When your brain doesn't tell you where it's heading.

(My 0 to 60 isn't measured in miles, it's in how quickly I can go from heartwarming to heartbreaking. August told me that once.)

I look like some sort of gentle torture victim today. I have a fine eczema rash almost all over my body at this point and four of ten fingers have cracked from the cold. I'm also covered in feathers, having drew the chore today of changing beds. That's eight king-sized beds, three hours of laundry and a lot of physical labor. You can't bounce pennies off flannel but I don't know a soul who doesn't appreciate climbing into fresh warm bedding at the end of the day. On PJ's day for beds he opens a door, fires a armload of clean sheets toward the bed and the sleeper must do his own hard labour putting it all back together again.

Maybe I do too much? I don't know. It's in my nature to spoil those I love but in the long run it's better to torture them. I should roll them in feathers too. These pillows leak something fierce. I can't find any holes in the outer casings though so maybe it's just a funny and annoying thing that very good pillows do. Ben bought these and then he bought some for everyone else too. I would roll him in feathers but he would just eat them.

Why are they sticking? PJ wants to know. He's been judging me all morning as I struggle from room to room with a big bundle of clean sheets for each bed. He's clucked and tsked and shook his head and he started to roll his eyes until I threatened to pluck them out of his face and replace them with dryer balls.

He found that funny. I guess he didn't think I was serious.

I put moisturizer all over. I guess it didn't finish absorbing yet. 

You're tarred and feathered. 

Yes thank you. I can see that. 

It's a fitting punishment, I think. 

I've never done anything wrong in my life. Recently, I mean.

Christ, Bridget. You asked Santa for the Devil. It probably doesn't get more wrong than that. 

I'm sure there are things that are worse. 

Like what? 

Pulling bed-changing duty and not actually doing it. I throw his bundle of sheets at him and let him make his bed by himself. I'm itchy all over. I need to go find a bathtub full of oatmeal and painkillers. Or maybe just tranquilizers because all of these feathers are freaking me out and I keep expecting to turn a corner and find Jacob standing in this house, wings and all.

Futureproofing.

I'm not a good person, Neamhchiontach. 

Somehow this seems disingenuous. He has cake. How bad can he be? (Asked the little girl who was only taught to be wary of strangers and had no idea she should ever be afraid of her friends.)

He doesn't wait for me (or her) to answer and instead keeps going.

If you don't mind, I'm going to cut our visit short this evening. Lochlan will be here at nine to collect you. I've already filled him in on my intentions and he's probably as relieved as you are. 

I came here above duress. 

I know, and it's encouraging but in order to rebuild trust we need to have time and not rush. 

The end justifies the means, you always told me. 

I was wrong. 

He sliced two generous pieces of cake and asked what I would like to drink. It took me a minute because he is the king of ordering for me, guessing that he knows me well enough and I pause before telling him whatever he has is fine. He counters with orange juice. He does know me. We work on our respective plates and he outlines a future I didn't think I'd see in this lifetime or even the next. Utopia without black holes to fall into. A support network bordering on incestuous if only we were related. I guess some of them are so it counts. A do-over. When I get to the last bite of cake he asks why I believe him, where the blind faith comes from in the face of a monster such as himself, why I trust him from the outset after all this time.

That's easy. We are growing old. My children are the ages now that he and Lochlan were when they made their plans to take over the world and honestly knowing how fragile life becomes after losing husbands and little brothers and faith too it's easy to see that there isn't time left for anything but finally setting things right.

That sounds naive and pretentious at the same time, Bridget. 

It's the sugar talking. 

Then we laughed until we cried. I got a hug. Not an ominous one, not an I'll see you later one jagged with threats, but just a hug. I felt a little hope in there and a little bit of regret but more of the former than the latter coming off the Devil in waves. I don't think he's going to blow this chance. Everyone else does but I know him better than I know myself. Kind of the same way he knows me.

A date with the Devil. Hope he has cake.

Caleb calls me out into the snow at 6ish this morning. Everyone's stirring. I bring my coffee and have boots on and pajamas. My hair is sideways and I jam it back behind my ears. Lochlan rolls his eyes as I go out the door and wonders out loud what he wants.

Caleb is holding a small box. He looks at it while he tells me that he understands that I am afraid, that he hopes to change that some day. He apologizes for asking for a good faith visit with him, telling me that he is thankful I was able to bring about the reconciliation between himself and his best friend, that his friendship with Lochlan is important to him and it is not contingent on nor is it tied to his relationship with me, but that he was hoping to be on close terms with us both. With everyone.

I nod and sip my coffee.

Are you alright? 

I don't know. Maybe. I look at my coffee. I'm freezing. It was -4 on the readout of the weather station in the kitchen and I didn't wear a jacket.

