Integrated trigger safety.

Caleb left me his Visa infinite so I could pay for Henry's field trip on the school website. I put my birthday in instead of his when it asked for verification and now I'm locked out of paying until I can use a different card.  Does anyone know when it unlocks so I can try again? Because this happens just about every month now and you'd think..well, you'd think someone would get me my own damned credit card and then I wouldn't have to ask.

Oh wait, what? Yes, I know it defeats the whole purpose of the exercise. That's what I was hoping for.

***

Yesterday Caleb abruptly told me he was nothing like Cole. Nothing.

(Short of the obvious DNA and predilections and the way they eat/breathe/obsess. Right so NOTHING like him.)

Lochlan agreed, almost laughing in relief before punching him in the head anyway. Poor Matt was the only one present besides and he didn't waste a minute getting them apart and on their feet again. Lochlan made a shitty threat and Caleb ventured a legal one and I asked them both to fuck off and Matt agreed with me and then softened it with a word or two about keeping the peace for all our sakes before wisely shutting up.

PJ came through the door not five minutes later and I told him what happened and he was just sad he didn't win the bet. He figured Lochlan would pop him before lunch.

***

I stand in the sun at the top of the stepladder on the back porch of the castle, peeking into the hanging pot of strawberry plants. I have a fork and the watering can and some fertilizer on the railing and I'm poking around when Jacob comes out and wraps both arms around my waist so I can't fall.

What are you up to? Trying to touch the clouds again?

No, I'm trying to figure out why I'm getting the little white flowers but no actual fruit on this one. 

I see. What have you found?

Nothing? I don't know. Maybe it's a dud. Or maybe the bees aren't doing their thing since it's up really high?

True. But you know, I can see it just fine so that wouldn't be it. 

You're huge though. 

I can see right into the pot. 

Stop rubbing it in. 

So when the berries are ripe I see them when I come in the door. 

Jacob, there are no berries on this one. 

..and then I eat them as I unlock the door and you always think I've got strawberry gum. It's actually been a crazy producer, this plant. I'm just about full by the time I hit the kitchen. 

You've been eating them?

They're really good when they're warm from the sun. You should try them sometime. 

Well I would but I can't see when they're there, obviously. 

Yeah, that's too bad. 

It is. 

A travesty!

I can't believe you've been pinching them all summer long when you know I've been wondering and watching. 

I'm not sorry either, Princess.

Shhh. This is for me, not you.

Need my bravery song*. Just look away or something, for fucks sakes.

*(I have no idea why these videos don't embed on mobile Safari. My apologies. It's Dare you to move by Switchfoot.)

Bitter beans.

Today was just lovely as I sat at the table sipping coffee and trying not to flinch while Caleb detailed to Lochlan the best way to kill someone, if he was indeed serious about wanting to take my soul back. He said the only way to transfer it a second time is in death.

I pointed out if I die then my soul won't be important to anyone.

I was sharply corrected and the graphic descriptions began, beginning with Loch's inner character battles and ending with my bereavement as Caleb becomes the next to die, instead of waiting for his body or his mind to be ready.

(I don't think he missed anything except the effect the entire conversation would have on me in a permanent way.)

And I don't think I touched my food at our month-end coparenting informal meeting at a restaurant I don't like all that much. I just drank coffee. A lot of coffee. I drank so much I asked the server just to leave the pot. He did not want to until Caleb said it was fine. Ever the child, I am.

Loch looked like he was taking notes, though horrified ones, for it all makes sense if we're going to continue our large scale games of life, death, marriage, betrayal, trust, telepathy and threat.

I just wanted to live in a camper and boil green beans for dinner, I swear. That's all I wanted. Wildflowers in a jar on a table outside and not worrying about the moral difference between choosing to die and being killed. I wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel on Sunday mornings and call it church and I wanted to sing love songs out loud into the wind and I wanted to burrow my arms into the sleeves of Lochlan's jacket while he's still wearing it and I want to never think past the end of the week forever and ever, amen.

Loch squeezed my hand on the drive home and said he pictured a wreath of flowers on the door, not a bouquet in a jar and I swore at him for all of 1983 through 1985, inclusive.

Binding on pickup.

