Lamp black.

I am working diligently on tax forms for 2012 this morning when Caleb appears beside me. With a goofy smile he slides a small box in front of me. It is wrapped professionally.

I had one more gift for you, which I'm afraid was lost in the shuffle or the haze of the pain from the headaches over the holidays. I discovered it this morning. 

You don't have to-

Just open it, Bridget. Please. It's only small, but it's something you will love. 

It's a mink key ring. A little round ball of fur with a clip. I smile and stroke it across my cheek and then his. So soft.

Do you remember the Danish mink blanket I gave you and Cole when you got married? What happened to it anyway?

He burned it. 

Caleb's eyes go from pleased to saddened in a blink and I'm sorry I didn't censor myself but I seem to always speak first and think later.

***

Cole is listening to Emerson, Lake and Palmer and painting tonight. It's pouring outside but he has opened all the windows and put a fire on. He's in his customary darkest-blue paint-flecked jeans (that match his eyes so closely it's frightening) and nothing else, it's his painting uniform. The black leather cord with the German cross dangles against his chest and he grins at me through his dark brown curls as he tips my glass up to his lips, finishing the rest of the whiskey that I left because it burns too much.

Take off your shirt, he instructs.

It's freezing and it's the only thing I have on.

Wrap that around yourself. He indicates the mink blanket from the daybed. It was one of the gifts his brother bought for us for our wedding. I didn't have the heart to tell Cole that Caleb bought it because of a room we stayed in in Vegas that had a fur-covered bed that I couldn't bring myself to leave. Sleeping naked in fur should be on everyone's life list if it isn't already. I'm not sure if Cole would be actually be upset however, since he was the one who made me go on the trip in the first place.

I unbutton my shirt slowly. I don't want to model anymore. I just want to sleep. I don't know why he doesn't know me by heart enough to paint without me having to sit here for hours, days on end while he spirals down into the darkness that is his gift. I don't know if it's worth it. Who in the hell is going to buy paintings of a girl they aren't in love with?

He pours another glass of whiskey for himself and comes over to me, ripping the shirt apart and sliding it off my shoulders. He pulls the mink blanket around me and gathers it in front, pulling my hair back so my face tilts up toward his for a kiss. His mouth burns too. He holds his glass up to my lips but I try and turn my head away. He turns it back and gazes into my eyes for what seems like an eternity before letting go and taking the glass back to the easel.

Sit on the floor, Bridget. By the fire. Warm up there. 

I do as I'm told. I sit for hours. Excruciating execution. At three in the morning he cleans his hands and comes over to me, pulling me to my feet. He's tipped past his breaking point. He's frustrated and I'm going to bear the brunt of his creative block or whatever is wrong now.

WHY are you like this? He roars at me, ripping the blanket off and throwing it into the fire.

Like what? I'm terrified and tired and confused.

So fragile. I can't paint fragile. This portrait isn't you. I don't know who it is. But I can't get this right. Why can't you be stronger? 

He turns around and storms out of the room and I look down in time to see smoke pouring off the blanket from where it landed inside the grate, underneath the mesh screen, and is now singeing around the edges, melting. I drag it away, onto the hearth and smother it up into a ball. It's ruined.

I put more wood on the fire and close the windows. I twist the caps back onto the whiskey and the paints that Cole missed  in his anger. By the time I'm finished cleaning up the room is warm and I can't stay awake any longer. I fetch the ruined blanket from the floor and lie down on the daybed, pulling the blanket over me, ashes and all. I'm asleep in seconds and in my dreams Cole is burning, having tried to throw me in the fire when his hands were still stinging from the paint thinner he used to clean up with. I could not be held by him though, I disintegrated when he touched me and he burned instead.

He would spend the rest of his life capturing the fragility he saw in me. Through paintings, in photographs, in his minds eye. In his heart that finally broke from the effort. He sold his soul to his brother and figured it out and his creative world exploded into accolades and recognition for something I thought was so very ordinary.