Go inside, Neamhchiontach. Maybe we can talk later. It's your call. 

I nod and he leans down and lands a kiss against my forehead before I turn to head up the steps.

Bridget-

I turn back. Yes?

You asked for me. That was the catalyst. What gives?

I know. It happened so fast. I thought it would be a longer fight. 

Was it a test? Are you disappointed in Lochlan? 

I am never disappointed in Lochlan. I look at Caleb now. My chin is up, my expression stubborn.

It's a fair question. 

No it is not. 

You forget-I'm part of this now too. 

I know. 

Will I see you this week? 

Tonight. 

Seriously? His face morphs into this huge excited eighteen-year-old's grin. I never could resist it.

Eight good? 

Eight is fine. Maybe just come over for dessert and see how you feel. Okay?

Okay. I feel weird and now I'm frozen to my bones, so in I go. Once inside I realize I didn't get to see what was in the box. Probably tonight. Maybe it's my soul. I was even smaller than this when he took it.

Most days.

Ben and I spent the afternoon trying to do handstands and walkovers into the snow of the pool. It's back. It's weird being here in the snow, I can't get used to it and Ben can't do a walkover. He can run and do a back flip into the snow easy but I was afraid he would break his neck and asked him to stop. In turn he said I looked really freaky walking like a circle in slow motion back flips with an arched back and only my hands and feet touching the ground.

They teach that at the circus? He asked.

Summer camp. I could do it before I got to the circus, I told him.

When we got too cold to stay outside we headed toward the patio and Caleb appeared like a vampire. Ben was conciliatory, giving me a shove in the Devil's direction but I came back to Ben on his downswing.

I looked the Devil in the eye but my mouth went dry and my hands started to shake. Ben and I have plans to spend the afternoon, sorry. 

Caleb made an oddly gracious reminder about good faith promises and then a hasty exit and Ben stared at me until we were alone again.

Bridget, did Caleb somehow force you to ask Lochlan for a truce? 

No? 

Because for someone who wants her freedom to go to the Devil you seemed more than a little afraid. Has Lochlan addressed this? 

I'm not ready, that's all. I didn't expect them to sort through this after so long. 

You bluffed. 

I didn't bluff. I think I just...overshot. And now instead of an open promise I suddenly have an extra rich clingy boyfriend. 

Oh MY GOD. HAHAHAHAHAHA (See the Guardians of the Galaxy 2 trailer? At the end when Drax goes DO ME NEXT HAHAHAHAA. Yeah, that's Ben.)

What's so funny? There's Lochlan back from Batman's early. Great. Ben's going to twist this because it's funny to him.

Your wife is afraid of her new boyfriend and may have bluffed, thinking you two would never make up but then you did and she doesn't want to go to him. 

That's not what's happening. The longer we go in between the harder it is. I don't know if I can trust him. Or you. Or anyone for that matter. Or Ben. Especially Ben. I regard him with narrowed eyes.

This is bullshit. Lochlan says.

Yes it is. I agree.

What do we do? He asks. He's cold. He just wants to go inside.

Nothing. I'll find my courage tomorrow maybe. Or the next day. 

Bridget-

It's fine. Really! 

But they both look at me like I'm crazy, which is nothing new either.

NYE

We met on the plains of Point Perdition just before eleven, instantly had an argument and retreated, lighting the fields on fire behind us so we wouldn't be followed. The power went out, the generators kicked in and the snow fell so thickly it was like cotton from heaven. We opened some champagne, toasted to a new year and Caleb briefly appeared again, this time at the side door, no harm no foul, to wish us a happy new year and invite us for brunch the next morning. We agreed sometimes a rocky start is better than no start at all and left each other on good terms. Well, most of us did. Sam had his feelings hurt somehow and tried to magnify that into a reason to keep the very quiet tiny party going but I bailed on the blackness all around and fell asleep with the dog at my feet, safe in my bed before one. When I woke up at three the lights were all blazing again and everyone (Ben is the late night ringleader) was mostly awake and still talking, watching movies and generally doing this otherly-human thing of staying up super late. I can't do it. I'll barf. But I did get up early this morning and put away most of the Christmas stuff, started some laundry and made myself a huge mimosa with the rest of the champagne. In a double-sized A&W mug I found in the cupboard so I should have been useless by brunch but no. I was just hungry.

(I think they all thought it was going to be a repeat of 2012. I don't think we're there yet. I don't think I was ever there to begin with.)

Hello 2017.

What a gift. What potential and hope resting in a number.

Let me go boys let me go
Push my boat from the highest cliff to the sea below
Rocks are waiting boys rocks await
Swoop down from the sky and catch me like a bird of prey

Now my feet won't touch the ground
Now my head won't stop
You wait a lifetime to be found
Now my feet won't touch the ground

Ben's way is best. Stand on the telescope platform in the pouring rain and sing out loud to whatever's in the headphones. Singing into the void of fog has a meaning I can't even articulate to you on this day.

