Deep-fried, medium-hot with blue cheese on the side.

The relief in the end of this week is tangible, palpable and there's nary a hint of suspicion or alterior motives or even future-grief. We slept so hard last night Lochlan had to pull me out of my dreams by my fingertips, a tenuous grip on an imaginary girl. Reality-Bridget isn't me, I am fantastical-Bridget in the burgeoning light.

He kisses up my throat, arching my back up off the warm bed, into his arms. His fingers are in places I don't discuss and when I cry out, Ben lands a hard, lingering kiss on my forehead before leaving. I reach out for him to stay but he won't, though he won't be far.

He said one night in passing that trying to share me at once was akin to trying to eat the same chicken wing. Lochlan laughed out loud forever when he said that and now every time someone suggests we go for wings they elbow each other and laugh again.

Sigh.

(Fun fact: up until a couple of years ago the boys would remove the bones from chicken wings for me because I don't like meat with bones still attached. Thankfully I've become a savage since then.)

I truly wonder if I were six feet tall if things would be easier for them. But I'm not, I'm five feet tall and they get what they get and it's kind of funny that I'm game now and they're not, when it used to be the other way around.

And just like that Ben is gone and my focus shifts back to the red curls as Lochlan hooks his chin against my shoulder and takes me into his arms. I forget everything. My name. That I was cold a moment ago. That there ever was a life in between the Midway and now. I hope there wasn't. I hope it was just a dream and this is the reality I will fall back into, a whole-life fantasy hinging on a magician with a wide-open heart and a penchant for telling me to eat my chicken because I'll need the energy to stay up all night with him and make so much love we won't know what to do with it all.

Yeah we did. We gave the rest to Ben. He comes back and I am given to him like an offering and he takes me whole. When he eats a chicken wing he eats it bones and all. I never expect to come out of this bed in one piece but that is maybe why the magician sticks around. It's a trick. It's an illusion.

It's exactly where I want to be on a Saturday morning. This place between dreams and real.

On keeping his word.

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

Lochlan's parenting style is overly-emotional, death-defying and fraught with danger and second-guessing. For his ease when he's with Ruth, without her he feels the weight of the entire world balanced on his shoulders. He abhors the thought of making a mistake or somehow choosing wrong, a decision which would then clearly open a Pandora's box of change that would lead her down a road he isn't comfortable taking, or some such disaster in the making. Any concern he's ever had for me as I grew up on the amusement circuit is magnified by no less than a million. He parents like a trooper. He worries like the best dad you ever saw. And there's never enough time, money or love, it seems. Sometimes he gets so rattled by the efforts he puts in that I have to remind him to relax, that Ruth is half-me, and therefore very resourceful.

Great. Just what I need, he groans. And I am relaxed. Can't you see?

Caleb, in contrast, has a cool collectedness about him. Henry is the greatest asset in Caleb's portfolio and he is managed and disbursed as such, filed in the roster with a value of infinite. Caleb takes his disciplinary cues from Lochlan, figuring if Ruth can do x at y age, then Henry can too. He does not worry because he's well-insured and there is always enough money to buy time and love. For his ease when he's with Henry, sometimes he gets so wrapped up in being who he is and ruling the world that I worry that one day the time is going to come when I will have to remind him that Henry needs him, possibly more than Caleb's other assets and projects need him, also that Henry is human, and half-me, that he needs limits and direction and love without distraction.

Great. Just what I need, he laments. Also, you will never have to remind me.

But they were both reserved and honest with our parenting coordinators this morning, who officially signed off on us at Caleb's request, as a show of good faith to me that he plans to keep his promises. We're wasting their time at this point anyway. There weren't actually many hiccups once Caleb ceased trying to use Henry as a weapon. We've had separate court counseling as well to address our habit of using litigation to sort out our personal problems, Caleb because that's what he knows and me because it was the only way I could garner his full attention. It's been recognized that we don't put the children in the center of our personal conflicts. We're just high-conflict as humans, not as parents. But now that the money's in place, the schedule is in place and we have resources close to home that allow for in-house care anyway (Thank you August and Sam), we don't need to do this anymore. We're in agreement with each other and with Lochlan. And other people need these resources more.

It was just wonderful to hear that after five years we figured out how to maintain this, and that as thoroughly unorthodox as our environment is, they turned it upside-down and inside-out and finally admitted it's not unhealthy or detrimental to the upbringing of the children, something Caleb liked to capitalize on every chance he got, something I never believed for a second. This is Utopia, and now I have proof.

