Littlun.

ARRGGHHHH.

What they should have done is sent me away for a few months, keeping Ben instead and then they could have finished their Lord of the Flies reenactment here without me. Once and for all.

Every day a struggle, every day a stand. Lateral moments. Same old shit.

Pffft.

I was planning to audition for the Moulin Rouge in Paris (they have auditions in Vancouver this Saturday) but the artistic manager said that dancers need to be at least 5'10". 5'8" if you're really good. Sigh.

***

I spent most of today drawing plans for a new painting. A green bottle fly or a skeleton of one. Flowers. Etc. etc. Lochlan is excited because he pushes me to step out of my comfort zone when it comes to art and I usually go quite willingly. I sat in a big holey sweater (usual wet bathing suit underneath) and I ate red pistachios and drew and listened to Metric/Nothingface/Metallica/Wye Oak and I didn't talk much and I think that sort of drives them into certain ruin because everyone was very helpful with laundry and dinner and even enthusiastic when I told them I was plotting to dye my hair baby blue just because if it's turning white anyway then why the hell not but then I decided I might be kidding because the damage would be sad after I just spent the better part of a year not touching it so that it would be shinier and it is so I can't touch it now. Still sad though. I love pastel hair.

***

Sam and Daniel are home. I wasn't going to say anything because out of desperation Lochlan took away the letter Ben sent home for me and burned it before I could open it and I'm guessing he must have listened to the message Ben left on his voicemail last week finally because he's kind of skittish and uncertain and I flipped right out.

Loch! That didn't belong to you!

But you do!

We spent the next three or four minutes in a rage-filled staring contest before James Hetfield's voice fills the space in the middle and I realize I can't win this. I'm not in charge. I'm definitely not in control and there's only one weapon I seem to have and I can't play fast and loose with that right now but maybe it's the only thing that makes him see clearly from my perspective.

Yeah, well, if you need me I'll be down at the boathouse. Got a birthday to plan for my son.

Bridge- he makes a grab for my arm but PJ says his name almost imperceptibly. Let her go.

Yeah, let me go. I wink at him and turn on my heel. I don't feel victorious, I feel like shit.

Here I am
On the road again
There I am
Up on the stage
Here I go
Playin' star again
There I go
Turn the page

Under privilege.

Lochlan still hasn't listened to Ben's voicemail.

I still have a headache but it doesn't seem as awful as yesterday and the day before that. I made rice and some delicious rosemary and pepper chicken in pitas with cherry tomatoes and spinach and the boys sort of devoured everything and now I have to have a backup dinner for Sam and Danny who are due home any minute now from the airport courtesy of Caleb who dispatched Mike to pick them up.

What a guy, hey?

I see where he's deploying his favors though, squarely on Ben's team by seeing to Daniel's safe return. I'm not sure anyone could actually blame him after Lochlan spent the morning turning Caleb's screws by asking him what he thought of the sunset last night, how glorious and spectacular it was and how it was too bad Caleb had to watch it alone.

Caleb didn't miss a beat, telling Lochlan he's been thinking of taking me to see the sunset from a new and unfamiliar vantage point, instead of the same old discount view from Loch's helicopter grip, and that all I have to do is pick a city or an island or a landmark and he can make it happen with a phone call and that he really wished with all his might that everyone had the means to offer those sorts of dreams to me, but alas he knows how hard Loch has to work in a month to get thirty dollars and that's the cost of two beach towels so at least he and I have a place to sit after we've come out of the water.

That's important, Caleb said with a wink. I thought he was going to earn a punch square in the neck for that one but Lochlan somehow kept his shit together.

I shook my head at Caleb. No sunsets. No trips. Stop it. I said it with my mind but he still answered out loud.

Again, Neamhchiontach, he started it and really these shitty comments are the only assets this guy seems to have. Enjoy those beach towels.

It's been a very long day.

Straight to voicemail.

Undead.

That's what I am. I keep getting up and plodding along looking for brains and something whacks me in the back of the skull and down I go, like a ragdoll.

