Still here.

Today is wind and sunshine, leftover warm pakoras and stilton cheese on crackers but there's only a tiny bit left. I took my feast out to the front porch with a notebook and my laptop to start making Christmas shopping/making/baking/cooking lists and Caleb followed me to hold the door, noting my snack with amusement.

You're missing only a glass of champagne, he says.

Do we have any?

I'll have to order a case. I can pour you some juice instead? 

Maybe just water. 

He returns in a few minutes and by then I am installed cozily on the swinging bench with the big Mexican blanket wrapped around me, my snacks on the table, laptop open, notebook open, new pen at the ready (the pen came in the mail. It says I LOVE ANIMALS <3 BCSPCA on it and I'm keeping it forever. I gave Caleb the donation form to fill out but he doesn't get the  pen.

He puts the water on the table and points out the irony of a laptop and a notebook.

I'm a tangible soul. I need tangible notes.

Indeed, he says quietly and kisses the top of my head as he makes his exit. I can be alone here. Four people at least are within earshot and I don't have keys for the trucks or my shoes so it's not like I'm heading out. They think it's self-care but really it's just a chore I have to get done because time is running out. Christmas is two months away.

Focus on that, they say. Good girl. 

Yeah, this isn't self-care, it's panic-mode but yes, I'm going to focus on it and Halloween can come and go and maybe by Remembrance Day (which isn't on the day you think) I'll exhale and can pull it all together.

Or maybe I'll lose my mind.

Honestly, looking around this wouldn't be a bad way to check out. Too bad I hate Joel's pills. I hate his advice. I hate that he's right all the time. I hate that he's cute. I hate that he's here. That's the hardest part. I hate that he won't leave, by Lochlan's request, and is staying next door but spending his days over here, just for a couple of weeks. Just in case, though Lochlan still gets Alpha call, and I'm still completely unaccountable for all of it, even as it falls to me now to fix myself or be fixed at some point before it all goes to hell.

Hell is the reason this is so hard, and so if the Devil wants to keep me in champagne for the rest of my days then I'll try and take care of myself every chance I get. He may not have gotten any points with the handbags but at least the boys can share the champagne. No one turns down champagne because there's always something to celebrate, even if today the only thing is the wind.

The perfect ending to this peace of shit story, he said. ( I wasn't watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind again, I swear).

Thou knowst how guiltless first I met thy flame
When Love approached me under Friendship's name
My fancy formed thee of angelic kind,
Some emanation of the all-beauteous mind
Those smiling eyes, attempting every day
Shone sweetly lambent with celestial day
Guiltless I gazed
Heaven listened while you sung
And truths divine came mended from that tongue
From lips like those what precept failed to move?
Too soon they taught me 'twas no sin to love
Back through the paths of pleasing sense I ran
Nor wished an Angel whom I loved a Man
Dim and remote the joys of saints I see
Nor envy them, that heaven I lose for thee

Joel remains unimpressed. You've gone backwards in time. I thought Baudelaire was your favorite but you're quoting Pope at length?

Baudelaire is my favorite. Always.

I would have thought you would go from Baudelaire to Frost, maybe. Not Pope.

And cross a whole ocean to do so? Never. Keats would have been a more mainstream choice.

Overdone.

Agreed.

Joel and I get along stupidly and like all the same things.Too bad we liked each other so much, or I would have maybe gotten better. Or maybe not. Not like he doesn't stick rigorously to his extensive training but now he can do it without the boundaries placed upon him by the field. Now he can do it on a personal level. What's on your mind, Bridget? Besides tears that delight, and all that stuff. 

She was moved-

We all should be that receptive of our thoughts.

I thought we were supposed to quash them and get on with it. 

Ah. Sam has been around again. 

Sam never leaves. 

Sam has a different take on things. He believes in faith and not things like Complicated Grief.

I laugh. At every turn Joel hauls out his labels like a mad filist. This grief isn't complicated, and I've told him that before. It's simple, exceedingly easy and has crushed me flat. Fuck life, I'm busy living death over here. Did Sam say something that's given you pause? 

Wow, you sound like Caleb. I gaze up at him in wonder. All he's missing the ever-so-slight English accent and he'd be there today but everyone is the antichrist right now because today Jacob is the King of the Kingdom of Sorrows and I'm the only Jacobian, as it were.