He's trying and now I have proof of that too.

One week in and it's tax season already.

I spent all day on the living room floor at the boathouse sorting last years receipts and now I'm semi-drunk and loving every second of it here at home on what is the final bottle (so proclaimed) of Lochlan's birthday scotch. He passed it around once and we get to keep the rest and now all ninety-eight pounds of me is beautifully lit from within and I can't feel my legs.

Or my eyes. My eyes are tired. I wore my glasses and still the bright white paper and tiny printing does me in faster than it used to. Thankfully I'm incredibly organized and Caleb follows my instructions to keep things that way. My taxes are going to be complicated this year. So are PJ's, frankly and New Jake's and Lochlan's now too. I like straightforward things. I like sober, easy fill-in-the-blank things.

I like this warmth. And I like the warmth from Lochlan too. He's not straying so far tonight. I'm not sure if it's a desire to keep me safe from the other wolves or if he just missed me today. I don't care which answer it is, I just like it. I'm spinning. I have to go be warm and content and not look at anything with numbers on it.

Benproof.

Bleeding I'm
Crying I'm
Falling I'm
Bleeding out

Ben and I had a takeout picnic last night downstairs in his studio. He played me some new things and I ate a little (still not much of an appetite) and then I put my head down on my arm in the new big egg chair that hangs from the ceiling that he put in so I could spin and listen to music (Disturbed) on the bluetooth headphones he bought for me the day after the chair arrived because the first time I pulled twenty feet of cord across the room to that chair and set it in motion I couldn't get back out afterward. I had tied myself up.

God forbid.

(That ain't my job.)

I fell asleep. It's kind of inevitable when I stop moving. I'm not very good company after about ten o'clock at night to be honest. It's the narcolepsy or the endless exhaustion but I was out like a light.

Until Ben turned me back on because he couldn't see.

I woke up to Numb thundering through my skull and all of my weight on my shoulders, which was the only part of me left in the chair. Ben had pulled my hips down with his hands and was holding me off the ground, my dress shoved up over my waist, my thigh-high socks still on, boots still on, underwear God knows where. I haven't found it yet.

Glad you're awake. I didn't want to start without you. He grinned in the dim light from the board as he drove himself home, finding a very easy bounce-back from the swinging of the chair, with just enough leverage to shove me back hard into him every time he pushed me away.

Oh my God.

His hands were holding my hips so tightly I thought my bones would snap. I thought the chair would snap. I thought Bridget might snap. He finally swore and took me right out of the chair, settling for the floor. Still sitting up, my legs wrapped around his hips but he wouldn't let me up to meet him, keeping me flat on the floor with his hand wrapped around my neck, fucking me so hard my eyes watered as I settled for holding on to the sides of his knees.

He smiled and finally bent down for a kiss, pulling off the headphones for me to be met with stark silence.

You okay? 

No, not yet. I need more. 

Something in his eyes changed, softened, and he reached down and pulled me up into his arms. Finally. I used my knees for leverage on either side of his hips to show him what I could do, and he reached up to my head with both hands and kissed me so hard I couldn't breathe and when I stopped moving he took over again, pulling me in and away, in and away until we couldn't get any closer together but we kept trying just in case we were wrong. Faster. Harder. Rug burn on my knees. Razor burn under my jaw and across my shoulder. Bruises already forming on my hips and my neck from his grip.

More, please.

Come on, Bridget. Show me what you've got. 

And I put my arms up around his neck and I hung on for dear life and I showed him my world and he rocked it for good measure, making sure it went back to upright when he was done. He lifted me up in his arms as he stood and dumped me back in the chair half-dressed, smiling at me.

What?

I love you. So fucking much. And that chair. I love that too. And that outfit. 

I love you, Benjamin. 

Don't wear anything else. 

I can't find the rest of it to put back on.

That's fine. It doesn't need anything else. 

Ready to go upstairs? 

Two hours until breakfast.

What? What time is it?

Four-thirty. 

Why did you let me sleep so long? 

Because I was enjoying watching you, and because I was trying to figure out how to work that chair so that it wouldn't come out of the ceiling with you still in it.

He shuts off the rest of the lights and unlocks the door, holding it open so we can see. We can go up and doze with Lochlan until six-thirty. You ready? 

I nod. I'm ready. I'm going commando again here but I'm ready. He kisses the top of my head as I go past him, keeping me there for just one moment more.

