Under takers.

Hello, Poem.

He is behind me and I still jump out of my skin. I put it back on slowly so his eyes can linger on the scars. He reaches out and smooths my hair back from my ears, down the back of my neck. I had it cut. It stops at my shoulders now.

Hallo, Caleb.

He leans over me now, taking my words as affection, resting his chin on the top of my head. It hurts and I bounce upward once to make it known. Too hard. Don't actually put your weight behind it. He settles for poking his head in beside my face.

What are you doing?

Filling out the information forms for the school.

Don't they have this information already?

Yes, but since it's changing we need to update them.

I see. Maybe I can have a greater interest in this sort of thing now.

What sort of thing? Your child?

His hand came down on my wrist, squeezing it until we both heard a crack and I cried out. Then abruptly he let go. Funny how the unpredictable temper remains the sole common bond between Cole and Caleb. After me, of course.

Well, it isn't funny, actually. Let's call it interesting instead.

Sorry.

I pick my wrist up and rub it gingerly. Ben walks into the room and I drop my hands into my lap.

Caleb.

Benjamin. Caleb walks around and sits down in the chair opposite me. Bridget is showing me the school forms. I've never seen so many invasive questions.

They need to know custody arrangements and what's going on at home so they can work with the kids.

I meant the list of emergency contacts. There are ten listed, but space for only two.

Bridget's afraid she'll miss a call. Ben says it matter-of-factly.

I can' t hear the phone. I concur.

Maybe you should wear your hearing aids.

Maybe you should mind your own business. I covered my mouth. Pissing him off won't help matters.

Caleb smiled generously. Since Henry, and you, are my business I'll let that go.

Ben stopped walking and looked back at him.

I mean, I won't take it personally. Caleb corrects himself.

Ben frowns but keeps going. He will stop in the library and find something on his phone to make him look preoccupied, just to keep an ear out for me. See? It's already working. Caleb is forced to come to me now. No surprises, no privacy, no locked doors keeping the knights out and the evil in.

Do you have our budget for September?

No, sorry, I'll have it by the end of the week.

Maybe you can just take out whatever you need. I really don't need to sign off on it, do I?

You just finished saying you want a greater interest in what's happening.

I trust you.

That's not the point.

Noted.

Oh, he's just going to lie down and take it, now. This is awesome.

Also, you're going to have to ignore Lochlan for a while, he is still warming up to this whole musical houses thing.

Caleb looked at the floor. Then the ceiling. Then out the window. I kept staring until his eyes met mine.

Do you really think this will work?

That depends.

On?

Are you afraid of Lochlan?

He grinned and shook his head at the floor. Then he looked back at me defiantly. Not particularly.

Maybe you should be. I wasn't smiling when I said it.

There's only one thing I'm afraid of in this world, Bridget.

I waited, saying nothing. I expected him to answer his own question with Benjamin. I looked into his blue eyes. They had softened, filled with water, unabashedly, abruptly moved.

Your emotions. They are so strong. They bring...(he is fighting for control now and losing) They bring all of us to our knees, Bridget.

I nodded. I'm aware of what I can do. I'm not sure he is, not truly. Then don't make me regret this decision. You wanted to be on the inside, I'm giving you one chance to fix everything you broke. You better not let her down.

He looked up, dazed, still teary-eyed and clued in. He knew who I meant.

I won't. I promise. I'm not going to let her down again. It was a whisper. I'm still not sure I can believe him but I'm going to try.

Deireadh Fómhair

It's October today (above, in Gaelic, if you are so inclined.)

The first day, to be exact.

October conjures up thoughts of pumpkins, corduroy and woodsmoke, to me. Decadent coffees with caramel or spice and mulled wines. Pot roast and chicken stew. Baked apples and scarves. Walks through the neighborhood that is sprinkled with brightly colored leaves and children plotting their Halloween costumes in earnest.

The ocean is still warm but the sand turns cold, and the light changes radically. It's my favorite time of year on the beach, in sweaters and jeans with bare feet, the wind still braiding my hair, my eyes still scrunched up to see beyond the sun.

