Decisions carved into granite and flesh.

And I won't live your weak wicked lie
You pull me in
I'm one step behind

Show me where it hurts
And I will make it worse
Are you holding on?
Keep holding on
Dilated eyes
Shine for one last time
Are you holding on?
Keep holding on

Every year when it grows cold I lament the amount of hours I didn't spend reading in the front porch. There's now three chairs and a table there, and with eight ripply-glass windows with their crisp white curtains it's a cozy, sunny spot to curl up in for a few hours to process some stories. Only I didn't really do it much this summer and now summer is over. The tiny white lights will be on perpetually through the winter now, if only to lend a little magic to the distended winter regret that settles over the neighborhood once the last of the leaves fall.

The leaves are making things treacherous. Yesterday I slipped and slid down the wet pavement until I made it to the stairs and the railing was wet so I hung on for dear life and by the time I made it to the concrete room I was breathless, filthy and sure I would never make my way back without a cracked ankle or broken skull. I can't wait until the ice returns.

I ducked into the room and turned and for the first time, I closed the door behind me, giving the rusted mechanism a spin with pointless flair, for it hardly budged. I turned around and wiped my dirty, dripping fingers on the front of my coat. Then I tried to smooth my hair, pulling a lock from the corner of my mouth. And then I met his eyes.

He was sitting, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, equally filthy hands and feet but pristine blonde hair and wings as always. He watched me with love, with curiosity.

Why are you here, princess?

Where else would I be? It's an anniversary.

You didn't come on our wedding anniversary.

I don't acknowledge that one.

I see.

What's wrong with me, Jacob?

What do you mean?

Why did you leave?

Bridget, they'll be looking for you, especially today.

I'll go back in a while.

You should go back now.

You should have stayed.

I was not strong enough there. Here, I am.

Then come back now.

It doesn't work that way.

Change it. I need you.

What's wrong?

It's time to come back. I'm done with this game. I don't like this game.

What's happened?

You aren't there for me.

What else?

That should be ENOUGH FOR YOU! Don't you love me?

I do. So, so much.

What a sight we must have been. I'm standing again, screaming at him and he has tears spilling out, down his cheeks, helpless against my rage. Like all of them. It takes me finally getting mad and fighting back for them to see, for them to really see what they do to me.

I can't do this anymore, Jacob.

So let me go and you don't have to come back here anymore.

You're coming with me.

Bridget, I ca-

YES YOU CAN!

I reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt.

And I connected.

I connected.

He was warm.

He was real.

He was alive.

His hands came up and he froze and then he put his hands on my arms and he pulled me into his embrace and I rested my head against his chest, throwing my arms around him. His arms locked around my shoulders and I let out the breath I held. I let it out so slowly my lungs were aching with the effort. And then I began to sob, because I wasted so much time and he was here all along and he wasn't dead and they didn't listen and I was right and now I have to admit to him that I really screwed up, like so badly, like he didn't already know and somehow he has to understand that now Ben will have a bigger part of the equation because I really love Ben and I wouldn't let him go even if Jacob comes back and he's going to have to understand and it's all just pouring out and I doubt it made any sense at all and then suddenly there were other hands on me, hands pulling me away and back into the warmth and shaking me just a little and I opened my eyes and there was Ben, and I was so relieved that he found us and he knew too and everything was going to be good again and Bridget wouldn't be sad and I threw my arms around his neck and hung on for dear life as my heart popped and stretched and grew out of the black stitches that were holding it together and it hurt so badly and he held me in surprise and then he burst the balloon and I was plunged into black once again.

You were crying in your dream. It's okay now, everything's going to be okay.

It's so easy to make promises that someone else will have to keep. I just stared at him for a moment and then I got up and went to run a shower, hot as Hades, knowing he would not be far behind. I stepped into the claw foot tub, standing under the spray, and I watched the dirt run off my fingertips in black sandy rivulets, circling down into the drain along with any shred of hope that I can ever bring Jacob back to this place, back into my life that has changed so drastically since he left I hardly recognize myself, let alone anyone else.

Seconds later, Ben stepped into the shower, naked, gloriously beautiful with his tattoos in contrast to his pale skin, and put his arms out, stepping under the spray, shielding me from the needle-sharp barbs of hot water.

Ben, what if I told you Jacob was still alive?

Then bring it on, Princess, because you talk in your sleep and I already know how this will go down.

Rambling through my nightmares, unconscious and fearful, it never occurred to me even once that they are still conducted out loud.