I'm trying to out-perform one hell of a migraine and I lost the battle days ago but like I said, I'm stubborn and I'm determined to give one hundred percent even though only a good fifteen percent of me is actually functioning properly.

Lochlan watches me fumble around for a little while. He's amused, trying not to intervene as I spent a good minute trying to get my lipgloss just right and then wincing through trying to make a bowl of cereal.

Argh, I say and he takes over. He fishes in his pocket and finds something shiny to give me. A Nevada quarter. 2004. It has horses galloping toward the face of the coin and I love it and for the briefest second the pain vanishes. He used to find me cool things all the time when I was little. A shiny penny. A cat's eye marble. A smooth rock shaped like a heart. A tiny whistle or a compass. A ball. A ring. A human heart, still beating, painted in circus stripes and if you hold it up to your ear you can hear the music from the Big Top.

 The only other time the pain goes away is if he presses his lips against my forehead and just holds them there, while I ache with the knowledge that I can be bought for twenty-five cents. and nothing ever changes.

***

When the sun goes down and I can stand outside without squinting in pain, he walks over to me and whispers something in my ear. No one is really paying attention anyway. PJ and John are barbecuing some hamburgers and Schuyler and Gage and Dalton are doing a little last-minute yard work. There is cold raspberry lemonade for them in the fridge and I am simply waiting at this point for tomorrow, when Daniel and Sam get home from their visit with Ben for family visiting day. I have not talked to Ben in days and I asked Daniel not to call me unless he needed something because I can't stand it. I want Ben to do well but I don't want him to do it on my time, frankly. I don't want to wait anymore for anything. I want to have fun. I want to be in love. I want to be able to ask for a hug and get one without waiting for volunteers, clean hands, empty arms or a generous spirit.

I want Ben home. I am so selfish.

But I forget it for now (have to, self-preservation and all that, if it hurts, don't think about it, Peanut) and take Lochlan's proffered hand. We go up and change into our swimsuits, grab towels and and leave the house again. Loch tells PJ we're going for a swim, so PJ turns his attention to being in charge of the children and John takes over at the grill. I am almost to the gate when I run back and give PJ my hearing aids. He pretends to put them on and I laugh and run back to the gate. We make our way down to the bottom of the steps just as the sun begins to drop low against the hard line dividing the Pacific from the sky and I stop and stare at it. My head is still sore but there's a cool breeze and the muted sunlight helps a lot.

Loch walks out into the surf and turns around. He's up to his waist in the sea, and I am still dry. He won't go a single step further away from me this close to the sea proper. I step in and walk until I reach my knees and he turns away, heading further out still until he's up to his shoulders. He turns back once more but I am still at knee-level so he comes back in and pulls me out slowly, watching for the bits of rocks half-submerged by the tides. The water is shockingly cold and we walk until he is shoulder-deep again and my feet leave the ground. He pulls my arms over his shoulders and turns us so we can watch the sun disappear. I got you, he says. Don't worry.

Baiser vole.

Moments string the day together like bunting flags in a line.

Like Lochlan, who came up behind me as I was washing pots and pans and swore as he kissed the top of my head, pointing out my roots are coming in probably 90% white now. Yes, I know. It's all downhill from here, sweetie, please toss those strawberry curls around just a little more because pretty soon I'm going to look like a seasoned witch who stole the heart of a young fire breather who NEVER SEEMS TO AGE, at least not physically, though emotionally if he is sober he is practical and stubborn and has zero time for nonsense. Crotchety, handsome bastard. I know my hair is turning white and I know time is marching on, picking up speed on the downhill but I'd be happier if he wouldn't bring it up. Besides, when he presses his chin on the top of my head my ruined knees ache now. This is why I don't run anymore. I don't know or care if it's tendonitis or arthritis, I just know that it's pain that distracts me. Physical pain is easy to deal with, however so maybe I got lucky. I get another kiss on the top of my head and he leaves.