She was watching movies she shouldn't have been watching and now she's trying to decide if we should be permitted to hide her memories from her. She's worried she'll lose the rest and as ever, she still believes the Devil can bring him back. 

Joel looks from Lochlan to me and I nod slowly. Yup. Sounds about right. Sounds like a rainy Thursday twelve years later, though it feels like it's been twelve minutes and I'd like to peel my skin off and roll in salt just to get away from it, thanks.

Bridget, I think we need to talk about this. Can you call a family meeting? 

I look at Lochlan who nods and picks up his phone. Principals only from the Collective, for Bridget's Brain is a private matter after all.

Just like that, I'm a sideshow again. 

Nothing like that-

BOOM. I whisper it but they've moved on. I look at Jake for support but he's looking at Joel. There's no love lost from his side of the veil. Joel doesn't know Jacob knows and I'm certainly not going to tell him. Jake looks back and me as shakes his head. The problem is I don't know if he means Don't be worse, don't tell them it's this bad or Stop it and get on with your life, Bridget.

I watch him as he fades and then I realize they're watching me stare at the wall.

Sorry. I'm tired today. I zoned out a little just now. 

Have you been sleeping? 

Probably not enough, I lie. This the problem. I can tell them what they want to hear. They can check off all their boxes. I've moved on. I've done the work. I know all the realities of my life. I know death is an imminent visitor to us all. I'm logical and reasonable but I'm also something else in there that I don't want to address much that happily chucked a wrench in every last gear that was going to turn smoothly and now won't even turn.

When you want to do this? 

Now, if possible. If not then tonight. 

I wish you'd stop gathering my friends together to tell them I'm crazy. 

I wish you'd stop pretending you're fine when you're not. 

Can we at least charge admission? I'm tired of being the freak for free.

I love you like a love song Baby.

Duncan and I are singing this morning. Sappy love songs. Or maybe they're hate songs. I have trouble breathing through this song, especially when I'm getting over a cold and any part I can't pick up again PJ is filling in perfectly. I think this is the thing I love most about the boys, is their ability to be shameless in keeping up with all the lovesongs and broken heart songs out there, just for me.

This morning we're learning a new one, as the Internet is a beautiful place and while I'm sure you want to know I am so damn metal, drinking my coffee out of a skull mug that changes from black to white when filled with a hot liquid, wearing an Opeth t-shirt that's a size too small but looks amazing, hair in curls, mascara perfect since it's only six in the morning and it hasn't had any time to smudge yet, tattoos right up past my collar and into my hair behind my ears and down to my knuckles to the point where I look like I'm wearing a turtleneck from a distance and I wouldn't change any of them now, even as the ones that I was having removed and reworked stubbornly refuse to look different to me, I'm still a huge sap.

We're avidly discussing the diss from Hailey Baldwin to Selena Gomez. We've watched Selena's new video (Lose you to Love Me) again every time someone new walks into the kitchen and we have decided that Hailey is young and jealous and Justin totally married her to get back at Selena, who has thirty-eight million more fans than he does on Instagram. I didn't believe it either but then August showed me the numbers and if you bring receipts I will accept that I was wrong.

(For the love of God don't go hunting down August on IG. I'll kill you, just like Hailey said.)

But they don't have a prenup either which is a reckless thing in this day and age. I don't either, if you're curious. Justin and I both like to live on the edge, I guess.

(Or maybe it is true love.)

I'm only rich on paper and though you can buy my affections a little too easily when my magpie tendencies toward glittery pretty things (like Caleb) come out I also have ironclad peace of mind in that it's not just me now and Lochlan will never have to worry about money again.

It's the absolute least I could ever do for him, though warned that his jealousy is going to light this point and every last one of us on fire I'll still burn with a smile on my face. This is not to say I'm secretly getting back at Caleb by marrying Lochlan, it's more of an effort to point out that true love is true love and even as you change and grow and shit happens and everything goes to hell, you'll always have that soulmate and he is yours forever.

That's my Lochlan.

Though he's refusing to sing today. He's still mad about the purse thing, though I think he's secretly thrilled I'm singing instead of crying today. What he doesn't know is that the acoustics in this hole are incredible for singing today. I'm still down here, I'm just acting for the crowd. He taught me a little too well, I guess, as he's fooled too.

