Big screen buffet with a side of Jesus.

Church in the pouring rain this morning. Umbrella wars in the parking lot as there were literal jostles to keep me dry (for the record, I don't think I'll melt. Maybe they're not so sure). Sitting in wet tights. Singing in wet shoes. Ties loosened, yawns suppressed. Collection plates filled with arcade tokens. Next week Chinese chocolate coins. Someone has to keep Sam on his toes. Once we we used Lego. That was fun.

Caleb just frowned when I passed him the heavily loaded plate and tucked his envelope in underneath the tokens as best he could. He leaned forward after handing the plate off, frowning at Lochlan, who was working hard at staying awake. I stepped on his foot twice and he just grimaced from the sharp heel and ignored me otherwise.

Maybe chocolate coins aren't such a good idea. I'll probably eat them all in the car before we make it all the way to church. Good. It will keep my stomach from growling.

Ben is still sleeping. He was up late doing some work and came to bed so tired he forgot to take off his t-shirt and when I woke up it was as if someone went Sous vide? Mais non! BROIL HER! I was gasping for air. Lochlan woke up with a start and then laughed quietly and closed his eyes again for twenty more minutes.

We got Netflix this weekend and no longer sleep either, you see. There are too many fun things to watch, like all the Fast and Furious movies again. Sharknado! The 100. Breaking Bad. I almost stayed home from church to start that one. It was a tough call but I really had to get rid of all these tokens. My purse must have weighed twenty pounds.

This afternoon Daniel has agreed to dye my hair back to blonde. Red is fun but not on me for so long. I miss my silver and gold.

YES.

My Dear, find what you love and let it kill you.
         ~Charles Bukowski

Salvaged to salvager.

Caleb found an interesting old photo last night. In it he and Christian have me swinging high between them, their arms up in the air, me dangling from their hands. I am about eight or nine in this picture, Caleb is eighteen. I think Cole took it with his pocket 110 Kodak camera. He took that thing everywhere and it was a far cry from his eventual collection of high-end Canon cameras, some of which I still have.

Caleb said he was going to have the photo framed. I just rolled my eyes. Andrew and some of the others kept remarking on it, all evening long.

Look how little you were! I bet they could still do that. Let's try.

Let's not.

***

I woke up in my usual man-sandwich. Ben has taken to sleeping wrapped around my back again but instead of moving back to his coffin position in order to actually sleep he's not moved an inch, waking up warm and suffocating and comfortable as shit. I don't mind the weight, but what little amount of room I have for wiggling is all but gone and soon I wonder if they'll just kick me out all together because they get closer and closer as years go by. Lochlan sleeps facing me, his chin on my head, arms around my neck and shoulders. He heats up to a good hundred and ten degrees each night and basically I'm sure I begin each morning poached, sous vide, and ready to eat.

Fitting, since no one brought me egg mcmuffins this morning. Ben, get your clubs.

I might only be kidding.

We had breakfast on the porch with Sam. Toast. Captain Crunch. Coffee. Bananas. Sam did a little off-the-cuff, off-the-clock counselling and Ben was very gracious considering he has the unfortunate designation of being married to us and all of the baggage we carry around from place to place as wayfaring freaks.

He is the glue, the enthusiasm and the fervent wish for routine and for home that keeps this solidly moving ahead. I don't actually have to fret about being left out. They both do as we sometimes pair off for geographic or argumentative reasons. He does not want to be left behind for historical reasons so it's in our best interests to keep him informed and educated.

One of the things I learned over the past two or three years is that when you are a kid and things happen you are forgetful, resilient and forgiving. You gloss easily. Years go by and you dismiss horrifying betrayals and events as water under the Bridget and then you mature and realize those things (which you thought everyone went through) weren't normal and may very well have had an incredible mark on shaping who you are now.

This is where we are today. Currently both the departures of Cole and Jacob are less terrifying than other things, eventual tragedies sure but not something that shapes a person except in future displays of emotion. I cry randomly now. I can't help it. It starts like a nosebleed and I can pinch my face and sit down for a minute and it passes. Sometimes I just ignore it and stand there breaking someone's heart as we choose lightbulbs or hull strawberries.

