Leave your baggage at the door. You're not going to need it on this trip.

Ben came home, as always in the middle of the night, by surprise, scaring me when I woke up smelling kerosene and I thought we were in our trailer on the road and Lochlan smelled like gas all the time. Everytime he lit a smoke I would close my eyes expecting to be blown to kingdom come by virtue of proximity but he would laugh and assure me he washed his hands. Or at least, he thought he had.

I was pulled up out of my sleepy fog and straight into Ben's lap and I put my head back down against his shoulder as his hands slid down underneath my hips and lifted me over and over. He whispered that he needed to plug in and recharge and I would have laughed but I didn't get it and asked him why he didn't go to sleep if he was so tired.

Missed my girl, he said.

Finally he put me down and I was back at the fair in seconds. Loch's arm went around me from somewhere in the dark and Ben sacked out flat on his back and yet I was still surprised to see him when I opened my eyes this morning.

***

Green cashmere underpants, skinny jeans and a striped t-shirt (so very Jean Seberg) today as I wait for my inspection by the Devil. He wants to know when Ben got back and I blush. He wants to inspect my shoulder from last week and I wince. Two stitches. The Devil is getting better. He had five stitches of his own this time. My teeth are small and sharp. I said we tore each other to bits and I wasn't kidding. We would kill each other if given half a chance but I don't even want a quarter of one. It was a mercy fuck. I just don't know who dispensed the mercy and who received it because we are equally pathetic and I was trying to prove a point.

(I did, in case you're wondering. Can't trust a carny.)

But the Devil doesn't want to compare healing speeds or plan his next assault. He wants to make sure I'm still of the proper mindset. The approved one. The satisfactory-smug one.

Hell, no, I laugh to cover my fear. Because now things have changed. Again.

I leave before he kills me. It seems like one of those days. A sunny inconsequential Friday is the perfect day to wring someone's skinny little neck, don't you think?

***

In between those things the three of us (no, not Caleb) lay in bed at sunrise talking. And listening. And plotting and planning and promising and working out kinks (not those kind) and coming to terms with change. And absence. And culminations. And last names.

And dreams too. Those stupid things you hang onto stubbornly, for so long you forget how it felt when you made them until the day arrives when they come true. All at once. Just like that.

(Don't be so foolish. It's never just like that. It took thirty-five years, all told and we're not done yet.)

Pluto is important.

(Who am I trying to convince here? Him? Myself? You?)

There is a polar ice cap on Pluto. Neat news to see the day AFTER I title an entry Polar Eyes, though that was more in relation to the polarizing effect Ben's tinkering with our arrangement has on the entire collective and how divided they will become over things that are not their concern.

But I get it. These things ARE their concern. Just as I am concerned that if Pluto has ice and NASA has interest, then perhaps it's time we reinstated it as an official planet. It belongs. Just like Ben belongs here and I daresay he better not have engineered this whole thing as a favor to a friend, eventually being in a good position to hand me over formally because if that's the case I'll be heartbroken. Touched but completely heartbroken.

I thought he needed me but it was the other way around and I am a little surprised at myself but it's very easy to say and do things when you have everything you ever wanted within reach. I'm aware that the circumstances of our arrangements leave me spoiled and in a position to pretend I don't have preferences. All I know is that when I fall asleep at night and everyone is home and I'm the bed meat in a manbread sandwich I have a smile on my face and that's an amazing turn from not so long ago.

However there is no sandwich right now as this week is just for two and one of the two is hardly speaking to the other one, locked in some sort of incredulous dismay that things aren't turning out as he expected.

I imagine that's exactly how Pluto felt when it didn't qualify as an official planet and had to be content to be backburnered.

But just like the space news tells me today, things can always change.

Polar eyes.

I'm watching endless replays of Nik Wallenda walking the new Orlando Eye. He did a graceful turn up there and I held my breath as always. He combined two of my favorite things in life and I wasn't going to miss it. Funambulism on a wheel? Yes, I'll get up at four in the morning to watch you conquer that any damn day of my life.

***

My house is full of flowers. Sam and Matt had the most beautiful bouquet sent to us to thank us for the help and the musical rooms. They're loving their close but private quarters here. Sometimes there are growing pains. I'm grateful for PJ's generosity and Sam and Matt's willingness to stick things out. Also I'm grateful for black and white arrangements because damn, these are amazing. It's the most striking bouquet I've ever seen. I put it on the big table in the front hall.

