First supper.

I had scribbled my number on a gallery program and offered it to him. He smiled, eyes twinkling.

I still have it.

Really? After a year?

Maybe I'm a pack rat.

He is smiling so broadly. It's contagious.

May I have yours then?

My rat? It was a figure of speech.

Your number, silly.

Why?

So I can invite you over for dinner.

Are you a good cook?

No.

Then yes. Here.

He took the pen from me and wrote his number on the inside of my wrist. On the smooth skin above my hand. His hands were warm and so large it was as if he was holding a toothpick instead of my arm.

Three days later I called him.

Hello.

Hello, Jacob? It's Bridget. I'm sorry, did I wake you?

Yes.

Should I call back?

Why? I'm awake now. I'm glad you woke me up.

Why is that? Are you due somewhere?

No? Why do you ask?

Why are you glad I woke you?

Because I'm always happy to hear from you.

This is the first time I've ever called you!

Yes it is.

I don't think our conversations ever grew less endearing. He had a way about him. The thick Newfoundland accent and the no nonsense or all nonsense dialogue left little to hide behind. To my delight, I realized that instead of being frustrated by his way of teasing me, I was flattered. He could be very warm and formal with others and incredibly sweet with me.

I gave him the details of dinner and the next two days flew by as I shopped and planned and cooked and cleaned.

If I had known exactly how much food Jacob could consume in one sitting I would have shopped a little more.

In case you thought I locked myself in the library again.

Rainy mornings with paperwork up to my eyebrows makes me feel productive. I'm not sure but there's something very grown up about putting on earrings and high heels and grabbing my laptop bag, purse and umbrella and heading out to John in the waiting truck. Sitting in the back. He has coffee waiting but I ignore it in favor of lipgloss and music.

The rain pours in a protective curtain around the car as he heads across the bridge towards downtown, toward Caleb's stupidly expensive glass box, toward my beautiful little desk that I wish he would let me bring to the house because I have a sunny little nook that would be perfect for it.

In my bag are the children's school portraits. I know Caleb will be pleased with them. The older Henry gets, the more he looks like me, and the more Ruth looks like Cole. Both children are suddenly almost-teens and I don't understand how that time flies while other time falls behind.

He is very pleased. I present them over more coffee and maple donut bars. I would eat a second one but there isn't one. I contemplate grabbing Caleb's right off the plate. He seems to be ignoring it. I refrain. Had a tiny smidgen of trouble zipping my dress up this morning thanks to the giant bowls of mini chocolate bars sitting on the island in the kitchen at home and decide my sweet tooth is writing cheques that my waistline has no means to cash. I'll quit today and go back to pears and tea with honey to quell the sugar crave.

Dammit.

I like sweet things and it's been forever since I've had cake but there will be some cake tonight and maybe if I'm really good today Caleb will let me take the Escalade home and then I can turn the stereo up to twelve and leave it there. Then when he takes it back he'll get blown out of his seat.

Or something.

It seems like the morning flies. I get very little done. I am having trouble focusing. Probably the sugar. I keep watching the planes take off and I am hoping I don't make any payroll mistakes but I always add three times and type once so I've never made a mistake. I submit everything for Caleb's signature and he suggests Chinese food for lunch. I don't have the heart to tell him we had Chinese food on Saturday night so I agree and we go to a place that tucked down in China town. A noisy little white-washed place with take-out containers and a fan blowing the best smells out onto the sidewalk.

We get our food to go and drive down to Stanley park, stopping at Third beach and parking to eat. I try not to roll my eyes. I once told Cole when Ruth was a year old that I would never have dinner in the car again. I wouldn't say that to Caleb. Besides, he would just tell me it isn't dinner, it's lunch. We finish up quickly, I am hungrier than I thought I was. He laughs and exits the truck to dispose of our garbage while I put on another layer of lip gloss.

I love lip gloss.

The afternoon flies and I get absolutely nothing done. Everything is too easy, everyone is being too nice, no challenges, no confrontations, no ragged-edge emotions that we use instead of minutes in the hour to tell the time.

I don't get it.

I don't understand why this isn't harder and yet I am well aware of that other shoe, always poised to stomp on my head and so I do nothing. I just advance with my shield handy and I cling to who ever is closest at hand, threading my fingers through theirs, squeezing until I wish I hadn't worn my rings. Mostly I believe that it's for my benefit, that they are all just trying hard to be flexible and mellow and then maybe I will too.

It's working for Bonham. Really if you don't make a huge fuss over him when you walk into my house, he won't jump all over you and clamor for attention.