Me.

Caleb (by purchasing his soul) and then Batman (facilitating exposure to the right people) made Cole famous.

I just drove him mad.

Sheltered.

Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here.

Ben took Lochlan, Cale and Batman out for coffee this morning. Or breakfast, I guess because they're not really coffee types, honestly. They went to a pancake place and Caleb pretended he was cool with ordering something called a Longshoreman or Lumberjack platter or something like that. This was described to me in great glorious detail because apparently Caleb seemed very ill-at-ease in a three-quarter star restaurant. Batman was not, he just magically fits in everywhere. They set about eating like it was very seriously business once the food arrived. I think they were all probably terrified.

 All three of them assumed Ben was going to crack heads but Ben is vastly underrated and does more than eat the contents of my purse and pretend that he is home more than he is.

He's quite the talker, once you get him going and he rarely fails to make perfect sense. I have no problems with getting him to talk a blue streak but most of the others have never heard him say more than a few sentences in the same week. He's not even considered quiet. He just tends to hold back for the most part. Giant rhymes with silent, he always tells me with a wink.

I...er...I still don't think it does...

Each of them were addressed in turn and I believe they're all on the same page now and again no one is going to make any sudden moves, Batman is still agreeing to the space I requested and has left it as such. He will interfere if he feels it is required. Caleb has agreed to stop with the fucking envelopes already and take his cues from me (which is such utter BULLSHIT but whatever, I don't think anyone believed him.). Lochlan (who called Batman in the first place, after New Years Eve) agreed to shitfuckall, because he's still royally pissed at everything and everyone. Ben apparently had him step outside and cooled him off with even more soothing words, after which Loch went back inside and split a piece of apple pie with Satan. I don't even..what?

I think the Longhaul Trucker platter maybe slowed them all down a little or simply weighed down their arteries enough that they're going to be able to sort of possibly almost maybe get along as things stand right now. Well okay, Ben's making a great effort. The rest of us are fucked. 

Just fucked.

Completely and utterly fucked.

Because let's face it. I can charm the pants off absolutely everyone anyone but my juggling skills are rudimentary at best.

What a weird and beautifully terrible place I'm in.

You don't need to bother
I don't need to be
I'll keep slipping farther
But once I hold on
I won't let go 'til it bleeds

We are toe to toe, hands to hands, fingers knitted, eyes focused, foreheads pressed together and he pushes me right across the polished tiles of the kitchen floor and into the hall.

Ben thinks this a riot.

What part?

That I'm angry. 

Ben doesn't understand the fuss, maybe. 

Do you? Jesus! Do either one of you see how fucked up this is? GARGHHH! I can't STAND this.

Loch. Stop it. I wait for him to get control of his fury. He drags his hands down his face and focuses on me and I can continue. There's no room here for judgement, especially from you.

Oh but there is. Especially where the Devil is concerned!

PJ comes to the door, every inch house enforcement. Princess protection detail. Care, in bearded form. You okay, Bridge?

Lochlan whirls around on him. Jesus, Padraig! She doesn't need protection from ME. If you want to be useful you should have stuck around New Year's Eve when the vultures set about her!

PJ reddens and turns away, saying nothing. I jump back into the fray. Jesus, Loch! Leave him alone!

Maybe he wants in! Maybe I'm the only one with any common sense anymore, baby!

Instead of standing up to him, I shrink like a violet in hot water. I feel very small suddenly and not very powerful. Just very ashamed. I don't like it when anyone makes me feel that way. I shut down, stop talking, stop meeting his eyes.

Aw, Jesus, Bridge, I'm sorry. He pulls me into the front of his shirt and I disappear against the flannel, blending in with the plaid. Shutting down because it's Lochlan yelling at me and all I ever wanted and all I ever seem to fight against is his approval and the moment I step out of his control he can't handle it. I put my head up against his cheek as he bows his head down and I wrap my arms around his neck.

