No colors anymore.

I see a line of cars and they're all painted black
With flowers and my love, both never to come back
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a newborn baby it just happens every day

No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes

Leisurely mornings, now. Ben's schedule has altered once again so that we wake up at six and play for the better part of the first hour of the day, held tightly in each other's arms, rocked through the sunrise and into the morning, proper. He puts his hand over my mouth and I won't make a sound, and he leaves me wanting for nothing before turning me out of the sheets and into my day, a good twelve hours before I can return to his arms like a slow-motion boomerang girl, bent in just the right places, met and scrubbed clean in the hot water before returning to the sheets in the dark. Days are long and as usual he is the last one in through the front door at night.

Late in the evenings Ben returns, his slow grin hiding behind the day's fatigue. Happy to see me. Happy to be home. We usually have a quiet dinner alone together in the kitchen. I wait and cook for the two of us after everyone else has eaten and drifted off to evening pursuits around the house and grounds. We tell each other about our days and then he goes to see the others while I finish cleaning up the kitchen and get the children tucked into their beds to read until ten or shortly before. If he makes it back before I am finished he'll pick up his guitar and play for me while I hurry around the kitchen and then just as quickly I pull it all together and then he replaces the guitar in the case and holds his arms out wide, pulling me into them, where I stay for the remainder of the dark.

Frankly (because it's hot and I'm really cranky).

In lieu of current, former and future drama let's cut right to the chase.

Lattes and Cappuccinos? They're the same thing. Don't tell me different, you twenty-year-old coffee uh...'aficionados'. It's all bullshit anyway and the only reason you drink it is to appear grown-up, just like I did when I started college and all the boys had jobs and I walked around the University campus trying to make friendships with my bag in one hand and a coffee in the other. That was in the day before we had Starbucks in Canada and there was no Tim Hortons for miles. We got our coffee out of a vending machine. It was $1.80 which was a virtual fortune so I only did it a couple of times a week.

Oh, look, I just made one of those walked-to-school-uphill-both-ways-in-the-snow stories, didn't I? That's fine, nobody cares, I am tired and back to afternoon coffee so I don't fall asleep in the fridge while cooking dinner.

Also but unrelated, I still miss McDonald's pizza. And pizza on a stick from the Red River Ex, oddly enough. And pizza corner pizza in Halifax. Now feel lucky you know me, for I truly am one of a kind. Ghetto coffee and lowbrow pizza. You really can take the girl out of the midway, but you can't take the midway out of her diet, apparently. (Seriously. Ask Lochlan precisely why I'm so short and he will tell you my growth was stunted with a diet of candy necklaces and lake water. The occasional cream soda and those disgusting carnival hotdogs. If I never see another hot dog as long as I live it will be too soon.)

Back to my nap. Standing up. Mid-conversation possibly.

(For those asking, yesterday's post stands. I'm not confirming if it was last Saturday night or years ago. The time frame has little bearing on anything when it comes to Satan, and I'm not taking it down just because they said it would be better if I did.)

Numbed down.

Cole is painting again. A beautiful day and the curtains are drawn tight against the sun. He has a gooseneck lamp clipped to the side of his easel and he keeps moving it around, trying to find a play on the weird shadows it casts across his canvas.

I am curled on the couch, eating popcorn. Watching him watch me as he tries to work, knowing he's bullshitting, an easy grin proving his good mood. He isn't taking anything seriously tonight in his too-long chestnut hair and his baggy paint-streaked 501s. He didn't put on a shirt this morning, we rolled out of bed stark naked and ate cereal in the kitchen without clothes and then he pulled on the jeans thinking he would get dressed at last but I stole his t-shirt and put it on for warmth. Until we opened the curtains the sun would not warm the room. We didn't touch them.

He walks over to me, yanking up the t-shirt. I grip the bowl of popcorn tightly so it doesn't fly everywhere. Take that off and I'll paint you.

No way. Not naked. I don't want everyone to see it.

You have nothing to be ashamed of.

It's not shame. You don't keep your paintings.

Why do you care if someone wants to buy a portrait of a nude girl?

Because it's me.

They won't know it's you.

I'll know it's me.

You don't see yourself the way I see you. He smiles again. He's very gentle with my conscious self. He's eager to rebuild my self-esteem. Starting from scratch, we've got a long way to go. Perhaps I'll just fake it instead. I stretch out and set the bowl on the floor in an effort to prove I'm not self-conscious at all and he joins me on the couch, pulling up my shirt as I pull his jeans down. Soon I am the canvas, covered with paint, awash in a light of potential.

