Waylander and the devil.

A restoration, absolution dinner invitation was made and accepted. A simple yes thrown out because Ben was home and the devil was anxious to look over his pawns, inspect them for wear or damage and re-roast them in flames of regret before sending them off to endure a little more of the world outside of hell.

When we arrived we were let in by one of the staff, ostensibly helping out with final preparations or perhaps working on a Friday night because people do that nowadays, especially when their employers have just flown in and decided to have a late engagement and needed some things done on a timely basis. She told us Mr. C was still preparing and would we like a drink? Ben said he would look after it and after enquiring as to my well-being she asked if we needed anything else and I told her to go home, to have a lovely weekend. I'm not sure if she wondered if I could actually do that in Caleb's absence but she looked somewhat relieved and happy to escape a bit early. We can carry our own plates in from the kitchen. I do it three times a day at home.

I walked down into the living room and straight out to the balcony where a table was set for three. Black roses in the centre made me stop and catch my breath. Black. It's so rare to see them in real life, I always stop and admire them when I do. It doesn't matter if they are real or manufactured, they're just beautiful. All rose colors are beautiful but black ones just resonate that much louder to me.

I exclaimed rather sweetly, excited to see them and bent forward to stick my face into the closest bloom.

This is how you say hello?

Caleb was standing in the doorway. He shot a cuff and checked his watch. The new Breitling that someday I will pry off his wrist and wear forever even though it's very large and will provide me with all the gravity I will ever need. If I'm not mistaken I'll guess my initials are already carved into the back with the rest of his family as his good luck charm. BRC. Because he still refuses to indulge in any subsequent last names I take on.

You're early.

By moments, only. Traffic was light for a Friday night.

Punctuality is one of your charms, princess. Where is your pet?

He's getting us a drink from your kitchen. You would have passed him to get here.

Touche.

The roses are beautiful.

I'd like you to take them with you when you leave in the morning.

Ben appeared just then, holding two tumblers of ice and cranberry juice. Caleb thanked him for accepting the invitation on such short notice and asked about work and Ben talked a little of some reorganization they had gone through lately and some pre-predictions for numbers based on a Christmas release (an industry kiss of death, no less) and one Benjamin doesn't really care about at this point. He told Caleb that he has concrete plans to switch gears in the near future and things will be vastly different a year from now. I listened and worked to keep my expression neutral while Caleb watched me fail. I didn't know any of this. We had talked about things before, at length and I had asked Ben not to give up a damned thing. That he needs it.

I think they both sensed that I was become vaguely agitated by all the business- and future-talk and quickly brought the subject back to me. Where it belongs. Compliments on my hair, my skin tone of all things, still the alabaster pearl-white after an attempt to turn myself pink at the beach resulted in the massive loss of the color from my flesh within a week. They both seem to like me pale. I was annoyed so I asked Caleb if he had spoken to PJ and he said that he would leave PJ alone because here I was and it was the verbal confirmation I was seeking that no matter what happened this evening, he wasn't going to fuck with PJ's heart even though he succeeded in proving that he can fuck with anyone at any time, if he so chooses.

If I do not cooperate.

Oh, but I am. I'm sitting here on this beautiful balcony, framed in black roses and cool and lovely in the little black slip dress with the embroidery he requested and the shoes that have tiny highest heels that catch in the pattern on the iron balcony floor and so I walk on my toes a little. I twisted my hair into a low knot but let a wealth of tendrils down because that's how he likes it and I'm hoping against hope that tonight he doesn't poison my food because that's not in the rules.

Do you think I give him a hard time? Have you met Satan?

Oh, but Satan has made a history out of underestimating Ben and I together and that is what saves this to grace from certain unrecoverable debt. And that is what leaves me squarely in the crosshairs between Satan and my boys. PJ can protect himself. He shouldn't have to.

I don't put anything past Caleb, and yet I struggle with doubt when he tries to please me. I wore my best charm and I thanked him for his thoughtfulness and then as if on freaking cue, the servers I didn't see arrive advanced with our first course.

