Reconnect.

Lochlan comes out to the top of the steps, where he told me to wait for him. He's got two drinks in one hand, glasses held pinched between two fingers, and in the other hand he has a small box.

Good whiskey and presents. Birthday weekend is off to a great start.

He hands me a drink and holds his glass by the top to clink with mine. Sláinte, he says. A purest if ever there was one. We take tandem sips as I eye his other hand.

And that is? Cookies? 

What? Cookies? Naw, Bridge. An early present. 

But is it cookies?

Open it and see. 

I take off the silver paper and glitter ribbon.

It's a new iPhone.

Oh hallelujah. It's an XS. 256 gbs. I will never have to curate my music again. It's a pretty silver color and he's already put my backup on it so it's ready to go. He even took an incredibly goofy selfie with it and made that my wallpaper.

Oh I love it!! Thank you!

It's less of a birthday present and more of a necessity. Turn it over. 

On the back it says Love you Peanut. Engraved.

I can never use another phone ever. 

Well hopefully it'll be a few years until you need a new one. 

Thank you Locket. 

I get a whiskey kiss and then he takes the phone and puts it in his pocket for safekeeping, because I have no pockets. Nowhere to hide anything. Nowhere to put things for safekeeping, save for my heart and it only has room for the most precious of things anyhow.

Like him.

Men and very good linen.

I still don't have a phone but you know what? I don't need one. They know where I am. The kids message PJ, Lochlan or Caleb (or each other) if they need something and really I spend way too much time playing Knock Knock on it (yes, still) than anything else. I don't have any social media to look at and horse pictures even get boring after a while. I miss music but I also have a handy leftover iphone 6 that plays it just fine.

I will need a camera, shortly. Henry graduates next month. I'm taking him shopping this weekend for a suit and shirt for his ceremony and maybe if we can find something for the prom, that would be great too but he's like me, he hates to dress up.

Speaking of which, Ewa i Walla is having a huge sale. I kind of bought everything. Sorry not sorry.
Everyone always wants to know where I get my coats with the tiny endless buttons, now you know. Their clothes are very generously cut and also I am fairly short so what looks cropped in the catalogue is actually quite long in real life. Everything is natural fibres. Nothing hurts. Their clothes are just beautiful in real life. Caleb hates them because they're unstructured, very civil-war-meets-European-farm with a side of hippie style and he prefers very high end perfectly tailored things so I told him to shop somewhere else for himself and he frowned at me but left his credit card on the table.

He just wants to make me happy, he says.

Clothes...don't do that, I remind him.

I know. 

Then what?

I'm glad you're feeling better.

I'm not but it's Thursday and I'm trying not to be mopey.

Oh, is that what you're doing? He laughs.

Maybe.

I had a good sleep. Lochlan waded back into the fray and took over heartbeat duties. His heartbeat is a hummingbird, a swift breeze, a percussion tap. It isn't relaxing but makes me feel like I should jump up and do something. It's less about the rhythm and more about his own nervous energy. He didn't feel physically tired and so neither one of us would sleep. Until finally Ben returned and his odd peacefulness sent us all into a slumber that rivalled anything I've ever had before.

I feel like with these two, I finally got something right.

I feel lucky.

Grateful.

Blessed, finally. Even when my brain tries to sabotage my perfect life and I can't control it eventually my heart wins out, murdering my brain in its sleep, hauling it up by the collar and yelling in it's face. Look! Look at this! Let her have this! Finally! Jesus!

Still trying to break your heart.

My ear is pressed against Ben's chest, his heartbeat a counter-rhythm to the rain hitting the windows. His fingers trace my wings. I've long-abandoned his headphones, having tipped over the edge into a dark silent void that even the music can't reach. Still he tries, and mostly succeeds where everyone else has given up in frustration, or drifted off, wringing hands, cracking knuckles, concerned but removed. Ben finds this Perfectly Manageable and that's why I love him. He's seen worse. He's weathered worse.

It's just a bad day, Bee.

A bad week.

It's just a bad week, Bee. He repeats it back to me and I laugh until I sob against his cool skin, his tattoo armor keeping me from dragging him down. He's tough enough for this. We worked hard to remove some of his emotion from this engagement without removing all of it. Just enough to keep him in a safe headspace of his own, still with his strange knack for comforting others intact. 

