While the cat's away the mouse...windowshops at Louis Vuitton.

Lochlan had to travel with Schuyler (ironic but it's business. I could be travelling too, with Ben but that would be personal, god forbid.) and so I am being handed from one keeper to the next, it seems. Ben is busy. PJ is tired. It happens. The rest don't like children, I think. They're all suddenly burdened with things to do.

And so today is Batman's turn. He has no idea what to do with me but he's cleared his day so he suggests shopping.

Uh. Okay? I'm guessing he needs some things and wants a woman's opinion. I should have told him to bring Daniel because I don't have any taste, good or bad unless it's black or covered with words or skulls or even better, both.

We wander around downtown for a little while. He shows me things that are not masculine at all and I finally ask who he's shopping for. He laughs and tells me I have a birthday coming in a few weeks.

You don't..I mean..you're not supposed to...

If I want to buy a good friend a present, I should be allowed to. 

A good friend? I'm thinking...what in the hell does that even mean? It means we're still vaguely awkward. That's what it means.

This would have been easier before. 

When I was younger?

Yes. I still remember your ripped underwear when I took your dress off you. 

I turn around and walk back down the sidewalk because blushing. Because I was so young and clueless and didn't have nice things and probably had my shit together more than I do now. Take that, nice things. You're not helping matters. He catches up and steers me back around.

I just mean I wanted to buy you some things then but I knew that wouldn't go over well with Cole. 

So you opened the account instead. 

Yes. Do you still use it?

I've never touched it. 

He stops and turns pale. Bridget, that money was for you to get what you need. Or to get away from Cole. It wasn't meant to save. 

I'm figuring at this point everyone and their neighbor's dog had a bead on Cole and they all just either were afraid of him too or figured I would somehow magically get out on my own.

(Yeah. I did that. I did it. On my own. Okay, well, I stood behind Jake when I told Cole I was leaving but I still did it.)

If you want it back you can have it. 

Of course not. How much is there?

I tell him and he becomes angry. Did he keep you from using it?

He never knew about it. 

Why didn't you take what you needed?

I had money from Caleb. 

Ah yes. Had I known at the time-

Had you known what?

Had I known you were spending time with Caleb with such regularity I would have intervened. 

You know something? Maybe we should go home. I have a lot of chores to do and I know you're a very busy man. 

I'm not to busy to spend a day with you, Bridg-

Like I said. I have chores. 

Asher was supposed to fix all of that so you would never be too busy to spend the day with me. 

Life never works out how you plan for it to. 

No, no, it does not. 

What did you want out of life? What were your plans?

Twenty years ago I probably could have easily answered that, Bridget. Now I'm not so sure. But I think maybe it's time I had a little talk with Caleb and see what his plans are. 

Is there any point now?

Am I twenty years too late?

Thirty.

Loch sent this to my email this morning:

As sweet as Pixy Stix® taste, they are not produced from sucrose or regular sugar. Instead, Pixy Stix® are made from a cornstarch-based sweetener called dextrose. Dextrose can have a much stronger effect on the bloodstream than sucrose, so those who are especially affected by blood sugar spikes should exercise restraint when consuming Pixy Stix®

Pshaw. I could have told him that but he knew. He always tried to nail my fucking hem to the floor of the camper and I'd be out spinning through the trees in the darkness until three a.m., lit from within.

Really, come to think of it, nothing's changed. :)

Eat, stay, love (In which I get a rare turn at being the grownup).

I was happily drowning out the construction noise from the front yard with the television. PJ and I were watching Eat Pray Love. PJ leans forward pretending he's not tearing up but I can barely keep track of my eyeballs for they are rolling all over the place. Mostly I have confirmation that I'm unique and possibly a boy since I would be the target market for this movie and I hate it. Julia's got nothing to work with here. Julia's lipstick is smeared. Her character just needed to loosen the fuck up at home and stop being such a stuck-up bitch and then she would have known exactly who she was.

I was saved with a text message from Caleb. As usual between the hours of eight a.m. and eight p.m. he just says Need you and I can go without question. In the reverse hours I either have to sneak out (not so hard) or jump through flaming hoops.

