Please stop emailing me about the Sponsored Divas thing. I'm not interested. Besides. I think to qualify you can only have one Sugar Daddy, not three. I'm not selling anybody out here except myself, okay?

Situational unfairness.

It didn't make it worse, it made it go away a little. Maybe the ache of always missing Cole can be soothed with a little tiny bit of time, a little less time, a moment or two. I wouldn't have spiralled into ruin had I not taken that moment when it came, but I also had absolutely zero plans to take it further. I can't do that any more, I'm working so hard to be accountable for every action I make, not having it passed off as grief, revenge or just 'Bridget being Bridget'.

You do you, everyone says all the time anymore.

What an excuse. How about You try harder, or You be better? What ever happened to that? I'm just trying to be different. To not approach the hard parts of life with the same methods as always. Trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of foolishness or idiocy or something. So that. I'm trying and sometimes I feel like it could work.

Other times I just give in. Rushed back to the house, pulled almost off my feet, I faced Lochlan's ire once we were behind locked doors. He checked my neck, wrists, hands, face. He fired questions at me, loudly and fast. I didn't know if it was fear or anger or maybe a mix of the two. And then he was satisfied that I was fine, that I didn't overstep past letting the Devil hold me and he said again that it was enough and he let himself relax but only slightly.

Every moment since he has had a hand around my wrist, or my leg, or my neck. Tangled around my fingertips, arm looped around my ribcage. I haven't been more than a foot away from him, either in waking or in sleep. He prefers to eat, breathe and pass the time close beside one another in order to either reassure himself or keep me from going back.

And as I told him, I have no intentions of going back. I spent the time I was going to spend. I got my Cole-fix or maybe my Caleb-fix or whatever it is. I reassured myself that he's still here and it's enough. It's more than enough. Maybe it's not right or okay or sanctioned but it could have been worse.

It's no different, Lochlan tells me. I know where he comes from. I understand the difference.

It will be, I promise him. I'm sorry, I say out loud but I don't know if I'm apologizing to him or to myself. Or maybe to the monster on the inside who constantly wants to fuck everything up.

Two sharp raps on the door and he's there looking in as I cross the kitchen at the same time. The instant relief washes over his face and changes my own relief to guilt.

I open the door. Just coming back. 

You've been drinking? 

She had a taste of my drink. Care for one? Caleb is right behind me.

I'm good. 

I bet you are, since our girl is intact. Not for lack of trying. Now I know how Jacob must have felt trying to find a way in. 

My heart breaks and blooms painfully, suddenly and Loch grabs my hand, pulling me out the door. That's enough, Diabhal, he says under his breath and we're gone. Caleb doesn't say anything else. There are no fists thrown. No brawls down the stairs. Just quiet. Quiet and black.

First Desponders.

I took a sip of his hot toddy and put it back on the table beside the couch, where we sat facing each other, me on his lap, in his arms, his lips kissing my face all over but mostly just underneath my nose. The hair on the back of my neck is standing up straight. I'm trying and failing to avoid falling into the hole as I lean forward to gauge the depth of the medium-blue of his eyes, pools I drown in, every single time, in spite of the otherworldly efforts to keep me safe, to teach me to swim, to teach me the word no. To teach me to somehow stay away from him.

Some things you can't be taught.

The rum burns the whole way down and I feel sweat break out around my hairline and between my shoulder blades. His arms are so tight. Now that I'm here he's not going to let go.

I let my head fall back to watch the rain on the skylights. It blurs the trees and the darkness, making a river of pine green, silver and navy blue, insulating the night from judgment and history alike.

He kisses down my throat, breathing in the hollow. My skin trembles involuntarily. I'm the queen of excitable reactions. The flush comes more slowly, the fever burn, the wave of warmth and unsteadiness.

Stay, Neamhchiontach. 

He's keeping the nickname for his own use, I note. I shake my head and wobble slightly. His arms tighten. It feels nice to be held like this. He leans his head against mine, holding me close.

How do I get you to stay like this forever?  

I have to go. I've given him what he wanted. A chance to invoke his brother's memory just for a fleeting moment. I can play with fire. That's something you can be taught and I'm good at it, never noticing until my limbs are blackened, my hair singed and my throat tight from the smoke, burned beyond recognition.

I can be excused for talking politics when it's this entertaining.

I don't know about you but I'm really enjoying the footage and photographs from the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's trip here to BC and the NWTs. George and Charlotte are adorable and growing fast, and Kate Middleton's clothing choices are perfect for every occasion. Prince William is really starting to lose his hair but he still looks more like his mother than his father (thank God). But the best part is they look like they're having so much fun, which is nice. Diana always looked so sad. The Queen always looks fierce and Pfft. Camilla. Not even going to say a word about her.

