We can all hate each other and we'll do it dipped in gold.

When Lochlan saw me he didn't say a word, he just pulled out his phone and called the old doctor. The one who is kind and does not question anything. He arranged a car for him and we waited in the front hall in silence. By now it's been a few hours. My ear is still bleeding but only a little. It'll stop soon I think. There's blood in my hair though. It's truly minor. Lochlan doesn't agree, based on the fact that human bites are dangerous though I've pointed out PJ can stitch me up or whatever. He's so angry getting the words out is rough but the anger isn't directed at me. Well, maybe it is. Every time I try to explain Caleb to my own mind things get worse. Every time I try to explain him out loud things disintegrate. Every time I try to put a definition down on a page to what this is he physically rejects it and we go back to square two.

Square one was when things were good, when I had a crush and he merely exploited it to get at Lochlan, before he found his voice, I mean. Before he learned he could use force in any area he couldn't use cash or law.

He is textbook.

Yesterday afternoon I got seven stitches. Three in my ear and four in my scalp just above my ear. On my left because that's where he goes. That's where he'll be, head ducked down against the top of mine, too tall to match up. I can't feel the head wound but the ear one throbs, making it even harder to hear for the blood pounding through it.

Last night's emergency meeting on the beach saw Caleb on his knees. Last night's meeting brought a whole new fear as Lochlan wondered if we should banish Caleb or just drown him. His words eventually got so tight and so low with rage that Schuyler had to take over because Lochlan couldn't get any more words out. More than once PJ tried to talk me into going back up but I needed to be there to advocate for Caleb. More than once Batman suggested Caleb have some real-world consequences, maybe legal ones since that's the only thing he seems to understand.

I stood there with my throbby ear and numb skull and cold hands and reminded them of everything they forgot, everything they try and revise and everything we are. That they know damn well the fault lies with the catalyst and that's me.

Stockholm-

It's not, Locket, it's-

But it IS. 

Lochlan can't do this. He's too close. He's got my hand in a death grip and that's fine. Ironically it's hurting more than anything else and you think he's going to let go if I ask him to? Not on my life.

Get help for this, Diabhal. You're losing her. 

Caleb stares at me. How do I fix this? I can let them drown me, if that's what you want, knowing I'll be with my brother again. I'm ready, if this is what you want. 

It isn't. 

See? Caleb stares evenly at Lochlan. She's not going anywhere. 

Lochlan takes his advantage and swings. PJ stops him, with effort. He's on his fucking knees. He's already where you need him. 

Pay her. At the very least. Lochlan barks at Caleb and turns his back. He pulls me with him, up the beach, up the steps, inside where it's warm and my ear really starts to throb now in time with my head.

 This morning Caleb has had a hundred thousand dollars for each stitch I had to have transferred to my account. This morning the throbbing has stopped. I don't know if it's related. But it's more than enough to go and get supplies for our Burns Night supper. I'll figure out the rest later.

Lies.

Here I stand, helpless and left for dead

Close your eyes, so many days go by
Easy to find what's wrong, harder to find what's right
I believe in you, I can show you that I can see right through all your empty lies
I won't stay long, in this world so wrong

The fever returned some time during the night between when the sun ran away and when I went out to call in the tides, hoping they might pull the sun back. They refused but at least the water is nice and cold.

The warning came violently, up against the door as I begged him not to keep me there. Teeth chattering, eyes drowning in a sea of despair I begged him. I whispered Gingerbread in his fucking beautiful face a hundred times over but he didn't listen, didn't stop, didn't put me down. He's lonely with no one to take it out on and so it stays bottled up until he explodes. He's angry that I was sick, enraged that I was absent, frustrated even as I threatened to tell stories about my life with him again. Let me rephrase that. He's scared. There's no statute here, no time limit if you do something as wrong as he did. No way out if I decide to call in my cards. No looking back, is there, Caleb? He says it's easy. That if it comes down to me or him he's not going to go out without a fight. He says I think he wouldn't hurt me but he shows me just enough pain to convince me, and then he goes a little further still, just so I don't forget. 

I've started calling his bluff. Just do it. Send me to heaven and I'll be with Jake and you can go to hell with your brother. That made him rage like I've never seen and I was pulled limb from limb, as he bit through the tough flesh of history with his teeth, leaving full marks this time, leaving streaks of blood and fear in his wake. 