Ben was never someone we counted on for comfort, over the years. He was either absent or unwilling. He was rough around the edges and loathe to ever be soft. He was checked out before we arrived at the destination or he just wouldn't be able to deal with it. 

Ben has turned out to be everything he never was before. He credits me for saving him. I credit myself with ruining him. 

But here we are, clinging to his heartbeat in the dark, a radar blip that will lead us home. 

Tomorrow will be better, he says. He's tired. His words run together. His breathing deepens and his heartbeat slows ever so imperceptibly. 

What if it's worse?

If it is we'll stay right here. Like this. He tightens his hold on me, having drawn my wings on my back fifteen times over, maybe twenty, until they are engraved on bones, seared into my soul with his touch. 

Promise?

I do. 

Trustfalls.

What can I do to help you, Bridget? 

Leave me alone, please.

I can do just about anything but that, I'm afraid. 

My anxiety is like breathing in a storm and holding it. I never know when it's going to come out in a rush, drowning everything around me, drowning out the good attempts to talk me out of it. I was always a hurricane, always spooling in from the water to wreak havoc on land, always making sure you stocked up on supplies and battened down the hatches because I was unpredictable, powerful, damaging. 

I'm never anything less than a category five. Life is always a hyperventilating whoosh, a broken-off corner to shove a square peg into a round hole, messy storm of a girl and I'm sorry, is what I am. Over the years (decades, even) I grew so used to being helped, to being asked how I felt that now I just do it automatically. I let the wind blow. I let it rain. I let the power go out while the curtains flap against the open window and I tell you up front the storm is here. Not even coming, it's too late for that, it's here now and if you didn't already do something about it, it's simply too late now.

It's like that. Like I said, I'm sorry but it's a storm and it never truly passes, it just ebbs and wanes, it waits offshore. It hides behind clouds and it highlights the sun in order to blind you so that you can't see everything. 

It's deadly and it's weak and it's often and it's devastating. 

I already said I was sorry. I don't know if that matters. I should have said nothing and then we can pretend the skies are clear.

Nothing spoiled.

We saw Avengers: Endgame this morning. Never in the history of my life as I remember it has there been such a push in this house to see a film before it got spoiled. Never have I cried like that during a Marvel movie. Never have I questioned the music choices so voraciously in my mind and also never have I seen classier, more appropriate credits as I did today with the actors' signatures across the screen with their superhero poses. Well done. Worth the two-week internet blackout and braving the crowds. We went out in public. With actual public. That doesn't happen much.

Just an FYI there is no end-credit scene.

******

Neamhchiontach. I'm not going to bring up your activities as of the end of this week but I would like to schedule a date, if I may. 

Oh good. AKA He's not going to rage at me for touching PJ (or maybe that's being touched by PJ) but Caleb does want to isolate me from everyone else during the most holiest and reverent of times. 

My birthday is a week away, after all. 

What sort of date?

Dinner. A drive maybe. Maybe slow-dancing in the courtyard. 

You going to cook? 

Would you like me to? What would I make?

Your scallops and fettucini with lemon butter and a good dry wine. 

I would be honored to make that for you. And what for dessert? Cake?

Of course. 

What shall we dance to? 

Mascagni's Intermezzo. Or something similar.

This sounds very formal, Neamhchiontach.

As you like it.

Do you like it, is the question?

I can wear my McQueen. 

I would be delighted if you did. Sunday? 

Friday. 

You have plans Sunday? 

That's a family day for everyone. 

And Saturday? 

Lochlan and Ben get that. If not Friday we can do the Monday after?

Friday is perfect. I can shop ahead. It is supposed to rain, however.  

That's perfect. I love the gazebo when it's raining. 

I do too. He smiles very big at me and I return it. For once it's without dread or hesitation. For once I'm looking forward to time with him.

Amnesiac.

PJ and I are having our existential crises in tandem. In June his job description ends, as Henry won't need to be organized and packed off to school and honestly we have a chore list that is rotational and well-entrenched at this point.

What does a nanny do exactly once the kids have graduated from high school? Ruth was phased out of his care ages ago. He's the anchor for the entire Collective though and forever will be, a natural homebody, a constant, an oddly efficient nurturer and the most organized person I've ever met who manages to do it all in a laid-back, big picture way.

Case in point. Once everyone was off and having their quiet Friday evenings, the plants were watered and all the vehicles checked to make sure they were locked, empty, dome lights are off and gates are closed he put the dog out for a moment, baked a pizza and took both to bed with him to watch Rammstein videos. I opted to join him once I finished my own chores. Besides, it was the best Friday night plans I've heard suggested in recent weeks and I figured I'd stay for an hour or two.

