Ha. Doing shots and drawing entire Jethro Tull album covers from memory. Not sure who our social coordinator is in this house but clearly she is awesomes.

The ballad of Highway 99 (gold, guns and girl, singular).

The money from the sale of Caleb's waterfront condo was earmarked and I didn't realize it.

Caleb is still eating crow, crow that costs a fortune, crow that must taste like caviar and dreams or he would have stopped by now and reverted back. All diurnal business has ground to a halt, anyway. The nocturnal kind is not up for discussion.

When people ask he simply says he decided to retire early and get out on top. That he has most definitely done, having always made sure he had everything precisely in order, not leaving anything to chance. Well, except that one thing in Tahoe but I think or I hope or maybe I'm almost sure that's been looked after now too.

It was easy for him to close this chapter on his life, he did well enough and saved enough and invested successfully enough that he wound up with more than I thought he would.

When his heart gives out like Cole's did Henry will be taken care of. Caleb will not tell me what his will holds for me anymore. This after I told him over the summer to take me out of everything, that his legacy rests in Henry and not in me. He refused to discuss the matter. I threatened to give it all away. He laughed and asked me what made me think he hadn't already done that? I was put in my place rather quickly. I will never bring it up again.

Yesterday we all spent the day playing in the snow up at Whistler. Caleb disappeared quite early on. At one point he sent a text saying he was taking in a few open houses and would meet us at the restaurant for dinner but I didn't get my messages. It was raining so I zipped my phone into my pocket and left it there.

At seven Ben finally reached him and told him we were heading home. He declined to travel in the caravan of trucks and said he would be along in time to say goodnight to the children.

When he arrived home he had a very good bottle of wine and some news. He's put in a bid on a house up there. Maybe to use it as a base and save the ninety minute drive back and forth when we want to go enjoy some snow. I snorted when he said that, for I am still the last holdout, thanks to that isolated final winter in the Prairies. The boys have embraced the mountains in a sort of primal mutual adoration and I still stand behind Ben's arm and scowl toward anything cold, while I pull my wrap tighter around my shoulders. I can be forced to enjoy it but then I am happy to drive away from it. So making me stay there overnight would just be all sorts of punishment now.

Oh, wait. Nevermind.

He asks for a cookie and I tell him Ben and Cole ate them all. I think I leave him unsettled and uncomfortable and on edge. I smile at the thought. Payback will take place over the next twenty-eight years, and then perhaps when I am ancient, tinier still and completely frail I will call it even. He better make it to that moment or I will be vastly disappointed. This is the work Batman and the others have been doing behind the scenes. If I can't manage to leave Caleb in my past then at the very least I am being positioned to always have the upper hand.

Except that all of this hinges on Caleb's reluctance to start up again with his evil and I never know if I can count on his compliance or if it's just another game. Maybe all of this is a game and I'm playing right into their hands. Maybe Ben is still being puppeted and maybe Lochlan isn't learning his lessons the hard way. Maybe both children still belong to Cole and maybe Jacob went running back to Northeast Asia because that's where he first found God. Maybe pigs are up there blocking the sun instead of clouds but I didn't notice and maybe the joke is on me.

I've gotten into the very bad habit of putting on five or six of the same clothing items at once to be warm and standing out on the very westernmost edge of my cliff for hours. Thinking. Thinking hard, something that requires all the concentration I can gather up. Thinking alone while PJ frets and whines into the phone with Ben or follows Duncan around to do something, after being told that he can go and amuse himself and I will return to myself in an hour or two, three at the most. Ben will tell him not to worry because Ben's faith clearly comes from a place of certain and utter earlier brain damage and Duncan is usually preoccupied and not paying attention so he fails to put weight into PJ's concerns. PJ does not rat me out to Loch because Loch would shut the whole mess down, or at least try. The ghosts, well, they do nothing. Maybe they wait for me to cross over to their team. Maybe they wait to see me go back inside. Maybe they can do something but maybe they have hopes that surpass selfishness, even after life.

Maybe I'll learn to appreciate snow again and maybe I'll still wish ski hills were four minutes long and twenty bucks a day, like when Loch used to take me to Martock, instead of Caleb throwing his fortune around on the pipe dream of retaining whatever spark still lights up between the two of us when we are in close proximity. I don't intend to stop using him any time soon to get my fill of Cole-time and he wouldn't deny me that even if his life depended on it.

