In hockey they call it dump and chase.

I'm at work early today, here for over an hour already. Caleb wanted me to accompany him to an awards breakfast this morning downtown.

It was at the same hotel where Jacob once hijacked the ballroom and some of the band members to have a dance with me, but hey, we'll just gloss over that today because I can't go there right now.

I have more immediate fish to fry. Esoteric, mysterious, repetitive fish. Inconsequential feeder fish.

Hockey night was last night. Ben and Lochlan put on their gear and rip each other to bits. Oh, and that has nothing to do with the game. Westies won, 4-1. Easties never had a chance. My netmonkey of a husband was on fire.

I should have let them go alone but I was looking for something to do and also, I worry that at some point their blows will stop sending messages and start sending more pain. There's enough pain. So after the game when I found myself in my boots and Jake's big flannel jacket, standing between Ben and Lochlan in the net on the ice I figured all three of us had reached a new low. It took one fist to fly to get me out there and they didn't dare throw any more punches with me that close. It's much more difficult to land a proper hit wearing your gear and usually that doesn't stop them. It doesn't stop Ben, okay, fine. I'll give you that.

Since Lochlan came out here with an obvious hand to play, I turned to him, knowing full-well that blocking Ben from him was a clear message.

Why are you doing this?

Do you need to ask?

I guess I do. I don't understand you.

Bridgie, come on. You know damn well why I'm here. When everything goes to shit everyone always comes to you. I know when I walk through your door the lights are on, the house is warm, there's a fire, there's food for me and there is someone to hold. It's an escape or a comfort or a little bit of both. It's constant.

It isn't yours, Lochlan.

It could be.

No it can't.

Why not? You're wearing down. It took ten years for Jake to convince you, about ten weeks for Ben, so I figure ten days should do the trick for me.

You sound like an asshole, Lochlan, and you're not one. We're doing really good. Please don't make trouble for us now. Besides, you already made your choice and it wasn't me.

I made a mistake, princess.

Well you know what, Lochlan? I didn't. For once. I think you need to find somewhere else to spend Christmas. I can't be around you.

You're used to it, I don't plan to be difficult, I'm just telling you that I fucked up because I didn't want to compete with the caveman, so I pretended that I was bowing out first. In case you made a stupid choice, which you did and it's been a year and you're still carrying on this joke of a marriage and it's time to get back on track.

Lochlan?

Yeah, princess?

Go get your stuff and leave our house please.

He had the nerve to look over my head, waiting for the inevitable nod from Ben that I would be ignored.

It never came.

You want me out? You know damn well I'm here because there is nowhere else.

Go home and work this hard on your family. Keira's not the only one who's made mistakes.

How many times are we going to have this conversation, Bridget? You are my family. Or are you too stupid to understand that I'm here for you now?

Since we all seemed to be on a roll with trying something new, me with asking Lochlan to leave for good, and Lochlan using incredibly mean words against me, Ben decided to try something new as well. He pulled me out of the way, and I thought he was going to haul off and punch Lochlan again but he didn't. He kept going, skating and pulling me across the ice, not stopping until we were on rubber. He disappeared into the dressing room and I stayed outside, waiting, and then he came out in his clothes and took my hand and we left the rink.

Of course, this is Ben we're talking about, and he unlocked the truck for me, threw his bag in the bed, started it up, turned the heater on high and then went back inside the rink. About a minute later he came out again with the usual red knuckles, fire in his eyes.

I started to ask if Loch was okay and he cut me off.

He's going to pick his stuff up later tonight when we're out. Don't you back down now, bee.

I shook my head.

You'll back down, but for tonight this stands.

Ben am I-

-stupid? That's not fair. Naive, maybe. But only when it comes to men.

But what about-

Me included. And I'm glad for that, sometimes.

Just now in typing that I saw the double meaning, and I know that I'm where I'm supposed to be. I'm relieved, Loch did indeed take his things while we had silent coffee after the game and he's gone to stay with John, which is where he was supposed to stay from the beginning. And I don't know if I'll back down. The longer I live the more I'm beginning to understand that there is a glaring, wide-open space in between coveting someone and respecting them and being on this end of such a significant lack of respect with all the history between Lochlan and myself leaves me furious that I didn't see it sooner. I'm not what he wants, I'm just leverage to keep him where he thinks he should still be.

And I don't think I like that anymore.

I didn't forget to post, Andrew, I've been in transition.

Since my friends addle me when I don't write until after lunchtime.

Rattled today.

I don't know where today is rushing off to, my brain isn't even awake yet and I feel as if I've been left by the side of the freeway during rush hour and have to run to catch up but no one noticed yet and so I'm just going to sit on the guardrail and bundle my coat around me a bit tighter and wait for someone with a friendly face to remember to come back for me.

