Feedmonstercakeshebenice.

Bridget, what are you doing?

Sitting here. Thinking.

In the shelf?

I fit.

Right, but wouldn't somewhere else be more comfortable?

Probably.

I bet I can come up with a place.

Go ahead, Lochlan. Where?

At the table.

Seriously?

With me.

You're joking.

Eating cake.

Move out of my way, I'm already there.

Could've been the champagne
The champagne
Could've been the cocaine
The cocaine
Could've been the way you looked at me
That told me we were through

In my next life I'm going to stick with the pole dancing and the passionate, monosyllabic relationships, romanticized into a movie-like state. At least then, life was simple.

I still get to indulge in the lap dances though, it's not like so much is missing. Not sure that that was a life so much as another blip on the radar of the most surreal landscape I've ever crossed in a bid to find that fucking inner peace that will forever elude me. It's not real, it's like religion. People invent things to make themselves feel better.

And blip means brief. Not like I ever made a life out of it. But Cinderella persists sometimes and sometimes she's just plain not who you thought she was. I much prefer the life with the smiles and the butler and the fresh-squeezed orange juice and being permitted to be led out the back entrance thanks to who I'm with. Yeah, I'll take that any day. I'll take having to pick the mirror up with my fingers before I can check my lipgloss when we leave and I'll take not having to check price tags and count totals in my head before I reach the grocery checkout.

There's a price for everything, whether you check it now or later. Don't be naive.

It could've been a bad day
A bad day
Could've been the real way
The real way
Could've been the way you looked at me
That told me we were through

Yesterday I wasn't permitted to do a thing, and today it's business as usual. Yesterday no one wanted to talk to me because every time I opened my mouth this unholy keening sound came out like an alien in a different kind of movie and I just abruptly stopped bothering to try. Today they want to know everything that's going on. I'm tired. I don't want to talk anymore. I don't want to paint. I don't want to walk or run. I don't want to cook. I just want to find a nonjudgmental hug that won't be over before I'm ready and sleep in it. For a few days, maybe.

No amount of money in the world can purchase something like that and I'm dumb enough to have thought I might be able to get it for free.

Animal Farm.

He doesn't like it when I talk about the concrete room.

Instead I got a song and a kiss and I was held and I was asked if I was okay and what was wrong and it was exhaustion and heat and headaches and thinking about The Future and all the usual things that grow from a gently lapping surf into a fucking tsunami in the space of a few hours.

Maybe you should wall up the room. Maybe he's right.

Maybe it's just a thing and you should leave it alone, Ben.

I try to. Just...the look on your face, princess.

But the room is closed, mostly, when Ben is home. I get a reprieve from the ghosts. A break from the fear and someone big and strong to take away the cow I had yesterday. Cows are heavy. They take up lots of space. Way more than one single small princess with her very full head and her boys around her.

Wonder what I have to conjure to get PJ to rematerialize.

Probably a goat.

We like goats.

And zombies.

I'm a zombie today. But it could be worse.

I could be a goat.

Or a cow.

But not a ghost.

Bridget as a living, breathing epiphany.

The dim of the wailing guitars comes to an abrupt halt when I open the door. Today the room seemed to be filled with a haze, like dust, serving to further obscure my view of Cole, who likes to lurk in the shadows and making Jacob positively radiate as his favorite place in the room is the warm one, right in the center where the light pours in from some invisible hole high up in the center of the wall. I always visit early in the morning so that the light is best. When I have ventured down there late in the afternoon or overnight it's very frightening. I get distracted by that. Fear has a way of overtaking even the most prolific need.

He smiled at me, that lazy wide grin with his big chiclet teeth and strong chin. He shook his hair out of his eyes and said I looked beautiful and once again asked me to let them go and to close the room off, with concrete, the same way I built it, ragged nails mixing sand with water until I had a fortress that would keep out the enemy.

I made a mistake. The enemies are fear and death and that's precisely what's in that room.

I nodded sympathetically and said no.

Wait. I'll make you a deal, Jacob.

I'll listen. He says it slowly, as if speaking to a child. Wait, he is speaking to a child.

Come back with me because the charade is over. You're not dead and I will be better if you just come back. I'll close the room, because we won't need it anymore. I smiled, sure that I could charm him with the fragile beauty he grew to love so.

What about Cole, Bridget?

He's dead. He can go somewhere else. See, I have proof that he's really there.

What is the proof?

I was there when it happened.

And you don't believe in my death?