****

I don't know why I remembered that morning as I lay in bed this morning, staring into the mirrored closet doors. White sheets, white everything. Nothing to distract from the outstanding, breathtaking view through the windows of the water, sunshine sparkling on the waves.

There is popcorn all over the floor. I throw the sheet away from my skin and stretch lightly. I wonder if I look the same or if I look like I feel, paint now faded, muted pastel, potential wasted or spent or wherever it eventually goes, youth abandoned on squares of a calendar crossed off one at a time, hours in between. I close my eyes and leave the sheets off, willing myself to fall back to sleep and instead his voice breaks through my peaceful memories, as they have snuck up on me so quietly today. Good memories of Cole are like shooting stars, sometimes I get them all at once, sometimes weeks or even months pass without a smile aimed toward his image.

That analogous voice speaks again, startling me back into the white room. My eyes fly open and I see him in the mirror. He's in his 501s and nothing but, to read the papers in on the balcony. Not quite the same voice but as close as I will ever get again.

So glad to see you feel comfortable.

I reach down and yank the sheet up, fantasy now obscured. It's not as if he hasn't seen everything, I just prefer not to be so exposed anymore. I am forever raw and uncovered as it is, my heart flayed open for all to see what's left of it and what's left in it, so a little modesty is so little to ask for. A little dignity, but I would not be permitted that. I threw it off the balcony last night, followed by my consciousness, and what's left is a vague headache and a fuzzy memory of nothing more than the black velvet ribbons he keeps in the drawer and the lousy excuses he forwards to the house, tucked in neatly besides.

At my request all eyes are blind, all words left unspoken and history gets temporarily suspended so that I can have a moment in my life that contains things I regret walking away from, in spite of the need to do so. I show up, take a drink from his hand and shortly thereafter I forget my own name. Who wouldn't do that for a few hours with a ghost? Who wouldn't take the chances given to turn back the clock even if it meant destroying the present and preventing the future?

Clearly you don't know me at all. That's okay. Today I don't know me either. I forgot sometime around eleven o'clock last night and each time reality takes a little longer to come back. I find a piece of popcorn just above my pillow and I eat it for breakfast, a little bird with a treasure, a tiny gift of kindness in a loud and scary world. Maybe I'll come back for more treats. Maybe I'll be scared away for good.

It all depends.

Come face to face with it
Pushed on your side
Lose all your self control
Worlds will collide

Witness the fall from grace
You shed your skin
Change if it pleases you
Just don't give in

Quiet now she said
you're waking up the dead
I cradle the excuse
In love with the abuse so
I handle it with ease
it's a dignified disease
Slow down

Soul searching breaks you down
You'll never learn
Annihilate yourself
All things must burn

The music is so loud I can't hear myself think. Oh, that's right. I'm not supposed to think anymore.

He is finishing a Bombay gin and tonic. That's my drink tonight only I didn't touch it. I don't need to touch anything. I don't need to lift a finger or hear a sound. I just need to make it through until morning.

Business as usual.

Red like a fifty dollar bill (aka I hate my friends).

Where I am in the vineyard is invisible from the house, patio, balcony, driveway and pretty much anywhere else, tucked down between the thick, overgrown vines with my tiny jackknife blade open, culling them back so that they expend all of their energy into the grapes and little more into lengthening, choking vines. We don't even know what we're doing but it's fun growing fruit in the backyard. If the local wildlife don't make off with the bunches like they did last year, I plan to make wine. Wine or something resembling wine, anyway.

Having offered to help, Ben works in the row next to mine. We trade hushed words in sporadic bursts but mostly remain quiet, content to feel the beads of sweat rolling down our temples and down our backs under our clothes in the hot sun, I in my sky blue strappy sundress with his black cowboy perched on the back of my head, he in that amazing kilt and a thin white tshirt.

For the better part of fifteen minutes now he has been teasing me about christening the vineyard.

I tell him he is crazy and awful and the grapes will die and the vines will shrivel up and suck back into the ground in a whoosh, leaving us exposed and naked for the world to see.

He laughs, the sound traveling out over the water and then he asks exactly how much I will wager on my scenario.

I pick a number out of his cowboy hat, which he plunked onto my head as we were walking out the door. It's been hanging on a hook since the move. It might help slow the proliferation of freckles across my nose and prevent the ridiculous pink sunburnt cheeks I get.

Fifty.

So you're going to give me fifty dollars if I can get away with this without anyone knowing.

Yes. The money's in my bag. Good luck to you.

