Pitch-dark and dead quiet (teach me how to do this).

Once again the week is over, children and pets are tucked in safely and the lights burn low downstairs. I still have to make one more trip down there in an hour or two to let Bonham out for his final tour of the yard. Hopefully I will stay up late enough to take him out so that he might let me sleep in a little bit tomorrow. Cross your fingers.

I have been remiss lately in writing. It's been difficult to find time in which my brain isn't fused in panic and my heart doesn't thud with the long slow beat of homesickness and quiet. It's also incredibly painful right now. That Nexcare skin crack liquid I picked up never had a chance. When I'm not scrubbing plaster dust off my hands, I'm scrubbing paint or varathane off them. I also managed to tear them up quite nicely with sandpaper too, so perhaps I'll just use it to maintain the current state of affairs and not hope for miracle cures until the minor constructions are complete. I can't wait to live in a place where this doesn't happen anymore. It hurts. A lot. And that's saying something, coming from the girl with the pain threshold so high you can't even see it while standing on your tiptoes.

Did I mention the real estate agent is coming this weekend? Ergo, finish the house and finish it fast, Bridget.

She's going to cringe anyway. And I'm not satisfied though with a cursory look-through it will be wonderful. Nit-pickers need to go seek new construction, for you won't find perfection in a house built in 1914. No sir.

But I am running out of energy, time, money and heart. I loved this house but it's no longer mine. I called it Winter House, for a time and that was quickly discarded because every mention of winter was followed by my sweetest habit ever, cursing hard and long like a sailor on a yearlong cruise.

Never said I was a lady, now, did I?

The past few nights have seen the return of a very old habit I haven't indulged in since I was eighteen years old. Music to fall asleep by. By the time I was twelve I would go to sleep wit headphones on every single night. It was relaxing. It put me out. I went through thousands of dollars worth of batteries and headphones each year, since I would wake up in the morning with said headphones crushed underneath my shoulders and the player still on, but dead. My parents indulged me, it was maybe one of the very few ways I ever relax, music is.

(I'm not a self-soother. Don't know if you noticed.)

Once I moved in with Cole, the music stopped somewhat, because tuning him out was rude, and we were indulging in our favorite pastime most nights anyhow (shhhhhhhhhhh) and also because we could barely afford to eat, let alone buy batteries for Bridget's walkman.

And you know what? He bought them anyway because did you know? She's not a self-soother. There were always enough double-As when I went to replenish my ears (Oh yes, I'm one of those terrible tuned-out people, don't you know it). I never did go back to putting on music while I fell asleep. Never had to. I could just curl up in his arms, or someone else's and be out like a light.

Once the children were born I learned to sleep with one eye and both defective ears open, listening for cries or needs in the night, ready to jump out of bed and slay imaginary monsters or fetch tissues, inhalers, extra blankets, cats, dropped stuffed bunnies and random assorted socks (which magically fall off Ruth's feet at night and must be excavated from her bed in the morning. Every morning).

So bye-bye forever, night music.

And then two nights ago I hammered the sleep button on the radio, ostensibly to get the weather report for the next day, because the cold is up and down and another stupid snowstorm is coming our way (Fucking prairie. I've had it with you. So long. I won't miss you.) and after the report Snuff came on (love that song) so I left it on to listen for a minute. A minute because twelve minutes and I could feel the homesick/ache-pain of Ben's absence ebbing just a little tiny bit in favor of letting the music wash over me in a way that I always have and most people don't.

(WAIT A SECOND. SOOTHING.)

I don't remember ever turning off the radio that night, I just remember waking up knowing that I didn't spend four hours tossing and turning like I usually do, getting up a million times to see why the security lights have come on in the backyard (owls) and to check the children because my bedroom is a little bit removed from their rooms and I can't hear them anyway so I peek in a lot.

Fluke?

Last night I hit the button again, and the very last things I recall thinking before falling asleep were Oh, good, at least they're not playing Green Day and Josh Homme's voice really does nothing for me.

It's positively magical again to drift off to some metal-light, since I have to acquiesce and listen to bands and songs that aren't really up my alley, although the more I think about it, the more I see the alley of my future revealing some sort of CD-playing clock radio instead of this hilarious twenty-year parade of substandard Sony Dream Cubes. Imagine picking my own music to drift off to, much like the rest of the planet has probably done for at least the past decade or more. I wouldn't know. Unless Research in Motion puts it out I try not to pay attention.

