Truthers in arms.

I feel like it's not a question of if you'll come back to me but when. 

His voice is sure but soft and far too quiet to hear over the roar of the surf. The tide is coming in and we should go. It's slow here on the west coast. On the east we had around eight minutes, less on the Bay. Super tides. Super feels.

Super weird.

Maybe. Maybe someday when things get quiet. 

It's a massive relief to not be outright denied. 

Is it though? What's the difference?

Hope is the difference. Don't you ever listen during Sam's sermons?

I sleep, mostly. 

Hope is what drives men, Bridget. 

And women. 

Oh? What do you hope for?

Literal peace of mind. 

I could give you anything you want but you resist. I'm not out to harm you, I'm trying to make things better. 

Every time I try to trust you on that something bad happens. 

Bridget, the watch was an unforgivable mistake and I'm just glad you're okay. 

Sorry about your face. 

Had it been me in Lochlan's shoes I would have exacted a far greater punishment. 

Like what?

I would have killed him for hurting you. 

That's why you can't be in his shoes. You're not safe.

Give me a chance to show you, Neamhchiontach. 

You've had too many chances already. I asked for a break and I still want it. 

All that will do is cement his place and put me out in the col-

As it should. You decided a long time ago what kind of relationship we would have and I'm trying so hard to make good changes in my life and straighten out everything that's bent and this doesn't help. 

I'm proud of you for the work you've done, even when it would be easier to give in, so you have to understand. I can't give in either. You're it. You're everything. I can't walk away from you. And I won't. 

Then we'll remain at an impass, because it's going to be decades before I come back to you. 

What do you mean.?

If I kill him too then I'll come back. But that will be the only way. 

You're not responsible for their deaths-

Then I hope you have a plan B, because if you're right I'm gone. 

Call it a low point, or just call it Tuesday.

Some days are worse than others. Few are as bad as yesterday, and yet, as the old Irish Proverb goes I hope my best days are the worst I ever have. 

I always pause at that thought, as if I've maybe got it wrong and then I work it through and think Huh. Yeah. I hope so too. 

I forgot, thanks to whatever drugs they gave me until I was loading the washing machine this afternoon and everything smelled like chlorine. Two full extra loads thanks to seven outfits. Six people jumped in to the pool while one probably would have sufficed, as it wasn't all that deep and I already pointed out that I am a champion toddler-level swimmer anyway so there was no danger but it wasn't the pool that served to be the scary part, it was the fact that I was drowning in feelings. 

Again. 

When am I not? 

I swear to you when I was designed God took a massive detour from Human Girl plans, dialing back the hearing while he dialed up the emotions. As if the lack of one explains the other. 

Maybe it does. I can't hear you but I can feel you and yet I don't have the capacity to hold your emotions, somehow. My own feelings are too big as it is, sorry. Mine are huge. I'm superhuman and yet I'm subhuman because I can't function at the level that everyone else does, at the level I'm supposed to. 

Lochlan grins at my sleepy, drugged out face this morning. You're fine. Things just sometimes get overwhelming. I just didn't see this coming. 

You need a wife that's not defective. 

No, just one that doesn't toss out ridiculous, unfair suggestions like that one, just now. Who I need is who I got. And I love you. And it will get better. 

What if it gets worse?

We already had worse, Bridget. And someday, someday soon, I swear to you, the best day we ever have will be the worst one we remember. 

That's not how the proverb goes. 

It is now. I just changed it. 

You can do that? 

Like I said, I just did. We need to sober you up. You don't listen. And he laughed very gently, and kissed me on the tip of my nose and then I don't remember what happened after that because I fell asleep again. 

One for death and one for habit. One for Bridge, run like a rabbit.

The marks from Caleb's Breitling have faded, on me and on him. I think Lochlan's eroded them with his hands until my skin wore smooth once again. He brought it up last night and it set my brain off from where it's been so quiet, and then Caleb pushed a few more buttons in an effort to find his way back in.

He's already here inside my head, his words conjuring that other ache to bloom huge, obstructing everything with a shadow larger than my heart. One holding my soul captive. One keeping my brain broken.