The kids are home this afternoon. Ruth had a stomach ache. Henry was coughing. I sent them this morning and turned around and went back to get them almost immediately. We simply weren't ready for this to be Monday, I guess. Of course, they're fine now. Shrieking with laughter and playing a game, sweaters buttoned to the chin because it's so cold out you don't even want to know how cold it is. It's nice and warm inside, unless you go downstairs or stand right beside the front or back doors. Or the side doors. Or any of the windows. Or...I think you get the picture.

But you know what is warm today? The AA medallion I'm wearing, Ben's one-month chip that he put on a chain and gave to me to hold for him. I haven't taken it off, it's inside my camisole, warmed against my skin. He wants me to have it but he didn't say why or if it will become a tradition, just that I needed to take this one and keep it close.

It was given to him last night and I was there to see him get it. Suddenly admitted to the inner sanctum of Ben's unfinished mental edits, I finally am able to see the stories that he wanted to protect me from before. Which I've read and I don't find as horrific as he seems to think I should.

I am so proud of him. Even if he jumped right back on his road to getting better and forgot that I was sitting here waiting for a ride. See, the problem is my stories. They're the ones that take up all the space, and that's why everyone keeps passing me by.

Today you will make an effort.

(In a rush and this is what comes out of my head?)

Unacted-upon impulses.

Who doesn't have them? If you're human, they are a part of life. Down on money? Briefly entertain the thought of being a dashing thirties bank-robber. Break up? Contemplate eating the entire pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Shopping and see a sale on shirts? Wonder if the deal is too good to be true, even if you never looked good in a grass-green empire-waisted square-necked chunky sweater.

Now you're a round, green girl on the lam from the law.

Was it worth it?

Of course not. That's why we don't act on most of our impulses. Our lightning cravings. Our urges to risk our predictable wants for more uncharacteristic inclinations.

Want to hear some of mine?

(Because I don't want to write about anything that I might want to write about tomorrow.)

I want to get PRINCESS tattooed across my knuckles. PRIN on one hand, CESS on the other.

I want to spend a thousand dollars on pottery.

I want to lose whole days sitting up in my glass room not writing but drawing. Never mind that I am between glass rooms.

I want to dye my hair black.

I want to rock in a hammock on a beach outside of Road Town drunk on white wine and read an entire book in a day.

I want to put everything we own in boxes and drive until the weather won't fall below zero. There we will unpack our boxes and remain forever.

I want a spell that brings the dead back to life.

So I could be a zombie-loving, introverted, heavily-tattooed and almost-broke goth girl looking for warmth or I could....

Oh, wait a second here.

Okay, I like it now.

Mygods. I was pissed because the market closed and reopened a little further away from my house, which meant more waiting, busier aisles and general mistrust on my part.

Walked in, saw Starbucks, then won an iPod at the checkout.

That is all.

Tuning in.

Sometimes I think God has switched my life with a TV talk show or a soap opera, and the quiet, happy, almost-mediocre times are simply commercial breaks. We catch our breath and before you have time to pour a glass of water, everyone is calling you back to the living room to see the next installment.

Hurry up, it's starting!

My guys can be stoic in their anguish. Lochlan has been losing weight, being angry and mean in a way that doesn't speak of his true personality, and generally everything that has come out of his mouth since he's been here is something that we're either going to have to excuse or things are going to get a lot worse yet.

Last night we had a family meeting where everyone took turns telling Lochlan that we were here for him, so that he would remember. As if he didn't know. He doesn't know which end is up and someone asked if he would be moving back here permanently, he looked at me, his eyes positively crazed over like a wretched lunatic and asked how he was supposed to leave his daughter? PJ started to say that she isn't yours so what did it matter anym- and before I could stop myself I said too loudly that just because someone isn't yours suddenly doesn't mean your love for them shuts off like a switch.

Great, now everyone is looking at me.

What? I said. Should he just walk away? He is the father SHE KNOWS. He loves her. That hasn't changed. Her needs supersede all others until she decides something else.

So he's just supposed to keep providing for her?

Legally, she's his.

Thank you Bridget. Lochlan was smiling at me, but barely. I wondered if I was crazy for doing nothing.

And with that the SOS order shuffles again and Joel gets knocked off the stage where Ben and I sit together and now we're joined by Lochlan, who's never been up here, and doesn't like it one bit. Joel can be moved since he's accepted a position with a research organization and can still work in the field, just not with patients. At least until he somehow grows less naive and less good-looking. (You asked.)