Penalty killing.

No hockey this year.

Last year's experiment of buying private ice time so that they could safely beat the shit out of each other holds little appeal this year for Ben and Lochlan. They are listed on a local league as alternates but otherwise I do believe they will stick to beating the shit out of each other in the yard/kitchen/library/theatre sans blades. Possibly still with sticks and gloves, however.

***

Even though I have leveled a self-imposed embargo on posting here about wedding details, I will tell you this. Caleb's condo is officially listing this week. Daniel and Schuyler move into their new home November 2nd. They actually have four days to paint prior to that. Busy busy. PJ will be moved in a few hours, or as fast as they can carry his things up the hill so Caleb is aiming for November 4th. Then he'll be freshly installed in time for anniversaries and landslides.

I know.

And Lochlan is holding a grudge. I bet it's heavy. I bet it burns. He's warming back up slowly. I find myself following him, throwing myself at his mercy verbally while he shoots warning fireballs out of his eyes to drop it or he'll change his mind. While he is pleased to have a closer eye on me overall or maybe what will amount to permanent, ironclad supervision, he's mortified and angry and completely betrayed that Caleb is going to be living here.

And I understand but sometimes things are the way they are for a reason and we're all already irrevocably tied together forever so what the fuck is the point of schlepping back and forth downtown anymore? It's ridiculous and so I made a decision this time. Me. Bridget. The one who doesn't even get to pick out her own lingerie for the day.

I did something on my own and I'm fine with it. They will warm up, just as we all adapt and evolve and get used to things. Everyone in one place. Everyone within reach.

I don't know if this is the best thing. It's safer. It's more transparent. It's easier. It's better for Henry's development. It's reassuring, somehow and it's done anyway so they may as well stop trying to talk me out of it and start rolling up their sleeves to help Caleb move all that stuff into his new digs.

I'm kidding. He already has a service booked. I should know, I booked it. Right, not a moving truck, a whole planned operation. Thousands of dollars for white-glove service. For twenty whole kilometers. He's going to find it very interesting living in the land of real people again. Of course, maybe he'll hire a butler and blow my hopes for reality to smithereens.

Maybe he should hire a Fortune Teller instead and then he would see that his future has not become some sort of obstacle-free path back into my good graces, in fact, I'm hoping that instead he will now have a front-row seat to the only love triangle I care to validate. And maybe he'll see that you get more flies with honey than you do with hellfire. Maybe he'll come to all sorts of realizations and life will be better now.

Or maybe they'll all go back to playing hockey. Because the extra padding helps when you're in the mood to cause damage. And we have health insurance again so we can pay to have their teeth replaced.

Resuscitated soul.

I want to tell you that I tried
To live it like a song

I keep poking my tongue out of the corner of my mouth to unstick the lock of hair that has become glued to my lipgloss. I am trying to smile seriously at the same time. I fail and start to laugh. Jacob sticks his head out from one side of the camera and frowns at me.

You aren't making this very easy.

Jake, it's too windy for this.

It's fine. Stick your goddamned tongue back in your face and smile like you mean it, princess.

Like I mean what, exactly?

Like you love me. Smile like you love me. He grins and I lose my nerve and my stomach starts to twist into cold knots and the smile falls off and drops into the water. High tide. Now with abandoned smiles to bring it even further up the rocks tonight.

Maybe we shouldn't do this.

What, I'm not allowed to own a photograph of you now?

What if he sees it?

Not sure if you've noticed but the odds of me sharing a photo album tour with your husband seem really small right now.

I nod and stick my toe out, swirling the foamy water. I'm standing in the surf up to my ankles. The saltwater is stinging the bug bites on my legs. It's freezing. I'm just about numb from the knees down and the neck up but he is determined. One good picture. Just one with no goofy expression or extra faces in the frame. Just me. Just for Jake.

***

Five months later Jake threw a New Year's Day Levee for all. A drop-in afternoon wine and cheese by the sea. He spent two days painstakingly cutting cheese, with the phone jammed under his ear, head pressed to one shoulder while he cursed and swore and asked me for tips on how to make it go faster.