Apparently for Bridget, life should be conducted much the same.

Terrific.

I was home before school let out and broke my jacket zipper, which was fine, it was the liner of a coat Cole bought for me in 2002 that I would pull on for running out quickly, raking leaves, etc. etc. Henry let me wear his jacket on the way home because he was overheated from gym and had his shirt and sweater so I took it gratefully. He's got chivalry in his blood, he may as well begin to use it.

I hope I can get a little more accomplished tomorrow but if I don't, well, that's okay too. I'm not putting any pressure on myself, just taking things minute by hour by day and as long as I don't think about absolutely anything at all, I think everything will be fine.

I did not get the Escalade.

One thousand ninety-five days.

I woke up to a sky that matched Jacob's eyes. Clear, pale blue with a hint of sun. Today marks three years since he left earth for heaven and it still feels like yesterday and hurts like never before.

I have the day under control so far. As long as I don't actively think about anything at all, I'm sort of okay. Ben has strayed about as far as I can exhale. All I have to do is reach out one hand and he's sitting right here. Lochlan is close at hand. Daniel is here. Joel flew in to be handy because he drew the map of my mind that they still follow to this day. August is very quiet so his thick Newfoundland accent doesn't do further damage to my soul. New Jake is still incredibly surprised I ever smile at all. He wouldn't, he tells me. I tell him Ben has been instrumental in bringing that back. Ben said the face I wore for the first several weeks, the one of infinite shock and sadness is something he never wants to see ever again.

I am not marking Jacob's death today.

Instead I am celebrating what would have been his fortieth birthday.

He would have been quietly reflective, humbled and anxious to run through a list of the things he has done, measured against his father and his grandfather before. Measured against the other men than he knew, measured against society's conventions of things men should achieve by this age. He would have sought out the wisdom of those who have already marked this milestone and he would have enjoyed a dinner and some cake, and probably a couple of glasses of whiskey, degenerating into a positive torrent of wordy Newfie-babble punctuated with A. A. Milne quotes that I would answer as a challenge and he would be delighted.

He would want a long walk. To reflect. He would want to make love and reflect upon our marriage. Our lives, my head, our future. Those illusions he kept for me and maybe right now I'm less bitter and more grateful for those late night planning sessions in which we would list all the things we were going to do. License to dream, Bridget. If you could go anywhere, do anything, tell me about it. No limits, piglet. I still plan to do all those things I told him those nights, and I will bring him along in my heart.

Today we're going to go for that long walk and share our memories of him and then we'll have that big dinner tonight and make a cake, maybe with candles, maybe without. We'll toast to Jacob with water instead of whiskey and wish him a happy birthday and then I will sleep and the day will be over and the fourth year without him will begin.

I sound so together as I write this. I'm actually not. I am shaking like a leaf. I have gone back over it a million times, taking out the vitriol and the bitterness, inserting spaces since when I am upset I usually don't include them and I'm trying to be gracious where grace has made a hasty exit. I'm trying to find meaning where there clearly is none at all. I need to let that go and maybe I will. Maybe this year that's what I will work on.

Or maybe I'll just keep doing whatever I'm doing because I've made it this far. Only I didn't actually do the work. The boys did and I'm going to sign off now and go and enjoy their company. They are the reason, along with Ruth and Henry that I get up in the morning at all instead of diving back under the covers and ceasing to breathe, hoping no one can find me and I can just waste away to nothing and then disappear. They hold me. They hold me up. They make me cook when I'm not hungry and sleep when I insist I am wide awake, and love me even when I am being tiny, impossible, Fragile Miss Bridget.

Thank you. I love you guys.

Happy birthday, Jacob. I love you Pooh.

Plate glass.

Today is a hash-mash, hardscrabble, unorganized stack of things sitting in the corner but far enough out from the wall that it threatens to fall over. I stand near the door in the sunlight, eating cotton candy from a bag. To go, Lochlan says and he laughs. I refuse to accept a big paper cone, I want to keep clean when I'm not eating it. My fingers are sticky, filthy but I still have my eye on the stack because when it does topple I'm incredibly sure that nothing will break.

The barn is cool, a break from the sun. I have lined up big squares of decorative glass. It looks a little like sea glass but also nothing like it. These could be plates, with pulled-up corners so nothing slides off. Very modern and yet they are vintage. I have found them everywhere, breaking into old barns, touring around tiny antique shops set far down country roads, the kind you want to avoid at night or if your truck isn't in very working condition. The people watch me with their handful of teeth hidden in closed mouths. They think I am suspect and different. Oh, isn't that the tip of the iceberg.

