The dreams we have as children.

He either grew tired of us mentioning his curls nonstop or he went Hare Krishna on me (it's happened before) but when I walked into the kitchen this morning I didn't recognize Lochlan, who finally went for a haircut. By the end of summer he will be strawberry blonde and have perfect curls again but until then we get treated to this virtual stranger with dark red and weirdly straight hair. I can see his eyes. He can't hide behind his curly charm now.

***

I'm listening to Noel Gallagher again. I know. The Birds album turned out to be a literal masterpiece to my ears. They are so selective sometimes I even surprise myself.

***

We're out of cake.

I did not care to acknowledge much about this birthday just because I can't count this high and when I try I become sad in a way that seems so permanent and regretful and completely unusual to the fleeting and crushing sad feeling that I am familiar with. Life is far different from what I pictured. Not in a bad way, just completely different, and I have had to be far braver than I thought possible and still every day things are new and different and kind of unbelievable and those are the dreams you can pop like bubbles and I know I'm a fatalist but I mean well, really I do.

I worry the bottom will fall out. That's all. I've always felt as if I stood on the outside and my life is a movie I watch on a big screen, so lifelike I can feel what everyone feels, so intangible after all that any decisions are put to a committee vote instead of a whim.

***

People want to know what's going on. With triangles and declarations and boys and life here in the collective and I tend to ignore writing about it when I get overwhelmed or distracted.

Well, sorry, I've been distracted. An awful lot actually.

I stepped into the garage and Jake growled at me to smile, oh and to slow the fuck down, and really pay attention and count the stars that are lucky and leave the rest for others (no, I need them all, Pooh) and then I tried a new tea and learned that yes the afternoon coffee will now destroy me because caffeine makes me crazy and then I had to bite my lip when I realized I really really wish I could control the universe sometimes because then it would make perfect sense and I realized who I sounded like and it was that much-needed stab of familiarity mixed with an ache for a time when things were so simple the only things I had an opinion on were the color of my cotton candy (blue, always blue) and whether or not my hair went into a braid or a knot at the back of my neck (I liked the braid, he liked the knot).

I went to tell him about the ache but he had left already. To get his hair cut. And when he came back my courage left to make room.

Soliloquies for two.

Hope I didn't speak too soon
My eyes have always
Followed you around the room
Cause you're the only
God that I will ever need
I'm holding on and waiting for the moment
For my heart to be unbroken by the sea

It's windy on the beach today, so much so that it feels like fall. The water is dark, the waves choppy, the big boats far off into the blinding white sun, away from the shore. It's Wednesday and it's almost like I can reach out with one finger and stop the world from rotating for no one is visible from here. It's as if we've been dropped onto an uninhabited planet if only it weren't for the same story going around and around and around, at thirty-three rpm or one complete revolution around the sun over twenty-four hours exactly. It doesn't matter if this is a turntable or an orbit, frankly.

And that is his argument at present.

Because today he is the one who looks like a teenager, balanced on a rock above the shore, jeans wet up to the knees, eyes squinched up in the sunlight, head of red curls unbrushed and tangled, turned to face me sometimes but only out of habit and certainly not because I am all that interesting. I'm only listening today, and not talking back.

He hates that, you see.

That's why I do it.

I don't have much else to offer because he wouldn't listen even if he knew I think he's right and he makes perfect sense but at the same time so does everyone else.

I can't hear the music either, playing through my headphones that are tucked into the zipper of my hoodie. But I know it's playing, just like I know he's right. Some things just are. The moon always rises and this sun will always set. You can set your watch by Lochlan's ability to point out the sheer practicality of a feeling or an action and then he'll turn around and blow his own theory full of holes while everyone else ducks for cover from the blast.

It's sort of interesting when that happens.

He said once, if I stay at home and work two jobs I can make enough for college and then graduate without any debt. That would give me a leg up on life.

And then he left and went on the road with the show and with me, where we made downwards of fifty dollars a day between us and stole the rest and came home with empty pockets and emptier stomachs. He paid off his student loans three years ago. College waited for Lochlan long after everyone else was finished. I never finished at all.

He said once, if you were smart, you'd take Ben's offer and never look back. He's fun, he cares a hell of a lot for you and he's trying so hard, Bridget. He loves you.