(That's a literal thing I've done, jump through flaming hoops. It's not nearly as scary as you would think but if I were to ask to go across the driveway properly Lochlan would be sure to set up too many, or put them up too high or something to prevent me from getting through.)

So I walk over in the rain, taking my time, wondering if I'm supposed to be as wishy-washy, unfulfilled and easy to manipulate as the people in that movie.

And then I realized I just up and go right to the feet of the man who sends a two-word text three or four times a day so yes.

The boathouse is quiet. I walk around the island and into the living room and see Caleb sitting on the couch in front of the window. When the projection screen is up he has a wall to wall view of the Pacific. He's staring at the ocean and I stare at him, noting his quite serious stubble and the fact that he hasn't moved since I was here yesterday to initial a whole bunch of changes to a contract after another meeting, which he's had more of since he retired than he did when he worked. Same suit even, except his tie is off and balled up beside him on the couch and the top three buttons of his shirt are unfastened. The papers I signed are still sitting on the table in front of him.

Are you okay?

Some days are like this now. Some days I'm just...so tired. He rubs his face and doesn't look at me. He's looking at nothing. I go and sit beside him. I sat down to take a few minutes to regroup and it just hit me, you know? Aside from a few days where I have unlimited access to Henry I could literally sit here for days and no one would even notice.

When did you eat last?

He finally turns to look at me. I had a tomato and cucumber sandwich from a place outside the lawyer's before I came home. I ate in the car.

That won't do, Diabhal. Oh, I could have fixed him with the amount of food in that movie but we don't live in the movies so I got up and made him some cheese toast and a glass of milk. I made a piece of toast for myself too.

He joins me at the island. He is almost in tears. Great. It's the theme of today. Tears Tuesday.

Thank you, Neamhchiontach.

You would think you've been watching the movie that PJ and I had on this morning.  I tell him all about Julia. He's like a male Julia suddenly. Doubtful, unfulfilled. Questioning. Fed the fuck up. Just sad.

That sounds awful.

It was!

He laughs and tells me he feels a little better.

It's the cheese toast, Diabhal.

No, it's the company. You. You make the world turn, Bridget. I feel better, actually. Less desperate, at least.

I should write a book about my world-turning powers. They can make it into a movie and women everywhere will watch it on Netflix and roll their eyes too.

Some women will watch it and want to be you. 

Those are the cracked ones. Like bad eggs only the cracks are at the bottom so you don't realize they're broken until you pick them up out of the carton. Show a woman my movie and if she begins to immediately fit herself for a tiara, eats too much cake and moves all her friends into her house you'll know she's a total fucking wingnut. 

What about the ones who roll their eyes? 

You'll know they're okay. 

So you rolled your eyes at this movie. Does that mean you're okay?

I hope so. Can you imagine if I was running around trying to find 'myself', identify my power words and act like happiness was some tangible meal I could eat in order to be fulfilled? Because yeah fulfillment! It's right here in this cheese whiz. Caleb, I don't even think this is real cheese.

It's not. 

But you still buy it. 

Comfort food. He shrugs.

Exactly. Because we know who the fuck we are!

Damn straight!

Appy mare don't care.

This morning they broke ground on the stables.

I'm not fighting Caleb about it. He can do what he wants with his properties but you can bet your sweet ass I'm going to get some tenants for those stalls.

And maybe a llama. Because they're mean and then maybe I'll regret selling the spinning wheel because it figures, doesn't it?

I asked PJ what we can get from the horses besides work and therapy. He thought for a minute and suggested glue so I kicked in him the shins. He's not a horse person.

Yet.

For those who were wondering.

I know he's not real.

I don't think I'm crazy either, but for the three minutes I can conjure up the preacher in my head those are three minutes that the ache inside my chest doesn't hurt quite so much. That's all.

It seems as if there are as many people rooting for me sometimes as there are rooting for me to fail and be swallowed up by my own inability to cope with everything. I'm trying so hard. Unconventionally so and I was given a pass so I use it. Sometimes I feel like I need to be destructive and sometimes I feel thoroughly insane and sometimes I'm perfectly content.