I'm sorry, Locket. I don't mean to hurt you.

Do you do it for Ben? Is that what it is?

Oh God. The rage, it's emanating off him in waves.

I wait long and hard to answer that question, weighing the truth against an easy way out. And then I give him my answer. He has to accept it because he knows it's the truth and he knows that I would never hurt him intentionally. He doesn't let go. He doesn't cast me away and hurry out the door. He doesn't yell anymore or admonish me or try and force me to bend back the other way, he just holds on as tight as ever.

Abruptly he pulls away, looking down at me, reaching up to smooth away the hair in my eyes (fucking bangs). He laughs so ruefully. You age me, Peanut. And you're not ever going to do that again.

I age myself, Locket. And you don't get to decide these things.

Like hell I don't. You've been through enough. It's done.

Bombshells and curveballs.

The reminder was more of a warning, a clean cut, slicing night into day, 2012 into 2013 and right into wrong but no one found it sinister. Only compelling. Hauntingly so.

This is about Bridget. It's about what she needs. 

(Only I'm right here. I can hear you speak. I can hear you breathe. I can distinguish between your heartbeats and between the voices in your own heads and I'd better do it quickly because my own heartbeat is thumping between my ears, pounding a rhythm to a dance I don't think I remember all that well or maybe I do and maybe I would have liked to forget.)

A head bends down and kisses the space between my nose and my mouth. Softly. No razor burn. No expectation. Butterfly kisses in the new darkness. The fireworks have ended, the sparklers have fizzled out and the guests have all gone home. Black takes over, cool sophisticated black the color of unstrung bowties and tuxedo jackets. Everything else is pure white gold. The champagne. My earrings. The stars, I bet, but I can't see them because of the clouds in between the earth and heaven.

Breath against my lips, waiting for a sign. I exhale slowly, nodding my head up higher still for a kiss on target. The breathing excites me, held in control, anticipating, halted and measured. My hands are brought behind my back and held as lips trace along my neck. My shoulders. I lean back against a wall of solid muscle. I am kept there. My shoulders are squared, my neck extended and my eyes are slow to focus through the haze of sparkling bubbles.

No regrets, little Bumblebee, mumbled softly, a kiss planted on top of my head as if I might grow from it. Surrounded by love, enveloped in their hearts, I don't need a net right here because they are the net. I reach up, taking the end of a tie. I pull it away from a collar in exchange for a smile. I tie the bowtie around my neck and pick up my glass to finish that one last drink that's been refilled twice since. The glass is taken away, handed off. I don't know where it goes, I have champagne-brain again and don't have to be responsible. Instead I feel powerful. I say the word. I want to test it. Immediately all movements stop, concern replacing need.

I say it was a test and feel the relief replace the brief concern. Hands slide around my head until my face is held up close to another and I reach up and free another tie for my stylish new collection. Everything will be fine, Babydoll, I am told as I am turned away once more. This is my own private carousel where I can stand amongst the prettiest horses where the music is the perfect volume only the lights are leaving tiny trails in my eyes as I turn faster. I reach out to hold on. To keep balance.

I nod. I understand but this is only the beginning so I might test again.

My hands are released and I am handed into arms and held tightly. Possessively. You're okay, Peanut? I am asked. Wanted is the reassurance I was just looking for. I nod again and pull another tie out from under a collar but it is taken back from me, stuffed into a pocket. Included but continuing to be kept apart. I go to work on the shirt studs and fail miserably as kisses rain down along my temple, as I am held so tightly that if I didn't have to breathe I might never let go again. I put my head down against a shoulder and the hold is further tightened until I am gently pried away. This night will come so easy for some and so haltingly slowly for others. This night will never ever happen again.

In the morning I have two bracelets, one earring and two bowties still on. I look in the mirror and the night stares back, judging me. I tell it harshly to walk a mile in my shoes and it tells me with contempt that it wears my shoes every time the sun goes down, until it comes back up again, to not even pretend that I will be absolved for this, that when the bubbles wear off there will be hell to pay.

