'Life begins today'. It's a wooden sign in the kitchen just over the coffee maker.

My emotions are doing their high-wire act this morning and the boys are my net. I can hear the crowd but I can't see anything with the lights. I step out and pitch over the rope without even trying. Lochlan climbs up into the net to pull me out and gives me a shove toward the ladder.

Do it again. Practice makes perfect, Peanut.

I climb the ladder again and cross to the other side without hesitation. It wasn't that I couldn't do it, I just didn't want to and I was making a point. Like a child. Since I was one the entire time and might still be, truth me told. Disappointment still stings. Euphoria still overwhelms. Contentment is still the goal. Moments that get strung together to bring me all of it feel like flashing Christmas lights in every color of the rainbow when I wanted plain blue static. Always on.

But the sensory overload will continue sometimes and sometimes it will be oh-so-quiet and he is right. On the way to the ladder today to do it all again each of them were standing there, in a path that leads straight to the base. Each one had a crushing endless hug for me. Each one a kiss for the top of my head and at the very end in the dark with the roar of the crowd spooling up again was Jake.

Onward and upward, Princess.

I nod and grab the rung just about my head. I know, Preacher.

When I wake up all of the hugs disappear into forgotten dreams and Lochlan and Ben are both still dozing deeply. Things are different this morning. The Devil and I are going to take another extended break though he isn't going anywhere. PJ is back in charge. Lochlan holds all the legal cards and Ben is back to being the wall of a guy that I needed most, as I ran headfirst into him all week long and he would gently put out his hands and catch and deflect my head so it didn't crack open like an egg each time. He's fine. He's tough. He's doing great, like he said, and had he left his program early we'd probably not be so great right now, even though the timing was terrible.

Isn't the timing always terrible? Life never runs like the show, choreographed within an inch of its life, planned out to within a fragment of a moment to keep momentum, or suspense, or excitement.

On second thought, that's exactly what it is. I'm going to let the boys sleep. I've got a pool date with Duncan so we can facetime with Dalton. I get up, take a quick shower and put on my bikini and a really pretty new kimono. I'm ridiculously pale. Add a little lip gloss. Dry my hair and then when I come out Lochlan is up on his elbows, staring sleepily at me. He's out of it.

I'll be at the pool, I remind him.

Just have your call and bring Duncan back here so we can keep sleeping, he mutters and lies back down, turning away toward the window. Ben hasn't budged. I don't think Lochlan knows what he's saying, or maybe he does and he's anxious to make me happy.

Maybe I'll stop in and see August afterward, I remind him. So I doubt it. 

But he's already asleep.

Family orders.

I sat in the lawyers office and cried this morning. I cried for myself and for Jake, but at the same time he loved Henry like he was his son anyway so it's not so bad. We were lucky. I cried for Henry and I cried for the past and for the future too. Ben and Lochlan each had one of my hands and they sat and watched me and wouldn't you know it I couldn't even wipe my nose because I wouldn't let go.

The assistants ran back and forth trying to make things better. Two boxes of tissues. Coffee. Tea? Scotch? Xanax if I didn't tell anyone, from a purse stashed in a private office. A suggestion that maybe we keep this to separate offices, that it won't take long. It's just some paperwork amending guardianship and nothing more. We did everything else already. Caleb left the trust. He'll leave his will unchanged. He leaves everything in place. This should be easy. I rolled my eyes at that. I shook my head and so we moved forward uncomfortably, ten people around a conference table trying to look anywhere but directly at me. Like Medusa, except if we lock eyes you will turn into a river and I will drown.

Henry had a shift while we were away. He missed spending time with Caleb. Ice-cold cans of root beer and Red Bull TV. Fishing for nothing off the dock. Sitting in the kitchen working out essay  points and other homework while they cooked dinner for Ruth on Caleb's nights. Tracking global sailing races and the twice-daily messaging marathons where Caleb would check in with Henry and they'd exchange funny little things.

We came back in the midst of this and somewhere over Detroit or Wyoming I realized I'm going to put Henry first. Still. Always. I will coexist with the Devil until the end of time if that's what Henry needs. If Caleb can make things up to me through making sure this kid feels safe, secure and loved growing up then everything else can disappear.

 Caleb is now insisting that he made an executive decision to give Henry a living father and that I knew all about it. That he had the original papers all along and that I agreed to have him raise Henry as his own to make things easier on me, that my denial now is simply part of a continued long con, an attempt to take all of his money, the whole thing masterminded by Loch who has always resented Caleb for his successes. That any and all accusations I have against him I was coached to create and maintain. That we are carnival people and that's what carnival people do. We take your money and provide you with questionable entertainment. That he did it to protect me too.

WHAT?

