Sold out.

Without a hand to hold I followed the worn path in the floor until it grew too dark to see and then I stepped wrong and fell swiftly through the cracks. I threw my arms out looking for purchase but the sides were smooth and no one saw me fall anyway.

Or so I thought.

Somewhere in the last few feet, as the heaviness of bottom rushed up to meet me, that feeling of hurtling toward solid ground he grasped my hood in one fist, snapping me to a stop, dangling mere inches above death. A whispered oath and he began to pull me back until he could grab the sleeves of my sweater and let go of the hood and I could breath again.

Once on safe footing again he asked if I thought they had let me fall through the cracks.

I squinted my eyes shut because I don't like it when they read my mind but he threw his arms around my head and did it anyway.

We're not about to leave you behind, Peanut.

I nod from my place buried in a teenage hug.

You have to stick close, though, remember?

I nod again and tap out. I can't breathe.

He lets go and stands back, wild waves looking to explode into curls but not long enough yet. Eyes tired. Body wrecked. Healing slowly, mentally fucked like we all are but trying to be above it somehow while forcing honestly and transparency throughout the house, which is sort of exactly like me trying to boil the ocean, now, isn't it?

He stares at me. I'm being evaluated to make sure I'm okay and then he turns back to the Devil, the one who thrust his hands in deep, spreading those cracks wide, leaving a trail of sugar for me to follow until I dropped right in without a shriek, without a sound at all. Dead silent, just like my world when I choose to be invisible or choose to be bright.

I don't have to say a word. They'll do it for me, just as they do everything else. Speak for me, fend for me, provide for me, lie for me. Kill for me. Die for me. Fall for me.

Does it matter? What's the takeaway here, Peanut. What did you learn today?

I would stand with my hands clasped behind my back and try to force my ten-year-old brain to pay attention but she was in the clouds, soaring into space, exploding into glitter and rainbows and not paying attention enough. Not paying attention at all.

I stare at blue eyes and then at green (brown nowhere to be found). I hear the words as if I am underwater. There is sound but it's cloaked, murky and indistinguishable.  I see their expressions. I feel their hearts and yet I can't juggle them at the same time because I am terrified I might drop one.

The words become clearer as they get louder and I am abruptly yanked back close to Lochlan, who isn't as gentle as he could have been and the look on Caleb's face floors me as it generally does, because he talks one life and lives another and he looks alarmed but it's quick and I almost let it escape through my little fingers but I grab the tail and it squeals nonetheless and it's mine to keep and kill later.

The words grow quiet again, fading fast and I head off to find the lights and the music while they straddle the cracks in my world, balancing easily, one on skill, one on power, both on possession, both on love.

From my vantage point I feel the ire ebbing now, as the words become soft. Desperate. Conciliatory. Resigned. All the things they shouldn't have to be but are. I trade my safety for danger, my peace for war and my soul for more time. Keep it broken and it holds. Fix it and everything is going to blow apart. Keep her held there in midair and we won't have to change a thing. The show can go on.

I'm trying to boil the ocean here. Help or get out of the way.

I saved a place for you
I saved a place for all of you

Like I said, a whole lot of shouting and a nice shoving match in the driveway and everything is alright again. Lochlan erupted like a volcano somewhere after keeping himself contained all through dinner and homework supervision and sending the kids off to play games or read and then he went after Ben like a rocket. He can be a little cold to Ben's charms most of the time. If it's about him he caves, if it's about me he loses his shit. He was followed out by most of the others, who weren't interested in seeing this on a Friday night after a long week.

They held him back and let him yell himself hoarse until he had it all out of his system. All of it. Then when he was spent Ben walked over to him and put him into a bearhug and they didn't move forever. Dalton lingered on the front porch in case there were any further points Loch wanted to make but he was subtle about it. Busy with his phone. I sat on the rock wall and watched as Ben whispered to Lochlan, not using charm but instead weakness. He'll lay himself bare, leaving nothing left open to misinterpretation. Loch finally put his arms up around Ben's back and held on so hard, sagging against him, worn the fuck out. Disarmed, as it were.

When I looked up Caleb and Joel were standing just in the shadows between the garage and the stable. Hands in pockets. Watching. Faces expressionless. Caleb meets my eyes and tries to hold them but I refuse to acknowledge him and hop down from the wall. I follow Dalton inside and Duncan comes to take his place on the porch until Ben and Lochlan are ready to come inside.