The pattern goes like this, without deviation: I eat, and listen well, because I hear so poorly, and take very small bites and even smaller sips and express appropriate interest for the topics at hand. The men talk. They eat with their hands. They ask me for my thoughts. And they watch me. I'm not sure if it's still the fascination in kind or merely because inevitably one's eyes will be drawn to the brightest subject nearby but they seem to take turns losing their focus in gazing at me. I feel like a human buffet or a delicate and rare artifact to be admired and touched (if you dare). I feel like meat sometimes and sometimes I feel like I must be the most special person alive.

I don't remember what we had for dinner. I do remember everything afterward, including leaving the half-begun raspberry truffle cake for a move to the balcony railing where Caleb pointed out the latest construction on the museum and several constellations I couldn't recognize if I tried. He and Ben remarked on the first geese migrations we saw earlier in the day. Pleasance to a fault. Charm to a bitter, inevitable end.

Caleb murmured to one of the servers that it would be fine if they would clear the table and take their leave and we retired to the living room with coffee and some pastries that remained untouched. As usual it would have been too much.

With Caleb everything is too much.

We talked about the children and their upcoming schedules for school, swimming and friends. We talked about Cole, for a time, and about my plans for writing over the fall. We didn't speak again of Ben's decisions for his night job nor did we touch on the expectations Caleb held for his return on leaving my boys alone. We never do. We don't have to say the words, they are simply there. He exploits me and I don't like it. I may like him but I hold a monstrously fearful disdain for the appetites he brings to our encounters. He thinks he is spending Cole's legacy but I still believe Cole would have been horrified.

Ben is never horrified, Ben has seen it all. Ben does it all. And if I can put some beauty on the horror that is Ben's life and extract some of his own worst cravings in the process to give him some peace of mind then I'll do what I can and live long enough to be able to block out the rest before I fall asleep at night. In a way it's a succinct and total distraction from missing Cole and needing Jake. In a way it's a fitting end to a game I have played too long, winning round after round knowing that soon the piper would come over the hill or around the bend and I would be the one paying him. In a way it's a need that I would never speak of out loud that I found a way to fill, with just a little thrill and sickness mixed in to make it something that doesn't occur very often.

In a way, my life is bespoke, designed and tailored to fit me and only me and those who can't stand to be apart from me. I don't deign to discuss it with those who wouldn't understand. Those who won't expand their minds to understand that everything is not as it appears and it won't conform to your ideals nor fail to insult your own good graces.

I brought my roses home. I earned them with good behavior. It was still dark outside and not even far into the next day as Satan predicted it would be. Because sleeping in his presence? That's something even I won't do.

And I will do almost anything.

Almost.

Don't assume.

Fine, assume away. I don't care.

Lists.

I like grapefruit or orange juice with handfuls of ice cubes. I like old VWs and new Bugattis. I have a traveler's heart but the head of a tree stump and will hardly move unless you light me on fire. I like handbags. Big bags mainly so I can carry lots of things. Like a pear and a good book and my library card and the one for Mountain equipment, too and sometimes a sweater, but only if it's cool. Every pocket also contains a bobby pin, sometimes two, and you'll find two or three more in my hair if you look hard enough.

I don't like shoes but I have a few pairs that stand out. Shoes with skulls or angels and cowboy boots in unconventional colors.

I like the inside of my brain and have never said out loud that I was bored. Ever. I can go anywhere inside my head, with no fear of the unknown. If it's unknown I can simply reimagine it to be perfect. I love wooden hair brushes and men in white button-down shirts and I like cotton candy. I love the thrill rides at the fair but only at sundown and I will never jump out of plane again because I figure I have already beaten the odds by surviving the first jump. I like pasta al dente and trying new foods and surprise get-togethers. I love growing ivy in my north-facing kitchen window and I love bath bombs from Lush, the sex bomb the most. I've been in love with Brigitte Bardot since I first laid eyes on her and Naomi Watts too. I get crushes on some unlikely fellows as well but the list is too long and you would proclaim I am bored and move on to someone else's words. Let's just say some of them might surprise you and others will downright scare you. I don't care what they've done, be good now. I don't judge people except based on how they treat me.