He abruptly stops cutting and puts his knife down. The smile on his face could melt granite. He stands up and walks down to the end of his row, turns and comes up the row where I sit in the dust. He reaches down and takes my knife from me gently and then tosses it on the ground halfway back down the row. He reaches down again and takes my wrists, pushing me to the ground, blocking out the sun.

****

An hour later we trudge back up to the house, hand in hand, Ben picking leaves and dirt out of my hair as we go. He is wearing the cowboy hat, I am holding up one strap on my dress, and we're both beyond filthy. PJ looks up as we walk in through the back door, off the kitchen. Andrew is busy typing on his phone. Gage smiles broadly.

All finished? (They start laughing.)

Fuckers. Ben is laughing. I'm flushing from embarrassment while I try to pin the strap together on my dress temporarily.

Andrew puts down his phone. He is so dry. At least now we have a name for the wine.

What's that?

Dudes Saw Everything Cabernet.

Ben makes a suggestion. Look Away Next Time Zinfandel?

PJ throws in his offering. Don't forget She Blushes Blush.

I find some sort of control and speak up at last. I don't really know whether to laugh or cry. That's a Rosé, PJ. You need red grapes for that.

Oh, they're red now, princess. Trust me on that. Just like you.

Just hush while I put it somewhere because there isn't any room and it's heavy.

(This is just..nothing for you. Unless you like to read in circles.)

I am feeling better today, thank you. My nursemaid has red hair and a stern gaze and I bet he looks just like The Joker in a nurse's uniform except he'd be missing the 'crazy' as an accessory. Or would he?

I need to backtrack a little here.

We are back. Back to reality. Back to alarm clocks and packed lunches and parking passes and navigating payroll and new jobs, new bosses, new offices and no time.

Lochlan came home Monday night and picked a fight and I am stung but cognizant of his efforts to push me away so I don't mortally wound him with my actions, even in absentia. When Lochlan goes away Caleb fills in his place, sliding smoothly into first, taking over memories, attempting to top up his brainwashing, trying to talk me into all the bad things I don't want but sometimes do, in my deepest, darkest thoughts, and sweet-talking Benjamin into all sorts of games for the three of us, better left unexplained here. Therefore when Lochlan returns hell does indeed break loose because before he drove down the drive beside the house hell was neatly contained in my eyes and now it's plum everywhere.

From all directions, fireworks set into the undersides of clouds to be blown directly into earth, explosions, lights and noise deafening me, dropping me out of my skin down into the gutter where the hardcore boys play, they fired their sweetest deals, hitting home. Headshots, deadshots, I don't think I have any right to hear these things when I'm not planning on changing anything. There's enough change without me adding to the fray. There's enough misery without them turning screws and tightening the holds they keep on me, respectively.

Caleb was not predictable. Instead of his usual dry suggestion that things could be easier he found me around four Sunday morning, standing in front of the fridge. I am wearing his shirt and drinking orange juice straight from the bottle.

He takes the bottle from me and gets two glasses and we sit at the island in the kitchen and never once do I say a word while he tells me things could be different. We could travel anywhere I want. I would have time. Time with him. Alone. Time to process. To breathe. To choose the life I want. To exist within the past or the present, my choice.

He could return to his role as the good brother, hell, he could be whatever I want. Even Cole. Whatever your little heart desires, he said, over and over as if that were even possible. Finally I turned to him and asked him again to just bring the dead back to life and then leave me the hell alone. His response was to get up and walk out on me, which made me feel small and ungrateful but not guilty in the least. When I'm sober, when it's daylight, he isn't Cole and that's enough to tinge our dark whiskey-soaked nights with sadness but sometimes it's enough to pass for almost real and that's where I find the trouble, a fast-moving river you can swim in or drown by, your choice.

Maybe that's what he's counting on.

Lochlan's outburst was the polar opposite, by divine design, out of habit, into familiar roles. We know all the words. Less than half of our exchange is out loud. His plea is one borne out of simplicity. Let him give me his name and he will see that nothing ever happens again. Everything bad will go away and we will return to the unlikely world in which cotton candy is a food group and we have nothing but the clothes on our backs and the love in our hearts. We will breathe in the lights and eat the present, we'll grow fat on basic happiness and keep true to our words and to our plan. The plan, Bridgie. Everything could fall into place so easily and you would never ever cry again. Everything standing in our way would become a distant memory.

