Freaky Friday.

A man can be destroyed but not defeated
Even when he's lying black and blue
Living on a faith above his ceiling
Never going to know if it rings true
There's a voice inside that keeps him
On the path of righteousness
You can't break his stride
Or change his mind
because he won't second guess

In the dark the feverish, haunted desperation took over. Nightmares chased sleep through the stars. He is yelling for me. He can't find me in his dreams.

It breaks my heart because I know the night that terrorizes him and it isn't the accident but we have been warned all the same that some things might be..different. We know what to watch for, we almost know what to expect save for the fact that Lochlan's never done anything by the book, ever so this won't be anything we can explain away using convention, history or common sense.

His bruises are fading from green to black and purple and he is stiff and reckless today with his thoughts and his actions and Ben is being parental and logical and I keep checking the compass only there's no up or down, only NEWS so for the better part of the weekend, I think I'll switch to the magic eight ball for navigation.

Does that sound like a good idea?

Signs point to yes.

Three times zones and Tylenol three.

He's home.

Caleb went and fetched him with the plane in the wee hours of the morning (Satan never sleeps, didn't you know that?) and Lochlan was not very impressed but he apparently didn't say much and they arrived with such little fanfare it seemed almost criminal. Very anticlimactic. Caleb saw him inside and then said he would call later and if we needed anything to let him know, as if we would have forgotten anything. I knew he would bring Lochlan home safely. Caleb has to answer to me at the end of the day when it comes to Lochlan.

I then got the softest, most unsatisfying but welcome hug of my entire life from Lochlan, who then went into his room and climbed into bed fully clothed, falling asleep in about three seconds flat.

I'm very glad he is home.

All clear.

I came home with a box of frozen pancakes instead of the waffles I stopped for, and tried to lock the front hall closet after hanging up my sweater, spending a good five minutes trying to ascertain where to put the key before realizing the hall closet has a static, benign knob, and will not lock. I am too tired to function.

I've been wearing the same clothes since Monday. I put them on Tuesday morning to run the dog out for his first walk. That was when we got the call that someone driving a car had merged into Lochlan's motorcycle on the highway, as he was making his way to Ontario for meetings. The force of the accident knocked him off the bike and he flew through the dark until he landed on the other side of a guardrail beside the highway in the tall grass. His helmet came off. The grass is what saved his (incredibly hard anyway) head, the armor he wears when he rides saved the rest of him.

His chin is black and purple from where the strap broke. His elbows and hips, coccyx and pride are bruised but he's alive. He's okay. And as soon as they are finished running tests he'll be coming home.

I was sent home this afternoon on the plane on account of not being much good to anyone. It turns out I'm not much good at home either. I would go back but PJ took all my stuff to keep me from doing that. He knows me well.

They thought Loch had brain damage. He asked for his wife. Then he asked for his wife's husband. We tried to explain and I'm sure we failed.

He remembers absolutely everything right up until they put him on the stretcher and then he blacked out from relief or exhaustion or shock. He broke three fingers of his left hand and somehow sheared off half of his right eyebrow and part of his lower lip, which is just ow-looking. His face is bruised. So bruised but the inside of his skull appears intact. He hurts all over but he's alive and he thinks I'm ridiculous for being relieved. That's a good sign, right? I've never been so happy to be scolded by him in my life.

May as well have a group dismissal here.

You folks are just amazing. Truly.

May I just stick my elbows through and step to the front, clear my throat and address all of you very kind and supportive folks to point out one tiny fact?

(Then I promise I will disappear back into the misery of missing people who aren't home today and really trying to get all my shit done because it's game day and the city is a very busy place today and really I am so far behind I actually never bothered with grocery shopping and that is truly unlike me.)

Really? Okay, then, here goes:

Lochlan doesn't play for the NHL.

None of my boys are presently in Boston. Funny how y'all went from rock band guesses to hockey teams in a matter of seconds and yes, I agree, it's really damned suspicious when the holy triad of awesome for the Canucks just happened to maybe kinda used to play for the Moose in Winnipeg for the past, oh seven years.

Aw shucks. It's amazing, isn't it?

But no. I'm sorry.

A fucking tree is not a replacement for anything.

I pulled down against the pillow and tore the case at the seam. He smiled in the dark but he did not laugh like he did once before. His tanned hands slid up along my ribcage, pulling me against him, back into the overheated guilt we live by as a curse and as a gift.

