Did I say normal?

Batman, Caleb and my father are in the driveway looking at the vehicles.

Mom and PJ are in the library teaching Duncan how to knit.

Ben is still asleep (SURPRISE, I know).

Surrogate wife/Youngest child.

Sam is darling. I'm not sure how I feel about him right this second. I feel like he latched on to me, messed me up more than a little bit and basically decided I was going to fill in the gap for Matt's absence.

Sam knows better. I say that often because it's true. He does. So this sort of hurt. However. He's rejected whatever new light he saw me in and he's back to being himself so maybe I'll bring it up later in our weekly porch jazz session, complete with coffee and vinyl and affection that labels us friends, not possibilities. The way I want to keep it. As adorable as he is and as much as sometimes I think he understands me better than anyone I've ever met in this world, I need to keep this dynamic the way it is. And I've never considered anything else.

***

On that note, because things get really weird sometimes,

My parents are here.

Which means a three-day reprieve from table/fist/food-throwing, verbal wars and misappropriated affection. We do commune-lite when they are here, which isn't often. They think it's lovely.

Even Lochlan kind of let out a breath like he could relax for a bit and just be normal. Because it's so much fun to pretend.

One of us.

Matt got home early, having switched his flights so that he can maximize his time. He walked in through the front door at exactly 5:10 this morning, setting off the alarm and making the dog go apeshit. He yelled Honey, I'm home! and turned on lights and the coffee maker as he made his way around the house before looping back to his wing, where Sam (an incredibly heavy sleeper) was still far below, in dreamland. The rest of us are up and grudgingly waiting to greet Matt and where is he now? In bed with his traveling clothes on (gross. It's one of my issues) with his arms wrapped around Sam and Sam's face was absolute ecstasy and I thought See, Sam? This is how hard it is but I didn't say it, I just turned and decided if we're all up early I may as well make french toast.

***

He brought presents! Keep Calm, I'm the Queen t-shirts for the boys (yes, all the boys) and a beautiful teapot for me, because I have a tiny little black one that dribbles all over the place when you pour from it. This one is not drippy and also bigger. Because we always say we should drink more tea and less coffee and then we don't because there's not enough room. He bought a new Poland flag for Sam too. It's becoming their in-joke. We'll always have Poland, they say.

***

Last night Ben fired up Netflix again, stripped me down to nothing and forced me to watch Nicholas Sparks movies. I don't think we're compatible anymore.

***

Caleb sent flowers and the card said Just Because you're my Neamhchiontach in someone else's handwriting and Lochlan set them on fire. Someone should write a movie about my romantic life. They could classify it under horror. I would watch it and cover my mouth in shock, completely forgetting it's based on a true story until the credits at the end.

***

My throat hurts exponentially. I'm pretty sure it's psychosomatic. I always seem to get sick once the kids settle into routine and the weather changes. It's still 20 during the day and no lower than 10 or 12 at night and the furnace isn't even on. I may or may not have worn shorts this week more than once but my Blackcomb hoodie has always been close by too.

Pepperoni, ham, pineapple and black olives.

My surprise turned out to be pizza and horror movies. In bed. Sans clothes except for a t-shirt because my shoulders get cold sometimes. It's one of my favorite ways to spend an evening and if only I ever had the energy anymore to stay up late I would be able to watch more than two movies. It's okay, I can't do half the things I could do when I was twenty. Like eat pizza for instance. One slice and I'm good. Two and I'm staggering around like a little water buffalo with furry tongue and bloating.

No, it's not adorable. Yes, I did it anyway.

It was the perfect surprise Tuesday night activity. I hope for a repeat weekly. It's been promised, if time permits. But I'm only going to have one slice next time.

October isn't my favorite.

A surprisingly normal and average night and day so far.

I was told to cut my nails. They grow like crazy here and I scratch and poke everyone unintentionally.

John, Daniel and PJ pitched in and helped get the whole house clean, bathrooms included. In one day even! This hardly ever happens!

Lochlan set up a pre-Christmas contract with good remuneration. More art projects for him. He's so happy.

Ben said he and Loch have a surprise but not yet, tonight, which make me make a smarmy face at him and he said no it's not related to that but that they could prepare a second surprise if I want and he waggled his eyebrows at me. His face is weirdly expressive or completely stoic. He has no in-between.