You'd be wrong, he says, just loud enough for me to hear. Ah. Okay. Figures.

I actually found the brass knuckles in the old garage but he doesn't believe me.

The handbags were taken back. Of course they were. I'm currently allowed a shortened lanyard and my phone case that holds a few cards plus my childrens' graduation photos. I can put a lipgloss in my pocket, if I have one, or it stays at home. Anything else is relegated to a pocket belonging to one of the boys, because if I carry a handbag it will be full of weapons by the week's end and I'm not supposed to have any.

I plead my case a dozen times if not a hundred. The pepper spray is for dogs. The brass knuckles is for muggers. The knives are in case someone attacks me or I feel unsafe if I'm alone-

Lochan turns on one heel and is in my face. When are you alone? 

He's not wrong. A girl should be able to protect herself though. I've had self-defence classes but it didn't work. I manage a hundred pounds on a good day and while it's nice to say you can protect yourself or maybe I had a bad teacher I just can't. It was never enough. I had a big dream at one point that I was going to beat the shit out of Caleb the next time he touched me. I was going to get him to the brink, strangle him with his own designer necktie and then at the last second, just as his face was turning purple and puffy, let him live, always to remember that I grew up to finally fight back. So let's face it, all of the weapons were to protect me from him, and then I happily get into his car with empty pockets and let him sprinkle sugar all over me.

Who gave you the brass knuckles?

Incriminating no one that time, I lie. Ebay. 

Lochlan laughs, not nicely though. Make up your mind, Peanut. Protect them or yourself. 

Both. All of us. 

From who? 

Me. 

Each other, you mean.

No, me. 

He was supposed to take you for a drive, get an ice cream. Listen to some non-triggering music on the radio. Babysit until dinner and then I would be home. 

We did that. 

No, you didn't. He bought you a bunch of ridiculous handbags and reminded you that you mistakenly think you are beholden to him-

I'm not-

Yeah, I'm not either. I'm not buying it. I'm not accepting it. And your ten dollar bag is just fine. (It's a pink velvet corduroy tote bag. I put a zipper in the top. It's soft and huge and holds everything and looks pretty. Beat a Dior or three any day.) You're not yourself, Peanut.

 Because of Jake-

No, because of YOU. I think I'm done tiptoeing around the ghosts and am going to focus on fixing the living. Starting with myself and then with you. And you were never a fancy handbag kind of girl. Remember? I had your lifesavers and your library card in my pocket. Every day, Bridget. Every single day.

Not ungrateful, exactly, but impossible all the same.

This morning we were up and out early. A self-care day dictated by the Devil himself to nourish and appease the little freak from the high wire who still hasn't decided if she deserves this, or not.

I made the mistake of holding my breath early during the weekend over a new Dior bag. It's unique and beautiful and I wanted it, for a brief moment. Caleb asked me to wait in the car for a few moments as he disappeared inside a boutique, ostensibly to see the price or ask a few questions. I waited so long I got restless and began to write on the fog on the windows, random poetry seen by no one but there probably until he has the car detailed (soon).

Caleb comes back probably thirty minutes later with an armload of bags.

You do your Christmas shopping?

Maybe. 

I'm a little annoyed as I could have come with him. I want to be home and yet my cabin fever keeps me flush with frustration. If only I could figure out how to have it both ways.

We have a very early lunch and drive back across the bridge and up the highway. Things never look familiar until the bitter end. I am relieved when we're back and happy with the amount of self-care I let him indulge me in. I had an eighth of an inch of hair trimmed (to keep it straight, some parts grow way faster than others but again it's on my shoulders now, bangs past my eyes and I'm not looking back now) and had a neck and shoulders massage at same which ended mercifully just before I wanted to shriek and run right out, as I don't like to be touched, oddly enough.

Not by people I don't know, I mean.

But he proclaimed it a successful morning out, as we dealt with the fever, dealt with the two points of hair a good inch ahead of the others and the tension keeping a low-tier headache going (I thought it was the rain) has been eradicated and also...his Christmas shopping.

When I got home he handed the bags to me in the front hall.

I'm not wrapping things for you. The boutique should have done that. 

They did. He smiles.