My hands were taken and brought up for a kiss and I was passed through the night into the morning back against the cool skin of the giant statue who holds no guilt, only shame. Only regret. His pale arms fold around me and his head presses against the back of my own and I sleep at last.

***

Oh father, you oughta be there
I'm gonna go to heaven when I die
(I want to go to heaven)
roll jordan, roll jordan

They are planting the memorial trees in the back garden and I am back under the watchful eye of Christian the rock climber in lieu of Jacob, the giant Newfie Viking ice-climbing Reverend who no longer exists (unless Caleb is right) save for inside of me.

Christian is too permissive and far too far away from me to do anything to save me now. I am standing on the cliff letting the wind blow the dust and the neglect from my soul. The edges uncovered reflect the light while the rest remains smudged with black soot. I smile because it feels good and it feels good to be this close to death without the net. My swing is the cloud a little to my left but I would wait for a crowd larger than this. Today is not a show day.

I look at Lochlan. He's wielding the shovel like a true worker bee. He is digging the second hole. The one for Jacob's tree. A gracious move in light of Caleb always telling him how he was equally hated by Jacob. Just as Caleb was. Everything in my memory is ordered in pairs. The children. The ghosts. The secrets. The lies. The present. The hate. The love. And now?

The trees.

These are supposed to replace the plaques down there. If I stare straight down into the sea I can make out the shapes in bronze but not the letters because the water has come in to wash away the names and the dates that are seared into my brain and will never heal.

They think the trees will make things better. They are false comfort and not for me. No one wants me out here on the cliff and Chris still isn't watching me. I am watching him while he texts. Probably with Dylan or Rob. They are away.

Just out of curiosity I take a step. The shovel stops.

I step back and the movements resume. I turn my back on the sea. The deep fickle comfort would be shortlived and mired in a brief resentment and I hate that feeling. I need to see how this story ends.

****

(We are only blessed with that faint Scottish accent when he's yelling).

A shoving match erupts.

Bad job, brother.

She was safe.

What kind of dreamworld are you living in?

I can hear you Lochlan. I admit it, thinking he will back off from berating Christian for imaginary dangers. Lochlan's demons run so deep they choke off his nerve endings and hum a steady drone through his very being. He doesn't use alcohol to dull them because he said it doesn't work anyway. He uses the alcohol for the way it allows him to admit his feelings to my face. Because I am an adult now and he can't reconcile that.

Stay out of it, Bridge.

No. Leave him be.

I got it, Bridge. Loch, I was there when you were gone, man. When she was with Jake. I think I know her well enough that-

I've been responsible for her since she was eight years old! Don't you think I know her better than anyone?

As an adult. Lochlan-

Don't even. I don't fucking believe this. I know her heart. I know all of her like my own face in a mirror. And if something happened to her because you assume she won't do something than think again. You ever notice when she's out there with Ben (His voice broke. Oh my God, here we go) he doesn't even let go of her? You can't trust her with her own life. It isn't her job to be responsible for it anymore. She lost that privilege and it's never coming back.

She does just fine.

Then you can take the fall for it when she disappears over the side of that fucking cliff. Okay? And you can take the brunt of my rage. It won't be pretty, Chris. And you're done. I'll ask someone who cares enough to keep her on this earth and not make fucking assumptions.

Chris is nodding. His ears have turned pink. You do that, man. You fucking do that. I've got things to do. He walked over to me and gave me a quick hug and wouldn't stop long enough for me to talk.

Christian, he's just-

I know, Bridget. He's afraid of losing you. Wish he would figure out that he did that years ago and just get on with his life already.

But he didn't-

Jesus, Bridget. Cut him loose already. You're giving him false hope.

I'm not giving him anything.

EXACTLY!

The horror of Chris raising his voice to me shocked me to the point of hot tears and I turned and headed back toward the kitchen. Chris grabbed my shoulders and steered me back around to face him but he couldn't find his words fast enough. I found mine.

He knew the deal. And he took it anyway. How is this my fault? My voice is so small. I can't hear it.

Did you really think he would refuse? Bridget, do you really think people can think or act rationally when you're around?

They can try.

Yes, sweetheart, they can try but it very rarely works. He wants you so badly he isn't rational or fair. Ever.

It's the way things are, Christian. Can you just leave it? Please?