And then he left because he couldn't stick around to watch it because it wasn't him and it wasn't fair and it wouldn't last and it doesn't matter how hard Ben tries, Ben can't undo history this deep.

Because our history is deeper than this ocean, deeper than the deepest, darkest, coldest part of the sea and that's why I should talk to him instead of just listening because you can't have an argument if only one person is fighting. That hasn't stopped him, not one little bit. He's still talking, I haven't said a word since eight fifteen this morning.

And he's talking fast. Fast because he has so much he wants to say and fast because there is not much time to do it. You see time is the enemy and he's rushing but at the same time he's been standing on that rock for the better part of forty-five minutes throwing out thoughts and admonishing me to hurry up and then he stares out to sea while he comes up with something else that he thinks might clinch it.

It's sort of amazing to view him so objectively.

I keep raising my eyebrows every time he turns his back because suddenly I no longer understand him at all, how his actions can go one way and his words another but it's okay because the sea will mix it all back together on my behalf, depositing it on the shore, frosted smooth and rounded by the sand, lighter so it's left behind for me to find.

I tighten my ponytail with both hands and resume my search for more of those words that match the actions. Slim pickings today. Just like always.

On buttoning a sweater with shivering fingers, on holding on with trembling hands.

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life.

You know what I remember most? Not his eventual acquiescence to my plans, but the fact that I had Black on repeat that entire weekend and listening to it now is akin to someone ripping open my soul and pouring hot lava down the hole.

You're gonna what? Jesus Lord, you'll fucking freeze to death.

I won't stay in long. But I can't come here and not go in.

Sure you can. Bridget, we're going to come in the winter and the summer too. There will be so many chances.

Jacob stands on the tiny porch in jeans and a thin, worn sweater over a plain white t-shirt. His hair just reaches the neck of the sweater in the back and I can't take my eyes off it. The wool matches the dark underneath part of his hair, a soft pale caramel. His jeans are so worn they're white and the lines around his eyes speak to a stress that would later break him, only I didn't know and I mistook the burden he carried to be plain and simple concern.

I don't think you should go in, Bridget. He repeats himself with a challenge in his voice. Only I don't rise to it, I turn around and go inside.

Jake doesn't follow. He exits the porch and heads down the shore. A long walk, giving him that all important count to twenty-five to calm down because ten doesn't cut it.

By the time he returns, pale blue eyes peaceful, reflecting the sea, I am curled up in the corner of the big couch with a knit blanket over me, a cup of tea on the table by my elbow, another on the coffee table in front of me, waiting for him. He takes a grateful sip and then points out he doesn't want me to catch a cold. Then he says he worries the undertow will be too strong. Then he says Sometimes I don't think you fight her hard enough, meaning the sea. He then makes a comment about the weather turning ominous.

I am amused. Will you rate your concerns in order of importance, preacher?

What? No, princess. How about this? You're not allowed in.

Oh, see, now I have to go in just to defy you.

He glares at me while taking another sip of tea. Everything tastes better here, did you notice that?

I nod. Don't change the subject, Jake. If we don't come back ever, I want to submerge myself just once more.

Who said we won't come back? I bought this place for us. This can be safe harbour. A getaway from all of it and still be near everything you...WE..need.

I just have a feeling, that's all. This is it. One chance.

Then you go for your freezing swim and I'll have to work to prove you wrong.

In up to my knees.

Okay, so..you know those awkward lollipops with the big sugar crystals and the wooden knob-handles? Those are tea-stirrers. I just sort of eat them. I had no idea really but now that I know it makes PERFECT SENSE!

Today is my birthday. Welcome to the weirdness that is me, always. Am dressed up! With eyelashes and everything because we're going out to shop and eat and do whatever I want because I. am. awesome and my mind is forever somewhere between twelve and seventeen. Really the numbers just keep ticking up and I want to grab the lowest one with both arms and pull back down hard with all of my weight until the one left showing matches how I feel.

On the upside? They are finished the fountain. All the pounding and hammering was to fix the steps/driveway/new section but the pond/fountain was put in and is WORKING! I can't hear it at all unless I am standing in it.

But the very best part?

Caleb did not get the koi fish to stock the pond. He got us turtles. Turtles and a bullfrog (which I'm told will be eaten by the turtles so he should now hop away, for his little green life)!

