So who did save your soul?

(Hold still for more first world problems because I swear storage capacity is worth more on the black market than bullets and gasoline combined.)

Ben took me out to breakfast this morning where we loaded up on hash browns and sausage and egg mcmuffins and then on the way to get groceries he ambushed me (again), taking me to the phone shop and trying to set me up with a 6 plus. He got one on release because he's one of the eight people in the world with hands and pockets big enough to deal with one. I grabbed it with both hands, tried to shove it in my pocket and then shook my head. I knew I'd regret it. It made for a fine angle from which to plead my case for a 128 GB regular 6.

Sold.

I loaded on every single thing I've got and I still have 80 GB free.

*falls facedown in surprise*

Damn. I'll never run out of music now. This is a very far cry from my 8-AA-batteries-an-hour (sorry Cole, I know those were expensive) Sony Walkman with the option of only bringing one cassette at a time. I always played Jewel's Pieces of You because she's easy to sing along with and it was 1996.

So just..yeah...I still have that album on my phone right now. (shhhhhhhhhhhhh)

It's good, okay?

Caleb was all Good for you! on the phone like I finally let Ben buy me something. I'm very bad with that. I don't know if you noticed but it's very hard to let them buy me things. They'll all nod sagely and agree that it's tougher than they would have thought.

Until I showed Ben the box full of new phones since probably 2006 and he laughed. I don't think I've ever made it more than 14 months without someone buying me a new phone. It's pretty much the only thing I collect, other than boys. Reluctantly, of course.

(Phones reluctantly. Not boys.)

(And yes I blubbered through my call with Caleb. Because I'm a big fucking baby, that's why.)

(Do as I do, not as I say.) Quadrilaterals and polynomials.

You remain,
My power, my pleasure, my pain, baby
To me you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny.
Won't you tell me is that healthy, baby?
But did you know,
That when it snows,
My eyes become large and the light that you shine can be seen.

It's like he's waking up. Eyes flashing, smile unable to leave his face, curls highlighted in the darkness. No longer in the shadow of the devil, he thrives in the moonlight, charm leading the way. A quiet confidence tried on for the first time in ages, inspected and repaired to one hundred percent. My heart soars. I wish sometimes that it was only us again, plotting our course on a stolen gas station map with a borrowed pen and the most foolish of dreams, dreams we never finished. Dreams we don't know the endings of yet. Dreams we can maybe finally afford.

But it isn't just us now and we have a whole built-in circus full of characters, full of workers, everyone knowing their role, playing their part and when the Devil lets go he leaves a wake of flames behind.

Only one person can control those and it isn't me.

Our audience is each other, our acts change daily, costumes too. Our profit is high and our word of mouth travels as far as the eyes can see. To a place I have never seen, a place Lochlan describes as magical, full of adventure and surprise and comfort too because comfort is essential when you travel so lightly as we are wont to do. I nod enthusiastically. I'll believe anything he says when he says it like this, only the adventure came to a grinding halt right here, grinding, sliding right to and then slightly over the edge of the world, tipping perilously toward the ocean but not quite. The wind ruffling our hair, threatening to help gravity just enough to end this grand adventure but our hero thought of that already and has fashioned a safety-rope made of my fears and doubts, twisted tightly together in lengths, knotted for strength, destined to save us somewhere along the line, the face of caution and preparation to his headlong rush, the childlike fear of the unknown that kept him from taking me into his arms and dropping off the face of the earth never to be seen again, lost in a mighty whirlwind of show after show after act after show. Going down in history as the courageous lovers who never saw the end coming until it was too late.

Except that isn't how it ends. Our act has changed so much through the years, veering haphazardly down one path, doubling back before heading deliberately down another and still here's one more path and it's different than all the rest but as he always tells me when the doubts rear up like boogeymen to chew off my limbs and then feast on my heart,

We're together. We have food. We have heat. But most importantly we have each other and I'll never need for more than you as long as you'll have me and be beside me. 