I smile and opt to buy nothing because I already have enough plates. Why I persist in setting up house with such strange things leaves everyone tired and prone to fits of yelling and frisbeeing plates into the fences. A delightful, satisfying crack-smash against barbed wire and wooden posts. Then we are running. Eventually someone is seen patrolling the fence with a long gun propped against one shoulder and I raise my eyebrows and open my mouth in a little O-shape. Would they really shoot us for breaking some plates?

Lochlan nods. Time to go, bee. He doesn't say it, I just see it because I can read his mind. He puts his head down against my ear and whispers hot hamburger sandwiches and my belly rumbles in response. That means the diner so I lick my fingertips and then tie a knot in the top of the bag. I still have a good three lunches out of this left if I ration the sticky blue strands of sugar that remain.

He puts the plates that are left in a grimy canvas bag and holds his other hand out to take my hand. I jump off the barn floor, down two feet onto the grass because the step is missing and we walk out toward the road. On the way back he will produce a candy ring for me to eat and pretend to marry me. I say yes because I don't care, I just want the sweets and I know he isn't going anywhere. It seems to make him really happy and he turns up the stereo in the truck even though it is cutting in and out now and soon we'll have no music again but he always fixes everything.

Always.

Under the soles of another man's shoes.

Where were you last night?

Ben and I were at the coliseum, watching Stone Temple Pilots. (That's my photograph, taken with my awesome 3.2 mp Blackberry. Awwww yeah. Lord. It sucks.)

If I had to pick between Rogers Arena and the Pacific Coliseum, the Coliseum would win in a heartbeat. You don't have to fuck around with parking. If you have to go to the washroom there are no lineups, if you want a drink that isn't beer there are no lineups and they not only searched my purse twice (what the heck) but they changed our seats for us three times after the first two weren't suitable because the view was blocked and fuck that, I came to see the band. If I want to hear them I will sit in my car and crank it to the hilt. Also afterward? Cops everywhere.

Take notice, Rogers Arena. All of the above you fail at. MASTERFULLY.

Just before the opener came on we christened the leather girls on the floor Vancougars. Ben and I were congratulating ourselves on coming up with such a clever term right up until the singer for Tab the band said it onstage. That he wanted one. Then I was like aw, damn. Can't have that word.

(And for the record, I did not wear leather so shut your face, PJ.)

Tab was good. Really. Better than what I had heard perusing their Myspace (someone needs to fix that). Because really, you should covet the opening acts. Sometimes you'll wind up being a big fan. Look at Crash Kings. They opened for STP last show I went to and I adore them to pieces. Look at every band you love. Once they were the opener, correct?

Stone Temple Pilots came on shortly after Tab exited and it was glorious right out of the gate. Rarely do I know all the words to all the songs for a band but I do for three and Stone Temple Pilots is one of them. Even Tool doesn't have the honor and Tool is the best thing since sex. I don't need to name the other bands. If you don't know by now then it's not important.

(This is also not about Jake, in spite of him singing the whole STP catalogue on a regular basis and the cover band at the church and any other way you want to kick the legs out from under me. Let's focus now, people.)

Ha. See what I did there?

Forgive me, Jesus. I'm running on so little sleep it's criminal. Positively deranged and energized. I'm going to be fun later when I crash.

They RULED. The sound was great, the merch table was quick and prices were low. I knew all the songs. They played Still Remains. They played Silvergun Superman. They played everything else too. They covered Dancing Days. The World's Biggest Zeppelin Fan beside me (Ben, you turkeys) was on Cloud eleven. He got to shake hands and clap backs with just about everyone in our section. They all thought he was cooooooool. And for once no one spilled beer on my head or my coat. Mostly because the beer lineups were intolerable, or so I heard. The air was also higher quality than usual, with a welcome absence of weed smoke for a show. I don't care if you smoke it, but I don't want to breathe it in.

Oh and beforehand? Ben and I went for a romantic dinner for two. To Subway. He had roast chicken, I had the club. We are so romantic it's just sick, isn't it? I actually love Subway so fuck off. I had so much fun I woke up smiling. On three hours sleep no less. That's something right there. I usually still hold on to my tiny snarl after six hours.

I bet the leather girls do too.

(PS I took an informal poll of those who are awake and no one knows ALL of the Tool lyrics.)

(PSS Switchfoot is one of the other bands. I know every word.)

(PSSS That's it. Not saying any more. Hahaha.)

