Saltwater fixes everything.

I'm looking forward to this fall. Another tour, a movie to go along with it this time (link added because for some reason the embedded video doesn't show up on devices) and a chance to immerse myself in something I love to pieces that is uniquely mine and no simply an extension of something the boys love. Kind of like writing. Christian is a tech journalist, Jacob was a sermonist and lecturer but I traveled fiction as my road and it seems as if when I can just bury myself in words on a screen and music in my headphones, things seem a little bigger than me, and my problems seem a little smaller, a little less terrible, everything gets a little more hopeful even as we stare down what is turning out to be a downright frightening, white-knuckle bend in the road.

When they come here this fall it will be my sixth show and I can't wait. I wonder if things will be better by then. I wonder if things will be the same.

Thanks for your sweet words and generous prayers for Ben. He needs them very badly and I will relay every last one to him as soon as I can. As for me? Don't pray for me. I don't deserve your faith.

I want to save that light.

How long will he be gone?

I don't know.

How do I feel?

I don't know.

Why is Caleb part of the good-guy brigade suddenly?

Jesus Christ! I don't fucking know. The only thing I know is that today, Ruth brought me a song. First one ever. She is thirteen. I was never what she is at thirteen. I'm in awe.

When the curtain’s call
Is the last of all
When the lights fade out
All the sinners crawl

So they dug your grave
And the masquerade
Will come calling out
At the mess you've made

Don’t want to let you down
But I am hell bound
Though this is all for you
Don’t want to hide the truth

No matter what we breed
We still are made of greed
This is my kingdom come
This is my kingdom come

Ten-second delay.

Batman flew in to the Cape to explain why he failed to mention he was the owner of the house that Ben borrows a couple of times a year.

I told him fifty times I didn't care. That he has nothing to do with me and that I would like Ben to explain this but Ben drowned his words instead and I never got to dry them out to hear, and Loch washed his hands of Ben and that made Ben feel worse and this cycle is now so vicious it has grueling, unchecked freaking rabies.

I stood with my arms crossed in the doorway and said Batman could give his excuses and then leave. He said Aren't you the little spitfire and I nodded because yes, yes, I am, goddammit and I'm tired of this.

It's my house, Bridget. He said it so gently I almost cried. But I didn't because like I told you, I'm tired.

Instead I grabbed my bag and DFW and we walked up the lane and into town and I sat down on a bench outside a tiny general store and I took out my phone and took the case off it and looked at the Visa Infinite (that I stole from the Devil) and I called him to ask if I could use it because I'm only a halfling-thief so here, we'll play tag across the planet once again but I need to move really fast to get my head clear.

I couldn't do it though because we need to be home. With the kids and boys. I want to be there, not here with ice cold Batman and Lochlan with his clenched fists and frustrated, breaking voice, who, you know, followed me down to the store and was standing on the other side of the entryway with his hands in his pockets, flicking his lighter, pretty much ready to shadow me as I run. His hair is tied back with a cord and he's in a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans and he looks like home only I don't know where that is and then Ben comes out of the store with a bottle of booze and bag of souvenirs, looks to the left at Lochlan and then he looks down to the right at me and he says,

We need to be home, guys. I'm fucked and she's going to bolt.

I nodded and hung up the phone before Caleb answered.

***

Caleb hands me a bourbon and lemonade and then strokes the bottom of my foot with his knuckles. He's sitting one step below me on the patio stairs. He and Henry had cleanup duty in the kitchen and that's why he's still here. I didn't even cook tonight, Duncan did. It was awful.

Where were you headed? He says after a minute. He's growing a beard. He's wearing jeans and a worn-out navy blue t-shirt and he looks nothing like he should.

The beach house. Then to August, if I could get in touch with him. Internet on their piece of the rock is ridiculously non-existent at best.

And what would you have done?

Pretended he was Jacob for the rest of my days. I down the drink in one gulp and let out a shaky, watery breath.

Wow. He says.

Tell me about it. I can't...I mean, I don't seem to be having any luck accepting that he's gone. It's like there's a black hole and he's in it, I just have to find him but when I go in, there's no light, no sound, no nothing. No Jake.

And August will change that?

No, but maybe he's as close as I can get to what I used to have. 

I think your mind is messing with your heart. 

It's the other way around, I swear. 

All of it served to be just more distraction. Caleb got me, Lochlan took the children out for ice cream and while we were being rewarded for good behavior with treats, the rest of them were forcing Ben onto a different plane so that he can go back and finish the program he apparently walked away from earlier this spring.

Walk.