We could do this all night but then the tide finally hears my plea, dragging the moon away, bringing the sun back up until I am wiping the tears from my eyes while squinting up into the light at him, wanting to hurt him back until he can't get up anymore.

I hate you. 

I can't mean this, can't reconcile it, don't want to say it but it's the only thing that leaves a mark on him, truth be told.

He smiles ruefully. No, you don't. That's what keeps me forever safe and you forever in danger.

Better.

I'm cheering myself up this morning with the first full cup of coffee in three days and a healthy helping (with seconds, thirds and tenths) of the first five (okay three), America records. Lochlan doesn't mind. He loves them.

Now it's embarrassing story time for him, as I share with you a fun thing about how this band came to be for us.

Lochlan was born here (in British Columbia) and then when he was still in diapers but not yet walking his family moved back to Edinburgh. He didn't come back to Canada until he was in grade school and therefore has a massive accent still that pops out like fire when he's mad or excited or talking with someone else who doesn't have an accent and you hear it so much more strongly.

But anyway, while over there, as a child he became obsessed with American music, or as he put it, 'music from America'. All of the records have it written on them, he said, and specifically he assumed everything else he heard on the radio was from somewhere else. He had an argument with Caleb around age ten (Caleb was fourteen by now and FAR more sophisticated) that he could SHOW him music from America because he had the albums! SEE?

The story goes that Caleb may have been responsible for opening Lochlan's eyes to a world of music, something Lochlan would later do for me, as soon as he got past the mental hurdle that the only vinyl records his parents owned were the first few America records. Namely America, Hearts, Homecoming, Hat Trick, Hideaway and Harbor, having been obsessed with the band as youngish parents.

I can identify with that, except I do it in gigabytes instead of vinyl because I'm impatient and I jump around alot between songs and I can't really catch the quality difference anymore without my hearing. Besides, I'm chasing down a feeling so format is less important than you think.

But yes, Lochlan sang Sister Golden Hair to me once and I was hooked. On him and on the band. He still sings it, though my hair has risen in value to platinum at this point. God, we're old.

Anyway, song's out, Bridget's up and I can't wait to see the warzone this house is after not venturing downstairs for a day and a half. Yes, I will do it slowly. No, I won't catch any boys along the way. I said I was better, never said I was perfect.

Earning my degree.

All told I've had nine offers of sleepovers when I'm 'better'. If you're wondering how I get so run down this is a clue. Caleb, Schuyler, PJ, Batman, August, Sam and Matt, Duncan, Dalton, Gage. Maybe they think offering me affection without rules is what makes me feel better.

Well, they would be correct. Though a stack of new Archie/Betty comics and Lochlan stripping down and coming to bed at seven pm to hang out helps a lot too. There's no 'when I'm better' with Lochlan though. I think he likes it when I run as hot as he does.

One hundred. Still alive.

I was told that I was nothing
Yet I was told that I was so pure
And I was told that I was dirty
Yet I was told I was the cure
I ask myself, am I God or shit?
Am I the high, the low? I'm fucking worth it
And I ask myself, am I love or hate?
You are the reason I have and why I can't quit

 I really want to have a warm bubble bath this morning and I tried to be stubborn but then I didn't have enough strength to turn on the hot water tap on the tub and Lochlan took that as a sign, he says.  I was steered back to bed, given my laptop, phone and a glass of diluted apple juice and a plate of crackers.

I really wanted to drink five glasses of the juice but I have to sip it until my stomach gets used to it so maybe by tomorrow. I really had all kinds of plans for today but PJ cancelled life and Lochlan cancelled everything else so the next few days are pajamas and lots of rest. I go at a hundred miles an hour doing absolutely nothing of consequence and so I'm always the first one down.

But that's neither here nor there. Caleb came in this morning to see for himself that my fever was way down. It is but he didn't believe Lochlan, of course so here he is. He is tender and affectionate and close in spite of the risk of germs. He holds my fingers and the side of my face and jokes that he's trading the car in anyway so may as well do it today. After a few minutes he tells me to sleep and get better and he'll be back this afternoon to check on me, or sooner if I need him. Just call. And as soon as I'm better we can have a sleepover.