I lean in very close and remind the night that I have been saving up for years, that I have more than enough to cover whatever price it can come up with.

I want to remind it that it should pay me for my cost. That the scales are tipped in its favor and that isn't right. That the curses of favoritism and dignity and terror and need are all at price points neither one of us can even touch.

But then I remember there were moments. I made it from one end of my high wire to the other intact. So many moments. I take one more look at the carousel before I turn to leave. I turn back to the mirror and I stand up on my tiptoes, reaching up with my lipstick, writing NO REGRETS on the mirror in Dior's 752 Cherry Red. I smile at myself and for the briefest moment I feel like I conquered the world.

Then I reach up again and smear the words until you can't read them anymore, because I know better than that. 

Point Perdition.

Finally, our peninsula/headland has a name. No one likes it. I think it's fucking perfect. The big gates have been moved up to the top of the road and now it's all mine.

I'm supposed to write my resolutions now but instead I'm foggy, down and out from these stupid allergy pills that I have to take or my skin becomes a sea of hives and crawls right off my bones, shrieking as it slides across the floor and down into the heating vents. I'm at the point in winter in which I can no longer tolerate fabric softener, shower gel or perfume or in some moments plain old air.

At least it isn't exacerbated by incredibly dry Prairie air though. So I still win, right? Sadly my body shuns my native damp seaside air too, no worries. There will be no winners today, we've called a draw.

Shriek. Shriek. Shriek. It's silent but I feel the screams. 

And Lochlan has put Wish You Were Here on repeat to soothe my brain at least, if my body is unwilling to unclench. It's the unintentional lullaby he chose for me when I was too young to appreciate it. It has changed for me over the decades, from not even knowing what the heck David Gilmour meant as he sang to knowing all too well.

And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

It's still more of a comfort than most things, same as Lochlan is.

I will still end 2012 with no apologies. And I do have a handful of resolutions. The usual ones to eat better, but eat more pizza. Read more but read less online. Take better care of myself. Allow for more downtime. Draw more cartoons and draw less life. Drink more tea and less...erm..Everclear (BLAME MATTHEW). Wear the hearing aids to wring every last note and every breath out of all these songs and always, above everything, keep close to my boys. Get more Ben-time, somehow. Forgive my redhead when I said I have but then I act like I haven't. Be a better human.

I can do these things.

Happy New Year to you all. Thanks for reading. I'll be back next year, or tomorrow, as it were.

Low maintenance.

I spent today eating wasabi-flavoured edamame beans. Every sixth one was a nostril-burning, oxygen-gasping event that would cause me to vow to never eat another one again but then I would reach back into the bag for another handful to crunch on while I read.

I'm reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

It's been on my bedside table for several years now so I thought, what the heck?

I'm into it, and I'm alternately stunned by the beauty of his words in places and prepared to stab myself in the eyes with a fork for how stilted, bleak and forceful it is.

I also painted my nails a lovely shade of medium slate blue and then for fun I added a few coats of this silver glitter polish with huge flakes. I love it. Caleb's going to hate it because it isn't tasteful or age-appropriate. Lochlan will hate it because it's makeup, period and he can't tolerate any of it even though I have persisted with the lipgloss for thirty years now. Ben might not notice, but if he does notice he might try to eat it off my fingers.

Maybe he'll think they are blue edamame beans. Sparkly ones. My nails look like radioactive jellybeans.

Caleb is planning a small soiree on the boat tomorrow night, headaches be damned, a proper host to the bitter end of the year. He's invited the occupants of the point (AKA both households), plus Matt, Sam, Keith and...oh my fu...BATMAN down for an early dinner and drinks and some music to kick off the night, maybe a few sparklers at midnight and then we'll begin 2013.

I hope.

