A photo begat a letter.

Didn't write it, didn't receive it, don't have permission to post it. Doing it anyway.

Don't kid yourself that things are different now. The eyes are on both of you but it's such a helpless feeling to watch her. She's like a wounded bird. In her eyes it's there. It follows you. It makes you feel inadequate but larger than life at the same time, doesn't it? She wants you to make it better. She wants you to make her safe. Take away all her worries, repair the damage somehow. She has full confidence that you can. That you will. Don't forget who helped you get to this place where this is even possible.

It's a helpless love she gives you and you're exploiting that, deferring her needs but she doesn't withdraw from you. She didn't ask for what she wants, though. She doesn't point out your shortcomings, they're dragged from her. She is always so fucking slow to give up her secrets or tell yours. She is smarter than this. So are you.

You don't even care. What you care about is touching her skin and capturing her heart so that it can be yours. Are you mad? Are you really this stupid? You should be running but instead you're drawn to her like a moth to a flame and you don't change as much as you adapt to this fucked up life, only you're making it worse. You have no idea how lucky you are. None of them ever did, why should you be different? You should have taken what you wanted and moved on.

So now you hold the biggest responsibility of your life in your arms. Smarten the fuck up or live to regret every breath you've ever taken because if you let go of her again, I'll kill you.

Whirl.

You know those moments when you're dumbstruck at finding out that someone really was listening while you prattle on and on endlessly?

Yes. That was my weekend. Not the prattling on part, the dumbstruck one.

The heated 'cottage' Ben hinted at over his shoulder which I had to jump to catch because he's very tall (don't talk away from me) and I'm very small (and almost deaf besides) was an eight-bedroom picture-perfect house with a path that led straight to the beach and is so not available in the off-season I don't even begin to want to guess what he paid for it. All I was permitted to do was breathe and walk on the beach and draw a little and ask when I wanted orange juice. I was not permitted to wear any clothing after dark, blow out any candles I might come across or worry about anything, which is easier said than done but I might have pulled it off.

Sometimes Ben can be the weirdest, most closed-in person, running ahead of life on a slightly-different plane than everyone else, being strange and difficult and aloof and quiet and hard to read and just when I think he doesn't hear me or notice me or cave to my whims (as extravagant as they can be), he strikes me dumb and hits every last detail and then a whole bunch more that I didn't think to consider. He says he hates the princess complex as much as every other human being I've ever spoken to and then he goes and perpetuates it to the extent that I am left stunned by how much he loves me.

There is a reason the house isn't available year-round. The wind was freezing cold and relentless, ice choked off the surf, the rocks slippery along the breakwater and the nights so dark and desolate you wondered if you reamined on earth, or still yet, if anybody else did.

Ben brought the light with him, having bought fireworks and dozens of candles in town, for the three-point-two seconds we lasted outside after he set off the fireworks and I clapped my hands appreciatively. We ran back to the house and once inside he locked the door behind us and shoved his freezing cold hands under my coat, my shirt, against my skin and ran them down into my jeans and I howled and beat on his arms and he just laughed and pinned me harder until I was begging for things I usually fight against.

Of the thirty-six hours I was AWOL from home, I was in Ben's arms, nose pressed way up against his collarbone for thirty and the other six I was hand in hand with him, our fingers woven together and locked tight in a way that kind of makes you throw away the past in a huge rush of empty cold space that vanishes forever and you were glad you couldn't feel it when it left you because it would have been the most unpleasant experience you could ever imagine.

I never see Ben that relaxed. Ever.

Early this morning I opened my eyes to the fleeting sun and then he blocked it out, looking down at me and saying he wished we didn't have to but he had to get me home and then he had to fly back to where work is right now but on Saturday he is home again. For a while.

We packed up our things and took the house keys to the owner in town and then the happiness drained out of Ben's eyes as we drove to the airport to get on planes again. He didn't have enough time to come all the way home and see the kids. We parted ways at Logan because he thinks somehow I can manage flying home alone, and I proved that I can.