We need more than food and heat, Locket. I have to have grade ten math to graduate and I need an actual job and if we ever get caught we're screwed-

I'll always provide for you. I'll teach you the math. And you don't need a real job, that's why we're here. I'd rather do magic for the rest of my life than suffer indoors at some stuffy office gig and we're too good to get caught, darling Peanut. And that's the best magic right there. We're independent. We're perfect. We're invincible! 

Does this mean I can go get cotton candy for dinner? 

No. I stole beets and carrots from the field just down the road. You need vegetables to grow strong. 

You just said I was perfect. 

Perfectly miniature. I think you'd have a easier time if you grew just a little more besides. Then you could reach those dreams without me holding you up. 

You and your modus vivendi.

Everything I say you lie along with me (she said)
Every song you sing is that because of me (I said)
Any time I cry you always laugh at me (she said)
No matter what you do you won't belong to me

Caleb left this afternoon. Halifax-Dublin-London-Dubai-Delhi-Spain and then home again. Six places, twenty-two days. Which isn't much time in any place but he's rested and ready to conquer the world while we three here decide on whether to accept his offer of armistice once and for all.

I cried when he left. I cry when any of them leave. I cried when I saw Santa at the mall yesterday so this isn't a particularly awful thing, just a thing that I do that I can't fix and don't care to.

(Santa seems early. Don't you think?)

He said repeatedly if I change my mind he can send for me. Lochlan said it wouldn't happen so Caleb cut him out of the conversation all together. Ah. Brotherly love. (Here, take her. Naw, give her back, I changed my mind. You're still a monster.)

Duncan is nine days from coming home. Single digits. I am counting hours almost.

As a surprise while Caleb is gone I have arranged to have his house cleaned top to bottom, carpets and draperies steamed, wood conditioned, kitchen professionally detailed. Then a day before he returns a grocery delivery including fresh flowers.

I'm good like that.

I'm outstanding like that. I spoil my men. Mine, even if I'm not theirs.

And I know what armistice means. Maybe he likes me dumb and pretty, still a child in matters of this life but I know it doesn't mean an end to the war, just a break. Which isn't up to us to accept or reject in the first place. He was going on this trip anyway. That is the break. He wonders if things will change while he's gone. If I will miss him to the point of shifting allegiance. If I will be so lost without him here that I will turn over everything to his charge and leave his nemeses out in the cold.

No. I will not. However. I would be open to a different sort of arrangement but this time I will make it myself and he can either agree to it upon his return or find out what it means to be left out in that godforsaken cold himself.

No one's going to build a monument to love here.

Last minute instructions as he's beginning to pull his things together for a three week round the world odyssey to diversify, reaching out to some untapped desperate markets and have a trickle of European profits to round out what is shaping up to be a surprisingly solid and easy to oversee selection of projects. I reassure him if I have any problems I can easily reach him by phone. If that fails I can always go to Batman for help. Caleb frowns and says he'll check in daily and nothing can go wrong that can't wait.

I nod. This is a technicality. He didn't have to put me in charge of anything. It could have sat with a short note on his voicemail to relay his return date and an automatic reply on his email to say the same. He just likes to put me in the hot seat. He is always testing me and I always remind him that I do business using logic and common senses because that's the way life works. He always frowns and says I sound like Lochlan.

He tells me he is going to miss me while I count out pills and more pills for him to take along. Some are dailies. Some are just-in-cases. Some is spray nitroglycerin in triplicate and it's all neatly labelled now and in clear bags ready to be pulled out of his carry-on bag for inspection at airports. This part makes me a little nervous and so his daily check-ins are five deep. Batman in the morning. John at lunch. Ben at dinner. Henry at bedtime. Me at night. This is so over-engineered I want to Caleb to wait, that he can get Luke or even Batman or maybe possibly me to go at a later date but he wants to get this done and onto the books before year end.

I tell him to avoid the women. And the Russians. He laughs and tells me he's too old to get in any trouble these days.

Any advice for the really hard parts, Babydoll? 

Late in the night when you can't sleep, you mean?

Precisely. 

Call me. It'll be early here. I'll talk you through it. 

Or you can just come with me. 

I shake my head. I'm trying so hard to avoid this part of the present.