The SOS stage is an imaginary place where those of us in our haphazard family can go up to when things go wrong and we need intensive support from the rest of the group. Everyone has been here at least once. Ben and I have our names on the backs of our director chairs because we've collectively spent much of the past three years here. I invented it a long time ago when Andrew broke his elbow and it's been there ever since.

It's a peaceful place when it's empty, but a horror show when it's full. The kind that gets big ratings, the kind that people refuse to admit they watch.

Whole stories.

The words are very tangled today.

In a nutshell, Lochlan is here because his pride went down the drain sometime around the first of this month, when Keira was finally forced to tell him that Hope is not his daughter and in effect, belongs to someone else. Lochlan thought he could come out here with his secrets and we wouldn't notice the incredible rage and sadness that was just underneath the surface. He tried, I'll give him that.

It explains a lot. So much, and it explains Keira's apathy and their inability to get along or be a family. It explains Lochlan trying so hard and yet feeling so detached all the time.

I have all kinds of thoughts on this subject, most of which I'll keep to myself. However, I will say two things. Firstly, it's better that he finds out now, while Hope is still barely a year old. And two, for all the judgement that was leveled against me by Keira (and just about everyone else) when I flew to see Loch two years ago and wound up sleeping with him, to find out that she would turn around and do the same thing she was so vitriolic about seems like vindication for me.

Only it really isn't.

I don't know how to make Lochlan feel better, I don't know what he is supposed to do about this little girl that has his last name, that he loves so much and suddenly has no claim to, and I don't know what to do about his total despair. I am not the fixer. I'm usually the problem. And I can't be his comfort, because that causes further problems.

And like paternity, you can't take it back.

Forgive the mess that is my head today. I hurt for him.

Running out of small.

I woke up to Black being played this morning. Softly, quietly. On a guitar near the lamplight. Which beats the hell out of Bridget playing it on the stereo, stopping and playing it again around her favorite part, three minutes and forty one seconds in.

Some things breaking are wonderful. Some are not. Voices, yes. Hearts? Never.

The concert last night was amazing. The kids waved to me when they saw me in the crowd. Henry is such a clown. I thought he and his best friend might fall off the risers at one point but they did not. The kids sang out clearly and loudly and I could hear everything. I filmed everything. Ruth looked a little unimpressed at first but both kids locked their eyes on me and did really well. After their groups were finished I picked them up from their classrooms a few minutes early and we went out for french fries and home to read another chapter of The Prisoner of Azkaban. They were both asleep before nine. That in itself is a gift.

The entire seventh row in the audience was their fan club. Thirteen very big and (mostly) tattooed uncles who cheered very loudly and possibly intimidated the newer crowd of Nursery and Kindergarten parents who don't know us. I did not sit with the boys, instead I snuck up to one side to film everything and there I remained while the guys put their bullshit aside for ninety whole minutes to focus on the children.

Easier and difficult all at once.

I'm very proud of my kids. They had fun. They're growing and changing so fast I can no longer keep up. When Henry decided he was going to wear a dress shirt and a tie, when he makes a move to hold my hand and I notice for the first time that his now covers mine and he'll soon be taller than I am. When Ruth disappears behind a closed door and comes out wearing a dress and everything matches from sweater to tights and she rolls her eyes and goes off to draw pictures of horses while she waits for us to catch up.

Next year I daresay they will no longer allow us to escort them to their classrooms or pick them up at the door for lunch. They already want their own cell phones, a request vetoed until their ages end in -teen because I don't want to fry their little brains with electromagnetic waves and frankly they're too young to require one for safety since they're never unattended or unaccompanied.

But that day is coming. I don't think I'm ready, even though I'm sure I'll be fine, and so will they.

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life,
I know you'll be a sun in somebody else's sky

Grief of a different sort.

It's easy to get things done when you don't sleep. It's still a while before I need to wake the children up for school and the laundry is finished and folded, the dishes are washed, I've had breakfast and have made six granny squares toward a scarf. I also went for an hour-long run. Alone, in the dark, against everyone's wishes because it was a better deal than staying here watching Ben and Lochlan square off.

You think some things never change? This is one of those things. Lochlan and the chip on his shoulder flew out here so he could spend Christmas among friends. His soft place to fall is still here, after he generously gave in to Keira's wishes that Hope stay with her for the holidays, since this is their first Christmas apart. Last year Hope was a newborn, and all was well for them and this year it's a mess. He was supposed to have the baby for Christmas and he was going to come to the city for a few days and instead he's just decided to stay for the next month, using the time off he deferred from last month, arriving just in time for the children's Christmas concert tonight. Fulfilling the obligations he's allowed to, as well as the ones he shouldn't. Between the unchecked quantities of affection and the offer to be there every second of every moment, I can see why we keep going in circles.

