Maybe a month, maybe two.

Three hours of Skyping with Nolan this morning and ninety-five minutes of the vet's time and I am now broke and we are hospicing a beautiful older-than-I-thought horse, but not for long.

(I had just decided I would be the headless horsewoman for Hallowe'en, too. Flaming pumpkin and all.)

There are worse places to be if you're in your final days. Caleb remarked that I should have stayed out of it instead of being all upset over the mud or the number for a name and let the professionals do their work. I've had it now. I threw a clean plate at his head. He swore back and I lunged, caught by the braid from a very on-point Sam, who apologized profusely for managing to pick me up off the ground by my hair and also for inserting himself in what probably would have been an amazingly fair fight for once, seeing as Caleb doesn't want to engage in physical altercations and seeing how strong I've become living outside in the sunshine in a surprisingly nostalgic summer thus far.

Ben won't even go see Aurora. He doesn't want to get attached. Same with the kids, though I think that's more PJ's doing so they don't fall in love with her too.  Loch gets attached to everything and will bear the weight. I'm going to be crushed like a bug, sending a horse up to heaven so Jacob will have one to ride since it's been a while.

It's fine if she has an ocean view and a warm salt breeze on her face when she goes. I certainly won't be asking for more than that when it's my turn. 

In the meantime we all get extra snuggles and carrots too.

I want to cry but it upsets her. It upsets everyone but sometimes it's a tap I can't turn off. I asked Sam why I gravitate toward all things that aren't long for this world and he said maybe it's not me finding them, maybe it's them finding me.

Love at first light.

Caleb stood in the front drive this morning, watching. Hands in his pockets like always, face set impassively, expressionless as he remarked on the fact that this isn't what he pictured when he decided to build the stables, figuring we would find a couple of young, well-behaved horses for the children to ride and keep me happy.

I pointed out that she keeps me happy.

She has only been here for a few hours yet. You can still change your mind, Princess. 

No, I'm good, thanks. (I'm still technically not speaking to the Devil).

She was grunty and gentle this morning when I went out to feed her and give her a bath.
She stood well for me, though John was two steps away and she was well secured and had distractions. I never ever want to be kicked by a horse so we went very slowly but she was great save for when I tried to scrub her hocks. I didn't push and she settled again.

Then Lochlan came in and she nudged right past me, crushing me against the wall as she turned. She stuck her muzzle right in his hair and rubbed the top of his head very hard, snorting really loud. I asked him to go outside and I would lead her out to see if it was a fluke. Nope. The moment she came outside she saw him and bent her head and did it again. Harder still.

I went and got a banana for her and when I tried to give it to her she stuck her muzzle against my chest and pushed against me, snorting as if she were laughing. I almost fell over. I think she's starved for companionship and I don't think I'll be changing my mind about her anytime soon. Not if she keeps doing this. I can't wait to see how she reacts to the rest of the boys.

The tiny collector of quickly-beating hearts.

This is Aurora. She's eighteen or nineteen. Her teeth are shit. Her back is shit. Her attitude? Also shit. Her old name was a five-digit number so I chose a new one. I hope she likes it. She lived in eight inches of mud in the blistering sun.They were going to put her down. I know she's going to break my heart but I brought her home anyway.

She's going to be therapy for a bit. She's going to be loved.

My apologies but I'm not sorry.

Ben cheered me up this morning, waking me with his bagpipes as he stood on the platform where we set up the new telescope. It's like a mini-stage so he has a perfect vantage point from the highest point of the cliff, directly on the line where the old crumbling rock wall divides the two main properties. It's far enough back from the edge that I don't worry if the kids play on it when the telescope isn't outside and it's more than perfect for Ben's piper moments.

So there he is in his boots and kilt and nothing else, playing laments and war songs and dance songs and some original work too. I finally took my coffee outside when I realized he wasn't going to stop any time soon and I stood at the beginning of the wall on the grass, still in my pajamas, holding my cup up to my face with both hands. Smiling even. Boats were coming nearer to the bottom of the point, a few speedboats, a sailboat. Some windsurfers. Then some locals in their zodiacs. Then two more larger sailboats, their decks packed with people enjoying a perfect day. Ben got to the end of Scotland the Brave, turning a slow circle on the final notes and when he saw me he yelled out JESUS, FINALLY! and put his pipes on the platform.

He ripped off his kilt and mooned the waterside crowd. Then he left the kilt, picked up his pipes, and went back inside, pulling me by the hand.

Smiling's just a phase.

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

I want to tell you about new music out but I'm afraid there's just too many surprise haymakers, chokeholds, corners and long quiet conversations going on here to just blissfully immerse myself into molten melodies. Too many words to sort through. Too many accusations flying as the Devil makes a blatant grab for a brass ring that's already been claimed.

