1770 days without you.

I think part of the problem was that I didn't tell anyone what wonderful awful things Satan has been saying to me lately.

Because, well, I'm not sure what to do with it, exactly.

And now Ben is sticking close and he called a Headcase Meeting, only he called it lunch, and we sat out on the patio in the breeze, drinking champagne and orange juice (he didn't, he had just plain juice, as did PJ, Batman, Sam and August because recovery is a bitch for some and it was only noon on a weekday and whatever, fine, yes, I drank alone) and eating roast beef sandwiches and provolone on pumpernickel bread and talking about a bunch of unrelated things and then I suddenly clued in that Ben specifically invited only my most devoted handlers and casual therapists to study me intently while I sat there and cracked jokes and deferred anything I didn't want to talk about, mainly the fact that BOOM, the wind picks up and the leaves begin to turn and Halloween merch hits the shops and suddenly I'm staring down another anniversary I wish I didn't have to remember at all.

This year it will be five whole years. Five years is a sort of milestone, only I still don't know which end is up and Jesus, look at all this help around the table.

Sam wanted to know what Caleb had said to me to make me suddenly hopeful again. Because you know when there's no closure, no actual viewing and no touching of cold, unresponsive skin then you may as well be on vacation or something, due to walk back through the door any second now.

And yet, I still don't want to talk about Caleb's caveats and his power and the things he could do, if only I say the word that puts the mechanism into action, clicking into place and traveling through time, five years back to pick up where I left off.

That's hope for you. That's faith. There's your God right there.

There's your fucking prayers answered all over my goddamned face, drawn like a map of the human heart because I am so transparent Ben could see through me before I even gave him that trite answer in the living room and he kicked into gear so fast I never saw it coming but if you knew Ben, hell, if you knew any of them, they'll only give me so much latitude and then they'll come out to the edge of the world and call me back home.

And I'll sit just on the other side of the fence where I can see the ocean and pretend I can't hear them at all.

You want me, come and get me.

Ben is well and prepared to take me up on my threats. I have finally met my match. I never thought it would be Ben. Out of absolutely everyone I did not think he would be the one to step into this.

So lunch it is, and I played dumb and they played smart and I lost every hand, obviously and PJ wants daily control again, August would like to see some meds put into play and Sam would prefer a full old-fashioned lobotomy. Batman wants back in. All of their requests met with a resounding No, there will be better days! I pleaded, as if it was me who fell in the hole, instead of giving credit to Caleb, who pushed me into the hole and then starting shoveling dirt in on top of my head.

Ben just wishes all the ghosts would go away now and give him half a chance and Loch never came around at all because I guess the bravery wasn't on the night table when he woke up because I had already eaten it and boy, lunch was only two hours ago and I'm hungry all over again but I never want to sit at the table again, having my heart torn apart when I refuse to discuss things that are clearly making me crazy, not because I don't want to discuss them, but because I can't.

Tucker finally wakes up and other tales from grocery shopping.

One thing that drives me crazy is people standing too close to me in public spaces. I could feel eyes on me, and someone making a concentrated effort to stand nearby in the grocery aisle. I preferred to remain in my own little world, the intrusion unwelcome, forcing me to pull out of my reverie in order to monitor the activity around me a little more carefully. Sort of like when you turn the music off on a long run when someone begins to run just back from you. The earphones stay in, but the music goes away in order to be aware.

It's not until I am standing at the wall of men's razorblades, trying to get everything on my half of the list and why the hell am I buying these when no one ever shaves anyway? that I smell the familiar scent of Light Blue and I know it's the Devil. I turn and ask him which razorblades he buys now and he reminds me he is still using the straight razor.

Oh yes, I'm sure in the throes of something or other I remember it being held to my throat but for now I pretend I didn't hear him and turn to finish my shopping and get the hell out of this store where no one blinks at paying $9.99 for Artisan baked bread that was stale yesterday and today should be on sale but isn't, and whoever chokes it back dry will remark on how rustic and wholesome it is while I sit in the corner eating a sandwich made with Wonderbread, full of enough preservatives to keep it fresh until I'm back in diapers.