Sometimes I even forget, can you believe it? You can thank Ben for that. Loch too. You can credit them all for the tight net of support I fall into every day whether things go well or not. You can hate them or blame them but at the end of the day you should thank them for everything. For throwing open the big garage doors (all three at once) and telling me to come out of the shadows, into the sun, that it was time to go inside, that wishes don't work like this, that everything will be okay.

That no one is mad at me for spending time with the Devil or with a ghost.

That I should sleep a whole lot more.

That downtime is actually a thing one can do every single day.

That I'm so hard on myself who else would have the heart to be?

They make me cry and that also makes the ache in my chest hurt just a little less too.

I wish I could be crazy. I wish I could let myself off the hook. I wish things sometimes would change but I wouldn't give any of these souls up the way I so hastily gave away my own.

Thanks for the sweet notes. I'm so touched. So humbled.

The mad princess, hurling her defiance at everything that's good (in favor of everything that is not).

(Shhhh. Stand right here and never ever leave and I will try to keep it all the same, forever and ever, Amen.)

And I can't taste anything less.
Every time I'm forced down.
To be with yourself, take all the blood you want.
But not from here.
It's so beautiful to me, it is everything I see.
It's so beautiful to me, but it's nothing that I need.

Matt, Sam and I are having a slow-motion heavy metal dance party for breakfast. They think it's funny when I bang my head because my hair stays up like a troll doll if I stop fast enough. They've constructed a rather gentle mosh pit and yet I can still bounce off either one of them hard enough to make my teeth hum. It's ridiculously wonderful and better than toast.

Caleb at least has the patience to wait for the end of the song before he presses the button on the front of the stereo. I stop abruptly again with my tornado hair holding for 3-2-1 and then it falls, cascading all over my shoulders. I think he's relieved it grew back out so quickly. I look like me again. Matt bursts out laughing, it's contagious and Sam follows.

Caleb does not. He frowns. I think he's a bit put off that I left in the middle of the night. Ambushed with his thumb in my mouth and his other hand wrapped around my waist as he pulled me in close enough to bite. He didn't though so those small victories are the ones I win and the larger failures send me back for another try another time.

He smelled so good though. Like want and soap and good wine. Caleb shouldn't drink wine. It makes him weird. I shouldn't drink it either, it makes me warm on my cheeks and fuzzy in my brain but the invitation of a quick drink on the boat with all the little white lights strung everywhere because it's spring and the soft rain and barely dark sent me running for one of those pretty dresses and a boyfriend cardigan which is a total misnomer, Old Navy. If I put on an actual cardigan of a boyfriend it would hang past my knees and I'd be swallowed by it whole. Better to be swallowed by the boyfriend instead.

Have you forgiven the Collective?

I'm eighty percent there. I tell him and he laughs and tops up my wine. I have to watch this or I'll be shitfaced inside of fifteen minutes.

I was wrong. It only took around ten.

How are you? He asks from his place far across the counter now, close to the door. He doesn't know the mood of the house yet. I'm not sure anyone actually noticed I was gone. Sometimes they just assume I'm with someone or other and don't actually check. I'm a willful teenager with an unlocked window and no curfew. I'm a mess.

I'm a troll doll. Spin me and my hair flies up straight. Look at my tired, glassy eyes.

Fine. You? I play stupid because it's so easy for me.

Just wanted to see if you'd like to go for breakfast. 

I can't. Loch and I are going out for brunch. 

I see. Perhaps tomorrow. 

Not tomorrow, sorry. Church with these freaks. Matt and Sam wave as they leave the room. They're heading out for a morning of shopping before Sam barricades himself in the library to catch up on the writing he always leaves until the last minute. He's great at unstructured sermons however.

I wonder who he learned that from.

My brain promptly forgets everyone in the room. Gotta go, I say breathlessly and run out of the room, right past Caleb who makes a grab and closes on air. I slam the door and book across the driveway and press my back against the side door of the garage as I close it and turn the lock.

When my eyes adjust I see him through the dusty, filtered light coming in through the high windows in the big garage doors. Jacob is leaning up against the long workbench, sleeves rolled up, hair too long, eyes vaguely worried. It's as if he's right here condemning me for all the things I do that I know aren't right.

How did you know I was back, Princess?

I felt it. 

