Pretty violent.

Jacob and Cole would watch each other eat. You could have cut the tension and served it for dessert as far as I was concerned but the others would simply ignore it and mentally prepare to step in, because they would invariably resort to their fists to solve every last perceived insult. To me a fist is a symbol of desperation. It screams 'I've got nothing left. Let's go visceral.'. It screams 'I don't want to listen to you, I just want you to hurt.'.

Both Cole and Jacob are somewhere else now, but the violence stuck around.

I've thrown punches at the boys before. I'm not proud of it, in spite of the fact that it's akin to hitting a rock but I'm even more ashamed of how much they all fight with each other. The primaries (for lack of a better word) always seem to be the worst, as if it's some badge of honor to give a good friend a black eye and put him in his place. As if that one small, violent victory is going to hold. As if Bridget will be impressed with your ability to protect, defend and wound.

Bridget is not impressed, for the record. I've been begging them for years not to ruin my evening, my table, my perception of safety. I've been rearranging seating plans and screwing things to the floor and refusing to cook big dinners because eventually someone says the wrong thing or hell, with Cole and Jake it would be a look. Cole was so good at facial expression, Jake would read them and blow up. The laws of physics dictate that when someone over six feet sits close to a table and stands up abruptly they will pull a top heavy table right up with them. Chair goes backward, table goes forward, and Bridget goes upstairs.

I don't buy breakable dishes and I stopped putting candles on the table a long time ago. I feed people in shifts, trying to group the least combative ones with the most to decrease the odds and I have leveled ultimatums that should have kept the peace but didn't. I have distracted, deflected and orchestrated food fights instead of fist fights. I have spent hours on my hands and knees flicking shards of broken glass out of the cracks in the floorboards with a dull knife because nothing else would draw them out. I have mopped floors and wished for a crew with better manners.

I have accepted apologies and hugs for the mess. I have forgiven.

I have watched as they never change.

I have learned something new recently. Instead of feeding the children first so they can go and play or go to bed, depending on what time we want to have dinner, I set two extra places and the children eat with us now. It's been a nice surprise.

Moments that would have sent the table sailing into the air and all of my dishes crashing to the floor previously now only served to signify an abrupt subject change and a very long conversation about the merits of store-bought cookies versus home baked or something equally benign.

I don't actually believe the boys will change but it's been a nice reprieve to collect the dirty dishes from the table instead of the floor. Or so they tell me. I make them clean up now.

The boys, not the children.

HA. Payback that goes way back (with credit to PJ for the poetry.)

Part two. (Or: I never really did learn to read a map or pay attention to the landmarks when in unfamiliar territory, or familiar for that matter.)

And in the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make.

(I raised the bar and it held, strangely enough. I could step back but I kept my hands up just in case. I could still catch it, maybe. Possibly. Well, I'll just stand here and wait and see what happens next.)

Well, then.

I said I listened to Caleb's offer. Caleb was far less interested in seeing that I was well-fed than he was in having me for himself. Even at twelve I think I understood that but in spite of my daydreams about older teenage boys and especially boys with cars, money and charm, I only ever had eyes for Lochlan.

I wasn't about to consider anything else. Some days I wish I never had.

Lochlan was the sun and I was mercury. I revolved around him in a small circle, never far from his reach. Beginning with trailing behind him at the age of eight to wishing madly for his romantic attention at ten to running screaming from him through the cornfields at twelve when he found out that I had gone to Caleb's motel room and come home with all that money. Money I had not earned yet.

But Lochlan didn't know that. At twelve years old you shouldn't have to running from anyone. He caught up with me just as I reached the end of the row (I was slow from a beer and a half) and threw his arms out and I went down, face first into the dust. He turned me over and I started to fight. He has no right to make me scared. I'm throwing fists and he's ignoring them. I couldn't hurt him if I wanted to, but he's hurt nonetheless.

He's trying to talk to me but I can't have a conversation flat on my back in the dirt while I'll fighting to get away and so I cease to struggle and play dead, turning my head to one side, staring straight through the corn. He puts his head down, resting his forehead on mine.

Stay away from him.

I nod.

I mean it, Bridget.

He relaxed his hold and I turned, crawling away from him until I could get my feet under me and then taking off again. I remember hearing him screaming my name. I remember not knowing which way would take me back. It was getting dark and I couldn't hear Lochlan anymore. (Oh shit oh shit oh shit. Help me Lochie please I'm sorry I didn't know this would happen I just wanted you to stop yelling.)

I ran until the sun went down and then I ran some more.

