Spending all my time today twisting in the sunny breeze on the swing in the orchard. I asked Caleb if I could paint it and he said that would be nice so on the board there is a mermaid, only she isn't smiling, she's got a flat expression like she isn't sure.

I don't know where she got that from.

Oh, yes, I do.

If I'm out there I have no cell service for whatever reason and so I can ignore the phone in my pocket, ignore the boys since they have to trudge out here instead of calling, it's just too far, too tucked down the hill. I can stop time and just think about nothing but the wind and the water and the crow that's been watching me the whole time from the top of a branch nearby. He is not a sentry, he's a scavenger. I'm not a person, I'm a fragment. I'm a meal.

This is not life, this is a dream. I would say nightmare but Lochlan brought me home a mood ring and PJ made soft boiled eggs and toast points for lunch and you'll never find those sorts of comforts in a nightmare.

Not mine, anyway. Mine are filled with underground tunnels and concrete floors and single flickering bulbs and ghosts that tell me all the things I want to hear and all the things I don't.

Rock and sway.

We are the living souls
With terminal hearts, terminal parts
Flickering like candles
Fatally flawed, Fatally flawed

Every time Sam turns around I take a sip of his coffee. It's instant, don't worry. It's terrible. It was from a jar probably opened in 2010 and missed by me in my efforts to look after Sam just a little bit better than any one ever has.

I have on my deadhead floor-length patchwork skirt, a tank top and August's chiseled Ohm necklace that I stole last night from his neck and I can't stay still with Terminal on. Sam gave me permission to introduce him to The Wonderlands: Sunlight via the church's sound system and we both decided we'll just leave this song on repeat forever. So sad but bobbing and catchy too. It's gorgeous, layered and so loud.

Maybe like me. Except for the gorgeous part. I've decided suddenly that my Furiosa haircut just doesn't work with my wardrobe and has taken all of my power away. I look fragile. I look sick and small and now I can't get away with anything. I'll grow it all back out and then they will be so distracted I will once again hold influence over the whole collective.

Sam is swaying too, rocking back and forth on his heels while he talks on the phone. They're giving him a person. Another minister. Permanently. Someone to help share the load. Sam is going to be the boss. He's going to be so boss, though I doubt he'll give directives at all. Instead he'll ask for help because that's what he does and what he's taught me to do.

I get distracted staring at the back of his head where his hair almost curls and he turns around before I remember to put the cup back down.

I offered to make you some.

I'm fine, thank you. 

He bursts out laughing but then his face turns serious. Who are you avoiding today? 

No one. 

No one named Loch?

Maybe. 

Why? 

He's so INTENSE. I lean in and widen my eyes. It's a line from Practical Magic. Sam knows it and he nods.

That he is. He's never changed though, has he?

Nope. And I will never ever ever figure him out. 

Just know that he truly does have your best interests at heart. 

I know he does. 

So what do you plan to do?

Nothing. 

Going to pick up where you left off when Ben comes home?

Yep. 

What if he doesn't come back?

Why wouldn't he come back?

I'm playing the Devil's advocate. 

The Devil doesn't need anyone to advocate for him, Sam. He does just fine on his own. 

So then why ARE you avoiding Lochlan?

I shake my head and pretend to be busy. I can't answer that without tears.

Get your bag. We're going to go out for real coffee. We can talk about it there. 

Let's be forthright from here on out.

Oops.

Caleb didn't like the answer I gave to some of his colleagues over breakfast when presented to them like a goddamned trophy wife. When they asked what I do, I said that when I'm not functioning as Mr. C_____'s personal assistant I teach all the men I live with how to put the toilet seat down.

They thought it was funny.

He didn't.

(Seriously. I believe this is somehow my job now. 8/10 men in my life can manage this simple but important task. So really 16 out of 20. Four of them are just troublemakers.)

"Some things are true whether you believe them or not."

The ocean is so still this morning, silent and cold. I've resumed life in a bathing suit with a hoodie for the time being because these are the things I want to embrace, like when you get pine needles stuck to your bare feet or get a hint of the scent of lilacs when you step out your front door.

The sand is ice cold, the rocks somewhat warmer but uncomfortable and I wade along in the water, numb from my ankles to my toes. I won't leave her.  I won't leave her ever again. That makes me the most dedicated lover to my ocean. She doesn't have to look up one day, reaching for the morning with the highest tide she can muster, wondering where I went.

I will be right here.

***

Lochlan spoke a warning in the dark that changed things ever so profoundly.

He's telling you one story and I'm getting another.