He grins and my heart explodes, stabbing everyone else in the back with tiny jagged fragments, made of glass. Collateral damage, I think to myself. They'll forgive me if I can't forgive myself.

Half and half (in the house of children).

People always want to know what I'm doing-doing, AKA listening to/playing/wearing, watching/thinking. Maybe that's what Pinterest was supposed to be for? I don't know. I like words more in this age of attentions that can barely span two molecules, let alone an afternoon. Pinterest was all pictures. I haven't been interest in pictures since I was six.

Wearing: Lucky brand t-shirts and frayed jeans. Docs. Whatever Caleb hates most. The most expensive, gorgeous lingerie underneath (Jane Woolrich, usually) because I'm a huge brat like that. I wear dresses when I should, no worries. Sometimes I don't wear anything but then I'm not allowed to leave my room. Unless I'm in someone else's room. Muhaha.

Watching: Having caught up with American Horror Story, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, we are watching The 100 (they have Olympic eyebrow skills on that program) and considering starting Breaking Bad which when I write it I always start writing Breaking Benjamin. Go figure.

Listening to: ABBA (Okay, I'm not but by virtue of some of the more flamboyant people who live here I get to anyway, RIGHT LOCHLAN?), Demon Hunter. Deepfield. Chimaira.  Rush.

Playing: Knock-Knock (I love this game so much you don't know), Hearthstone (I'm terrible but learning patiently) and on my iphone, Monument Valley (how far have you wandered, silent princess?) because it's gorgeous.

Thinking? You don't want to know what I think. Or maybe you do but I still censor myself as much as I can. It's not like Duncan's here and I need to roll my tongue back up and stuff it in my little head, right?

Do I write these things just to provoke them? Maybe.

***

Lochlan is eating crow and not sorry for it. Tells me I can't go anywhere and then says if we must go he'll come too and I roll my eyes and stuff more birds down his throat and maybe he'll choke on those if he won't choke on the words already.

Enough. Devil's right, Baby. You can't risk this so soon. 

I wait for everything forever. 

How did you get so dramatic? I just stare at him until he clues in. In any case, we said no. Help him to keep going ahead. Help him be strong but do it here with help. Safety. 

Safe is a state of mind I can't reach. 

You know what I mean. 

Naw, I don't think I do. 

Bridget, please. I can't. I can't risk you. Or him. 

What if we went and it was fine? What if nothing bad happened?

Then you would both become over-confident. 

Nice. Oh, ye of little faith. 

The only faith I have is in you. Nothing else. Not Ben, not time, not fate. Just you. 

(Caleb's words about the church of Bridget ring in my head, the bells that call the believers to service.)

But you don't trust me. 

That's not what I said. 

It's what you mean! 

I think I'm done talking about this. In time, you'll understand. 

Jesus, would you stop saying that? I'm as lucid as I'm ever going to get before the downhill slide begins to dementia and then just pure oblivion. Can't wait.

Bridget, would you stop? You're a child! You've got your whole life ahead of you and you keep pushing me away in favor of living the hard parts on your own! Just stop it! 

(Makes me wonder if I'm the one who's crazy. Maybe it was Lochlan all along.)

I won't push you away anymore. I whisper it. I can't hear myself, how can he hear me?

You couldn't if you tried now.

Aren't you scared? 

Always. 

Me too. 

Like a heartbeat drives you mad.

Lochlan is loathe to agree with Caleb about anything at all, let me tell you, whether it be enforcing reasonable bedtimes for the children (they both think 10:30 is fine) or letting me wander on the beach unsupervised (just no, Baby) so yesterday was interesting when he agreed readily.

I polled everyone else that I could find, besides. Then I burst into tears and called them all hypocrites and traitors and backstabbing assholes and they all looked so sad it broke my heart all over again.

Ben's look was the worst because he never said a thing. He came home mid-afternoon and asked if I wanted to help him in the orchard for a bit and then he went for a short run with Schuyler and came home with plans to take me out for pizza (alone) after a hot shower (also alone with him, SURPRISE).

I wanted to ask if we were allowed but I didn't and no one said a thing and he never brought it up even as I sat there and fidgeted and sighed through two whole pieces and probably acted like the biggest little asshole alive. He ignored it right through dinner and then we got back into the truck and I blew up in his face.