Because as I told you, I am still twelve and twelve-year-olds don't drink tea (or stay out of ponds full of turtles, for that matter).

Bane.

They started at 7:50 this morning, and I was at Caleb's door at 7:56 in my pajamas. He opens it, unsmiling but dressed and ready for his day and I barge right in, complaining that we have noise bylaws and sleeping boys and neighbors with infants and why the fuck can't they take a week off from jackhammering the whole fucking property and then I see the purse on the counter.

Oh, you're busy.

Bridget, it's just-

Then she walks out into the living room, trying to latch her earring. Oh God. Not her.

Bridget. Still unhappy with the entire universe, are you?

Long time no see, Sophie. Too bad we don't have more time to talk but you have to leave.

Caleb and I-

Yeah, safe trip home. Get out.

You don't get to tell me what to do in his house.

Sure I do. I look at Caleb, waiting for him to pick a side. He doesn't make me wait long.

I'll have Mike take you to the airport, Sophie.

But I thought we were going to-

I forgot I have an engagement this morning. Sorry.

She scowls at me and I shoot her my winningest smile. Caleb is trying not to laugh at me at this point. I have bedhead, I know. Great.

I see. Still stringing everyone along. Quite the little piece of work you are, as always.

Bye, Sophie. My smile drops as I turn and leave. A little warning would have been nice. As I grab the railing to go down the wet stairs I hear their voices rise. A fight. Oh darn.

***

Caleb walks into the kitchen an hour later, just as I slide the first of the birthday cupcakes into the stove to bake.

Bridget, that wasn't nice.

Was it nice of you to bring her here?

She was in town for a couple days. I didn't think I had to clear it with you.

You picked my side.

Of course I did.

I'm surprised by that.

Don't be. It's the burning building question. Who would I save? Well, she may be easier, but you are more fun.

Why is that?

I think the sight of you, with your messy curls, in your Hello Kitty pajamas ready to claw the makeup right off of her face was so adorable what else could I do?

Maybe you could entertain her downtown?

At Batman's hotel? Maybe we can fill each other's ice buckets. Your post yesterday was quite genius. Throw Batman to the wolves and then they won't notice Lochlan has finally regained his Alpha status.

That's not what I did.

Then you're deluding yourself. And for the record? I slept on the couch in the living room last night. So she wasn't very happy this morning to begin with.

I actually don't want the gory details.

Well, I'm going to give them to you anyway. I'm too old for one-night stands.

Even with Sophie?

Sophie is a social climber and a parasite and unlike you she is never silly and definitely never cute. So in case you wondered where my loyalties were, they are with you, always. The only reason I didn't let you know was because it was late and I know Henry isn't feeling well. Since there won't be a next time, I don't actually have to promise to do it differently, do I?

No, you don't.

How are the cupcakes coming? They smell delicious. I could have gone to the bakery though. You only have one birthday a year, Bridget.

My birthday isn't until tomorrow. These are just because it's Friday and...I like pre-weekends.

Yeah, me too. He stands there looking like an idiot, smiling huge. It's contagious. I cock my head and calculate.

Come back in an hour or so and you can taste-test them.

I will do that.

Today also marks the very first time I offered to feed Caleb without wondering briefly how to poison it so as to kill him without detection. It's a whole fucking day of firsts! Amazing!

Counterintelligence.

This week Lochlan did what he always does when something isn't quite going right.

He put on his resigned face, and he hauled his logic out, dusting off the top and oiling all of the moving parts. He pulled me in close, pressing a kiss hard against my forehead and told me grimly that everything will be okay, just keep going forward and we'll cross the bridges when we get to them. I nod in reply. We're resilient and silly and insolent and committed. We're filthy and hungry and we dream of adventure.

So why do we regret it when it finally shows itself?

***
Batman sends me a text message mid-morning, just as I am beginning a full-on house cleaning. I'm still fighting the parade of cherry blossom stems tracking indoors. I'm losing. They're everywhere. And on the almost-white carpets and white tile it's sort of a seasonal mess. My work is cut out for me. Fuck me, they're even in our beds.

Room service lunch today if you're game. I'll buy. And order without even looking.

I don't respond right away and ten minutes later another message chimes in.

Or we could just spend the afternoon in bed in the hotel. That's fine too.

I freeze. It's a blatant, crass message that Batman wouldn't write. I'm trying to figure out how to respond when three more messages crash into the first two.