Baby, I been praying hard
Said no more counting dollars
We'll be, we'll be counting stars

Take that money
Watch it burn
Sing in the river
The lessons I learned

No silent treatment this time, just a good rollicking curse-laden lecture, driven by fear and spat out in endless breathless words that made me cry like I did when I was eleven and Loch would scold me for going too close to the breakwater/highway/monsters. It's only effective if you can draw out their emotions, someone told him once, probably the fucking fortune teller, as he learned how to parent on the road, amusement-park style. I learned within two months how to cry on command just to get out of the room but now it just happens and I can't control it and that really pisses me off. He takes my anger personally to the point where we take a moment before throwing our words out, sharpening each one to a fatal point while the room fills with witnesses and supporters and peacemakers too. Sam puts his hand on my shoulder and all it does is make me hurl the words that much harder until I have laid out my side so nakedly and honestly no one can pick it up to argue, it's just too fucking sharp now. For my efforts I am rewarded with yet another list of all the things that make me terrible, right down to the fact that my emotions took up so much energy in my body, they stunted my growth.

And yet I am smug and standing my ground, because he is afraid. And because his hypocrisy is staggering. I yell that too but it's no match for his own pointy points and pretty soon I have won the room. I play the grief card last, twisting paper cuts into his very soul with its edge.

I'd dip him in iodine to make him sting on top of it all if only I could lift him but I can't so instead I remind him that I'm trying hard to please him and trying hard to please the Devil with such fewer timely resources and trying to keep Benjamin relevant and the children happy and the other boys content in their lives and he tells me I've got it wrong, that it's all backwards and everyone should be trying to please me for once because I'm no longer that eight-year-old girl running through the woods, trying to keep up, hoping I'll be invited or at least not sent away this time. Trying to be one of them.

Bullshit! I can't breathe anymore. Fuck this.

You've got it wrong, Peanut. We're trying to make you happy but you are determined to be miserable. 

No, I'm not. I just really don't want anyone else to die. 

You know, I didn't think it was possible to break a human being this badly but they really did it. You know that? They really did. 

I'll be okay. 

I'm losing faith in that statement at this point. Something's gotta give. 

Status quo, Locket. Just leave it. 

I CAN'T! 

***

The sunny day drifts into darkened twilight and I find Loch in the tiny studio we've set up in a little-used corner on the first floor. He is drinking tea and drawing. He looks up. The anger has passed, and in it's place hopeless indemnity has settled.

He asks what the kids are up and if I'd like tea. I nod but point out more than tea, I could use a hug. I figure he will tell me to go ask Caleb for one but instead he slides off the stool and comes to me, arms wide.

I will never get used to this. I don't trust him, Pea. I don't like his tactics. His games are too big. 

You have my heart. 

I want your soul too. I want to steal it back from him and then you'll be whole again. 

That would be nice but since we're a package deal, if we can get mine, we need to get yours at the same time. Now, please, can we talk about other things?

Okay. He pulls me in tight against the plaid flannel wall and I exhale for so long I think I am a slow leak in a small balloon, deflating flat and pokey in his hands. He laughs.

Stay here and draw with me. 

What are we drawing?

I dunno. Stuff.

The curse of wanting an eternal soul.

And I'm ready to know what the people know
Ask 'em my questions and get some answers
What's a fire and why does it, what's the word? Burn?

When's it my turn?
Wouldn't I love, love to explore that shore up above?
Out of the sea
Wish I could be part of that world

At the end of a helpless week in which he watched us do absolutely nothing with his generous gifts, Caleb called me over once again to ostensibly sign a card for Mike, who retires this week after many years of service as Satan's part-time driver (and mine though it was hard to call him and so I rarely did). Attached to the card is a large manila envelope containing a beautiful print and a smaller manila envelope containing his separation papers, a letter of character reference should he ever require it and cheques for vacation days not taken and a severance he is not expecting.

I'm not sure Mike is prepared for the fact that by leaving work he will have a higher net worth than if he continued at his old retainer rate but Caleb believes in rewarding people for their hard work.

I mean, look where I live now. 

But I work very hard to make the Devil happy all the while shoving him off the side of the cliff when no one is watching. Case in point, when I arrived at the boathouse, Caleb calls for me to let myself in. I wander down the hall and he is in the bathroom shaving with a straight razor. The strope is hanging over the top of the door. Shirtless and clad only in pajama pants, he is almost finished but still covered with three or so lengths of shaving foam left to remove. 

