Or maybe I should just introduce her to Satan and save us all the effort.

Over toast and eggs, PJ tells me this song should be my pole-dancing soundtrack if I ever go back to that. Several months out of my life that I'm never EVER going to live down. But hey, it came in handy later on.

The song was Trigger Finger. Chimaira. PJ likes his music in audible-concrete form. The heavier the better. If you can see through it he doesn't want to hear it.

I used uh...Pour Some Sugar on Me.

I cringe at some of the things I did back then but I could only keep it quiet for those few months (which I have mentioned before so don't ever pretend to be shocked if you come here in the first place). The second that the boys found out they showed up and that was the end of that.

It wasn't for naught, though. I made enough cash in six months to almost equal around two whole nights with Caleb.

Woo, look at me go.

I went back to doing things the hard way. I wasn't given much of a choice. And in my defense, I have earned every. last. penny. he has given me. You really have no idea. He will even say it's not enough but I don't want any of it. It just sits there. I'm lousy at sugar-babying, I've been told. Good. I'll own it but I don't feel it.

Anyway, PJ is just smarting because he finally introduced me to his girlfriend (NOT FOR LONG) and I didn't have gushingly-wonderful things to say about her. Here's the part where I point out it's not jealousy. I love PJ. I adore PJ. Half the time I'll side with PJ to everyone else's wrath. He's my Tweedle-dee.

But I would cut him loose before a heartbeat was up if I thought he had a shot at getting out from under the collective and having a normal life.

However, it won't be with this girl.

He's so smitten he can't see what several of us saw within moments. She thinks he has money. She's pretty damn sure of herself and boy did she ever have big stars in her eyes. And I stood there and smiled graciously, playing dumb while she frowned at me, wondering precisely what my reason was for being here, while PJ made repeated references to a job he doesn't actually have and things he doesn't actually do. PJ wasn't PJ and that worries me.

PJ is not going to find a girl who loves him for himself if he can't tell the truth up front.

 And yeah, I know I'm a paragon of how to have a successful relationship and all but this is something else entirely.

So over second breakfast, instead of asking me to spell out my concerns he started taking potshots at my character in order to feel better about himself. I let him. He's scared he's going to lose her and he thinks something is better than nothing. He somehow thinks she will soon love him enough to weather the truth whenever he decides to reveal it. She's already told him she can picture them together when they're old and still in love.

Fucking gag me.

You're laying it on really thick for someone skating on what you've been told instead of what's right in front of your tall, airbrushed-to-within-an-inch-of-walking-photoshop fucking face.

Yes, WAY TOO MUCH MAKEUP. Maybe she's hiding things too. Like fear and desperation? Yeah. Let's go with those two, for now.

She also called him Patrick. Repeatedly. Which is just...well, for starters, it's NOT HIS NAME. 

God, I love PJ. Really I do. Think he can stay here and lick his wounds alone, while I take my bitchy little self over to the boathouse and work on my own game and maybe when we both cool off we'll be able to share a meal without our knives aimed for each other's hearts. I'm sorry. I get incredibly angry and defensive and mean when people mess with their hearts.

That's my job.

Fetching.

She lies and says she's in love with him
Can't find a better man
She dreams in color, she dreams in red
Can't find a better man

At dinner a martini was ordered for me and I drank it. And then another and I drank that too. Then more. And I kept transferring the olives between glasses and Lochlan kept giving me terrible looks across the table. By the end of dinner I had a whole glassful of huge olives left to crunch into. I ate the first one quickly, used to the bitter bite of oily fruity goodness. This one was spicy and gin-filled and I choked on it and then swallowed it whole. I didn't think I could breathe and so I took PJ's coke and drank some while he gently thwacked me on the back. Lochlan kicked me under the table. Enough, it meant.

Enough.

I left the other olives there in the glass. 

***

In the car on the way home I got the hiccups. Not just quiet little benign hiccups but full-body-jerking, silence-interrupting, breath-stealing, can't-finish-a-sentence type of hiccups that make it hard to function.

I sit in the truck long after everyone had gone inside, just to hold my breath many times in a row to try and get rid of the hiccups. It finally worked. I found out something else too. The truck sort of reminds me of my old pantry where I could sit on the floor for hours in the dark and reorganize my brain when things became overwhelming.