***

When I get to the brightly lit kitchen it's empty save for Preacher 2.0 sitting on a stool at the island, Ben's guitar in his arms, head down, eyes closed, strumming quietly. I can't hear what he's playing and I turn and try to head upstairs instead but he calls my name.

I go back in and dutifully sit up beside him, legs swinging, staring at his handsome face even though he's still there with his eyes closed, trying to get the chord just right.

I almost flinch when he speaks again after sitting there watching him for so long in silence.

Thanks for the magnificent show of drama to distract me from missing Matt.

I roll my eyes and he catches me, opening one eye, squinting at me, smiling quietly. I think I had less to do with this than you all seem to understand.

I know. It's nice to be part of the weirdness.

That's what living here is all about, Sam.

How do you feel about all this?

I was just worried Ben would start drinking. I don't think I could stand it if he had to go away again.

I know that, Fidget. I didn't mean about Ben.

You mean...about you. 

Yes. 

I need to go see how Ben is doing. 

***

But I didn't go back out front. Instead I went through the side door and back to the boathouse where Caleb had returned alone and was still standing just outside his front door, on the water side where there is a long wooden balcony from the steps to the end of the kitchen outside with a glass rail overlooking the cliff. The first fifty times I walked it I was terrified but now I just consider it a part of my show.

He was leaning on the rail, hands outstretched, looking over my surrogate sea.

Bridget, this isn't going over well with anyone.

What isn't? I ask him. And for the record, I'm still not speaking to you! So there!

So why are you here?

I don't know where I'm supposed to be! 

He let go of the rail and turned to me, looking amused for the first time all day. You have two husbands and a dozen friends. All up there split between two houses and you don't know where you're supposed to be so you come...here.

The verbal equivalent of duct tape.

For crying out loud, Bee! I was kidding about Sam. Do you really think I would do that?

Were you kidding about Lochlan? Or Caleb for that matter?

Hey, don't even-I LOVE Lochlan. It isn't the same. And I thought you were always up for Caleb's invitations. It didn't seem like it was hurting anyone.

Except Lochlan. Oh, and me. Don't forget me.

Who could? It's not likely.

Oh, I can be forgotten-

Bridget! That's not what I mean. I mean you're the reason we're here. You're the nucleus of this house. When you're gone I think every single person here is lost.

You mean every lost person here is single.

No, I don't and don't do that.

Do what?

Win this with your words.

Okay. I'll use bald logic then.

I meant no harm.

But you caused some anyway. Don't you see that?

I wanted to take control back from Loch. I'll admit it. He was loving being the main focus. I needed something back.

So you tried to give me to Sam?

No. I just said that to cause shit.

And Matt agreed with you!

Matt still doesn't really understand the magnitude of Bridget as a force of human nature.

Sure he does, Ben.

Then why did he agree to it?

Because Sam is clingy. Like me. No one fucking likes that. It's nice to get a break, isn't it?

You don't miss much.

I see everything and can fix little.

You are little and can fix everything.

How?

By sticking to your guns, Bumble One.

Then stop causing trouble, Capital B. That's my job.

True.

Nice, Ben.

I'm sorry, Baby.

What would you have done if I had been all for it and then left you both to go live happily ever after down the hall with the reverend and the scientist?

I would be fucking dumbstruck and forever aghast at my own stupidity and forever missing you. Unless..

Unless what?

Unless they gave me latitude for cuddles with you.

Cuddles?

I mean x-rated fuckage, of course. That's the singular definition of cuddles.

So you did try to farm me out to Sam!

No, with him cuddles is just that. Cuddles. Cuddling. Side by each. Fully clothed.

Tucker, you're a piece of work. 

I'm trying to make everyone here happy. Jesus. Sam is miserable. I'm miserable. You seem to be the only bright spot in anything. Nucleus. The center of the universe. This is what I'm trying to say. And at the end of the day I'd rather see you love everyone a little than love one with everything. 

Does Loch represent that much of a threat to you?

Possibly. 

Then we need to sort this out. You can't love someone wholeheartedly if you're worried about them taking everything you've got. 

I can't fix this, Bridget. I told you that. Why do you think things have been so tough lately. I see you together and it hurts and I know its going to hurt worse before it gets better. Everyone says it's inevitable. 

They also said Cole was a standup guy and Caleb was never a threat. What does that tell you?

That...they're blind as fuck. Oblivious. 

Right. So don't listen to them because they don't know me. 

That's the problem, though. They do. 