Caleb also sent flowers. To celebrate Lochlan not making any legal, official headway in his life. Nice. They are beautiful. Palest pink roses, as always from Caleb. Still in tight buds and not opened at all. His note was terrible. I had to burn it before anyone else saw it. The flowers I put in the library. The delicate bisque urn they came in goes with the walls in there.

Ben sent riotous rainbow roses for our belated anniversary. We both like black but he always buys rainbow roses if he can because I insisted once there is a place where they grow like that and it isn't that they are artificially colored. He said of course there is and now here we are. So loud. Like him. I love them. They are on the island in the kitchen so I can look at them until he gets back Friday.

***

You are competition
Take your happy childhood with you
When you leave you go completely mad
Weird concepts seemed to disappoint us
Anyone who hangs a life
In pursuit they all just break down

Head to the sky
I'm pointing at it
Sunshine illuminate the desert
Sleeping like friends and now we are all smiling again

Lochlan is trying to sort out Sunshine Illuminate on the piano this morning. He's so incredibly pissed at me. Says I jump for everyone else like a fucking baby goat. Says I don't trust him one lick. Says this is all just bullshit and maybe he should go. Says flowers make his nose stuff up and his throat close. Says we should never ever have come home. Says someday I'm going to regret all this time I wasted in keeping him at arms length. Says to turn the music off, he's done.

***

Daniel fell off the roof of the stables and broke his tibia. He was scraping moss off the shingles (we forgot to have it sprayed after it was built, oy) and landed on the raised flower beds and boom. His house is also full of flowers. The good news is it's a spiral-twist sort of fracture and he is cast and home resting. We have a late spring plan to watch netflix and gain weight together. Ben's going to cut his trip short so he can also come and look at Danny and his new puffy white leg. We've started calling him Baymax and asking him how he feels every three minutes.

You have fallen, I told him.

You think? He returned Hiro's line without hesitating. He'll be okay. So heartwarming watching everyone dote on him. He's our big baby. Even Schuy took the remainder of this week off. He's a little rattled. The fall was high. Daniel could have broken his neck. At least a leg we can fix. Unlike hearts or necks, they are pretty straightforward.

***

PJ said his disappointment in me ranks a solid 9 out of 10 today. He said it at least three times before I finally snapped at him that had I forged ahead with Ben's plans we'd all be homeless and in the shits right now and he'd be mad about that.

Do you really think Loch would do that? I don't think that's what Ben has in mind.

Yes, I do. I see him dismantling everything we spent the last five years building here and he wouldn't hesistate for even a second.

Wow.

Tell me you'd do something different if it were you.

I can't do that, Bridge. 

***

August was weirdly supportive. Maybe keeping to his Jake-allegiance. Maybe just being a jerk about things. His built-in moral outrage is loud and funny, in a way. Just like Jake's used to be.

For God's sake. Spend five minutes catching your breath, would you? 

I just threw my arms around his neck and hung on, because that's the most sense I've heard all week.

Emotional bellhops.

(All of this concerns a valiant attempt to make like easier for Lochlan. An attempt to give him legal standing instead of symbolic. It would be better for him financially and as a parent. Overall it's ideal. But it's not ideal in so many other ways and would create more problems than it would solve.)

What if you did nothing? Backburnered it for later when things have smoothed out a bit. They move too fast, you move too slow. Just give it a little more time and then meet them halfway. 

Batman's voice was full of reason. It showed no hint of taking sides or pressuring me one way or another. It just put out the fire and then offered me a good belt of Laphroaig, because it's better than the Lagavulin but still tastes exactly like you imagine licking a gravestone would taste.

(Peat whiskey is amazing stuff.)

I was taking a big old sip when I realized he was on the phone with Ben.

Oh fuck.

He walked away down the hall and came back ten minutes later. My sipping whiskey (and his) was in my belly five minutes ago. I figured Ben would be ragey as fuck but when I took the phone from Batman Ben was very concerned that I actually went over everyone's heads and consulted the supreme ruler of everything that we all deny is more of an adult then the rest of us and also more powerful than Caleb.