But he follows me. Nightmares last night, Bridget?

People are staring.

Always, I shoot back over my shoulder. Especially if I've spent time with you beforehand.

He scowls and rushes to keep up with me. I put mustard in the cart. Then Tabasco sauce. I thought I was quite benign the other day, Bridget.

Raisin Bran. No, actually you weren't. You start out steadily then pick up speed as you go downhill. I stare pointedly at him over a container of coffee. You poked me full of holes and then stood back and watched me bleed out. You weren't harmless. It's almost worse that way.

He looks spooked and chagrined that I would even recognize his methods of weakening my will. As if we need to do that sort of thing with words.

I put a box of tea in the cart and then take it out, trading it for a different one. I am losing my cool quickly now. I just want to finish and get away from his words for once when he reaches out and stops me. I flinch and drop the tea on the floor and everyone turns to stare at us once anew. I rip my arm back in close. Leave me alone!

A familiar hand slides around my neck from behind and I exhale shakily. Ben reaches around me, tossing some paper and string flesh-presents into the cart. (Meat Christmas! he always says when he's been to the butcher. Have you been a good little carnivore, Bridget? He'll say and I'll laugh til I snort water out my nose.)

What were you going to say that you couldn't wait and tell her at home? Ben is waiting for an actual answer this morning. Ben's on the warpath. Ben has just about had enough and oh, boy, they're all in for a big surprise now.

To his credit Caleb changes the subject. I was going to tell her she could leave me a list and I could have the groceries delivered. I usually do that for myself and if it would make things easier for everyone we could pool our resources and have one big delivery each week.

We'll think about it. Ben smashes a kiss against the side of my head so hard I almost fall over but I'm holding on to the cart, and he releases my neck and takes over steering. We finished? I nod and he heads for the checkouts. People politely pretended they aren't watching every move we make and I duck my head and follow him quickly, leaving Caleb standing in the breakfast aisle.

Caleb said my name once before I was too far away to hear him and I stopped moving just long enough for Ben to let go of the cart and have to come back and grab me and then I was put in the truck and we were gone.

I walked out this morning and I wrote down this song,
I just can't remember who to send it to.

When my lungs burned, I surfaced.

I swim hard against the current. The waves want to pull me back out, the water rolling swiftly west, out to sea. I keep fighting it. I kick so hard my thighs begin to ache and then suddenly I touch bottom with the tips of my toes.

It's always just as I'm about to give up that I realize I'm close enough to make it.

As the water level uncovers more of me my skin begins to itch and blister. I look down at my arms and legs and see ashes smeared over my skin, hot embers leaving angry red welts on my flesh, Cole's words burned into my limbs stating his rules.

You can't cover this. Clothing won't hide it, nor will a stiff upper lip.

My hair begins to smoke in spite of the fact that it is dripping, loaded with salt and seaweed. I turn back, looking far out where the whitecaps begin in the wind and I can see the layer of memories bouyant on the surface, a charred remorse ready to drown us all.

This was why I floated so easily. This is how I got so far.

Altar Egos.

On the mantel in the living room rests a huge set of photographs in frames, the big porcelain urn which holds Butterfield the Dog and the tiny copper box with the enamel bluebird on top which holds a tiny bit of Jake. (Cole is not here-here. His ashes are in the Atlantic.)

Every morning I go and greet them, the photographs and ashes and I touch my fingers to my lips and then I touch them lightly along all of the pictures and the box and the urn too and sometimes it takes longer and sometimes it's very fast and never do I have company until this morning when Ben stood silently in the archway leading into the living room watching me as I went about my ritual, only I didn't realize it was a ritual until I turned around and saw him and he asked what I was doing and then I realized I do it every single morning the moment I come downstairs dressed and ready for my day.

Nothing, I say.

That is not nothing. He walks into the room and surveys the mantle. He puts two and two together and makes eight. He looks down at me.