I want this
More than you know
I need this
Give it back to me

Hob-snobbing.

(So cranky when I'm sick.)

Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me
Motherfucker

This morning I realized that I'm still not fit for public consumption after the simple act of putting on a dress and heels and sitting at a boardroom table with a pickup truck full of cute but far too young lawyers nearly did me in. They were comparing Starbucks orders and talking about getting Coachella tickets and Caleb kicked me under the table four or five times for laughing.

It's okay though, I was laughing at them, not with them. Because I'm old and I care not for complicated coffee orders or festivals showcasing bands I've never heard of.

Okay wait. Going to look at the list. Yes, I've heard of three of the names. I used to like Guns and Roses, right up through Use your Illusion and then I left them for greener pastures, or heavier metal, as it were.

I know who Ice Cube is. He's in 21 Jump Street.

I know who Halsey is only because Ruth is a Twenty One Pilots maniac and squealed for days when she heard a rumor that Halsey was dating the drummer. She made me listen to her album and it's not all that bad though everywhere I went for two weeks afterward seemed to be playing her over the sound system. When they're not playing Twenty One Pilots, I mean. Why aren't they playing Coachella?

And I don't know what an iced half-caf venti three-pump sugar-free dolce soy skinny latte is. It sounds complicated. It sounds terrible. I'm guessing it's cold, bitter and only marginally caffeinated? Probably drunk by lawyers. Very young ones.

When we left the offices, the Devil asked if we could talk.

That's all we've been doing and I still haven't had a cup of coffee which would really help soothe my throat. 

I can fix that, he said.

His coffee comes with valet parking and is ordered with two words.

Coffee, please.

 Beat that, Mermaid.

Routine.

I want to tell you about my dreams and
You don't know the half of me
And there's nothing left to save me now
Nothing to save me now

Three days left of antibiotics and everyone has pitched in handily to help dismantle the Christmas trees and decorations and the house is back in order (almost) and we did a huge grocery shop this morning to replenish the food supply, only I wasn't permitted to do much more than make the list and make sure my shoppers stuck to it, as Ben and PJ, when left to their own devices will come home with crates of pizza pops and froot loops, ice cream and...guitar strings. Which you can't even buy at the grocery store but that's okay, they took a run in to Tom Lee or Long McQuade and didn't have much time for groceries as a result but this will be okay, won't it? 

No. Sadly. You can't run a commune on ice cream any more than you can run it on love, as I'm finding out. I test waters and get burned or frozen out and then wind up trying to find my way back to comfortable, tepid, or lukewarm with those I love most.

Duncan got torn to shreds by Lochlan and then by Caleb too and he looked at them with his perfect mix of cool annoyance and said he didn't need this shit. That he didn't do anything and so if they have some sort of issues with future plans or the intentions of Ben or Bridget or both of us than maybe they should come and talk to us.

Duncan is telling me this out back with contraband coffee under the patio heater because I refuse to acknowledge the snow lest it get familiar and want to stay a while.

He laughs bitterly. At least if I'm going to get ripped open it would have been nice to have the goods before I do the time, you know? It's like going to jail for thinking about robbing the bank. Which is no good unless it gives you money to spend, right?

I'm sorry. They're trying to protect me.

I am the most harmless person here, I think, Bridget. Me and Dalt are anyway. So they're barking up the wrong fucking tree. 

Who is the most dangerous, do you think?

Loch. For sure. 

Really? I would have said he's the least. Why did you pick him?

Because not only is he smarter than the rest of us, he has the most to lose. That's a deadly combination. 

How is he smarter?

He somehow managed to channel enough patience and planning to steal you from Caleb for good. I didn't think I would ever see the day. 

It's not a competition. 

Maybe not to you but to them you are the fucking Olympics. 

Great. 

Except that everyone knows the IOC is corrupt and the games are rigged. 

So what are you saying? 

Don't ever assume you guys are in the clear and that Caleb's going to give up on you. You are the only thing he wants and no way in hell is he going to let some gypsy juggler with no assets take that away from him. 

So for three minutes I felt better and now I feel worse again, Dunk.

Hey, you and me are fine. Aren't we? And Caleb and Loch are the same as ever. 

That's what bothers me. 

Don't let it. They're just two little boys in the sandbox fighting over the best toy, and while they were doing that someone came in and took it. That's Ben. No one gives him enough credit. 

I do. 

Make sure he knows, Bridge.