You want me to hide these for you?

He rolls his eyes. Open them. 

You didn't. 

Might have. You're supposed to do this four or five times a year, not once every four years. You're so stubborn. Let me have this. I saw your face. Let me do this for you. 

Not only was the bag I exclaimed over (silently, so I thought) there but so were two others in beautiful colors I didn't even know they made). Now I have three new ones and I don't know which one to use first. No, yes I do.

Do you think Jacob's urn will fit in this?

Absolutely not, Bridget. 

I mean, it might-

I didn't think you had access to it anymore.

I don't (Sam's hidden it) but I always future-proof myself. Someday I'll get it back. 

Not at this rate. 
 

Garlic and rosemary and cajun and sea salt.

It's been the most peaceful Sunday. After a restless sleep in which bears did battle with blankets, which turned out to be some sort of allegory for Sam's fitful sleep we gave up and took ourselves out for brunch, leaving him at church with some sort of halfhearted instruction to call Ben for a ride home if we don't reappear in time to take him home (we did). We milked our coffees while the rain poured down the windows outside. They forgot several things. Got things wrong. The restaurant got loud so we finished and left and came home to the blissful silence of more rain and dampening of everything.

I threw in some laundry and roasted pumpkin seeds from last night's carving party. I added Cajun spice this year, but not a lot and real butter, melted and mixed and then slow-burned over the woodstove until they were golden brown. Jacob came and thrust his hands into the hole I live in but Lochlan pushed him back away from the edge so I couldn't see him and took over everything and I don't have to worry about seeing him again for a bit. Usually when he has a lecture he disappears for a brief time and yet I know we're now doing this absurd march toward anniversaries I wish I could forget wholeheartedly.

Almost cried walking into a store the other day. All the Christmas decorations were up, Halloween now relegated to a side table marked clearance. If only I could rush my memories, or at the very least, sell them.

You wouldn't want to do that, Lochlan says. Someday they will be fond, when the bitterness fades. 

It's not even all that bitter, just a vague aftertaste, I tell him. It's physically painful and it shouldn't be. 

It's figurative, you me-

No, it's physical. 

Bridget-

Let's do something else, I ask him. I don't want to talk about this anymore. Sam did enough of that with us last night. Before and after he fought for the warmest blankets.
 

Polar Ids.

The house is casted in charcoal dust and fog today, woodsmoke and dried berries and pinecones stacked up artistically around the pumpkins as we slide into a quiet Saturday. Ruth is drawing in the alcove, using my easel because hers is in her room and charcoal is destructively chaotic. I have just finished my first coffee, plotting a second. Lochlan reads aloud from the internet to anyone who will listen, everything from Trump's most recent war crimes to the way Osmia Avosetta bees use flower petals lined with nectar and pollen to make solitary nests in the middle east and I wish we had them here. So beautiful.

I want pizza. 

Lochlan laughs. For breakfast?

Yes. We usually get pizza on Friday night with tons left over for the next day or two. But last night we went to a Greek place for gyros which was delicious and different but fails to provide the habitual rummaging through the fridge I am spoiled by. Oh well. I started a bagel instead and Lochlan finished it for me, melting cheese on it just right and bringing it over to me as he potificates, wholly unwelcomely about American politics and Canadian voting day. I'll be glad in a bit when all that is finished. I carried another sign up the road last evening and I'm ready for barbed wire and electric fencing to extend all the way to the bitter ends of this point if only to know that while I sleep someone isn't planting large blue signs in the gardens by the main gates.

If it doesn't glitter it's not exciting.

The glitter began to burn (as always) and so I took it off this morning. My fingers don't like color, my nails won't stand for being pretty and chemicals and I will never ever get along. Lochlan theorizes that I have long-range heavy metal poisoning, that so many years of heavy theatrical makeup, chaulk and diesel fumes turned my system inside out and now it's delicate and sensitive.

Then why aren't you the same? 

I am. That's why I don't paint my nails or wear makeup now. He laughs at his own joke and it's a beautiful sound.

There's a point. 

So why do you persist with your nails? 

I want to look pretty for you. Besides, I found a gentle mascara (Body Shop Happy Go Lash) and lipstick (anything by Bite, but specifically their Amuse Bouche lipstick in Jam, for those wanting beauty recs from me of all people, but that's also the only two makeup items I own now ) so why can't I find a safe nail polish?

