Earlybirds and albatrosses.

This morning I was woken up the same way he always used to wake me up back when life was all magic, no clocks.

By staring at me.

Watching me sleep. Viewing my dreams like a movie. Probably trying not to laugh because I snore when I'm stuffed up and I'm so stuffed up this morning and so worn out, jammed against Ben's chest, cool and safe, his arm down around me, his hand cradled under my head. My cheek is warm and stuck to the palm of his hand so when I raise my head up I look like I've been slapped.

Breakfast outside? Lochlan leans back so I can look out the window and see the sun reflecting on the water. No wind. Twelve degrees. Spring.

Yeah. Okay. 

Ben does not get up. Ben would sleep until dinner if we would only let him but I'll come back for him later and make him have breakfast outside too.

We take coffee and toast outside on the back step and sit down, plates on laps. We eat quietly. When I'm done I just sit and stare at the waves. Lochlan takes both plates, stacking them on the steps beside us and then he takes my hand and kisses the back of it.

What do you want to do today?

Drink coffee. Draw. Have a walk on the beach. Maybe see a show tonight?

What's playing?

No, I meant maybe you could do a show, if the wind holds off.

I could do that. He doesn't look so sure. 

But I don't deserve it. Right?

What are you talking about?

I moved us back here. I took the proposal. You didn't want me to do that and you've been angry ever since.

Bridget-

I do everything you don't want me to do. But you know what? I weighed the odds. I listed out the pros and cons and it's not as if I can just push him out of our lives. I have to see him every second or third day anyway and this works, you know? I like it here with everyone and I-

Bridget. 

What?

Stop it. I'm...disappointed I guess but I'm going to put my daughter and my love before my own feelings. I mean, if people want to say I sold out then that's fine. I'll have to bear that but his proposal was more of a tender to apply to stay in your life at any cost and everyone benefits from it, him least of all.

I could have refused. 

How? Bridget, the one mistake you've ever made in your life was in giving him an heir. 

Then surprisingly Lochlan was the one who looked as if he had been slapped because without thinking I reflexively reached out and slapped him for absolutely not saying that Henry was a mistake. My head knows better than that.

Oh my God. I'm sorry, Loch.

I should have said it differently. You know I love Henry. I just wish he was mine. I wish he was ANYONE else's and we could leave Caleb behind instead of carrying him. His weight burdens you. Everything just serves to keep us in the past. 

That's where the magic was. Right beside all the bad things.

No, Jesus, Bridget, magic is fully portable. We brought it here.

Prove it. I try to touch his face but he pulls back.

I've been trying forever but half the time you don't see it anymore. And I never had the guts to rescue you. I let you down so bad I don't think I deserve any of this room you've given me in your life. You don't understand the gift you have given me, the gift you are.

The slapping girl.  Woo. Lucky guy.

Heh. Yeah. Stop doing that. 

I'm sorry! Here, just slap me back and then we'll be even. 

I think I'll pass. Everyone already thinks I'm an asshole. 

Who?

The universe. You write the worst moments of my life down. 

And the best too. 

No. Not even close. 

What did I miss?

Everything, Bridget. Jesus, everything. You have no concept of my perspective on things. Moments I think you were maybe almost too young to remember or maybe just too...damaged to retain after all this time. I don't know. And I can't take a stand because I don't want to drive you away and...maybe we should change the subject. I'll try harder. I'll not withdraw when you need me. God. I don't even know how you slipped right through my fingers when I had everything a man could want. 

Bad things change people, Loch.

That isn't fair! They shouldn't have this much power. HE shouldn't have this much power.

Can we change the subject back to coffee and long walks on the beach now then?

He laughed. But there were tears too. Not big ones, just the quiet almost-tears that you have to know him to catch at all. You want a show tonight, I'll do one for you, Peanut. I'd do anything for you. I just hope you see that. I'm not here because it's easy living. Hell, it would have been easier to stay away. But I couldn't anymore. Do you understand that? I can't.

We're not good apart. I echo the words he said to me when he held me in the ruined camper after everything changed.

No, we're not good apart. He repeats and he knows exactly where I am in my head. Leave it there, Bridget. Come back to me here. Let's stay near the good parts of the story.

I'm trying but I keep messing everything up.

I know. Me too. 

Up. Tight.

Ben bought some new speakers this morning. When I stand on one of them I...

Well, I can't tell you what happens but you can probably guess what music that you feel (physically not emotionally) actually feels like.

Yes. JUST LIKE ONE OF THOSE.

By noon, there were three noise complaints from across the cove where our meany, homophobic neighbors live, the ones who disapprove of absolutely everything. So we got a warning from the local detachment to cool it. Just a little.

Also, I need a cigarette.

Lay it on the line.