Sometimes I think it does and so I spend a lot of time glued to the edge of the cliff, trying to think in the wind. What in the hell is he doing? And what does it have to do with me really?

***

Update: He didn't get the house. The loss doesn't bother him at all, he's one of those people who shrugs it off. Another one will come along, he says when pressed to explain his chipper demeanor. When the agent asked him if he would like to go ahead now and put in an offer on another house, he declined and said he was going to wait for the spring to see if something else caught his eye the way that one had. He listened for a few more moments on the phone and then laughed and said, Yes, I do know what I want in life. Briefly his eyes flickered to me and then as quickly he turned away, pretending to stretch. He hung up the phone and said the ninety minute caravans, for now, will continue.

I pointed out I'd rather be surrounded by sand than snow and maybe he should be looking for an island to buy instead. He just pointed at me, jabbing the air and nodding, and walked out of the room backwards.

And then PJ whispered that I am so evil he can hardly believe it sometimes.

Last night I took two of the snowman cookies and put them on a plate. When everyone was busy I slipped out of the house undetected (no worries, the alarms only go off if I leave the relative safety of the backyard, toward the cliffs, not if I step onto the driveway) and took the plate to the garage. I unlocked the side door of the garage and went inside. It was pitch dark at ground level in spite of a small amount of ambient light from the loft windows above. I didn't turn the lights on, I don't think I ever do when I go in there. I just walked across the floor in the dark to the back wall and set the plate down gently on the counter.

I turned to leave and smacked right into Ben. I think I broke my nose and all of my toes in doing so. He's a wall.

What are you doing, little one?

Nothing. Ow. I didn't know you were behind me.

Do ghosts eat cookies?

I am so busted. Mine would, I whisper and put my hands up over my face. I'm sorry Benny.

He pulls my hands back down. Don't be sorry. I would do the same.

Really?

No. Jake can get his own fucking cookies. And I doubt Cole ever ate them. He probably stacked them up and stood on them so he would look bigger. You know, like Loch does.

I laughed. Oh my God I laughed.

And this morning when we went back for the plate the cookies were gone.

A special performance for an audience of one.

Do you remember this?

That qualified as the World's Most Amazing Christmas Present. The ocean in my arms. The beach. Everything I love in a hand-built box, personalized with my name. I still open it every single day. I have worn the paint off the lid. Some of the roses are missing. There is still sand everywhere all the time because I can't leave well enough alone.

And Ben is still listening, because on Christmas morning he brought me the circus.

The music, the lights, the dizzying spotlights, the ear-splitting, repetitive music. The Fire-thrower, the Fortune Teller, the Magician and the Ringmaster too. The tricks and traps and gasps of an appreciative audience (me) kept me from pinching myself to see if I was dreaming.

And I had no idea what he was up to. None. Not a thing until I was manhandled out of bed that morning, dressed and blindfolded and led down the steps into..heaven on earth. I still had no idea until I heard the first note of the music and my blindfold was taken off.

They put on the greatest show on earth.

My presents were delivered by each performer in turn, each one more surprising than the next until the lights were turned up and Christmas day proper could begin. Everything was rehearsed and choreographed down to the minute. He made a full sized tent even. I begged him to leave it up but let's face it, it took over everything and it had to be dismantled. I would have lived in and around it forever, if you're asking.

I daresay I didn't pick my chin up off the floor until dinnertime. I was cooking, stirring gravy while the music of Fucik's Gladiators played on a loop through my skull. I still don't understand how he pulled it off.

I also still don't understand how Ben turned out to be such a formidable romantic. I just know that positively all of us were entranced, and a little bit in awe of how he managed to top something I thought I could never ever come close to again.

He said it was nothing, but he's wrong. It's everything.

By request.

In lieu of not actually having time to sit down and compose a proper entry, I thought I would fly by and share Ben's annual (and always different but always goofy) Vampire Christmas jokes with you:

What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?

Frostbite!

What does a vampire always get his lover for Christmas?

Something en-grave-d!

And the last one, which brought dinner to a brief standstill:

What do you get if you cross a vampire and a circus entertainer?

I don't know but it goes straight for the juggler!

Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!