He asked if I was okay and I nodded and forgot to answer. Then he asked if I wanted to wait and work with the idea until this winter or maybe next spring we could, that he just figured I was digging in because of some misguided attempt to protect him and that I'm sweet but he's okay with it. And that if we wanted to celebrate our wedding anniversary when he comes back, we should because we missed it and seven years is supposed to be lucky.

Seven years we almost didn't make it to, honestly, because of this.

He apologized but said he was trying to make life easier. There is no rush. Lochlan won't be so happy but really nothing changes so he can't be too upset either. That Caleb will be thrilled and I could tell he was rolling his eyes in tandem with me. Then he asked if I would do him one small favor, right away.

I nodded again while I waited to hear what it was.

Go home, okay, Bridge? I don't like it when you're there. 

Already gone. I pass the phone back to Batman and finish the last drop in my glass.

Batman wraps up the call and winks at me.

Feel a little better?

Yes, thank you. 

Anytime. If you'd like to stay for dinner, I would love to cook for you. 

Among other things. No, but thank you. I have plans with Loch. 

Loch is working for me tonight. 

Habit. Whoops. I meant Sam and Matt. 

They went up to Whistler today. 

I have to go. If I stay that would be bad. You understand. 

Mostly, yes. But it makes me sad. 

Not impartial at all, are you? 

Not in the least.

Maybe, baby.

Will you ever learn, will you ever learn, will you ever learn, learn to listen?

Can you hear them calling?
You'll testify to justify, you have to find a way
Can you hear them calling?
With arcane eyes you're staring back at someone with no face
Can you hear them calling?

It's really hard when you need an impartial legal advocate in a fucking hurry and you can't find one because everyone is corrupt, opinionated or too well-paid to cross the line and give actual advice.

No one was going to bat for me here, they were too busy organizing my well-being, as if it were a record collection or a spice cabinet. This will work for now, they said.

What if it doesn't? Everyone's agreeable today. How do they feel when they're not agreeable? When they're mad about something. 

Loch tosses his papers on the table and gets up and walks out without a word.

He'll be fine.

He's posturing until it's done and then he's going to shut you out so fast your head will spin. 

He cares about me.

You're a means to an end. I'm the end. 

I thought you were the beginning. 

I'm the middle too. You're missing my point, Ben. 

So sort it out while I'm away. He smiles and when I blink he's on the other side of the country guaranteeing a lifetime of paycheques for himself while I founder around here in court.

Nice. Thank you, Benjamin.

I resorted to Batman. Do you have any attorneys that you trust that know nothing about me?

What kind of trouble are you in? 

I just need some advice. 

Caleb's a lawyer. 

This is very personal. 

Unless you killed someone, I can give you a list. If you killed someone all bets are off, Princess. 

(My inner mind laughs. He called me Princess. Only when he does it he sounds stilted. Like when Wolverine said it in the last movie and I laughed out loud in the theatre during a very quiet, very serious moment.)

I haven't directly killed anyone. I wait a beat. I feel like I'm responsible for death but it's like fourth degree. I drove them to die. I'm amazing, alright.

Bridget, talk to me. 

I can't talk to anyone except a lawyer who doesn't know me. Maybe a female just to make sure they stay impartial.

Maybe I'm just going to call an extended family meeting. 

Do that and I'll never speak to you again. If he was going to pull out the big threats then he twisted my arm and I was forced to do the same. His phone slid back in his pocket and he pointed at the chair.

Sit. Start talking.

The tears started before I even figured out how to begin.

The road to hell is paved in good intentions and apathy
What did you expect when common sense is your enemy?
I'd rather burn alive than drown inside your reality

Can you hear me?
Are you listening?

Spirit animals and hooky on Sundays.

This morning a bee flew into the collar of my hoodie and then down the front of my shirt underneath, hanging out in the hollow where my v-necked t-shirt met my skin. I tried to shoo it away but he wanted a ride, I guess. Loch came out to ask me something and I pulled out the front of my shirt wide, looked down and said go away and the bee flew out.

You didn't get stung? 

No, I think he just wanted a hug. 

That's fucking magical, right there. 