Besides, second dinner. I only eat the crust with PJ. He only likes the pointy part up until the final third and crust. We make a good team.

I am soon stuffed and since I stopped moving I get sleepy. The last thing I remember is the woman in the newest video picking up her radio-baby to breastfeed it and I laughed and then I woke up and it was morning. The light was coming through filtered curtains and I could hear the birds.

PJ is awake but sleepy.

Noisy little sleeper. I keep forgetting. Also you take up so much space. I forgot how much. 

You did. 

He pulls me in close. Morning breath-beard kiss. I don't mind it. Then he turns me over and puts his hand over my face, pulling my shirt up. I put my hands up to pry his hand away but he's stronger and I can't get him to budge. His face is against my head. I push against him and he responds in kind and soon I am fighting to be more quiet and fighting to not die from overstimulation as he rocks against me. He turns me back over so I can breathe and cuddles me into his arms as he resumes his efforts, letting go, forgetting his weight on me, forgetting his gentleness with me. PJ isn't a fast-food kind of guy, he's an eight-course meal kind of guy in bed. He reaches down and cups me against him hard until I cry out.

There she goes, he tells himself, a badge of honour and then he's finishing too, the most beautiful sound coming from him as he clenches my limbs hard in his hands.

I bet that's a perk most nannies don't get. 

I bet you'd be surprised at how many get that perk. 

He laughs. You know, I can make breakfast too if you want to stay for a bit. Lunch. Snacks. Tea. Dinner again. Keeps you from getting in shit with Gage. 

Oh, is that what this was? You're a decoy now to distract me from the real threat? He isn't like that. 

Neither am I, Bridge, but that's not for lack of trying. He plants a hard kiss on my lower lip and then disappears to take a shower.

I lie there thinking about this and then I fall asleep again.

Mood.

A year ago today I got my job. A shitty little barely-over minimum wage position with nasty (and a few kind) customers, a chef who yells all day long and very sore arms and legs. I have people constantly reaching out to try and touch my tattoos and I want to scream at them when they do that.

I managed to save $10667.06, all told. I have spent nothing. I don't know why that's important but it is to me. It's sitting in a low-yield account gathering a light coating of dust and I think about it when I'm ready to quit.

That's the irony. I went out into the world without the boys (who meddled furiously nonetheless) and thought I would show them. I took the humblest of jobs pouring coffee, serving pie slices, ringing up tickets and washing windows (when it's not busy), and every time I wanted to quit, they all said,

Give it a year. 

Every time they wanted me to quit I said,

I'll quit when I'm ready. 

And honestly?

I'm thinking about it.

Hangfire.

Lochlan. In my face. Holding my face. In the dark. In the night. Alone.

I taught you to be a thief and a liar and if I do say so myself, I'm rather proud of how you turned out. And it's not cheating, it's just unconventional by normie standards, like everything we do. You are an incredible wife and definitely not a hopeless case. Possible the most hopeful one, as it were, because you've been through unimaginable horror and yet you wake up every day smiling and you demand that everyone puts love and music above anyone else and I couldn't imagine my life without you. 

Never has the darkness been so light. And warm. I burst into flames. My brain burns quickly, a fuse that leads to my heart, exploding into colors and lights. A one-off. A spectacle.

*Boom*

I would be a liar if I said it didn't bother me, though. There's always the tiny seed of doubt in my mind that another Jacob will come along and you'll forget we exist.

I never did.

He swept you away on a cloud and when it rained and you came back down to the ground there wasn't much left of you, Bridget. I was so scared.

You were off having your own drama.

I tried. I was miserable. I came back. We all came back for you.

Even the devil.

Yes. How did he respond to Gage's overtures?

He walked into the kitchen, looked at me with the worst expression ever, opened his mouth to say something, changed his mind and left. 

Lochlan laughs. Jesus Christ. Let's hope this is his final form. The one with self control. 

My final form, you mean. With the same. 

His eyes flooded when I said that and I wanted to take back my entire life.

Breakfast of shame.

Snack of shame.

Beach walk of shame.

Errand-running of shame.

Early pre-gardening of shame.

Shame shame shame.

And I didn't even follow through.

Imagine if I had.

(No, don't. Please.)