No, I think you got scared and I know you're still alive. You're my Jacob. You wouldn't have done what they told me you did. You didn't believe in that.

A desperate man is capable of so much, princess. Look around you.

It was a warning and I studied his face. The face I have stared at for days on end before because HE wouldn't leave. HE couldn't stand to be away. HE had to be within reach at all times. To keep me alive because I do believe in hasty exits from unimaginable, imaginary pain.

That's why he is still alive and he's out there somewhere in physical form and I keep mixing all my values with shock wondering what the catalyst will be to bring him home and then I hit on it this morning as I skipped down the dark and lonely path and my breath caught in my throat when I realized.

The promise was designed to keep me safe. The promise was created to keep the secrets. The promise was the key to everything. And so I'll have to break it, and when I break it Jacob will come back and he'll be pink and warm and breathing deep and evenly and I can be safe again.

Because he promised. And if he can break promises then so can I.

Sacrilege.

Low?
I'm on empty
Try to erase all the bad times
Free?
I don't seem to be
My soul remains tied to your life
Every breath you breathe deep
I feel you circulating through me

This morning Lochlan and I had a shoving match in front of the stereo.

Because I am fourteen forever with him and because he tends to forget that it's my house.

I wanted to put Godsmack on and all he ever seems to play anymore is Pink Floyd. I have something wrong with my brain, okay? If I don't want to hear something I physically can't listen to it. It frustrates me and I tried to push him out of the way and picking a fight with someone bigger than me is never a great plan (I only come up to his shoulder).

He is not above shoving back, and I sat on the couch hard.

We both looked startled. Like we both woke up suddenly and said what the hell are we doing?

Oh, wait, no, he said that out loud.

I waited. Lochlan usually answers his own questions. He never required a witness for a good honest conversation.

There's too much pressure, he says. How can you live like this? How can he be worth this, Bridgie? Why would you continue to put yourself through all of this. You think he cares? I don't think he understands the weight of this on you. He can't. Can he?

I waited some more. Maybe he was finished and I could play my songs.

Nope.

Ten minutes go by and he's still talking but I stopped listening because his fears don't have room in my head anymore. His selfishness is a thorn in my side and I wrap my arms around myself and rub absently at the sore spot on a daily basis. It won't heal. It hurts when I stretch. It aches when I'm cold.

You don't hear me anyway. He drops it like a challenge, lead weight on my bare knees, grinding my stilettos into the turkish rug on the living room floor and I'm pinned by his verbal expectations suddenly, brutally. That face that I've known my whole life contracted in vexation. He rarely looks any other way anymore. Lochlan is settling into a frame of mind as life goes on that really surprises me.

And we're supposed to leave for church soon. Penance on Sunday mornings prior to leaving is to play Mistakes and Changes and then I have something to sooth my brainwaves while I listen to Sam's words and give Ruth the Eye of Doom when she starts whispering really loud to Lochlan about something random.

I hear you, I finally said. I hear every word you've ever said. I smooth the front of my dress absently and the tears begin, and the fluttering hands, because teenagers are so mature, and the salt from them dissolves the weight he dropped on my lap and I'm suddenly light and graceless once more. I check my watch and the mother of pearl dial tells me we're running out of time to do this shit first thing on a Sunday morning when all of our friends are waiting for us.

No, I don't feel a thing
Life is going by me
And still I say, oh god
I'm making the same mistakes

He reaches out with one hand to try and hold on to me, suddenly overcome with the regret I wish he would have unloaded twenty-four years ago so I don't have to live within it now and I walk right out of his embrace.

Come on, Lochlan, we're going to be late.

Lochlan's back. Next time he has strict instructions to bring the sun with him.

Eight dollars and sixty cents, plus tip.

That's how much I permitted myself to indulge, apparently.

I seem to be incapable of spoiling myself. The plan was, after a long week celebrating Ruth's birthday, the hastened death of summer proper and the whole chaos of back-to-school, that I would treat myself to an afternoon of shopping and lunch and all kinds of solitary expression. I cleared the boys out of my hair (the few still in town, I mean) and struck groceries and laundry and dog walking off my list before lunch. After they returned to school, I hopped in my car and took off.

And came home empty-handed.

I was standing in Sephora holding an Urban Decay lip gloss and decided rather suddenly that I didn't want to pay $22 for it. So I went around to the next aisle and found the Sephora line and decided I didn't want to pay $14 for that. Went to the home store and found one valance that I liked for the kitchen but didn't love it enough to buy it. Ditto the new bath mat or the juice glasses that were lovely, vintagey-looking. I am down to three of the small glasses in the cupboard, so it's time, I just hit the wall of self-sacrifice that prohibits me from spending a dime. I've been poor. So very poor. The post-traumatic stress of that must run deeper than I ever seem to realize.