He shook his head and left, grabbing his helmet on the way out. There's a row of helmets on the bench. Everyone was here today to get the garden done, since the week ahead is supposed to be nice.

***

I'm standing in the driveway. Another helmet. Another motorcycle, only this time it's the very seriously lethal black Ducati and Lochlan has it loaded to the hilt. He should just take the truck. He's distracted and frustrated and exhausted and I don't know why he doesn't just take the truck.

Lochlan.

I'll be back in a few days.

Which day?

Next Tuesday. Maybe the Wednesday. Thursday. I don't know. It depends on a lot more than me.

Yeah.

You'll be fine.

Yup.

Bridge, don't.

Okay.

Seriously. I will stay.

Someone has to go.

Schuyler can do it.

He's already there and no, he can't.

Someone else then.

There is no one else. I know that, Lochlan.

Right. So hold tight and I'll see you in a few days. Nothing bad will happen.

I shook my head.

Just stay the fuck away from that cliff. You promise me, Bridge? Promise me you'll just hold tight and I'll be back before you miss me.

Not possible.

God I love you.

He kissed me and climbed onto the bike. He fastened his helmet and got on the Monster. Time to go. He fired it up and I can't hear him anymore. He salutes me and then he's gone. Just gone. Up the drive and out onto the highway heading East. All the way to Toronto. He was probably there before I turned finally and walked back to the house. He drives that bike like a fool.

Love you too.

I said it to the fucking wind, I guess. He never would have heard me. He never expects it back and I don't either when I say it. But we both know we say it back. No one ever lets it drop. It's like a three-decade game of Hot Potato.

***
Caleb strolled in through the front door just before dinner.

Is that little fucker gone?

No, she's right here, I said as I stepped out of the kitchen and into the hall.

His face fell briefly before he recovered his expression into something resembling controlled evil glee.

It's going to be nice for us to have an entire week without the pyromaniac ruining every attempt I make to get close to you.

Ben will look after that.

But he doesn't, does he? That's the fun part. The good part. Ben lets you be yourself and you can have as much Cole-time as your little heart desires and Loch isn't around to ruin everything or tell you your head is messed up. I give you everything you want and what does he give you?

He gives me everything I need. Now get the fuck out of my house. It's not your night to see Henry.

Caleb is surprised and he steps back, expression clearly unchecked, venturing from surprise into quiet anger.

I'm going to go see what your neglected husband is up to while you see about changing your attitude just a little. It will make things easier for you later.

I have already tuned him out on my way back through the kitchen to the back door, where I can make my way down the steps, across the concrete patio, past the new garden and back to the cliffs where the sea will warn me away from men who don't have my best interests at heart and allow me to miss the ones who do.

I will come find you when it's time to come home.

I remember being their ages. Out until dusk playing Kick the Can and Hide and Seek. All over the neighborhood. My circle was the baseball field to the skating rink, one street below the one we lived on and not over the mountain. A normal area for a child watched over by so many.

Their circle is slightly smaller, probably the same as mine was if you stopped where Lochlan's backyard met the base of the mountain. No higher than the gravel path in the woods and not out of sight of said path while in the woods. The park at the top of the second hill and the street that runs down the other side of our street too. Everything within is fair game because this is not 1979. Because there are bears here. Because this is still fairly new to them and the only one in charge is eleven-year-old Ruth. If there were older kids who offered to help or keep an eye out maybe things would be different but for now it's lots.

They strap on their helmets and disappear on their bikes for hours. They wait until I am away from the door/window/patio and then they let go and coast down the hill no-hands. They go hunting for bears. They throw on their suits and head up to the little water park where everyone congregates on hot summer days and they slay each other with bucketfuls. Nonstop. Til they are sunburned and exhausted.

They play. That's what kids do and it's a little weird to have them vanish for a few hours at a stretch and no know what they are up to. Sometimes it's a bit nauseating but I try not to think about it too much and I just keep working or doing whatever I'm doing because that's what a parent is supposed to do:

Let them get blisters running around in the water park with new sandals on because they knew enough to protect their feet from the bark chips but not that new sandals would wreak havoc on wet tender skin.

