When it's Love by Van Halen was playing on the radio when I woke up, that's why. Deja-fucking-vu. NOT TAKING IT DOWN. SORRY CALE.

Caleb's day at the tables proved to be lucrative. It put him in a good mood. We went up in the elevator to have room service. He had more champagne then food delivered and I mostly ignored my glass until he took my hand as I got up to go and get ready for the evening out. Fun time. My choice and I always choose dancing. It's the only time he ever loosens up. He pulls me in and picks up my glass, holding it to me.

Finish your drink.

I'm good.

Drink it, Neamhchiontach.

He's not being generous or sweet here. It's an order. I drink it. It takes me a couple of minutes to get it all down. Then he tenderly wraps his hand around the back of my head, gives me a kiss and then grips it hard with his hand. He's pulling my hair. I'm almost off my stilettos. He swings me in against his chest, locked in his arm and forces his hand up under my nose while he twists my hair harder still.

Breathe in, he growls at me and I sniff hard as he shoves his knuckle hard upward. Euphoria floods my bloodstream within minutes and I'm ready to go. But instead of taking me out he takes off my clothes and puts me up against the wall of glass, where he holds me up by the throat long enough to get off, and then tells me to get dressed.

That we have VIP at some club and we're late.

Do I care? I don't know if I do. He's thirty, he cares about his image. I'm nineteen and high as a fucking cloud right now. I don't think I care about anything other than being able to walk in these heels after that onslaught without looking like a limping colt.

And he's smeared my mascara in the process. I want to fix it but he says to leave it. That I look helpless and perfect. He holds out my silver slip dress and I put it back on. I grab my tiny purse and we head out. The only thing in it is a lip gloss and my lucky $100 chip.

We dance for hours and do two more bumps in the lounge between deliveries of more bottles of champagne. I feel like I could go for days. When we come back from the club he puts me up against the glass wall again but he's coked out and tired. We crash on the bed, enough energy to strip but nothing else. I fall asleep in a snow angel of discarded clothing. A cufflink imprints a pattern into my cheek while I sleep. A squared-off cylinder shape and a bruise.

When I open my eyes I hear him thanking someone. I roll to one side and he appears in the bedroom door.

Breakfast is here-Oh my God. Look at you.

That bad? I croak. My blood is racing. My head aches.

No. On the contrary. You look so small. As if the bed has eaten you alive.

I wish it would swallow me whole.

Don't wish for that, Neamhchiontach.

***

Almost thirty years later I watch him sleep and I still wish for the same damn thing and with all his money he still can't (or won't) give it to me. Sucks.

Communal efforts.

I picked up a new planner while we were out running errands on the weekend. I like to have a physical Calendar, a physical list and be organized and cute so I found a beautiful one from Recollections that says Shine Like Stars on the front and has a laminated cover FILLED with glitter. It comes with stickers and is good from July 2020 to December 2021 and it's all blues and greens and purples but pastel.

The best part is that I can't find the leak but every time anyone even looks at it it spills glitter everywhere.

Kind of like me.

We do share a Google calendar for important things and I have a big wall calendar that also holds important things but I am lo-fi, analog and always happier to use my pastel fruit-scented gel pens to record things in my own printing in an actual book that I can carry if I need.

I keep petting it and it releases more glitter into the room. This is great. I bet when the last spark of glitter is gone from the cover is when the book is finished.

***

We rented The Lodge last night. I had a mad crush on Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit so I figured a movie with Richard Armitage might be good. Also Alicia Silverstone is in it! She's great!

But no.

It wasn't great.

Well, it was great in an icky-feeling of dread kind of hey Hereditary and The Shining had a baby and it's The Lodge kind of way but I know one thing for sure. I'm never going to a remote cabin for Christmas. Ever. I also will never use laminate flooring on the walls, ceilings and doors because that was very fucking weird, dark and distracting during the movie. You know, WHAT WE COULD SEE OF IT because it was dark.

A solid 3/5 for rushing the predictable second-half plus Alicia was in it for two whole agonizing moments.

Definitely not a feel-good movie, but then again, I'm not a feel-good princess.

***

Bear poop in the driveway this morning. We think they came through the orchard. Caleb has turned the electric fence back on for the season and I am now forbidden to do gardening on the whole east side of the property alone which always makes me feel claustrophobic and childish.