Neamhchiontach. I miss you so. I want to hold you. I don't sleep without you. 

It's true. He always said his best vacations were in Las Vegas, because I would be with him and he slept like the dead. It used to be a flippant remark and now it just makes me wonder if Jake, if Cole is very well-rested now, as a ghost. If ghosts sleep hard and sleep in. If I could maybe stay asleep someday, instead of waking up at an errant breath or every invisible noise around.

Considering I can't hear much of anything, it's ironic and ridiculous.

And Caleb knew he was touching off the part of my head that goes running flat out toward him, the part that invokes the worst of the Stockholm Syndrome. The part that loves him. And because he is the monster, I'm safe. I'm safe and I'm loved and I'm kept from every last little stress and he won't hurt me (much) anymore. He's toughened me into a resilient fight-backer. A warrior. A suitable partner.

The thought sent me running when I couldn't take the noise, the ache, the feelings anymore. They said get away from them. They said don't wait.

Outside into the dark of night, across the lawn and I threw myself in the pool, pajamas and everything. Drown the thoughts, smother the feelings, turn them off, turn everything off, MAKE IT GO AWAY only there suddenly six people there, in the pool, bringing me up, pulling me out, shouting to each other, shouting to me but it's like sound underwater, choppy, muffled, unintelligible and then there he is standing nearby watching everything and he knows, and he's pleased and he turns away and walks off into the dark until it swallows him whole.

And he waits there for me.

"Can you get me across the ocean?" "No, but I know a guy." (Translation: GUESS WHO CAN SWIM?)

I got a hand on the head during the sermon this morning as Sam talked about learning to swim through the fear, how God will always be close when you feel like you're in over your head. He gave my noggin a quick squeeze and moved along and finally we could come home. My stomach growled the whole time and I was scared to death someone would hear it, especially in the brief silences while rising for hymns and introducing the collection plates. Schuyler burst out laughing more than once while we sang and imitated me the whole way home in the truck with high-pitched squealing almost-words like I'mmmmmmm HHHUUUNNNGRY! Feeed Meeeeeeeee!

I'm never riding with them again.

I'll wait for Sam, who didn't notice I was hungry but told me I was pale when he finally got home and that an hour after lunch I would have my swimming test.

My...what? 

Your swimming test. It's time. You've worked hard all summer, practicing and such and it's time to graduate. 

Seriously?!

Is it not a good day? 

Are you KIDDING? It's the best day! See you at two! 

Wonderful. I'll warn you, it will be challenging. 

I'm not worried. God will be close. 

He winked. I thought you were sleeping through that. 

I had my head down and my arms wrapped around myself for much of his service. No, I was trying to muffle the sounds of my stomach growling.

Ah. That explains a lot of the laughing going on. See you at two. 

At ten to two I was studying hard, practicing my strokes. At two I was tired. At ten after two he finally comes out to the pool and I am already done, collapsed into a chair. He has a big box with him.

What's in the box? I whisper-scream in my best imitation of Brad Pitt in Se7en.

Your graduation gift. If you pass. 

Eeeeee! I dive in to the pool and surface to wait for instruction. He wasn't kidding. Forty minutes later I am so done I can't lift my arms anymore and I want to cry but instead I start talking to God. God help me, I ask out loud.  I can't float any more. God, I'm so fucking tired. Could you take this one so I can sit it out? And Goddamn it, I don't think I care if I pass anymore, I need to sleep for a little while. Let's try again tomorrow, okay, God?

Sam is laughing as much as Schuyler was this morning and when I finally haul myself up the ladder we have an audience. Everyone claps and Ben wraps a towel around me as I pass him to throw myself on a chaise. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep.

Sam places the box on the deck beside the chaise and I open my eyes, squinting at him. Did I pass? 

Open the box. 

Please tell me it's a head. That would be cool. 

It's not a head. Sorry. Body parts that people would miss are hard to come by. 

What about parts they wouldn't miss. What would those be?

I have no idea. And yes, you passed. Easily, Bridget. Open the box. 