He says the settlement he has paid out in installments consisting of deposits, real estate and maintenance payments are not an admission of guilt for what he did to me as a child but instead a 'good faith effort to see that his former sister-in-law has a comfortable life, as life with his brother was understandably difficult.' That everything he has done speaks to that end.

Caleb also talked to Henry early this week about how Caleb and I get along and how awful Caleb has been to me. Caleb apologized to him and said he would try so much harder.

(He didn't actually tell him anything Henry would have needed to know to make an informed decision but there's a huge effort here to protect the children from our monsters. Even as we carry them with us.)

He's a lawyer. I'm a carny. This is the story of my life.

I have no intentions of taking him to court. I just wanted the Devil to leave me alone. The settlements, the house, everything was his idea as a way to make his monstrosities up to me. I asked for none of it. The judge knows this. The lawyers too. I'm not trying to con him, and neither is Lochlan. I don't even want him to go away, I just want him to be here as a friend. I want him to stay and be a friend without the frightening pressure. I want him to make amends. I want him to cover the cost of what he did and in return he can keep my soul. I don't miss it. It has no value to me.

But he won't ever have my son.

Lochlan takes guardianship of Henry now. Caleb can play Dad all he likes, but he'll be leaving this world with nothing, and that's everything he deserves.

Lawyers tomorrow but for today there is sun.

He is magnificent and wanted and right, as always.

And if all of the teachers and preachers of wealth were arraigned
We could see quite a future for me in the literal sands
And if all of the people could claimed to inspect such regrets
Well, we’d have no forgiveness, forgetfulness, faithful remorse

Duncan's full beard and shoulder-length dark hair are putting him in hundred-percent-lizard-king territory and I stood behind him on the stamped concrete rolling up my tongue so he wouldn't see it as he rolls back the cover on the pool again. I don't care if it's going to rain tomorrow. It's nice today. Actually it's cold but the pool is heated. The deck is heated. We've succeeded in controlling our environment completely here so it makes no difference to me.

You can't run that charade for a pool.

It's not just a pool. Look around you. He's facilitated everything you see.

We managed before.

There was no hedonism in trying to cram everyone into my hundred-square-foot kitchen six times a week.

Sure there was. He laughs but there's no light in his eyes.

Let me worry about this.

I can't do that. Bridget, good things don't last.

I think I know this lesson, Poet.

Does Caleb?

Please don't get involved.

Someone has to. Lochlan doesn't seem to want to-

Hey, I threatened him with death too. Don't presume to know everything.

Sorry.

Accepted.

You swimming today or can I have a nap?

You can nap in the covered chair right here.

True.

See? Who am I to deny you this beautiful afternoon?

Bridget, we had just as much fun at the YMCA.

It wasn't nearly this nice. And we had to pay like two bucks each. This is free.

This is not free. Your soul is mortgaged to the hilt for this.

Hey-

Sorry, Bridget. I get tired of watching them chip away at you. What do you want? What do you get out of all this?

Whatever I damn well please.

And what pleases you today?

This and you. But only if you stop talking. 

The roles are reversed at last. 

Nice. 

Wouldn't know what to say.

He invited me for coffee and music on the beach and I didn't say a word but I went. Silence speaks so much louder than anything else. I want to flip tables. I want to scream and yell at him until he dissolves in the face of my legendary rage. I want him to feel like I feel. I want him to feel worse. I want to go back to a beach I recognize with water that hurts so much better than this and I hate coffee. It makes my stomach hurt and then I feel sick but I also don't fall asleep on my fate later today.

I said fate there, yes I did. Did I mean feet? It doesn't matter, actually. Controlling this rage keeps the collective together. It keeps Henry's bizarre but completely understandable change of heart rational and it keeps me in one piece.

And so for today I will enjoy this playlist made from Paul McCartney's setlist a week ago and very good coffee made in a regular pot by someone who has some decent-to-better coffee-making skills and I'll thank my lucky stars that our beach is so private and I will try very hard to remember all of the magic I've had in my life because it's better than the alternative. I'll just check out a little bit but keep my eyes wide open.

You going to talk to me today?

I shake my head but keep my mouth shut.

Well, the undertaker drew a heavy sigh
Seeing no one else had come
And a bell was ringing in the village square
For the rabbits on the run

Home.

Back late this evening. Caleb sent the plane. Huge tidal shifts in life keep washing over me, threatening to drag me down before lifting me back up on a swell that seemingly comes out of nowhere. Such is the sea. Such is life, I guess. A deep storm-teal, ice-cold with pockets of tepid, a rush of fury tempered moments later with stillness. Doldrums stirred up with hurricane-force might before you blink.

She's glorious, isn't she? I cry, begging an easy answer.

Just like you, they say, but I shake my head. It's not the same. Not to me anyway.

Sundown but I'm on dinner-time.