He went straight through to his gate after leaving me at mine and then when there was no time left he came back and kissed me so hard my whole face tingled the whole way home and I came out of arrivals by myself to August's easy hand with my fingers on my lips, once again holding fast to blow those hollow kisses that are never caught.

Just like that.

Did you have a good time?

Yeah, we did. It was incredible.

Then what's wrong?

Not enough time.

Hey, he'll be home before you know it.

I know.

I'm sure they think we just argued the entire time, or maybe we just didn't get enough time to unwind because of the urgency of the trip and the insane timeline we met but they don't really get it. I took a full breath while I was there, a deep one, the kind that fills up your whole body right down to your toes. I didn't think about anything. I left my ghosts at home, which is something I've been learning to do with little success up until now, and I felt like I was normal. Average. Alive, even.

It's amazing how the past three days could fly past but the next three will crawl. Worth it, though. Worth it by far.

Make it up to me.

Choose your words
Choose them wise

Far be for me to ever keep up. All week long I really thought that, judging by the hints Daniel has been dropping, that Ben was planning to fly me to New York to meet up with him for the weekend, that he had asked Lochlan up here to share babysitting duties with Daniel and PJ and also keep me from going left of centre field in the meantime, as in Keep her out of the pantry until I can get her down here with me and apologize to her face for the last time I was home.

I was mentally plotting dresses to pack.

I won't need any of them but we're still taking off.

He's rented a heated cottage somewhere but he won't tell me where, only that it's on a beach and that I won't need any clothes except warm ones for when we get off the plane, and he's got almost two days to make up last weekend to me and all of that will involve fresh memories but he said it in his growly voice and he didn't say fresh, he said flesh and he laughed and then I was laughing too because if anything, we need some fresh memories but I liked his pun anyway.

So yeah, no posts. No kids. No friends. Just Ben. Just me. Just the ocean roaring in my ears and his breath roaring against my skin and with any luck I will melt into a puddle of bliss and come Monday I will be poured back into my usual haunt here at the kitchen table in something resembling the previous Bridget-form, only more rested, less resentful and hopefully gloriously wind and stubble-burned.

High notes.

If you could do anything this weekend, what would it be?

Hug.

Seriously.

Hug.

Bridget, you're impossible.

Oh, now you're making me sad. Can I have a hug?

Sure, I'll be home tonight.

Are you serious?

Yes.

Yay! So why did you ask me what I wanted to do?

Well, I could have gotten us tickets to the Coney Island freakshow and I was waiting for you to say "See a freakshow." when I asked what you wanted to do. Then when you did, I would have said "Well, I just happen to have tickets to one." and then you would have laughed and it would have been cool but it didn't work and now I just have to be witty and cool with no material to work with.

Oh, see, now, someone REALLY NEEDS a hug. Come home, I have lots.

Then why did you say you needed one?

I don't like my own, silly. Only ones from other people.

Mourning routine.

Morning comes so early as I open my watercolored green eyes to greet almost complete darkness, still, at this hour.

I don't need an alarm anymore, I have trained myself to wake up just before my nightmare hour and so the house rests silent and still, cats and children, two to a bed, slumbering through the final few hours before their own days begin. I turn over onto my stomach and grope for my hearing aids, popping in the right one first and then the left, since my right ear is worse, though that is a myth, both ears share the same degree of loss.

I crawl out of bed and pull on the pink flannel bottoms that I discarded to the floor the night before. They seem to go well with Ben's faded black Affliction t-shirt that has become my security blanket when he is away. I sit up slowly and take a sip from the enamel mug on the nightside table. Both the mug and the table are dressed in chipped white paint and heavy use. I'm not sure I won't get lead poisoning from either one, eventually. I make a face at no one at the taste of warm orange juice and stand up, stretching my arms high above my head, then combing my hair away from my eyes in an impatient and often-repeated gesture. I grab my phone off the table and wish for faster nightfall already. First.