I sit up and open the box. It's a delicately intricate stained glass mermaid panel. She has a blonde chin-length bob and a freakishly small head. So I got a cool thing after all. She's already hanging up in the skinny window beside the kitchen hallway leading out to the backyard. The window that I complained needed something stained-glass, something custom, for the past six years at least.

Oh my God. It's ME! 

It's you. You're a full-fledged mermaid now. 

Guess I don't need God anymore, huh! 

You still need him. Trust me. That was just the first few levels. Now you can swim as well as any ten-year-old. Next summer we'll continue on to the teen program and see how you do. 

Way to rip away that confidence boost, Baby Preacher. 

Way to pretend you could get out of church any time soon, Goofball. 

I woke up this morning clasped against Ben, my face tucked in underneath his jaw, his arms tight around me. Not the usual way, as he sleeps flat on his back like a vampire unless he wakes up and drifts off again holding one of us. It felt good. I didn't want to get up and I drifted back off until ten or so when he squeezed me very gently and suggested we go out for breakfast, but first he has business to attend to. He turned me flat on my back and bent his head down, looping my knees up over his shoulders, bringing his hands back up to hold my wrists tight. He wasn't happy until I was screaming into his pillow and trying to pull away. Then he came back up and smiled at me and said that only made him more hungry, that there isn't much of me to eat, not enough meat on my thin bones, and that maybe we should get moving and head out before it becomes lunchtime.

That can't happen. I love going out for breakfast so I jumped up and he followed me into the shower where we actually didn't get sidetracked for once. He promised we could get sidetracked later and we were out the door by eleven and back home by one-thirty.

Sometimes I really miss him. When he's not around or he takes a backseat. Sometimes I wish he hadn't let me go so easily and sometimes I'm glad he forgets that he did.

Grasping at flaws.

Batman finally caught up with the wild redhead, whose ego was leading him around by a leash, who didn't care for any words of patience or thought, not right now, thank you.

He got a solid fifty-minute lecture, emerging pale and stubborn, much the way he would look after emerging from the office at the midway where he would apply over and over for one of the head/titled jobs, year after year, only to be told he was too young.

Nothing says maturity like kicking the doorjamb on your way out of a meeting with your boss. But unlike the old days when he would leave big black bootprints eliciting a threat or a curse in response, today he closed the door gently behind him and walked over to where I waited for my own lecture, which I've already decided to skip because it's sunny and it's a drag.

Bridget.

Batman is in the doorway, waiting, sleeves rolled up as if he is performing surgery instead of teaching discipline.

This could be so easy. Lochlan only works for money. Pay him to keep Caleb safe and happy and the point would be more peaceful than a graveyard. He wouldn't discriminate for a dollar.

It's too nice to be harsh. Let's go for a walk instead. I smile at him. He recognizes the charm of the hustle and frowns.

You too need to stop living in a Bon Jovi song and start taking responsibility for your actions.

Which action did I miss? I'm still smiling though it's just for the show now. This isn't the first time we've been accused of this.

Not you so much as him. We're getting a little too old for fist fights and stealing girlfriends and life-changing stunts to show possession.

Then talk to Cale. He's the one with the issue. He's the one throwing punches.

You're baiting him.

He's earned it! Loch sputters.

Lochlan-

I get it. He's no match for my strength OR my wit. I get that you're all just trying to keep the peace. I promise I will try to behave. He performs a deep bow and Batman frowns.

It makes things better for the entire Collective-

I'm aware of that. But when the history goes back too far for the eye to see, you have to understand-

I understand you got the girl. Let that be enough. For today- 

Oh, just for today? I can handle that. What is it, noon already? 

Christ, Lochlan-

Walk a mile, Brother. No one understands what we went through to be together. No one ever will. Not even him. She is the first victory of my life. Goddamn all to hell whomever fails to let me savor this.

One-eighty.

Ironically the same week the kids start grades 12 and 10 and I see the home stretch ahead of me, Lochlan levels the field by setting off a bomb. I never saw it coming, he now swears it's No Big Deal.

Ha. It is, though.

We should have another baby.

You should get that Tourette's fixed. The things you blurt out. 

It was just an idea.

I don't think it was a good one.

Why? Indulge me.