I try to. 

Try harder. I think he gets lost in this testosterone shuffle sometimes. It's why he hides. 

I thought he was writing. 

Same thing, Poem.

Bridgeburners.

All of the shoulders Lochlan is giving to Ben lately are ice-cold. He's angry. Even though New Years Eve has traditionally had a short memory and a long forgiveness period it's clear nothing has changed. The Devil is hungrier than ever, Ben's own cravings never cease and we're going to enter into 2016 like she's a reluctant bride on her wedding night.

(Oh, I didn't coin that phrase but it made me laugh because I'm crass and was raised by wolves.)

I hope they make up soon. We need a united front right now to provide support for Sam, and for Caleb, both of whom seem to exist in perpetual midlife crises these days.

Sam and Matt have filed for divorce. Uncontested. No children, no joint assets and a pro-rated, retroactive separation date achieved with advice from my good lawyers and a lot of travel on Matt's side. This seems cheap and harsh to me, as if marriage can be boiled down to a few pieces of paper, some dates and a judge to sign off, eventually. I wouldn't know, though. I've never made it to that stage of life, if you want to be technical. I offered them my lawyers paid time but they're going to DIY. I offered them anything they needed and I tried not to cry but when I did anyway I got to be the meat in a Matt and Sam-wich and that was nice, at least. They're walking the high road together and I maintain we could learn more than just a thing or two from them, even though I wish they would keep trying.

Duncan finds all of this inevitable and sad and maintains this is why he refuses to indulge in relationships. He said it with a huge smirk, though.

That look destroys your credibility, Poet. 

Almost bagged you, Bridge. 

No, you did not and any embellishment on New Years Eve can be kept to your and Ben's collective imaginations. 

You never ever want to see those.

Right, I don't.

What happened to the Curious Miss Bee?

Good question. Oh, Batman's here. Great.

I need to go help Sam.

Bridget, can I have a word?

Sure. How about no? No is a good word.

The specialist.

No change, I can change
I can change, I can change
But I'm here in my mold
I am here in my mold
But I'm a million different people
from one day to the next
I can't change my mold
No, no, no, no, no

The New Year exploded dramatically with the pop of a champagne cork and a burst of fireworks lighting up the night sky over the water. We celebrated on the beach in the cold because we're smart like that. Smarter still was slow-dancing with Duncan in the living room and then Ben telling me if I wanted to go further that I could. That he would run any interference that I needed and I nodded that I understood and then I went out to the garage. I wrote about that yesterday.

But you didn't write about when you went back inside. 

Because there's nothing to talk about unless you want a graphic description of my dreams and the drool on my pillow. Trust me, nobody wants that. 

Did you sleep with Duncan, Neamhchiontach? 

No! Jesus Christ. Give me some credit here. I told you, I'm not going to risk or ruin anyone else. 

What about Sam? 

Sam is already ruined, but not by me. He is the architect of his own demise. And what does he have to do with any of this? 

I see things no one thinks I see. 

What if there's nothing to see at all? What if it's just smoke or darkness? 

I see right through that. I'm the Devil, remember? 

***

Lochlan and I are making pancake-faces and talking quietly. No one is up yet but early mornings have always been our favorite time, before the world gets busy, noisy and crowded.

What are your resolutions this year, Peanut?

To listen to more metal, eat less junk and walk more to keep my knees from seizing. To paint more and talk to ghosts less. I look at him quickly, seeking approval but he's closed-cards this morning. And to depend less on you for behavioral cues because you've become everyone's favorite table-flipper (but I don't say that out loud.) What about you?

I'm going to quit drinking and try and not be so hard on you. He reaches over to pull me close but I'm busy-busy flipping pancakes and trying not to let him see my eyes flood over.

It's fine. I'm not easy. 

You're impossible, he says it softly.

If I'm so horribly flawed why are you still here?

Because I love you. You're part of me. 

You love me in spite of the way I am. 

Yes. 

Than stop trying to change it. 

That's the plan, Peanut. I'm just going to give up on our dream of the perfect life, because that's the only way I can do this. 

I throw the spatula down and turn and stare at him. I don't know where this is coming from. I didn't do anything. The pancakes start to singe but we're so used to burning smells we don't react until the fire alarm starts wailing and the room fills with smoke and people. People who are really concerned and want the smoke cleared out before the sprinklers kick in.

OH SHIT.