He was folding it. Paper airplane, fan, sailboat. I couldn't take my eyes off it while he talked, couldn't remember what he said, all I saw was the faded red and white fifty dollar bill being turned over in Caleb's fingers while he talked in those soothing tones he mastered from high school.

It was the biggest bill I had ever seen and I don't know what it is about him with money, he has always had it and I have always been fascinated, almost hypnotized by him with it. I'm ashamed of that but at the same time I have accepted the choices I have made. Hell, I've had to defend everything I have ever done at this point, may as well check everything off, or as much as I can before I step off the curb and that truck comes along and I fail to hear them yelling and BOOM.

Game over, princess. Oh, I should be so lucky as to never see it coming. However, with my luck I know there will be no such thing.

Oh, right, Caleb was talking about food, some place in town he had gone to with some of his college friends and how good the chicken was, and the mashed potatoes and endless bread. My belly growled, my mouth was wet. The thought of actual hot food was something that I thought about twenty-four hours a day, salivating over and I tried to understand when Lochlan would spend money on beer and he always told me it had a lot of calories, because that's the wisdom of seventeen-year-olds. That's the priority of seventeen-year-olds. Beer before food. Only I wasn't going to be seventeen for years, and I was still growing. I was still needing more than I was getting and I was always gaunt and sickly and tiny and tired. So tired all the time. If only I could just have toast with butter and honey and maybe a big glass of cold orange juice I would feel so good but then he would hold me and tell me next town maybe we would stay in a motel and order room service and maybe three plates because the next town was rich and everyone came out to the show.

The next town was always a lie. I wanted this fifty dollar bill. I would take it to the place Caleb told me about and get the food and bring it back to Lochlan and we wouldn't be hungry. Plus there would be enough change left for maybe two more nights and we would be ahead instead of always behind. Maybe I would have a second beer even though not only did it cost extra but it put me to sleep and then I would wake up with a headache and the whole next day would be harder and slower and fuzzyish and awful.

I'm daydreaming again and I'm so hungry and I almost miss what Caleb is saying.

What?

He repeats himself and this time I am listening closely. There is this money and then there is more. All I have to do is NOT tell Lochlan where it came from.

I am nodding. I'm so hungry I would have agreed to anything. He is incensed things have gotten this bad. I went from a nice little middle-class girl to a circus rat, an always dirty, hungry, poor, wild, slightly feral girl who can pick pockets and has to be dragged off the Ferris wheel when it's time to shut off the lights. Oh, and I am not permitted to actually pick pockets, Lochlan is scared that someone will catch me and he will never see me again.

I finish the first beer and Caleb passes me a second one, smiling. I get to work on it too. It's better than nothing in my belly. That much I have learned, along with the fact that it's William Lyon Mackenzie King on the fifty.

Insulin and maple syrup.

Visiting hours are from eleven until eight daily for Jake. We're trying to choreograph our visits so that he's completely sick of us and wishing for quiet. He says we are failing miserably. He is doing very well and probably will be home early this week, where we will spoil him rotten and watch him closely.

He has diabetes. Last week when he wasn't feeling well he was going into shock. As soon as it hit me I took him to the hospital for help, because Jesus Christ, if anyone else dies in my universe I might lose what's left of my mind.

I've been assured that he's not going to die as long as he manages his disease, better than he has been. I'm not sure why he tried to hide it from us. I will wait and talk about that with Jake later when he is home. I have everything ready for him and have even spoken to his folks by phone several times. I have offered to have them flown out but they are quite elderly and somehow comforted by the fact that Jake isn't alone. Caleb and Sam have spoken to them as well to try and extend the resources we have for their disposal but they don't want to travel and I can respect that. It's fine, I will be Jake's mom too.

One person who did accept a recent invitation to come and see me?

Nolan.

God love him, I wanted to get him out of the Prairies and out here in the mountains by the sea so he could see that we're okay. We can lie on the phone and we can lie in letters but no one lies in person.

I haven't seen much of him yet, between trips to the hospital and a raucous family dinner last evening and his fathering of Ben. Ben talks to him. Son to father (figuratively, not literally), they connect and Ben is lacking that. He can talk to the other guys and he can fight with Lochlan all he wants but sometimes a fatherly influence can really ground Ben better than nailing his shoes to the verandah floor (and oh, we all wish we could do that most of the time).

Right now they're drinking coffee and listening to Pink Floyd in the dim light of a rainy morning and talking about nothing at all while Ruth draws pictures at the table between them. I'm planning an early brunch so we can head in to the hospital soon.

So yeah, time to make pancakes and sausages. Bye.

Nolan's here.

SO happy he's here.

New-Jake is in the hospital. God? He gives me diabetics. I don't get it.