Other things come back to the forefront as I struggle to coexist with those who shaped me into who I am today. Are they to be thanked or blamed for this mess? Did Lochlan stunt my growth with all of the candy and g-forces and teenage lust of the early days on the midway or did Caleb stunt it with his own brand of despicable evil, bestowed on someone who surely would have been an angel, had she been left to thrive but instead wound up in some sort of multi-decade game of Stockholm syndrome, symptoms coming and going like the phases of the moon?

Ben doesn't actually care. If he knows all the details then he has more power. If he has all the details then the past can't shut him out, and he can't be dismissed on account of being a bystander. An outsider. A saviour, of sorts. A deliverer from evil. A hero.

I say that with the tears just running and he finally looks at me and his eyes are all but swimming in the soft morning light and he says me? A hero? I nod and he just shakes his head.

I never asked for much. But then I got you guys and realized I have everything now.

McPeace (just a thimbleful of grace for now).

It's still raining. I opened the door this morning to find Caleb standing there with a beautiful bouquet of white roses and a bag from McDonalds. A big bag. When I opened it I saw a dozen egg mucmuffins and as many hashbrowns.

Flowers? What flowers? The way to my heart is a seventy-thousand calorie breakfast path.

But then he asked if he could join us and I hesitated before saying yes, always tipping toward acceptance for Henry's sake. He followed me into the kitchen and Loch stood up so fast he might have been sitting on a spring.

Caleb put the bag on the island and then apologized to him and then to me for engaging in very poor timing to rehash a very old fight. Loch is indifferent and cold but accepts it. We're trying very hard to live with this and every cog in the wheel is just one more thing that keeps this from being some idyllic dream compound like what you'd see in the movies. Caleb puts out his hand and Lochlan shakes it and PJ exhales slowly, probably glad he doesn't have to play bouncer again, always.

I get a brief brotherly hug and we are digging in.

I almost forget to put the flowers in water. The kids mow through their food so quick it's unbelievable and disappear again to play Minecraft with Christian. He is blowing up everything they make. They love it. I find a vase and point to it and Ben pulls it down from the cupboard and then he is off too and soon it's just three of us in the kitchen because PJ has joined the gamers after eliciting a firm promise that we won't kill each other with sharpened English muffins.

Caleb asks if we would like to talk it out. Formally. Maybe with an objective party or someone of our choice. If we can get past the parts that keep the resentment on the front burner why wouldn't we want to do that?

Loch says no, we deal with things in our own way (Sure do, Loch. That rug we keep sweeping things under is hella lumpy, no? It's also eight feet off the ground now) and I nod to back him up, not to agree with him but Caleb won't know the difference even though he's staring at me as I watch for Loch's almost imperceptible cues and follow suit.

How did you do it? Caleb asks quietly.


Do what? Loch's losing patience now. A breakfast sandwich only gets you so far. He passes half a hashbrown to me and I eat the rest of it instead of taking a bite and passing it back. He should know better but when he holds his hand out again and I put the wrapper in it he just stares at me like I am the smallest, most wicked potato thief in all the land.

How did you manage to get and keep her loyalty? It's not as if your overall treatment of her was all that stellar, thinking broadly. 

Some things are meant to be, Diabhal, and you shouldn't mess with them. Lochlan meets his eyes and does not waver now. He holds the gaze of the Devil and he holds control. If there is only one thing in his miserable life that he can control, this is it.

Caleb returns it with a struggle but an admirable one. I have underestimated both of you. 

It's not that you did, it's that you keep doing it. You need to step back and realize you can't buy this. You'll never have this. Lochlan's words are so sharp I have to fight to keep a blank expression because they're cutting everyone in the room and when I shift my gaze to Caleb he is staring at me.

You can't have her. 

I don't think he even hears Lochlan but Lochlan says it anyway. His confidence in this one thing is contagious and I hold Caleb's gaze to show him Lochlan's right. There's to be no more changing teams, no switching sides. If I go to him it's on my own terms and not his and it will always be temporary. Fall asleep happy, wake up alone. What's the dream in this? Oh, right, it's better a rare Bridget than no Bridget at all but Caleb has already recovered from what tiny vulnerability he allowed to slip out just now for all the world to see.

I'll continue to make my remunerations, of course. I want you both to know I'm committed to atoning for the mistakes of my past. 

Lochlan reminds him he doesn't want his money.

Well, you may not want it but you need it, Loch. I want assurances that Bridget and both children will not be forced to live within a strained budget. It brings peace of mind for both of us. Leave it, please. For now. 