When the dust settles and we have our breakfast (now with all the windows open freezing us both to bits in penance for such an irresponsible argument, or as Lochlan put it, We know fire! We weren't going to let anything happen to a house full of sleeping people! Jesus Christ! Give us some credit! And Ben looked at him and said No. Then he said we would eat the burned pancakes too.) we resume our quiet fight, slinging words, hitting targets. I finally find the key.

Are you really that angry about Duncan?

What? No! I know damn well you're not going to sleep with him. What I'm worried about is that the Devil will wear you down. That's how they get to you. They control you.

Teach them everything you know, did you?

He looks out the window. Why is everything a fight?

Because you're not my keeper.

I love you!

Everyone does! You're not special.

He gets a bottle and drinks a quarter of it, slams it down and then sits. Defeated. Eyes closed. Body on fire, probably. Finally he speaks. Thought I was.

You are! The most! But I can say things to hurt you right back. Let me just learn from the best here, Lochlan!

He laughs and passes me the bottle. Take some. It cuts the burned taste. 

Thanks. 

We're not so bad. Are we so bad?

We're awful. 

Terrible. 

The worst. 

Can I be honest? 

Why not?

I really thought you were going to go with Duncan. 

And what would you have done?

I would have killed him. And then Ben. And then probably you. 

Wow. Okay, so good choice in staying put. I'll drink to that. But don't be scary, Lochlan. 

Can't help it. It's the only thing that gets your attention. I just want our simpler life back. You and me. When things were boiled down to comfort and adventure and it wasn't this big complicated mess. 

Well, be patient because I think it's coming. Maybe sooner than you expect. 

The Devil is going to break you. 

I'll break him first.

The jealous ghost and the new year.

A little drunk I am, but I'm never nearly drunk enough for this.

Happy New Year, Preacher. 

You should watch how much they give you. Duncan is circling you like a shark. 

Funny how the Devil is twisting my life up in knots and yet they worry about the poet.

The poet is a more immediate threat because you'll use him to deflect your fear of Caleb and to distract them. 

Shhhh. Stop telling all my secrets. Or maybe start telling some of yours. What is he going to tell me?

I wish I knew but I don't. 

Bullshit, Jacob. 

You can trust me. 

No I can't. That ship sailed when you did.

He stares at me from the dim edges of the room while I stand bathed in moonlight in a square beaming in from the windows high up in the garage door. He's still so big unlit. He still looms so large in my heart as he takes my hands and pulls me in close to dance with him to silence.

Bridget, you need to find out what he's hiding. 

Will it change anything?

I don't know but it isn't fair. The truth is the way. 

Life isn't fair, Jakey, and sometimes the truth hurts. 

Where is Ben? He can get you sobered up here. 

He's busy trying to engineer an evening with Duncan I think. Sorry. He loves to watch. I cover my mouth when a half-laugh, half-sob escapes. He's too fast even for me, sometimes.

Maybe you are better off with Caleb rather than the two of them. 

Never, I tell him. Thanks for the dance.

Starting my resolutions early.

The morning is bracing, the walk exceedingly slippery, but I am here for my morning tour because it's the final one of this year.

So many lasts, to be followed by so many firsts. This is bittersweet.

Caleb keeps my hand tightly in his as we walk. I keep sliding off rocks and into knee-high holes. He keeps threatening to barge over heavy machinery and remove all of the rocks and driftwood from the beach. I remind him that there are no treasures to be found in clear sand. He shakes his head and resumes walking and I rush to keep up.

You need to take some time to seriously consider my offer, Princess. 

My heart contracts and flexes out again when he uses that nickname. I can't do that. You didn't think this through and so you're only hurting yourself. 

Bridget. I have information you need and yet it's important enough that the only way you will still be speaking to me after you learn it is if I am legally tied to you. 

That bad, huh?

Pardon me?

Did you push Jacob? Did you murder Cole? I don't see how anything you have to reveal now would change anything. Who does it concern?

All of us. 

My fingers are ice and my mouth is dry but my eyes have no problem welling up and giving me away. I don't want him to see that I'm upset or scared or angry. I want him to squirm and suffer wondering how I feel but I have no practice in this and I'm out of my league, over my head and soon to drown in his blue eyes, as usual. This is hard, when he becomes gentle and patient and slow.

This is hard.

Does it concern Jacob?

He looks out to sea and then nods ever so slightly. Had I followed his gaze I would have missed it.

My chin quivers but my voice holds. Then keep it to yourself.