Because it's paint and it has to last or people would be mad. Besides, you refuse to wear dish gloves so what do you expect? Your hands are dry and burning all the time. 

Truth. But it looks so nice and pulled together. 

Why don't you feel pulled together?

I don't know. I just feel like I'm slacking. 

The showgirls. 

Yeah, the showgirls. 

(I always wanted to be twenty-five years old and five-foot-eight and wear all the bronzer and lashes and feathers and slinky little outfits of the showgirls on the circuit but I wasn't tall enough, dark enough, glamorous enough and I never felt like I belonged, even as I took the stage alone and not a single one of them could have walked the wire with the charm that I did. Not a single one of them could have held the collective breaths of an entire crowd as I let fire travel down my limbs.

There are perks to being tiny. Being cute is one of its curses though.

Get the sticker nails. 

Those don't last five minutes though. 

Then move on from it and be resigned to plain nails. Most men have made their peace with it. 

Ben still paints his na-

Ben isn't really the typical male stereotype I was referencing here, Bridge. 

Well, THAT's good to know. 

His are blue glitter and I said they looked nice so now we match.

Daniel is painting my nails to cheer me up. They are red glitter and I love them. We're not even going to discuss the part where I'm deathly allergic to nail polish and that half the boys hate my glitter tendencies anyways. Caleb called Daniel a glitard in passing so Daniel offered to do his too and Caleb didn't even respond. I made a note to address his rudeness privately later.

He should be happy that someone cares for my happiness the way Daniel does, in trying to teach me self-care, giving up and doing it for me.

We should cut your hair, Daniel suggests but I'm not ready for that. It's grown into long points that are long enough now to braid easily and I love it. Haven't cut it for a long time, don't intend to any time soon.

Maybe a bubble bath then?

For how many? 

One, girl. Jesus. 

Boring!

Right? Okay maybe I'll leave that for someone else to handle. 

Story of my life.

Oh look, a hole.

Lay your heart into my perfect machine
I will use to protect you from me
I will never let you see what's beneath
So good for you and good for me
We told ourselves we're right where we ought to be

Pretty sure in his dreams last night Lochlan let go of the bar before he was anchored securely in a bid to grab me before I fell into the net, because he knew the net wasn't ready yet and we were in a hurry to get a single final practice in before showtime. It's when you rush that everything goes horribly, terribly wrong.

And he hollered my name as his hands grazed my fingertips but it was too late. We both fell but we weren't connected and so we died twisted, preventable deaths alone. I woke up in a cold sweat and practically clawed my way out of bed and down to the coffee maker to find a way to keep the dreams away forever, if they're going to be like that. Fuck that shit. I'm crazy enough without my brain betraying me even further. A mutiny multiplied by the numbers on the calendar.

Twelve years ago tomorrow Ben showed up, staked a claim and Jacob met him easily, tried to minister to Ben and we fed him dinner and he left without a struggle, without a fight but with some sort of harbinger that the army was right there, watching every move Jacob made. I guess they knew deep down he would leave. I guess none of us knew the extent to which he tried to manipulate me, tried to control access to everyone who knew me better than he did, who tried to show him using me as a project for his thesis would only serve to blow him to pieces. Maybe I didn't know then what I know now. It takes a village. A beautiful village tucked into the hills by the sea, wrapped around a massive hole that fills with water when the tide comes in but you can't see the bottom even when it's out.

And that's the way it is. Caleb is better at this than Jacob ever was but Lochlan is best of all and throw Ben into the mix and Jacob never had a chance. It was when he figured this out that he tested his wings and they worked and since he couldn't do enough here he decided to flex his wings in heaven. I guess it's working, as they rarely send him back.

Jesus FUCK, Peanut. It's not your fault he did this. Lochlan picked a bad time to look over my shoulder but I note he speaks in present tense as if this is an ongoing, present event.

It is, Lochlan snaps at me and now he's left the room and I can climb back down into the hole and pull the dark up over my head. Now you can't see me either but I'm here. It's an inky black vat of oxytocin and I only need it for a little while until the courage floods back into my veins to dilute everything else and then I'll come out.

I swear I will.