I liked him better when he was subtle and mean. I liked him better when he existed within the confines of my nightmares, within the bonds of our arrangement and not like this. Don't vilify Cole any worse. Don't make this any harder. I don't write about Cole but that doesn't mean I don't think about him so much. Sometimes I wish he would help me with things, take care of things, look after things. So many middle of the night calls when I would be leaving work and our shitty car wouldn't start and he would get a drive over from one of the others, screwdriver in his pocket and he would tell them we'd be fine, that they could leave and I would always ask him why, what if he can't get the car started and he would smile and say I shouldn't worry about it and he never failed to get it working. Never even once. And he never let me accept a ride home from one of them so that I would be home safe because he always said if he was there, I was safe. He lied too but that's okay because I didn't know any better, because I existed in a weird space where I thought when he said I love you that it meant something and I'm actually sure that it did and I'm sure now that his big brother is forging ahead with yet another phase of this plan to destroy whatever he can't have. I'm sure that the total eclipse of the sun that was Jacob simply slowed down something that maybe should have played out already and now his frustration is showing, he's running out of time. Deprivation didn't work, neither did satiation. What's left? I don't know. There will be no white flags here. I'm not giving in. I was so close to happy I could taste it, breathe it in. Things were getting better.

Amazing how easy it is to control a fortune and how hard it is to control one single little human.

Just amazing.

After I weakened your relationship with Loch I paid Cole to put himself in the line of fire, so that you would be close. I continued to pay him right up through when you left him. That was such a surprise. I didn't actually expect that. You were so loyal to him for so long. I actually thought it fairly uncharacteristic when I discovered you weren't loyal to either one of us.

He didn't love you. He was a placeholder for me. While I went and made something of myself so that you would eventually have security, stability. Money. Basically all of the things I knew Loch would never be able to give you. I couldn't be in two places at once and I knew it would take time for you to forgive me for the sins of my past so Cole was the perfect solution. But don't think for a moment that he loved you. He didn't care one way or another. But he found the whole thing more difficult than he anticipated and I think the pressure drove him to treat you poorly. 

(I want to note 'poorly' doesn't cut it when you're having your head slammed into the floorboards while he violates parts of you that are so off limits they're still technically criminal but I'm still stuck on the 'he didn't love you' part.)

I was busy becoming better than Loch so I could one day come back and take over. So that I would shift back to being the good brother. The way our relationship started was necessary and I am sorry for terrorizing you but I had to do something drastic. You and Lochlan were so determined to be together. I couldn't let that happen. 

But it did, Cale.

But it did, Princess.

He had a voice that was strong and loud and I
Swallowed his facade 'cause I'm so
Eager to identify with
Someone above the ground
Someone who seemed to feel the same
Someone prepared to lead the way and
Someone who would die for me

I slid down his knees until we were nose to nose and he frowned and said he would miss our close talks once I hate him again. He put his drink down and put one arm around me. With the other he ran the back of his hand across my cheek, tucking my hair behind my ears, telling me I am beautiful, telling me he never meant to cause so much damage inside my head.

He wants to talk.

I delayed as long as I could, lying on the quilt, watching him watch my eyes for approval as he moved against me. So strong. So full of regret. So evil. So sweet. He kept my hands anchored tight in his fist, held against his chest and with the other hand he held his weight as he drove into me. It wasn't his usual style. His usual style is rough and surprisingly painful. He usually doesn't listen. He usually doesn't seem to notice there's a rest of me. He's usually a monster, disguised in a three-piece suit and when my toes curl up my brain shuts down. But it's awake now. It's curious and unrelenting as I wait for him to begin.

Ask me questions, Neamhchiontach, and I'll try to fill in the blanks and put your mind at ease.

Are you really going to spend the rest of your life obsessing over me? I lick my lips and steal his ignored drink. We're sober otherwise, straight and false.

His medium-blue gaze burns a hole right through. Yes. I've got the most important aspects of you well in hand.

Which are?

Your soul. Your youngest child. Your welfare. Your boys. Your heart.

I finish his drink, watching him pour another with one hand. The tears begin to roll down my cheeks. Or maybe it's bourbon. I have a stuffed up nose and I drank it too fast. Yes, it's probably just bourbon pooling in my eyes. No wonder they sting, like my skin again, tonight from razorburn and not from the sun.

Speaking of Henry-

He's mine, Bridget. I would not play games with the heart of a child. Every minute of every day I am grateful for him. And for you. 

He frowns at me as the bourbon leaks out more quickly now, flooding the moment until it floats up and turns over, bloated and logged. He mistakes my relief for disappointment as I try to picture what life would have been like trying to stretch Henry's strong little heart over someone new. Henry could do it but I don't think I can.

He wraps his arms tighter around me, pulling me in, kissing me briefly, snot, tears and all. Caleb hates germs so this is either an inability to let an opportunity pass or Henry really has changed him. Maybe in the same way so much has changed me.

Then what else is there? I ask him as his teeth linger against my lower lip. I put my hands up to hold his face as his eyes meet mine. He pulls back and stares at me, weighing his words. He drops them on me in spite of the fact that I can't lift them off and I bravely face being crushed.

Cole never loved you.