The rest.

By Tuesday I had had enough of Ben's refusal to stay straight and when I get frustrated enough, I usually melt down all over everyone like a little blonde volcano. There is nowhere to run. You're doomed where you stand.

The warnings had sounded for days. I'll not apologize.

Tuesday morning I went to three meetings, excused Ben's absence as scheduling conflicts and then to my surprise he actually managed to show up for lunch, a date we had planned as a little mini-getaway just for us. I had already ordered. Who eats lunch alone in LA? Bridget does, that's who, two days in a row, no less.

In other words, I didn't have any grace left.

I lit into him quietly and he put his head right down and looked me in the eye the whole time. He didn't make any faces or crack any jokes or order any alcohol. He just listened and we ate, sharing my plate and I talked. When we were finished he was still staring at me but I was as done with the conversation as I was with the seafood salad and I sat back until the sun was in my eyes and watched him.

Let's go home.

I nodded. He is sober, pale. I am red. Embarrassed. Tired. Flushed with the rage and frustration and sickness of being so incredibly angry with someone and I'm well aware he could turn around at any second and tell me to fuck off and go away and then he might disappear for six months. He's done it before. When we were just friends we fought just as much if not more and even without stakes we could find a way to hurt each other badly, repeatedly.

Within an hour we have a plane and we are saying our goodbyes. One meeting slated for Tuesday evening will be rescheduled as a video call. I call Ruth and Henry and let them know we will be home in time for dinner. They are elated. Lochlan wears his headphones on the plane. I resolve to finish whatever resentments off Ben and I have inflight so that it doesn't come home with us. While I am thinking that, Ben is doing much the same.

At no point does he tell me he couldn't deal with saying goodbye to Nolan again or with knowing that Jacob's third deathiversary was fast approaching and very little has changed. Ben's solution to that was to make a mess of himself knowing that I would step in and become the functional one.

Ben sees things that the others don't. No one else would have known to do that but he took the chance and he did it anyway.

To Ben the risk of not being able to stop drinking after he started was far less painful than the risk of letting Bridget climb down and jump into her black hole again. He doesn't want to find me in the cupboard or locked in the library or standing in the bathroom sticking pins into my hands or crying inconsolably through the night. He doesn't want me to be miserable.

What can I say? I guess I married a selfish guy. In any case we are home a day early which makes me happy and Lochlan got the gig which makes everyone happy and all is well on the corporate side of things which makes the devil boss happy and I am going around now battening down the hatches in my mind and boarding up the windows to my soul because it's going to be a rough weekend in there, I think. Quietly and without any plans at all. Everyone is here. Everyone is safe. Everyone is okay and so if you need me, I'll be in the concrete room with the angels right through Sunday, what would have been Jacob's fortieth birthday.

Thankfully I'll be there with Ben, mostly because he won't let go of my hand. That's good. I can't do this without him.

Monday evening (sparing change).

Batman calls as I am dressing for dinner, wanting to know what my plans are. I tell him there are fourteen of us going to a restaurant in Beverly Hills for dinner. I've already dressed, put my hair up with half a dozen pins thanks to the length instead of my historical two and stepped into my shoes. Then I stepped back out. Dangerous ones. I'll put them on when Ben gets back or when Lochlan knocks on the door to get me as soon as the driver is here.

Batman asks about Ben's frame of mind and I shake my head. He can't see me and so he continues to wait for me to find some words for him or a lie or something, anything in response.

Nothing comes. Eventually even the most patient men stop waiting. Patience is something that is lost so easily once found. It's a fickle friend. A curse.

Like me.

He wants me to come and see him instead. We could meet. He could maybe make some calls. At the very least I am to call him when I collect Ben. They can get Ben some help here. He likes it here.

California has always given Ben all of the ingredients to make and keep secrets. She is like a lover to him. He knows people. He has favorite places and he is probably at one of those instead of in the meetings he should be in right now. Dinner is another meeting. More collaborations, bigger deals, everyone working together and pulling in more talent and reaching further and counting more money and adding more clients and artists and producers and handlers and it's exhausting but it's been amazingly successful right out of the gate and the reason for that success right now is probably in some seedy bar down on the strip getting shitfaced because he can't deal with life.

I can feel my heart break when I listen to Ben plead for exclusivity in all things. I feel it break when he asks for time to get to know me, the way the others know me. I feel it break when I answer him because I can't change the past. And I feel it break when he walks out the door and says he can't deal with this. You say it's not my fault that he drinks? That it has nothing to do with me?