Run the cheese knife under hot water, Jake.

There's a knife just for cheese? Are you fucking serious, princess?

Maybe you can stop at the deli and get some pre-sliced?

Maybe I'll stick with fruit. Would fruit be good?

We arrived late, with maybe an hour to spare. Cole had to be physically pulled away from his work, he was framing paintings and had lost all track of time. I waited by the door in my good dress and the only pair of heels I owned, rocking Ruthie on my hip. She was teething and fussy. Cole was oblivious until I offered to go alone and suddenly he was pulling off his shirt, heading for a dress shirt draped over the chair, asking me while he buttoned it if we needed to bring anything.

No, just us. I'm sure he's got it figured out. How many people throw something like this and need guests to bring things?

Yeah, true. Okay, but I'm not staying long. I'm so behind.

The others will be there.

Half an hour. That's it, Bridget.

Half an hour.

We arrived with ten minutes to spare. Everyone had been and gone. Construction traffic had us sitting on the 103 for almost an hour. By the time we arrived I was frazzled and Ruth was needing another change so after greeting Jacob with a quick hello and a peck on his cheek, I left the two men together and slipped into the bedroom to get a clean diaper on Ruth. When I came out with a now comfortable and content baby the two men were standing by the fireplace talking quietly. It wasn't until I walked closer and Cole turned around that I could process the expression on his face.

Jacob was suddenly loud. Too loud. Jovial and falsely attentive to us as a unit. Too late I realized why.

My picture, framed, on the mantel.

His prized possession and he had forgotten all about it. I ate my umbrage. I swallowed it dry, sick at the thought of what Jacob had done. I would pay for his blatant negligence. He was so unsophisticated. So simple. Black and white, no shades of grey. All or nothing. Honest to a fault. This is not a stance you want to take with Cole but Jacob wasn't about to conform to our sick games.

He stood up in the boat, and he started to rock it. I screamed. We're all going to fall out and drown but he doesn't care. He reaches over and grabs the side and it's every man for himself now, he's going to dump us all in the sea.

And I am the weakest swimmer of all.

***

I stand in the living room this morning looking at the mantle. It is littered with candles, a string of LED lights, a handful of uncategorized sea glass I pulled out of my handbag and haven't come back for yet and several picture frames, containing photographs of the faces I have loved the most.

And me.

Smiling in front of the sunset, the light bouncing off my face after Jacob waded into the sea after me to get a shot with the water, wind and light cooperating for those precious few moments. A moment captured that marks the dividing line between secrets and revelations.

When my head went under I took on water. I gasped in surprise at the shock of cold and involuntarily I cried out. Instantly my mouth and nose filled with stinging, filthy saltwater and I had two choices.

Sink or swim.

I swam. I put my arms up and began to push the water out of my way, pressure crushing my breast bone against my spine, light teasing me with thoughts of release. God's hand appeared to help me but I pushed it away. I knew it wasn't real. I knew I was dying and yet I also knew I couldn't let that happen. I had to see how the story ends. I fought harder to get on top of the water and finally when I thought I couldn't lift my arms again my head broke the surface. I choked on air mixing with water and I coughed and coughed and finally I could fill my lungs.

Strong arms had appeared, hauling me up over the side of the boat to safety. I was lowered into the bottom and my eyes filled with tears when I saw the sunset again. It's so beautiful. How dare Jacob take the chance with my life like that? He had to have known I wasn't a good swimmer, I mean, any number of summers at the lake had made it obvious that in spite of the boys efforts to teach me and train me and force me to get better I was still only marginally capable in the water.

Only he wasn't there to see that. He was new. There were so many things he didn't know about me. Things he railed against and didn't understand, things he forbade and watched carefully, the scrutiny squeezing my head together painfully. A history set in stone, unmovable, words screwed down onto a rock visible only at low tide, the only time I am allowed down to the water. When it only comes up to my ankles and I can't drown for a second time, ghosts pulling me down, their names weighted in bronze.