We rarely text, he and I. He likes calls. It's faster, he says.

Ben comes in with the good headphones so I can listen to the new In This Moment single that came out on repeat until I get tired of it. I don't think I will, actually but he says to take it easy, not to rock too hard. He came back from the depths to make sure everything was good and told me not to worry about the restaurant, that very rich men will abandon a sick whore who's loaded so fast it's as if they were never there. I ask him how he knows and he said he's seen it. He says he's done it. That if you disappear no one asks questions, you can brush it off as a fan who had an issue or something, that you just sat for a moment as a courtesy and that she's not with you.

It made me sad to watch the way he described it. The look on his face says none of that life was worth it for him. He confirms, saying he's so much happier working away downstairs knowing he can come up for homemade bread or a hug or some time with his brothers or the kids.

It fascinates me though and I want to know why it wasn't empty from the beginning. Ben says it was always empty, that's the point, and then he's gone again and I doze off only to feel another hand on my forehead an hour later. I open my eyes to Schuyler and Daniel positively hovering in concern over me.

You look terrible, Daniel tells me. Your eyes are all blackened and sunken into your face.

It's actually kind of cool, Schuyler says. I know he's teasing me but I laugh anyway. They leave flowers and kisses but not on the lips because germs, suddenly and only stay for a moment. Schuyler tells me to come over as soon as I feel better for a sleepover.

I look at the clock and it's only nine and I forget we're up early as ever, hours and hours before normal, regularly people.

PJ comes and takes my plate. There's only one cracker left. He eats it. He leaves a fresh water bottle that's more ice than water, the way I like it and orders me to sleep until Lochlan comes back at lunch time.

Where did he go? 

He said something about getting Archie comics and not to let you have too many visitors so you're cut off for now. 

Something something cocaine, something something another restaurant I can never show my face in again.

Over the past few nights I managed to get very sick and today I am not only lagging behind Caleb as he heads down the sidewalk towards our breakfast reservation but I suddenly have an exceedingly runny nose and need a tissue. I make a last ditch effort search of my raincoat pockets and find one, mercifully, just as Caleb turns to see where I am. I  am stopped in the middle of the sidewalk folding a tissue around my nose. I can't even breathe. He looks irritated and comes back to me, putting his hand on my back to scoop me along faster now. Not an 'Are you alright?' or a 'Hey, let me wait for you'.

Instead he takes advantage once inside the restaurant, settling into old routines. Ordering what he wants and what he thinks I want, while I stare out the window and wipe my nose. Saying my name repeatedly while I pointedly ignore him until he begins with civility or at the very least, compassion.

What's the matter with you. 

I shrug. I guess I have a cold. In the mirror I can see how red my eyes and nose are. I look like I've been crying for days. Luckily this is not a new look for me. He reaches over and pulls a long lock of hair away from my mouth where it is stuck to my lip.

Who gave you that.

I don't know. Lochlan maybe? Maybe Henry. I'll start asking for spit samples so you can have a definitive person to blame.

He softens slightly at my words, reaching out a hand to gauge the warmth of my forehead before raising a finger. The server leaps toward him and he asks to add chicken soup to our order. They haggle a little and finally lentil soup is agreed upon. And tea. A pot, if possible,

If I had known you were this ill I would have rescheduled.

If we didn't do it now we'd have to wait until April.

It won't be that long but maybe it will be better than you being out in the rain. I'll call ahead once our food arrives and see if we can't truncate this to an hour or two tops.

Thank you. He could have done this anyways. I hate lawyers. Well, most of them. He's alright, though he no longer practices so I don't think it even counts.

The soup, tea, juice and fruit arrives first and Caleb excuses himself to make his call from the mezzanine. I'm not even hungry suddenly, the heat swirling my vision, clouding it over completely. I throw my hands out to steady myself and catch the rim of a bowl, sending the most colorful bites of a pretty fruit bowl to the floor and some poor server tries to catch me as I slide off my chair somewhat gracefully, considering. It's so quiet as if this happens all the time and I bet they think I'm some coked-out sugar baby starting her weekend on a Tuesday and that pisses me off.