I'll wear the bell, I plead. No one wants to go.

I'll go, he says. But wear the bell anyway. The look on his face says he is a bear, and that it's spring and he's hungry.

***

We ordered a new bed today! A new California king. Okay, three of them that get pushed together. But it was overdue, there are very obvious valleys and hills in ours because the springs are popped and the support is gone (HA). They should make heavy-duty mattresses for poly-sleepers. I need a bed that can hold up to five people on the reg, but at least three or four every night and that's a combined 450-550 or even more in pounds but after speaking with a bunch of salesman apparently all we can do is replace our mattresses more often than 'normal', which is 8-10 years.

So every four or five years? I ask

They were too red in the face to venture a guess. Lord! Some people are so uptight.

Down to the sound of a heartbeat.

Lucky for me I can't hear heartbeats. I asked Lochlan if he could and he looked at me rather strangely for a moment and then asked if I thought he could.

I shrug. I kind of hate it when he remembers that I can't hear regular things, like leaves rustling in wind and then there are other things that I think should make actual noise but apparently don't, like bubbles popping in a glass of champagne or combing your hair. Like curly hair would be crackly and rustling and straight hair would be a whooshing sound like a waterfall but not as thunderous.

I can hear fire if I listen very closely. I love the snaps of dry wood and leaves and the popping sound of oxygen bubbles in the flames so don't feel sorry for me, as I still have that.

I also have a lovely rendition this morning of Surfer Girl, sung in harmony by Lochlan and August with the ending howls and refrains by Sam and Matt, who arrived at the perfect moment.

Lochlan's been hover-ish and affectionate as always and I want for nothing more. He's goofy and entertaining and he doesn't let go. Most people will accept a hug (for a moment) or hold my hand until they get hot/weird/distracted but Lochlan's always been on a different plane of existence with tenderness for me. A hug means suddenly you're walking into someone everywhere you go. You have four legs and no arms. You can't see but shirt buttons and curls. You're warm all the time. Holding my hand means I am permanently connected. He can go without letting go of my hand for an entire day or a whole night, in his sleep even. He will excuse himself to let go to deal with something and then he's right back. At least once a week he will absentmindedly try to put my hand in his pocket for safekeeping.

It's endearing and it's very necessary as over the years it became as important as oxygen or water and he's never once failed to hold up his end of a lifelong promise in that it didn't matter who I was in love with or how angry he was at me, or to be fair who HE was in love with or how angry I was at him, that affection could still be counted on however long or whenever it was needed.

Our love story is a circle, full and round.

It's Sunday which is the Most! Righteous! Day! Of! The! Week! according to Sam who is anxious to get off the mic and back into the church but that is next week. Every second bench has been taped off and people have been divided into groups according to the alphabet so if your family name is A-M, please come to the early service which has been moved to 1030 and if you're N-Z please come to the 1130 service. Both services are going to be a lot shorter than usual and there will be no greetings in the vestibule. Any requests for home visits or hospital are now on the community minister which puts Sam out of the line of fire for getting sick and Matt is relieved.

New Jacob even brought home the collection plates and instead built a box for envelopes that will be at the back of the sanctuary so offerings can be made as people arrive. That's how to shorten a service, let me tell you. I think passing the plates is stupid and lengthy and that's why we fill them with silly things. But instead of helping sway Sam to give up the practice (I don't think hardly any churches do it anymore) it encouraged him to continue it to see what we come up with next.

So Sam blessed our heathen foreheads and gave me an extended dance around his outstretched hand, like a true ballerina and then they were off for a Sunday drive and maybe some take-out to finish out their final honeymoon weekend and I am twirled back to Lochlan who doesn't like church anyway and will have to be cajoled back to worship, which won't be hard if the rest of them go, honestly. He used to love sitting under the tent outside at the show listening to the preacher who would come and give a twenty minute service to the performers early Sundays. We would sit in the heat and fan our faces, his arm looped loosely across the back of my shoulders and nod with each heavy thought but then things happened and he stopped believing that God even existed and it's been a battle ever since.

Then what makes your heartbeat so loud? I ask him triumphantly and he surprises me.

You do.

