Up in arms.

Summer might have passed us by. I have no use for the corn on the cob, honey, strawberries and things to barbecue because it's been raining and about seven to fifteen degrees endlessly. Give me a break, summer. How in the hell am I supposed to shore up for a long cold prairie winter if you give me nothing to recharge on?

On a good front, the weather for tomorrow night's outdoor AC/DC show looks to be sunny and 22 degrees. We have parking figured out and we have our tickets printed so it should be smooth. I'm not a fan of crowds and this will be something in the neighborhood of 42000 people. Should be interesting. Wish me luck, I will have a deathgrip on both children and my eyes on the stage.

I also heard a massive rumor that KISS will show up and play, but again it remains to be seen.

What else? We ran today. My toes are worlds better. A neighbor eyed the needle marks on my arm yesterday and I didn't tell her it was from blood tests to check my thyroid, etc. because I'm wicked like that. I bruise hideously. When I get the results I will be interested to see what's failing first. This whole middle-age full physical/workup/baseline health crap is for the birds, you know.

I ate the last bran muffin. Which is okay, we're getting groceries today and stopping at the library. Daniel has eaten everything. He and Henry are both growing, I think, as Henry went for his favorite jeans this morning and couldn't get them fastened anymore. We already call him Moose. Biggest eight year old I've ever seen. The good news is he's growing into several pairs of pants and if we run short I'll go get more.

PJ has a cold. I'm sure that's of interest. He's a noisy sufferer, too. I'm glad I don't live with him, sometimes. He sounds horrific on the phone. Imagine the snoring.

Oh and I suppose I should point out TUCKER'S HOME!!!!

Haha.

See ya.

Daniel.

I have two brothers-in-law. There is the evil one, who is technically not even my brother-in-law anymore.

And then there is Daniel.

Daniel is Ben's little brother. We say little because he's only around six feet tall. I don't know the exact number, he never stops moving long enough for me to check. He is thirty-eight, has brown eyes and caramel-colored hair that he wears long. Not hippie-long but hipster-long, so that he pretty much fits into any crowd. He's as angular as his big brother is but more muscled and less wiry, still rail-thin, still with the smile that appears to make his whole face widen and light up.

He is fun, personified. He's always up for anything. He'll do anything, listen to any band, watch any movie (including Mamma Mia! with Ruth yesterday in which he sang all the songs out loud and she was thrilled that he knew them) and eat everything. He'll spend hours wandering around the house. He can fall asleep on a roller coaster and he'll buy a t-shirt and wear it every third day for the next ten years. Never ever ever take him into the bulk food section at a grocery store because he'll try one of everything and then try and count up what he ate to pay for, leading to long lines at the checkout and an inevitable warning to buy first, sample later.

He's only ever eaten one lip gloss, and that was because he wanted to know what the fuss was about. He said it tasted like sticky, manufactured fruit gel. Which is exactly what lip gloss is.

He plays guitar but only two songs. He much prefers to admire Ben's playing.

He does odd jobs and mostly hangs out in the marketing department at advertising agencies who hire him for his quirky ideas that quickly become overshadowed by his lack of attention to detail. Which is interesting, I think, because his BlackBerry is well-organized and he's never failed to be punctual or memorable when it comes to us, just when it pertains to actual employment.

Daniel is delicate and we spoil him. You think they spoil me? You should see everyone look after Danny.

Especially Schuyler.

It's very sweet to watch them together. So sweet it makes you ache for simple things like love and sunsets and crackling fires. Schuyler will take off his fleece jacket and put it on Daniel. He'll always ask him if he's hungry. Daniel, in return, reaches for Schuyler's hand to hold pretty much any time they are in close proximity. They've had their issues and they can fight almost as well as Bridget and...anybody, but at the same time it's a deep, lasting love that I feel fortunate to bear witness to. Schuyler taught Daniel to cook. Patiently, thoroughly because both Ben and Daniel were convinced through most of their twenties and early thirties that "food" meant getting a case of beer and calling for a pizza to be delivered. Or having Bridget feed them.

Bridget does feed them. Fancy that.