I love music. Not all music. I'm not prone to fits of ecstasy over country music, pop, or slow chamber orchestras, but if it's loud and qualifies as any kind of metal I am there with bells on. I can bang my head in the car at stoplights or dance under my seatbelt and make people smile. I'll wave because I don't care. I wish I could get real fruit juice in my slurpee and I wish bubble tea came without bubbles. I like pocky sticks and red strings and drawings of the hand of fatima because I think the hand means stop! You will have good luck from here on out. I'm superstitious and I carry a rabbit's foot everywhere I go. A St.Christopher's medal and an evil eye too. A keychain that says Princess. That's me.

I like farms, I like the smell, the work and the taste of vegetables fresh from the garden. I like old telephones and having to walk to the post office and the bed that everyone falls into the middle of and the wood-burning kitchen stove. I like the animals though they are always bigger than me and I liked the noise from the sawmill nearby because it meant everything was right with the world. I liked daylight there. Crickets make me terribly sad so let's focus on sunflowers which do not.

I can boil the perfect four-minute egg. The yolk is soft and moist and a rich yellow. I can also bake a banana bread that won't last twenty-four hours and I have had five difference cellphones in the past three years because if it lights up and fits in my hand I'm happier than if you give me diamonds.

I could live out of a backpack. The simpler things in life drawn me in. Hanging laundry to dry. Cooking raw. Drawing. Reading a book by candlelight. Music played around the living room or the dining room table. Smiling. If you see me out you would think I'm a fool because I wear a smile and I ask people how they are, because I used to be a scowling-troll and now I don't see the point in not Making Contact. I don't waste a lot of precious time on self-help or on risking my life when I feel like, here at halfway through, a quiet existence forgotten in a city of hundreds of thousands of people is possibly where I belong but I will always be somewhere else, someone else, inside my head.

Dumb domestic things that make me happy.

Household tip #3475853477, but not from me, for I just figured this one out today.

Fold a matching fitted and flat sheet together, place pillowcase on top, store inside the second pillowcase. Three sets per bed if you're listing toward extravagant, otherwise two sets per child, one on the bed. I would go the hardcore minimalist route and just wash and return the same sheets to the bed and only have one set per, but every now and then the puke fairy will visit and remind me that I need extra sheets.

Now my cedar chest is organized and I don't have to unfurl fifteen sheets before I find the ones that fit a big bed versus a twin.

Okay so you all do it already and I'm slow. I realize this.

Extras? Dropsheets, baby. I am the messiest painter alive.

Because every freak show has one.

I'm the voice inside of you, that says there's nothing you can't do.
If you could open up your eyes and lay your heart out on the line.
I'm the voice inside your head, that brings your mind back from the dead.
I hope that I have served you right, even if only for one night.

After twelve days away, Ben arrived home just as I was beginning the final head count in preparations to begin dinner. Ruth may enjoy the company of adults more than children, but that didn't mean she didn't choose homemade macaroni and cheese as her birthday dinner of choice. Or that I didn't cry into the roux, since I've never made a roux before and when you're cooking from scratch for twenty-six people, you really need to concentrate and I almost fled the kitchen when Ben walked into it, unannounced. Backpack. Messy hair. Flight clothes. Beard. Cigarettes. That grin. A huge gift bag for Ruth even though we had already shopped for her presents weeks ago.

I know, I said beard.

Couldn't take my eyes off him all evening. He looks so strange with it. Like a wild man. Undomesticated. Feral. I love it. Seriously. He grows a beard so very rarely. It was a sound distraction from the whole twelve days of spare to no communication with not a single inkling that he would arrive in time for the big day yesterday. I wanted to yell at him or shove him out the back door and slam it shut or give him the silent treatment.

I didn't.