If now even an olive is overwhelming I wonder what is left to organize, exactly.

***

When I leave the truck I make my way to the boathouse to say goodnight and also find out if I'm supposed to work tomorrow.  Caleb turns around from where he is making tea. He invites me to join him but I refuse, saying I just want to know if I'm working. He asks if I enjoyed dinner and then asked how many martinis did I have?

I dunno. Doesn't matter, does it? I ask him, grinning and then I describe the fire-olives that were so lethal they must be ninja, hitmen, mafia olives so he should watch his back and we're all going to switch to the greasy black kalamata ones instead starting tomorrow. I tell him I still can't feel my tongue. He frowns and I blush inappropriately and say it's time for me to go. I step forward to give him a quick hug. He puts his arms out so easily. I get the hiccups again and start laughing and I give him a shove but he doesn't let go.

I look up into his eyes and hiccup again, my whole body going rigid in spasm. He smiles and says another drink will fix it but instead of saying yes like I always do I repeat no without hesitation.

If you want to come for a juice nightcap, you can, you know. No more booze though. I point toward my house and hiccup again.

Think I'll stay here. Sweet dreams, Little Hiccup.

That's not me, I'm Bridget. And I think I might be damaged. I mean drunkened. Do you think? I tap him on the chest hard.


Jesus, Bridget, go home before I keep you. He lets go suddenly, going cold. Yeah, me too.


Night, Diabhal. Don't say things like that, okay, please?

I head back across the driveway. When Caleb is desperate he sounds so much like Lochlan it's downright frightening. I walk into the heat of the house and sit down on the floor gingerly to unbuckle my high heels. Once out of the stilts I feel a little more steady. There's a bit of a jam underway in the kitchen. and I go to the doorway and watch. Lochlan drops his part and comes over.

Everything okay? I was about to come looking for you.

I nod and hiccup at him. He laughs, leaning down to give me a kiss but then yells BOO really loud in my face. I jump fifty feet but I still hiccup when I am done smacking him in the chest. Fuck it. Argh.

Then I realize I really am thoroughly and completely drunk as he lets go because I'm still warm.  He returns to his guitar, picking up the lyrics just as they get to the bridge.

She loved him, yeah
She don't want to leave this way
She feeds him, yeah
That's why she'll be back again
Can't find a better man
Can't find a better man

He grins and winks at me. Not sure why he's so happy. The words are so profoundly sad and yet here I am tapping my fingers because it's such a notable refrain. I couldn't get the olives to match the taste I remembered and now I can't get the feelings to match up with the words they accompany. I put my hands up over my eyes. I don't like nights that end like this. Maybe I just need some sleep.

No more of your darkness.

The Fairy Boys have taken over, giving back what they are best at. Comfort.

Okay, that's not what they're best at. They're best at home decorating. Comfort ranks a close second. Daniel took me under his arm and proclaimed it was a good day for a little decadence.

Decadence?

Yes. Come this way.

I followed him across the lawn, up the stairs and down the hall, then down another hall until we passed through the sitting room and into Daniel and Schuyler's bedroom, with its impressively-high four-poster bed and au courant sound system. Their personal space is all rich medium-warm woods and pale cool greens, with punches of cream and black. It's the most relaxing place in the universe outside of my soaker tub, I suspect and I spend as much time there as they permit.

He pushed me down on the bed and picked up his phone. Hey, he said.

I lie there and listen in.

We have a broken heart to fix. Can you bring up provisions? I raised my eyebrows and he smiled and winked at me. He said Me too, babe and clicked the phone off, sliding it onto the bureau.

He comes back over and scoops me up, moving me to the centre of the bed and sacking out beside me. He closes his eyes. You miss him.

I do. Tears are beginning to leak out of the outside corners of my eyes and straight down to the pillow. He pulls me in close. Everyone does. I need my big brother. He's going to be back before you know and until then I am devoting myself to looking after you so that I don't see any more of those tears.

I wipe my face and give him my effortful grin and he leans back in and plants a kiss on my forehead. Just then the door opens and Schuyler walks in with a tray. The tray contains two bottles of cupcake wine and three large plates, complete with warm black forest cake. Schuyler puts the tray on the sideboard and comes to the bed, bolstering the head of it with all the pillows he can stack up. Daniel lights candles all around the room.