Daniel is also the biggest male affection whore I have ever met.

Unapologetically so. Importantly so.

Thank God. And it's all for me. Schuyler, move over. Okay, thanks. That's better.

Daniel is awesome. The minute he walks into the house he hugs the children and then he is all mine to mack on for as long as I like. His arms are perpetually stuffed with Bridget. There is no tension. He doesn't like girls so there's no jealousy either. There is only arms that are sort of like Ben's but not quite and the classic kangaroo care that I have sought out from Daniel when all else has failed me in the world since Jake left it and Ben couldn't pull himself together to take care of it. He'll wrap us both in a blanket and just hold me, whether it's for hours or days, if need be. He just holds tight and rocks sometimes and sometimes he just sits.

And he loves his brother. So much it's hard to quantify. He idolizes Ben. He lives vicariously through Ben's adventures and he looks forward to the times when the two of them can just hang out. Get some food and just spend time when Ben is in town, because it's much more rare and precious than now it used to be when they were growing up. He listens to Ben's music and like the rest of us, has his speed dial programmed predictably: A for voicemail, B for Benjamin.

You all thought B would be for Bridget. Nope. (I'm usually filed under P for princess. Sad, I know).

Ben has a bigger place in our world than he might believe. I don't think half the time he has a sweet clue exactly how important he is to his little brother. Daniel doesn't believe in all that much. And maybe as a collective we have become jaded through the years. Death changes people and people who have no business being in charge wind up that way. And so Ben became Daniel's everything, while Daniel has always been Ben's everything. Like boys, they just don't say it until something happens.

I thought last year before Christmas when Schuyler rolled their car and walked away without a scratch while Daniel wound up with broken facial bones and the mother of all full-body bruising that Benjamin was gone for good. He lost it. Coming that close to losing the last immediate member of his family sent him into a sort of despair that left Daniel incredibly touched, because Ben could be cold sometimes. But Ben isn't cold anymore and they seem to appreciate each other more the older they get. Ben rebounded quickly and enlisted everyone to help look after Daniel until he was repaired enough to...uh...look for another job.

God love him. I gave him a hundred dollars for gas this morning and I daresay he'll show up with fast food for lunch, because, well...

That's what Ben would do. (And has done. Seriously!)

Daniel's going to stay here for the whole next week too. I will take the hit to my pantry (and my purse) in exchange for his endless hugs. He says I am his Sugar Mama.

Huh. He's Bridget in male form, isn't he?

Paris in forty words.

(I promise this post is not all porn. Or rather, I apologize that it isn't.)

It was long after midnight on Saturday night that we finally settled down into bed together. Ben smiled at me. Alone, after so much time spent watched by others, divided by space and time and partitioned off by emotions.

He held my hands up over my head and pushed against my chin with his head until I looked up at the wall behind the bed and he kissed my throat. Barely touching it. So slowly and softly my breath caught.

Beautiful, he whispered, and I laughed.

He shushed me. Thumb on my lips which still breaks my heart. He took my hands and guided them up around his neck and he wrapped his arms around my back as he remembered every last inch of my flesh as his.

It was all downhill after that.

Sunday we took the kids around to see as much of Paris as you could possibly see in a day and then we boarded the plane just as they would have been going to bed. I saw a Corot that blew my mind, and I saw it hungry. I saw all kinds of things. Hemingway would have been proud of his girl, I did everything right and still we just couldn't pull it off. Everyone who says we simply didn't have any time to do it proper and what the hell were we thinking, flying to Paris with less than forty hours to see it?

Well, they don't know Ben and they certainly don't know Bridget.

Touring galleries far from home while hungry is a delicate balance and I wavered once and was yelled at for not allowing Ben to take care of me. I had ammunition to fire back in his face with a trip that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with Ben's ego and his weird control issues with Caleb and with Lochlan, who put up such a fuss before we left he had almost convinced me we should forget the whole thing.

In retrospect, Lochlan was right. He's ALWAYS RIGHT and it pisses me off.