Take care of our son and if anything happens, Bridge-

I nod. I know what to do. I know where all the papers are. 

Not what I mean. I mean if I'm gone, don't let them vilify me to Henry. I want him to be proud of me. I don't want him to have to hear the things I have done.

My nose gets all stingy and my eyes start to leak but I nod. I didn't let anyone do it with Cole. I won't let them do it for you. 

And if I go, Bridget-

Just.. Just shut up. The odds aren't there that you won't come back so let's not do this. 

Well you don't read the letters anyone has left for you so I made a video. I emailed it to you already. Watch it now or if I don't come back or later but watch it eventually, okay? It's important. 

I nod and he kisses the tears off my eyelashes. Diabhal? I can't talk about this.

Hey. I know. And this goes both ways. If you need me to get through the really hard parts, call me. 

You're never going to get any work done. You realize this, don't you?

That's fine. I'm at a point in my life where I set up the pieces and the puzzle solves itself. 

You're so humble about how hard you work. Stop it. You need to take it easier like you promised. 

I need to actually be busier because then I get into less trouble concerning matters of the heart. Did I tell you one of my side excursions is to the Taj Mahal?

I have always wanted to see it with my own eyes and it's hard not to turn jaded green at his news.

Send me a selfie when you get there. I'll put it on my blog. 

You'll do nothing of the kind, Bridget. 

It would be nice for people to see that you're human, Cale. 

Why would I want to be human when I can be a God instead? And he leans down to kiss me hard because I'm finished. There's nothing left to pack.

Gods don't need luggage, Diabhal. 

This is not my final form, of course. I like to travel in disguise. He winks and lets me go. His charm. I could drown in it if it didn't dissolve my bones the moment it touches me.

Even at my ugliest.

You always say I am beautiful
As you tear me to pieces

Matt came home early this morning. Early like 3:47 this morning and of course everyone is now asleep and I'm all Hiii? Someone come play with me? But no one answers except the furnace and the odd random cat meowing for attention and winding around my legs.

He walked in with his customary clear call, Honey, I'm home! I thought Sam might burst but he didn't because that would have been messy and ironic and so instead he only grinned huge and glassy and rushed into the front hall and we all followed and Matt was greeted as if we hadn't seen him for years. It made my chest hurt because Ben would go out for six, eight, thirteen months and we would stay up and greet him the same way. Hugs. Smiles. Tired relief like okay, everyone is here now, home safe.

We can actually sleep now except sleep is still waiting for when Duncan is home too. At least for me. The rest of them can sleep but me, I always wait.

But Caleb leaves before Duncan will be home and  my chest hurts every time I think about that too.

Bridge. Come back to bed. 

Yeah. Okay, Locket.

Comets are a girl's best friend.

All 142 frames of this are amazingly touching. You can click through them all here.

***

Take me all the way to the end
Show me how you want it to end
Keep dancing with the dead
Go ahead
Keep dancing with the dead

The devil's in your head
Filling in the stance
God is playing dead
So save your breath

I declined Caleb's offer again this morning. He leaves in a few days for Dubai and will be gone for weeks. He thinks I should go with him and has managed to make the pot so sweet if I dove into it I wouldn't even sink for all the sugar. Dublin. The Canaries. A whirlwind trip to see everything I've ever missed. With him. The original benefactor who brought the world to me. He thinks I'm throwing my life away once again in order to follow Lochlan around. Baby duck, he calls me. Imprinted. This is wrong, Bridget. I went out and made a life for us and while I was ensuring your future you ran off with the Joker.

He is mad about that and also because he actually thinks I'm about to order plastic cufflinks for him for Christmas and he insists I am more than that, that I should strive harder to be what he wanted me to be instead of what I have become.

We come bearing our baggage, hauling the weight up on our shoulders, braced in a rigid stance facing each other. He is never going to put his weight down, while I would drop mine in a heartbeat except for the fact that my hands are fused around it, melted together and I can't seem to let go.

Everyone sees a different facet and I blind them all when the sun hits me. A miserable diamond, a shattered visage, a valuable and yet worthless trinket set by a market rate but fetching whatever number is called on any given day. Some days I am surprised. Some days no numbers go up at all.