You've made an altar.

Jake doesn't believe in those.

Jake is gone, Bridget.

Not necessarily. I am cross and not ready for the third degree or any sort of discussion about what I know and what I think and what I've been told.

But Ben is smarter than your average bear and he grinds the whole discussion to a halt and changes direction just enough so that I am instantly lost and depending on him to find the way back for both of us, breadcrumbs dropped along the path that we will later follow home.

You know what's missing? Music. Your ritual should include one of his favorite songs.

I turn around and realize the crumbs are gone, eaten by the birds. Night has fallen and now we'll never get back.

I'm not permitted to listen to songs that remind me of Jake. I tell him this woodenly as if he's never heard this before. Ben does not believe in this. Jake taught me this when Cole died. That sometimes you put the songs that remind you of someone away and then you bring them back out when you are stronger.

Sure you are. You know this, bee. It doesn't make it worse. Maybe it might help.

It might hurt, too.

Yeah, it might hurt.

Then what?

What do you mean?

What happens when it hurts?

I'll hold on to you.

Oh.

So you want to try it?

No, not now.

Maybe later? Or tomorrow morning?

Maybe. My words are shaped like apologies but they bounce off Ben like coins. He won't be offended by my inability to be polite.

What did you mean by 'not necessarily?' Did Caleb say something to you?

Did he say something to you?

No, I haven't talked to him in a couple days. But if he's playing games again, I'll go talk to him now.

But right now the only thing I want is for Ben to stay put and so I pick up his hand. It's huge and warm and smooth and he has callouses on the pads of his fingers from playing and his nails are stained with blackberry juice from picking berries with me for jam and I kiss the back of his hand and ask him to have some breakfast with me. He slides his arm around my ribcage, pulling me close and asking me what I want for breakfast.

Cake, if we have any left. There were five birthday cakes paraded through the house in the past week and a half. FIVE. If heaven exists, the menu just says cake. Guaranteed.

We can bring our cake back and leave some as offering to the memory of the great Zero the Hero, if you want.

Don't be an asshole, Ben.

Yes, ma'am. Sorry ma'am. He bursts out laughing. I can't help it. I remember a cake story you told me once.

You only remember the dirty stories don't you?

Hell, yes. Those are the best ones.

33 1/2 rpm (with a big scratch down the middle.)

Yesterday was long and ended badly, starting with when I returned to the house to get my phone and Lochlan gave me a warning about going to Caleb's house, using both names, not just Bridge or Bridgie or even Peanut. No, he hauled out the whole Bridget Rebekah with ALL FOUR last names after it for full effect, beginning with my maiden name, then Cole's, Jake's and Ben's last names.

Huh.

Made me wonder how many times he has said my name with his last name tacked on the end, just to see how it feels. He'll tell you none, thanks. I admit to doing it almost weekly. It doesn't fit and I can't say it without a bad Scottish accent anyway. It's a hell of a last name and so far mine have all been short and cute and seven letters or less.

Win.

But oh yeah. What a pain.

I think he wanted me to stop and listen and put down my things and maybe tuck in bedside him for the duration of the morning, maybe even fall back to sleep and dream about fairs and rides and seventeen ways to be content with the small comforts of a simple life (Oh trust me, we've got a hard list) but I shook my head and walked out the door, with my reassuring expression firmly fixed. Glad to have that expression since it totally masks the fear.

But Caleb wasn't being all that evil. The headaches are ruining him slowly but they are working to adjust his medications so that maybe they will soon bother him less. He had cheques ready for Henry's school supplies and for clothing for both children and then he wanted to know if I had an answer for his proposal and he added some things. Caveats, bait. I don't know. I got up and left halfway through his spiel because I no longer wanted to listen.

When I returned to the house, Lochlan looked at the cheques and immediately took offense to the fact that his sworn enemy is providing his daughter's wardrobe expenses. I told him to stuff it. I had a headache by then too. He was about to escalate the argument when PJ shot a warning word across the counter, following it with an offer to make me some tea and fetch some aspirin.