Promise me you'll always remember you're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

~Christopher Robin to Pooh

Benposta and the curse of touching Cole's girl.

Tomorrow.

(Ohnoyetpleaseinsuchagoodmood)

Hit like a ton of goddamn bricks because I have things to do. Five loads of laundry. The house is a mess. The children are battered, fried and done and Ben is back on track after yet another magnificent stab at falling apart and failing. Because that's what he does when things go wrong and Bridget was doing terrific, all things considered and then some fucking idiot asked me what the date was and I looked at my blackberry and the world stripped away, the sky peeling back from it's neat edges, trees sucking back into the ground, a layer of dust settling over what remained, with black crowding in where the blue once was.

October 24th is tomorrow.

And I've already got a run-date and a lunch-date and a gallery-date and a movie-date. And that's just tomorrow! The week has been filled up, appointments and plans made and cross-checked and coordinated because last year we cleared the week and I didn't manage so well, but that was the first one. This is the second and so that makes me a veteran of enduring the Hard Days of anniversaries where bad things happen out of the blue. Like Jacob leaving, the week before he jumped from a high building because he was a magnificent fucking hypocrite and a coward.

Nothing brought more clarity to me than going into that house and seeing the shrine of a bedroom and sitting down to hot soup for lunch and knowing that I was still here, living, breathing, laughing, crying and where is Jacob? Locked in a concrete room in my insane little head because I don't know what to do with him and whatever is left of his ashes in the box which didn't wind up in the ductwork of my house isn't him so that doesn't even count and there's a marker by the ocean at the house but that doesn't count either so he's just trapped where I can hold his memories and none of them will leak out and they are safe but dammit, I'm the one enjoying his mother's soup and homemade bread and asking her about her garden and taking her to have a girlie day with Ruth at the hairdresser.

He shouldn't have left but he did and I can't help that. I can only help the big firecracking idiot Benjamin who threatened to take a drink every second we were there until Jacob's father got a hold of him. I don't know what was said but Ben came out of that day white as a sheet and on his best, and he renewed his position with a fortification that he must have checked out of the library because you certainly can't buy the sudden resolve that he was drenched in any more than Lochlan thinks he can charm the universe into presuming that he is the one running this circus.

You aren't paying attention. I run it. It's my show and I finance it with money from my brother in law that I get in exchange for things you don't want to know about. I know no one is thrilled I'm going back to work for someone I repeatedly have to unleash my lawyers on, but that's all part of the game and the game is maybe something I play because self-preservation is all or nothing, same as it is for Benny. There are no more secrets. There is nothing left to do with my love except to swing it around overhand and see who I can clock with it. I knocked Ben right out, apparently and he's been seeing stars ever since. But he hung on, down to the minute-by-minute and managed to white-knuckle Lochlan's bullshit and Caleb's smug ruggedness and he came home straight and narrow and incredibly upright, where he sagged into Nolan's arms at the airport and then I found out how afraid Ben is that every time the circus passes a Hard Day mark he waits for me to upend the tent and run off with some other clown. Because I've done it. Because I've ruined everything before. His solution is to make everyone hate him while he dies of fear.

As you can imagine, it's not very productive and almost assuredly counterproductive but Ben is Ben and he is slow to change.

JUST like BRIDGET.

There never seems to be anything BUT change anymore and we're attempting to force routine and permanence and we get burned repeatedly. Ever seen a circus tent go up in flames? I have. It goes up fast and it burns so hot. Permanence has come whether we rushed it or not. Routine will follow. Ben is planning to get a vacation loan to hang on to this library-borrowed strength until he can find some more ways to keep it going and me, well, I'm back in town so the circus is once again on.

All day, every day, half-price on weekends.

Hi, honey, we're home!

but true to form, the boys ate all of the food, so I must drag my sorry butt to the market. I'll be back this afternoon.

We're heading home. I'm going to see if I can find a thicker skin to wear, Ben is going to get better and we're going to find some kind of routine. The rules are changing slightly, in that I will only be going to the loft two days a week, the other two I will work from home, with Fridays off as always.

Should be okay.

I have other things on my mind today.

See you tomorrow.

Never more than this, princess. Never more than this.

Poetry by the Sea (chills courtesy of Lord Byron).

Here wilt thou read, recorded on my heart,
A grief too deep to trust the sculptor's art.
No marble marks thy couch of lowly sleep,
But living statues there are seen to weep;
Affliction's semblance bends not o'er thy tomb,
Affliction's self deplores thy youthful doom.