Every morning I walk into this room and put that photograph face-down on the mantle so I don't have to look at myself anymore.

Every evening I return and it is back in place among the other photos.

I like to think Ben is saving me by doing that, just like he did when he pulled me back into the boat. He continues to deny both but I am smarter than that now.

C is for cookie.

Andrew is reading my journal. This one. The one you're reading right now.

What an apt description of your childhood. You slay me sometimes. Everything is so pretty and ethereal and storybook and then you bust the mental picture wide open by throwing something in like the broken cigarettes.

Sorry.

No, it just floors me how easy it is for me to remember things when you put them there because of the way you describe things.

Heh. I should describe the time you put the fistful of sand on my tongue and gave me that look.

What look?

You know, the one toddlers give when they can't understand why you wouldn't want their pretend cookie? All that pent-up nursery school angst and post toilet-training rage.

Yeah, that rage. Wow. Hard to keep a lid on it. I think I made it up to you though with the proposal. I will always be number one.

You asked me to come live with you in your treehouse.

And to bring your blanket. I was planning ahead. It was going to be forever, Bridge. Until you said no.

Dinner was ready. I could hear my mom calling me.

Oh, yeah. I forgot.

It was a good dinner, Andrew. Like spaghetti or something.

There's always a better offer on the table. Literally, in this case.

I'm sorry. In my defense I was four years old.

Don't be sorry. I get warm flashes of memory when I read what you write about our childhood.

That's gross.

Not those kind of warm flashes, Bridge.

Right. I wondered why that treehouse stayed up until you were eighteen. Now I know.

Aphorisms and epitaphs.

Sophie called this morning. In her own magical way she expressed her displeasure at the fact that Caleb is giving up his autonomy for proximity. And then true to a fault she asked me if I needed anything.

This was not about giving me anything I might need, it was an effort to assert herself and whatever place she feels that she has in Caleb's life. I'm not sure she has a place right now.

He is focused on three things: his son, his health and atonement.

Everything else has ceased to be of any importance. Wealth, status, reputation, his day job testing the faith of mankind, and pretty much everything that used to consume his days has fallen by the wayside. He hasn't even had the Porsche detailed this week. Usually by now he would have already been in twice.

Maybe she should be asking what he needs.

I know what he needs.

This.

Humility. Supervision by the others. Real life in a real house instead of existing in his mogul-star life of glass condominiums, lines cut on the glass, signatures scrawled on lines, handshakes, shaking hands holding loaded weapons, and suitcases full of cash. Maybe I exaggerate (but maybe not) and maybe it's all a cruel ruse but I can't help but think Jake brought something out in Caleb that is finally going away. Maybe his incredulity and outrage at my betrayal of his brother is finally softening and he will be less devil and more human. Maybe he's getting old. Maybe time is slipping past us and he sees me as an equal, not as a child, a conquest and a curse.

Maybe pigs are fl-oh, look, there they go now. Oink, oink, like big fat pink geese.

Maybe he isn't as healthy as he told me he was. He's doing everything right: diet, exercise, as little stress as possible, he's given up drugs, alcohol and weapons. He's wishing immortality had a price tag, he would spend whatever it takes.

I know that feeling.

He has said there will be surprises along the way. That he isn't a monster, he just finds self-control the hardest lesson of all in the face of getting everything he wants. Were the devil to practice self-restraint, it would spell the end of sin as we know it.

In the beginning Caleb was oldest. Always automatically in charge, the one with the most privileges, the one the others looked up to. He set the bar high for self-expectations and never once did he express a doubt about a single damned thing ever. He was confident and laid-back, quietly narcissistic and vaguely sinister. It was the perfect combination to lead the group, and stay on top.

We would grow up and become The Outsiders and maybe someone would write about us someday, detailing just how long Lochlan's hair would get over the course of every summer when he wouldn't cut it between May and November or Cole's intensity when his painting didn't go well. Pointing out how hard it was for me to keep up, stumbling along through the woods behind the boys, tripping, sniffling along in the dark until Christian or Caleb or Cole would turn around and notice and then come back and get me, pulling me up into a piggyback-carry and I would fall asleep with my cheek pressed against the warmth of a sweaty t-shirt, listening to the loons call across the lake.