Loch nods, relunctantly. He's not anxious to begin the fight anew. No one is. We're old and tired and on the verge of almost being pleasant. Had Caleb not brought McDonald's for breakfast I'm sure I'd be kicking discarded heads off the cliff right now, my sneakers covered in blood. Ben, with his golf club, sticking it hard into the sides, metal sinking into soft brain matter, leaving a sticky, suction-thwock noise as each one comes away.

God. It's too early for this shit, isn't it?

Bringing forth a war.

Ben didn't let us get so far last night and I made a rare executive decision to delete not one but both of yesterday afternoon and evening's short posts. You didn't miss much. We sat out front watching the rain from the relative coziness of the porch, sipping on some whiskey (Ben had iced tea) and then Lochlan and Caleb started in on each other and Ben told Caleb twice it was time to go.

Caleb ignored him so Ben went and picked up Loch (right up off the ground because he wouldn't go willingly) and took him inside to the care of PJ and Sam, and then by the time he came back out, I had taken over from where Lochlan left off and Caleb and I were fighting wholeheartedly about the past. The Big Ticket Things this time and Ben got an earful he probably didn't need, one which I've probably never formally discussed with anyone, preferring to gloss whenever it comes up because damn, the past hurts.

And we were hurling it at each other in great big spiky mouthfuls that landed hard, every blow. Leaving marks, leaving blood but we couldn't feel it because of all the whiskey. So Ben listened for two whole seconds, told Caleb if he didn't go back home right that second that Ben would throw him in that direction and then Ben picked me up and carried me inside. I was still yelling all the way across the front hall and into the kitchen and then he put his hand over my mouth and told me it was okay. That I could stop.

Then he waited a few extra dozen seconds to make sure I actually was going to stop.

You good?

Yes, we've settled our differences.

It sounds like it! What are we going to do about this?

Nothing? Leave it alone!

Is that how he escapes scrutiny? He points at Loch. Because you won't address it?

He isn't under scrutiny!

Maybe he should be. Maybe we all should be! Didn't we already go through this? First with Cole and his abuse and then with Jake and his massive lockdown that had you so far hidden that when he killed himself it still took us DAYS to find you!

DON'T YOU SAY THAT!

Bridget, I-

JUST STOP IT. STOP IT!! 

They threw themselves around me then. All of them, Ben included. I couldn't breathe enough to shout anymore. The group hug sucked all the air right out of the room.

And then there's this:

I died. Lochlan went oh, fuck, seriously?! and everyone else kind of rolled their eyes and mumbled stuff about Game of Thrones defectors.

(I love both but in a fair fight I'd pick AHS, speaking honestly.)

(wait for it...3....2....1...)

JESUS CHRIST, BRIDGET!

Doomed from the get-go.

Look at us now
Are you happy with the way that things
Are going around here?
Are you happy now?
Opened my skin, made a claim of revolution
Then you let yourself back in
Look at us now, are you saddened with the way that
I am carelessly unbound and still happy now
Opened my skin, made a claim of resolution
Then you let yourself right back in

You are such a beautiful thing
When you're helplessly crying your eyes out
And I hope that there's a better man inside of me
But I'm starting to doubt that there is.

It doesn't matter that my thighs and arms ache, his fingers dig into my hips as he goes for broke, his teeth denting my skull, hands sliding, slipping. If we're not going for broke we're at least headed for home and abruptly he slows to a crawl and starts to talk. I cry out in protest. No. No no no. I don't want to have a discussion in the middle of this. I was having so much fun. He takes one hand up from where he has me trapped beneath him, tracing my eyelashes.

Please tell me you'll stop. I don't need that period of my life spilled all over the internet.

I need to work things out.

I'll buy you a notebook to write in. A diary. Something offline. He lets go of my face and kisses up my ear to the top of my head, picking up speed again. Unless you have good things to say too. You never say the good things.

I don't need to work out the good things.

Maybe we could focus on those instead. He isn't listening anymore. He does this. He works out his issues with me in the middle of this, a time when we should be focusing on talking less and there's nothing I can do about it.

I should have known from the first time when he slowed to a crawl, pulled me up into his arms so I was straddling his lap, looked me in the eyes and said, I shouldn't be doing this, you're too young.

It's okay, I said. I want this. 

You can't. You don't even know what you're doing. I'm going to hell. 