Maybe I need therapy.

Are you done laughing?

I decided I would get a new coat, then. Fuck this miserly nonsense! No one had what I was looking for and I found out my favorite dress store closed down. You would think they would have called me. I think I was their best customer.

I resorted to texting the boys to see if they wanted or needed things. They were all busy.

Huh.

Not really very good at this, am I?

I supposed I could have gotten a coffee and milled about for a while, checking out clothes and new perfumes. But I had just gone to lunch before my shopping trip, something I did manage to pull off without guilt or trauma, and I wasn't in the mood for anything else, really. Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll spend $4 for a single cup of coffee and enjoy the hell out of it. I can justify food, just not stuff, I guess. I'm not very sentimental about things, but you know that already. You've been with me for a while here, as I go through the ups and downs.

I'm going to chaulk a weird, tired week up to absences, change and the goddamned night train. If you've ever heard it you'll know exactly what I mean. The lack of sleep clouds absolutely everything.

Oh. That's it!

Sleep. I would buy sleep. Too bad no one has any in my size.

Unitarian taskmasters and really old heavy metal.

I tried to give you consolation
When your old man had let you down.
Like a fool, I fell in love with you,
Turned my whole world upside down.

Break time. I'm in the midst of eating a bowl of fresh chunks of pineapple and melon and am halfway through the first water thermos of the day. I'm horrifying the workers here at the church playing secular power ballads at top volume. They keep looking to Sam for salvation and they aren't getting any. I had no idea he would know all the words to Layla and to Lost in the Ozone, even.

Gives Lemmy a run for his money, I tell you.

He recruited me after a miserable phone call brought him to my kitchen just after midnight, fresh off a round of exhausting hospice and in no mood for me. He took off his jacket and hung it in the hallway and proceeded to make us some toast (toast, Sam) while he regaled me with all the things I could be doing instead of wallowing and being difficult.

I wasn't difficult. He was just sad that he had to deal with someone who could talk back. It's okay, I told him that to his face and he laughed briefly and told me I was sad. I nodded.

I am sad, sometimes. We wound up sitting on the floor against the kitchen cupboards eating antipasto on crackers until almost four am and then he walked me upstairs, checked the kids and said that I had to sleep because he would be back in two hours to wake me up so I could work for him today.

Nice.

I'm not much good here. Lucky for me there's a huge new coffeemaker here. I plan to drink all of it in between the waterboarding. I plan to get a lot of hugs too. And the next time Ben, PJ, Andrew and Lochlan all plan their departures for the same day? I...well, I don't know what I'll do.

I guess I'll hang out here.

With God and his best bud, Sam. Who can exist on absolutely no sleep. Perhaps he's the vampire in the room and it isn't me. After all, he's turning out to be an incredibly proficient Motorhead fan, there must be all sorts of other surprises under that thick skin of his.

Figment of my own imagination.

I'm not me today. I don't know how I am but I always feel just a little bit lost when the children go back to school. I had planned to take the day easy, to spoil myself just a little bit. A manicure, maybe some shopping. Coffee or lunch out. But I couldn't do it because I figured I was alone for the first time in a couple of months I should probably get some things done, so I did those things, and I accomplished as much in one day as I was averaging per week so I feel pretty good and I may just give myself a manicure now with an hour to spare and then I'll be all set.

For those who wanted a coffee update I am holding steady at 16 ounces a day, twelve on weekends. The narcolepsy isn't so bad and the quality of my sleep seems to be improving. Our bed is six inches higher now. I may need a ladder to get in soon. I cannot reach down and pet the dog on the floor and if you remember the minimalist me of high school and university I always eschewed beds proper for a mattress on the floor. Even Cole and I had our mattress set on the floor. Now it's almost at waist level. I feel like I sleep in Gulliver's bed. Fee-fi-fo-fum.

New to the equation that is life is eighty ounces of water a day. Yes, I said eighty. Ounces. I am mad, aren't I? It's easier to pull off than I thought and the benefits are immediately obvious. Dumb health issues seem to be evaporating (Or maybe I have drowned them) and I am almost good with not having to pee every fifteen minutes. I'm up to twenty-five minutes. Haha. This will make everything better and has the added bonus of killing my appetite ten times over. Possibly into the future, even.