And then everything changed.

Lochlan didn't want to stay in town, he wanted to escape. I wanted to go with him. Cole was busy trying to keep his car running, hating his job, disappearing into himself. Caleb was putting himself through university, trying to get into law school, the first in his family to have white-collar aspirations.

The day came where I was less of a charge, less of a burden and more of a target, the object of their affections. The apple of too many pairs of eyes to keep anything fair. It tore them into so many different directions that allegiances were broken and friendships exploded. Naked desire became an expression I ignored for as long as I could because I knew everything about them. I had witnessed their tears, their punishments when they got yelled at by their parents, their D grades in math and their hopes and dreams, shared drunkenly on the hood of a car, wrapped in a blanket, watching the stars. Caleb's dreams were the most cohesive and detailed of all. We continued on a course into the future, into the certain disaster and uncertainty of adulthood, a place where you must be held accountable for your mistakes and your monstrosities alike.

And now, abruptly, after thirty years he has a new dream.

He wants us to be friends again. All of us. He doesn't want to be the bad guy, the devil or The Outsider anymore. He doesn't want to be the boogeyman, or the one I turn to when I feel self-destructive or vindictive or smug. He wants to be back on top where he was before he made a choice that changed everything.

I can't imagine how close we all would have been had he not torn everything apart the way he did but I also am old enough now to understand that even if I did forgive him nothing will ever be like it was back then ever again. We're not children anymore. It's too late for that.

The path back to that closely-knit brotherhood anchored by the beautiful little fair-haired princess who dances along the path behind them until it gets dark, and then runs ahead and tucks herself under an arm, falling asleep with her hands full of wilted daises and broken cigarettes is so overgrown and fraught with thorns and hazards we're just better off trying to find another way.

If there even is one. It might all be gone. It might be too late. It depends on who you ask.

Blessings in demise.

Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay
Were laid spread out before me as her body once did.
All five horizons revolved around her soul
As the earth to the sun
Now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn

And all I taught her was everything
I know she gave me all that she wore
And now my bitter hands chafe beneath the clouds
Of what was everything.
Oh, the pictures have all been washed in black
tattooed everything

I take a walk outside
I'm surrounded by some kids at play
I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear?
Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin round my head
I'm spinning
I'm spinning
How quick the sun can drop away

And now my bitter hands cradle broken glass
Of what was everything
All the pictures have all been washed in black
tattooed everything

All the love gone bad turned my world to black
Tattooed all I see, all that I am, all I'll be

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life
I know you'll be a sun in somebody else's sky
why can't it be mine

Black was a song for Cole. The painter, photographer. The temper. The presence. The passion of a hundred men and the patience of none. Black was loud and angry, melodic and deep. Black was the hallmark of a band that didn't try so hard, since he didn't like contrived acts. He liked mellow. He liked heartfelt lyrics and painful words. He had a lot of tattoos and he let me go with a fight, and boy, was it a good one, one stacked so unfairly it leaned up against the bars of a jail cell on the other side of town, an incredulous, miserable turn of events that brought his life to a screeching halt and made him a posthumous superstar in our circles, in spite of everything to the contrary.

But Cole loved Black.

Almost as much as he loved Bridget.

I love Black because it is prophetic and biographical and touching, in a sick self-gratifying way. It's a gut-wrenching song of loss. It's so beautiful I have yet to ever make it through the bridge without my eyes stinging.

But Pearl Jam did not play it last night at the show and I'm okay with that too.

Here's your obligatory bad concert photo from the rafters where we snuck in between acts and climbed to the top of the coliseum, and sang until we could no longer speak.

Girl in a Riker frame.