I could fall asleep listening to music on my BlackBerry but killing bluetooth headphones is expensive, the phone would have to be in close proximity to tiny white dog who would love to eat it and also it would have to be charging and in case you snoozed through the first half of my post, my house was built in 1914. I don't believe the one plug and questionable power circuitry (or whatever the hell that flicky-switch in the basement that's always turning off is called) can handle the power.

Who am I kidding? It definitely can't.

Some moments I am stunned and surprised that the house was retrofitted with a toilet. Though at other times, what with the extensive woodwork and stained glass gracing the halls and various rooms, I can't ever understand why there aren't two toilets, or even three. Let's just be decadent all the way around, shall we? (Go big or go homing angel, as August likes to tell me)

In any case, I don't get to pick my music while I sleep so God help the first programmer who plays 21 Guns while I'm trying to fall asleep and tomorrow hopefully my bloody fingertips and aching soul will be up for another day of sanding/scrubbing/painting/cleaning.

Don't feel sorry for me though. Jesus, please. All of this work and effort and endurance and fortitude and lessons in self-soothing bring me one step closer to not needing music to help me fall asleep.

It brings me that much closer to Ben.

Goodnight. My fingers hurt now.

Best thing about today.

Ben just sent me this.

I am still laughing.

Today I called my real estate agent.

Maddening. Nothing.

It's not enough.
I need more.
Nothing seems to satisfy.
I said,
I don't want it.
I just need it.
To breathe, to feel, to know I'm alive.

Today was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it flash of sunlight and teeth. A care taken in dressing to depress, a step taken in learning the difference between people telling the truth and people telling Bridget what they think she wants to hear.

It's okay, I understand perfectly and so the only thing I can do is bring the storm clouds in rather close and let you be absorbed by the black of my dress and if you're really lucky I'll distract you with my own wicked humor, borne in exhaustion and habitual solitude.

It's alright, really. Ben has gone and is doing his customary thing in which he drops off the face of the earth because he is used to this and still it gets no easier for me but I was never so independent and that's okay, I'm going to give up trying to change that and will go to my grave reaching out for arms within which to find my safety. Never mind that I'll be dead. It really won't impact that action because I already do it in my sleep and have the aching limbs to prove it.

Caleb left this morning, content in obtaining proof that I'll reach for him too and I will because in the dark he is Cole, a memory of love now dead and cold but of love nonetheless, and nothing more than that. In the dark it's everything I need. In the light it is shameful, the weight of a thousand secrets pressing down on my bony shoulders, pounding me into the frozen earth.

It's the hidden disapproval in the otherwise stone expression of Caleb's driver/our bodyguard, Mike, who has been privy to more of my life in the past three years than anyone else I know and still he makes promises to me that are coerced out with threat of fire on the other side. I don't blame him but I can't trust him and I was foolish to think I could, but really, all secrets are open secrets in Bridget's house. She does not discriminate and for that the punishment was compliance, same as it ever is.

Luckily I can't feel anything anymore. But could I ever?

Devil may care.

The most interesting part of all of this is that Jacob fought tooth and nail to keep me, to keep (almost) all of us away from Caleb. No information, no access, no weak points in the keep through which the devil might wind.

Save for Ben. Ben would not listen. Ben went against everyone's better advice and most fervent wishes and struck up a close friendship with Caleb, maybe in an effort to hold on to Cole, because Ben and Cole were so close.

And now the devil runs the entire circus, and his right hand man got the girl. The devil controls the girl and the devil is responsible for and personally involved in every last nuance of our lives.

Which is why he is now downstairs in the dining room reading the local paper with a disapproving frown on his handsome face, shooting his cuffs like they are weapons to deploy charm and sophistication and remarking that I really need to get a grip, he could have sent some of the boys overseas, where the action is, instead of keeping them in the country.

All of these random, composed points softened from threats while he evaluates whether my dress is to his taste, if I am too thin and how tired I look after a night with Daniel because he's as close to Ben as I can be right now

After Jake flew I sold the circus to Caleb.

I got tired of fighting, tired of running and I have one hell of a self-destructive streak that lets me spend time with him without even caring if he sets me on fire or locks me in my own head for days. Jacob had been losing the fight anyway and in the end the devil pushed him off the sky. I'm not dumb, I know he did it, I know Caleb was the straw that broke the preacher's back.