Just ignore that. My brain is not connected to my fingers.

Don't tell them, it was a joke.

I'm very sorry. I think I must have spring fever.

The last one made me laugh. Don't make things weird again, Batman. I say it under my breath. It's sort of too late for normal, however. Batman was the original Indecent Proposal of my adulthood. I think sometimes when things don't go right in his life he becomes wistful for that, but at no point do I think he means any harm so there is no harm in writing it down.

Repeating itself.

I was coming up the sidewalk with the dog, out for a quick walk before beginning to pull dinner together, when I saw her. Ruth, long hair glinting gold in the sun, hoodie tied in a knot around her thin frame, pink t-shirt and jeans, converse. In a pack with around ten other kids. Loose on a sunny afternoon with vague instructions to stay out of the woods and be home by four-forty at the latest.

She made a move to run out from between two parked cars, heading up the hill in a game of Cops & Robbers when the boy in front of her threw his arm up to block her from going any further, as an SUV drove slowly down the street.

She laughed and he smiled at her. He's a full head taller than she is, red t-shirt and jeans and I don't know his name but she will tell me later. Once the street was clear he dropped his arm and took off with her running hard to keep or catch up.

Kind of reminds me of someone.

Update: His name is Tyler and he is thirteen and a half, and he's man enough to sit out on the porch with Lochlan, PJ, Christian and Andrew while they discuss why Ruthie isn't allowed in the woods. He has pointed out several times that he was with her and he wouldn't let anything happen to her anyway but that he is very, very sorry he talked her into it. I daresay there's a hint of a smile playing on Lochlan's face, while Ruth has already run upstairs crying because she is trouble, probably having thrown herself facedown on her bed.

I'm sure this will replay itself many times over in varying degrees of severity over the next few years and I can say I hope it gets easier but I know it won't.

I am trying to break my mind, and other future Wilco songs.

(Sorry to be so perpetually unavailable, it's been a busy week so far.)

-Matt and Sam? Done, for the time being. Sam is not being as resilient as he once told me to be, and I'm having a hard time comforting him without wanting to THROW THAT IN HIS FACE.

-Duncan opted to not file his taxes, due yesterday. I am waiting for an unmarked black CRA van to squeal down the driveway, throw him in the back and take him away. While I wait I'm introducing him to Turbo Tax. Because he was the only one who said he would "take care of it" once I finished when I offered to mail/file/phone. I'm glad I followed up. He is a little bit too laissez-faire these days about important things and all jacked completely uptight about unimportant things. I think his midlife crisis is finally kicking in.

-Coach sent me a 25% discount offer in honor of my upcoming birthday. My brand-spanking shiny new family doctor scheduled me for a fucking mammogram as her gift to me. Obviously the purse-shopping excites me far more. Also I can't seem to decide on a birthday dinner restaurant. Or who to take with me, seeing as how Ben has resumed his resistance all things redhaired and circusy.

(They have four days remaining to sort it out before I take Dalton and we'll just do tequila body shots off of each other and toast to madness and the art of finding midnight in the bottom of a sunlight sunlit (Ben just messaged me and told me sunlight looked wrong. BLAH.) horizon or something equally nonsensical. Dalton has turned out to be the smarter brother in the family, clearly. I offered him Saturday and he smiled and said I'm game. Whatever you want, princess.)

-This morning work began on the driveway too, since they have the heavy equipment here anyway to put in the never-ending, ostentatious yacht club/former simple removable dock. You know, because Mr. Honest (heretofore known as Satan) failed to inform me he was having part of the driveway extended so that it actually splits and turns right so that he can park up beside the boathouse, on the hill, instead of having to come all the way down to the house, past the garage with all the vehicles here already. I'm sure he is spending whatever this costs to stick it to PJ, who regularly sticks it to Caleb by parking directly behind the Porsche so Caleb can't get out. It's a little ridiculous but it makes me laugh.

Also, Caleb is putting in a fountain/pond out front. For koi. I'll be able to hear it from my bedroom window, which overlooks the front of the house and now I'll have to pee all the damn time just from listening to the sound of running water. Yay! In the meantime I get the sound of bulldozers and men yelling. Yay! Nothing new there.