Then they both pile back onto the bed, bookending me in the middle, passing out plates and glasses. Daniel waits for me to take a sip of my wine and then takes the glass and puts it on the night table. I am just about to dig into the cake when he shouts WAIT! and leans away, grabbing the remote off the table. With one button push the curtains slide closed across the windows and the stereo comes on.

Oh, they're still listening to Elton John. Now, he says, and we all dive into our desserts.

When I am full and relaxed, propped up on the pillows, listening to the rest of Caribou, they lean across me and kiss.

Don't let the sun go down on me
Although I search myself, it's always someone else I see
I'd just allow a fragment of your life to wander free
But losing everything is like the sun going down on me

Boy, do I ever feel superfluous all of the sudden. I sit up and they fill in the space behind me with a deeper kiss and so I crawl to the end of the bed and over the side of the footboard, falling to the floor. I stand up and look toward the bed but no, they are still kissing.

Okay then.

Such sweethearts. I love them so much. I collect my wine glass and one of the bottles that's still half-full to take with me. I may not know how to comfort myself but I do know how to show myself the door.

Anachronisms.

I took a printout of Caleb's sundry account transactions over to the boathouse this morning to prove my responsibility in replacing the money I've been stealing. He laughed bitterly, pointing out the irony of my efforts to show him I'm a Good Human.

He said he had almost seriously contemplated killing me as I slept because I spoke ill of Cole again and that's why he had avoided me, in order to get himself back under control. In the next breath he asked me how content Lochlan must be as of late, having me all to himself, having his way paved to certain victory by virtue of circumstance and nothing more, as he had nothing to offer? It was a loaded, vitriolic insult and I chose to ignore it.

Caleb said maybe I should leave after all but when he saw that I was planning to do just that, he begged me to stay. I asked him how I was supposed to send Henry here to spend time with someone who wants to hurt his mother? He said he would never hurt me now. I choked out a sob in surprise because he's done it before. He's done just that.

Now, he corrects himself, tracing my cheek gently, I said now.

Pathos.

Please teach me to breathe
Remind me how, I can't remember
Please read me the theme
You've lost the plot, the story's dismembered

Lochlan called it a moment of mellow drama and I laughed when I stopped feeling sorry for myself. He's clever with words, teaching me pretty much everything I know as I learned slowly, succinctly to the point of using words for sport now, for entertainment.

Now I get these great litanies from him, spat out hard in his delightful Scottish invisi-brogue, too impatient to work lyrical magic. And I'm not sure anything ever changes. I don't feel like I've achieved much more than an ability to shut down into nothing, duck my head and weather the storms as they hit, one after another.

He came flying out of the house during the shoot-out in overtime, boys glued to games (Canucks won and so did my Leafs, so they say), cursing me straight to hell and back for missing that, and he grabbed a hold of the ribbons on the back of my dress and hung on through the worst of it and I didn't know he was there until I leaned forward but didn't get anywhere. He puts a lot of misdirected faith in the stitching of my clothing. I'm not surprised in the least.

He also called Batman to consult because he didn't like the way things were going and he didn't quite know what to do. They didn't like Caleb's abrupt shift to not wanting to see me when half the time he seems to gain oxygen by my very presence. They didn't like Ben's refusal to talk to me and throw in Duncan, TJ and Andrew being gone and then my heading out to take up sentry position close to one absent ghost (but not the other because he showed up again unannounced this week) and a recipe for disaster is baked and then held in the oven on keep warm.

Does Lochlan ever know what to do? I don't know. He panics inwardly. He shuts down too and he's trying so hard not to do that when I already have. It must be harder than it looks keeping the lot of us contained and alive and together. He's been doing it since before I even met him. I think a lot of the time he is exhausted and under too much pressure and things slip. I just don't know why he holds so much responsibility for everyone.

What if we fended for ourselves?

Oh, right. Things get worse when that happens. See, uh...that eight year period when we all moved to the Prairies and he didn't. Well, he did for a little while toward the end of our time there.

When it began to rain last night he finally started pulling me in by my ribbons, hand over hand until he could grab hold of me. He took the headphones away and pulled me right into his arms.

