Lilac season.

If you funnel yourself down through the layers of mountain, highway and concrete you reach me at the end, a quiet, small presence just around the corner from a windswept park, just along the edge of a cliff that drops to the ocean below. Not my ocean, again, as I've reassured myself a million times, maybe more, but good enough for now.

It is there that the lilacs opened for the first time this morning, and I stuck my whole face into a bloom and was surprised by a bee just minding his own business. He kissed my lashes, bounced off my face a couple of times and moved along.

Cole is the bee. There's always one drifting around the edges of my journeys around the yard.

I planted some stray ferns that escaped the woods, some mint and some leftover sunflower seeds by the (broken) gate. The old one that separates the side yards around the front of the house and past the porch. It is decorative and hardly functional and yet with wildflowers coming up all around it it looks incredible. Some of the larkspur grows there too, and daisies and a foxglove or two.

Caleb frowns at it. We'll have it replaced this weekend. Or maybe just removed. It dates the property just a little bit. 

Leave it. 

It's rotten, Bridget. The wood is so weathered-

I love it. 

He watches me, a study in walking cognitive dissonance and I refused to meet his gaze. Instead I watch the bee and I wonder why it doesn't bother him.

You always did love those little pockets of unexpected beauty. What did you call them when you were little?

Things To Paint. 

Ah, yes. Things to paint. Are you going to get your supplies and come out to paint this?

Maybe I will. We'll see.

Therapy.

If you could find me would you even know me?

How about a garden?

Really?

Sure. We could do a raised bed with room for some tomatoes and strawberries.

It was a surprise comment from Cole at the castle on a blustery spring day that stirred a long-dormant need to put down roots. Moving addresses every four or five years. Not having time to settle in, to grow. I'm still prone to beginning to write an address I had four addresses ago because I forget.

Okay, lets!

And the garden thrived. It thrived. We were giving produce away. It was a ten by six foot rectangle hemmed in with two by sixes and a few bags of topsoil and it freaking thrived. The kids would run past it and stop for handfuls of cherry tomatoes and pull out baby carrots that weren't even close to ready and eat them without washing them first.

That was then.

This is now.

Now my garden is the size of a olympic swimming pool and I call it 'the patch'. Last night I filled it with pumpkins, tomatoes and cucumber seedlings, mint, sage and radishes. Today I will finish with seeds kept from last year and sunflowers too. I want lettuce and peas and squash and cauliflower. Potatoes! It makes me so happy. I can't work in it when the sun is doing her worst but early in the day or after dinner that's where you'll find me.

I loaded my jeep with manure and came home with a surprise chore for the boys. I drove the jeep around through the big fence gates and across the backyard and I parked her on the bluff and we (by we I mean they) shovelled out all of the manure. Then I hosed it out and put her back in the driveway.

My life is basically perfect now.

Still too hot to talk about birthdays but I like to try and give you something, if I can.

Lochlan's hair is already rose gold. Thank you, summer, for making him glow. The chlorine just hastens the reaction and yet somehow he is as pale as ever because he doesn't suffer the first half of the summer sunburns in exchange for a tan that would last until Halloween these days.

We've grown old. Or maybe we've grown smart. We've grown. Gone is the living on candy, running til dark, filled up on doubtful fierce love and in its' place a better diet, marginally more sleep and a comfortable, secure love that I don't think I'd trade for anything.

We still fight over what kind of ketchup to buy at the store. Don't get me wrong. And he insists a hot dog is best wrapped in a piece of staleish bread, burnt on a charcoal grill while I've moved on to only liking them if they're seared bratwurst in a fresh sesame-parmesan bun with raw onions, sauerkraut and a second-tier mustard.

That level of elitism means no goodnight kiss for you. 

The pompousness of it?

Naw, the onions. 

This is not about my birthday.

Fun fact: Tool's 10000 Days came out the year Henry started kindergarten. He's going to graduate with his high school diploma in June and the band's new album comes out this summer.

I love this. Or maybe it's just relief that the new album is finally close. What a long wait.