Let them fall off their bikes and get back up, bloodied and scraped, to keep on going. When they are done I will flush the gravel out of their wounds and make them squeal when I drip iodine on and then bandage the worst wounds. Or attempt not to laugh when Henry relays an attempt to stop without brakes to 'see what it is like' and nail himself between the legs quite spectacularly. He has a bruise on the inside of his thigh the size of my hand. He proudly yanks up his pantlegs to show anyone who wants to see his battle wound.

Bite my tongue when the bully breaks a water gun that belongs to the kids after they were warned that things can happen to toys taken to a shared playground and maybe they should leave them home but consequences were weighed and they see the result for themselves.

Prevent the boys from going to check on them every fifteen minutes because we were all kids once and we remember those moments when we realized we were lucky we were still alive.

Maybe it is 1979. A neighborhood full of families and well-meant childless people who keep an eye out for everyone and can tell the difference between a hurt child crying and the three year old five houses down who shrieks a hair-curling noise just to get someone's attention (every eight seconds, on average). A host of safe places to go and a world of exploration rolled out in front of their feet, their heads full of Narniaesque adventures, Stevenson-fueled passion and Barrie imagination. Their drive to conquer this new independence so fierce they roll their eyes at me as they repeat the rules.

Keep an eye on each other.

Don't destroy anything.

(and the most important of all) Have fun.

Mason jar mugs and the Allman brothers too.

No cavities!

For the children anyway. I have two little tiny ones. I go back next week to have those filled and then I'm in the clear. Eye and Audiologist appointments next. But in the meantime we have a new development.

Gage is good at getting people to drink fancy bourbon drinks and then they don't realize they are lit until they try to move, or breathe or just, you know, sit on a damned chair on the porch and they get up to dance and then it's like oh shit.

I'm keeping him too. Because he is awesome.

Yeah.

Showing my teeth.

No performer should attempt to bite off red-hot iron unless he has a good set of teeth.
~Harry Houdini

Good morning! The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the boys are super busy but the kids have an inservice day at school so I decided to book something really fun and exceptional after lunch for them to enjoy.

Oh yes.

That's right.

We're going to the dentist.

No worries, they weren't very impressed either.

This will be a new dentist because I forgot to take us last year and now I'm sheepishly wondering precisely how many cavities one could possibly have when left to one's own devices in brushing for the better part of 720 days or so. My only saving graces is that the children eat very little in the way of junk and they are pretty conscientious about their hygiene. Also remember they haven't lost all their baby teeth yet so screw cavity-filling.

Haha. I'm kidding. I just hope this dentist isn't like the second-last one we had, seeing nothing but dollar signs. The very-last one talked smack and did everything at a loss, I believe. I'm pretty sure he's lost his shirt by now but he was awesome nonetheless.

This is more of an upscale office. I believe they'll buzz us in and pass out individual fun-size gilded laughing-gas tanks with masks dusted with raw diamonds. I know, I'm horrible. This neighborhood is such an incredible demographical departure from the Prairie castle one I could curl your hair with my stories.

Suffice it to say I will instead interject the differences as I go. This is definitely upper white-collarville and I don't know what I'm doing here.

This is weird.

I am hoping for good reports, in any case.

****

Bonus moment, for my own annoyance amusement.

Stop with the Ben Affleck guesses/comparison/total shots in the dark. It's getting old. For some reason he crops up on a regular basis in my email, so much so that I think I should send him a bill for the rent. I don't get it. The only thing he shares with my husband is a height similarity and possibly, today, a black eye.

Oh, and a beard. I like beards though.

A lot.

But you probably knew that about me.

Common sense tells us that the things of the earth exist only a little, and that true reality is only in dreams.
~Charles Baudelaire

He threw it down as a challenge and I accepted with another until we were shooting nineteenth century barbs back and forth with our imaginist skills, long honed in the boring hot sunshine behind the tents while we waited for showtime, or teardown time, or pay.

Baudelaire was one of the greatest translators of Edgar Allan Poe's work into French. Did you know? My very first Poe collection was in French. Lochlan found it on the seat of a booth in a restaurant outside of Montreal on an extended trip and brought it home for me when I was eleven and mostly I used it as a booster seat in the truck until the boredom drove me to read it in the sunshine, for that was the only way I could stand to open it. It smelled like mothballs. A smell I can appreciate now but when I was that age the only thing I wanted to smell was cotton candy or Lochlan's hair after he used my honey shampoo while bathing in the lake.