I'm not sad that he's going, honestly. I'm looking forward to the break from his intensity. I'm looking forward to debriefing Henry and not being criticized because I can't crawl out of my own way here. I'm looking forward to being in charge and being deluded about that as well. I'm not actually in charge. I never will be but the North American side of business falls to me in Caleb's absence and I'm anxious to prove myself worthy. A diamond in the rough, or something. I can be in charge of his high-stakes ventures with his full confidence but not of my own household. How telling.

Like playing Barbies but giant oversized Barbies with beards!

This morning I painted Ben's nails for him and helped PJ do a mask on his face. I asked Ben if he wanted a mask as well, for exfoliation and he asked what the mask tasted like. He's looking at the front of the container. Cucumbers and coconuts? I ventured. But probably like chemicals. 

He declined. For once.

Lochlan came in and did his Oh ho ho Santa-Claus laugh. He saves it for his happy/incredulous moods. I chased him around the house trying to get him to submit to some treatments too but his idea of effort is not brushing wet curls. Then once they're dry he rakes his hand through them and has perfect glossy red loops.

I swear to God in my next life I want that hair.

Ben's nails are black. There's no other color ever. Well, once when Ruth was four he let her paint them pink. They were still pink when he came home from tour and if you look at pictures online from that summer you can see the pink polish on every set of horns he throws.

It's great.

PJ asked how to get the mask out of his beard after about fifteen minutes of waiting for it to harden. Rather, he whined for a good ten minutes while I guessed at solutions.

Have a hot shower. Or stick your whole face in a sink full of really hot water?

Oh come on, Bridget! Seriously? There's no easier way to get this out of my beard?

I don't know. I don't have a beard so I'm not the expert here.

Wait. Loch, how do I, oh nevermind. Not like you can grow an actual beard. (Oh. Burn.)

Naw but at least I can grow a set of balls and not let her play beauty parlour with my face, asshole. 

Checkout is 3pm.

Had an epiphany! A diamond headband with a pixie cut would be hella cute. Just need to find one now. God forbid I mention it or I'll be taken over to DeBeers and held there until I pick something. I don't want something from there. I mean like a Goody Rhinestone one from the drugstore.

In other news, I woke up long enough to page through my favorite Christmas catalogue today and every model made me think of Drunk J Crew.

(I never laughed so hard lately as I did at this website.)

But then I found Caleb's Christmas present for this year. No, not the Maserati. He doesn't love those cars in the same way I don't 'love' DeBeers. I'm getting him THESE.

JESUS CHRIST.

I've been rattling around the house mostly since 5 am (I don't sleep anymore. Why don't I sleep?) and I looked out the window and abruptly it was like someone flipped a switch and the sun rose. Like it was dark as I walked toward the window and I blinked and it was light out.

I wish I could do that at will. I hate the short days so badly

More later. I might be hallucinating and should probably go back to bed.

Small but not quiet.

I can't believe I let myself break down

Every morning now at four I get up, turn on the fireplace and bring my phone and headphones back to the middle of the big bed. I burrow back down between the sleepers and put on music. Mostly I just play Run Free/Moving On/The Road on repeat until I fall asleep again and then when Loch's alarm goes off at six he will quietly lament the need to tether me to him so I'm not wandering around in the dark. It was so easy once with a tiny fifty-six-square-foot space. Not so easy now. Fifty-six hundred feet and then some.

He'll wrap his hand around the back of my head and pull me back in. So warm. Perfect. He'll promise me we'll get new headphones because these ones are broken from waking up lying on them and after snoozing for twenty minutes or so he'll leave me here and go get ready for the day.

I put the headphones back in and press my forehead against Ben's arm until he shifts and spoons with me. He says turn it down and I ignore the request because I can pretend I'm asleep and he doesn't know what a lifetime of sleeping with music on has done to soothe my brain and how much I missed it recently.

He is back to full sleep in seconds anyway. I press repeat another fifty times until my batteries run out and then I get up too.