Caleb sent me some paperwork to sign and return. He let Henry courier them to me and back for kicks. Henry enjoyed his new responsibility. They are going to eat hot dogs and watch Pacific Rim tonight. It's one of Henry's favorite movies. Cale took a very big step back and I appreciate it. I like him better as an absent Sugar Daddy than an omnipresent lover anyway. I keep trying to pet the wolf and then seemed shocked when it bites me.

Corey stopped by to borrow some equipment from Ben. Not only was he polite but he was almost pleasant and he didn't ask me for anything.

Sam is down to counting hours until Matt gets home Thursday evening. He's coming for an extended long weekend. He's not faring much better than Sam, in the heart-growing-fonder department. I think they really are soulmates. This will give Sam the fortitude to muscle through the final weeks. It's been rough. He's gone a little bit off the deep end.

Ruth had me camping the website all morning for the annual Fall Out Boy Halloween shirt. It looked pretty cool. I would wear that. Except I only know one song. She's been playing Centuries on repeat since it came out. I hit refresh dutifully right up until they said they would pick a later date because the servers crashed.

I cooked a whole package of bacon. It will feed half of us (I didn't notice the packages got smaller weightwise while the price went up yay) so I'm going to have to cook another and I didn't realize it until I was finished. BLTs for dinner with potato chips because it's been very warm in the afternoon and bacon sandwiches are easy to throw together for dinner right up until the stragglers come home very shortly before I give up on trying to stay awake and go the fuck to sleep.

Duncan is much better lately. A lot more relaxed with easy affection and his usual half-cool, half-mischievous attitude. He helped Dalton with some project today and now they've gone off for a coffee and a round of golf (Dunk doesn't golf. I asked for video) and then they'll be around tonight too.

I keep falling asleep in my chair. I think I'll go prep the veggies and set the table and then at least if I don't make it to supper time they'll be able to fend for themselves and I can crash hard. I hope the surprise can wait, if I do. I'm a very curious little person but I'm too tired to bug them today.

Ceasefire.

Ben forced an agreement early last evening. Caleb's not allowed to go after Lochlan because Lochlan didn't do anything. He's not allowed to go after me either and Ben tore whatever flesh was remaining off Caleb's bones with a few threats of his own. If Ben isn't there? Caleb doesn't touch me. Even if I instigate.

That's a good rule. In a strange life.

Loch looks worse today. Prizefighter-worse. He went grocery shopping with me and scowled at everyone with his magnificent lower lip jutting out just enough that no one spoke to him. Flannel sleeves rolled up, words inked all over his arms, bruises all over his face, he pushed the cart at the store so fast I had to skip to keep up half the time.

His rule was different.

You are never ever ever going over there EVER again. EVER! EVER, Peanut. You hear? 

Yes, Dad. 

He scowled at that. Then he gave me a new song that he found. A cover of Kiss from a Rose by Head Control System. It's been on repeat ever since because it's metal and it's all sung in minor harmonies and I love it to death.

Like everything.

More ice please.

This morning Ben and Duncan went off to a meeting and I went to church, where I sat and listened to Sam, wedged in like icing between cake layers. The layers being Caleb, who has a lovely tender jaw and six stitches heading right into his eyebrow (a handsome future scar) and Lochlan, who now has a beautiful purple-blue nebula of a black eye beginning and the remnants of a bloody nose. I keep passing him new tissues and he keeps shoving them up there. Caleb smirks every time he does it.

Sam let them have at each other in the yard behind the church. What a sweetheart. So Godly and pure, that one.

I give up.

I told them to cool it. That this isn't the way we settle things, that we're adults now. Lochlan yelled No, we're not! at the same time Caleb yelled Yes it is!

Alrighty then.

I could lean back in the crook of his elbow, as he swings me around slightly off my feet, arms up around my neck, kissing me brusquely in the cold. I hang my head back very far and gaze at him through half-opened eyes and he smiles and that's when I see the blood.

That's when I hear the shouting.

I'm not sorry, Lochlan tells me, smiling, shaking his head as he is pulled away from me so they can find out what happened. Apparently Caleb staggered up the front walk and they found him sitting on the steps bleeding from his nose and mouth and a good cut over his eye. There's only one person here who fights dirty like that.

Loch doesn't have a scratch on him. I don't think he gave Caleb time to fight back or even defend. Ben gave Loch a look and then drove Caleb to the clinic to get fixed up. That cut wasn't something we could deal with at home.

Caleb refused to press charges or finger Lochlan at all. He said it was worth it. He smiled at me as he got out of the truck when they came back, ice pack held against his eye.

I wanted to punch him myself.

Out by the woodpile.