We were asked to leave the gallery, if you must know, because they have no use for loud Americans. I'm not even American but it didn't matter, Ben was belligerent enough for both of us and twice as loud. He only has two volume levels. Unintelligible and Obnoxious.

I don't want to be in the middle of their weird boundary issues. I don't want to be the object of everyone's emotion all the time, and I definitely didn't want to be stranded on the other side of the ocean with the children staring down a long flight home on a plane that is too small for both of us when we're not arguing, let alone when we need to just get away from each other.

Anything but that. Just anything.

Ben solved that problem by pretending to drink on the plane. I watched as he opened it and poured it out. And when he was handed back to Seth in New York, Seth pointed out they were having trouble with him when we left, which Lochlan knew of and was trying to spare me from, without admitting that he knew what was going on. He thought I would figure it out in time, and I did. But I chose to fall for the charisma and the intense sweetness of our reunions, the sheer brutality of Ben's love for me that outweighs the stupid things his brain does when his broken heart is otherwise occupied.

Seth is going to stick with him and send him home again eventually. I have been told not to worry. Ben told me just to stick close to Lochlan, stay away from Caleb and work towards mending my own heart as I have been doing. I wasn't supposed to get in the middle of this but I did and the kids did and he was sorry. He's seeing the light at the end of the pressurized tunnel and didn't want me to bear witness to the stress. Though, he did better with his anger this time, possibly it was muted because he was so tired. A few minutes later he told me to stay away from Lochlan, and stick close to Daniel. He's back to the point where he is so focused on what he's doing work-wise, reality has fallen away and I'm never sure if I'm supposed to pretend he is simply a mirage or if I should demand equal footing with his career.

My anger wasn't muted, is what I mean.

I don't want Lochlan. Or Caleb, for that matter. I want you and I want you to come home. I don't need trips. I don't need songs. I just want you. Not to leave all the time. Not to be always away. Not to count days on the calendar. Not to stop everything when I hear you on the radio because it's as close as I'll get to you on any given day. Not to be given the constant outs at the expense of your character because you think it would be best if you pretend to be a total alcoholic asshole to make it easier for me to leave you. I'm not leaving you, you big fucking dork.

I stopped there because he came back into focus and had taken on the weary look of anguish that he wears throughout our miserable airport goodbyes, with glassy eyes and clenched fists. That looks scares me far more than being yelled at in the Louvre. Far more because he becomes vulnerable and I don't like that. Be capable. I plead with him in my head and he just checks out again attention-wise.

He shook his head as if he heard me, looking far out over my head at nothing. A bitter smile played on his lips.

I can't..I can't even think about having to be away from you all over again.

So come home with us.

Soon.

Now, Benjamin. Please.

Bridget-

I know. I know what comes first. I'll always be less important than art, God and music. Like the holy triad of things Bridget will be thrown over for. I should be used to it by now.

Who said you were less important than God?

He misunderstood me and suddenly noticed I was comparing him to the angels again.

Is it easier with me or is it worse, Bridget?

You have to go, we don't have time for this.

Tell me.

It's worse because you die every time you leave.

Is that what it feels like?

Yes.

Then you need to leave me.

On the 'you' part his voice broke in half and I picked up the pieces, launching right into his arms. I'm not sure who pried me off him, probably Seth. I had a plane to catch. Neither one of us wanted to let go. Like if we did that would be it. I was sure I could hold on but he extricated like a man heading to his death chamber. I shook my head. Violently. I figured it out. They didn't think he would be man enough to put me first. The trip was indeed a dare, a challenge. And it failed so he resorted to pleading with me to wait, then he second-guessed himself and tried to trick me into leaving and then he resorted to reasoning with me again. He got confused. They always do that, they get into his head and convince him that he's not good enough for me, that he's hurting me, that I'm not making any progress because I'm perpetually miserable and always waiting for him.

There's been a global knee-jerk when it comes to Bridget's happiness and he's a huge obstacle. But he's MY huge obstacle and I'll figure it out. We'll figure it out.

You can make my trips to Europe suck all you like, Tucker. I don't love you any less and you're stuck with me. So the next trip will be a good one or I'm going to start wondering about you. Now go finish your work because I want to hear the rest.