I know this.

And?

And I need to see how it ends.

Why.

Curiosity. Remember? It will be what kills me. I'd like it in my obituary, if there is one. 'She was born into the fair. She wrote a whole shitload of horror stories, she loved really really hard and then curiosity killed her. What an amazing poignant life. What a show.' Put that in, please.

Can't. He's gone rigid, removed. Bridget's mortality isn't something Lochlan can deal with.

Yes you can.

Someone else will have to. There's no life if you aren't here. Nothing before you and so there will be nothing after you.

Pulling out the big guns today, I see.

I never said I wasn't armed.

(That. That was the sentence that changed things once again. Never saw it coming.)

***

Resistant to living in the moment and yet learning ever so slowly precisely how to do just that. Stop, Bridget, slow down. Re-plant some peppers that never sprouted. Inspect the grapevines and take a deep breath in the orchard. Take a stick and poke into the ant hill. Learn the names of all the plants in the grotto. Buy more lilacs. Walk the beach three times a day instead of once. Wear sunscreen but put it on in the morning and then it's not an issue to try and remember to bring.

Breathe.

Think about Jake without being drowned in grief.

Think about Cole without guilt.

Think about Caleb, who is not evil, just debilitatingly lonely.

Think about PJ, so selfless and kind to me.

Think about Sam who is stretched so thin but who always takes the time to remind me not to hyperventilate or to panic when around the corner hope waits, held out by God. Just take it, he says, Sam will help you learn to use it.

Think about Ben, who is attempting to fix everything in his own way. With emotional pyrotechnics. With jangling guitar leads and absent-presence.

Think about Lochlan.

Lochlan.

The sun. The constant. I open my eyes, he's there. Every good morning since 1983. If that wasn't a sign then I will paint it myself.

Think about life and what it means. Life is peppers and orchards and ants and lilacs and sunscreen and love. Life is not mourning for those who can't care but for loving those who do. Life is lights and magic and fire and exhilaration and wristbands and freaks.

Life is weird.

This one is mine.

Up at three thirty and down to the library so I can Skype with Ben before he heads out for his afternoon (very small windows to talk and they aren't convenient with the time difference) and he is disappointed and mostly crushed that I assume the worst.

He says just because it's the first time out in forever doesn't mean it's a slide. Maybe it's a ladder instead.

Are there snakes?

Everywhere, he laughs.

He tells me Loch told him the balloon animal was an alligator and I point out that demotes me from twelve to possibly eight. He laughs again and says he misses me. He asks if I'm staying out of the garage. Off the cliffs. Away from the water. Out of Sam and Matt's hair. He asks if I am looking after Daniel. I ask him if there is anything wonderful about my presence anywhere and he says he has no way to gauge how I'm really doing without him.

Then ask. I tell him. I'm met with silence.

I'm too afraid to do that. 

That's too bad. I could tell you a story though. I met this guy once and he was pretty cool. He still is. He was here for a long time but he keeps going away and I think he thinks he's doing it to give everyone a break but I miss him so much. He is the centerpiece of my heart and since he's not here there's a hole straight through and when the wind blows it howls right through my heart with the most unbelievable sound and it aches something fierce. I think it might kill me yet. 

Hope not, he whispers.

Then don't be too long, I whisper back.

He made me a balloon animal.

To cheer me up.

'Cause I'm twelve.

(It's a cat. I think?)

Didn't run. Didn't do anything.

Ben has made a grand effort to push away or completely alienate as many of us as possible here and it's working to the point where, when I ask why they aren't backing up their brother in arms they shrug and say he's making it too hard, and that Ben is Ben. He'll eventually come back and they will deal with him then. 

And it's true. He has a long colorful history of being an asshole, picking fights and then taking off for endless tours only to come back and charm everyone to death, fitting right back in amongst us in the most loving way, a giant among mostly regular-sized folk. 

I keep clinging to the hope that this is how it will go but somewhere in there I know that there is a chance that when he comes back we'll have to put him back together before he can fit in properly, that maybe he'll pick up old habits..

Maybe? Probably, I mean. Because he will. Because he set me free beforehand so this wouldn't be my burden which is misguided and mistaken. It still will be. He's still mine. I acknowledge none of his bullshit. He's still mine. 

Still mine. 

Still. 

I don't care what he says.

He called Caleb, Batman, Lochlan and PJ too and gave them all a piece of his mind with regards to not allowing me to come and meet him in New York. Even though PJ had nothing to do with it and I was going to bring Lochlan with me. 

