looked beautiful in the snow-light and kissed my cheek before turning to head back down the front steps.

Ben. You stupid jerk. Come here.

What?

I could really use a hug from someone over three feet tall.

So could I, but if you're all there is, then it's good enough.

He came back up and stuck me face first into his jacket. He pressed his lips into my hair and breathed warm air on my cold little head, tightening his arms around me and we just stayed that way until he heard Henry calling for me and he called back that I was on my way inside now.

Then he let me go and smiled and went home.

I played for two hours last night. Music for the kids to fall asleep by.

Bridget's flawless Gothic etiquette.

My Christmas/Thank you cards are going out at the end of the week, mostly to the four hundred or so people who sent condolences, brought food, or simply stopped by and offered to keep the kids or walk the dog. Some jobs were easy, some not so easy. Thankfully I didn't get four hundred casseroles, but I got an awful lot of cards and letters with funny little memories of Jacob.

Edward Gorey's angels and hot air balloons. Who knew there was a more perfect card out there for this princess? Yes of course it's morbid and almost virtually tasteless too. Exactly how I needed it to be.

No worries, everyone who gets one will proclaim it to be perfect because it's from me and I'm rather weird.

I'll have all the addresses on envelopes by the end of the week. I've got the kids home today for the snowstorm and Henry has another ear infection and Ruth a bad cold so we bailed on the day and it puts me behind for being able to work on things during the day while I can still write legibly with a pen. That ability tends to disappear after 6 pm.

Mostly the reason I told you about my ridiculous Christmas death cards was to share them with you too. If I had the wherewithal or my act together to make up another two hundred cards to send to those of you who have taken the time to email me with good thoughts and comforts I would but honestly I don't. I don't have the energies to reply to anyone. I can hardly read some of them.

I don't know why you care about me. I don't know why you come back. I like that you do, and I bet you are stronger than I am. I wouldn't come back if I didn't live in here, inside my head.

I wish for you nothing but the best this holiday season.

Silent movies.

I'm a black and white movie. There is no sound. The film grain is pronounced, the visual scratched and scraped away with age, the characters melancholy and desperate. I can walk around the iron gate in the snow and find myself in the cemetery and out pops Dracula and I made my 'surprised' and then 'scared' face before fainting right into his arms.

And everyone laughs and goes home, safe in their colorized, monster-free world. Their music-filled, beautiful world.

For the first time this afternoon, I took my laptop into the pantry and sat down on the floor and shut the doors and played a movie file of Jacob singing his silly karaoke in the kitchen, using a wooden spoon for a microphone, eyebrows knitted in mock concentration. I laughed as the camera zoomed in crazily, attempting to focus on a moving target and then lost it when the song ended and he told me to turn off the camera and come kiss him.

One should always save the total mental and emotional breakdowns for that little spot on the floor right next to the basket holding twenty pounds of russet baking potatoes.

New damage: A to-do list.

-I need to find something great to send to Loch and Keira for Hope. Something wonderful and different. I'm an aunt by default, Keira and I have common ground at last and have declared peace in a long telephone conversation this afternoon that left me warm.

-I need to have the guts to ask Sophie to stop trying to contact me. I spoke briefly with her once to let her know about Jake and I gave up and passed the phone to Sam. He passed the phone back after telling her but I couldn't talk to her.

-I need to choose new godparents for Ruth and Henry.

-I need to change my will to include Jacob's parents. I don't need to but I'd like to. One of Jacob's biggest concerns was that they might need help down the road. Pensions don't go very far and neither do fish.

-I need to keep my mouth shut when PJ wants to vent or express concern (trying to word that objectively was tough).

-I need to make it very clear to Ben that he has no stake in me. He says he knows. I don't trust myself to be satisfied with his position. I need friends, not more people fighting over me. I'm rethinking Christmas already.

-I need to hem the curtains in the living room.

-I need to get a Christmas tree for the kids.

-I need to sell the motorcycle. I thought about keeping it for Henry but that's a lot of trouble and I've had offers. John asked for first refusal.

-I need to sell the hockey gear or donate it or something.

-I need to get the description of Jacob's body out of my head from the report on the desk while I was collecting what was left of his belongings. His twisted cross and shattered new watch and his wallet that was practically emptied in the fall and torn. The backpack full of clothes and his small bible and his guitar that was left in the room. The death certification. I know there was nothing beautiful about his flight but if I dwell too long on the other I can't breathe.

-I need to sleep so I am less crazy. I know, fat chance.

-I need to figure out if I'm going to stay here or move. I need to figure out if there's a difference between holding off on making big decisions in difficult times and prolonging the inevitable. I need to weigh the pros and cons of remaining in a city that I only loved because we were stuck with each other at the time. Now that I'm not bound to it I can run. Running is not as easy as it looks. I've got two kids, 7 pets, 1 truck, a house and a wonderful therapists office riding on my whims.

As if my whims can be trusted.

Case in point: I need to call Caleb and ask him to return my hearing aids and the video he says he has.

Right, Bridget. Always think through the big decisions before you do something you might regret.