I check the kids, finding their lumps under heated blankets where I last safely left them, smaller furry lumps at the foot of each bed that purring greetings on guard and I back away down the hall, turning and heading for the steps, bare feet already sure of where the worst creaks of the wooden floor lie and moving to avoid them.

When I enter the kitchen I push on the ancient ceiling light, a beautiful embellished glass dome that I can't bear to remove, and the harsh glow flickers on full after a two-second hesitation. I squint at the sudden intrusion to the relative peace of the dark and then the phone rings in my hand, a buzzing irritant, a life saver, and I jump ten feet on the inside, disordering my brain and loosening my teeth.

I jab the answer button and Benjamin's voice floods into my skull, soft words to greet me, to confirm his missing us, to repeat his love from so far away. He has a pattern. Ensure that everything is alright and then detract from my plans, needing confirmation I won't step outside alone in the dark, wanting to close the space between us with more than our imaginations for resource.

We fail and say goodbye and then I blow him an invisible kiss, two fingers pressed against my lips and my eyes water up inevitably because I miss him too but I didn't tell him and I always wonder if he knows.

I wonder if he knows me as well as he likes to think he does. I let thoughts roll through my head as I absently butter the inside of the egg coddlers, one for me, one for PJ. I need to eat something before I run or I have a tendency to falter and fight against rubbery legs. I fish two pieces of wholewheat bread out of the bag in the fridge and feed them to the slots on the toaster and then I hear the gentle alarm beep and see the light flicker in the hall to let me know PJ just opened the back door. He and John enter wordlessly, and I get a cheek-kiss from each one before they settle into their customary habits, John starting coffee, PJ checking the eggs to see if they're ready yet. I won't drink coffee before running (it makes me have to pee. A lot.).

We eat quietly, the boys hear Ben's update and add their own to the patchwork of current news within our circle and then just as the sun begins to rise at last, John pours his coffee and heads to the den to read the newspaper and keep watch over the house while I creep back upstairs to get into my running gear.

Within five minutes PJ and I are out the front door and pacing down the deserted sidewalk. Me fifteen yards ahead, music spooling into my head to set the pace. PJ catches up, my own large human shadow working to keep his long strides in check so he doesn't leave me far behind. I could run flat out and I would never be able to keep up with his legs.

This is the easy part of the run. We don't talk, we just listen to music, check for each other and measure our own breath. Within twenty minutes PJ will begin to complain quietly and suggest turnarounds every six minutes. I ignore him until I get the message from my endorphins that I am high and can go home now. It usually happens fifty minutes in now. I could get it faster if I were in better condition.

That makes me laugh. I'm like a used car for sale. Hidden corrosion and the engine is seized but otherwise you would never know by looking. I think I can outrun my problems and they're waiting for me upon my return or I can wallow in them just to feel every last drop of agony, thinking full immersion might help me mover forward and instead when my head clears I've lost more ground than I expected and have to start over.

Par for the course.

Fuck you, this isn't golf. This isn't a game and I resent that you would compare it to one.

Bridget, you take things too seriously.

Someone has to or it all falls apart.

What are you talking about?

If I forget where I've been or what I've been through bad things happen. The absolute second I begin to take things for granted or relax and enjoy life something bad happens. It's always been that way.

You're imagining things.

No, I can imagine a lot, but usually good things. This is everything else. All the bad things that can go wrong. It's like my life is somehow the one that is all wrong and so there's no grace to guide it.

You sound like me now.

I listened you know. I always thought it might help, that maybe if I tried harder to believe in things and just coast like everyone else seems to, that things would change. Instead things got worse.

It wasn't you, you know.

It's always me, Jake. Always.

PJ cuts off my conversation there as he takes my elbow to signal that we're doing a turnaround so we can head back toward the house. We make the loop on the other side of the river and I can see the wooden benches with their bronze plaques wedged into the ice like ships in the arctic ocean and I press my fingers to my lips and then force myself to abandon a kiss to the wind, hoping it makes it across and will be divided equally. My eyes fill up, burning now and I grab PJ's arm for stability for just a second and then the world clears and I take the lead again.