I'll come back when you're ready. Why didn't you say to wait?

Princess, does it actually matter?

It does, yes. 

You woke up in my bed less than a week ago. 

It doesn't mean we need to be... familiar. 

You're family. You're my obsession. The mother of my son. Sorry I'm trying to multitask today but I don't see it as a huge imposition. His hand begins to shake and he stops and takes a breath, setting the razor on the counter.

I pick it up.

Bridget, your cast will get wet. I just need a moment. The pills-

It's fine. I step closer and he lifts up his chin, looking skyward, blue eyes reflecting the lights of the bathroom while he studies the pine trees through the skylights.

If you were smart you would cut my throat and run, he tells me. He closes his eyes and waits and I dutifully finish and then he takes the razor back from me and presses a clean towel around my cast.

The glitter-

It's fine. Thank you for your help. He is two inches from my face and I tread water in his medium blues.

He kisses the space between my eyes

I should go. 

Stay. Have a cup of coffee. If you wouldn't mind waiting in the kitchen, I'll make myself presentable and be right out. Start some coffee if you can manage it?

Sure, but only ten minutes. PJ-

He nods. Ten minutes is fine. The card is on my desk, by the way. 

The butcher and the busker and the bumblebee too (please God don't let this stick).

I saw a different doctor in the practice this morning. This one was extremely personable and looked just like Tom Hardy.

I kept wanting to ask him to say 'You merely adopted the dark! I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but BLINDING!' in Bane's voice but I thought that might be rude.

***

Last night turned out to be an evening that I won't soon forget. The boys were jovial and tender, sweet through dinner and thoroughly generous with each other and with me when we returned home.

They haven't really been able to reconnect until now. Our nerves have been shot, patience so frayed we couldn't thread it through a day to save our souls, not that we actually could save our souls at this late hour but it's always a nice thought.

This morning when I got up to let the dog out and start some coffee I came back  to wake up Loch to get ready for his day and he and Ben were spooning loosely. They were both deeply asleep.

I stood there for such a long time and smiled. You have no idea.

I finally wedged myself in between them, making a Bridget-sandwich, waking up Lochlan when my cast bumped his shoulder and he said Good morning, meat. What in the hell are you doing? 

I told him how I found the two of them sleeping and he jumped up and pointed at me. Don't you dare write about it! I swear to God, Bridge. It was a vague threat that he left there because he knows I will and because he's technically proud to be here in our freaky little marriage for three. Ben woke up because of the shouting, smiled at Lochlan and sleepily patted the bed, telling him to come back, that he was cold and needed the fire close.

You weren't sleeping! 

I was. But damn. You're like a human hot water bottle. I think I'm going to have Bridget trade places permanently or maybe we'll just kick her out. 

Hey, wait a minute! This is my spot right here! I'm the meat! You're the bread! If you get rid of me then you're both...

Toast! Ben yells triumphantly and then looks alarmed.

See? I cover all the angles. Now you have to keep me!

You're lucky you're so cute, Meatlet. 

Meatlet?

Well, it's not like you're even bigger than a side cut...maybe a roast. Ben is thinking hard for someone who's not awake yet.

Wow. 

No WAIT! Meatball! That's what you are. Loch claps his hands together and I twitch.

Enough. I have too many nicknames now. 

There are never too many nicknames for you, Meatball. 

I'm writing about the spooning, Lochlan!

Well then I'm going to give up all other nicknames from here on out, you little Saltwater Meatball.

Pick somewhere good.

I'm never gonna open my heart again
The bleeding won't end
The bleeding won't end
There's not enough room there for love to grow
Anymore
Anymore

Ben and I had an unaccompanied coffee date this morning. And we did okay! No one got left on the highway so I'm assuming that's an improvement, though I was tempted to ask him to get out of the truck and walk home because he ate my banana bread slice that was like five dollars and something and I was starving.

(But I still can't drive.)

He said it was good. Then he said sorry? like it was a question. Then he drove to McDonalds. Because if all else fails there are sausage mcmuffins and hash browns if you get there before eleven. He got four of each. He ate all of the sandwiches and I ate all of the hash browns and now my stomach aches so badly I believe I'll just spend the afternoon lying on someone warm*.