They say to keep your enemies closer and I'm trying to do that now and the weirdest part of today was not the oddly extreme meltdown as Daniel was going through the gate or the fact that not thirty seconds after I got home Caleb was on his way because Mike took one look at me and called him, but it was the exchange Caleb and I had when he arrived. Civilized, appropriate and normal and downright weird by our standards, which are completely out to lunch.

Did you get the things you needed?

Yes, he's good for the next few months, maybe into summer.

What size is Henry? I can have some things sent.

It's not necessary. He's in 14/16s now, the next step is the men's department.

Are you serious?

Yes.

What size do most eight year olds wear?

7/8, though Ruthie was in 5/6s then. It depends on the child, really.

But fourteen? Jesus.

You've seen him. He's a big kid.

Is there something in the water here, princess?

If there was, I would drink more of it, don't you think?

I'm wondering how long he's going to sit down there and pretend everything is fine. Wait, nevermind. I don't think I care.

Jacob, I wish you would fix this. I think I screwed up big time here.

Whirlwind Dan.

If you blinked late last night, Daniel showed up on my doorstep and he was back at the airport before it started to get dark, just a little while ago. He came to give me a hug, my variation of it, anyway, and then he was gone again, a victim of Caleb's easily enforceable timetable. He who has plane makes rules, a lesson I tested early this morning when I tried to go over his head and get Ben a flight home for Friday and couldn't because everything is booked and Ben has a schedule besides.

And right this second I'm walking the tightrope between horrifically discouraged and somewhat heartened. Things are slowly falling into place. Time heralds the adventure on the horizon, blah, blah, blah. It's going to happen whether I sleepwalk or fret the whole way through it. I'm trying for small victories and mindful of big challenges. I'm trying to stick the methods I have always used. A lot of tears and one step in front of the other and verbal smorgasbords of words designed to convey to others precisely how poorly I deal with stress and only serving to reduce me to idiot in their eyes, I'm sure.

For one very brief cool-skinned hug nothing was so bad.

Then he let go and I slid back down, all the way to the bottom and landed with a hard thump and got grass stains all over my starched pinafore and insult to my injuries besides.

I choose sleepwalk, but I'm not allowed.

I would pick Ben to come back, but that seems unreachable, invisible, out of the question, fragile miss Bridget.

The cold and the quiet settle in again like a blanket that seems warm until you realize you can no longer breathe or move or find any peace at all. That's where I am tonight anyways.

Adagio, cold metal and Dana Fuchs on the radio.

Well do you or don't you want me to make you?
I'm coming down fast but don't let me break you

If you find her in the sunlight, the tiny dust motes floating in the air while she bites her sterling bobby pins open and twists her hair up into a ballerina bun, she won't see you. The sleeves of her sweater are long, getting in the way, constantly pushed up over bony elbows. She pushes them up again and adds one more pin to keep the bun from falling out while she paints. And you watch her.

While she sings.

While she thinks.

Well do you or don't you want me to love you?
I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you

God's down at the Safeway and she said I was fine.

I'm cooking corn, cod and potatoes for dinner. Hot comfort food if there ever was any. I'm dying to go to the Raincity Grill in Vancouver. I'm picking places out for Ben and I to try out once we're there. If you have any suggestions, let me know, I love to eat.

Yesterday again they had no cake when I went for groceries. I braved the icy roads, bought the requisite vegetables, fruits, fibers, legumes and school snacks and then I went to see if they had any chocolate cake for Bridget because even though Bridget prefers the very fancy cakes one can find at Salty's or Dio, the cakes from Safeway are perfectly wonderful in their own right. And only $12. For a WHOLE one!

No cake. None. Zip. Wait, some strange German chocolate affair that always looks so unappetizing so I opted to just buy extra pears to snack on and as I'm coming up the bakery aisle an elderly lady asked me if I could reach the cherries for her. I found that funny, she was maybe two inches shorter than me. I gave them to her and she remarked that they didn't seem to have any graham crackers, whole ones, not the crumbs. She needed the wafers.

They're in the cookie aisle, I said. At the bottom.

Thank you, she said. You're a good person. You'll do fine.

Late last night it hit me. She was God. I asked for something, anything and I got it in the form of a little old lady at the grocery store.

Interesting. I'm not sure I'm up for scavenger hunts though, I would much prefer it if God would just email me so we could have a conversation I could go back over later, if need be.