You've got eight songs now.

I know there's more.

How?

There's always at least twelve. And you're not...present. You're here but your head isn't. Like you dropped everything and took the damned challenge and you should be telling them to go fuck themselves.

But then they turn to you and tell you they must be right, that you don't come first.

Those are just words, Tucker.

Words are all we have, princess. I don't want them telling you the ones that are lies.

Just go finish and come home to me, okay?

There was no more time. But I was smiling through tears when I got on the plane. He's right. He's totally right and I've been saying that my whole life and finally I found someone who agrees with me. Words are everything. We carry them in our heads and our hands and we use them as weapons and as comfort. Today we arranged them into a picture because we had space. At the airport you can spread them out all over the floor. We saw what they formed and we liked it and the last few words we had were blended into promises and reassurance.

A text message waiting when we got off the plane used words as hopeful instructions, a reminder that I should exist in the space between Daniel and Schuyler for the remainder of Ben's time away. I looked at Lochlan and he was asking the kids what they saw on the trip and suddenly it seemed so foolish that I could take my brokenness and pit it against these guys who could be so selfish as to try and force Ben and I apart. Lochlan bathed in an unattractive, unflattering light. Caleb firmly rooted back in place as enemy number one. All else suspect until further notice. Living among enemies only by virtue of their sins, holding them captive. They aren't monsters. But sometimes they're not very good for me either. How in the world am I supposed to keep my wits about me when I don't believe I have any left at all? My support network is made up of people who want to claim ownership of my heart and the tug of war is painful at best.

Lochlan wanted to continue the war once we came home so I engineered a pharmaceutical vacation from his voice under the guise that I was cracking. It wasn't working because I couldn't hold a hairbrush so I let it go. I forget that feeling until I have it. Always. Yesterday I asked for space and got it. Don't crowd me now, Lochlan. Not now. I'm tired and I don't want you here anymore.

This morning I called Daniel. Schuyler's headed out on a trip of his own and Daniel was happy to bring a bag and come crash for the week ahead here at the house. He loves the puppy, the children, the space and even the Bridget, mess that she is.

I'm watching him now. He's playing air guitar with the spatula while he waits for the omelets to cook. No running today because it's pouring but if it keeps up we'll go to the track. He's got pent-up energy. He looks just like his brother right now. A better substitute than most.

I'm trying to be gracious. I'm trying to give weight to their concerns. I'm also trying desperately to be happy.

Which is harder than it looks, sometimes.

The obstacle is not Ben. Not by a long shot.

We are home. Three-quarters of us anyway. The other quarter, or fully half if you go by size is still in New York...working. Because that's what he does. When he's not taking dares from bullies, that is. I'm not sure when things shifted to make that so, he always acted like he never cared to stoop to the level of anyone else off the ice. On the ice he's never been much of a pretty player but this time he took the bait on warm ground and we did not have a good trip. Not at all. Who the hell drops everything for forty hours overseas? That's an endurance race I couldn't afford to enter, let alone place in. Bad idea. Bad idea. Bad idea.

And contrary to popular belief they failed. And I'm still married. I've got this overwhelming urge to fling a neener neener neener out there but then I'd be stooping too.

(Says she who can barely stand. Oh, if I sober up maybe I'll have more to say but fuck it. This is fine just like it is. And so am I. Fine. Fucked up and totally FUCKING FINE, LOCHLAN.)

Just like that.

We're in New York.

Home later today. Flights are screwy. Doing my best.

Pick a painter.

Uh. Hassam.

American. Pick someone else.

What are you doing?

You'll see.

Van Gogh.

Figures.

What do I win?

He's French, right?

No, he's from the Netherlands.

Damn. Keep going, princess.

You want me to name a French painter?

Yes.

Gauguin!

Where was he born?

Paris.

Okay! Pack your shit and for the kids, we're doing a fly-by.

What the fuck, Benjamin?

You want to go to Paris, I'm taking you to Paris.

Are you okay?

Have I been drinking? No. Can I read? Yes. I'm taking my wife to Paris because she wants to go and if you think Creepface is going to laud that over any of us, you'd be wrong, bee.