In charge of finding treasure in the dark.

Caleb and I had a war with our words last night after dinner, he fueled on cognac and me on gin. I haven't actually put the gin bottle down, truth be told, and it caught up with me in spades last evening. He picked at me, I retreated until he was shouting at me because I was retreating and we came full circle, shoulders up, claws out, eyes flashing.

Abruptly he turns and leaves the room. I think he's going outside so I figure I'll wait for a few minutes and then go back to my own room but then he's back.

Let's get some sleep, Neamhchiontach. It's hot. We're tired. Sleep and tomorrow it will look better.

I think I'll go.

He says nothing, and after a beat of waiting for something I turn and head out, down the hall and go to open the door. It's locked and the key that hangs in the lock is missing. It's not a bedroom lock, per se, it's an apartment deadbolt, as this is his self-contained flat and he needs to be able to lock it from both sides of the door.

In case of fire there is a balcony though. I turn around at the door and come back down the hall, walk right past him and head out to the balcony. I can climb down from the balcony or just jump. It's only on the second fl-

He grabs my arm as I pass him. Bridget. I would like you to stay.

I rebound to face him. What if I chose not to?

Then I ask you to reconsider. Stay with me. Let's rewin-

Can't take those words back, Diabhal. I whisper it. We are eyes wide, noses touching. He still hasn't let go of my arm though, and it aches.

Then let me hold you until they dissolve in time in the dark and tomorrow we'll start over.

You fucking blew it-

I know I did. Now just go to sleep! We'll figure it out tomorrow.

I start off with my arms crossed and my brows furrowed. I'm not sleeping. I'm going to lie here and be mad. I'm going to lie here angry all night and tomorrow I'm going to get up and leave without a word, even if I have to go over the balcony railing to get away from him-

After an hour of that he takes my hand under the covers. It's too hot to breathe. The air conditioning is going full steam but it's still hot. He kisses my fingers and says he loves me. I don't answer and after more time I hear his even breathing as his fingers go slack.

And eventually I give in to sleep. All the gin finally shuts me down in spite of my efforts to rage on quietly through the night. When I wake up in the morning it's cool again and raining. Caleb is already awake and staring at me.

May I leave? I ask.

Not until you listen to me.

Oh, I think I've heard eno-

Please, Bridget. He pleads again and again I relent. I lie there and he says all the things he needs to say. I know it was hot. We were drinking. Our hearts lie so close to the surface they get bruised, they grow cold when you would think the opposite will happen. He apologizes. He makes amends.

I don't doubt him and appreciate his words because we don't lie to each other these days. Our hearts might overhear, they might get confused.

When he's finished, he reaches over me to my bedside table and picks up the key that's lying there. On my side. Within eyesight. Can I walk you out?

No, get some actual rest now. I lean over and he kisses my cheek. He doesn't plead for a mulligan or a time scheduled for later, he just looks sad. I head back down the hall with the key, put it in the lock and let myself out.

Love you too, I say.

Frironies.

In which the moment the pool reaches optimal swimming temperature, Bridget is thrown off the cliff into the ocean instead, chased down by Christian and Lochlan while she screamed her fool head off, sure she could outrun them both, foolishly.

Instead I got the first unintentional dip of this new summer, as the moment I made my way back to the top, Ben threw me off again, overhand, which left me shrieking all the way down telling him to come in. I'm strong enough to swim around the point once, not twice.

They only got away with that because Gage and PJ were down on the beach rearranging the logs for summer. In winter and spring we make a wide open square further back on the beach, slightly underneath the cliffs and in summer we move them down closer to the tide, in rows, so when we have bonfires our backs are to the water, and every now and again whoever's tending the fire closest, facing the sea will get wide eyes and a slack jaw, scrambling backwards away from us in surprise and we'll whip around to see if the creature from the black lagoon is coming out of the surf behind us but there's never anyone there and yet we always look, just in case.

I didn't even get to finish my coffee but I didn't mind. It's twenty-seven degrees in the sun and I am not a big fan of being hot.

When I came up this time, Ben ran at me like a footballer but then veered past me when I screamed for a time-out and launched himself off the cliff in a front flip. It's dangerous and he's not allowed to do that but since Henry wasn't around to try and copy him I let it slide. A whoop and holler and a quiet splash and then Lochlan asked if anyone else was going, or he had to go back in.