2016 wasn't easy. I turned a corner with grief still skulking behind me like a mugger, ready to take everything of value from me but it seems like it's not breathing down my neck in quite the same way anymore but I'll never let my guard down, I promise. Credit to Sam and to August who have been tireless, putting up with my creative dissonance to everything they suggest and my inappropriate distractions, too. We persevered. We made it somewhere.

I rarely summoned the ghosts to come hang out in the garage.

Once again, I didn't go to Burning Man.

I had the Lizard King to myself for a brief moment and he turned out to be even cooler and more foreboding than I expected. We're still friends but I can't sleep with him. He's the big brother I worship and that's where we work best.

Ben and I sorted out what sort of relationship we have and we're happier than ever. He's more relaxed. He's creative. He's not fighting life all the time. He risked a lot for me and I will forever spoil him with whatever his heart desires for the rest of my life for what he did.

I married Lochlan. Best day of my life. We rode the Wonder Wheel forever. Our vows were too deep to avoid falling into and we wound up falling into a hole no one wants out of. He's grown the most this year, shifting from selfish to helpish, as we like to say. Maturing past his belligerent seventeen-year-old outlandish self into a calmer though still mischievous version of that boy and I think I'm more in love with him than I ever was.

And Caleb is back in my life, bringing a whole new black-tie, white shirted level of chivalry and formality to the table that I missed dearly. I feel like I can say what I want finally. I can say I am afraid of him sometimes. I can say I'm angry that he stole critical, pivotal things from me at a time when I needed them most. I can say I vilified him when maybe it wasn't what it seemed. I can admit I hid behind unfortunate numbers and legal technicalities to torture him for our inability to hold to a promise I didn't even make and I can look at him and sometimes see nothing but Cole in his eyes, in the way he moves, the way he speaks, the way he touches me when he's being kind but I can also hold my own here and he knows his place in this version of our lives. The one that starts at midnight. The one with a different number on the end.

Happy New Year. May it be what you want from it, may it bring you peace. Fuck you, may it bring ME peace. That's what I need now. Not just for me but for the Collective too.

I'm only telling you this because I liked the sandwich part.

My memory thief sleeps while I watch him. He has no idea that I just snuck into his rooms while he slept. I could rob him blind or stab him or maybe just steal all of my memories back but it seemed more peaceful to hide up here, at the top of the front staircase past his little den packed with books about world religions and his endless notebooks and in his room, proper, with the rough plaid blanket he loves so much covering him from his chin to his toes. He looks so cozy.

The blinds are open, his windows overlook the woods in the front of the house. The trees are still laced through with snow, the snow still threatens to remain until 2017 and my memories are still safely locked up, held by him, just like the little copper box with the bird and everything Jacob ever wrote down because it's been said that just glancing at his handwriting can send me into a tailspin so fast you might lose your hands trying to stop me.

I must have lost my train of thought or maybe I didn't have a ticket because when I look back at him he is awake and gazing at me, not really seeing me but probably wondering if he is really awake or still sleeping.

What's wrong? he asks.

Nothing. I like your view. 

Ah. You don't have this from the library? 

Not at treetop level.

I see. Where's Loch?

Also sleeping. 

Ben? 

Sleeping too.

I figured you'd keep your polysandwichery going until noon. What gives? 

I just needed to think. 

Heavy decisions, Bridget. 

It's for the best. 

Best for whom? 

Me. Caleb. I don't know. Lochlan said to be selfish. It's the most he's ever asked of me. 

But he asked anyway. 

He knows me better than I know myself. 

But he doesn't have all the answers so here you are. 

Fortune tellers and their crystal balls aren't real, Sam. 

Did you have your fortune told, Bridget? 

I did. 

And what did it say? 

That I would be loved by many yet kept by few. That passion would fire me and the sea would lull me to sleep. That things would never be exactly as I wish and that I would always want for more. And that I should watch out for the accountant because he tends to short the pay on the last day of each month.

So tell me exactly how that isn't real, Bridget? 

I don't want for any more than this, Sam. I really don't. 

What about if Jake were still here?

But he's not. He's now a fairytale. 

Are you the princess?

Sometimes. And sometimes I'm the monster.

Or maybe you are just as God intended. 

God's a real prankster, isn't he?

One hundred and ten percent.

I might have worked today so if you see an album cover in the future featuring a photograph of a lady in a fur coat and seventies (we're talking high-waisted ivory bikini with orange and green flowers YES) bathing suit with a martini glass and sunglasses sitting on a lawn chair in a pool full of snow..well, it's me! And it's my pool!