You ever wonder, Peanut, why I make you listen to silly love songs all the time? You ever put it through your thick fucking head that maybe it's because you absorb all the other stuff like a sponge and then you wind up in a puddle of fucking misery and I have to wring you out and dry you off and you take fucking forever to dry, you do. It's better if you just don't go in but you're like a magnet to that stuff. Before I can turn around you've run off and gotten in right over your head again. You gotta stop doing this, I swear, we're getting too old for this shit and I love you too much to see this happen over and over again. 

Ignore me, I'm about to feel sorry for myself.

At precisely six minutes and forty-five seconds in to An Offering of Grief by Pallbearer the song changes into something so beautiful and hopeful that I could listen to it on a loop for the rest of my life, headphones jammed in so deeply to my skull they've permanently altered my personality. I have a new copy of Sorrow and Extinction and I've just about worn it out here, guys.

It works best standing on the cliff overlooking the sea in the pitch dark, trust me. Also you would do well to replace whatever blood runs through your veins with something that burns.

Ah yeah, there we go. Everything's okay now.

Except it's probably not. Let's give reality a chance here, shall we? Ben called again tonight and still he did not want to talk to me. He's doing great. Guess I mess that up something awful, don't I?

So I'll be where I usually am, doing what I usually do, which is wondering what it is about me that makes them disappear.

No bird.

Meh. Say what you will, the redhead is not only one of the few men on the planet who will sit through one of the oldest film adaptions of Jane Eyre, but one of the few who can quote extensively from the book at will.

I have for the first time found what I can truly love–I have found you. You are my sympathy–my better self–my good angel–I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wrap my existence about you–and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.

(We had a lot of time to read on the midway. Did I mention we stole library books? Well, we did. And I'm not sorry. A background in classic literature is an absolutely essential ingredient in the recipe for Good Humanship. But the kicker is we would leave the books behind at the next library we visited on our travels. To be fair.)

Satan preempted my morning routine with a surprise day off without explanation. I think he's angry. He looks a lot like Colin Clive too. But not Colin Clive as Edward Rochester. No, he looks like Colin Clive as Henry Frankenstein. Egomaniacal, deluded creep that he is.

I said it. I can say it because I'm barricaded in the living room behind a blanket and a boy. I wouldn't say it to Caleb's face though, no way.

Wax nefarious.

And you belong with me

When I went into the garage yesterday the harsh, grating flutter of black wings startled me, making me press my back into the door until I caught my breath.

Because I forgot and Cole is still in there, and I kept him away until Lochlan took my light. Lochlan doesn't see him anymore but once the flames were gone and Lochlan was too Cole stepped out into the darkness, disapproval written all over his handsome face.

You forget about me the same way Preacher got sent away, Babydoll? 

Maybe. I hold Cole's eyes with my own. He can't scare me now, I think as I fight not to tremble outwardly. He sees this and softens, smiling almost, his dark blue eyes so clear and deep without his glasses.

I want to ask him about my hearing, if it will be perfect again like his eyes. I want to ask him if he'll hate me less when I'm dead. I want to ask if he'll get along with the others better after they're dead. I want to ask if he knows how long some of them even have. I want to know if he loves me. I wonder if he hates me for the fact that he was never a father by biology but when I open my mouth I'm too afraid to say anything.

It doesn't matter. As brothers, they share certain gifts and he has read my mind, just like Caleb does. If Cole could do it in life no wonder things turned out like this.

Come with me and I can show you. His mouth is so compelling. I want to bite into it. I want to keep him here. But then I look at his eyes and his eyes say run. Distance and experience have left him little more than a pure blackened nightmare, one I can't see past to see my Cole. So long I spent with him and he is reduced to a spectre of unease and longing.

And I listen. I run outside into the bright light where there are no ghosts and no truth, no folded stolen cash, no hearts remaining unbroken, no newborn metal, no belief.

There is no nothing, it's all been burned away.

Two truths and a lie.

Rise from the dead you say,
Secrets don't sleep till they're took to the grave,
Signal the sirens, rally the troops,
Ladies and Gentlemen, it's the moment of truth.

I was treated to a rousing singalong of Shadow Moses, surprisingly by the easy-listening boys, who have been exposed to this song on a near-criminal basis the past week or so. Lochlan and August traded off some pretty impressive metalcore vocal licks while PJ and I stood and appreciated their efforts like nothing you've ever seen. When it was done I clapped and said Again! Lochlan winked and refused, saying his career as a thrasher has to be kept fairly quiet or the floodgates will burst wide open and once they do, we can NEVER EVER close them again.