I just have a cold, I tell anyone who will listen, as they steady me back on the chair, picking up dishes, whisking things away again. Maybe they're afraid I'll start throwing things? I don't know what coked-out babies do, I haven't been one for years (STORY FOR ANOTHER DAY). Someone goes to get Caleb and he's back, right beside me, gathering our things in one arm and me in the other. He tells the manager to contact him for his details to cover cleaning and food costs and we're out in the cold, his arms steel and my legs rubber. Wow, this feels weird. I'm not coming back. I feel like I'm going to black out at any moment. 

He puts me in his car, buckling the seat belt for me, putting my bag on my lap, and then putting our coats in the back seat. My shivering wakes me up a little more but I somehow can't ask him for the coats to warm myself up. I don't need to. Once he's in he blasts the heat at us until I am way too warm. Oh no.

Oh no.

Pull over!

He starts to tell me why he can't and how it's fine. I shake my head, lean forward and throw up on the floor of his beautiful Audi.

 I'm sorry.

Neamhchiontach, it's okay. Let's get you home. He presses a button on his steering wheel and the sound of a ringing phone is the last thing I hear before Lochlan's voice pushes past the noise in my brain. I turn and swim towards it but everything is so fucking dark.

***

I wake up with ice on my forehead and fresh warm pajamas on. It's dark outside and I'm still wearing my pearls. My face has been washed and Lochlan is sitting on the edge of the bed holding my favorite mixing bowl and a glass of water. I take the water.


Wasn't sure which one you'd go for. He smiles. Glad it wasn't my truck. Caleb backhands his curls gently from just behind him. Doctor's on the way. He didn't believe me when I told him you spiked a fever and he asked me if I was used to treating you like a small child.

What did you tell him?

I reminded him we raised you. (He said we. Not I. We.)

I hear the door chimes and then a commotion on the stairs and then my dignity ends up in my favorite mixing bowl but not much else because I haven't eaten all day anyway. It's foam. Stomach-acid foam.

The doctor comes in, takes my temperature right away and says it is high and did they give me anything to bring it down. He's not talking to me. I'm not sure if I'm delirious or just unimportant. Caleb says I've been mostly out of it and I'm still doing more throwing up than breathing so it's not going to work anyway.

The doctor concedes this and gives them diet instructions (which they know) and tells them to continually check the fever. If it goes any higher to take me somewhere, I couldn't hear. Probably to the ER.

At this point I fall asleep as I'm tired and I don't care.

***

Now it's mid evening and the pearls are away and I'm down to one hundred and one degrees! Just naturally like that. I don't feel great. Lochlan brings toast and more water but I can't.

I can't.

Apparently it's the flu and you'll be better in a few days or a week.

Great.

***

The lawyers meetings are rescheduled for April. They were annual things, nothing too riveting but it would have been nice to have them over with before tax time instead of after. Caleb squeezes my hand.

Sounds like something I would say. 

We'll figure it out. 

Indeed.

A hundred shades of blue.

Lochlan had it all planned before I woke up.

I'm taking the day off, he said. We're going to go shopping, see a Bollywood movie and then go for Indian food. 

What are we buying?

I don't know yet but when I see it I will. Maybe....um...chapstick. An Archie comic. Candy. He grins. (When I was very young I loved to go to the drugstore and buy those things. I never bought anything else. Still don't, to be honest.)

Okay. 

Okay?

Sure. Sounds good.

I didn't think you'd want to do any of that. He deflates with relief.

Oh, if you don't want to we can do something else-

Maybe the movie is negotiable but the rest sounds fine. Maybe I'll even get a chapstick too. 

Just use mine. 

Shhhhhhh. I already do sometimes.

Icy slush, up to one's knees (if one is as tiny as me).

Thanks to localized road and parking lot clearing and the fact that the church has a rather steep driveway that was still all ice until late last evening Sam cancelled services for the day and so he staggered over to our kitchen in pajama pants and an Opeth t-shirt (who gave him THAT omg HOT) and blessed the tops of our heads sleepily before staggering back across to the boathouse to sleep.

Not sure how he would have managed had there been actual church today. I guess he would have filled his body with coffee and then he would have acted completely normal, though with a slight tremble with every word or move. It's how I operate so I imagine that's how it would be.