You don't have to take me to Paris.

Maybe I want to. Besides, you travel better without warning. And I have four days so let's get a move on.

Seriously?

Seriously. It will be worse than one of those 14 countries in 14 days things, I'll tell you that now.

No it won't.

Why not?

I get to see you.

And?

And Paris!

Jesus, it's about time you showed some enthusiasm.

We don't have to do this.

We don't have to do anything. Instead, let's do what we want. Let's go see a fucking Gauguin painting.

Why, Ben? If it's only to get back at Caleb-

No, bee. Life is short. And everytime you empty your head, I remember that fact.

In disposition. In decisive.

Show me where forever dies.

Somehow preferring to letting the children do all the talking on our trip up to the lake with Caleb parlayed the day into an extended engagement and I wound up tucking them into his guest room just past eight, when they caved in and almost fell asleep over slices of pizza outside on the tiny balcony at my favorite table, watching the traffic and the lights across the river, still mired in their delicious sand and sunscreen smell.

Once they were asleep three servers appeared with our dinner, just after ten with a perfect view of the approaching thunderstorm. Wine. Salads. Tenderloin. Cake. Water, after I asked twice and then shot Caleb a look because unless he says it they don't hear it. On cue they vanished out the door and he cleared the table, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, humming songs I only learned yesterday, packing the dishes back into the box that would be collected tomorrow by yet another series of paid-for help. Oh, if life were only like that box, and we could pack up all the dirty memories and distasteful items and have them taken away.

Aside from asking for water, because I was dying of thirst and refusing to touch my wine, I didn't say much. I watched him because he spent the day watching me without seeming to and I let him ask questions I didn't answer and he called me a brat because I wasn't playing nice and I didn't care because sometimes he's not going to get everything he wants. And I don't plan to either.

I sat there in a chair that costs as much as my car, still in my stilettos while someone brought me dinner that I didn't have to cook. I don't have to lift a finger there. I could admire a French painting and be on a flight to Paris the next morning. I could wish for the beach and be given one. I could ask for escape from the hell inside my head and get it and never come back. Though I don't think he would take a mother away from her children, I'm not a hundred percent sure. I would hope he wouldn't. I'm sure he'll now tell me he won't.

Unless I fail to play the game, which rages painfully on. The only thing he gained from all this is the honor of fatherhood that all of them crave so privately. Oh, because according to Lochlan, fathering a child with Bridget is pretty much the brass ring in their lives and since there were only two rings, the game is over. But maybe it's not and they hold out for that ultimate connection. Caleb has been playing with them, teasing them with horror by hinting that perhaps he is Ruth's father as well. He isn't but why would they believe me at this point? There's no one left to back me up but I was never defended in my life until Jacob fell into it and then kept falling, right through my fingers because they fluttered so badly I couldn't hold on to him.

I pointed out we could have testing done and then what would change? I'm still forced to endure Caleb's dangerous presence and everyone else is forced to watch me founder around for purchase on life. I've got the moments down, I think. Overall I'm doing spectacularly poor. I can talk your talk. Optimism. Hope. Faith. Looking toward the future, living in the moment. Working hard. Making improvements. Making headway.

It's bullshit.

All of it.

I'm sorry.

Ben being perpetually absent leaves me falling hard into old habits and comfortable fears. I'm terrified of Caleb and attracted to him at the same time. It's an easy place for me to be within his reach, scared for my life and aware of the mind-breaking sexual tension there. His Coleisms that burn into me because I keep my hands in the fire.

It only got worse as I got older.

Just thinking about him makes me outwardly flinch. The goosebumps flare up and my brain goes into hiding and Cole's little survivor-girl kicks right in to high gear, because he taught me how to slay a man with a look or a touch and then he regretted it only in the moment where I found my voice and ripped his life away from him.