The bee proceeded to hang out around my shoulders and head the entire time I was weeding in the garden, for the rest of the morning. Sam said it was probably God, wondering why I missed church. I think it was probably Cole, wondering why I stuck Jake back in that room with him when he had the place all to himself for so long.

Cole started the whole Bee thing. Ben got it from him.

So yeah. It was Cole. Checking in. Making sure his brother didn't eat me whole, maybe.

They looked like superheroes in costume. I looked like a little piece of a vanilla bean.

Yesterday we put on wetsuits and tried out the wave runners. Jet skis? Whatever they are called, personal watercraft being too much of a mouthful. We stick in our own cove, to keep the peace with our neighbors around both corners (not part of our point but up the hill) and still there is enough room to have a lot of fun and that we did. It was freezing cold and horribly loud and miserable overall and yet still exhilarating. It took me almost forty-five minutes to peel myself out of the suit afterwards, though and when that didn't work, Ben picked me up and held me out straight and Loch took the top part of the suit and pulled and it hurt. A lot. Maybe it's a little too small and too thick and I need something a little more up to date but he said this was the warmest one possible and no.

I said he could wear it then. 

Ben said it would probably fit Lochlan anyway. 

That went over well. 

Original.

I question every part of who I am
I question every part of who I am
It's hard to tell which side of me is in the right
With these two different people inside of me
Fighting for my life
Fighting for my life

I'd like to say I had one drink and came back home after the game was off the air. I'd like to say that I was a good girl and didn't follow my mind down the rabbit hole I once saw Cole go down, where I've been looking for him ever since. I'd like to tell you I learn my lessons but I didn't, I'm not, and I can't.

Instead I tore into the devil as only a true disciple can and when the sun rose it found me standing in a ray of light still gnawing on his soul that I held with one hand, holding one broken wing in my other hand, dragging it behind me on the ground, face covered with figurative blood and a ridiculous look upon my face that took hours to scrub off. He was barely intact when I walked out the door and the light burned as I hissed in return to it.

Fuck off. I told it.

But it burned on, pressed hard against my flesh, fading right through my muscles into bones that ached with the leftover darkness. My eyes are translucent like a cat, my teeth sharpened, my brain switched off as my instinct kicks in to destroy what was given to me at his own request. Tear me down and make me whole again, he orders, and so I do.

One single Baby doll would have stopped it. One single gentle touch would have ended it on the spot but he knew better and kept everything twisted so high not once did I hear myself. Not once could I pick out the sounds from the roar of his desire, not once did I recognize the time or feel the pain when he tore my flesh with his own teeth, so much sharper than mine will ever be.

You're bleeding. I'm sorry. He whispered in a still moment and I read his lips because the noise. Oh, hell, the unholy noise.

I was already broken. It's fine this way. I dismiss his concern. Don't show me that you're human now or I'll lose my nerve.

But I didn't. I kept it clenched in my fists, white knuckles curled into claws to hold on as it slipped and scrambled for purchase against me. My resolve, now burned off, looks back on the way out and laughs. You're tougher than you look, it observes.

I know this. I whisper back and let go of everything to turn to dust.

Can you hear me?

If the rain comes they run and hide their heads
They might as well be dead

Down on the beach today I am careful, picking my way among the rocks. I am dressed in forbidden shoes and not enough layers by far in this almost-raining relentless wind. I miss the wind so I like to be in it when I can. Caleb is playing magnanimous hero today, affording me time for a leisurely walk on an average Thursday morning in spite of nothing. He continues past me and begins a wide eventual circle back as I stop on Watching Rock, a bigger rock than most with a flattish place to stand and look out to sea. Like Picnic Rock where Ben and I got married but here at home.

I'm facing the wrong way, forcing myself to look up at the cliffs instead of out at the beautiful ocean. Standing up on the platform between the end of the two backyards where we set up the telescope on clear nights is Lochlan. Arms crossed. Curls blowing straight. I can't see his expression but I know he disapproves. I wave and blow kisses but he doesn't move. Maybe he isn't looking at me. Maybe he's looking at the beautiful ocean. Maybe he's got his eyes closed just so he can feel the wind too.