I had a story for you about this song in particular but when I looked it up on Youtube to show you I was just so....thoroughly entranced by the red one-piece unitard and that hair that I forgot my story.

(Please note I didn't have cable television growing up and by the time I did this video wasn't in heavy rotation anymore, so today was the first time I've ever seen it.)

Just...take a minute and appreciate the glory of Canadian rock music. I can wait.

And for the record, every boy I know had hair like the unitard-sporting singer at some point or another.

Orbital resonance.

Hey, little asshole, he says softly. His face looks pleasant enough but his eyes look hesitant.

Hi big asshole, I say as I fight not to smile in spite of myself.

I need to show my face a little more? A little blogger birdie told me I've been missed.

Then maybe you should stop reading blogs in your soundproof cave and join humanity more often. 

Only if I can be sure this sort of guilt will always be present.

It's because I miss you.

I'm trying to keep my head on straight, little Bee. 

The wolves are getting in, Ben. 

Didn't mean to leave the door open, Bridget. 

I know. 

He puts his hand out and takes mine. I wasn't sure if I was going to give it so I'm glad I didn't have to decide on the fly. We don't fight so good, me and Ben. It goes on for days and weeks and we're merciless.

Do you feel vindicated? Are you satisfied? Will this make your nightmares stop? He reaches out and tucks my hair behind my ear. Will it make Lochlan's nightmares stop? Can we sleep now?

I hope so. 

What if nothing changes? 

It's already started to shift, Ben. You must have missed it.

Angel town.

Now, she feels safe in this bar on Fairfax
And from the stage I can tell that
She can't let go and she can't relax
And just before she hangs her head to cry
I sing to her a lullaby
I sing 'Everything's gonna be all right.
Rockabye, rockabye'

He really seems to want to keep his doll.

I'm not all that sure Caleb is sincere, though. I'm not sure if I would recognize an act from full surrender at this point but to help his case he had it picked over by both sets of lawyers and he cleared it with Ben too, who just shrugged and went right on back to tuning the guitar that is never put down enough to loosen itself out of tune in the first place.

(I need to address that but I've become a little bit paralyzed when it comes to Ben and so we leave him downstairs to his work and bring him food and wonder out loud what the hell he's doing now but he doesn't usually answer. And the weird part? When he gets like this he usually comes up with something wonderful at the end of his creative process. When he works for himself, not for someone else.

But it kills him just a little more each time in the process and hell, I've already died ten times over if we're keeping score because I hate that he's back and not present. But I won't abandon Benjamin ever so if you think the Devil's proposal was anything like the last one, then you can be as surprised as we were.)

Lochlan didn't say a word but I can see the doubt in his eyes. He wonders if it's an act too. He's afraid. I feel it in the way he crushes my fingers in his when he holds my hand. I see the way he came and stood beside me yesterday as I drew the tides in against the rocks with my heart, and he waited for me to tell him we were crazy. More than usual, I mean. But I couldn't because aside from Henry and I, the only thing that means anything to Caleb is his fortune and if he's willing to give that up to prove a point then his point is taken.

What Caleb gave me for a proposal was a big fat indemnity contract in which he will pay dearly for everything he has done. Nothing changes much on my end at all save for the fact that he will still ask me for my time, now and again. He would like a little attitude adjustment from all and a little acknowledgement too. He wants a little ground.Which means he's trying desperately to hold on to whatever it is he thinks he has, while he has it.

So I get the payback I wanted. We can fulfill our grand plans to take him for everything he's got and we'll do it with his blessing. Not exactly how I expected this to go down. I keep smoothing the contract out on my lap and reading it backwards and forwards and I can't see why he would do it this way but I'm too afraid to ask him in case he changes his mind. I'm too afraid I've misinterpreted the whole thing and I'm wrong about it. I could ask the closest lawyer to me to explain it but that right there is a really big conflict of interest, don't you think?

Deliberate introduction of the unexpected, or, more simply put, winning a war using the element of surprise.

Late gazes, window panes
And in the end they're not looking
No one gets to the wasted of mind
So insufficient this time

I don't think I noticed the cold or the rain until he put his arm around my shoulders and pointed out I was soaked to the skin and shivering.

I don't think I care, exactly and I came down here not to fight it out with words but to think it through inside my head. One minute I grasp a corner of bravery and a little excitement rolls over it, dripping off the edge and in the next moment despair tears it off in a jagged line, confusion soaking in and fear curling the edges like flames from fuel poured on dry paper.

Every time I jump someone gets hurt, I may as well just leave my feet on the ground, bound to the earth like tree roots on a cliff eroding into the sea. But in doing that I guess I made myself an easy mark.