My mother, on the phone this morning, reminds me I had the flu last Christmas too and sure enough, she's right. It's as if I can just flip the switch from keeping the household running smoothly to standing on the platform above it, throwing furniture into the gears until it pops and shudders and explodes into certain ruin. When I am this sick things get done in interesting ways or at interesting times. Case in point, baking and decorating snowman sugar cookies with the children after eight on a Saturday night is about as much fun as frostbite but here we are.

I've heard I need to relax, but that could just be a rumor.

In any event we have no firm plans for the next several days and I like that. I want to get better, watch the children and the boys open their gifts, do the usual cook-and-pray turkey dinner cooking method (I'm not very good at this and it's WAY MORE PRESSURE than spaghetti, especially since I was grilled at the breakfast table.

Do we have...cranberry sauce?

Yes.

Stuffing?

Yes.

Gravy?

Yes.

Real butter?

Yes, of course.

Potatoes?

Yup.

Creamed corn?

Fuck no, gross.

What time do we put the turkey in?

I don't know. It says the time per pound but the label is in kilograms. I have to find a calculator online.

Just multiply it, Bridget.

I can't. We never did kilograms. I think it's 1.5 or maybe 2 pounds is a kilo...

Christ. What did they teach you in school?

Ask me anything about Oliver Cromwell. Or ask me to recite 'Evangeline'.

What are those things?

See? I learned more than you did.

At least I can convert pounds to kilos.

Once a year. We need to do that ONCE a year, Benjamin. What a waste of American resources.

We make really good turkey dinners though.

Really? Okay, you cook tomorrow. I'm sleeping in.

You're on.

The only rule is you have to use common kitchen implements, Ben. So no chainsaws, blowtorches or lawnmowers.

Okay, how about this? We'll cook together. The Americans can do the math, and the Canadians can provide the nuance and....stuff.

Tonight everyone is home safe and sound with me. The doors are locked, the lights on the tree are lit, there's a fire in the fireplace and fucking sugar cookies everywhere. It's awesome.

Merry Christmas to you and yours, from all of us here at the home for wayward musicians and runaway freakshow performers. May your days be psychotic and blown out and may all your Christmases be dark and decadent and wonderful and loud.

And I hope Santa finds you.

xo

Happiness (Oh fuck are they calling the cops? Naw, no cell service)

Today I'm watching the Leafs, Canucks and Jets standings in the NHL and I'm watching boy movies (Conan, Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and I'm nursing a midrange fever that just won't quit and I'm watching my husband swim across a creek up in the mountains on a day when I can't even feel my fingers, it's so cold up there and I had to put his clothes on a rock because they were too heavy and I was scared he was going to drown or be swept away and he said it was 'invigorating' and gave the people watching on the bridge a lovely show of his naked butt and possibly full frontal (sorry, please don't put it on Youtube) and talked nonstop until we were home again and he could go find some dry clothes and yeah, this one is unexplainable but very very Ben-like, so nothing new around these parts.

He makes me laugh. I also aged a thousand years.

"Keep the circus going inside you, keep it going, don't take anything too seriously, it'll all work out in the end". ~David Niven

When he walked into the room I rushed over, wrist held up, bracelet out with a silent request for an extra hand to put it on. I can't fasten the catch with my left hand. It frustrates me every single day.

The Christmas whorenament needs help? No problem. He reaches for the bracelet but I snatch it back.

What the fuck.

Do you need to publicly detail your evenings?

Do you want a job as editor? Because I can't pay you and volunteers aren't given censorship authority.

Bridget, you're incorrigible.

How many times did you read it? Be honest, you filthy pervert.

Four. Now are you ready for dinner?

No. Ben is still dressing.

Did he read it?

I turn and just stare at him. He was there, he doesn't need to read it. And you know that. So drop it already.

You're going to kill him, Bridget.

It's the offhand comments using phrases involving death that derail me. I slam the closet door closed and drop my coat on the floor and I march right over until I am up in his face and I point out quietly, harshly that I'm not the conductor of this orchestra. Caleb laughs at my euphemism, coffee and whiskey breath coating me in surprise.

I know you aren't but at the same time he is still testing you and nights such as those are ultimately going to make you fail your practicum.

Oh my God. Don't run with allegories, please. They're sharp. You might hurt yourself.