-I bought Insurgent this morning (because the nice people at the tiny independent bookstore in town held a copy for me and oh my God I love them to bits) and have cleared seventy pages so far. This is a record for me, I'm admittedly a hideously slow reader. It's so good I want to eat the physical book.

-I painted my nails in Fearless Fog. Corey called it Cadaver Corpse because it's a weird mauvy-rigor-grey but he's a sick fuck anyway. I like the color but I love the name. I want to spend the rest of my life in a fearless fog and then things that shouldn't hurt won't and things that don't matter will.

Oh, I think I just figured out Duncan.

Neat.

Metallicorigami

(A rather awkward and half-assed portmanteau for a title, isn't it? Forgive me, I'm tired today. I'll pick up where I should have tomorrow.)

This morning Ruth remarked that her most recent purchase of origami paper had some metallic sheets in it. Only when she spoke I had turned the water on and my ears heard Metallica sheets. Almost immediately the jokes began to fly about hardcore paper and shred-folding.

Ben grabbed a piece of tinfoil and began to sing at the top of his lungs while he constructed a paper airplane:

Take a look to the sky just before you die
It is the last time you will
Blackened roar massive roar fills the crumbling sky
Shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry
Stranger now, are his eyes, to this mystery
He hears the silence so loud
Crack of dawn, all is gone except the will to be
Now they will see what will be, blinded eyes to see

I sank to the floor on the other side of the island in laughter, for when he launched it it crashed into the stereo, ruined. He threw up both arms and yelled It's been an amazing night tonight, thanks for coming out-ah! Hope to see you again real soon-ah yeahhhh! in his very best James Hetfield.

Breaking points.

Standing above the crowd,
He had a voice so strong
and loud and I swallowed his facade
cause I'm so eager to identify with
Someone above the ground,
Someone who seemed to feel the same,
Someone prepared to lead the way, with
Someone who would die for me.

Will you? Will you now?
Would you die for me?
Don't you fucking lie.
Don't you step out of line.
Don't you fucking lie.

You've claimed all this time that you would die for me.
Why then are you so surprised to hear your own eulogy?

Lochlan is awake late, picking out the notes to Bach's Prelude Suite No. 1 on his guitar as I write out the important spring dates on the calendar. I'm attempting not to be impressed but I fail wildly.

That's beautiful!

You like that? He smiles. I figured I should learn some familiar tunes at the very least.

Yes. It was great. I stop beside the stereo, pressing the power button, pressing Lochlan's buttons. Tool swells through the room, earsplittingly loud from where he turned it off earlier as he marched into the room yelling about honesty and wolves in sheeps' clothing and how I don't listen.

I WAS listening.

(To the music, which I always face head-on. Like a car wreck about to happen.)

I turn around and he is right there in my face, shouting again. I can't hear him because my teeth are chattering from the drums, my brain is reverberating through my skull, rationale replaced with firecracker explosions of instruments and he's saying arrogant things about promises and nostalgia. He's saying entitled things about life before this kind of stereo equipment when I could hardly hear the words and I would have to wait patiently for a moment when I would catch him off guard so I could listen to him sing the words and then I would know them too.

He finally has enough and turns off the stereo. As violent as the noise was, the silence is worse, falling like a shroud over the moment, choking it off. He starts talking again but I miss it. I'm considering how I feel about the music changing again, I'm not paying attention, finishing the lyrics silently to myself.

Abruptly Lochlan grabs my whole head and presses my forehead against his. BRIDGET. You forgave me. What in the hell is this?

Inability to function as logically as you can.

What do you mean?

Exactly. I don't know.

Who are you punishing by spending so much time with Caleb? Me? Ben? You?

Everyone.

It's working, isn't it? Where is Ben?

Downstairs.

When's the last time he came up for air?

Tuesday, I lie. I don't remember. He isn't speaking to me past repeating his magical rules so it's not important right now.

It's been a long week, Bridget. Can we call a truce? Can we just go back to the way things were?

Talk to Ben.

What in the hell is he doing exactly? Trading me for the devil? That's not going to help his cause, that will just make things worse.

He doesn't see it that way, Lochlan. He thinks you don't care about him.

Of course I care! I can't believe I'm pleading my case. Fuck this. We've been all fucked up since I pulled you out of the water in November and it's time I straightened us out. He pushes past me, headed for the stairs.

Where are you going?

To talk to your husband.