He looks down at me as I count the buttons on his shirt. His hand comes up under my chin, fingers wrapped around my head, tangled in my hair, firm grip against my mild protest. He pulls me up to his face for a kiss. My toes almost leave the ground. The kiss is harsh and bruising, it trails off my lips and across my cheek, landing against my ear. His breath is so warm, rapid draws against my skin.

He lets go of my head, taking my hand instead, pushing me down onto the sheets gently, climbing over me, holding himself up with one hand while he pulls off my dress with the other, fumbling for the hook, catching on the zipper, sitting up briefly to upwrap his find, every last muscle tense, senses heightened in the darkness. My skin is on fire, the hair on my arms standing up, shivers running down my spine, the scales on my wings tenuous and fragile. I don't know how he manages to evoke such an obvious visceral response from me but it's there and he sees it and he is overwhelmed, humbled by my reaction to his touch.

He is kissing me again, pushing me down underneath him, holding himself up, one hand ripping off the last of the satin and lace and I am naked and exposed. He pushes his boxers down and pulls me up into his arm, turning me onto my stomach, pushing my head down into the sheets so that I am blind, deaf and pinned. Like a moth to a spreading board, I am his specimen and he is careful and thorough, delicate and deliberate.

I am lifted once more and held against him, as pain mixed with something better winds through me in a rush. I fight for comfort and pacing but he won't relent. I am reduced to clutching at the sheets for security and relief against the torment but I won't surrender to him. Not yet. He is driving against me, breath on my neck, arms slick with sweat now, dropping down across my ribs to seize my hips and I begin to see flashes of light in the dark. This is the dangerous part and I start to fight him, twisting away, turning, using him as leverage to crawl out and turn over so that I can face him.

He smiles and kisses me again and pushes me flat onto my back, pinned this time with the brutal clamp of his forearm across my shoulders, his other hand near my head, holding himself up, slower now, harder until we are working so slowly I am crying out for more. He moves his arm and covers my mouth instead. He puts his head down against mine, whispering things, awful things, filthy, beautiful things in my ear. I can't breathe or move. He gathers me into his arms and pulls me up to sit in his lap, facing him, my lips aimed near his philtrum, his breath warming the lids of my eyes, still closed, still awake in a dream that turned out to be so real.

Within hours he winds down, having wound me out and explored every last inch of my form, pulled my hair, bruised my wrists and thighs, loosened my teeth, dulled my fingernails and turned my throat and my joints raw. I think we will sleep when abruptly he renews his efforts. I am screaming into his shoulder, teeth gnashed against hot skin, my hair so tangled in his fingers we're going to need help to remove it intact. He kisses my final scream away and tightens his arms around me as I tremble into the sunrise, pressed into a circadian groove, screwed right into the frame of Ben's life, enduringly, preserved as his possession.

Great pumpkins.

Omgomgomgomgomg.

It's a Halloween wedding, folks.

I was born for this. Well, I don't know how the hell I managed to get married in a field/church/clearing in the woods but never once got married by the sea, like you would think I would automatically plan. And now the boys are doing the next best thing to a seaside wedding that I also didn't ever think of and jealousy is going to turn me green before you know it here.

A masquerade ball wedding.

By the sea no less. (Bitches.)

Luckily this also hoses the whole Thirteen Ghosts costume plans.

I am not sorry about that even one bit. Come on, boys! We gettin' fancy now!

I am jammed in beside him on the couch, wedged tight on the inside, against the back of the couch, his arm around me so that I am almost on top of him but I have slid back against the cushions. We are quiet until abruptly he begins to laugh. My entire body shakes against his.

Crossly, I open one eye. It takes effort. I was almost asleep. His shirt is so soft, he is warm. If I could stand it, flannel sheets would be amazing but it's a short-term love affair for the warmth alone.

You were almost asleep. It's amazing. Your eyes drop and then fight open and then drop again, but not at the same time. How do you do that?.

Snrgheakal.

What?

Mmmmm...ehfkcs.

Bridget, I can't understand a word.

I lick my lips and let my eyes close again. That's because I am sleeping, Jake.

Oh, okay, sorry.

Then he starts laughing again.