I waited until the evening was complete, the children were in bed and every last dish was washed and I pointed out his communication skills sucked big time. I know he's not used to being accountable to anyone but you give up those kinds of attitudes when you get married and furthermore, when you have stepchildren with hearts and minds far more fragile than yours are. Just because children are resilient doesn't mean you can blow them off indefinitely. (And just because things change doesn't mean people change, Bridget.)

I'm not religious or fanatical, but I'm a motherfucking miracle
You knock me down and I get up again.
So hit the lights out and let the show begin.

After breakfast this morning he took off. To get a haircut and a shave. And when he comes home I know he'll look like Ben. He'll feel like Ben. And surely enough, he'll act like Ben.

Lochlan pointed out we were both doing what we do best. Ben disappears in an effort to force concern in everyone so that he can have that reassurance that we care about him even when he's away, and Bridget becomes the martyr, figuring that the world has gone to hell in a handbasket and that no one must care at all. Ben's ego strokes take all of the energy from my efforts at independence and unrequited happiness and that's something we are working on. Very hard.

In between kissing.

Sorry but DAMN. That beard is so awesome but gone by now, I'm sure. Very late last night he kissed me in the shower, and I said that kissing a wet beard is probably one of my favorite things on earth. He smiled and said it probably felt just like when he kisses one very specific part of me. I promise I did throw the shampoo at him, and I connected squarely on the chin. Problem is the beard deflected the contact and we deemed beards to be facial force-fields that protect their wearers from harm.

Maybe he should have left it alone.

And maybe I should grow a beard.

Beautiful Girl.

Today is Ruth's tenth birthday.

There is swimming to be enjoyed and books to be considered at the library, balloons to admire and then explode, cake to consume by the spoonload and presents, which I may need a forklift for, there are so many. There are also guests coming for dinner. Twenty-three of them, as a matter of fact. My child didn't want a birthday party with her peers. She just wanted all the people she loves around the same table treating her like a princess.

Sounds like someone else we know, doesn't it?

Well, that's not quite accurate. See, Ruth is her own person. She's got self-esteem and confidence and presence. She knows what she likes, she knows the difference between right and wrong, and she'll say what's on her mind with very little prompting. She's a really, really amazing girl. I can't say little any more, can I? She'd be annoyed by that, because she's not in the single digits anymore, mom.

Oh, I know, sweetheart. I just can't believe it. It happened so fast.

Alternative egos.

Last night was our newly-minted Thai Tuesday, which was demoted quickly from a weekly plan to the first Tuesday of every month instead. And will probably end more quickly then that because..well, we'll be spending all of our Tuesday nights at the rec centre from now until Christmas. Thai Wednesday doesn't have the same ring to it, but the children must continue their swimming lessons while Bridget does her best to stay out of the deep end.

Bridget's not a great swimmer, and Lochlan has stories up the wazoo about how he would have to swim beside me as I struggled out to the diving platform at the lake. Or how he would always just instruct me to stay in the shoulder-deep water at the beach and not go over my head, while he proceeded to swim to the Bay of Biscay, or so it seemed.

My deep end in this case is proverbial so no one has to worry so much about the actual water part.

Over pad thai and chopsticks last evening we all discussed the ominous silence from hell (in code because the kids kept up a running commentary on seventy other topics of note at the same time. We're a talented bunch, what can I say?) Satan's failure at swift and devastating punishment for being stood up Saturday night has been noticed. I'm sure he's just plotting something wonderful for me to be exacted at a later date. But more likely he's gone after Ben.

How do I know if I haven't spoken with him?

Exactly for that reason. I haven't spoken with him. Or Ben, for that matter. Dead silence from both sides means it's probably too late. Maybe all of it's too late. Maybe Ben's spies reported too much, as I haven't let go of Lochlan's hand in forever because I'm afraid if I do I'll get forgotten or thrown off the face of the earth when it spins. The collective argument is that Ben has to look after himself and I have to look after myself, instead of waiting, worrying and watching over everyone else. I thought I had been selfish long enough but they've been quick to point out I'm not selfish enough.