I declined everything. I threw up my hands and turned and left the kitchen, leaving them all speechless and wondering. I didn't care. I said I had a headache and I said I didn't want to argue today and no one listens to me anyway.

I can see the patterns on your face
I can see the miracles I trace
Symmetry in shadows I can't hide
I just want to be right by your side

I will give you everything to
Say you want to stay, you want me too
Say you'll never die, you'll always haunt me
I want to know I belong to you

I was so surprised to see him I must have jumped forty feet. An amusing sight for Gage and Chris, who were standing out on the patio watching the activities in the driveway while they sipped the coffee I made for Ben but Ben left early again and will probably make awful coffee at the studio while he works, not even noticing that it's full of grounds and tasteless and limp. Chris said their coffeemaker blew up and I pointed out that's what happens when you buy obscurely-branded, fancy all-in-one machines and he shrugged and pointed out how much of a ass Schuyler is before he has his espresso in the mornings and how much Daniel suffers as a result.

I opened my mouth in alarm and Christian said he was kidding, that Daniel doesn't suffer, Daniel just keeps his head down until Schuyler is sufficiently caffeinated.

Kind of like we do with you, Princess. He laughs but my face doesn't change and his mirth dies away quickly. I pour the boys their coffee and herd the kids outside. They walk to school now. Different schools. Alone with their friends if they can grab them en route but otherwise the days of watching so closely over them have passed. Henry is gigantic and confident and cynical, grade six now. A big kid on campus. Ruth is still thin and delicate, in grade eight, terrified of grade twelve boys for some reason but loving the independence, the pop machines, and the newness of it all.

Okay, good, so she clearly doesn't take after her mother.

So back to the driveway, where Caleb is waiting by the pond to see the children off. Lochlan said goodbye already, from his pajamas and good coffee and tabs of infinite reading. He's a slow-riser these days.

Caleb, on the other hand is shaved and dressed in a suit and looks incredibly well-rested for someone who has been so low the past couple of weeks. The few times I dared to text him he shot back that he was fine and didn't want to be disturbed. I think he wanted me to feel stung, but I just felt glad he answered so that I didn't have to appoint someone to go to hell to check on the Devil himself. They hate doing that. I hate having to do that.

But you know, I still lean over just about everyone in the dark of night to make sure they are still breathing. That includes both cats and the dog. I can't help it.

Caleb hugs both children and then we watch silently together as they hike up to the top of the road before disappearing from view. I hate this part. There are crosswalks and cars and the Regulators too. There are bears and grade twelve boys and bullies and nuclear bombs and earthquakes and swarms of killer bees. Tsunamis and hurt feelings and broken cookies and salsa that leaked out of the containers in their lunches and fear of fear itself.

But there is also life to be lived and that is the part I focus on, blurring out the rest in a tilt-shift emotional landscape where I draw a narrow band of focus and try to ignore everything else.

He turns after they leave and asks me if I want to join him this morning for an impromptu meeting to go over just a few things. A hour of my time, tops.

That's probably not a good idea, I scowl. I haven't had enough coffee yet. Maybe Christian is right after all.

I can make coffee. The Devil slips.

I weigh the odds and come up light. Fine, just let me go grab my mug and my phone and tell Loch where I will be.

His lips tighten but he says nothing, and turns to head back to the boathouse to start the coffeemaker. Wow, that sounds like it must be a pull-start or choke-and-flood (snort) sort of thing but really he is very meticulous since I taught him how I make such good coffee, a quick learner when it comes to such pedestrian things as small appliances.

He turns back at the bottom of the steps. Tell me again who the Regulators are?

I wish he would admit to reading my mind. Just once.

He smiles. If I did that you would be afraid of me again, so it's better if I let sleeping dogs lie.

Neat bows on messy gifts.

If I make a sound
Will you stop everything, I'm innocent
When I'm not around
Would you cover your eyes and imagine?