Home safe and sound. I'll update my own life as soon as I stop holding my breath, living vicariously through my all-time favorite circus family. Hoping for no wind and steady cables.

http://skywire.discovery.com/

Update: if you weren't watching, then you've missed out. It was heart-stoppingly amazing to watch. Twenty-two minutes!! Praise Jesus indeed.

I'm sorry. I ran.

POW.

Can you see my white flag from here? I mean, really. Can't you fucking SEE it?

(Turn off the stereo. We have to talk, and besides you're blindsiding me with my entire emotional map laid out in song. That isn't fucking fair of either of you.)

Batman owns this house, here in Cape Cod. I found a stack of paintings at the end of the hallway upstairs and I couldn't resist looking at them. Some of them were by Cole and I looked at Ben and asked him what he hadn't told me over the past five years. He just stared at me as he weighed which answers would provoke which results. Not sure he ever figured it out since he turned and walked back down the hall, away from me.

Ben is still under the wagon and Loch is still singlemindedly determined to take me apart piece by piece and then he can put back together his perfect summer girl as he remembers me instead of how I am.

Flawed. Surrendered. Surprised. Disappointed, demoralized and exhausted. This was not a good idea. This was not a good idea at all.

Wave that fucking flag high, girl, and maybe they'll come and get this over with.

DFW for breakfast.

Bishop and Clerks for three (bring them to the light).

Bring me home in a blinding dream,
Through the secrets that I have seen
Wash the sorrow from off my skin
And show me how to be whole again

Long before I finally asked him to revert back to his habitual self so that my lobotomy could still be successfully reversed, Lochlan dropped through a hole into a place he doesn't belong. The nightmares were back, the rabbit hole wide open, the mind behind a familiar face unrecognizable.

I don't care if you get it, I get it. He isn't like that with me. He can't be. He's just not wired this way so his attempts to make a strategic move only served to illuminate his completely selfish plan to edge Ben right off the playing field. It served to prove that the dark magician is still in there and oh, Jesus, no. Anything but that. You don't understand.

 As if we don't know Lochlan has been plotting this all along, right up until he gets everything all lined up in front of him and he's home free and then he gets scared, turns and disappears, like magic.

Like magic. I think I'll stick with the coins behind my ears and the fire routines because we can't survive anything greater than that.

So it's better if he just continues to be himself and not let himself go to places neither one of us are comfortable together. It's better if he does things his way and I will exist around him, doing what I need to do, and Ben will do whatever it takes to stay clean and sober and alert and present because he knows that's what he needs to do. Never mind the fact that I've tied an imaginary chain around his neck and am forcing him to be present because I refuse to commit to his absence any more. I refuse to watch him drink and self-destruct and I refuse to give up.

Yes, you heard me right.

And to that end Ben has planned a getaway (when the going gets tough the tough book planes) and as usual I'm not packing, I'm writing. I've got my hearing aids and my string bikini (one will not be worn with the other) and my big holey sweater, jeans and a windbreaker, my SPF25000 sunscreen and new sunglasses and we're taking our magician and going to Massachusetts, where it isn't warm enough for a string bikini, nor is it bright enough yet for that SPF when a 60 will do just fine.

We're going to have a bonfire and talk things out and figure out our future plans and apologize to each others' faces instead of ripping them off and spend a little time, which is easier to do without things like opinionated friends, overbearing millionaires and wi-fi,  though there's a bookstore in town that hooks me up for the price of a cup of tea so you might see me yet.

Otherwise you'll have to wait until the weekend and I will catch you up. Cross you fingers for us. As usual we seem to need prayers even though we are heathens and hopeless and bereft.

Unsealed on a porch a letter sat
Then you said, "I wanna leave it again"
Once I saw her on a beach of weathered sand
And on the sand I wanna leave it again
On a weekend I wanna wish it all away
And they called and I said that "I want what I said" and then I call out again

New hearing aids. Really really good ones. If you need me I'll be wrapped around the stereo listening to Eddie Vedder breathe.

Father's Day.

Today I put on my happy face and honored six fathers, one stepfather and ten full-time surrogate dads/hunkles here today because the boys work so hard to see that the children have more than enough help, support and discipline to go around. They all always make time for the kids, no matter what else is going on and I am grateful and humbled by all of them for their efforts in helping me raise these amazing human beings.

I watch it and I am awed. I participate and I hold my breath as I realize the depth of the bonds they all share with my two greatest accomplishments. It's more important than anything else, as always.

So many times I wanted to open my mouth and continue the war but I looked at Ben as he taught the kids how to grill cheese sandwiches and saw the look on his face as they watched and listened carefully and I remembered that I picked him, not only for myself but for them too.