More later. Too many people here.

Hard reign (not a sound).

Ben had a fever and had gone to sleep directly after supper. I didn't think I would see him up again last night but I did.

He came into Lochlan's room where I lay sleeping lightly in the lamplight and collected me to take me back to our bed. Sometimes I head straight to Lochlan's room, dropping onto the quilts fully clothed, sometimes with my coat still on after walking the dog. I'm tired. Did I tell you that? Well, I am.

Ben took my hand and led me back down the hall and through four doors until we were back in our own sacred world. He unbuttoned my coat and slid it off my shoulders. So slowly. I am breathing evenly, watching his face. He is half serious, all business, feverish work, superheated fingers and a flush to his cheeks that I rarely see, the other half is bemused, still with the enthusiasm of a child discovering something that never gets old.

Bridget will get old, but perhaps not in his eyes.

He is not old. I see the same lines in his face that have always been there and yet they're barely visible. His hair sticks up in the front and he hasn't shaved in weeks. He's in his threadbare plaid flannel pajama bottoms and a t-shirt that's one size too small, stretched across his broad chest tightly, one deep breath away from becoming Bruce Banner. One breath away from glorious Benjamin-naked. One breath away from life.

Apparently I'm going to be naked first, as my shirt is lifted over my head gently, a stark reminder of being dressed by Ben so gingerly after Cole threw me into the wall. I still remember screaming against Ben's shoulder afterward and he felt so awful and yet none of it was his fault. He is still that gentle and that slow with taking off my clothes now and that touches me.

I am cold. Goosebumps appear on my flesh and he traces my shivering skin, smiling. I'm keyed. I'm wide awake now. I press my forehead against his chest as his arms go around me, leading me back to the bed. He sits down and reaches over his head with both arms to his back, pulling his t-shirt over his head. He pulls me down over him and I am falling onto warm rock. I am about to ask him if he feels well enough for this but I am silenced with a kiss before one word. We turn, he is on me, reaching down just enough to free himself and then he's inside me, fingers dug into my hip bones and I'm fighting him because it's too much, too fast. He just holds me tighter. I am willing myself to let go and get to that place to be with him only the white hot blinding pain is keeping me frozen in place.

He continues to kiss my ear gently, urgently and soon enough I am there. I change into someone else, I am clawing at him and biting his skin and crying out for more and he obliges with an appetite that makes my heart soar. I am crazed, sweat-soaked and pinned so hard underneath him I start to slide away and he begins to laugh and then as quickly as it comes it is gone again as he resumes a slow grind against me. Kissing my face, my lips, the hollow in my throat, biting my chin, earlobes. I am scratched and burning. He finds new ways to send me over the edge, held fast in his hands, writhing, pushing him away and then wanting him back. Regret feeds the crave. Bridget needs her Benjamin. Bridget needs to be thrust out painfully over the edge of her senses and then buried under a tidal wave of elation. Hell, Bridget needs to be licked all over.

Enough. Can't. Help. All of my eventual protests after hours of euphoria go unheeded, ignored. My knees ache. My wrists are still locked in his hand. He isn't ready to sleep yet and so this will continue for much of the darkness. Tears of exhaustion and sweat soon soak the bed. The mattress is dislodged from the frame, the sheets are torn off and at last Ben lets go of me. I am shaking, ruined and blessed.

I am whole.

His fever does not break until morning. He's feeling better now.

Turning tables.

Deep in the soul
Is the space I control
It's the one thing I can call as mine

Ben put Facetime on my macbook yesterday. I was able to call him once I figured out how to add contacts to my address book (I have an address book on this machine? Huh?) and then I connected and began to blather away, waving. He put his finger to his lips. Shhhhh. He was in a meeting. Would have been nice to hear that before I rang him to test it. A very cool addition to the experience but probably will be more useful once it moves beyond the limitations of wireless fidelity. Also hopefully the iPhone 5 will be made of rubber and clouds. Because the odds of me being able to navigate my days with an all-glass phone successfully are less than zero. Case in point, iPhone number one's untimely death in a haze of South American liquor, circa summer 2009.(Steeeeeeeeeeeve, make a phone for Bridget! Pretty please with gigabytes on top. In green too, please. I like green, but mostly I like indestructible.)

We are doing a review of tying shoes with Henry. He's pretty good. These days most of their sneakers have the stretchy laces with a locking clip at the top. Which is convenient and all but when I was a kid you had to learn to tie your shoes or risk breaking your neck. Now there is zero incentive. That's on par with children today having difficulty with money problems in math class. Simple coin addition. When do they see actual coins anymore? I have to work to remember to go to the bank machine and then pay in cash so we can get coins to take up to the general store to buy treats. Which is actually a blessing in disguise. I have moved to credit cards for large purchases and cash for everything else. It's too easy to have debit fraud and I'm doing everything I can to prevent it.