But I do like the news lately and I'll go to my grave a card-carrying monarchist. It's helping give me something to do while I get better, too, which I am, slowly. By degree. Only coughing every second time I breathe today.

Because naked pizza fixes everything.

Better today. I've graduated to bed with Ben who fulfilled my wishes for naked pizza and So You Think You Can Dance, Hindi Edition. 

So much better than yesterday.

(No offence, PJ.)

I want to have the kind of energy these dancers do. 

When you're better, you will, Ben says. 

I could be a hundred and ten percent and I'd still only have a fraction of it, I tell him. 

Practice, then. 

Will you do it with me? 

Sure, but only outside. I don't want to break anything. 

Oh, on the grass? To protect our limbs from the jumping on hard surfaces? 

No, in case I throw my arms up and hit the chandeliers or something. 

Oh, good point. 

See, if you felt better you would have thought of it too. 

Bedside manners.

Today PJ came up after the kids and the boys all left for their days and brought toast, orange juice, hot chocolate and tangerines and he got in bed with me and we watched a thousand or more (at least) episodes of Doctor Who.

I hate Doctor Who. Back in the early eighties when I babysat on the weekends half my families didn't have cable either and I was stuck with that show and little else. I learned to bring a book after a while. It was so dry and boring I can't even entertain it now. I hate the series. HATE it.

PJ fucking LOVES it.

I slept. I read. I cuddled and tried to get into the plot but mostly I coughed, hacking up things I could probably name if I wasn't so quick to swallow them in horror. PJ said I should go spit into the sink and I reminded him I was a lady.

Right, he laughed. And then he helpfully pointed out that it would be good to know what colors my phlegm-creatures are for the followup with the doctor, in case I need antibiotics after all.

I have whiskey, I show him proudly. This'll fix me!

Damn. The Devil's been busy getting you wasted and in bed without even having to be in the room. Loch won't like that. 

I know, right? I uncap the bottle and take a huge slug, grimacing so wide my chapped lips crack and bleed. PJ shakes his head and takes the bottle away. You can't have this shit anyway with all the other meds. 

I know. You're right, I tell him. I wish I had a white flag. Life is always smoother here if you walk up to PJ every now and then and just tell him he's right.

But he doesn't take the bottle downstairs, he opens it and has a drink. And we spend the rest of the morning drunk watching at least one thousand and eight hundred percent of season eight. Sigh.

Nurses with hairy legs.

It's a brilliant roman candle
That separates the day from the night
It's that clean, clear truth
That sorts our the wrong from the right
You and your face of light

Caleb came upstairs to say hello after finding out how sick I was from the bill he was probably emailed by the doctor this morning. House calls aren't cheap. Out of pocket healthcare is his responsibility, by his own request. It's been this way through thick and thin.

He brought me beautiful pink roses, some ice cream and a big ol' bottle of Lagavulin, to burn the germs out of me from the inside, he said with a laugh.

Indeed. If that doesn't work I don't think anything would. 

We shared a drink. Seriously. You could use this stuff to santize open wounds, nothing's going to survive in a glass.

I invited him to stay and watch a movie with me but he declined in case I really do have something deadly and promises me a rainy weekend movie if I feel up to it, that he'll check in tonight again, and that I should sleep, at least a little, if I can. I had another coughing fit and he put his arms around me so I could cough over his shoulder while he rubbed my back. When it was over he gave me another swig, this time straight from the bottle.

When I come back I hope that's empty and you're sleeping. 

That's how I get in the half the trouble I find myself in. 

He laughs, kissing my forehead. I'll be back late this evening. Share the bottle with your idiot husband and maybe he'll let me in to say a quick goodnight. 

That's very generous of you. 

I would be even more generous if he's interested. The ball is in his court, Neamhchiontach. It has been for months. He takes the risk and kisses me again, this time on the lips and then he is gone, taking the ice cream with him to put in the freezer for later.

Not three minutes after my door closes, it opens again. Dalton pokes his head in. You okay?

Yes. Want a drink?

No. I don't like Plague-avulin.

Oh my God, you just won the Portmanteau olympics. I'll buy you a fresh bottle tomorrow as your prize.

A week from tomorrow when you're allowed outside, you mean.

A week? Seriously?

Well, maybe if the weather is good Thursday someone will carry you out onto the lanai for some air. Yes, a week. Jesus, Fidget. Now get some sleep. He smiles kindly and closes the door again. I open the bottle and fill my mouth with whiskey, swishing it around my yucky teeth. God this stuff is good.

Smallest= weakest (I dug out my RUNT t-shirt and I'll wear it with pride.)

Cutting Order of Voices with Karnivool today. PJ is a proud papa of his little metal protege. Ben is more proud because he says I'll spend fifteen fucking years swaying over the same songs and then I have a binge where I can't get enough new music. This seems like a fall renewal thing for sure. Like being baptized in pumpkin spice. 