She'll burn. No sunscreen. He means us, as in I need to go in. He's always been really good about trying to keep me in the shade. I love him so. So he'll get golden god status by August and I'll still be a little pink monster.

(I've tried to tan. It worked one year. ONE. I have a single photo. DAMN.)

For lunch we made toasted salami sandwiches with pickles and sugar snap pea pods and pomegranate popsicles dipped in gin. It was delicious.

I love summery Friday afternoons. The boys drift out to the pool, to laze about and nap and swim laps and drink cans of ginger ale and talk about nothing and everything. The sauna remains unused. Full of spiders, I bet but it's too hot to even think about it though when I do I picture it being overrun with spiders the moment we step out of it. I've never found a spider in it. It's just a fear.

The pool shed is stocked with clean pool towels, new sunscreens and various snorkels and fins (and probably spiders even though I swept it out pointlessly before filling it). The outdoor kitchen is stocked with drinks, fruit, cold salads and ice and I am indeed ready to go read in the shade until dinner. Dinner is with Caleb who is probably peering at his numbers over in one of the covered chaises on the other side of the pool, having been out here when we piled in from the far yard and I'm a little excited as he seems very balanced today too, waving and smiling, getting up and coming over to chat readily. We seem to do best together when I don't need him, which is the polar opposite of absolutely everyone else. Somehow it makes sense.

Brightly, spiderly, beggarman, thief.

I am beautifully recentered this morning and well aware that Caleb's reassurance sought is merely an act, in that he pretends that I wield the power in our relationship because it's prettier than the knowledge that he is the captor, and I am his victim, for all eternity. That we skew it so it isn't awful at all and maybe that's better than the alternative. I love him and I shouldn't, but I do. Accepting that removes a huge weight from all of our shoulders and God and everyone else knows he has worked hard and shown face to outcome our past instead of hiding from it.

Last night Lochlan and I were detailing a list of everything we love about summer. It's only the end of May. The most exciting season is incoming, like a freight train. Now, don't get me wrong, my favorite season is fall, but for completely different reasons. Summer is lucrative and opportunistic. Fall is quiet and cool, still and dim. Fall is cozy and handknit and colorful. Fall is the last breath of nature before winter shuts the whole thing down.

But summer has it's own perks. So here's my top ten little things I love about it.

1. The lights. Amusement lights, patio lights, dock lights, fireflies. I like them all.

2. Fireworks.

3. Sand on the bottoms of my feet.

4. Campfires/bonfires/fire-pits, barbecues. I'm not picky. Light it up.

5. Coming inside for a warm shower after an icy swim.

6. Fresh dry beach towels.

7. Eating outside (I love it so much they put glass over the whole pergola and installed more outdoor heaters so I can do it all year around but there's something amazing about a plate of toast with jam down in the orchard.

8. BUGS. They don't scare me anymore. I have butterfly friends and snails everywhere and sometimes more ominous crawlies but that's okay too.

9. Stars. We're closer to them in the summer and I will never forget the nights we slept in the back of the pickup truck or on top of the camper and Lochlan taught me all the constellations and I fell asleep with them (and him) watching over me.

10. Boys. Without shirts but with lots of tattoos. Preachers in short sleeves with collars on Sunday. Man buns. Bare feet. Skin. Sundresses without underclothes. Laundry on the line. Maybe that's eight things instead of one but I put it all in the same category.

I don't want for much. Just lights, magic and skies. Some spiders and clean towels. A book of matches and a kind word or an arm to curl up in. Lochlan's top ten was virtually the same, save for number 10.

His last one was seeing my hair in the sun. He said it shines like a beacon in the night.

So lights. I need something different, I tell him and he thinks for a moment.

Watching you eat carnival food, he says with a laugh. Best thing ever. Though sundresses without underthings is up there too.

A day I probably don't deserve.

This morning I harvested boatloads of oregano, lemon balm and rosemary, tying big bunches up along the rafters in the stables, under the big suspended patio umbrella and along the strings of lights in the gazebo to dry. In three weeks or so I'll take it all down, crunch all of the leaves into clean dry jars and do the next round. I almost ran out of oregano this spring so I'm starting early this year and am going to try to stay on top of it. I pour handfuls and handfuls of crushed leaves into my famous spaghetti sauce and honestly if no one was looking (like that ever happens) I would be snorting lines of it off the kitchen counter.