Isn't that what life has become, princess? Running away with the shred of an idea and letting it get out of hand before we realize not every idea is a good idea and we're in pieces on the floor?

Such as? I'm picking fights now. May as well, no one else is ready to go yet. Our reservations are going to be missed, which becomes complicated when you book a table of seventeen. I have to call the restaurant and warn them we are running late.

Your commune.

Is a well-oiled machine.

It's an incendiary device waiting to explode.

Sour grapes, Cale.

Obvious signals, princess. I'm looking out for you because you can't juggle so many hearts.

Two. Only two. I'm trained for five, fully.

Four. Or maybe seven if you want to be specific.

What the? Oh my God. TWO. Jesus Christ. Two. You make me sound like a party favor.

I'm not blind, princess. I see things you don't think I see. I know what the others want.

Oh, do tell because now you're composing your own melodies. You're ludicrous. And you're wrong.

He opens his mouth to say something and then abruptly checks his expression as Ben comes crashing down the steps, in a black suit with a steel-grey shirt. No tie. He looks like a pro hockey player arriving for a game. A suit on him looks so amazing considering he lives in tour t-shirts and jeans 360 days of the year and the missing four days consist of nothing (if I'm lucky) but plaid flannel pajama bottoms (Damn!) that make me want to put a bucket under my tongue.

Ben refused to join the argument or listen to accusations, instead scowling at Caleb. He pointed one finger at him and said one word.

Don't.

He then took my hand, pulling me out to the front hallway to get our coats on. It's late. We've got to go. The others will have to catch up.

I call the restaurant and let them know we're going to be trickling in gradually over the next half hour to an hour and they're very gracious, appreciative of the warning. Unlike me, who takes warnings as direct challenges. Every time someone levels one I leap into my fighting stance and become ridiculously indignant. Or maybe that's defensive. Oh, wait. It's guilt. Guilt and shame and yet I hold my head high, because the show must go on. Because this is what he wants and who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth when it's presented on such a grand scale?

***

(He sat in the chair in near darkness, eyes focused sharply on the scene that played out in front of him. He missed nothing. Not a centimeter of bare skin, not a kiss, not a whisper. Not a lock of hair or a long breath exhaled over a shoulder taunt with effort. He uses the darkness to torture himself, to bathe in his proclivities and marvel at the power he holds now, the ability to give and take away, like the Jesus Christ of Bridget's universe, gifting favors that breathe and laugh in exchange for total compliance. His own private little world, engineered as a means to an end. He found a red and white tent, deceptively small, complete with a fully working circus inside. He shook out the participants and onto the dry grass fell a blonde and a redhead and he found them intriguing. It's a carnival of madness and he is the ringmaster now. Can't take your eyes off him, I know.)

Solstice (Wait for it).

(This will just be all conundrums and confusion to you. Tough.)

His good hand comes up under my chin, pushing my head up.

Look at me, he whispers.

If I do that it's all over. Obediently I meet his eyes. We are squared and there's a far-away sound of everything falling into place.

His arms pull me in, pull me down into the cool cotton sheets and I break his gaze by closing my eyes. I don't want to love too much or fall too hard but there are some things far beyond my control and this isn't one of them. Oh no, this is engineered by fate and fuelled by history. His skin smells like gasoline, his hair is soft fire in the dark.

The cast is gone again only I don't ask what happened to it, I just watch for him to favor that arm but he does not. He is too busy sharping the points he wants to prove and building up his strength for next summer, the summer he always said he would return to busking full time and go back to his physical showmanship instead of designing and creating things other people will ultimately take the credit for. Twenty-twelve was always a far-away goal for someone who doesn't set goals any more than he makes resolutions. This was an exception to his rule.

Kind of like me.

All he wants is the adoration of a faceless crowd, no commitments and no rainy days on the horizon. No deadlines, no locked windows and no indoor yellow lighting when he could be outside under the fire of the sun.

His lips dance along my earlobe, across my eyelids and come to rest on the tip of my nose. I turn away, it tickles and at the same time it's the most familiar feeling in the world to me now. I hold my breath as he pulls down the zipper on my dress and then he pulls the blanket up over us before I begin to shiver. His skin is warm, so as long as I stay right here I won't get cold.