Caleb and I have sought refuge in the pool thanks to the heat and are tossing about new ideas for my employment.

I could be the gloved hands holding up items for photographing for Sotheby's. Or I could be the one who replaces the real eggs with robot ones in the northern spotted owl nests. 

Or you could go back to your old job.

Which one?

Sugar baby. He smiles slyly as his floating chair turns a lazy circle, turning him away from me.

I consider this as he continues his rotation back into view.

What do you think? 

If I come back I'll need a raise. No one ever takes an old job back at the same rate. Oh, and there need to be perks.

I think you've forgotten what the job entails. 

Oh, I haven't. 

So is it a deal? 

I'm going to sleep on it. 

Can I join you?

Maybe. 

That would make it a deal, Bridge. 

In no particular order.

I have today off but instead of telling you about my birthday shenanigans I got distracted.

I trimmed off the dog's playoff beard, as it is thirty-two degrees and I guess we'll be inside from now on. Plus he's rooting for the Hurricanes. Why? I don't know, he's a dog. I...guess I'm rooting for Boston? Uh. Yeah. Boston.

I cleaned the house, got groceries with Dalton, talked to my parents (who are old, my father just was informed he's finished driving. My mom is a nervous driver with carpal tunnel and S T R E S S. They'll most likely never leave the house again and I'll find their mummified remains, or rather Bailey will, eventually after a few days without a phone call), dropped Ruth off at the bus to go vintage shopping with friends downtown, and let Daniel cut some baby bangs for me. My hair is to my chin. My bangs are driving me crazy. I like them better now though. We shall see.

Then I tried going online to read about Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's baby but the internet is consumed with some weird meta shit today about some youtuber? and his wife and his mistress and all of their personal information and how they justify continuing to keep everything public because he's a "PUBLIC FIGURE".

LOL

Who the fuck is it again? I don't know. Does it matter? Of course not but apparently these people have legions of fans enough to muck up Twitter, Reddit and every other place PJ has a login I can use.

Now, first of all.

Any arse with a youtube channel is a user. I don't care how many subscribers you have, the term 'PUBLIC FIGURE' is really overblown here.

Second? No one cares.

Thirdly? Really? Five tweets to justify that you took your cat with you when you left?

Okay.

This is why I don't go online, though I guess with my little blog, (something, like Youtube, anyone can have with a username and password) also I have followers too I just don't care for numbers, so much as quality content. Guess I'm a PUBLIC FIGURE too. Go figure. Go PUBLIC FIGURE. Go, Bridget, it's your birthday.

Which I will talk about tomorrow, as I'm so much crankier than I realized.

MAYBE I'LL TALK ABOUT IT ON YOUTUBE.

Ha. Yeah, no.

Well enough, alone.

С днем ​​рождения принцесса

PJ burned the card in the firepit on the patio but not before they saw it, just because I ostriched the whole thing like some sort of naive waif, thinking if I squeezed my eyes shut, it might not be there in real life.

The card supposedly had a very simple message, a please have a good birthday dear and enjoy your cake kind of message, according to Caleb, the only one of us who can actually read colliquial Russian. I would have sent a photo of the message to the young doctor for translation but Caleb advised me not to waste his time.

I didn't think I would be, and I'd love to know the truth. Maybe the card actually says We're going to come and kidnap you afterall. Pack your shit, it's cold here in winters muhahah. 

It could. 

He assures me it doesn't or he would have taken steps already.

What steps? I ask him as we head outside with stacks of plates and cutlery for dinner outside.

Nevermind, Neamhchiontach. 

No, tell me the steps.

There are no steps, Bridget. It was an innocuous card wishing you peace. I had Batman (he does not call Batman Batman in real life, don't worry) look at it to be certain.

He speaks Russian? What steps? 

Caleb stops abruptly, looking at the sky for guidance (or maybe that's patience). I smash right into him, dropping the bread and butter plates and all of the knives and forks. Every single plate breaks and we both look at the stoneware carnage on the floor. I look back up at him.

What steps? 

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.