Oh, I'm forty-five. You're really old. Like you'd be sending them off to college when you're SEVENTY. I also had four amazing difficult pregnancies and two deliveries that required entire floor teams of surgeons, lawyers and exorcists. I can't do that again, even if I could physically do it which I probably can't. Besides, I love the freedom of jumping in the car and telling them we're going out for a meal and they can cook at home if they're hungry before we get back. Why on earth would you want to do that all again?

I missed out, Bridge.

You were right here.

Jacob was in the way. Cole was in the way. I faded into the woodwork.

We don't give you enough attention. I get it.

He laughs. Yeah, that must be it. 

That will change now. Want me to blend your breakfast so I can feed it to you? 

What? No. Gross! 

Exactly. Now imagine that coming out both ends at once. Trust me, you're getting the best parts of raising children right now: they can tell you dirty jokes without apologizing first and they finally offer to drive now when we go out.

'War does not determine who is right - only who is left'. -Bertrand Russell.

Today didn't happen.

Caleb stayed clear until he thought he could get himself under control but he failed and showed up inside the kitchen without warning after Dalton took the kids to school. He shoved Duncan into the glass door to the foyer with warning, breaking it and then charged across the room at Lochlan, who was sitting by the fire reading on his ipad, drinking tea. Loch got up in a hurry as Caleb lunged for him only Sam threw himself in between, because Sam is bigger than Lochlan and didn't want to see an unfair fight.

Sam doesn't know any better but should have. He's seen enough of this to understand you let them go. They love each other too much to exact full pain, they hate each other enough to try anyway so everyone steps back.

Sam didn't, reflexively. He left himself unprotected in the process and bore the full brunt of Caleb's epic elbow to his head that sent us to the emergency room. I don't fuck with head injuries and so after a good twelve hour stint at the hospital we came home. Caleb drove. By ten p.m. there was an extra two grand in the house cash account for the door, the ipad, the coffee maker, the fireplace screen and the cushions that were covered in tea, and a text offer for full salary if Sam needs to take a few days from working.

Lochlan went over after that to 'thank' Caleb for his efforts in disrupting a perfect Utopia and they took down another door and put a hole in the hallway wall. I sent back five hundred and asked if they can just avoid each other instead of all this shit. They both said no. I give up. Caleb has no right to act this way. Lochlan has no need to push his buttons so hard either.

They both told me to stay out of it so I'm sticking with Sam for the night so I can make sure he stays up for a while yet and doesn't have any lingering effects. He's okay. Thank God.

I texted them once I was settled in Sam's room.

What if it had been Henry? 

No response. From either.

Old flames.

The days are long it's like I'm holding on
To the second hand dragging me along
The feeling's wrong but there ain't nothing gone
Baby come back home

I know you want to run away

I know you want to run away

I know you want to run away
Because something this good ain't meant to stay
But any way you cut it I'm built to last
So not so fast

I know we've had better days
But something this good you don't throw away
But any way you cut it I'm built to last
So not so fast

We timed it perfectly and as the last notes of the song faded I took a shuddering breath and blew out the flame, leaving us all in close darkness.

We dressed quickly in the dark as he clapped. A slow, singular noise echoing back from the walls, hyperfocused without the light and the loud music and the visuals we have honed down to a sharp science.

Breathtaking.

I started to smile at Caleb and was about to ask what he really thought when Lochlan took my hand.

Thanks for joining us. Same words as always but he doesn't take his eyes off me, even as he's not addressing me. He kisses my hand and we're gone, but not before I register a look of pure surprise mixed with rage wash across Caleb's face.

He follows us out to the top of the steps.

The hell?

I told you. She's mine. You don't LISTEN.

Loch pulls me along, out into the rain. I'm as surprised as Caleb. I've been worked into an absolute frenzy, sated in plain view (well, virtual darkness save for that flame that we smothered and resurrected all over each other for over an hour) and worked into a frenzy again. I'm ruined, keyed and stunned. I'm singed and sparked. Loch is smug and businesslike. He planned it like this all along. A show to tease and torture ending in one giant Fuck You.