Oh.

I'm quietly panicking over here in my corner of the world, with these innuendos and mixed messages and boy-buffets and hurt feelings and killer wagons and silent phones. Ruth's birthday is tomorrow, for heaven's sake. Why hasn't he called? Will he ever call? Does holding Lochlan's hand endlessly or sleeping in the oppressive heat that he creates spell the end of something Ben already asked me to end when he left because he thinks these separations are far too much for me to manage? I said not a chance and he asked me to use what I had available to feel better then, while he's gone, because that's the deal I got when the ghosts came to stay, and we can fight about it later if he ever comes home. So I use Lochlan. Just like he uses me. I don't feel better. I'm sure he does but he's also all I have right now, isn't he?

I don't understand any of this.

I looked at Lochlan and asked him what I should do. He kissed my forehead and squeezed my hand.

Stay here, Bridgie. And don't go where the water will be over your head.

Fact: Paint it Black is the only Stones song I enjoy.

In the kitchen all that remains is to touch up the ceiling a little, scrape and paint all the trim a durable, easy to scrub white and then sand the walls down around the stove and extend the back splash from the sink all the way over around the stove to the door. I think that will work.

I love this color. It's a warm yellow-orange. Exactly the color of pumpkin guts! it sounds terrible but it looks terrific, I promise. And everything is washed up already because there's only one full wall in the whole room, the rest is broken up by cupboards, windows, sinks, doors, heating grates, etc. So we can paint the whole room three times over and still have two-thirds of a gallon left, or whatever measurement this can is, I can't tell, it's completely covered with paint.

I like having the new paint be a warm, bright color. I'm so predisposed to dark colors and cool unfriendly greens and blues that this is a complete anomaly.

Rest assured, I haven't lost my mind completely. I'm still going to make all the outside doors, heating grates and outside and basement steps black. The main and back staircases are varnished wood, I'll never touch those as long as I'm here. But black is okay, because it's the color of charred pumpkin guts.

Equally cool.

Leaning over you here, cold and catatonic
I catch a brief reflection of what you could and might have been
It's your right and your ability
To become my perfect enemy

Wake up and face me, don’t play dead cause maybe
Someday I’ll walk away and say you disappoint me
Maybe you’re better off this way

I had breakfast with an old friend this morning. Remember Claus? He had all kinds of thoughts on Bridget nineteen months post-flight, on Ben in absentia, on Lochlan, on the children and on the upcoming winter.

All kinds.

I am still processing.

Instead I'll tell you that long after breakfast, I counted sixteen lily pads in the creek, the sixteenth one curled so that Henry was convinced it was actually a frog. Four blooms on the planter by the back patio and one lone raspberry intended to defy the coming frost. The strawberry plant seems to be finished, much to the dog's chagrin, and the grass seed is coming along nicely on the spots where we played dodge ball and ruined the lawn in the space of a single afternoon.

I picked up some hockey tape for someone. I can't remember who, I'll leave it on the table by the front door and someone will thank me for it eventually.

I made plans inside my head to go to the concrete room less, and hang on words said by boys less and put up with less, making my own plans, doing a little more of what I would like to do and maybe even worrying and waiting a little less.

Like right now. I had thirty minutes to spare so I brought out a forbidden cup of coffee and my laptop and I had planned to enjoy some solitude and fresh air in the backyard but it's been quickly quashed by my neighbor who has decided to mow his lawn with an enthusiastically loud lawnmower. I already smiled and waved and he grinned and probably mowed half of my front lawn, I can tell because it's taking him twice as long as usual.

I will reciprocate in the winter when the snow falls and I shovel the sidewalk in front of five houses because winters begin in exhilaration and end in despair for me as the novelty (HA.) of the snow wanes. By February I will have passed the shovel-torch (now there's an invention waiting to happen) to PJ or Chris and not care in the least if anyone can make it down the sidewalk but in the meantime we do neighborly things because it makes the world a little more comfortable for everyone and it helps bring me out of my shell.