I am going to be baking our cakes from here on out. I know your vision of me as a domestic goddess must be cloudy and fading quickly but once upon a time I was a phenomenally crunchy cloth-diapering, homeschooling, scratch-baking hippie mother but now I'm just trying to be me and not some ideal that I saw once that I thought might fit. But I need to pull out the drawer where I put her and rummage around until I can grab a corner and pull her out, because the cakes here aren't all that great. I'm still looking for a good bakery but really I'm partial to simply good chocolate cake with chocolate icing so for the moment I will make them myself. Of course I can order specially made ones from any one of a number of bakeries around here but cake is an inspiration that strikes in a rumble deep within me, it needs to be an impulse purchase. But at least twice a week.

Lastly it's corn-maze weekend coming up and I am still looking for someone who can implant a GPS in me before I'm forced to swallow my blackberry in case, well, you know, in case they can't find me. To sweeten the pot I'll have a death grip on my children. Possibly we'll be able to make a human tower cheerleader-style to see our way out when the boys play the inevitable practical joke and disappear, since they can see over the corn and I can't. Then I'll accidentally throw pumpkins at them until they're a whimpering pile of suck and then we'll all head home for hot chocolate and cake, should I be able to find any.

There. That's what's in my head today. Why? New Jake is STILL talking. Even though he isn't feeling well again so I forbade him to go anywhere today, he's going to stay home and rest. At this point I know him well enough to see that he runs on air and has all kinds of energy but fails to really look after himself well enough to avoid becoming run down. He needs possibly to be stapled to the floor for a day or so and see if that renews him so that's what I'll attempt to pull off today. Failing that I have duct tape.

And Facetime, so Ben can give him a lecture face to face on what happens when one runs on fumes indefinitely.

Sugar rush.

New-Jake is talking nonstop again and again I can't really think because I have been conditioned over the past eleven years to hone in on my childrens voices the moment they begin to speak and I forget just about everything else so that is carrying over today.

New-Jake met us when we came home from checking on the horses and running a couple of small errands and said, Hi, Bridge, what's for lunch?

I already had lunch. I reached into my bag and pulled out a fistful of candy necklaces. Well, you didn't expect me to eat it all, did you?

So, you didn't eat...right? He's looking a little green around the edges.

You okay?

Just a little hungry.

Come inside, I'll get you something.

So he's now sitting across from me digging into a smoked meat sandwich on sourdough bread and pear slices and milk because really, screw the porn star (ha, PUNS, Benjamin), what every man really wants is his mother to look after him. Apparently Jacob considers me more of a mom and less of a porn star and really at this point that's probably a good thing.

Once he is fed I'm going to exact payback by making him walk up and get the children from school because what can I say, I'm all jacked up on candy and losing energy quickly.

I will, however, pull out another lunch bag and make him a lunch for tomorrow. He and Sam are doing some work for some of the seniors in Sam's church who are having trouble maintaining their homes and so on days off Sam recruits people to help. I volunteered for plaster duty and then said I was kidding but I'm possibly going to be helping with some gardening chores in the next several weeks. Sam threatened to keep me on the plastered list (ha, NOT A PUN, Benjamin) if I don't go help but I fully intend to do whatever I can.

I'm also going to keep my eye on New-Jake. Then again, I don't really have to watch him. I can just listen.

Magically delicious.

A much better evening so far. Seems like the dust is settling and everyone in the collective is either breathing a sigh of relief or that was preemptive snoring because we're all tired of the tension.

In any event, I'm glad things are better. Ben and Lochlan seem to have gotten through a rough patch, I'm no longer being impossible to everyone (yes, you, Andrew) and there was even a freezing jesus cold mother bike ride up the mountain and then a round of Lucky Charms indulged in that saw the end of a brand new warehouse pack box. Sigh. Groceries. That's all I do is buy groceries, break up arguments and troll for hugs.

But yeah, I love it when my boys love each other. It's awesome.

Until the next fight, that is. Hopefully it won't happen for a long long time.

This is why I am here. Nights like this. I can't help you understand what life is like in my house, because gosh sometimes everything is so hard, but really it's worth every second of heartbreak to be surrounded by this love.

Deflection and the art of quiet.

All dark, no stars. The night doesn't give up her power easily, the sun is forced to burn all traces of it away slowly in the morning, leaving a self-protective fuzzy memory of the dark endured.

Maybe your nights are different, but that's how mine go.