Quiet observations, but only the very good ones.

Good coffee.
Honey on the table.
Clean green paint on my chair.
Twelve pairs of gloves and three pairs of mittens by the door.
Fish are not pets, says Grampa, and he laughs again, pointing to the boats in the harbour.
Boys are speaking to one another.
Children seem to be over their colds.
We will conquer sleeping on feathers, just as we leave.
Movie and dinner plans for tonight, both acquired, for there is nothing here to go to.
The phone charger has come back to life, Dalton.
729 text messages and fifteen calls in three days.
All is well at home.
The sun is shining. It's not cold, and twenty-five years later I can still quote Highlander from beginning to end.
Ben is still sober.
God lives here.
And Jacob does not.

Theatre of idiots.

Jacob's dad walks into the kitchen early this morning.

Doing a little writing, Bridget?

No, just checking the news.

I don't know why I lie about the writing. They know I write (hello), they know I write daily if not hourly and that I chronicled every single day that I spent with Jacob. In some ways my writing is far too personal to even acknowledge which is ironic, knowing the mediums I use. I guess it's the journal that was/is private, began in secret. Cole was so surprised to learn of it, I've never been the one to bring it up since.

Jacob's parents are incredibly glad to see all of us, most especially the children. They are almost thrilled that nothing ever changes and the first order of business today will be to replace the window in the garage and take Lochlan in town to the dentist, since Ben and Lochlan already managed to conduct a fist fight in the side yard, complete with broken glass and teeth. God Bless Lochlan but he really needs to think before he opens his mouth because he is the smaller of the two and it's always his teeth in the grass. Ben couldn't quash an impulse under threat of death and frankly I think the whole throw down in Bridget's honor is not nearly as honorable as it once was, you know, back when we were in high school. Nevermind the fact that I didn't go to high school with Ben.

No worries, they made up five seconds later, and Ben gets to be the one to take Lochlan in town and then Lochlan gets to be the one to explain to the children why it's wrong to punch people.

Jacob's father laughed, while his mother ran to get ice in a towel, marveling exactly how little has truly changed in all these years.

I could say the same.

Jacob's parents are love. They both look well and as good as they ever will be, missing Jacob so dearly. Life remains black and white for them, and their daily routine changes little. It's nice to poke around a little and make the calls that will bring someone to fix the things that they put up with and chip away at making their lives as easy as we can. They are so proud, it isn't an easy job.

I have not gone into Jacob's room yet. The door is open, I got halfway down the hall. The kids went in and I had to send August in after them because I was afraid they might disturb things. They didn't, and Ruth and Henry were more touched then I expected them to be, to be here again. They have been back with Caleb so their last visit was without me here and maybe everyone is just backing off a little and seeing how I am doing and not pushing and it's all very gentle and quiet but the wind still blows. The relentless wind.

I'm trying not to be difficult, trying to find the good in all the little things and I've been eating the feelings as they come up, dry-swallowing the hard parts before my eyes get too stingy and my hands start to flutter. But no one is dumb. The only thing is I probably would have cracked but the fact that the boys followed me here to continue to be my knights means I now have an obligation to pull the fuck together and make it a successful visit that doesn't end with those grim looks over my head as they wonder exactly how long the road back will be this time.

I would say I'm faring a lot better than Ben and Lochlan, who will be heading up the immature end of thing this time but that's only because I waffled yesterday and basically hammered Ben into the ground and I'll atone for that when he atones for the equally unfair things he does.

Trust me when I say we are even, and forgive me when I fail to tell you why.

Sometimes I hold all the power which makes life difficult when one would prefer to fall apart. I've done that so much it hardly seems worth the fallout anymore, especially this far from home.

And so instead I sit in this kitchen which boasts so many coats of paint over the years it has lost its corners and is growing smaller, and look out over the ocean that still makes me cry and try to understand how I would have ever been enough to make Jacob change his plans of coming back home after graduate school to live in the town he grew up in and instead come chasing after me.

Bridget versus the ocean? It seems like such an easy choice.

At least to me.

I'm sure there's going to be many emotional rollercoasters to ride before we leave here on Thursday. I'm thinking that for some of them I may just wait at the bottom this time.

And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go walk on the beach before lunch. Out here, that's where he is.

I am slow. the distraction of a day and a bit in Montreal gave Lochlan, PJ, John, August, Andrew, Duncan and Sam time to get to Newfoundland ahead of me.

So they would be here when I needed them.