So he comes home to bury his head in the sand and ride out his miserable holidays among people who love him but wish he would get a clue and go fix his once-perfect life. I wish he would let go. I wish he would stop causing problems, stop trying to encourage this game, and stop leaning on Ben so hard I'm waiting for the inevitable crumble.

I wish I could say any or all of this to Lochlan's face but I can't, because I don't have the guts. Because I like doubling the affection and I like the fact that he's attentive. That he worries about me first and everything else second. Fine. There. Happy now?

But I also love Ben in a way that trumps Lochlan by a million miles and Ben and I have pulled each other off the vicious cycle and we started our own pattern. No repeats. No do-overs. No end in sight. Lochlan's share has been appropriated and he missed his chance and for him to come barging into my house at eleven at night insisting that we all pick up right where we left off is cruel. I know he hurts. I know he's lost things. I know he has regrets. And I'm trying to be here for him because he has been there for me.

Almost.

Over the years, Loch's blatant disregard for my feelings leaves me cold now. He can put his arms around me and pull me close and say he's sorry and he just wants things to be different and it doesn't change the fact that I have moved on. Ben was there, too. Ben has been the one, as much as he could have checked out completely with his own issues and his night job that took him away for weeks at a time, Ben has been here. With me. The whole way. In spite of everything.

So we can comfort Lochlan through his first holidays alone since becoming a father or we can all go down in flames together. We picked comfort. He is still family, and he needs us.

Even though right now? I think I wish he wasn't here.

You're not holding up your end of the arrangement, brother.

There is no arrangement anymore, Loch.

Come on, Tucker. What's changed?

She's my wife. The games are done.

You guys like games. She'll come around.

You might like to shut the hell up before I take you out. Oh, and don't call me Tucker.

You labeled me, I'll label you.

How could he know this new dawn's light
Would change his life forever?
Set sail to sea but pulled off course
By the light of golden treasure

Was he the one causing pain
With his careless dreaming?
Been afraid
Always afraid
Of the things he's feeling
He could just be gone

He would just sail on

Hallo, internet. I'm here. I'm at work, though a little late. Ran into Satan right inside his front door, freshly showered and in a towel, seeing off his paramour (I had to really look for a nice word, give me credit here). Both were rather surprised when I walked in, and Caleb asked me if it was that late. I said it was, and she asked him why I had a key. He told her off and she left. I noticed he didn't bother to dress and accompany her home. Interesting. I also noticed the once-over she gave me, looking down at me as she walked past and then when the door closed and Caleb asked if I would make some coffee while he got dressed, I noticed as he turned to head upstairs how beautifully his tattoo stands out against his skin. Diabhal, in huge gothic letters on his back, from shoulder to shoulder. In case you thought I came up with his nickname.

I did not.

I did make the coffee and on my way past the stereo, I pulled out all the Metallica I could find and loaded it up to repeat all day long. I left it low and called up that he needed to get a move on since he had a meeting at eleven, and he told me to cancel it. I reminded him that it had already been rescheduled once and he wasn't likely to get another chance before the new year and I heard him swear. A few moments later he emerged, covered in Hugo Boss and unshaven, no tie. A bit less formal than usual but still commanding attention on stature alone.

He kissed my temple and told me to enjoy the coffee and the music and maybe we would go out for lunch. Yesterday Ben and the kids came and got me for lunch and we went to McDonalds and I was back before the door closed. Caleb prefers two-hour lunches. I think I'd rather cut lunch short and go home early at the end of the day. Perhaps I'll defer and just try to get the day over with faster. This new casual familiarity is uncharted territory, for I don't believe I've ever witnessed Caleb interacting with his...um...girlfriends before and it really surprised me how ungentlemanly he was. Compared to how he treats...well, me.

How can I be lost,
If I've got nowhere to go?
Search for seas of gold
How come it's got so cold?

How can I be lost?
In remembrance I relive
And how can I blame you
When it's me I can't forgive?

The only road I've ever been down.

I promised I would write more later. It's later, here is more.

Ever get a song stuck in your head that you didn't appreciate? Right. That happened to me shortly after dinner and now I'm humming Bittersweet Symphony through my teeth almost wishing What's the Frequency, Kenneth? would come back to haunt me for several more months like it did before, because REM is always a better choice then The Verve.

I'm calling an end to this day, much the same way I began it. In my cold, bare feet with a headache hellbent on coming back and eyes that no longer want to remain open. And I'm still having a really good mood, in spite of the pain and unwelcome British radio hits.

Sigh. Goodnight.