He kissed me on his way out to his meeting. He said to find Lochlan and we would go out tonight and have a dinner date. I hope he means next week. I probably won't be hungry until then.

He didn't. He means tonight. I'm excited, actually though watching the two of them choose a restaurant is always a Sophie's Choice-caliber reenactment of hurt feelings and desperate measures. Wish me luck.

(*Someone warm turned out to be a Daniel and Schuyler sandwich. This time I was the bread though and not the meat! We watched Justin Beiber's recent escapades on the news and rolled our eyes so hard the television looked like a fisheye lens. It was very hard to get me to unstick myself from Daniel to get ready for dinner but I'm ready in spite of my arm. Seventeen days left with the cast. Gah.)

Comfort object.

Once upon a time he taught me to juggle. Eggs he stole from a farm. Incentive, he told me, for if I did it just right we'd have scrambled eggs for supper (which I believed) and if I failed, we'd go hungry because the diner was now closed for the night and so was the corner store. Inside the camper we only had half a box of cheese crackers that tasted stale a week ago, two Twinkies and two bottles of beer, scavenged gratefully from another camper that was abandoned when someone we didn't know was taken off to jail and either didn't have time to dispose of his belongings or maybe they didn't belong to him in the first place. There were some interesting and scary people on the Midway but mostly there were people on the run.

You sleep with both eyes closed and I sleep with one eye open, Loch told me when I asked why he was so crabby. I was sure he was going to yell about the five broken eggs and my rumbling stomach. He sleeps on the outside, closest to the door while I sleep pressed against the wall. He sleeps with his arms around my head, or when it's too warm just holding my hand all night so that he can keep track of me in his dreams too.

Today he stretched out with his head in my lap for a short sleep in the sun while I read by the library window. I'm pretty sure he continues his sleeping habits now to weigh me down, to keep track of me in his nightmares, where I stand right out in the open, juggling hearts. But he doesn't have to yell anymore, I've gotten so good at it. I've only broken a few but most of them seemed as if they were easy to repair. Easier than mine. Some break and smash when they hit the ground, some just chip and crack.

My stomach rumbles and I smile. We buy our eggs from a farm just past the other side of the city these days. Ninety-six at a time, stacked in cardboard flats, around once a month or so. I never ask the price, I just hand the farmer's wife forty dollars. It doesn't seem like enough and yet she always seems so happy to see me.

With my bad hand I twirl my fingers in Lochlan's hair, making perfectly even red ringlets. The more curls I make the deeper he sleeps. I wish someone would bring me some crackers or a Twinkie because I don't have the piece of my heart anymore that's okay with waking him up when I need something. I should probably look for it but I'm sure it's long gone. Besides, it's kind of nice to just sit here and watch him sleep.

Afterimage.

The toast that Duncan made for me this morning turned to concrete mush when Lochlan walked in, sat down beside me, called me possibly the worst thing he could choose from a list of so many things and then refused to say anything further, having not said anything since Saturday night. The protest went up so vocally all around us. I didn't know whether to be grateful for the blind support or humiliated that there really are no secrets left and we're reduced to horrible words and worse deeds to repay each other for whatever we fight about.

Believe it or not, around here Lochlan's ability to bestow the silent treatment on someone is right up there with me spending the night with the devil. Both are wrong, evil, particularly cruel and yet look at us go.

He had asked what I was thinking. Batman had just stopped in during the evening to say that the paperwork was in order, that everything looked good. Congratulations and be cautious, he said. He left and we felt so elated!

So elated.

I forgot and answered too honestly.

I wish Cole was here to see this. 

Come again? Loch said and so I repeated myself and then I tried to backtrack. He would have been happy to have this security and to have the upper hand with Caleb.

Jesus fucking Christ. Do you ever stop thinking about them?

I was dumbstruck. No. I assumed that was obvious. I exist through ghosts and fight to love the living. Why in the hell do I spend every waking moment asking for a lobotomy? I can't turn it off.

I just meant-

Maybe you should go find Caleb and get yourself a little taste of the abuse you miss so fucking much. 

Never dare me. Ever. Just don't because I'll take it. Maybe I will! 

Good! Tell him I said hello from my ivory tower where I sit on piles of money and yet he's STILL running my fucking life! 

Gotcha! Ivory tower, piles of money, life!