I cock my head curiously. I sometimes take liberty to imagine what things would be like if I did that and then I remember exactly what happens when you take a pure-hearted, barely educated red-headed unpredictably-temperamental Scotsman and ask him to compromise. I remember the fights. I remember the resentment and I remember that weird sick feeling of missing him so badly when he would be away from me, wishing he would get swallowed by the sunset when he rode his motorcycle west. I remember how I agreed with him when he told me we would never have a peaceful relationship and we would probably fight to the bitter end, but that he would love me more than anyone else ever in the whole wide world and even if I had to let go of everything else, he always would.

For the record, I still believe he does, and maybe that's what he's counting on.

But neither of them are counting on this. When I step to the side, you can clearly see Ben, sitting in a chair, table still strewn with dinner dishes and guitar picks. He has his headphones on, head bowed and he's playing, playing, playing, nonstop, he is broken and ruined and a perfect match for what's left of me. When we fight, it's important, when we cry it's painful and when we love it's for always. It fits and it's not for want of memories or an easier life or anything other than the fact that I love his face and his brain and his broad shoulders and ridiculous sense of humor and his sense of romance too.

He's reassuring when you don't think it's manageable and he's not the least bit worried about Caleb or Loch. He's just trying to figure out the bridge in the goddamned song and then maybe we can go to bed. Or maybe we'll make some toast. Or maybe we'll watch a movie or read books side by side or maybe we'll rip all the sheets off the bed when he smiles that smile that melts my knees into my toes. Maybe we'll fight and then fall asleep halfway through making up. Maybe he'll ban Caleb from the universe and then Lochlan will follow close behind. Maybe the sky will still be blue when I wake up tomorrow and maybe the status quo works just fine too, thank you. He is generous and not nearly as possessive as they are. If you can even believe it, it's true.

Maybe here the river swells and pools into shallow dips in the rock, maybe here we float lazily downstream for a bit. Catch our breath. Cool our toes. Block out the noise. Block out the words. Just for a bit.

Burn.

Lochlan took one look at my face when he walked into the kitchen and immediately crossed to me, putting his hand on my forehead.

How do you feel?

Tired. My teeth hurt.

Yeah, you're burning up. He frowned. I know it's just this ridiculous flu/cold thing hanging on. I have to get a little more rest and good food into me before I can shake it, I think. Now that we're returning to a normal sort of routine it might get easier but so far things are still a little strange and new. My favorites! No, actually I love Strange. New? Not so much unless it comes in the form of new people.

They look so incredulous when Lochlan gets parental with me and if you know of our thirty-eight-year history you don't even blink. If you don't know of it then you would think he is weirdly gentle and attentive and concerned and maybe somewhat overachievish.

Gage was sort of standing there watching the exchange and Lochlan looked up and clued in and said Look at the red lines across the bridge of her nose and her watery eyes. She's running a high fever.

Gage nodded in understanding and then said that I seemed fine, I was in and out all day, keeping up, etc. Lochlan nodded too. Yeah, she won't stop moving until she drops so you wouldn't know by her actions.

Gage remained impressed, I believe. He'll catch on as fast. He understands the proximity of our moods and our germs even. Lochlan and the rest will likely be sick by Sunday. The thermometer has proclaimed me to be 103 degrees of hotly awesome. My earrings are melting and so I get to miss Slayer and Rob Zombie. In a way I'm a little glad. The concert will get out just as the Celebration of Lights is over so instead of the usual crush of twelve thousand people leaving a place at once, there will be three hundred thousand people headed home. And, well?

No, thank you. Doubly no when sick.

Ben, PJ, August, Corey, Duncan and Andrew went anyway. Crowds don't bother them. Neither do germs, apparently. A hotly-awesome sausage fest, if you ask me but..

...I don't remember where I'm going with this, since my brain is deep-frying. Goodnight.

Princess down.

Or to put it the way PJ described, "She's flouncing around slamming things with a pout so big her lips are, quite possibly, balloons."

You know how you sort of clear the entire day to do something and then you mentally pencil in the other remaining free days to tackle other projects? Yes, well, not only did I navigate the groceries with the children and PJ in tow but we were home by eleven. And then from eleven until three I chipped away dutifully at tomorrow's big ticket item. I did not finish it but that's a four hour headstart and that's good for something, right?

Yeah, well, kiss my ass then. It's been a really long day.

The boys started working for Batman. I'm mostly missing them and hideously short on words as a result because if I start thinking about things too much I'll implode and then there will be little bits of Bridget everywhere and they'll be gathering them up for hours and it wastes a lot of time so yes, I think I'll go put in another hour on my project and then I'll be that much further ahead.

Or something.

I really miss Ben. I had him home for five weeks. It was amazing. We did NOTHING for vacation. Well, we built a fence and some gates and went to the beach and the lake and had some dinners out and lunches and we cooked and we laughed and we slept and we watched films and listened to music and it was just totally awesome and wonderful and so today just...sucks.