Oh, see, now that's where you're wrong. I was with him every day of his life right through his last breath so I think I would know a little more than you-

Bridget, I paid him to hold my place.

I try to fight to get off him but he won't let me. I stop struggling and just sit there, head down, defeated. I can't meet his eyes. This is humiliating and unbelievable. This is bullshit.

He did. He loved me, Diabhal. But Caleb isn't smiling. He says nothing. The bourbon pours all over the floor. I swallow hard and nod. You're right. I hate you.

He pulls my fists up and puts them against his eyes.

(It's not a lie. It's not a trick. Jesus Christ I don't think I'll survive this one but I am and I need to go now before I explode into a million little pieces because I loved your brother and I tried so hard and this one would have been something you really should have never told me because I would have been better off hearing anything else at all. Anything but that.)

YOU HAVE BEEN LEFT BEHIND.

Don't let me play Call of Duty with you.We were troubleshooting one of the xboxes last night and I'm notoriously eager to run with the big boys (as always) and also completely incapable of actually doing that. I started a single-player campaign and all I had to do was follow the two cinematic dudes, jump a log and then break into a sprint up a path to my right.

Nope. Couldn't do it. I couldn't even manage to look straight ahead let along figure out the controls for sprinting. Then that message would fly up on the screen and make me feel horrible. Just horrible. So I kept trying but I could only ever make it over the log and then I would get left behind. Ten times. Fifteen times. Twenty times and I threw the controller onto the couch and got up and left. Talk about post traumatic stress from being eight years old and too little to keep up when we went up the path through the woods to get to the baseball field.

***

Matt's new nickname is The Sandman, for he made me one of his specialteas after dinner and I promptly grew chest hair, sprouted a thick European accent and then passed out cold on Lochlan.

I woke up this morning sans accent, chest hair AND sunburn-pain. I ran downstairs, down the hall through the doors, down the other hall, through the den into their room and kissed a sleeping Matt on the cheek. His eyes flew open and he laughed. What?

I don't hurt!

Good, go back to bed, Doofus. It's seven on a Saturday.

I look over and Sam is facedown in a dream, one hand up on Matt's pillow clutching his hand deathgrip-style and I smile and whisper goodbye before going back, closing doors as I tiptoe out.

Aw. Also whoops. Sometimes they stay up all night watching movies and I forget. Sam is such a morning person, I miss him if he's not already up when I wake up.

I go back up and crawl up the center of my bed and then halfway back down under the quilt. I lie on my back and embrace the absolute lack of feeling in my skin.

Loch wakes up and he's all curls and mouth and and naked shoulders, leaning on his elbows. Where'd you go?

To thank Matt for the tea. Nothing hurts.

Oh. Thank fuck. He flops down on his face and throws one arm out to pull me in tight underneath him.

But he doesn't go back to sleep.

There's a memory of how we used to be
That I can see through the flames
I am hypnotized as I fantasize
Forgetting lies and pain
But I can't go back

The ashes call my name

Flashpoint/letdown.

Lochlan has absorbed his burn, channeling the heat and pain into pure energy. He is back to normal, but with bonus freckles and hair lighter than ever, tinging on the color of watered down Orange Crush and me, well, I'm still pink, swollen and too hot to touch or I will scream at you and then burst into tears. My skin stopped feeling the ache of the slow steady burn and has graduated to icy crawling. It's amazing how much this hurts. Aspirin and cold packs around the clock for me and blue balls for the rest of them I guess because even a kiss is a little above my skill level right at this moment.

And the Russian non-doc says, for goodness sake, stay out of the sun. 

Oh, okay. Yes I know this. I was so excited to be naked outside again sunscreen was the last thing on my mind.

PJ put a huge bottle of it on the counter and also on the patio right by the door. John brought me a cowboy hat to wear in the sun (his brown one, it's my favorite) and Ben gave me a really quiet lecture about looking after myself first. No matter what.

He did comment on my hair. It's almost white again. It's straw again too, but so is everything that touches me, even the softest jersey cottons.

I haven't actually slept. Mostly I keen and walk the house through the early morning hours. The doctor left some better painkillers but I don't take those kinds of drugs but I hid them in the cupboard for when I feel more destructive than I do now. Right now I would like to preserve myself or perhaps lie in the deep freezer for a little while.

I watched Caleb at dinner though. I watched him crush on Sam and on me and incubate his truth by sitting on it and I watched him curate his lies like a good devil should and I wondered what's next and then I realized he was as anxious as everyone else when he asked me if I thought I'd be better by Saturday. If I thought I would be able to be touched without flinching.

But not if I needed anything.

I would have an answer if he had asked, because that lobotomy would be good right now, then if I felt pain it wouldn't be so fucking familiar all the time. It would be new.

I can give you new pain, he promises.

Can't wait.

Pyromaniacs do it with fire.

Yes. Waxing trucks. Watering gardens. Pulling blackberries. (Fully clothed because amazingly sunburned.) Sigh.

Though if I'm good I've been promised ice cream and sparklers tonight.