Lochlan and I are up and having an extended coffee date, then as no one else is getting up early since there's nowhere we have to be. It seems our neighborhood is back to the heavy habitual rain I enjoy so much here, which is good. I can drive in rain. Well, not at night I can't (hard to see) but it beats driving in a blizzard or on pure ice.

Tomorrow is Blue Monday but there are only five work shifts to shunt the kids to this week, which is great.

I need to start pulling taxes together for February.

I'd like to start spring cleaning but I need to be motivated first.

I'd like to find a new job.

I need a new coat. I realized a lot of my misery lately stems from the fact that I wear a sixteen-year-old barn jacket that I wore to get from the castle to the stone garage in the Prairies, because my wool coats hurt my neck so much and scarves only go so far and my hair isn't quite long enough to make up the difference as I do leave it tucked in but it's just barely past my shoulders and will be another six months before it doesn't untuck itself when I look around.

(I'm not really into fashion or anything like that. I'm sure you've guessed. Anything spectacular that I own was bought for me in desperation by someone who cares far more.)

Maybe that only makes sense to me, but I'm at that stage of winter where my skin is so dry I want to scream and so everything has to be soft, including clothes, sheets, towels, boys and my environment.

Am I rambling? I am. That's the joy of  Sundays at home. Lochlan just brought me a second cup of coffee so now I get to truly relax and savour it. The first one is always just for courage for the day and since I think I have enough of that now to move forward I guess we're good.

Watching my beautiful redhead read the paper out loud and sip his coffee. I'm so lucky.

I want someone to make a movie about OUR marriage.

Lochlan did not sleep in this morning. I heard the rain around four and turned over to breathe all over his face, and he did his usual move of pulling me up higher, sticking his face into the crook of my neck, wrapping his arms around me and drifting off again. I did too, wrapping my arms around his whole head and didn't wake up until eight but once we were up we were running. It wasn't until hours later that we stopped for lunch and looked at each other thoughtfully, for a moment.

We're getting that printer, he said. It will pay for itself in two years.

It's still super expensive. 

See that tank on the side? It holds one litre. You can fill it with anyth-

HUMAN BLOOD. 

See? I knew you'd come around. 

***

Let's talk about A Marriage Story. The acting was top notch, Adam Driver was incredible. Scarlett is always incredible when she has material to work with (Lost in Translation, Under the Skin, this) but the part I didn't like? The fact that the characters had unlimited budgets with which to get things underway, and the fact that in the end they all lived happily ever after. I didn't like the fact that they blindsided each other with the big stuff while having the little things about each other nailed down, held fast. I didn't like the strange intimacy portrayed by someone doing something as tender as tying a shoelace when they didn't at any point actually have a real deep conversation. I didn't like Laura Dern's loud speech about women needing to be saints, even if it's true because it screamed Supporting Actress Monologue to me, and Alan Alda made me super sad in a way that worked very well, because he was ironically wrong even as he was right.

I guess I'm relieved I didn't see myself in this movie. I guess I'm thrilled to have witnessed a beautiful bit of acting without losing sight of my jaded analytical approach to writing in film and I'm happy to have ticked this one off my list, truth be told. The longer I waited to see it the more I was dreading it, oddly enough.

The spoons were brutal but the weather? Beyond.

I capped off yesterday by driving through an actual, prolonged blizzard in which the horizon fell away from me, followed by the sky and then finally the road, and I made it to my destination by memory, using the track of a small pickup truck far ahead of me for orienteering, and the row of cars behind me for sludgerish haste. I don't think I've ever driven fifty kilometres an hour down the centre of a busy valley highway but I fucking did yesterday. Thankfully by the time it got dark out (oh GREAT) the snow had ended and I could (almost) see the road for the trip home.

I'm never leaving the house again. Actually, I lied. I already did. The sun is fighting to come out and we're supposed to get more snow tonight so we went out and cleaned off all the vehicles and the driveway and a spot up by the gates and the walkways and a good labyrinth for the dog to do his thing in the yard but still have fun and everything is ready.

I even graciously shovelled Sam's steps all the way to his fucking front door. People who are depressed wouldn't bother, right?

Right. I think.