Caleb is heading into the city proper to do some shopping and asks me for a list. What do I need? Better yet, what do I want? As if he can cross off a list like an evil, generous Santa Claus and win my loyalty with material wealth. I tell him I'll be there later in the week and he again asks if it wouldn't be easier if he just looked after it, as in financially. Because I am kept. Because he is sugar and I am the bee. Because he's rich and I actually have nothing. I tell him my list is on the calendar notes that we sync between phones and he nods and smiles and tells me he'll be back early in the afternoon and will meet me in the kitchen. My knee aches and I reach down to rub behind it and he asks what's wrong. I snap at him that I am getting old and falling apart and he says that's what stress does, it kills you just when you want to live most, and live without fighting for every moment in which you can breathe without clenching your fists. He's good at these descriptions, because that's exactly what it feels like. He tells me he can fly me to a specialist or have one come here and I tell him that if it hurts bad enough I will bite down on a stick and saw it off just below my thigh. He tells me to stop being provocative and I refuse. I get a kiss on the cheek as he leaves.

Batman calls and I hang up on him. John offers to screen my calls for me so I tuck my phone into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. He pats it and gives me a kiss on the forehead as he leaves. I love my knights, especially the ones who make an effort to help and to listen. John is functioning as my sounding board while I am presently without August, Sam or Daniel to unload on. He's pretty awesome even if he does look like a runaway Allman brother. His beard is long. It's awesome. I want to braid it or hide under it. I want to grow one just like it. I horrify him. That's okay too.

Gage and Schuyler go shopping after lunch too, not downtown but at the mall thirty minutes down the highway and come home with a present for me for hosting Gage so sweetly. A bread maker because mine fell apart a year into living at the castle and I've often said I wished I could replace it because my hands hurt when I knead bread and it never seemed as effective to use the big mixer with the dough hooks. This one is a three-pound horizontal loaf bonanza and it makes jam too! I love the bigger size, since any one of the boys could eat an entire vertical one-and-a-half or two-pound loaf in one sitting from the old machine. I'm baking bread tonight for breakfast tomorrow. It's going to be so good. Hopefully it will last a long time, as I am always looking for ways to avoid grocery shopping. I told the boys if only someone would bring home some chickens, a goat and a cow I think we could go off the grid completely in very short order. I'm not kidding. Farm wifery comes so easy to me, you actually have no idea.

Schuyler kisses me right between the eyes and Gage lands one on my temple as they leave with a promise to return when the first loaf is ready. Possibly with livestock in tow.

I'll be here, but my whole head is dirty now from all the kisses today.

Physical Graffiti.

Every time Lochlan and I disagree on a matter of discipline when it comes to Ruth I pull out the fact that he let me get away with everything and then some, and it isn't fair to deny her the same freedom.

He will stand his ground saying only that times have changed. It's a mantra at this point.

I tell him the only thing different is that we hear more about bad things thanks to the internet but children are safer than ever. We're all safer than ever.

Then today he offers up that the freedom he gave me ruined his life and mine too and he has a second chance here to get things right. 

Oh.

That makes perfect sense but he still can't project my childhood onto hers. That isn't fair to Ruth.

***

It's a Led Zeppelin kind of day and I have a date with a blisteringly toxic lemonade cocktail, the front porch and The Lost Symbol, which I'm into, finally. If I can just finish the mending pile first and the drawing of the ship I'm working on and convince the children to have some lunch. It's never hard getting the boys to come and have some food. Of course, they don't sleep until ten in the morning like the kids do.

So when I grow up I think I'd like to be a little kid again.

***

I went down to the boathouse to take Caleb the receipts for Henry's school supplies and he held up his hand to halt me in my tracks and he said She's here. He held the phone out to me and I reached up for it. I don't know who it is.

Hello? 

Hi, Sweet-Bee. 

Oh, hey Asshole. How's vacation?

Wish you were here! Fuck, Bridget. I feel turned inside-out. 

But are you going to be sober for the rest of my life?

Working on it, Bridge. 

Work harder, Benny. Why haven't you called? 

I don't want to get too attached to you in case you give up on me while I'm gone. 

Then come back soon. 

