While Vancouver burned.

Real men shake hands after a game. Real men turn off the television and go back to life after pointing out that maybe next year will be the year. Real men downplay the violence and point out that it's finished and now we get back to living decently. Real men KEEP THEIR BEARDS ALL YEAR ROUND, people. (I'm kidding. Go ahead and shave now. Just be prepared for my sad face when I see you.)

Congratulations to the Bruins. They played incredibly well, especially Tim Thomas. He was so fun to watch. Unlike the news footage from downtown after the game was over. There will be enough coverage available to you should you want to see for yourselves. I came in here ready to point out that life is not like the movies, and then I saw this photo (click to make it bigger).

And I changed my mind.

(Photo credit: Richard Lam)

Due to collective family superstition I can't talk about the game so here. Have this instead.

He said, "Come here kid and I'm gonna teach you with all my fancy fire.
Come here kid and I'm gonna seat you on top of this hill.
I can 'cause you are blind and boy you are desperate.
You're troubled at home and I know what's wrong.
I see you fading so I'll help you up tonight.
Come up here in the air tonight."

There's a beautiful huge wall of rhododendron on my street and the boys are fascinated by it presently. Apparently it's a living hornets nest through and through. Ben said the sound was positively unreal, almost like an engine or an aircraft when you are standing right beside it. The boys are stunned that no one has been chased down the street by a swarm of hornets already.

They told me to check it out. Not because I would get stung (odds are I won't because I grew up in a beekeeping environment and have exactly one sting to my credit in life) but because this was an interesting thing to check out. The dog walk gets boring sometimes, especially when we can't go into the wood (forbidden due to current black bear density and the whole love affair with The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon)

I stood beside the wall of fading flowers. Nothing. I could see the hornets. I could see dozens of the little fuckers. I just couldn't hear them. At all. I went home and put in my hearing aids and I went back. Still NOTHING. Cranked them up all the way. Nothing. Dragged PJ back with me. He was all JESUS. Can you believe that roar?

I just can't hear them and now I'm wondering what other sounds are gone.

Lightswitches and lemonade and ducks, all in a row.

(I still want to dress up like the nurses from Silent Hill, just so you know it's one of the best things, forever and ever.)

She tells me things, I listen well
Drink the wine and save the water
Skin is smooth, I steal a glance
Dragon flies are gliding over
Oh, I'll beg for you
Oh, you know I'll beg for you

I was always good at anticipating what Lochlan needed, even when I couldn't be all that much help at such a young age, running ahead, blonde braids flying out behind me along with the ties on my dress to wait by the garage door for him to catch up so he could push the heavy metal door across the crumbled concrete threshold. Once inside I would reach way up to hit all the light switches along the wall. I turned on the radio and he would smile, half pleased, half confused. The little downy duckling was imprinted thoroughly and no one ever questioned it again. They still don't, if they know what's good for them.

He would unscrew the thermos and pour cold lemonade into the cup, passing it to me first, warning me not to spill it. He would smile wider when I drank it all, holding carefully with two hands, breathless afterward. It was a hot summer. He was always careful to see that I didn't get dehydrated.

I poured him a tall glass of lemonade over ice last evening and put it just above his right hand on the table. He took a long drink and thanked me and I say you're welcome and we are formal with manners and utterly non-verbally familiar with everything else.

Caleb rolls his eyes. He has one eye on the game but we are losing so one eye only. Do you spoon feed him too, Bridget?

If someone wants lemonade in this house, I am happy to fetch it for them.

Like a puppy.

Like a wife.

Except you're not his wife.

I stop. I'm not doing this now, here.

Lochlan reaches over with his good hand and squeezes my fingers and fires a question about the game to PJ, who is still sitting three inches from the front of the television blocking the whole damn thing, weeping softly, wearing his LUONGO 1 jersey and his lucky gloves. PJ's head drops but he doesn't answer. PJ is taking the Stanley Cup a little too seriously and we are going to ignore his dramatics as long as we dare.

By now Jacob would have been looking down into Caleb's face from about kissing distance, letting him know it was time to call it a night and I hate comparisons but Ben has one eye on the game and one on tuning his guitar and he's ignoring the brewing argument. He is satisfied and has stopped yelling now that they have replaced Roberto with Cory in the net only it's too late and the game comes back to Vancouver on Wednesday. He is too tired to wade into the gathering storm this time.

And I don't want the shoving to start. I don't want Caleb to start making his ice-cold observations and Lochlan to start throwing his red-hot punches with one good hand and I don't want any wars in my kitchen since the children are still awake. So far everything PJ says about the game is parroted by Henry, who is enjoying a testosterone-infused month with all the hockey on TV to extend the hockey in real life that has been over for a little while now.

Lochlan feels the tension and refuses to engage. Instead he makes a move to take off his hoodie and I jump up to help him. Caleb shakes his head as I gingerly stretch the cuff over Loch's casted hand.