***

There was a knock on the side door, just down the steps from the kitchen where the driveway turns into a high wall that becomes the backyard. PJ went to get it and I kept washing dishes. Washing and washing until I felt eyes staring into the hole where my soul used to be and I turned my head to see the Devil standing there.

Bridget... It was a drawn-out, expectant word.

Yes?

He smiled. Have you seen my money clip?

Hmmm? Oh, yes! I found it in the driveway.

In my pocket as I stood in the driveway you mean?

Oh, possibly, yes.

May I have it back please? His amusement turns pained and I dry my hands and go to the desk in the hall, fetching the clip. I bring it to him and he holds it up.

And the bills?

What bills?

The money that the clip was holding.

I didn't see any money.

Bridget...

What!

Are you going to give me back the cash?

If I had any to give you, I would. I hold his gaze and he finally lets enough doubt creep in to let me off the hook. Fine. If you see a folded stack of bills, can you check with me? They must have fallen out when you stole the clip.

I nod slowly, raising my eyebrows.

He leaves, nodding at PJ on his way out.  Once the door closes PJ looks at me.

I like the way you told the truth by saying you didn't have any money to give him because you already spent it. That's really good.

I didn't spend it, PJ! I put it in the bank yesterday. I'd feel unsafe walking around with all that cash. Yeesh! Don't you know me better than that?

***

I am sitting in the middle of the floor in the garage flicking Lochlan's Varga Girl lighter on and off. It's almost out of fuel. It lights up the dark.

He opens the door, walks across the floor to me and takes the lighter back. He tells me he's going to put mousetraps in his pockets if I don't stop this, and walks out the door, closing it behind him. Leaving me in the dark where I belong.

He's just mad because I always take the lighter instead of his wallet. His wallet is always empty, that's why. The lighter is worth more than nothing.

So am I.

Ochre and pitch.

And I found myself in a bitter fight
While I've held your hand through the darkest night
Don't know where you're coming from
But you're coming soon

I find it hard to watch him work but here I am, standing in the doorway long after bedtime, not wanting to disturb his efforts but needing to find some sort of resolution to his feelings, such as they are.

He was angry on Monday when I took Ben's truck and went for a drive alone. He was angrier still Tuesday, that I chose to share a memory that he would prefer to keep under wraps. (It doesn't matter how it all happened, he said, what matters is that it DID, and we're still here with each other.) And then by Thursday Lochlan had stopped talking to me altogether while I traded playful barbs with Satan, exchanging very little work for a big paycheque. Sometimes, when he's in a playful mood himself, Lochlan says he needs a Sugar Daddy too and I remind him he has Batman. He HATES that as much as he hates my working arrangements. But it all stands and we wind up on the other side of every week just like we always do.

And so I stand here in the door between heaven and hell and watch Lochlan paint, which is pretty much the same as it was when I watched Cole paint, right down to the fire burning close by and the curls that flip out against his neck.

He's listening to West Coast quiet-pop and singing along and not doing it for me, he's concentrating. He doesn't even know he is singing, I'll bet.

Come on and we'll sing, like we were free
Push the pedal down watch the world around fly by us
Come on and we'll try, one last time
I'm off the floor one more time to find you

I smile in spite of the long week that rests between us. I keep the wedge in place. He put it there and now I hold it. If I give it up I'm doomed. If I trust him, I might die. I keep it there because I'm brave and because I'm so afraid so I proceed through life by touch. Even if it means making those I love angry, even if it means everyone winds up on a different side and I'm the Bridge in between.

What do you need? He says it over the music without looking up.

You.

Sure about that?

Lochlan-

Look, I don't do so well with him, okay? Especially without Ben in between as an intermediary.

I know.

Then don't expect me to like you spending time with him. And don't expect me to approve of the things you write either. Jesus, Bridget. It was so hard. So hard and you didn't see.

I know.

Not with the same gravity. You were too young. You need to keep that off. It makes me look so wrong.

All of it makes me who I am now.

He stops and puts down the brush and the cloth. He smiles to himself and finally he looks at me. Yeah. I know it does.

You going to talk to me again?

I might.

Loch!

Yeah, Peanut. Come here.