I'm quarantined anyway. The young Russian doctor was here this morning on call and he thinks I have the mumps. I would confirm with my other doctor but the only cure is rest and fluids anyway so Lochlan made me go put on pajamas, Dalton put the kettle on and Ben hung up my new skeleton string lights to cheer me up. 

Yes, I was vaccinated. Yes, I've already had the mumps. But if it's viral it's no big deal, right? (Yes, well, it's worse as an adult. You could go deaf. WELL LUCKY ME I'M 7/8THS THERE ALREADY) It's just contagious as hell and we need to be rid of it before Hallowe'en. Sometimes around this Collective by the time you recover from an illness you catch it all over again. 

But no one's going to avoid me. Instead they're all spoiling me because they all had two days of stuffy nose and sore throat and I got lambasted with something that seems one hundred times worse after a week already of what I thought was a bad cold, now with one whole side of my face/jaw/ear puffed right up painfully to the point where I had to give away an ice cream cone last night because I couldn't eat it. Couldn't manage at all. Cried and then Ben ate it and said it was awful to make me feel better. I got Tylenol and water instead, much like today. 

He's promised me a raincheck on the ice cream and a night of scary movies tonight to help distract. I'm game for at least one. After that I know I'll fall asleep. I feel like I've been up for a year. 

Arms dealers.

It's raining  and cold and it was supposed to be nice so instead of the yard work we were supposed to do we opted to stay inside today in comfy flannel shirts. There's a fire in the wood stove in the kitchen and Ben made us pizza from scratch. I had a cup of coffee but not the refill I was offered because I'm smart like that. Lochlan blocked all the awful folks from my email for me and laughed at some of my replies to people. I try to be sweet in person, one-to-one but it's not easy. I got to be Sam's test audience for a sermon he's working on and that tugged pretty hard at my heartstrings but I got over it. Jake used to do his out loud a couple of times throughout the week and then he would hardly need his notes. Sam works slightly differently in that he doesn't use any notes any more but he likes to see if there are things that need to change during the actual delivery. I must be a good audience because my opinions and emotional response to his words will always be right up front, all over my face, a reactionary bukkake, if you will.

(Mom, don't look up that word.)

So it's been a cozy day, and when time permits I've gone to visit each and every one of my boys that is home to see if they are happy. If things are working. If they want changes or have ideas on making difficult things easier. If they have special concerns or issues. It's basically a non judgemental, private stage in which anyone can say what's on their mind, minor or major. Anything they've been thinking about or shy about bringing up in front of others. Dalton wants to use kinder chemicals when we clean. Sam wants more cuddles. He's incredibly lonely. My afternoon becomes heavier as I work my way around to Batman, who wants to know what the plan is for Caleb because he is concerned for my safety and sanity, as always.

I have no answers for that. Sam was the blindside and so I blithely tell Batman to worry less, that my army is bigger and stronger than ever and I'm safe.

Batman tells me that he knows, that he helps fund the army, that he's a part of it even as I try to keep him in a separate little box set aside from everything else.

I come home. I've worked through the list and only three are left. The living heavy weights of my busted little heart. I don't dare ever ask the ghosts what they want.

Ben worries that if he falls off the wagon I'll write him off for good. He says this with his back to me as I spin in the big hanging chair alone.

Never, I promise him. He is mine and I am his but if he's not strong enough to bear my weight on his own, then I will carry him instead. It's the blind leading the blind but it's what I have. If I need to, Lochlan will be recruited to help me.

Ben shakes his head. You're slipping from me. I did it to myself to save you but it's coming. 

Hush. Nothing changes. 

It already changed. 

Stop it, Ben. You're mine. You always will be. 

Hope so, Bumblebee. 

I'm not permitted to see Caleb. Lochlan knows exactly what he'll say, what changes he'd want to make, what he needs here. Another day, Peanut. You can end with me for now.

So I do. Formally I pose him the same yearly questions we all get living here. I'll get the questions posed to me as well. The talks take a while and we'll revisit them all week or maybe even all month long but we keep this Collective running as smoothly as we can. That takes actual work, for those thinking it's some idyllic free for all. It's not. It's difficult.

Lochlan has no want of change. He smiles so easily after saying that I envy him. Except maybe to put the Christmas lights up outside and leave them up. Except to give less power to those who don't live in the house, like Caleb. Like Batman.

And then the others too.

What about Duncan? What about Sam? He has some lingering concerns.

Oh. Do you want to open this can of worms? It's been such a nice day. I'm not sure you're ready to admit to your evil plans.

You want to put it under the rug instead? It's like hiding an elephant under a kerchief. 

But does it work? 

Depends on if it's dark out. 

Well, that's a yes, because it's dark half the time. 

Another day then, Baby. 

I think so. Maybe Tuesday. I have some free time then. 

He nods but the smile has vanished.