Satisfied that I have figured him out I turn my face to look behind me, out to sea. Caleb is coming around and he'll take it personally that I turn away the moment he comes close but I need to seize the moment. I close my eyes and listen hard to the surf crashing against the shore. It's the most beautiful sound in the world, the best music, the heartbeat of a planet. My heartbeat matches in muffled cadence and I smile even though my eyes are still closed.

Caleb presses his head down against my temple and I smell vetiver and sage, mint and woodsy, heavy patchouli. My eyes fly open and he stands back slightly and asks if I had been hypnotized by the waves.

I shake my head and jump down off the rock, almost wiping out in my smooth-bottomed ballet flats. He grabs my arm and steadies me.

Okay?

I'm fine. Thanks for the help.

I don't want to see you lose any more teeth in this lifetime. He laughs, establishing provenance. I was famous as a child for demanding to try the boys' old Big Wheels/new ten-speed bikes/beloved skateboards and landing on the pavement on my face. I have no perfect, intact teeth in my head. They're all complicated composite reconstructions or simply chipped.  But it's endearing. I lucked out and unless you know you really can't tell except that they are pretty crooked straight on.

(I never smile with my mouth open unless there are no cameras present.)

He tucks past-me along with present-me into his arm, under his coat with him, away from the wind as we head back toward the steps. He's warm, it's nice. Future-me should run while she can.

Neamhchiontach.

Yes.

Come see me tonight for a nightcap. It's been a long time.

Lochlan-

I'll speak to him. 

I don't think that will help. 

You would be surprised what he would do for you. 

He took my hand and helped me up across the gap between the rocks and the platform at the bottom of the steps and then we climbed in silence. Him probably confident that his plans are set in stone, me wondering if he thinks I would be so foolish as to think he could ever talk Loch into anything. But when we get to the top Loch is gone and we're here in our beautiful little commune by the sea and I realize that he can or all of this would simply be a dream.

Fair (of face).

Wreckles. 

Frinkles! 

(Yes, we're arguing over which portmanteau is going to emerge victorious, to be used from here on out to describe the curious state of Bridget's face now that her freckles have come out of hibernation to fill some color into the wrinkles around her eyes because she squints in the sun on the water and also because she's a tiny vampire and hardly sleeps. If she isn't waking up to pee every three hours someone is molesting her and wakes her up anyway.)

Frinkles wins because it's mine and it's cute, though Loch's term of Wreckles is funnier and more logical. Wreckles indeed. My kingdom for a fountain of youth instead of concrete out there in the driveway.

***

PJ and Caleb replaced the barbed wire on the swing with new ropes. PJ did while Caleb...supervised but the ropes are strong and nice and white and Ben has been instructed to not do that anymore. He does the biting thing for kicks, don't worry. He doesn't have oral fetishes. Well, okay not like that anyway. Apparently he and Daniel were talking while he was cleaning up in the orchard and at one point he pretended to bite down on the rope to indicate how much he hated putting up with something (probably me) but bit the rope in half instead of letting go. He has jaws like a steel trap. Very strong.

He figured I would love the metal edge to the pretty swing. I did but you can't actually hold on to it. He said he expected me to write a story of a girl who lingered on a barbed wire swing so long she became part of it with blood dripping down her fingers, off her elbows but that she had to remain on it until she touched heaven.

I can't write that story. 

How come?

Because you just did. How does it end? Does she get there?

I don't know, Bee. She said she'd let me know when she's done scowling at her face in the mirror. What if it sticks like that?

Oh, God, you've been with Lochlan too long. That's what he says. 

You worry too much about the way you look. 

I don't, actually, but I don't think I'm going to attract anyone with my shining personality either. 

You'd be surprised. And you don't need to attract anyone because I'm right here.

Right. You married me because I'm sweet and pleasant?

Well...no, not really. I married you because you're my best friend. 

And he smiled with that polar-ice-melting shy smile that floors me and reached out to pull me in. I touched heaven when his arms closed around me. I didn't bleed. I expected him to say something x-rated and he didn't. Wonders never cease.

I tell him this and he laughs out loud and squeezes me tighter.

You won't have to wait long to hear something x-rated. Trust me, Bee.

Then he whispered something in my ear and I'll have to figure out how to work blushing into that portmaneau. My poor face is just a whirlwind of everything written all over it these days. Can't hide a thing and seriously, Ben's glorious imagination beats mine by miles and miles.