After shopping I still had some time left before the kids would be home for lunch so I drove to the shopping center and bought a lottery ticket and went to the big drugstore to see if there was anything new in the first-aid aisle. My fingertips cracked earlier this week and it's been especially painful since I'm always up to my elbows in (very drying) plaster and paint. I was in luck.

This stuff.

So far so good, though it's been barely a day. I'll keep you posted. Maybe I can just glue all of the broken parts of Bridget on and survive the rest of the winter intact. Place your wagers now, as bidding soon will close.

Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.

~J. D. Salinger (1919-2010)

Hypoxia

Good morning
Don't cop out
You crawled from the cancer to land on your feet
Are you crazy to want this
Even for a while?

Yes, I know it's midnight. Sometimes life works out just like this.

Satan breezed in mid-morning, just as I was sitting in the garage in the car listening to Matthew Good and feeling as if there could be no more of a desolate and lonely moment in my life than this one right now.

He wanted to drop all of the paperwork in my lap, which were essentially his relocation allowances for the boys and for me, spelled out in dollars and sense, contracts with words like 'arbitration' and 'moral property'.

Fine, just leave it on the kitchen table. I returned to my incredible sadness. I don't know what is is, just this deep unrelenting ache that, when addressed, blooms into breathtaking panic, and when ignored, retreats to the background, multitasking along with me, hurting enough to make its presence known and make it hard to breathe but still allowing me to do what needs to be done.

Had Caleb arrived in flames I probably wouldn't have noticed. I feel like finally the details are slipping away and the nitty-gritty things I always try to nail down don't even matter anymore. What matters is Ben, eight days already tacked on to the first absence, bringing the total to twenty but Bridget isn't counting because Bridget always focuses on the wrong things.

There is no allowance for my drama and things are very difficult at best.

Sure, I continue to chip away at the house. Some touch up paint here, a plant there, a picture moved, decluttering. Plasterwork and sanding and big ticket painting too but still I cough and cough and my eyes water (half cold virus, half drama) and I have the winter blues and cabin fever and fear of everything and the I-miss-Bens. I feel like the house will never be good enough because it's a hundred years old and there's not enough time or energy to make it perfect and really I don't think I want it perfect because it looks so lovely and I won't get to have this ever again and before I turn this into another ode to the castle of my dreams, I'll remind myself right here that the castle sits in a kingdom that is entombed in ice.

Oh, quite literal, I am. No drama there. It is so cold I can't trust Henry not to dawdle on the way home and far too icy on the roads to run the snow-rally car so I walk with them, four times a day. I swear to God winters here are an endless ballet of boots on, coat on. Boots off, coat off.

And so Caleb frowns.

What's wrong, Bridget.

What's right, Cale?

Stop being dramatic.

Yeah. Fine.

He frowns deeper. He looks very scary when he does that but I'm not sure I can find the generosity to reassure him. I am far too busy feeling sorry for myself. Endless winter, horror-Prairie, what in the fuck am I doing here, we shouldn't be here.

I scare myself with the voices. On days like this one I was really beginning to believe everything everyone says. Not about how incredibly beautiful I am (ha), but about my issues and whether or not I can manage them appropriately anymore, under these circumstances.

My doubts have begun.

Caleb is too busy adjusting bottom lines and coordinating people from all four corners of the globe and he doesn't have time to assuage petty concerns, worries I have invented and then magnified so that they are big green hairy monsters that chase me, screaming, down the hall. Worry is a nightmare hole I fell into and can't fall out of and I've pulled Matthew Good over the hole to obscure me and maybe the fear won't find me again but the apathy can stay because it's less agonizing.

Caleb remained at the house just long enough to make sure I had everything I needed to distribute to the boys and to spend a few moments with the children, who are also minding the cold and the isolation now but are elastic enough to find distractions without effort (hereafter to be referred to as DWE because I'm sure it will be a recurring theme) and were happy to see him and then as I walked him to the door, I guess my newfound detachment struck a chord, or perhaps a nerve, because he reached down and held the back of my head as if he was going to embrace me and instead his unshaven jaw razed a burn down my cheek and his lips were so warm, just under my temple that I flinched but was held fast in his arms.

You're doing just fine, princess. You're capable. Everything is going to be better.

I couldn't even tell him where to put his reassurance. Ben is gone. Doesn't anyone get that? Ben is my air and he isn't here and I'm lightheaded and soon I'll be dead from the lack of oxygen.

He kissed me hard and then he was gone. My pupils constricted and Strange Days came flooding back into my brain.