I will the moment I get this all figured out, Peanut. 

Peanut now? 

He's on my mind. He's the only person I haven't talked to. 

Besides me, you mean. 

Yes. 

Want me to go find him?

Naw. I left a message on his phone. I said what I wanted to say for now. I wanted to talk to you. 

So then why did you call Caleb?

He always knows where you are. 

You're smart. Maybe you'll kick this yet. 

God, I hope so. 

God can't do this. You have to do it yourself-

I know, Bridge. 

Sorry. I was married to a preacher once. Old habits die hard. 

Pun intended?

Ouch, Ben. 

Sorry but you earned it.

God, I hope they fix your totally inappropriate sense of humor while you're down there. 

No you don't. 

You're right, I don't. It helps make you who you are.

Who am I, Bridge?

Ben, no one knows who they are.

You seem to cope with it so much better than I do. 

You see, this is why we still call you the new guy. Because it's been almost twenty years I've known you and you seem to think I'm mostly bulletproof. 

Well, you are. 

Shoot me and find out.

And so well-adjusted. 

Aren't we? We totally are. So come home, you big freak and let's get on with the show.

Northumberland straight.

Sandbars were the best. I could walk for miles and miles before the water came up to my knees. I knew how to tell the time by where the sun was in the sky and how red my skin was. My hair turned golden-white and my nails were pitted and dull from the sand. I poured sand out of my shoes each night, I wriggled on the seat in the diner for not having..er, rinsed it all away and I crunched on grains of it in everything I ate. I was a toxic cocktail of sunblock and orange pop and aloe cream. I slept when the sun went down and rose to meet it on the shore in the morning. I ate Pixi Stix for breakfast and lunch, french fries and lobster legs for dinner. I had ice cream ten times a week and I had no use for popsicles whatsoever. I couldn't work those and would wind up with a slushy grape puddle at my feet every single time.

I ruined my mood ring, so I scraped it off my finger over wrinkled, puckered skin and I threw it far into the waves.

I went through a bathing suit a month and lost more towels than I can count, leaving them somewhere on the beach when I went into the water and having no idea where I put them when I came out. I learned I have amazing, difficult diseases like Fresh Air Syndrome and Wanderlust and Beachcombitis.

And Wanderlust remains the one we can't seem to cure.

I would walk so far toward the horizon I always expected to begin to greet people coming towards me who might speak a different language. Lochlan was forced to spend forty-five minutes to an hour in a slow-jog through ankle-deep water at low tide to tell me to turn back, chastising me for throwing my watch into the water because I had transcended time and errands and chores and home. Home? What the heck are you talking about? I am home. This is home. 

I felt lifted above the constraints of life out of the water, buoyed by the heavy salt smell and the curiosities below the surface. That's what it is, then. I thought to myself. I'm a mermaid! And he must have figured it out to because he doesn't seem all that irritated at the lengths he has to go to reel me back in, to bring me reluctantly back to dry land.

Tell me why I'm discontented
Will I die without the details in my hands?
I feel these vines surrounding my heart
I fear I'm moving at a slower pace again
Tell me how this all unfolds

I can't find the secret to survive
To grow old safe and sound
Life is sifting through like the sands in the hourglass
There's not a moment to relive my time and space
There's not a moment to undo anything

Less than 3 (okay, no just 3 and then I'm offline for the day).

And...Happy 4th! My husband is American. Well, one of them is anyway. Half my friends are too. But we already had Canada Day on Monday so aside from strawberry shortcake there will be no holidaying indulged in today except by Schuyler, who gets a four day weekend because for some reason y'all tossed Friday in there too and he can't work if all of the offices are closed.

Lochlan got me a feel-better present.

If you haven't seen this your life might possibly be sorely incomplete.

Less than B.

Sam and Daniel are packing to go and visit Ben. I wanted to stow away in Daniel's carry-on bag but he said my toes would be sticking out and oh, Bridget, if they see the toes then you know how it goes. All downhill from there. 

Ptooey. Fuck. Balls.

I want to see Ben too.