Andrew blocked the door as I collected the freshly-opened Gatorade from Chris and grabbed my handbag. Daniel was watching movies with the kids, the night was free. Time to watch some puck action. I love hockey. I gave Andrew a half-hearted shrug and then tried to duck under his arm. He just shook his head.

There's no point. We'll let them blow off steam. You don't need to worry about it. Just stay home and relax.

Fine.

I mean it, Bridget.

Yes sir. I understand, sir.

For my trouble I got a kiss on the forehead and a quick hug. He had to go. The more on the ice, the better. Ben is big. In his gear he is twice as big. The aim was to protect Lochlan but give them an acceptable venue within which to duke it out without seeming so barbaric. Nice.

***

The boys survived the game. This is something new. They're renting ice time instead of trying to hold on to leagues who quickly decide they don't like the way the boys play, in spite of their talents. Ben's a damn good goalie. Past pick-up teams were loathe to give him up but his temper will bring him out of the net, stick down, helmet thrown, fists flying, gloves off at least once a game and most leagues these days keep a zero-tolerance rule. Fight? Out.

They formed their own league and now they play for fun. Or rather, they put on hundreds of pounds of protective gear, glide out onto the ice, and fight until they're too tired to fight anymore and then they play some hockey.

It took about three hours. I was out on the patio wrapped in a blanket, watching the water in the dark. Ben came out, already showered and in pajama bottoms and a clean hoodie. When I asked him how the game went he said good.

I smiled but it was bitter, forced.

He's fine, Bridge. Got in a few good swings, even. We've sorted some stuff out for the meantime, I think.

I'm grateful they don't golf together. Between golf clubs and zero protection, I figure someone would be gravely wounded by now.

***

I went looking for Lochlan at four this morning, since he didn't knock on the door to say goodnight or anything last evening.

I slipped into his room and found him sleeping deeply. I bent over him in the moonlight and studied his features. He seems intact. I don't see any black eyes or any blood at all. Must have gone for the body shots instead. Nice. But good enough and he seems comfortable.

I kiss his forehead and sneak out again.

Again, I fail to hear him as he says I love you to the closed door. He tells me about this later, during our run. He was awake the whole time I was staring into his face. That's how serious a man he can be sometimes. It wouldn't matter how angry or bitter I was over someone, if I was pretending to sleep while they were staring at me I would burst out laughing just from anticipation.

Satisfied that they're both intact I continue downstairs. I know the only person actually semi-awake and good for comfort at this time of day is Daniel. I continue through five different doors and finally come to their room. Schuyler has thrown off all of the covers and sleeps hard, face down in his boxers and a t-shirt. Daniel is shirtless and in pajama bottoms, sleeping just like Ben, away and still, never moving, covers exactly where he pulled them up before he fell asleep. I crawl up between them and Daniel turns over, smothering me into his arms.

What's wrong? It's slurred with sleep and I'm grateful that he's awake.

I shake my head. I hardly ever have a tangible answer for him.

He kisses my forehead and snuggles me into a comfortable position, pulling the blankets up to my neck. Go sleep for a little while and we'll figure it out later.

I follow his orders and in my dreams we have thrown Jacob a birthday party only when he opens his mouth to blow out the candles black smoke pours out and someone whispers in my ear that his time is up.

This is why I don't sleep. Or throw birthday parties anymore.

***
We're running behind the rest. Ben has dropped back to check on me and I pull out my headphones and tuck them into the neck of my shirt. I am cross that he's interrupting both my pace and my song.

I speed up and now he has to run to catch up to me.

He pulls out his own headphones.

You okay?

Possibly. You guys actually talking again?

Yes. Didn't Lochlan tell you?

I haven't actually talked to him yet.

I went easy on him too. I told you that already.

You guys are hilarious.

We're just arguing over the best way to get through this.

What? You guys leaving me and hooking up together?

Jacob's anniversary.

Aren't you supposed to wait until I implode to do that?

No, this year we'd like to be prepared.

So you achieve that by fighting over me in a human tug of war?

Apparently..yes.

Well, that's fucked up, Benjamin.

I know. I'm sorry.

You can't pull that shit.

I'm sorry, Bridget.

Yeah me too. There's nothing to get through. Just forget it, okay?

He stops running and I take off. I don't believe a word of their resolve to get along for my benefit. It hasn't happened with any regularity since they first met, there's too much at stake now for them suddenly to act like best friends, it doesn't matter how much water has gone under the bridge. At the end of the day this is a contest, and I am the prize. Only it isn't and I'm not.

And I'll keep telling myself that until the dark comes back again tonight and we do this all over again.