Better? I ask Lochlan.

Yeah, thanks, peanut. He squeezes my hand once more and then lets go, taking his sweater from me and standing up. He is going to go and do some work, he's still playing catchup from missing so many days. He and I are spending a lot of time sitting together quietly while he heals. He has gone from bad to worse as of yesterday. His hand hurts, his head still hurts, the bruising is downright spectacular and he has weird all-over aches.

I know he will go to his wing, lock the door, take his pain meds and sit up all night trying to outrun the pain and not sleep to keep the nightmares away and he'll throw in the towel around five this morning, unlocking the door and waiting for me to magically appear in the early-dawn light to help him struggle out of his clothes and get him into bed. We tell each other that eventually he will get used to functioning with one hand proficiently and by then his cast will be off but for now he bites his tongue and lets me help him with even the most basic things.

He crawls into his bed and finds a comfortable position and I cover him with the sheet and then the duvet. Just the way he likes them. He is asleep before I can find a goodnight kiss from him in the dark. I open the window a little bit and turn off the lights on my way out. He will sleep until hunger wakes him at lunchtime and then he will eat a grilled cheese sandwich at the counter and then struggle through a shower, complaining that his hair is too long and tangled and call for me repeated to help with ridiculous things again that should come easy.

I tell him to just leave the shampoo open and to use the conditioner for once so that he'll be able to comb his hair instead of just leaving it and he won't listen because then he won't need me so much. He'll struggle into jeans and another hoodie, skipping the t-shirt this time because he has run out of patience for the day and he'll ask what I'm doing and if I can come and spend my time on him instead of banking it for later and I will but only for a little while because I am struggling to keep up still. I turn off eleven million lights a day, it seems as if the switches are always on his left so he just doesn't bother anymore. Little things.

I will bring him a lemonade so he doesn't get dehydrated and get a hug that lasts forever and it makes it all worth the weird feelings of trying to look after him when he has always been the one looking after me.

(For the record, from 1989 until 2003 we could not afford lemonade. Period. There was water and there was milk.)

Rainy Monday. Game 6. We could get the cup tonight so I have no time for fluff.

Oh lord. Only I could fall in love with a nine-hundred-dollar backpack. Suffice it to say, this falls into the category of still not worth the price despite being cute.

Again, just like Bridget.

My dentist can now afford the bag, however, after what I paid this morning to have my pearly whites looked after properly. My one consolation (if my teeth ever stop aching) is that my health insurance company and I are even for the year, or rather, I am ahead. I got my money's worth, in any case.

Good til Spring 2012 though they want to see me back mid-fall for another cleaning, so I have ninety days once again to change my name and dye my hair and find a rock to hide under because that was the first time I didn't come out of the dentist feeling just fine. I even had needles. I never ever get the needles, proclaiming to be tougher than the boys when it comes to pain.

Wait, maybe I'd feel a lot better had I skipped those freaking needles...

Okay, notes for next time, I guess.

Big Ben is next. Every prince needs a crown, after all.

Snort.

Distract, then rob them blind, Bridgie.

Instead of swimming? Or riding?

They know how to swim. They can ride whenever.

What does it have?

Everything. Unicycle, trapeze, juggling, acro.

We can teach them, Bridge. You and me.

We don't have trapeze equipment here, Loch.

We can get some.

You're crazy.

Just think how much fun they would have. That $700 would buy a lot of gear, peanut.

Yeah.

But?

Nothing.

You worried about living vicariously through them?

No, I just know the experience would never be the same.

Naw. Can't be, can it? That show is closed.

Yeah.

But this would give them the skills, Bridget. Think about it. It's in their blood, too, you know.

Okay but on one condition.

What is it, peanut?

I get to teach them the unicycle.

Good luck to you.

Yeah, okay, you can have that. Tightrope for me, then. And pickpocketing.

Oh here we go. I thought you were done with that.

Never. Want your phone back?

What the fuck? I didn't even feel that!

I know. I've still got mad skills, babe.

Saved for the truly contrite.

So while you sit back and wonder why
I got this fucking thorn in my side
Oh my God, it's a mirage
I'm telling y'all, it's a sabotage

My mercy brought his release in the dark once again as we squared off, seeking the upper hand and finding no handholds, nothing to gain ground with, equal without sight. Perceptions reduced to touch and hearing so, yes, just touch for me, please and thank you.

His hand slides down around my neck, pinning me down to the cool sheets without purchase or fight. I hold my breath and wait. There is no time in the dark. Minutes slide into hours, seconds into years. One life slides into another. The dark extends to the four walls, pushing into and filling up the corners, the cracks under the doors, the screen holes in the open windows. It drips down my throat and violates my soul and I don't fight the dark, I welcome it.

Morning comes and the sun erases every last trace of the opaque night in favor of a clear day. Time resumes a measured march across my flesh and I am awake, reluctantly, once more.

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.