And I've been known to break open a few leaves of rosemary to rub along my wrists and collarbone as perfume. I make my own rosemary shampoo and liquid soap to use as well, though we go through so much of everything I can't keep up with demand and trade off with my grocer's much-coveted supply of Avalon products (not a plug but damn, if you can afford it Avalon is the SHIT. A bottle of their lavender liquid hand soap is $10 at the store I shop at so yeah, I try to make my own as much as possi-

Right.

I know.

You're clearly not here because this is some sort of kitchen-witch blog, I know. But some times I like to talk about other things. Because it's a good day. I'm in a really good mood. Happy is not my default and yet today I feel happy.

Yes, I'm sober. I made a promise to Sam and I'm keeping it, though to celebrate finishing the end of The Hobbit movies, which followed The Lord Of the Rings movies, I had a gin and ginger ale to sip while it was on and he approved. With a sprig of fresh lemon balm.

No, Caleb didn't lose his shit about PJ. He took his cue from Lochlan, who came home late last evening, tired but finished, because he said he didn't want to have to go back today so he just worked through and it's ready, kissed me on the forehead and asked if I was okay (yes) and then said today we could garden, paint and maybe have lunch outside, and that tonight would be just for us. Maybe a cool shower and some love songs. Maybe some stars exploding. Maybe everything.

And we've been having a wonderful day. Food tastes better outside. I know it does. We even made sure to invite Caleb to come and have lunch in the shade on the patio. He agreed and lingered around a bit, asking a few questions, feeling me out to see if he was still in the loop.

I assured him he was, ready for his inevitable question, which came like clockwork next.

Then can I request some time with you? Would it be a lot to ask if you might come and nap with me? Or stay in my quarters? Pick a night. Give me a little reassurance here, Neamhchiontach.

Are you busy Friday?

Not that I know of. His eyes are lit now.

Can we...have a horror marathon and some Indian takeout?

We can. He breathes in and then kisses the top of my head, nods toward Lochlan and is off.

HEY, I yell.

He turns around, already halfway across the stones, eyebrows raised.

WHEN ARE WE FILLING THE POOL?

This afternoon, he winks. It was going to be a surprise.

Because someone's always fucking the nanny.

Lochlan had to leave early this morning to set up a thing for Schuyler so one of his new projects can get underway. A hard kiss on my philtrum and he told me to go crawl in with PJ and sleep for a few more hours.

PJ is awake reading when I get there, light on above his bedside table. He lets me change the music and I put on A.A.Williams, turn it down to a soft drone and crawl in beside him. His sheets are clean, he smells like sandalwood and jasmine and I drift off on the notes from the stereo. I wake up an hour later and he is asleep too, book on his chest, music having looped around to the beginning again.

I climb higher up, gently kiss his cheek and slide out of bed. He grabs my leg. He pulls me back under the covers underneath him, making short work of my tank top and pajama shorts. For good measure he pulls out the elastic holding my braid together and then wraps my hair up into his fist as he pulls me off the bed toward him.

He sits back, turning us so he's against the headboard, lifting me back down into his lap gently then not so. I wrap my arms around his neck, holding on for dear life. He leans me way back abruptly until the top of my head is touching the bed again, back arched hard against the morning, not letting me back up until I've been satisfied all over and then, only then he pulls me back into his arms, wrapping his hand around the back of my head, keeping me down against his shoulder, going hard. It's all I can do to not scratch him or bite him, or even scream from the intensity of his movements, but I keep it together and finally he hits the sweet moment too and he slows to a crawl, a soft growl against my neck.

It takes him an eternity to let go.

When he finally does, he finds my clothes and gently dresses me again. I get a kiss on the forehead and he heads off to his ensuite to have a shower. Not a word is said between us. It's a first.

Smaller people get colder faster.