I say you're all fucking liars.

I find Ben and I don't call Batman back when I do. I had no intentions of calling him.

Monday mourning (this will take forever).

Summer girl
Set me on fire

I walked right into the men's room and asked Ben what in the hell he thought he was doing.

He turned around, zipped up and grinned his stupid, awesome grin that makes the pieces of my heart glossy and warm, softly rounding their edges as they melt.

Peeing? Is that okay?

The drinking. What in the fuck, Ben?

A guy in a blue three-piece suit with a soul patch walks in and does a double-take. He turns and walks back out.

Halloween was yesterday, buddy. Ben laughs at the closed door.

You should talk. I don't like it when he judges people for their quirks when his are so plentiful he pulls a wagon around behind him holding them all, like a little boy who refuses to leave his race cars at home.

He reaches over and locks the door.

I can wash my hands while you yell at me?

Yes.

I wait for him. I can't have conversations over running water. He dries his hands and looks in the mirror, raising his eyebrows, trying on a few demonic and hilarious expressions. I am biting my tongue so hard. I wish I could laugh but this is serious and he's still joking around when there are no jokes left to be told.

Finally he turns around again. I'm going to vomit, I hate how this feels.

Could you stop, please?

Drinking? Or making faces.

Both.

Sure, princess, whatever you want.

But I know he isn't going to and I'm right. We return to lunch and he smiles broadly for the clients and when the server returns he asks for another drink. We are still waiting for food. It's very busy here. Lochlan looks at me and I look away. Composure hangs by a thread, stretched across the table and wrapped three times around the rungs on the back of these ridiculous Queen Anne chairs. When I feel as if it's going to break I get up again.

Excuse me.

No one hears me. I'm never loud enough.

I collect my bag off the arm of the chair and Kenny grabs my hand.

Bridge? Where are you going?

Not feeling well. I mumble it and pull my hand away, stalking to the front door, planning to ask the host to call a taxi for me so I can go back to the hotel and pack and get the fuck out of here. Lochlan follows me to the front and before I can say anything he pulls me outside. We are asked if everything is alright and he tells them it's a personal matter, not to worry.

Not to worry. Ha. Bullfuckingshit.

Lochlan can't follow me anyway. This meeting is for his benefit. A job. Another big job that will keep his head down for months on end but a highly lucrative, visible job nevertheless. And Lochlan has finally reached that magical stage some of the others have already realized. Doing what you love for pay. They're going to make him work for it. They are nervous because he's a one man show, in spite of the company, and so they wanted to meet him in person. And Ben got him the connections to the job so Ben can sit there and pretend he's Mr. Wonderful all he wants. He can do no wrong, because his work (for this particular client anyway) is finished and he has already moved on to new projects.

I leave. I have my own meetings to attend this afternoon on Caleb's behalf and I really need to collect myself and remember why I came down here in the first place. For money.

I make myself feel better by eating lunch at a hot dog cart three blocks from my hotel. A kid in nicer clothes than Caleb asks me for change and I give him $20 Canadian. He gives it back and asks for my company instead. I smile and tell him to find someone his own age. He laughs and asks me if I know anything at all about this city.

I watch him walk away and I realize I hate it here.

Heading home.

And I wonder day to day
I don't like you anyway
I don't need your shit today
You're pathetic in your own way
I feel for you
Better fucking go away
I will behave
I'm doing the best I ever did
I'm doing the best that I can
Now go away

I don't need to fantasize
You are my pet all the time
I don't mind if you go blind
You get what you get
Until you're through with my life
I'm doing the best that I can
Now go away

More later. We might even make it for supper.

Drowning Halloween.

At midnight we opened the gates to the sea and threw the pumpkins into the ocean (okay, not really, pumpkins are heavy so they pretty much landed at the bottom of the cliff). Overhand, underhand, two handed and at one point I really thought the pumpkin was going to bring me with it when I lost my balance and was steadied by unsteady-Benjamin, who had this bright idea in the first place but wouldn't have been able to save my life in the condition he was in anyway.

Smashed, like the pumpkins on the cragged shoreline.

Within hours we were on a flight. He drank through that too and drank through breakfast and will now probably drink through lunch. Not uncontrollable, falling-down drunk, just a little bit too confident to be my Benjamin. A little too loud. A little too know-it-all. A little too rough.

He fits right in down here. Everyone's an asshole.

Let me love you too
Let me love you to death
Hey am I good enough for you?
Hey am I good enough for you?
Am I?
Am I?
Am I good enough
For you?