I threw my arms around him anyway and he tightened his hold. If you're going, I'm going with you, Locket.

On going too far and (almost) never looking back.

This took place after this but before this. I'm skipping all over the place, my apologies. It details the space between my big plans for reuniting with Lochlan properly and the darkness that swallowed us whole for a second time. Some things we can't get back, we have simply accepted this and forgiven each other anyway. I've grown up a lot. And weirdly I don't look back on it with sadness or anything for that matter. It happened. It was sort of a punctuation mark to that entire part of my life and now on to the next. We took a long break from each other after this. I started a family and a blog. And now here we are. The break is over, the past is history, the future was told (but no one believed her anyway) and it will take me the rest of my life to catch you up.

***

The music is loud and the club is dark when we are let in through the staff door. We are led through a small crowd. It's still early, the place is just beginning to fill up. As we walk I see different rooms with different stages. Burlesque dancers on one. Contortionists on another. We walk endlessly and I don't know how we'll find our way out when the evening is over. The room at the end opens up into a wraparound bar and several stages that reach out into the room, small semi-circles several feet off the ground. Everything is painted black and everything else is glass or silver. A curtain hangs in front of each stage. They are transparent but black. Okay. Okay.

Lochlan points to the ceiling. Listen, Bridget. I stop and pay attention. It's Echoes. Pink Floyd. Okay, focus on the music. My heartbeat slows and we're left backstage to get ready.

Loch is relieved. We're not the main event. I nod. I knew we wouldn't be, somehow. We're out of our league. We're children playing an adult game.

He takes the first half of the payment, all five one-hundred dollar bills and tucks them into the band of my bra. Then he kisses the top of my head, whispers showtime and the lights go out.

By the end of the night the entire place is jam-packed. Lochlan languidly rolls me in flames and licks them out. We don't actually go any further than that. We simulate a lot of things but we do it with such tension and chemistry that the crowd seems to like it more. They're holding their breath. The music pounds through me as Lochlan leans me back over his arm again, my hair brushing the floor before he pulls me up and I take the flame from him. His arms are strong but his eyes are unfocused and mildly apprehensive. He's not able to have much control, this is far too distracting and we're hanging on by a thread in reality, having giving up our plans to do the big tricks. The curtain precludes the big tricks even as we welcome the barrier it creates between us and them.

But the crowd doesn't care. The crowd just wants him to touch me. He looks handsome and evil and I look small and innocent. Every time he comes close the whole room pitches forward, tipping the balance and I wobble, afraid I'm going to slide into a darkness that never ends. His grip on me is the only thing I feel besides the fear and so I focus on that, just like I did when the world was bright and smiling and we got to be acrobats and it was oh so brief I blinked and the lights never came back on.

When we are packing up his tools at the end of the party the manager comes backstage. It isn't the man with the cane, it's a big young man, covered with tattoos. He looks like a caricature of a biker from a comic book. He hands Loch the rest of the money, five more big bills and asks if we will be a standing act. That we're good, people really liked it. Lochlan nods and pulls his ear twice which tells me to follow his lead so I smile wide and thank the man for the opportunity.

You, little lady, are amazing. He tells me and I grin stupidly but want to cry.

Loch shakes his hand and mumbles something about a taxi and off we go as fast as we can find the exit through a rabbit-warren of smokey rooms and lingering staff. I somehow don't expect us to make it out alive but then we do. Loch hails a cab and we jump in. The driver makes us pay up front. I don't blame him, we are covered in sweat, with matching smudged eyeliner and strange outfits. We go back to the rented room. Loch is keyed and manic, ecstatic. He shakes me and tells me how incredibly hot we were and we didn't even have to do what they thought we were going to do. I think they thought we were already there at one point. Even better. We can make so much cash this way, self-respect untouched. I'm so proud of you. He holds me at arms length. You are amazing. They couldn't take their eyes off you.

I just stand there, stupefied. I don't want to go back to that place. I don't want to watch them watch us and think we're doing things we aren't. That's sacred and precious. They don't get to see that. Why would they want to see that?

I break away from him and go and be sick all over the sink in the bathroom. He comes in and swears and then pulls my hair back. It's okay to be scared. Remember?

I remember those words because he said them at the bottom of the ladder too. That was the circus I wanted. Not this one.

You'll have to get someone else. I can't do this.