Yes, the kevlar one.

Thank heavens I'm a turtle and not a frog.

I've kissed frogs though. Just in case. As per my suspicions, they don't always turn into princes. And that's okay too. Sometimes princesses are just turtles in dresses.

And no, I have not been drinking. Skateboard Jesus told me I looked as if I needed a drink. He was right, as usual, but I think I'll stick with coffee. I want to process today, not bury it.

Maybe I can slip today under a lily pad when no one's looking. I can tape it there with this handy tape.

Yeah, I think that's exactly what I should do.

Staring down the last full week of summer.

(Oh, regrets, would you just go hide in the closet and I'll pull you out in the spring again with the raincoats and squirtguns? Thank you. I'm not going to itemize, I'm too busy doing other personal inventory. Not going to itemize that either. Lord, we would be here all day, wouldn't we?)

Oddly I have found some sort of resigned positivity, namely because when I just step in and do it or step in and refuse, things seem better. So there you have it. It's a gorgeous day at the farm, starting out cold but now sunny and crisp and clear. Not a cloud in the sky. I woke up in the warmest arms on the planet, since surrogate husbands seem to be in ample supply these days while real ones are not. Out here I sleep in t-shirts and long johns so it was more like having a living blanket than anything else. Down the hall the delicious smell of woodsmoke and fresh coffee filled up my nose and my ears were gifted the quiet crackle of a fire in the fireplace.

I think I could move here, save for the fact that Nolan doesn't have music on much unless his sons are around or I spin the dial on the radio on the table from talk to rock. That and the fact that it's a difficult drive in the winter make me hesitate. Plus it's isolated. I'm so thoroughly spoiled, having all the boys close by but far enough to send home when they argue with each other. Besides, when I do move, and it will be sooner rather than later, I'm going to head further than this climate reaches, because after surviving seven winters here and staring down an eighth, I think I've had just about enough.

And I will miss the farm. We'll be back here soon, I hope. Long weekends are made for this place, I think.

I've got a semi-busy, semi-quiet week ahead, however. Finish painting the kitchen (yes, again). Celebrate Ruth's birthday (she will be ten years old. Two years until Junior high, mom! OH MY GOD STOP GROWING, CHILD.). Take the kids to the pool and the library and grocery shopping, again. Coddle PJ, because after an argument he turns in the sweetest man alive and I always enjoy him seventeen times as much as usual, when he's a metronomic pain in the ass. Ignore calls/texts/boxes from Caleb. Make the list of hockey gear required because the boys will miss things otherwise and hockey starts soon even though we seem to be down a goalie.

(Positive, remember, Bridge?)

Look for a new breadmaker because I'm sick of running out, sick of paying six bucks a loaf and sick of bread that tastes like cardboard, I'll go back to making my own.

Oh, and I need to make a CD of Metallica's setlist so I will be ready for the show this fall. I always do before a big concert, helps build momentum! Even though momentum comes from my platform skull shoes. I've already decided I'll be wearing those when I catch James' eye. Shameless, I know. Leave me be, that's one of those twenty-year crushes, transferred from Cliff Burton when he died.

Maybe it's me.

Speaking of crushes, and on a vacuous note besides, we tuned into a repeat of Saturday Night Live last night, the one with John McCain, who was campaigning for something or other, I don't know, I don't pay attention to politics, but the musical guest was some guy with a fledgling beard named David Cook. While he was a little light musically I thought he was adorable. I looked up his music this morning and as usual I am the last to find about new artists. He's everywhere, this guy.

So I think I'll just crawl back into my blue-velvet and muscle-lined world and stay there. And when I paint my kitchen I'll listen to Lamb of God. They open for Metallica, you know.

Oh, that's right. You already knew.

That's okay. I know other things. Things you'll find out a long ways from now, so we're even, I think. Enjoy the rest of the weekend. We are heading home.

And for the record? Right now Caleb is actually the least of my worries so I don't care if I'm crossing him or not. Thanks for the concern though. We are here safe and sound.