Can you hear it
Can you see it
Falling, falling to the ground

He wants me to tell you that was a fluke.

He's right, sort of and this is not to say that I'm now going to travel down a road that sees the fairest one of all tarnished by the darkness of my memories. No, this is just to illustrate how Perfect is relative, and how those who seem the most together are sometimes the most apart.

That was the only time and place in which I saw that darkness from Lochlan. Whatever it was, it vanished from him once we took up speaking to each other again. He wants me to point out that his engagement happened in 2006, which was almost a full DECADE after I left him sleeping in the fleabag room we rented and came home early.

The years in between saw me boomeranging back to Cole long after Lochlan's birthday, thrilled with the summer away, the better shows we found abroad, the indelible memories we made swirling my thoughts like the wind in my hair at the top of the largest Ferris wheels on earth.

We slept beside our bicycles in the grass. We ate goat cheese and bread in the sun. We busked illegally and skirted fines with charm and we made pennies on the foreign dollar, coming home with little to show for it. So much so that upon our (final) return, Lochlan went back to school at the urging of the others and now makes predictable money, something that's especially important when you're forty-seven years old (FUCK. REALLY?) and can't spend the same amount of time in the sun that you used to in a culture where people want to be entertained only up until the moment where they are supposed to pay for it and then they drift away as if they were never really there.

(I can confirm this first-hand, after putting a twenty dollar bill in the hat of another fire-thrower two summers ago because he was totally fucking entertaining and the look on his face told me everything I've ever needed to know about how much the world has changed. I don't give money out freely, for the record. Don't ask me for change. Don't hold a sign on the corner. Dance for me. Sing me a tune. Juggle some glass bottles or something that's on fire and I'll empty my purse into your pockets and smile as I turn to leave.)

But oh, was he ever mad at me yesterday. And I told him fine, if I can't get it right then walk away and no one will blame you. He would not reply to this and we remained at a stalemate for hours and I was dreading dinner. How do you cook someone's favorite dinner when you're arguing with them? Do you burn it? Poison it? Tell them to cook it themselves?

Well, no, because all of those options are kneejerkish and silly. I cooked and I tried to get it perfect. I'm not good with Scottish food but I tried and he appreciated that and lied and said it tasted perfect. Only he doesn't say perfect, he says pehrr-fikt but you have to listen carefully or you'll miss the roll and tsk. He smiled and blew out the candles we lit, after opting to not try and jam forty-seven of them on the cake. Remember when I almost burned the castle down by lighting all forty candles on a cake for Cole? Yeah. I don't forget as much as I say I do.

And Ben told me to cut him some slack and I pointed out Lochlan hasn't exactly measured any out for me in weeks and what a weird summer it has been and Ben asked if it was the strangest one on record and I laughed and said Hell, no. Ben just stood there smiling, waiting for me to clue in and then I rolled my eyes and asked him why he was helping Lochlan strip my loyalties from Ben like old wallpaper.

And Ben glossed like he always glosses. God bless my Ben. Sometimes I wonder about him.

And we sang Happy Birthday to Lochlan and toasted him well and wished him our fondest wishes and made our speeches while he sat there and tried to absorb the outpouring of love, the way we all have, a good and usually failed effort at holding one's composure and dropping it as one by one, we stand and say some wonderful things and I could see he was doing okay so far, he had hooked a finger through a loop of control. Then I stood up and instead of a speech I made an apology and I tried to look everywhere but directly at him but boy, is that hard when a glassy pair of eyes is staring right through the place where your soul is supposed to go but he accepted my apology gracefully. I sang happy birthday to him by myself, a capella, and if you know me I'll never do that because I can't hear my own voice and it comes out so strangely in my head I will only sing along if I feel really brave or the music is already too loud to make a difference.

No one clapped but there wasn't a dry eye in the house either.