He was giving orders by five this morning and I followed every last one, slipping into amusement tour mode, doing what we do best. It's only when I make up my own mind that it gets me into so much trouble, if I just let him keep running this show we'll do better than ever.

I was ordered to put on jeans and a flannel shirt and a jacket and to grab gloves. At least Loch asked if I would make the coffee. He could have just told me to do it. And then out in the dark because the big woodpile has got to be moved, divided and restacked at the foot of the driveway. The rest will go beside the garage. None of it remains here at the end of the orchard. If it does it will never dry.

He pours the coffee into two thermal mugs and off we go, hand in hand in gloves. Once down by the orchard I realize this is the mother of invention, not necessity. The wood is fine here. He just wants to talk and so we're going to move it anyway.

So we talk. About his fears and shortcomings. About my needs and grand plans. About us. About Ben. About Henry. About Sam. About how Caleb is going to keep me under his thumb right up until the day Henry moves out and then Caleb won't have any way to keep me here anymore. How he understands now that Caleb is going to do just that and anything I try to do in return is going to come back on me tenfold. That's why it was so easy for Caleb to remind everyone that I came to him, that I asked him for his time, that I asked him for his brother. That he's making me look worse than bad. That my integrity is so questionable right now it's a wonder no one has switched allegiance against me. That Loch knows what I feel, he knows the lengths I'll go to and he knows how my brain betrays me even as my heart digs in. That he isn't mad, he just feels so helpless.

But eventually we ran out of coffee and then words too but not wood and so we kept working until almost nine, when it was time for the kids to go to school and then after we saw them off we kept on working until the rumblings of my stomach told me it was almost lunchtime and Lochlan started throwing around the idea of me making my world-famous grilled cheese sandwiches because he could really use one and he stopped finally and smiled at me somewhat desperately and downright adorably and asked me if I could just, well, if I wouldn't mind just sticking close again. Like I used to. Because as old as we've grown and as much as we've been through together one thing hasn't changed, and that's the stark fact that I need to stay inside this pool of lightness, with him. It's safer that way. That I can just ask him for anything I need and he'll do his best but I'm not to set foot in the dark again.

Tsunami.

I know that I am good for something
So let's go give it a try
We got our backs against the ocean
It's just us against the world
Looking at all or nothing
Babe it's you and I

Caleb stands with his bare feet in the water by a few inches. Jeans rolled up. Shirt hem sticking out under a cashmere sweater. Fresh shave and haircut. He looks like the men in the L.L. Bean catalog. I wonder if they are sexual deviants too.

You came to me. You called me by his name. I took it as permission, as guidance that you wanted something more. I let my ego find honor in the fact that I am the only living soul capable of providing any semblance of Cole's memory to you. I'm sorry, Bridget. I thought it was what you were looking for. 

He puts his forehead down against mine. I wish I could have a conversation without this. My toes are freezing. His eyes are glassy but so are mine, snot dripping off the end of my nose and he frowns and chooses to ignore it.

I'm not capable of refusing any of your needs, Bridget. If you want something, I've made it my priority to provide it for you, not because you're an object but because you are what my heart and mind is focused on. I've been in love with you since I was a teenager. Everything I have done in my life is a means to an end. To please you or provide for you, and now for my son too. Whether or not you were aware of it, it's what keeps me going. Even if it will be met with derision from others. Even if it isn't good for you. But please understand you have value far beyond what any of us are worth. Far beyond. Unquantifiable. Here.

He finally offers his sleeve and I wipe my nose on his lovely sweater but say nothing. Cashmere tissues. Nothing but the best for our princess. I'm sorry I hurt you, he repeats softly.

I nod. It was really harsh. My voice comes out in a squeak. The tears start stinging behind my eyes again and he closes his.

I'm so sorry. Next time it will be good. I promise you, Baby.

I give him forgiveness only because it's easier than dragging this out. It's easier than trying to hold onto a grudge that's bigger than my body weight. Besides, every last man on this point has already had a crack at him and by now he has perfected his words for me, using the others as his working model. If their reactions were too far afield he would rearrange. Don't they realize this?

There might not be a next time, Diabhal.

For all the ways I exist as Cole to you, Neamhchiontach,  please remember that you alone are all I have left of him too. Don't deny me memories of my brother. Don't fuck with this. I got rough. I said I was sorry. 

And just like that he's the Devil again as he turns and walks away, leaving me up to my ankles in low tide. Leaving me to drown in the present because he didn't succeed in drowning me in the past.