Well, I mean he fucked me but it was a big Fuck You to Caleb, forced to sit and endure a spectacle he assumed he would be participating in eventually.

Oh my God, Lochlan's better at this than I thought. He's waited for this, he's planned for it for decades. He knows exactly what he wants from Caleb. Everything Caleb has ever dished out but tenfold. Every moment of pain or jealousy or longing magnified by the time it took, adjusted for inflation, drawn out in searing blows, one after another. I can hardly catch my breath, I can't even imagine how Caleb feels right now.

I turn and look at Lochlan in the dark, water dripping off the rim of his top hat, eyes flashing, skin warm, breath held just like mine, easily, exchanged from hand to hand as he takes control of damn near everything at last, using a skill set few ever believed in but virtually no one could explain. Well, I know how he does his tricks, I know all the illusions and how they work and I also know he isn't finished yet. Not by a long shot.

You were always too smart for me, Neamhchiontach. 

He took that back too, that name, but I shake my head. No, I guess I'm not innocent, or I would have seen this coming. I thought the night would end a different way entirely.

Silver tongues and transparencies.

La breithe sona duit, le mo ghra go deo.

(Rusty as fuck.)

This morning at four I went and fetched the champagne and the scotch too and brought them back to bed. By eight the champagne was everywhere and the scotch was mostly gone and Lochlan and I were both birthday drunk, sticky and worn the fuck out.

All birthdays should start like that, I think. 

He is fifty-one today. 

We showered and put on jeans and sweaters and took the rest of the scotch and a breakfast picnic down to the dock, sitting with our legs dangling over the side, sharing a thermos of coffee, toast wrapped in foil, oranges and then the rest of the bottle of scotch, passed back and forth until Lochlan tipped the remaining few drops down his throat with a flourish. 

I stood up and made my speech to him. I do it privately now, for it's easier and somehow less and more raw all at once this way, and I can say everything I want to say without any pressure, without any worries that anyone will have hurt feelings or surprise news. 

When I sat back down his eyes were swimming in tears. Half of that is just being drunk at nine in the morning and the other half is a blindside of emotion. 

I did so good with you, Neamhchiontach. So good. He shakes his head in disbelief. He doesn't mean he raised me well, though he really did, he means he is happy I'm his wife, that we're still together. That we picked each other and we kept each other and we persevered and here we are. 

You know how people say life flies past in the blink of an eye? That it's so fast? It isn't. It took forever to get here. 

But here we are. 

Happy Birthday, Locket. 

Thank you, Peanut. I have everything. 

There are still presents, but not until after dinner. 

Speaking of which, you up for a show tonight? 

I choke and inhale the Scotch. Great. Now I'm going to die. 

When I'm done coughing and he's gently pounded me on the back until I can breathe again, I ask for who? Not like I'm going to perform a show for everyone. We're not a family friendly act unless we're busking. I know exactly which show he means but for who is a mystery. Maybe Ben. Yeah, he probably wants to pull out all the stops at last and show Ben how we managed. Where the money came from that we didn't steal. Where the reputation came from when we didn't lie. 

Diabhal. 

I choke again but this time I let myself die. When I recover he takes the bottle and laughs. No more for you. You can't control a thing about your feelings. Jesus. I didn't realize the extent.

There's none left anyway. And we did a show for him once already. 

A full show, Neamhchiontach. 

No use calling me that if we're doing the whole thing for him.

I know. 

What have you done? Did you sell us out to him? 

No, Bridge. I felt sorry for the guy. So I said we'd give him the full show. My gift to him on such a generous day. We head over at nineish, after the party. Once we're ready. He's coming here around five. 

That is generous. 

He's got nothing left. We can at least entertain him. 

But Lochlan always had a masterful poker face, and I know he's holding all his cards close. I don't know what I'm walking into and I'm no longer looking forward to an event I practically live for, cake and speeches, dinner and celebrations. Now I'm dreading the evening ahead, and no one will tell me why. 

Relax, Peanut. We're going to have fun. We should keep our skills up anyway. Tonight's the perfect chance. And he smiles like everything is so wonderful, only I can see so far right through him, it's as if he isn't really even there.