It isn't my lawn chair (we don't have those seventies webbing finger pinch-traps thank God), my fur coat (I don't own a fur coat but I have several fur blankets I love to roll around on naked) or my martini glass (I don't have any of those either. We use those fat IKEA juice glasses for fucking EVERYTHING because I'm not only hella lazy but super-thrifty, having grown up poor, in a camper with two plastic Tupperware cups for drinkware, total. Lochlan's cup was red, mine was green.). I learned to be a minimalist but I learned to be an exhibitionist too and today was one of the most fun work days in recent memories. Trust me. The martinis were real, dirty and somewhat endless. The crew was a riot in spite of the light rain. The coat smelled funny but kept me warm and the lights melted the snow, which necessitated men with wheelbarrows fetching more from all four corners of the property and finally we were done. Which means they took my chair, coat and glass and I kept my sunglasses on right up until it started to rain again and Corey came back with a big fat cheque dated 2016. Now I have to file income taxes.

Just kidding. I have to file them anyway because I worked a few times this year. Mostly for Corey, since I didn't work for Caleb conventionally and Batman really didn't need me at all but provided a modest retainer for no reason other than he feels that he must. I don't plan to work for Caleb either now that we're back on, in case you think he's using me for tax preparation. Luke will look after that.

I'm really just for show. Days like this prove it. They feel somewhat surreal.

Lets be adults: 2017 edition.

The magic words are awesome: Please.

For Christmas I asked for the Devil.

(It was harder than it seems. Not only for me but for Loch.)

Not that it's any of anyone's business how or with whom I conduct my life but things weren't working without him in this place. I missed him something awful. I'm just damaged enough to still need him and just stupid enough to still want him. Plus not sure if anyone ever notices but everyone is a lot happier when he is happy. And when he's happy he's not flipping tables, levelling threats and brandishing weapons. Caleb has no in-between. He has nothing or he has everything and that includes moods, emotions, reactions, cash. It's the way it is. The C_____ brothers were known for their passion, or maybe just the trouble it got them into.

So I took my Christmas campaign to Lochlan. Since he was feeling generous and confident after the Sam-thing. He isn't going to lose me to anyone. Since I really didn't want to waste another minute trying everything short of that coveted lobotomy to fix things here. Since it IS Christmas.

But I didn't just ask for contraband quality time with Caleb. I asked for them to clear the air. To make up and move on. If I was the wedge driven between them then I will also be the glue to seal the rift. The original deal between them goes back into force (sharing is caring) and they can both look after me if they want. No one gets to fight for time since I decide. If it comes down to priority, Lochlan wins because I say he does. He remains the Alpha. The husband. Caleb remains the Sugar Daddy everyone adores. Caleb continues to do what he's always wanted to do, provide for us. All of us. And in return he gets time with me. I don't have to be ashamed of wanting time with him. It just becomes a de facto thing.

We can't do it with rules but we're going to use common sense. No violence. No velvet ribbons or asphyxiation bullshit. No safe words because they won't be needed. No holds. No weapons whatsoever. No withholding. No arguments. No selfishness. Just peace. Ben gets included in everything. (He may have fistpumped the air when he learned of this because I never know if he's going to feel left out so I preempt that risk with promises I wouldn't break on my deathbed.)

They were locked in a room for most of a day talking, shouting, at one point throwing fists and then they got past it and figured out something they haven't addressed since I was eleven. They renewed their promises to do what they set out to do in the first place. They vowed not to stab each other in the back. They got somewhere.

They actually got somewhere.

In the end Lochlan agreed to try. No true rules but I choose and if Caleb fucks something up it stops. If Lochlan loses his nerve or if I don't want to do something it stops. If I find it isn't working it stops. It's a trial. Nothing else has worked. Let's try this. We tried a few times before but we weren't clear in what we would be getting or giving. They didn't talk before. They're talking now.

Maybe that's been the one thing missing all this time. Maybe now we can start over. That's the theme for 2017. That is how we're going to move forward. It's been too long a fight. Gotta try getting along instead.

And for the issue with what started all this? I forgave Caleb a long time ago. He stuck around. He's been making restitution, forcing himself into my life so as to remain a big part of it. He gets credit for that. He didn't cut and run. Sometimes you have to let things go or let the people behind those awful things help you move on. We all make mistakes. Lots and lots and lots of them.

Good morning! What is it? Tuesday? We have fresh groceries, went out for lunch and came home. The roads are absolutely terrible and the snow is plentiful and frankly I'm fine to stay at home in new pajamas and cuddle with my boys. There's always someone free to do that. Today it's Christian. We read. Or rather, he reads voraciously and I mostly sleep. It's wonderful. Happy Christmas.