We fly soundlessly down the sidewalk, following our well-worn but invisible path back to the big house in the middle of a block of like-houses, the gingerbread shrouded in the pre-dawn darkness. I stop just in front of the iron gate and look around, a new habit of taking in the unfamiliar street that I've only lived on for three years, and I listen. I listen for the noises that begin to creep in around the morning. Maybe a bird, maybe sirens far off in the distance. Maybe cars idling down the block.

Maybe Jacob, still whispering things to me long after I've stopped listening.

Bright boys.

Baby, baby, baby, when all your love is gone
Who will save me from all I'm up against out in this world
And maybe, maybe, maybe
You'll find something that's enough to keep you
But if the bright lights don't receive you
You should turn yourself around and come on home

Lochlan confirmed this morning what I've suspected for a quite a while now. All the boys are losing it and I'm doing really quite well now.

YES.

Well, if you don't count that I seem to have these drawn-out, hilariously long and convoluted conversations with Cole, but I don't see that as being any different from when the boys talk to me under their breath where they know for sure I won't hear them but then they can say they did talk to me later when a point comes into question.

I'm onto them. They think I'm in the dark all the time, they have no idea every now and then I sneak down the hall toward the light and hang out for a little while, just listening and biting my lip so I don't make a sound, warming myself in the sun before returning to the hole my head lives in.

Now the rest of this day I am crossing my fingers that Andrew comes home with a date. He went with Henry's class on their field trip. With Henry's young, pretty and very single teacher.

I'm going to fix up Lochlan next.

Oh, be quiet already.

Lochlan is here, because for some reason April is just too damn far away for him. Because for some reason he happens to be smart enough to understand better than anyone when Ben is being too much like Cole and when Bridget is being too much like Bridget. Ha. God help us all.

I hate that he freelances. It's just far too easy for him to come and save the day.

Running all of it past Cole.

Bridget, would you just stop? Enough already.

What do you want?

I want you to get a grip. Jesus, he's going to cling to you even more than you do to him. I don't know who is more pathetic but it'll work if you stop trying to throw everything you can reach at it.

How do you expect me to do that?

Revert back. Reign it back in. You want to be like everyone else? Well, everyone else wants to be just like you. Go back to your sweet submissiveness, baby.

It didn't work.

Oh, like hell it didn't. Think about it for a moment.

You don't know me anymore.

Still better than anyone. Don't you kid yourself.

It won't work. It didn't work. I couldn't do it. I lost it.

I lost sight of your impulsiveness, that's all, baby. I let go just a little and I dropped you. I'm sorry.

You're not sorry. You think this is funny.

No, it isn't funny. I fucked up, baby. But there's only one thing I have left to tell you and then I'm gone. It's too crowded in here in your sweet little head. I need space and time.

What is it?

He's just like me, Bridge. I'm glad you're safe now.

Safe was a joke with you, Cole.

No, Jacob was a joke, Bridget. He was an illusion. Sure he was a good man and he lived admirably and all that shit but at the end of the day he was more fragile than you are and look what happened. I could have warned you. I wanted you to be so happy. I couldn't make you happy and I tried to overlook his problems and let you alone and I failed you.

You never wanted me to be happy.

Bridget, I wasn't smart enough to control myself when it came to you. None of us are. When are you ever going to get that through your head?

So now what?

Stop overthinking things. Watch a bunch of movies, dote on the kids and wait for Ben to come back. Forgive Ben for his issues. Get on with your life. You're driving me fucking crazy here. Everything is okay now. Accept it and live, for once. In the present. You guys will figure it out sooner rather than later.

I know.

Don't know. Just do.

Yeah.

Fucking finally. I love you so much. Be happy for once.

How do I help him be strong?

Be happy, Bridget. That's all it ever takes. If you're strong, he'll draw that from you. There's nothing else to it.