Lochlan always has the cure for being cold or miserable. A beach bonfire and a bottle of whiskey. Ben already outclassed him though. Ben knows every single bit of dialogue from Eternal Sunshine. Puts me to shame.

And the truth is I feel so angry, and the truth is I feel so fucking sad, and the truth is I've felt so fucking hurt for so fucking long and for just as long I've been pretending I'm OK, just to get along, just for, I don't know why, maybe because no one wants to hear about my misery, because they have their own. Well, fuck everybody. Amen.

Denial is a river in Massachusetts.

Ever the escape artists, we jumped at the chance when Ben offered a little side trip after he was done in New York. It was a reassurance visit for his people, who don't like it when he goes off to what we're affectionately calling Spring Training Camp. They want promises that he'll carry out his contract terms. He will. Hasn't missed any yet, has he?

Once we were done there we flew to Cape Cod. Something about Atlantic saltwater is so much more necessary than Pacific. We've got the big cold house again and we brought Loch too so I can play Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to my hearts content. It's fucking freezing here though and while I have wifi I don't have clothes that are warm enough. Going to fix that with a little shopping trip shortly but the rumors were already circulating so I thought I would check in.

I didn't have my head-meeting with Sam anyway. I bailed. Denial is fun. I know what the Devil did. I know he steered Lochlan's efforts to see that I was looked after (when Loch walked away due to Caleb's threats in the first place) by setting up Cole and then he's engineered everything since, right up to and including Jacob leaving without knowing he was Henry's father to this entire Collective, which was some sort of incredible attempt to continue to wield control and make restitution at the same time.

I know all this.

And now I'm going down to the beach.

Maybe brunch tomorrow. Or maybe a lombotomy instead.

I can't convince anyone to take me for smashed potatoes and eggs benedict this morning. August wants to have a Prince dance party in the kitchen. That's cool. Yes, let's do it. Turn that shit up.

(Fun fact: Lochlan wouldn't let me listen to Prince. I was twelve when Purple Rain came out. I'm guessing he figured I was corrupted enough. I was. We also couldn't afford too many tapes and he had already bought the new Yes album and we didn't have time to go to the movies much that summer anyway. We had a radio so I heard some of the songs anyway.

It's kind of ironic now, that we went away and worked our fingers to the bone day in and day out so would have money to eat, something that wouldn't have been an issue if we stayed home.

But that wasn't the point.)

August and Sam would like to have a meeting with me later. To get a barometer, see where I am with everything now that history is falling into place. They want to know if I've addressed things in my head. About Jake and how things would have been different all the way around if Caleb hadn't done what he's always done and engineered my life so that things would be this way.

I haven't. I haven't addressed a thing other than making sure Henry chose better the moment he had a chance to. But Jacob?

I can't even go there. I can open the door but there's a monster there so I turn and run. He yells Wait! but I don't stop. I don't even slow down.

Burning off and on.

(You ought to see the trouble I get into when trying to avoid the Devil. Or maybe that's you ought to see the avoiding of the Devil I do while trying to get into trouble.)

I am a new day rising
I'm a brand new sky
to hang the stars upon tonight
I am a little divided
do I stay or run away
and leave it all behind?

The pool is covered until the warm weather comes back. Duncan did it in spite of my protests. Not like it's warm enough to actually swim in the Pacific instead, however. Ever. I will persist because it heals everything. Every bruise, paper cut and emotional bullet hole I've got.

Don't give me that face. You're killing me here, Bridget.

I flash him a huge fake smile instead. I don't want to cause any further deaths in my circles. Two is two too much.

That might be worse, he frowns and watches the cover feed out, a huge blue screen turning my pretty little pool into a big ugly rectangle.

Once it's done he hooks his index finger through my hood and we head back to the house where I offer to make him a fresh pot of coffee if he promises not to tell them I started coffee-on-weekends-only-mostly early. He agrees easily. Duncan has a weakness for Bridgets, though I don't exploit it.

I mean, I could.

We'll see where the weekend takes us.

Please. Before you freak the fuck out, Loch's only outrage is Caleb-centric. As long as it's not him, I'm gold. Just like my blood when I swim in the ocean.

Gold? I meant cold.

Cold.

Fucking freezing.At least Duncan's hands are warm.

The most amazing Knight.

LIFE. CHANGING.

I could be incredibly jaded at this point when it comes to artists but...just...naw. I screamed with the rest of the room when Paul McCartney walked out onstage and pretty much cried through every song. And then I got up this morning determined to share a tiny bit with you via a frustrating crash course in working the internet. So here. Enjoy. I sure did. I would have panned out or tried to steady my phone or something but I was too busy freaking out, okay?

(Note: the woooooo! at the end is from people behind us. I do not woo.)