Not as well as you seem to think. Why do you think they're still so surprised that you're right here, beside me? Because they are blind as fuck. Oblivious. 

Oh. now I understand when you say I give you backhanded compliments. You're making me feel better by insulting me. 

Is it working?

I think so, yes. 

Okay, so fuck off with the lax permissions. 

I'm your husband, not your keeper. I'm not going to put down rules. 

That's fine but don't give me away, either. 

But I'm such a lucky guy. I want the world to see. 

So film it or start a webcam or something. 

Really? I can do that?

NO. Jesus, Ben.
 

Thought I left the freakshow in a flat run but no, it came with me.

Let me wash away the painful words I wrote
We can smother out the flames within my soul
No more standing by the way that I believe
We can smother out the flames
With gasoline

Sometimes you have to accept that certain people do things for your benefit even when at the time it seems to defy logic right up until the moment that you get it. Like Lochlan waiting for audible confirmation every single night when he would head out for teardown or repairs.

Lock the door, Peanut. 

And he wouldn't go until he heard the lock click in the door of the camper.

Like Caleb demanding that my guardianship be split three ways. Not only to protect me but also to keep his own motives transparent and open and easily questionable. So anything Lochlan or PJ (the other two) doesn't like that he does they can discuss.

(By discuss, I mean push and shove each other and shout a lot until they get it sorted out.)

So the story goes that Sam got a little fed up with Ben's attempts to turn the tables and gave up on him this morning. Not cracking exactly but handing him off without hesitation to Joel, who spent all summer reiterating that he could help but no one would let him, as he was brought on to be of service in addition to all the other reasons for which he now won't leave.

I would have laughed but I really don't find this any funnier, honestly and sometimes Ben has really great ideas and sometimes Ben needs to be less of a bully about things that the common folk (all of us) are freaked out about that he takes in stride. 

Like sharing.

I think he figured the amusement pedigree alone would make us less uptight about certain things. All I can say is can you just IMAGINE how uptight we would have been had we not had that? God. It would have been stupendous, exasperating and so rigid it might shatter should you knock on it to see how strong it is.

(Ben had tried to give Sam a break in missing Matt by offering a little more cuddle time with Bridget which is so not cool and made Lochlan rather rageish) but Ben does these things with that sweet little-boy I'm-not-up-to-no-good smile that makes people marry him in some sort of fugue only to be reminded that later on he'll eat the contents of the cutlery drawer and then write you a fucking song that will liquify your fucking face or your knees, whichever he's in the mood to do and you forgive him somewhere between realizing you're now made of lava and it hurts and throwing your panties at his face.)

So here comes Joel and I alternately want to thank Caleb and wind up with my heaviest pot in my hands and whack him right off his feet for this. Joel can't counsel Ben. Joel will probably sleep with him too and then say Oh, I'm sorry, I couldn't help it, you're so tiny and fragile and alone in this big bad world and Ben would fall apart and believe every word until he remembers that he is six inches taller than Joel and has been around longer, in worse places so hopefully he'll laugh or maybe he'll just rip Joel's head off and eat the contents of his chest for breakfast (all with that innocent gaze) or maybe Joel will actually work his magic before Ben has time to charm him. I'm not sure which way I'm hoping it will go as long as it results in Ben feeling a little less like tissue paper and a little more like kevlar, because then when he feels better I will knock him off his feet with this pot too.

Eventually I'll tell him the coffee wasn't good but not now.

Let me stay here for just one more night
Build your world around me
And pull me to the light
So I can tell you that I was wrong
I was a child then but now I'm willing to learn,

Lying on the low white couch this morning in front of the glorious hard rain, the window my theatre screen while the devil makes me coffee. I'm his guinea pig. I'm not a coffee snob, nor am I oblivious though I maintain a cup of black questionably-aged coffee at a truck stop McDonalds in 1996 remains the best cup I've ever had, so I'm the perfect test subject for his new machine.

I just can't take my eyes off the rain.

We have meetings today and errands. I think he's going to pick up a Blackberry Passport. He asked me if I wanted a new phone. Heck no. And he has to switch cars for a day or so while his is serviced and detailed. He said he might get an Aston Martin and hesitated waiting for an impression to be made. I finally turn and gaze at him with my head aching and my eyes filmed with the beauty of the sea. What? I was just thinking about coffee from a truck stop and he thinks I'll be dazzled by his choice of cars?