Were you always so strong?

Never. I knew I took that happiness from you and squandered it. I'm so sorry, Bridget.

Well, I win, because now you're dead.

Or maybe I win, because you're still a beautiful fucking mess.

Price of admission.

Shortly after I wrote in my journal Jacob and I made a late dinner. Quietly, resolutely we ate together. The suffocating disappointment of Friday's outcome still hanging over our heads made things tense, an unwelcome feeling for me now. Halfway through the meal I looked up only to discover Jacob was sitting there making silly faces at me. I laughed so hard. We made up. Okay, not exactly true. We made up in his dining room chair in various states of undress because going upstairs would have taken too long.

Here's where I point out when he was unzipping my dress he heard a creak. I told him it must be the cat. We continued on. That chair was fun.

Until we decided to return from heaven and we both saw Ben standing in the doorway watching us. Leaning in the doorway, because he had been standing there for a good ten minutes taking in the flesh-for-fantasy lottery. He struck Bridget gold. He saw everything. All of it.

Most people would have been embarrassed and left hastily. Ben? He stayed to watch the show. Which pretty much destroyed the already shaky ground he occupied in Jacob's good graces, because Jake hated the offhand comments Ben would make at any given opportunity. Or the lingering looks if my strap slid or the wind swirled my skirt. Jake always said that Cole and Ben were likeminded individuals.

That's part of an entry from June of 2006 published here once upon a time and now offline with the rest of my archives because I have paranoid tendencies for such a public journaler.

There are moments in life that haunt me and I am not the only one. For Ben there are two moments in our history that he would like to permanently alter and this is one of them, told to me in a waterfall confession of tears and frustration and utter despair. This one moment where he says he stood in that doorway and he simply couldn't move. He knew it was wrong and he knew he was't welcome and he was frozen to his place while his head went off-leash. He stood there and burned me to his memory forever, every last detail of what I looked like in the throes of bliss because he wanted to be the one making that memory.

This weekend he tried to take that memory from me and I won't allow it. Not to be a dealbreaker, instead he thinks he'll wear me down and he doesn't seem to hear me when I tell him he can't because the walls around those memories aren't wooden, they're forged steel and he can't make them into matchsticks, he'll only get hurt fighting to dent or scratch them.

He will get hurt and I can stand in front of him and block his path and put forth a courage I don't think I can back up but it won't serve to do anything more than make me realize that for all his reminders to live in the moment, to just be, he isn't doing it either. He is not taking his own advice and half the time, I really don't know what to do with Ben. I wouldn't hurt him, really I wouldn't, but that one moment he can't take.

There's no making up, either. In a few hours he's on a plane back to work and we have to just leave it swinging between us, dropped on both sides because we can't get around it so we'll have to resort to stepping over or ducking under for a while to come.

Makes me sad, you know. It makes me sad to think that after all this death and all this crap we've gone through, he could still be so sickeningly jealous of a ghost.

Take warning.

Inevitably ownership issues take over us all. There's no way to avoid it. You get tired of being generous. You grow weary of making allowances and having patience. You become frustrated when the memories fail to be remade in your image.

Forcing the issue will backfire. You know this and you do it anyway. I would too but I know the outcome. I'm sorry. It's been done before and there are certain places where you will walk where the grass grows tall, unbroken from being trespassed and never trampled as your path before but there will also be places where you'll weave back over onto the softer earth where the grass no longer grows at all, it's been flattened by so many steps. Looking ahead, there is no other way. You have to go that way. You just simply have to.

I don't have enough of my own strength to remind you of much more than this, for you KNOW all of this and all I can do is quietly speak to you of this inadequate analogy of a well-worn path and hope the hell you can figure out the rest before you do or say things you might regret only when you're far away and can't undo the damage.

I don't have enough courage to overlook the difficulty of your head not being here because your heart has no direction and no authority and you really just need to stop this and just hold on to what's here right now in this moment and let the other ones go.

Please. Just please.