PJ would like me to thank him for putting up with me.

THANK YOU PEEEEEEEEJAAAAAYYY.

You rule.

Highway 99.

I'm heading out for a drive. Lochlan will be home from his solo camping trip in an hour. I have Caleb's car on loan and all my memories knotted safely along a baby pink shoelace, tied around my wrist. I'll head up the highway along the ocean and back and then hopefully when I get home Lochlan will be here. Hopefully Caleb won't. Maybe I'll be home early. Maybe I'll be home late. All I know is I need to get away sometimes too and even vacationing inside my head just doesn't cut it.

It's the boys' last day off. Tonight the bubble bursts and tomorrow they're all owned by fucking Batman and I still don't know if this is better or worse.

Deliver me from evil. On second thought, let's get this over with.

I ran in and slammed the door as I went, almost losing ground and winding up on my ass. The door swung, picking up speed until it smashed into place and the latch clicked automatically. You would click too, at that speed. I turned around and felt along the wall for the light switch, obscured in the dark, under spiderwebs and months without touch.

I didn't even have to turn back around to realize he was there. He spoke first.

What in the hell are we doing back in this room, princess?

And I did not know what to say so I smiled and then I covered my mouth. I watched as he carefully made his I don't approve but gosh, you're adorable when you're bad face and then my smile fell off my face. Too dark anyway. He is faded around the edges but still himself. The accent as thick as ever to the point where I still need to count a beat to make sure he said what I think he said, based on the thickness of his words and the ridiculous amount of words just to say something like wow or how bout that.

His smile followed mine into the dark. We are so serious sometimes it would make you cry.

It's summer, princess, don't you have a beach to visit?

You never liked the beach.

I liked the ones I found you on.

That wasn't me, just an ideal.

That was you. You need to get back to that.

It's a busy time. Batman is taking over the guys.

I know and I don't understand. Caleb has really stepped back.

Batman does that to people.

What about the rest?

They're waiting and watching.

And what about you, princess?

I smile again, just enough. It's not a question, it's a statement. What about me? I will take the affection of anyone who gives it freely. I will throw it in the face of the next one to question it and I will die on my feet, jumping up and down wanting to be everything to everyone, in place of oxygen and light and blood. Make me more powerful than Satan and God put together. Die for me, always. Live to breathe me as air, and whatever you do, don't question the inside of my head because it hasn't been mapped yet.

Or even deciphered, for that matter.

And boy, am I ever drunk right now and I opt to sit on the charcoaled floor, drawing cute cartoons in the dust and Jacob sits down too, even though he'll probably ruin his khakis and his white shirt. He had eight plain white dress shirts and all of them were so threadbare I couldn't even pass them along to the boys, I wound up throwing them out. I kept the blue shirts. I slept wearing it for the better part of three months until it stopped smelling of sandalwood and patchouli and started to smell like roses and lilacs and then I knew I should have sealed it into a ziploc bag but now I know for number three, don't I?

Caleb is here tonight.

I know.

He does not approve of all this.

I know.

He's being freakishly hands-off.

It won't keep, Bridget.

I know.

My hands are fluttering and he frowns again.

You should go inside. Go find Ben or Duncan. Lochlan even. Stay close to them. I don't trust Batman or Caleb right now.

It's nothing I can't handle.

He shakes his head and starts to get up but then he turns to me, while still on his knees. He gathers my hands together in his and kisses the tips of my fingers and when his face breaks into a smile I see the lines around his pale blue eyes and the depth that is a gift, like the deep blue sea and for the first time he starts to say something and can't finish and he's getting up and it's over.

It sounded like I'm sorry.

Only I couldn't hear him all that well.

Before I could ask him what he said I was led back through the door into the hallway, back toward the patio lights, back toward hot coffee and maybe an early, discreet excusal from the boys until the dark singular hours when evil comes calling and I go out to head it off, saving the rest, sacrificing the present and the future for some sort of fractured, manufactured truth of a past that never should have happened in the first place.

But first, another drink, for the kitchen is empty and their hands will be rough. Like their words and their hearts, after all. Jake isn't going to go very far away until Caleb does. I gotcha. Figured it out, probably the slowest, since I'm the smallest, after all. Which is why they shouldn't let me have more than three glasses of wine.

But I know why they do. The words flow freely, and the veneration too. Everybody loves a princess, unsteady on her feet. There will be no saving grace tonight, I do believe I spent everything I had.