I still have to write my resolutions. I still think it's too cold to hang out on a boat at this time of year and I'm pretty sure this nail polish clashes quite mightily with my Valentino dress that I save for this time of year and haven't worn yet because as I told you already, I've decided that living in my Hello Kitty pajamas is the shit, but only during the day.

Currents.

Very happy today to be reminded that I live in a country that has had same-sex marriage laws in place for almost a full decade already and watching as the same rights are passed into law by popular vote (!) in another handful of states in the US today. Slow and steady, guys, keep up that march toward equality for all.

And DAMN, you should have seen the little look that passed between Sam and Matt (over for early weekend breakfast) as Dalton read aloud from the paper this morning about this subject.

But for the record! And I know the answer to this one! Sam cannot officiate at his own wedding. Should Matt propose, that is.

I know this because I married Sam's mentor once, a minister just like him. At one point Jake thought he could marry us because he couldn't find any paperwork to the contrary and finally had to make some calls to get an answer.

I don't know if you knew Jake but he left around five hundred letters for me to find after the fact but he certainly wasn't all that good about having anything important in order. I still don't have everything of his sorted out and I'm finally at a place where I can speak of his shortcomings without wanting to hurt everything in sight. Let's face it. He was a lot like Sam. Paper EVERYWHERE.Thank heavens Sam seems more organized with his personal life.

For the record, Sam is sure I still don't have all of the letters Jake wrote to me.

Ow.

And for the record Sam and Matt are still not living together. I think Sam could possibly be the runaway bride, his feet are so cold all the time. He's terrified of commitment.

I show him commitment. Commitment is a death certificate that you carry in your wallet because things keep coming up. Commitment is a day carved in bronze on a plaque bolted to the rocks, worn shiny by the salt and constant battering of the sea. Commitment is dreaming about Jacob's touch and waking up and saying nothing but vowing to never sleep again because it's frightening how bad I want to feel that touch again. Commitment is choosing to put your trust in someone again when you trust nothing, not even the nose on the end of your face, to still be there when you wake up from those dreams.

So stop stalling and fucking jump already, Sam. It's been over a year now since you started dating Matt exclusively. You once told me I could be happy. It would not be the same but it might be just as wonderful and I'm telling you that right back: Matt is a Good Human. It's okay.

Jump.

Coffee beans and pitchforks. Just another day on the point. Oh my God. Come back when I'm awake.

(Never give a girl a keyboard outlet when she's still in dreamland.)

Tomorrow will have forty-six seconds more of daylight than today, if you're interested.

That's how he taught me to measure seasons. The amount of daylight left. Daylight featured an abrupt shift in how games were called and how marks were targeted. In the dark all bets were off. In the dark we were different people.

Who isn't?

Wait. Should I name names here?

Lochlan is not working today as self-scheduled. He's pretending to be sick because he's irritated that I once again called out his inherent lack of empathy for my emotional well-being, or whatever the hell he called it. I don't remember, it was before coffee. You see, life is cognitively divided into Before Coffee and After Breakfast. If you talk to me BC you will be treated to confused, sleepy looks and tiny noncommittal grunts. Talk to me AB and...you'll probably get the same thing so nevermind, I forgot where I was going with this.

Anyway! He is home so that he can follow me around all day, harping on my insensitivities to his efforts, and because he seriously needs to blow off some steam because yesterday almost did him in, being kind to the Devil while the Devil tries to dance around him to stick his pitchfork in Lochlan's back. Metaphorically speaking anyway. Lochlan's like that. He will save his worst enemies and then spend the rest of his life plotting to ruin them.

The difference is Lochlan only plots. The Devil carries things out.

So there you go.

Doer versus Dreamer, I guess.

Still have no idea where I was going with this. Bear with me! I'll figure it out eventually. Maybe after more coffee.

Someday I'll share all the codes with you.

I secretly think that Caleb's short, quiet bursts of pure evil are responsible for his now-debilitating headaches.