I've picked off all my nail polish and bitten the quicks. I've punched holes in my lower lip for how tightly I'm clenching my teeth and I will never feel warm again if I stand here any longer. I can't feel my knees or my heart or my brain. It was probably never there to begin with. What's my name? Wait, don't tell me, I've heard it before. Bridget. Rhymes with fidget, rhymes with difficult.

Deep breaths don't work. The vodka didn't work. The sea isn't working. Nothing's working and yet the longer I remain here the easier it is to see that everything works just fine and it's me pushed all out of whack, bent out of shape, afraid of days that end in y and weather that features clouds, the letter J and running out of hugs.

Maybe none of it's scary in real life. Maybe it's just life and nobody cares the way I do. No one feels the way I do. No one understands who I am anymore.

I took the deal. I took it all. It wasn't even remotely what I was expecting and maybe that's how he'll win, in the end.

This is not my life.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.
                     ~Muhammad Ali

That would be the most fitting quote for Caleb, who turns fifty today and has not wasted a moment of his life, save for the ones he spends thinking about what could have been but never would have been, since my life was as well-planned out as his, once upon a time.

Then he painted over my big picture, not with shades of grey, but with solid black. Taking the hopes of a small girl and poking holes in them until all the air ran out and they fell back to earth with significant thuds.

I still hear the echo when I close my eyes, and he is still trying to make it up to me, but in a fucked up, twisted, demonic way because he doesn't know any better. He's not a Good Human and I am not a small girl anymore with my balloon dreams lifting my toes off the ground. Nope, I've been shot down, torn up, cast aside and broken so many times since then his evil barely registers anymore, and I will hush Lochlan's dire warnings with glassed-over, unfocused eyes and a will toward self-destruction because then I can still feel something, anything, that isn't desperate love or frightening abandonment.

But don't ask me to name this feeling, because I don't know what it is.

The proposal was not in the stack of envelopes with my Record of Employment, my final paycheque and my severance pay (of which I did not earn and will return to his account). It wasn't in the pewter envelope, which listed a day, a time and a dress, and the initials of those he would permit to accompany me to see him.

And so I am home from our big dinner out and taking a moment to change into the dress listed, which I had to call and ask about, not recognizing the description. The doorbell rang and the dress was then delivered. A new Valentino, the first in a decade, made by hand to the measurements of the green Valentino dress he sent back to them to mimic fit.

The other dress was returned to me as well. It pales in comparison.  This one is breathtaking and ridiculously overpowered for me and red, ironically. It's like taking a Ferrari down the street when a bicycle would suffice.

I'm nervous. Did you notice when I'm throwing out all sorts of allegories I'm nervous?

Ben's initials were not on the card.

Loch's were.

This feels more like a Mexican standoff than an afterparty but I gotta go. Or rather, I have to talk Lochlan into going, if he can talk at all when he sees me in this dress.

It stands for Xander and he hates it.

Fly me up on a silver wing
Past the black where the sirens sing
Warm me up in a nova's glow
And drop me down to the dream below

Before you come in, you have to pass my test, Caleb tells me with great amusement. I roll my eyes. So tired I feel like I've been drugged, and I'm not in the mood for whatever he's up to. Name the composer.

I listen intently. Shostakovich.

Bravo, Princess. Some days you make me so proud.

Few are as morose as he was.

Name another melancholy one.

Tchaikovsky.

Another?

Chopin! Jesus. Are we done?

No, Bridget. Jesus was not a composer, he was a prophet.

And a king. Don't think he didn't compose. Everyone with an overflowing head composes music to keep the voices drowned out.

Do you?

Of course. But my compositions are not set to music.

I'm aware. I suppose you would like your paperwork so you can go ahead with your grand plans to be steerage. Sorry for the delay. I was busy.

Steerage? Give it a rest. And yes, you're late with it.

On the desk. He turns up the music. The conversation is over. 

When I go to the desk, there is a stack of four envelopes tied with a grey satin ribbon monogrammed with his initials. CXC. Three envelopes are white, one is dark grey. My heart begins to make the long slow climb toward my throat but I fix my neutral smile, pick up the stack and turn back around.

He switches to Grieg (not morose) and returns my smile with a mischievous one of his own.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, 2013 edition.

Bear sightings #1 and #2 late last night, as two of the cubs born last spring (now a good 350 pounds each) broke down part of the side fence last night and made it all the way to the back door to investigate the recycling bins I keep outside by the step. Then they made their way to the garbage cans where they made a huge mess before Ben went out and scared them off with some growls of his own. We went out in the pouring rain and cleaned up the mess together, me casting a wary eye at the new hole in the fence every fifteen seconds or so.

Never a dull moment.

Update, because I know you've been checking back regularly.

PJ doesn't fit in the dryer.

Of course, I do.