Less like Jake, more like Bridget.

Wow. There's an abrupt turn. Joel just left an eighth message. He has cleared his (light) afternoon schedule and is bringing soup for lunch and the 2-pack DVD of 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later.

Since if you can't beat a zombie, you might as well join her.

Tonight is dinner for twelve and the Christmas concert at the school.

Staring down the longest day of the year.

    You're right
    I can never lie
    Let me go
    Try to find a home
    I can't wait
    Try to stay awake
    Dead inside
    Bothered by the lie
    You're right

This morning the lights were too bright, the world was too quiet and the pain hurt too much and I made it all the way to the fifth floor lobby when I turned around and jabbed at the button, willing the elevator doors to open and then swallow me whole again before Joel could turn around and realize I was no longer right behind him.

I failed and he turned and came straight over to where I stood with my eyes shut and he took my arm and bent his head in and asked me quietly where I was going.

Home, I whispered.

He shook his head and straightened his back and asked if I was going to spend my days hiding in my ivory tower playing loud music and disintegrating slowly or if I was going to get my head on straight and get through this, expecting me to fall into line.

The elevator doors opened, and I stepped in and turned around to face him and I told him that today the music was going to win.

The doors closed on his surprised expression and I am now home with the music on so loud I can feel it in my blood, Jacob's shirt on over my clothes and seven messages on the answering machine from Joel telling me he isn't falling for this and I have been rescheduled for tomorrow where I will be expected to be the person my children are depending on.

He is way too much like Jake.

A little relief, a fourth post. I have no life.

Hey, baby girl.

Hello, Lochlan.

Ben's fine. He came to me before I could go track him down.

Can you talk him out of going to see Caleb?

Too late.

Oh, shit.

No, he's fine, Bridgie. He's here for the night. We're toasting to new beginnings and talking about you.

Oh, that explains the nickname-fest.

I'm on my way to bed soon. Parenthood and alcohol don't mix.

Loch, is Ben drinking?

Of course not. He's not supposed to, right?

Right. Thank God. So he's okay-okay?

The devil didn't eat him, if that's what you were worried about. His soul appears intact, anyway.

I'm glad you called.

So do you want to fill me in on what happened between you and Caleb?

No, not really.

I could always get Ben drunk and then he'll tell me.

That is so not funny, Lochlan.

I know. Sorry. Are you okay?

Should I be?

Eventually. Okay, I'll talk to you tomorrow. I just didn't want you to worry. Ben said he would have called but that you're not speaking to him.

Yeah, I don't know what we're doing. We're fighting.

He thought this would be smoother, baby.

There's nothing to be smooth about. I'm not property.

No one thinks you are.

Everyone thinks I am. I was bequeathed, for fuck's sakes.

No, I don't think it was like that. I think Jake wanted to eliminate some of the pressure.

He didn't and I'm so angry, Loch.

Do me a favor, Bridgie and just talk to Ben. Sort it out so you at least are surrounded by magic and not tension, okay, please?

I'll try, Loch.

Thank you, now I'm going to bed while I can, Miss Hope just passed out cold on Ben.

Send me some more pictures, will you?

Will do. Love you.

Love you too.

Oh, I get it now. It was a cover. Distract her and she's a little hurt that Ben doesn't show up but since they're not so much as speaking she understands and then she comes to find out through the weakest link (ha, thank you Christian) that Ben has flown to Toronto to probably lose his temper all over Caleb because it's been a disaster in the making for weeks now.

Loch has gone to try to head him off. Which should be great seeing as how he's exhausted and a little busy at the moment. I'm so impressed, guys. I can't believe not even one of you tried to prevent this or at least tell me beforehand.

I am out of the kid's school pictures and out of tickets to their Christmas concert. The principal, aware that the kids have several 'honorary uncles' who are close, called to ask how many tickets I might need for the pageant and laughed when I said ten.

I love these guys. Truly I do.

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.