There is only so much one person can take and I'm at the uppermost limits of that. You sit there and throw money at it and it doesn't make it any damned different, okay? What has she got to worry about, anyway? They fight over her. Yeah, well, I worry that when I'm gone they'll still be fighting over my corpse and my children will get ignored. Because I'm a distraction, I can't remove myself from the picture. I won't try. I'm so fucked up. I worry that they'll kill each other without me around as living example of the hurt they can evoke in each other. When there is nothing left to fight over, these boys will still fight on principle.

Caleb wants that loyalty, he wants the lap dances and the fatherhood and he wants to make me his. Hell, they all do. I'm not dumb and all of it with different plans and different wants and different futures. It doesn't matter.

(I stepped outside the lines I drew. What good is a line you can't cross, anyway? And I stood on the wrong side of the lines and I put my hands up over my eyes without prompting and I began to count. I counted until the sounds fell away and the numbers became hypnosis and I knew for sure everyone would have a hiding place by now. Especially Ben. Ben needs a little extra time because he's so big, he can't fit in the places I can, like the pantry under the shelves or the cookie cupboard or the bench in the hall or the dumbwaiter or the little space under the attic stairs. In spite of his size, I found him first and we stopped playing the game altogether.)

They think it's a phase. They think I've lost my mind and I have. Cole took it and hid it somewhere and I looked for a while but then I stopped because it was more fun playing hide and seek with people than with the contents of my own skull.

I'm hurt by that.

It's not, he's not a phase. I know my actions maybe speak for me because I don't say enough but everyone's waiting for Ben and I to stop playing and be serious. To give up on being married because my God, she picked him out of everyone? The freak. The one who's never around. The one who lives in his own little world as much as she does? It won't last. Besides, look what happens when she's with Caleb?

Yeah, well, fuck you too, and thanks for your support (rhetorical, as always, Bridget, for you are self-soothing again).

The night I met Ben, we went skinny dipping and then Cole called me in from the water was the first night Ben ever went camping in his entire life and forgot to bring the tent part of the deal. He brought his guitar and a Gameboy and lots of food and beer and cigarettes and extra strings even, but he expected a cabin because he drifts along like that and doesn't actually ask. The girls he knows would expect a cabin so he figured there was a girl going, there must be a cabin. Cole offered him space in our tent and it became a tradition after that, he would forget his tent forever in order to spoon with me as soon as I fell asleep. His security blanket, he said.

We forged an easy friendship, to great surprise. The other guys were slow to warm to Ben. He marches to his own drummer, keeps time with the metronome in his head that never quits and serves as his heartbeat and he sticks out like a sore thumb. He looks scary. Handsomely frightening, instead of frighteningly handsome. Very good looking but hulking, scowling. His angel voice is hidden in layers of surging screams. Most stations skip playing all but his softest creations and he doesn't say much. Just like I don't so much, not anymore. We have stuck together like long-distance glue for a while now and eventually the guys saw that we did connect well. For all the nights we closed down bars and sang in taxis and collapsed on couches, meeting up the next morning to agree on greasy food, even when he would take some girl home, he would still appear at the table within 20 minutes of a phone call from me. He's looked after me when we've been out in sketchy situations and he had the really hard job of standing between two friends and being the deciding factor on a lot of issues between Cole and I. When I left Cole for Jacob, Ben took it personally and picked a side. Cole's side.

Then he lost his mom, his best friend and his father in the space of eighteen months and he checked out on me, becoming someone I didn't recognize anymore. Someone I was afraid of, suddenly. Someone just like Cole only scarier. He came to me once, when he got the call about his dad, and I held him while he cried, sitting on the floor of the apartment he had been kicked out of the day before for nonpayment of rent because he couldn't remember to leave post-dated cheques when he'd go on the road. I sat there surrounded by beer bottle caps and pizza boxes and I hung on so tight while he ranted and rolled at all the bad things I had ever done to him, in lieu of saying he would miss his father. That was the only time he's ever shown any emotion concerning his parents and then he asked me to look after Daniel because he said he couldn't.

Ben started spending more time away, and when he was here he was adversarial and spending too much time with Caleb. He started doing things that he shouldn't have been doing.