He kisses across my shoulder, my clavicle, and back up to my jaw. I put my arms around his neck and pull him closer still. I'm going to give up on breathing now, I think I can live on love instead of air. He puts his head down against my ear and begins to rock against me. He's so fierce all I can do is hold him close and hold on tight.

He has my head locked in his hands, pressed against his chest. I am tense and silent. He pulls me up and whispers a command that I breathe for him, breathe with him, breathe him in and I nod furiously. I can do that. I can manage that, even though I can't manage a grip on reality or good graciousness or loyalty. I can manage a breath. He presses his mouth against mine and I can breathe fire now too. His kisses are hard and slow, intensity burning our lips raw but I don't turn away this time.

I can ride the darkness on through to the sun on this longest night of the year and then when the flames lick across the water bringing the blinding light to warm up the morning I will slide off the bed and hit the floor, returning to spend my day with aching limbs and a fractured heart in a reality no more real than the words in some old standard about making believe.

(What did they make it out of and how did they make it hold?)

What do you see? He asks me.

My eyes fill with tears and I shake my head. Some revelations are not meant to be shared. I can't tell you, I'm sorry, I whisper. He understands, oddly enough. He knows precisely what I see in his eyes. Clear as daylight, quiet as candledark, lit by a single torch and so plainly visible to all.

Some things are never meant to be admitted out loud.

(Leave us in the dark.)

(Stay where the light is brightest.)

(In between is safest, peanut. You can still be warm but you can step into the shadows to hide, if there is a time that calls for that.)

(What? I couldn't hear you, Lochlan.)

Zen and the art of shopping.

It's 11:15 and Lochlan has poured me a honey Jack Daniels and eggnog to drink so that I sleep tonight. It's so strong I can feel my brain crackling as I take small gulps even after being warned multiple times to sip it slowly. They say the same thing about coffee. You should SEE how fast I can drink a boiling hot cup of coffee. It's just DUMB.

What a glorious day. I walked around sipping my coffee and admiring things in stores. I took my time. The only people who spoke were clerks offering to help me find things, but no thank you, I'm not buying today. I'm done. Wrapped and loaded for bear and Santa too. I leaned way over the glass on the second floor and he looked up at me and waved this morning and I waved back and took his picture before moving on. I admired the most beautiful dark green satin strapless dress and then I picked the hanger up and held the dress out and realized I don't need it, I have one almost just like it. My Christmas dress. A Valentino that Caleb had altered and sent to me, tied in a box with silver ribbons. He did this many years ago without being asked. It fit perfectly and I wear it every chance I get. I don't know how he knew my measurements. He's never asked. The story goes that he held it up when the alterations were finished and studied it and said it would work. He's spooky like that. I'm still never sure if I should be flattered or run screaming.

I looked at platform shoes and decided I really need some new things. A lot of new things. Or do I? I do but maybe not platforms. Maybe just standard heels. Maybe flats. Maybe a new pair of Angel boots. At least.

I sat and read the paper on my phone when I got tired, watching the young mother beside me feed her baby daughter lunch. I marveled at how small babies are and how glad I am that my children are tweenagers and sort of silly but how there is only one gift under the tree that is a toy, since Henry is ten years old still even though sometimes it feels as if he is much older than that.

I considered buying a new set of bobby pins since we've reached the end of the year and I don't know how many of my gold and silver pins will make it back to me. The boys have an unspoken tradition of collecting them right through the end of the year and then presenting them back to me in neat little containers and boxes, treasures found and collected the same way I collect sea glass. They learned it from Jake. I think I'll wait and see how many reappear. Besides, the stores didn't have gold or silver. I only saw brown, black or white on my travels.

I ruminated on how deliciously wrecked my goddamned knees are from so many years of running. If I sit too long or walk too much on hard floors now my knees and hips ache. And I wore sensible flats to walk in today. I thought I was being smart. I guess it doesn't make a difference, everything aches tonight. But not for long.

I vowed to pare down my belongings to what I dearly love because there's just so much STUFF out there. Stuff won't make me happy, people do. Feelings do. This freaking eggnog and Jack Daniels does. Like, in a hurry. Time for bed. Very long day after all, even though it's probably one of the more relaxing days I have spent lately.

I really like that. I could get in to this relaxing thing. Lets hope it continues.