There is no one else. I can't just get a replacement. It's us. There's something about us. Besides, I couldn't do that with someone else.

It's not for sale. You sell us out for a thousand bucks? What's wrong with you?

We came here to make money. I found a way to double it!

The net profit isn't enough, Loch. Shut it down.

Net profit-what? This isn't costing us anything.

Think again! You may have something to prove but I don't!

And you're the only way that's going to happen.

Then I'm sorry but I can't help you. I can't do that in front of them.

Then don't do it for them. Do it for me. Do it so I can go back home with my bank account full of gold and I can shut Caleb up forever and punish him for what he did to you.

You're using me to ruin Caleb?

No! Jesus, no. I just want to be on even ground with him and his bullshit and the above-board shows pay nothing.

But the only way you can pull it off is through me?

Bridget. You're missing the point. With you by my side I OWN this town. They're going to remember me. I can get better gear with this money and have more time to hone my routines and apply to bigger shows and get back above ground and stay there once I'm established. We won't have to do it for long, just until I can get ahead of things. Okay? Come on baby. It's just like old times.

It isn't like anything else we've done. I don't like it Loch.

Tough. I did things your way but this is where the real money is, Peanut. Time to grow up. He grabs his jacket and leaves, slamming the door behind him but then locking it too. That part hurt the most, that he made sure the damn door was locked. By the time he came home I was packed, had shoved my bag under the bed so that he wouldn't see it and was pretending to be asleep. He crawled into bed, wrapped himself around me and fell asleep, thinking he'd convinced me somehow, in his absence.

He had not.

Bits + peaces.

(He knew before he forced me to admit it and then he took out my braids and cut my bangs. You looked too old like that, he said. He didn't say anything else after that for a long while, because he was too mad. Not at me, at himself. That was when he learned that my curiosity is a force to be reckoned with and reckon we have.)

I am directed to sit on a small wooden backless chair in front of a mirror while she braids my hair. Lochlan had to take a twenty-four-hour man shift and has gone ahead to the next town to put up flyers and distribute early-buyer discount tickets and so I am charged to remain with the fortune teller and will meet him there with the rest of the show.

Her real name is a closely-guarded secret. She's in her forties, single and makes really good tea. She said she wished for a daughter once but I have taught her children are nothing but worry. She doesn't like me all that much and I don't like her either but she is safe and Lochlan puts that before comfort.

I know this and so when she tells me to sit up straight because handsome young men like Lochlan don't like hunchback little girls, I do. I tell her the only things Lochlan doesn't like are when my bangs get too long and when my stomach growls really loud because he feels guilty.

She tsks and undoes all the braids and goes to work on braiding my currently too-long bangs right into to the braids so they aren't even there anymore. I look wide-awake and kind of surprised. Older. More mature. She puts a stack of graham crackers in my hands and stops talking for a while as I eat and she works on braiding all of my thigh-length heavy hair. When she gets to the bottom of each braid she secures them with three heavy elastic bands each and then wraps the braids around and around my head, pinning them together. Then she gives me a pretty scarf to wrap around my neck and asks if I want to try a lipstick.

No, thank you, I tell her.

You look better, anyway. Once you reach womanhood you are supposed to pin your braids up. 

Womanhood?

Sleeping with men. No longer virginal.

But I haven't-

Oh, I keep all secrets, darling don't worry about me. 

But we never-

Brigitta, darling-

It's BridGET-

It's so obvious. Young love, your tiny little camper, the fact that he never lets go of your hand. You should know your future though, it's important-

No, thank you. 

Did he tell you to say that? Because he told me not to read you. Men like Lochlan are practical and they will deal only in things that are easily proven. 

But he wants to be an entertainer! An illusionist! He does tricks and he believes!

She just laughed. You let me read your fortune, I could explain that for you too. She puts her hands on my shoulders as if there are things she needs to tell me but she needs permission and my guardian has expressly forbid it. But since I'm an adult now, with my braids pinned up I can give it.

Just once, okay? Don't tell him. 

You don't tell him. You're the one who will have to live with this, not me.

What do you mean?

Come and sit at my table and don't you ever breathe a word of what I say. Someone has to look out for you here, because he won't be able to when he must and because there are things I see from here, without even trying, that tell me things are going to become difficult and knowledge is power, my dear. I'd like to give you a fighting chance.