I had to let him go. I tried to help him and he took his rage out on me and I finally came to the conclusion that I was more of a problem to him than any help at all and so I cut him loose in spite of loving him, and kept his brother close because Daniel founders something awful. I know Ben was grateful after a fashion for that. He would call me maybe once a month to tell me that he loved me and I make the wrong decisions, always, and I told him I would be here but that I wasn't going to make any effort to be his friend anymore if this was how he had changed. We made a few stabs at repairing our friendship over the next two years but it was pointless. He had started drinking, started using, would be due back from tour one day and not show up for weeks, with no account of where he had been.

I waited for the call every minute telling me that he had died somewhere on the road from a drug overdose and apathy combined.

A call did eventually come but it wasn't for his death, now, was it?

Fuck. I don't know where I'm going with this.

Yes, I do.

we're so much alike, it's fucking stupid. He says I make him laugh. He gives me free reign to go fuck up and then come back to him and I do the same for him. Trusting in boomerangs. I don't trust that he'll ever come home from his trips and he doesn't trust that I won't change my mind and fall in love with someone else while he's away and yet outwardly we will tell you we trust each other because we don't have much choice. We won't allow for that choice.

He's always going to come home. He always has come back to me even when there was nothing of me here to come back to. When I hated him. When I was barred from even speaking to him. And I have no interesting in falling in love with anyone else because I've had the offers of money and trips and that easy life and someone who would always be here and I could be content in arms that would never vanish from my life.

Whatever.

Because even with Ben's disappearing act and his angry, beautiful face and his weird ability to live on pizza and guitar picks and wool scarves and my lip gloss, even with his history of not being able to ride on the wagon because he is too big and keeps falling into the road, even with his history of pain and misery and self-gratification and immaturity and uncontrollable emotions?

He is still MY Ben. My capital-B. My Tucker. And I am his.

For the record, I left my children at the loft with Caleb last night, kissing them good night and coming home to an empty house that featured John sitting on the front porch, since he lives at the end of the street, to make sure I did get home safely and he walked back down the sidewalk after I came inside and locked the front door.

The children were treated to a lovely car ride home this morning at eight. Same servers as last night, but with pancakes and fruit for breakfast with Uncle Cale. He let them eat in bed while watching cartoons. Which is lovely, I know he'll just box up the dirty linens and have them sent away. Just like everything else.

No accountability. None whatsoever.

Ever think that I'm the one using him for time with Cole? Atoning for the sins of the past so that I can clear a path to the future? Allowing Caleb access to the children, playing nice instead of playing hardball and putting up with him licking me with his eyes all damned day and night is a means to an end and nothing more.

Ben knows that. And I love him for it. Even when I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. He seems to know the method to my madness, even when I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Just like he instinctively knows that he won't fit in the corners of my head when we're playing hide and seek. That, and he makes me laugh.

I don't care if you get it. I'm just emptying my head.

For a song (St. Cecelia, please move over).

Now the dark begins to rise
Save your breath, it's far from over
Leave the lost and dead behind
Now's your chance to run for cover

I don't wanna change the world
I just wanna leave it colder
Light the fuse and burn it up
Take the path that leads to nowhere

When I die, please make me Patron Saint of Music. Does it matter if I'm not Catholic? I suppose I could go charm the pope. Ben's been talking about taking me back to Venice, we could arrange for a short side venture and I could arrange all my favors like gondolas along the canals.

Don't laugh, I've done bigger things.

Here's the joy of new music. Any new music, doesn't have to be things I have mentioned recently, but it does have to be something I love. I have high standards for music (stop laughing, Lochlan). I have difficulty understanding how subjective it is, but I remember that fact, and the joy of new songs comes with the promise that the melodies and words will attach themselves to happy memories, or remain neutral.

A lofty expectation, I know.

Heading out now, the kids and I are going to the beach with Caleb (who reads my posts. Arrrrrrrgh.) and he decided to take a day off. I'm trying to be gracious. Are headphones ungracious? Do I care? I have a feeling the bikini with the ruffles will pretty distract him from whatever evil he plans to cast over us anyway. I'll just play song lyrics in my head and pretend he's not staring at me.

Three years was really long to wait.

