You had this minute.

You got this thing about you
Everything that I think about you
Is gonna go and make me something else
You've been the smile on my face for about until this day
You believe it's true, and I believe it too
And everything's gonna be alright
When you say, "I, I've got this thing about you"

I got a belated birthday card from overseas. I couldn't read it, it was in Russian, and I don't want to show it to Lochlan or Caleb so I'll just put it in the stack of papers on the counter and whatever power it wants to have can evaporate over the course of the day, in the sun.

I have to work today but luckily I'm not hungover. Or tired! Or stupid. Maybe I feel like the Bruins' Marchand and I'll give one word answers to people when I'm pissed off, when they throw their money on the counter instead of handing it to me like a civilized individual. Maybe I'll teach the chef not to screech at me from the back. Maybe pigs will fucking fly and Jacob will walk back through the door and exclaim profanity-laced surprise that I made it this far without him, thanks to all of them.

Maybe Schuyler will apologize for strongarming the whole house on Saturday. Maybe Daniel will back up Ben instead of Schuyler. Maybe Lochlan will put his foot down. Maybe Caleb isn't as upfront as he claims to be. Maybe the sun will rise and set and rise and set and maybe I should have stayed drunk instead of this.

Maybe it would have been better,  but here we are. Come see me today. Buy a coffee. Make my day go quickly so I don't Marchand the whole fucking thing to death.

JESUS,

Oh gosh. Stretched out on Ben, still drinking champagne. Still ridiculously lit from within, drunk just enough to have a buzz that gives me wings and now my birthday is over. There will be no more drinkgs,  Ben will go back downstairs, Lochlan will reverse all o fhis crazyiness and the spell with be rbokne.

But not quite yet.

Stilld runk.

To know me as hardly golden is to know me all wrong.

I'm coming up only to hold you under
I'm coming up only to show you wrong
And to know you is hard, we wonder
To know you all wrong, we were

It was a strange choice of music for a slow dance but he took me in his arms anyway. Me of the champagne for blood, shit for brains variety of lover, him dark and handsome, tall and just a little silly. The dark sky threatened us with rain the entire time but the champagne took away the care for that. At one point I expressed concern that I'm going to have the worst headache of all time tomorrow, since I mostly drank from sunrise to sunset yesterday but that hasn't happened, thankfully.

We buy the good stuff now, Caleb laughs, kissing the top of my head this morning. I let him have a sleepover with us and he seems so content this morning. Surrounded. Not sure I ever met someone who needs affection as much as I do but if I did I think his name starts with a C.

What did we buy before?

The kind that you would think would be good due to price but actually isn't much better than the cheap sparkling bottom shelf bottles.

Oh.

Like wine, Bridget.

Of course, I say as if I know what I'm talking about. Of course. Right. Naturally.

Wait, what?

I think I'm still drunk.

This is great.

Ruth brought me home a big fancy cinnamon roll from the bakery and today, TODAY is suit day for Henry. And I figured out what to get him for a graduation gift.  I'm very excited for the pomp and circumstance because this is the end of public school forever. The end of herd-mentalities and bullshit policy and the end of Henry being a child, honestly. Shortly after graduation he turns 18 and life begins for real.

For real.

Caleb is coming to the shopping because he knows clothes (boy, does he ever) but not after because he isn't invited to sleep over tonight. Last night was a rare surprise so it's more than good enough.

And honestly I still default to Henry as Caleb's. Mostly because I had to force myself to accept it but also because Henry so desperately needed an accessible, living father it just became a de facto convenience.

They have a bond. They forged one against everything. And Caleb has provided for the children in a way no one could have, with a natural warmth and affection, a mentorship and a companionship that I didn't think he was capable of, something he did not afford me as a child, but something I embrace for them maybe even moreso because it was a surprise to me.

Jacob (Henry's father) didn't stick around the be the victor here, with all of these spoils, and I live with a whole squad of opportunists but also men of character, willing to stick out the hard jobs until the light shones through. And so they can have it.

Pre-empting the pre-empt.

When I woke up this morning it was dim and cool. Recent rain is still drying on the grass and I am told to dress warmly before leaving the house. He takes my hand and we make our way down to the beach, where he has stuck flowers in between all of the rocks, making a path to where we will have breakfast this morning, a thick plaid blanket weighed down with the smooth round stones that line the shore.

I ask if I can help but I am handed a mug full of champagne and am given a kiss before he assures me that he has this. That he's been up for hours (true). 

He builds a fire and then puts on the coffee pot. He props a small rack down over the fire, beside the coffee pot and proceeds to fry up eggs and potatoes, bacon and tomatoes. He throws some toast on the rack beside the frying pan. It smells heavenly and my stomach roars right along with the ocean. 

I know you're spending the day with Caleb but I wanted to make sure the weekend starts how I think you'd like it most. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, you know. Lochlan smiles at me as he loads two plates, and asks if I'm done my champagne yet because he needs the mug for coffee. I drink the champagne in one go and hand the mug back and he fills it and returns it to me. 

Best coffee I have ever had. 

Best breakfast too. 

When we finish eating he takes the plates and balances them on the edge of the fire before wrapping us together in a second blanket to watch the flames and the waves, like he used to do when we were young.  It's just dim enough that the fire turns the beach to black and white, glowing orange before a teal sea. 

Happy early birthday, Bridget. He kisses the top of my head. Wish I didn't have to give you to the devil for the day.

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.