Very early yesterday he 911'd himself on us (he didn't call 911, the emergency service, he called us with a code that we use amongst the group for various things. An SMS shorthand known only to the collective. In this case it was for help.) and then asked me for a raincheck*, which I gladly gave, seeing as how he was down for the count from the time he woke up until late into the end of the afternoon.

Today I'm just happy he is feeling better and today we actually had to work, though it was greatly reduced thanks to his continued need to rest and look after himself. He isn't the rabid CFO he was in the early two-thousands, clawing his way through hundred-hour work weeks, keeping his toothbrush in the office, loathe to waste a minute in which he could be making money instead of spending it.

I'm not actually sure where the balance tips back to reasonable favor but I'm guessing it's now. He just can't work all the time, not anymore but he tries to. Caleb will never be accused of giving less than 500% when only 75% is ever required.

Due to my fears of a repeat of this incident, Lochlan took the lion's share of Caleb's care throughout the day yesterday, oddly great at illness triage where he fails so stupendously at the injurious or emotional types. Practice makes perfect, I guess and by the time I returned with Henry and Ruth to say a quick hello and thank Caleb again for their presents, Loch was reading aloud to Caleb, who was interjecting with some anecdote or another and they both laughed, quite gently. The children walked in and did double-takes and then threw themselves on their dads before I could remind Henry (easily the size of me) to take it easy. That his father wasn't feeling well.

You would never have known he was sick while Henry was present.

In any case, we were royally spoiled this Christmas. I am busy tonight taking down everything (with lots of help I might add) save for the tree itself and the outside lights. Both can remain up another week or so. Maybe less for the tree but forever for the lights because I like them. They remind me that in between those practiced bursts of evil and the inevitable catastophes, calamities and chaos, things can be calm and peaceful, downright wonderful even. We had a good Christmas, all things considered. I hope you did too.

(* There won't actually be a raincheck shopping date. There were other gifts I did not share here that he squeezed in around the edges when I wasn't looking. Mystery deposits and things done around the house that were on a list that I never thought would be complete (thanks to Ben's own workaholic tendencies) and things are falling into place now with a few well-placed phonecalls. Things that help me and help all of us, frankly. Much better than a pretty pen, I think.)

Psychic circus.

The box was empty.

I look up at him, slightly confused.

Your wishes were to put any funds I had allocated for a Christmas gift for you in Henry's University account. I followed your directives to the letter. I want to know what to do next. He says this with his maddeningly handsome, bemused smile fixed in place.

Then why the box? Why the ribbon?

Because I wanted to confirm that you only said that to be difficult, and that secretly you hoped for something anyway. Maybe earrings or a pen or....a diamond ring?

A pen..I had hoped for the pen. 

The pink one we looked at? I'll buy it for you tomorrow then.

No...I stammer. I don't want you to buy it. I just think you didn't need to do this, with a box and everything. I got the car service and-

What would you have done if there had been a ring in the box?

Nothing. You can't give me a ring. 

I can do whatever I damn well please and we both know it. You'll have your pen before lunchtime tomorrow, or perhaps if you wish we can make use of your actual present and be driven downtown to make it a shopping and lunch date. Do you think Cartier does Boxing Day sales?

I shake my head.

He walks over to the door and opens it, waiting. Thank you for a wonderful day. I'm just glad I still know you better than you think I do. 

I walk to the door. I can buy my own pen. It's just-

-not the same. Yes, I understand that quite well. He smiles and softens, becoming so quiet it hurts to listen. Merry Christmas Babydoll. Neamhchiontach. 

I knit my brows in confusion and follow his lead, right out his front door. Merry Christmas, Diabhal.

 See you at ten sharp. We'll get an early start on our bargain hunting. 

I put the box in his hand, ribbon and all and walk out into the rainy Christmas night. I feel humilated, caught redhanded. I feel childish and I feel tricked into making Boxing Day a day spent with him now. I feel unprepared and sometimes I wish I could read his mind as easily as he reads mine.