O.
M.
Goodness.

There's just nothing better than new Breaking Benjamin music. Run, I heard it's only going to be up for a day.

Worth the wait. OM NOM.

Ah, sorry. Music makes me giddy. Especially the good stuff.

Pinching berries and dreams.

Angels on the sideline again.
Benched along with patience and reason.
Angels on the sideline again
Wondering when this tug of war will end.

My apologies, for I have been remiss in writing.

This house turned ninety-five years old exactly this month. I'm guessing it's this month because it would have taken a few months to build, they wouldn't have started until the ground thawed out twelve feet down and they would have had to be done before the cold weather came.

Therefore, August.

I say it's a hundred years old because I'm not a nit-picker on details like that.

Looking at the calendar I see that in exactly four weeks from today, Ruth and Henry will start school, grade 5-6 split for Ruth and a solid grade 3 class for Henry, and also the first time Henry will have the same teacher Ruth had for that grade. We have our supplies and gym bags and will head out hopefully on Friday to get new backpacks and shoes and a few sundry outfits. Both children seem to wait forever, wearing the same clothes for what seems like forever before they explode in sizes. Henry's into the 12-14 sizes and Ruth is in 10, mostly for height. Henry's a brute, Ruth a tiny ballerina. They've had a rather quiet summer, thanks to most of their friends being off at day camps. These two prefer to stay home and hang out, read, play outside, walk the dog and have a little computer time. We watch movies and bake when it's not too warm and explore the city and enjoy each other, mostly.

It's been kind of nice, though I have some bizarre reverse guilt that I didn't insist that they get up every day at seven to go off to camp all day. All the mothers working outside the home are wishing for this and I'm wondering if it's okay for their development if I just let them have fun. Unstructured, total fun, the kind you can only have when you're a child in elementary school, the kind you never forget.

On the other hand, I do have some actual guilt going on because in between Ben-visits, we're been doing hardcore renovating. Painting rooms that had been left the same for years because the colors weren't too bad, adding ventilation where before there was none. Putting up a new fence that I can't see over because the old one was falling apart. I opted not to go with the wrought iron in the back. Not private enough. I chose wood instead with copper accents and we did it ourselves.

The most recent spate of improvements leave me walking around the house with a smile on my face. I took the sheers down. I had washed them all and hung them up and then decided they ruined the airflow and were ugly besides. Down they came. All my work hemming them. Instead we'll enjoy the view and when winter comes I'll reconsider. I threw all the windows wide open and was thrilled to breathe in the elm-leaf filtered neighborhood vibe, those hot summer afternoon quiets when everyone disappears to cooler places and slower activities. I picked the strawberries off the hanging basket by the back door and I felt like it might be summer, finally, after a long six weeks of waiting, hoping, starting false.

Ben did go back yesterday, in time to start work today and I figured he would go back Sunday so I agreed to work for Sam most of yesterday, bringing the kids with me so they could play outdoors and run around the sanctuary squealing. I might not have agreed to do that had I know Ben wouldn't be leaving but no less than twenty minutes after we arrived at the church Ben showed up, and Christian and Duncan too, to help Sam with some painting and odd jobs.

It was kind of nice. Like a group effort. Something I haven't seen there since Jacob finished the addition and the roof. Ben and the boys even kept working right through lunch when Sam stopped to take the kids and I out for a bite, because that was my payment for helping in the office.

And yes, I cried when Ben left last night. Like a baby, to the point where I was turned into Lochlan's arms and I could blubber into his shirt and no one said a word about it being dramatic or silly or pointless, it's come to be expected and thankfully I'm allowed to keep it. The immediate reactions seem to soften the long term effects somehow. Today is better. Tomorrow and the next day will be busy and then Thursday quiet and Friday busyish as we go into another weekend where I won't know if he'll be home or not because he doesn't tell me, just in case I look forward to it and then he can't make it. He would really prefer me to stay away from the Keebler elves and I would too.

And so for now, things are good. We have cool breezes and fresh berries and this beautiful house to live in. That and unlimited long distance. Weird the things you wind up grateful for. Or maybe it's not so weird.

Ha! Normal! As if.