The children like their classes and mates, that was a worry I can put to rest now. Check.

Dog is down to five walks a day and doing great. For a while there I beat a steady path out the back door and down into my perennial garden where he would pee and then thirty minutes later we would do it all again. He's just like me except possibly I look much cuter on the end of a leash.

Oh, for heaven's sake. Lighten up.

Ben goes back after dinner tonight. With those empty promises in hand and more distractions and pressure than ever and he's fine with all of it. I'm hoping it doesn't take another milestone to get him home again because he is terrible with giving me his schedule, when I have everyone elses', collected as they scrawl with a half-empty black papermate pen into the dayplanner we use, writing with the dusty bumper of the van as a hard surface while I stand on the gravel on the shoulder of the highway and they always take my face in their hands and kiss me on the lips and tell me they will call often and miss me tons and they'll be back in exactly x-number of days and my hair is blowing all around my face and the dust is oppressive. I've got the dayplanner clutched against my chest as I wave until I can't see the van anymore. Dust mixed with tears makes a mess and I always come home and stick my face in a basin full of icy-cold water and promise myself I will mack on the ones who are here until they go and by then someone else will be home again.

I always hope it's Ben, but it never is. He goes the furthest, and stays the longest and it's the hardest.

Waiting for Indian Summer.

And I will find you although I wonder
If I will climb through this rock I'm under

I'm turning the page for something new
I'm finding my way through life in bloom

These hairpins are digging in to my neck.

I opted for a low chignon today, fastening my sterling hairpins just so, and forgetting I should give them a little twist to keep them in now that my hair is shorter than it used to be, now just dusting against my collarbone again instead of almost to the waist which is when these pins really come in handy. I can pick locks with these ones as well. Well, I could if I needed to, I mean. I really should have worn the pins with the poppies instead.

Next time I plan to cut my hair to my chin, hold me down so I can't get to the hairdresser. It's been over a year, I still have regrets.

This is the final day the children are home before they begin school. We're having hurricane-like weather with bright skies, wind coming from every direction and episodes of torrential rains. It's kind of sad that their last day wasn't nice enough to go for a long walk and play outside in the sun but it just didn't seem to be that kind of summer, with only a handful of days with which to soak up the warmth and squint our eyes tight against the blazing sun.

Oddly, fall is still my favorite season. An endless autumn would be the perfect match for your Bridget but it always has to rot, degenerating into winter without so much as a backward glance. Turning cold, just like I do.

I have paid for the tree-banding and the school supplies. We've packed their gym gear and snacks. We've brought down the hanging baskets and brought out the mitten basket. The gardens seem to be in final bloom and some plants have already gone into dormancy. The garden tools have been cleaned and put away and most of the heavy fall cleaning has been done now, thanks to a magnificent effort yesterday to rearrange the entire ground floor of the house to make it more liveable and people-friendly and get rid of several large items that no one had sentimental attachment to, namely, Bridget. It took hours, but it's finished and with it I have a fresh outlook going into the next season.

It's inevitable. Fall comes, then winter comes. The children begin grades 5 and 3 in spite of the fact that I'm going to miss them dearly. My days are my own again to keep up with chores, errands, work and the care of fragile miss b. In the rare moments when there's no one around I'll have the dog to talk to. We'll walk out by the tracks again like I used to do with Butterfield and I'll let my head off leash, marinating in the isolation of train whistle while the dog trots along with a stick in his mouth like a prize. The house will always be clean, I'll have less guilt because the kids will be too tired to be bored for another ten months and more worry because they are just big enough to walk together but alone to and from the schoolyard, something that has me checking for them down the sidewalk for several heartstopping moments twice a day as I wait for them to come home for lunch and then home again in the afternoon.

I'm getting used to it. This will be the fourth year for us, and it's been beneficial in the way that homeschooling never would been to introduce them to the actual abrupt and exciting roller coaster that life is. I haven't gotten used to it yet. It always takes a few weeks of change for change to sink in for me. It takes a few precious days of not doing much of anything to get to know myself again and how I function with everyone away and busy.

It'll be okay.

That's what everyone keeps telling me. I hope they're right.

The external fall preparations are complete, excepting anything that will be affected by Indian Summer which had better serve to redeem the entire year all by itself. Now it's time for the internal preparations. Somehow not everything gets done. I do what I can though. I work hard at it. I have my hair put up so it's off my neck when things heat up and I'm ready for just about anything.