And then upstairs in the hallway, one minute before his birthday was over, he found me and pressed me up against the wall, bringing both his hands up to my face, kissing me like he meant it. He kissed me like he was really glad I didn't burn his food. He kissed me like he had a good birthday after all, and he kissed me like he never doubted for a second where my loyalties lie, even though I have told him precisely where they are every time he asks and he always says that's not important anyway, what's important is that we are here now, safe and sound.

Radical, liberal, fanatical, criminal.

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily,
joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world's asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.*

Our time in the circus didn't end well. It didn't end at all, actually, at least not with any measure of closure. I bounced back and forth between the high wires and the freakshow out back, Lochlan kept true to his craft, throwing fire, taking a straightforward routine and turning it into something positively magical there. He bloomed. He was positively riveting and I realized that the years on the carnival had made him complacent and content. Now he was hungry, attention-starved, always seeking limelight as a source of nourishment, always trying to find ways to be different.

He changed.

Looking back he didn't change all that much, those facets of his personality always bubbling on a slow boil just beneath his surface but at the time it seemed as if Lochlan had gone away and been replaced with a virtual stranger, someone slightly darker than Lochlan, who seemed to be under a dark cloud. His hair was darker, his eyes darker, his mood? Darker. He listened to strange music, and told jokes with no punchlines. He ceased to care if we ate or got paid.

For the first time in my life, it wasn't pretty. He wasn't pretty. He made himself ugly on purpose and he became a caricature. I packed my meager things and I called Caleb from a payphone on the boardwalk one morning at 5 a.m. and asked him to wire me some money so I could come home. I asked him not to tell Cole, that I would pay him back any way I could.

And he laughed and asked me to put Pyro on the phone and I stalled and hummed and hawed and then I cried.

And Lochlan, to his credit for stabbing him in the back, didn't talk to me until almost Christmas that year.

( *Look, a footnote! No, seriously. Loch asked me not to write about his birthday and so this is what I wrote instead. Because people always ask why he moved to Toronto and got engaged when I went home and hung up my tights and started being a Regular Human Being again. That was why, okay? That was why.

I'll write about his birthday tomorrow. No worries. If I listened to any of them I wouldn't have a blog at all, now, would I?)

I gathered my hair up into a teeny-tiny curly ponytail this morning and it has held all day, without big sections falling out or the whole thing coming undone quickly.

Take that, Devil-man.

Notes from the blast radius.

(We had moments, you know.)

I am waiting patiently as Jacob finishes getting ready for the late service. Sunday evening. The stragglers, the waners, the devout. He has decided to shave in a hurry after a day feeling too scruffy, and then a button popped off his collar and he refused to let me sew it on for him while he finished doing everything else, and now he sits perched on the edge of the bed, a needle and thread in his nimble fingers struggling to make sure the button is perfectly straight. I watch from my vantage point near the window, my shoes uncomfortable strappy six-inch stilettos and a coral-colored brushed satin swing dress with the most delicate lace overlay you've ever seen. I'm afraid to even breathe in this dress, it's so fragile, so I only wear to evening service and even then, not so often since it's gotten cold outside. Jacob loves this dress. He calls me Pumpkin when I wear it.

I think that's what I'm going to do now.

What's that?

I'm going to become a pumpkin farmer.

The grin spreads across his face as his eyes light up. A pumpkin farmer, hey? Let's talk about this. What are you going to do if there's a deluge?

I will give each of my pumpkin plants a tiny little umbrella so that once they have had enough rain, they can put them up and dry off.

What if there's a drought?

I will give them water guns so they can play AND stay hydrated.

He's trying so hard not to laugh. But, Bridget, what happens when all that love and attention results in pumpkins that are too big for you to lift at harvest?

Then I will turn the whole farm into a tourist attraction and also advocate for Macro Halloween, where everything is bigger, including the chocolate bars. Everyone wins, Pooh. This can't fail.

Where are you going to do this?

The backyard.

I see. What are you going to do for supplies?

Jesus, Jacob, did you even SEE the amount of seeds we scraped out of that pumpkin this morning? I think that will be lots. We're halfway there already.