There is an incredible bliss to having coffee and big homemade bagels with homemade grape jelly on the patio while it's pouring rain in sheets all around me. It drums on the glass roof and I have two of the heaters on low. It's twelve degrees and not meant to go any higher today and so denim overalls, a pink t-shirt and a fuzzy pink cardigan are comfortable and warm, though it makes me look like a highschooler from the eighties. I was a highschooler in the eighties so I don't mind so much.

I may have to make another bagel though. This jelly is so good. I made it last fall when it turns out we got some decent grapes, though not enough to make wine with so I harvested what I could and got four good-sized jars of jelly. The first one never set and we used it up but I just opened the next after ten months and it's perfectly set and delicious.

I love to can. I do old-fashioned style in a big stock pot in small batches and I make everything from pickles to jams to tomato sauce to preserved vegetables to applesauce.

Lochlan agrees. He's just poured us each a second coffee to sip for our final hour out here before the chores start. It's Monday after all. The incredible amount of rain means no running with the Devil this morning. I haven't run enough, I think but at the same time my body is far happier if I don't anymore. Ruth goes back to work today. Henry doesn't work again until the weekend. A lot of businesses are opening today and yet I plan to help the boys clean the house, maybe do some baking and then tackle my mending pile while I watch Win The Wilderness on Netflix.

It's very good. I wonder how I would do in a challenge like that? Not like I'll ever find out. I have stupid things I love too much to give up like the heated floors in the stables and really fast wi-fi thanks to Lochlan and my stand mixer for when I do bake (I have a very weak elbow on one side that has never fully recovered) and I really love the motorized retractable glass windows across the kitchen wall that I don't really talk about because then people will think I'm spoiled.

(I am spoiled, though but also self-aware so I hope it counts for something. In my defense while you spent your teens and twenties living at home borrowing mom's car and shopping I was singing for my supper and it wasn't much, let me tell you.) 

I don't think I could give that wall up to regularly get visits from grizzlies. We do get visits from black bears, does this count? It's my little luxury-Alaska, I guess. Our bears are used to people though and not nearly as terrifying as grizzlies. On the show they say it's the other way around. Huh.

Hoping to finish the mending today though. Lochlan's getting low on flannel shirts. He wears the elbows out so fast because he doesn't roll up his sleeves all year around like some of the others. I darn some of the least damaged and patch the most. It suits him.

(Also a fun fact: I embroider the initials of each boy on the sleeve cuff of their flannel shirts or I can't tell who owns what. We don't do our own laundry separately in the collective. We do whatever needs to be done.)

Heart (and hand)warming.

And today I went kayaking with Matt.

Matt was nervous, Matt tried to be at once a father, big brother and best friend. He wasn't sure if I could lift my kayak, wasn't sure if I could push off on my own from the beach or the dock, didn't know if he should warn me of anything like wakes or sea monsters and wasn't aware that he's been watching me do this for YEARS and no one does anything for me. In fact, I'm fine. I tend to pull instead of push when I paddle if I stop thinking and start thinking (as one does) but otherwise you don't have to teach, warn or babysit me. Not there. Not on the water. I was born on the sea. I know what I'm doing. 

We looked at logs, seals, jellyfish and tourists. We paddled silently halfway down the coast to the end of my comfort margins and then turned back. He thanked me for reminding him to wear a hat and sunglasses and he said we should bring Sam with us next time.

Then Sam and I interact and Matt stays on the fringe. I don't know if that's a better idea? I'm trying to get to know him in reverse.

I point that out to Matt and tell him we could have a Saturday morning 'yak with just the two of us and a Sunday evening one with Sam included and he seemed to like that. And by the time we returned to the dock I think he realized that I don't bite, I don't rule this point with an iron fist and I don't hate him. I hate some of his previous actions because he hurt someone I'm incredibly close to but otherwise he is a new blank-canvas boy and he seems to fit in here well and still toe a line of respect that some of the boys would be well to adopt. He held my fingers in his hands to warm them back up. It was a sweet gesture.

He's okay. I told him that and he laughed and said I was okay too. He invited me to come in for a drink on our way up the steps but I have to get back. Lochlan and I are doing some things this afternoon.

Maybe come by later for it then?

Maybe tomorrow, I tell him and he laughs. Okay. Whenever. We have an open door.

Same goes for you both.

It's appreciated, Bridget. Thank you. It's been unreal.

What has?

Being home.