But no, he wants to know what sort of latitudes Ben has extended to me in the past several days, latitudes I chose to defy and ignore. They won't help anyone, least of all those they are designed to console. But I see Ben thinks he's falling so he alternately throws everything at me with one arm and with the other he's blocking Lochlan's access to all of anything just because he thinks the minute that happens, well, it's over.

Ben is not falling though. He's just not feeling so tough. Why would he? Life isn't designed to be comfortable, I told you this days ago. It's all tears and white knuckles and gritted teeth and choked-back emotions punctuated with blinding black polkadots of pure soaring happiness.

So why would I tell the Devil anything? He already knows everything and so he invented a few more meetings (ramping up for fall, certificates coming due, need your input on these, and any other buzz phrases he can conjure for me on this bleak and beautiful grey fall day) in order to keep me close so I don't fulfill any of Ben's wishlist for self-destruction, now with built-in safety features!

Instead I'm going to sit right here for at least half the day signing a last name he hates and trying and failing to sing along with the Adele album I put on but don't know the words to. Because that's fucking annoying to him and today, I don't think I want to be anything but.

Sway (yeah, just perfect.)

You see, things were better before
The storm came and nobody wanted to breathe
And times were hard again for you and me

And I can't remember what time it was
That I'm supposed to be here now I'm late for love
For you take it all back from me back behind the door of love

We went to see Nolan for a few days, just Ben and I, a trip sanctioned only because Nolan's such a hardass with me. I can't charm him or loop him in or even deceive him and true to form I burst into tears when I saw him, telling him Ben won't talk to Sam, he won't talk to anyone lately and Nolan reassured me and then asked me if I could help inside and he and Ben would work outside and I found a neatly-folded mending pile and a decent station on the radio and I settled in front of the fire to sew, vaguely, coldly comforted by Nolan's open-heart policy for Ben, who kind of got shoved to the side somewhere between Lochlan's accident and Sam's inability to crawl out of his own grief over missing Matt.

I got all of the mending done the first afternoon and then spent the next two days looking out the window at the cold, Ben and Nolan out of sight, working on fixing the fence, getting the storm windows in while they worked to reinforce Ben at the same time. Nolan doesn't like to travel much anymore, neither does Ben so he made sure to have a very high-quality visit, accomplishing a lot, inside and out. It became obvious so very quickly that he really didn't want me there but he was not willing to leave me back at home, alone with the Jester and the Devil and at night he took out his resentment for me on me, tearing my clothes off, throwing everything to the floor, forcing his weight down on me, covering my face with his hand, refusing to listen, grinding me out so hard that I would start to shake and couldn't stop, even as I fell asleep locked tight in his arms, he couldn't stop it and it made him feel worse instead of better and it made me feel wrecked and awful.

By day I fielded the endless long-distance barometer. How are we? Better. How is he? Great. Doing really well. How often do you lie, Bridget? Ask me later.

And then suddenly on the last night there it was like Ben saw me, without a team. Without a squad or a staff or a wall. Without outside influence. Without clothes or makeup or even my long hair I used to hide behind. Just clear and focused and pure. Right there. Right now, Ben. This is either as good as things are ever going to get or we need to work hard to get back to the place we liked to be and maybe if you'd stop doing things that make you hate yourself, well, maybe you'd like yourself a little more. I'm not taking those orders you gave me for Sam. I'm not running with freedoms granted, I'm not changing a goddamned thing so maybe you should stop testing me and just BE with me.

Just be, as you always say. Take your own advice for once. Roll with it because this is who we are.

And he laughed and asked if I wanted less freedom and I sort of side-eyed myself and said, well, let's not be harsh here...but then we both started laughing and this time I didn't shake when he put his arms out. And I didn't cry and he didn't wish he could just have one drink and neither one of us felt pushed out of the room, pushed out of our own existence, we just saw each other and it's certainly not an end to the endless difficulties we like to make of life but it's a little bit of a safer place to be for now.

The ineffectual junkie.

Not by choice but by simple discovery have I come to realize that I was meant to experience life via my own white knuckles only.

There will be no escapism. No drunk forgetfulness. No free pass. No passing out. No drug-induced haze. No reprieve and therefore, no surrender. I won't get the choices given to most, excused by virtue of a controlled substance, forgotten because of too much wine. There will be no pain eased by a decision to throw it to the wind, no writing off of harsh moments or jabs of honesty because it will be experienced in full sober clarity.