Why haven't you said anything about the trip!?

He told you?

Yeah he told me. You know come to think of it I don't know why he told me. 

It would have been better if he didn't. 

Exactly. And that's why he did. To cause problems. 

Are we having problems? 

I see no problems here, Ben. 

He laughs and pulls out onto the highway. We're delusional and pathetic and holding onto each other with bloodied white knuckles and one of these days we're even plotting to leave the continent together so we can get kicked out of a restaurant in Italy for starting one of our now infamous food fights, just like we did on our honeymoon.

As soon as we figure out how to be adults. That's the most ironic part of all. I realize this.

Frustrations and..cats.

Found my birthday present, if you please.

***

For the record, my phone (not even a year old and already replaced once) is going insane again, as is my truck key fob (which just had a replacement battery last dealership quarterly visit). I swear to God when the aliens come they're going to be looking for me first to see if they can reverse-engineer my technology and learn how to fix..earthly junk.

At least my hearing aids still work but they mostly live in the drawer because I do dumb things like duck when someone clears their throat and dive under the table when they close drawers in the kitchen if I'm wearing them. It's stressful and unpleasant and I know I need them adjusted but also I hate them so I'm not rushing to fix this, if you know what I mean.

Today is marginally cold and overcast so I opted to do inside chores this morning because chores, they never end and I'm thinking a few more years of all of us trying to keep up with this house and the grounds while I simultaneously try to keep two husbands and a demon happy, raise two teenagers and feed all of our friends is going to be enough and I'll be screaming for a household staff.

Not a maid or a service or a butler but a whole staff. Asher can come back and maybe bring a couple friends.

May as well go big or go home, since between the supervolcano in Montana and the Ring Of Fire activity as of late we'll probably be dead soon anyway.

***

Caleb summoned me to see him just after lunch.

Good morning, Beautiful. Have you spoken with Ben?

Not since he got up early to head out. Is everything okay?

He came here first. He wanted a little assistance in sorting out some anniversary plans. 

Oh, that's nice.

Not really. He thought a trip might be fun. He wanted to take you back to Venice. 

Why are you spoiling the surprise then?

I said no. 

Who says you get to decide?

Every man on this point would agree with me. Ben hasn't proven himself. 

He's been sober almost a year. 

Yes and in the six years you've been married to him how many times have we had to rescue you from him when you thought you could handle him?

He's fine now. 

And we want him to keep getting better. We can revisit this next year. See how he does. 

That's just great. When will I ever be the adult around here and get to make decisions about things I want to do instead of them being made for me all the time?

Never, Bridget. I'm speaking as openly and honestly as I can here. I don't think things will change. Ever. 

I forgot. The Devil can't have faith. What would he believe in, after all?

You. 

I'm not a religion. 

Look around, Bridget. The hell you aren't. 

Tell the wolves I'm home.

Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing our tails
Coming back as we are

We finished the chores with time to spare, lamenting the gorgeous property without decent landscaping because anything you do out here is going to be blasted by wind and salt and Bridget's Big Feels anyway. I can erode iron with my mind, or so they say. Imagine what I do to the grass.

Lochlan peeled off his t-shirt and let his milky white redhead flesh meet the sun for the first time this year. He stretched out on the big wooden double lounge chair and patted the space beside him. I curled up against him, fell asleep and found the time machine that took me back to a scrubbly, sunny hillside with a big wooden lounge chair just like this, a day off and a pale Lochlan who was much younger than he is now.

This is the perfect day, he said then and he says now and I am switched back to the present. I nod without opening my eyes.

Shush...I'm dreaming of the last chair we slept on in the sun.

Sam breaks the euphoria anyway because his curiosity is almost as dangerous as mine.
  
I'm assuming you're remembering better times? 

Better? Loch is surprised. No. They weren't better. It was just the two of us. We had followed a group overseas and then found ourselves alone and I took Bridget to stay at a house I had been given the address of from someone else on the show who took in performers but it was difficult. It was a beautiful property but we didn't speak the language and they were less than pleasant. They thought I had kidnapped Bridget because she was so young.

Did you? 

Maybe. He smiles.