PJ walked into the kitchen with his coffee and muttered something about being out of his league. That broke the spell and we stopped. Mostly because it takes one of the others to demonstrate precisely how weird and insular we can be. Well, I can be. Lochlan is logical, straightforward and true.

Except that he isn't and that's okay, I think you have a decent picture of him by now. I would post an actual picture if he would let me but he won't. You will be quickly swayed by the easy smile and perpetual beard, and strawberry-red curls that rest behind his shoulders now, a color fading rapidly into gold in the sun. His hair is so long now I bet if he straightened it, it would be longer than mine. But he won't so it's a non-observation.

It still smells like honey, though. And I smell like mothballs because I have been safely stored all these years and pulled out and dusted off rather recently, fitted with fresh batteries and a line-dried pin-tucked dress. When you pull the string in my back, my faded emerald eyes fly open and I repeat tinny brainless phrases such as "I love summer!" and "Someday you'll die and I don't think I could take that!"

Okay, maybe not the second one. Not out loud, anyhow.

(You call me dollface, this is all I can picture anymore, and I'm sorry for that.)

Ben loves it when I tell this one.

The parking lot is filled with 350zs, Ferraris, customized Hummers and Porsches. Everyone has a small basket and they are all jam-packed into the organic and health food aisles in their overpriced yoga-wear with jewelry dripping off their limbs and scowls on their faces. If money bought happiness, they wouldn't have to shop for their own groceries, now would they?

Daniel and I make up the bourgeoisie division, clearly. I push a cart around, humming absently along to the piped-in music that seems embarrassingly easy to listen to. I spot a famous face in the crowd and he locks eyes with me, waiting for me to out him but I feign ignorance and find the Rice Krispies, buying the generic ones to the right. Groceries are the single largest expense after the mortgage payment and I try to cut corners where I can. My household only seems to notice if I don't buy the brand name ketchup anyhow.

My hair is wild waves. Jeans, sneakers, t-shirt, hoodie. I probably have more liquid assets than half of these folks, who lease their lives on a name that used to be who they were before they became hollow, jaded, faded and blue.

Yet they still look down upon me with a practiced ennui. I laugh out loud. Several heads turn but I am already busy studying the reason this store really entertains me as well as it does. Otherwise I would drive out to the valley to the big Asian grocery store because everyone there is real, everyone is nice. And no one speaks English but they speak to me anyway and I love that.

The reason this store is so entertaining is because of the Creepy Butcher.

I will discover him first, hunched before the packaged breakfast meats. A little too close, lurching back and forth. What in the hell is he doing? we wonder out loud, disturbed to the point of mentally rearranging the menu for the week to be vegetable-based, or our day to stop at the other grocery store way on the other side of town where the people are only marginally less important. The butcher over there is a jolly old Ernest Borgnine lookalike who learned my name on the first trip to his counter and hasn't forgotten it since. The uncanny, hilarious fear tilts the world of domestic errands crazily and we begin to slip back toward the doors and down aisle six (paper products).

But then we realize we have a list and a time limit. I need to buy things, so I return to the back of the store and swallow my fear in a lump.

There he is.

Ancient and gaunt, with dyed-black thinning hair and skeletal limbs sticking out from underneath the sleeves of his spattered starched white coat, the butcher will sneak up until his breath hits your neck like a blade. He'll whisper an offer of help almost mournfully, hopefully. He will sleep tonight if only you deign to ask him a barrage of questions about the pork loin or even better, request a cut of beef.

Oh yes. Right away, Miss!

Request that cut so the blood can run in uneasy rivers down his table, pooling possessively around his wiped-clean shoes while he grins at death on the scale, soon to be neatly tied with thick waxed paper and string, delivered with palpable malice over the fingerprinted glass into your waiting hands.

Softly he tells you the other store is very inconvenient and the parking is terrible so here you are instead and isn't he glad you are here today.

Here.

Surrounded by filth and new wealth. Life is a dirty business, it's probably better if you view it through the fog of sale stickers and bruised peaches. You spend the rest of the day uneasily trying to remember if you said anything out loud about going to see Ernest the butcher instead and wondering if the creepy butcher somehow managed to reach in and snatch your brain, weighing it carefully, turning it over in his hands as the liquid runs between his fingers, choosing the best cuts and placing it in the window with a price flag for consideration for a summer barbecue.

You never know.

*shudder*