Bridget, don't you fucking walk out that door!

Too late. Sweet dreams.

I left. I slammed doors as I went and then suddenly I'm outside in the cold and now I have to follow through because I'm too stupid to let him have the upper hand. Besides, now Cole is in my head and my brain is stretching far over the memories, ripping, tearing, straining over the holes he left behind. I can't cover them and so I fall right in.

In a fight between my mind and Lochlan I can afford to let my brain win. If I let it lose it's worse for all of us. That much I have learned in the past six years and absolutely nothing else of value.

And now what's done is done and I've had two days of ice-cold fire to burn the shit out of what's left of me now.

I slam the plate down and leave the kitchen and another chorus of protest goes up. They don't have to lean on him though, he follows me even as I attempt to evade him, doing circles through rooms, doubling back, rushing forward and becoming panicky and desperate when I can't shake him.

WOULD YOU STOP? He roars right behind me and I come to a screeching halt. He plows into me and knocks me down, saving me from hitting the floor with both hands out with a modified Heimlich that hurts so bad I'm sure I'll need a full body cast by supper.

He drops us together on the floor where we sit, staring at each other. He looks irked but normal. I look like a hot mess. Pink tear-streaked face with pure humiliation painted all over it. I can't breathe and he softens. Stop. Just take a deep breath. He pulls me in against his shoulder just as Sam hits the top step.

Checking on things. 

What a good friend. Loch nods against my head and Sam goes back downstairs.

Why can't you stay away from him?  If I asked you to, could you? 

Don't ask me to. 

I think I'm going to anyway. 

I'll try harder. It's been seldom anyway. Please just let me sort this out. 

Stand by while you stomp all over my heart and ask me to be okay with it? Hell, no, Peanut. Hell no. I'll give back my share and yours too and he can take his money and be alone. This is not the deal. Are we clear?

I shook my head. No, we're not clear. We are murky and impenetrable. We are confused and fucking fucked the fuck up. We are never going to crawl out of this hole. I fell in and Lochlan jumped in willingly after me.

Save yourself, I plead.

If I go I'm taking you with me, Bridge. Don't even try to put up a fight. 

I never put up a fight. 

Yeah, well, maybe it's time you learned how to.

Sleepwalking the wire (slow-motion, no net).

I didn’t need you then and I don’t need you now

I wake to that song still rolling through my skull. I see my teethmarks on a monogram, thumb-bruises on my ankles, shoulders and temples (I feel those that I can't see) and the most delighted expression on the wide-awake face of someone I'm not supposed to see first thing in the morning but rarely do anyway, given the planets aligning just right.

No other teethmarks anywhere, fortunately, but I can't seem to unlock my knees. My head hurts and he reaches out with one hand, smoothing his thumb across my forehead as if he knows.

I always know when you have a headache. Your eyes show pain so readily. 

I shove his hand away. No they don't.

Sometimes the only cure for what you have is an existence in this place right here. 

And where am I, exactly?

The place in the song that's stuck in your head. 

Between the Devil and the deep blue...oh. Stop reading. 

I'll share too, if you want me to. 

Please.

I'm wondering if you're in love with me.

Wrong book. I think you're reading Jasper's mind right now. You're forbidden and therefore exceedingly attractive to him. 

He roars with laughter. I'm forbidden to everyone, apparently. What's going to happen when you go home?

Nothing. What are you going to do to get through the next spell without me?

Why do you assume it's a concern?

Your eyes show loneliness quite readily, Diabhal. 

You're projecting. 

I'm not lonely. 

Bullshit, Princess. You wouldn't be here on sympathy alone. 

No, I'm here because I'm fucked in the head. 

Good, now the rest of your body matches. 

Wow. Proud much?

Always. It's nice being the one who's wanted for once. 

But I'm here because I'm selfish.  

But you're not. 

I have to go. 

Now you're selfish. How much for you to never leave me?

I told you. Bring Jacob back to life. 

The problem with that is if I do that I'll never see you again. How is that a fair exchange?

It isn't and I'll have tricked you but if I'm lucky you won't realize it until I'm gone. 

You aren't lucky though. You never have been and you never will be.

You should really lie to me more often then you tell the truth. 

I do you enough favors. Now run back to your circus of a life before I keep you anyway. As usual, the only thing you fucked badly was my mind.