And money wasn't an issue. I could have come without Caleb's card, I do have my own hard-earned money. It was the fact that they probably would have physically prevented me from leaving if it had come to that. 

But it didn't. Because they're right. I miss Ben like crazy but it would have been rushed and stressful. We don't know what condition he's in or what state of mine. He's a great liar on the phone. On Skype. I would have not weathered a visit so well only to have to leave him again. 

But he's still mine. 

Still ours. 

(Lochlan hasn't said a word. Not a single word.  I think I love him more than ever just for that.) 

Anchor hocking.

He used to say the same things over and over again to me. Nevermind the hypocrisy of it all, the words have hardly changed, beginning on the midway when I was eleven and he came to see us when we would venture close to home on the circuit.

You're so brown. So thin. So tall. He smiled and I knew he was buttering me up. I turned pink in the sun. I still had all of my baby fat, kept innocently rounded on the hard edges via a diet of sugar&fried, and I hadn't grown in three weeks. My jeans still hit the tops of my laces. That's the measurer, you see. When they part ways it's time for bigger clothes. It's a rule. Lochlan told it to me. I checked every day but nope. I never ever grew.

(Had I known I would get no taller I would have have been crushed so I'm pretty sure height was a religion back in that day.)

You're old. I return the favor. He shaves every day, I bet, but hasn't since at least last weekend. He looks wiser and handsome and a little tired and something else, only I don't know what the else is. Maybe he will volunteer it. That's what you do when you're twenty and not eleven.

This isn't a safe place for a little girl. He said it with a new look. Concern. I pay him no mind. He said it before. My parents think I'm at Lochlan's family's summer cottage. His parents think he's at mine. This is the eighties. No one checks in. Everything's great.

Are you going to stay and get a wristband for the week? I have a guy. You can get a discount. 

He smiled. No, I'm interning at a firm in Toronto. I just wanted to see you before I went. I'm driving up in a few days.

Do you have to?

Yes, if I want to be a lawyer. What does he feed you?

I want to be a mermaid. You don't intern for that. You just go swim. 

But what's the purpose? And you didn't answer the question, 

To make the ocean even more beautiful. And he makes me eat so many vegetables. He made me eat turnip and sweet potato. Bustle sprouts and pork roast but I didn't eat the pork because it's meat so he makes me eat an egg if I don't have what the meat is.

Just today? 

No, vegetables every day. At least three. Also three fruits and then two things that have to be a meat or egg and then the rest can be sugar. 

I see. 

Have you said hi to him yet? 

No, I wanted to check in with you. 

The phrase you want is 'check up on' me. 

He's got you on the defensive. 

I'm never allowed to play football or road hockey so no, he's got me on the side. 

Sidelines. 

Yes, behind the line so I don't get in the way. 

I missed you while I was at school, Bridget.

I missed you too. 

You did?

Yes. We walk everywhere now. I miss your car.

He broke out laughing. I gotta go. Gotta head back home to see Mom and Dad and Cole before they find out I'm back in the province from someone else. 

What about Lochlan? 

I'll be back tomorrow night. Tell him I didn't buy the line he taught you about the vegetables and I'll take you out to dinner somewhere nice. Be ready at six. I'll bring the car so we don't have to walk. 

Only if you come back and stay for some rides afterward. 

I promise. 

Cross your heart and hope to die? 

If I do that who's going to ride the rides with you?

Lochlan, like always. You know he doesn't have a dress shirt so let's not make it too fancy a place, okay?

Who said he's invited?

BLAH.

You say you want
Diamonds on a ring of gold
You say you want
Your story to remain untold

But all the promises we make
From the cradle to the grave
When all I want is you

Caleb said no.

I threw the pepper grinder at him. He swore and ducked and then yelled for a truce. That he could say yes and then I would go and see Ben and spend time with him and get even more messed up when I came back. He said he was doing it to protect me. He said he might even be giving Loch the advantage by doing so but it's better than having me halfway across the country when I hit the ground next.

I'm fine, I told him.

You are, if fine means knocking knees and a quivering lip. 

Not like you could fix it. 

You never let me try, Neamhchiontach.

It's not your job, it's mine and I could have fixed it if I can just go see Ben. 

Yesterday you were going to fix it by bringing Jake back from the de-

DON'T SAY IT. 

And there resumes the quivering lip. Let me know if you need anything, because I already had your cards frozen in case you decide to leave without permission. 

That's fine. I don't need them. 

And Batman will not be enabling you as he agrees with my reasoning. 

GODDAMMIT, CALEB!