I am positive I'm not alone in this, but I'm sure there are precious few others. Maybe there are a lot who just keep trying anyway but I know when enough is enough and I can be surrounded by people who can make the hard parts go away. They know their medicines. The cost, the reward, the side effects and the consequences. Maybe they are the lucky ones.

Or maybe in the end I will be the lucky one, the one with life in focus, that life that I can barely see as I squint my eyes half-shut to endure whatever comes next.

(AKA I'm not dead. Nice rumor though. I'm touched.)

Sleeping in the spotlight.

Take what you need, Bridget, but for our sakes, need what you take.

Ben whispered it to me a long time ago and it comes back to me now, words filling my head as I hesitate at the door, head cocked distinctly, listening hard for sounds in the house. How many times have I stood outside this door knowing things were on the other side that I could have if I wanted, but that I shouldn't but I did anyway. That the one here now needs more than I could ever provide. That permissions are granted but that it won't make it easier. That they will suck it up, absorb the blows, eat the pain, spit out the bones and be men and I will make it up to them, melting away betrayals, softening pain, swallowing fresh air to soothe the ache of regret.

I turn away and leave the door the way I found it, closed against a room filled with loneliness on the other side that will take months to heal. I can't fix this. I can't be a part of this. I can't put myself anywhere near this. I have enough on my plate right now and no appetite at all.

Formula one.

Somebody stepped inside your soul
Somebody stepped inside your soul
Little by little they robbed and stole
Till someone else was in control

I'm sure Lochlan is getting better just to prove to Ben that he isn't using his accident to earn extra time or attention from me. He blew me off twice already today when I offered to help him with things like breakfast and errands. He's very stubborn like that. He's always insisted there is no actual formula to winning oneself a Bridget. It's all about being in the right place at the right time and our darkened childhood street at nine in the evening on a warm summer night in 1979 was that place, he says. The rest is fate. The rest is the universe doing what it does best. Astronomy and Astrology are closely tied. The universe is a giant beating heart and we are the force that drives this big blue ball spinning rapidly through the galaxy, around the sun like a slingshot and back again, time speeding past us in a frenzy like hard weather. Time demanding to be spent before it's gone.

(Gee, Lochlan.You don't think it as anything to do with the way you've always done that, describing things to me in terms of love, in terms of things just being right because there is you and there is me. Nope. It was definitely hitting me in the head with your street hockey ball. You should always give your eight-year-old neighbor a concussion and then they will follow you around for the rest of your days like a baby duckling. That's the formula? Give me a break.)

He actually says all these things in between when I gave up on the new U2 album and put on my favorite one, The Unforgettable Fire. He sings along with the title song. He doesn't need any help to finish it today. That's how we seem to be marking his progress. They still insist he was fortunate to be so skilled as to be able to control not taking in any more of the fuel in an attempt to catch his breath. If he had panicked he would still be in the hospital or even worse and maybe that makes me clingy.

Like a moon, he says. Tied to a planet. 

More like a solar flare, I tell him. After all, if you're the sun..

He smiles.

Walk on by
Walk on through
Walk 'til you run
And don't look back
For here I am

Ninety-nine days until Christmas and here's our first present.

We got a deal. After a non-existent graduation for Henry, a reprieve from three terms of questionable marks for Ruth and an extra month+ off, it looks like the kids are finally going back to school.

Finally. The strike is just about over. They have a deal.

Caleb had given me a deadline of October first and then he was going to force my hand and send them to boarding school, but only because he doesn't like the private schools here any better than the public schools.

He's a hard sell, that Mr. Ivy League. He's up against me, a high school degenerate who went on to drop out of college. That wouldn't give me much leeway with our own family mediator, and so I had to pull up my britches and lean solely on my role as Mom. Which doesn't have much clout either. Mom's a former circus performer. Mom's deaf, has two husbands and some boyfriends and mom is under guardianship. They listen to Mom and then pat her on the head and give Caleb whatever he wants.

That's my life, in a nutshell right now. My lawyer takes all of my money. Okay, he takes all of Caleb's money. Interesting how that works isn't it? Yes. Shh.

But I somehow came out intact and the kids get to go back soon to their beloved school with the awesome atrium, double playing field and all their friends already in place. Thank God.

Thank Vince, actually. Mr. Ready got the job done, in spite of a short-sighted, heavily-skewed government and a tough bitch of a union besides.If the deal goes through it looks like this won't happen again until after Henry graduates. We squeaked through, I hope.