Sunday boys.

Maybe sunlight burns off the last of the spent rocket fuel, the rainbow puddles drying to purple and green streaks on the concrete, a circle charred into the centre where I took off and landed again, easily. I'm good at this.

(Of course I Still Love You is the name of the floating remote barge that Space X rockets always land on. No, Caleb is not Elon Musk, but people ask me that Every. Single. Day. Caleb is his real name and he can afford a lot of privacy so I don't worry about being discreet save for talking about his Jekyll side.)

But like I said, it's daylight and instead of Jesus bench this morning in the lingering heat from yesterday I bailed on Sam and went kayaking very early with John and Lochlan. I could not keep up, they could not paddle slow enough stay back and eventually I turned and returned, back to shore to haul my kayak up the beach where someone can fetch it before lunch and lock it away for tomorrow.

I gave an okay-wave as I made it to the top of the stairs, if it helps. Sometimes the boys get carried away with their competitiveness and forget that I am small and not as strong or as fast. This hasn't changed since I was eight years old, the only difference being now that I can recognize when they're not going to wait or come back or slow down and I will sit on the sidelines instead.

The dynamic of that sucks but at the same time it's not a big deal to come back up and steal all of PJ's bacon while John and Loch finish their cross-ocean triathlon or whatever it is they decided to embark on this morning.

PJ is horrified that I eat all of his bacon and calls me out. A piece. You could have left me a piece.

Maybe you should go to church and pray for more, I tell him and he laughs.

Totally going to tell Sam you said that.

You go right ahead. He gives me a tight hug with one arm and then takes his dishes to the kitchen while I head upstairs to have a shower. Ben is awake. This is a rare thing.

Morning Bumblebee. He mumbles it but he's smiling.

Morning Sleepyhead.

Come here.

If I do that I'll never leave.

How is that a bad thing? The sweetness of his voice draws me in and I crawl into bed for a hug. He waits for seven or eight heartbeats and then lets go. You smell like a dead jellyfish. Go have your shower.

Nice.

I mean, not really. Were you swimming already?

Paddling.

Ohhhh. That's what it is. Sweaty lifejacket.

Huh.

Sorry.

It's fine.

Is it though? You look pissed. He laughs.

Hey. I got a paddle and a plate of bacon and it's not even eight in the morning yet.

Jesus. I thought it was ten. Why am I up?

That was my question.

I sensed you coming in. That's what it was, Bridge.

It was the bacon smell.

I wish.

Maybe cuddle PJ instead. He was the one who made it.

I'll get on that as soon as I'm done sleeping.

He's completely right but that doesn't change a thing.

My heart is a rocket ship, exploding in space only to fall to earth where the pieces are found scattered far and wide, brought back together to be reassembled and shot up over and over again in the cloying darkness, sparks heralding my departure from earth every single night. You can trace my path by the clouds, singed with black, burnt edges all along the way.

Jacob is a myth. He says it through the thick glass, wading through a fourth whiskey, up to his knees in flames by now, courage pulled up over his head like a blanket against the monsters that won't scare us but haunt us still. He is a little boy and my ghosts are his boogeymen, now.

Don't, Locket.

I have to.

No, you don't. We're reduced to half-conversations now. He just wants everything to stop but he's never going to be the one to bring an end to anything he hates, lest it backfire and I hate him for it.

I would never.

He does not believe me.

I could bring him up to space and show him there's nothing to be afraid of but he wouldn't believe me. Jacob may as well be breathing still for the risk he takes up in Lochlan's Big Book of Dangerous Things For Bridget to Stay Away From.

Let's go to sleep.

I can't sleep anymore. The minute I close my eyes everything always goes wrong.

From reckless to heavy and back again.

Why didn't you stop me from turning out this way?

I guess I'll have to do a list today, since it's Friday and it's raining and there's no pool time today (Caleb said so, Loch backed him up. I should have gone to August to split the difference but that just ends with all of my clothes on the floor and the happiest Newfie in British Columbia to everyone's absolute horror, so it's better if I don't do that so no pool time, okay, I got it) and I've got confirmation from Sam (who lies to be kind, they all do, I know this now in a bittersweet way I wasn't aware of when I was eight years old. Or ten. Or twelve. Or twenty-nine.) that I won't see Jake again until I cross the sea of glass and fire-

And now I'm obsessed with that. There are things Sam says, or any minister honestly, that sound so unlikely, so fucking magical they get stuck with me for weeks. Years. Months. He's said it a million times that the sea of glass is akin to the rainbow bridge for dogs but it's for humans and it's the barrier between earth and heaven, and that the only way to cross this sea is to die but of natural or unexpected reasons.

He always says unexpected, for clarification, because natural could mean fucking anything.

Right, so magical. Like that time he told me I was grace personified and I knew he wasn't lying to be kind then at all. He was simply calling what he saw, living what he knows, worshipping at the hand of this virtue that probably shouldn't exist and never will again-

This isn't a list, is it?

This is very fourth wall, back and forth but when Sam mentions the sea of glass now I can picture it and it's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, like Davenport beach glass but easier to get to.

(Remember my Coast Diaries companion blog to this one? Coast Dairies is a state park in California. Now you know.)

I've almost finished Practical Magic. Gary finally showed up two-hundred pages in. I've thrown out the remainders of my makeup drawer, keeping only my beloved Benetint and absolutely nothing else. It's been two years since I had a (major, I let Daniel keep it nice) haircut and I can pull it down at the ends now and tuck it into my armpits. I finally finished the Fifty Shades movie trilogy (read the books years ago, though I can't finish Grey because I read it in Caleb's voice and that makes it hard because Christian Grey is so much nicer than Caleb) and I am having my Friday morning second cup of coffee as we speak while I type, staying inside though I could be out on the heated covered patio with the others but Ransom came by again and I'd rather just stay in.

I'm plotting to finish this and then go crawl in with Dalton for a quick nap because Dalton sleeps all day when it rains and he won't be as...reactive as some of the others so I can actually sleep. 

But coffee. I could sit here all day in the dim light and drink coffee and read.

But Dalton. Not too warm, not too cool, a just-right bear to my Goldilocks and a comfort onto himself. He remembers the beach glass and lip gloss years, the drinking until we would forget everything bad that ever happened and all of the growing up we've done since because at some point you accept that you're going to grow old and get your great reward, and it's going to be the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, a reason to wait in of itself. I only wish I could paint what I picture in my brain but there's always a shadow over the whole thing.

The shadow is Jake.

I know that now.

Milestoned.

It's the lie-by-the-pool and don't lift a finger part of summer. The triple-digits-weather part of summer. The naked part of summer (but with a handy wrap dress nearby in case of children or beta boys). The eat a tequila popsicle and listen to the Eagles part of summer. The part where Lochlan stops burning ever so slightly and begins to toast a light golden, hair included. The part where my hair turns white and looks terrible.

The part where I don't even care.

The part where I finish all of those popsicles while mowing through all of the books in my nightstand while I float in this year's new addition but the wrong way, while Lochlan floats on the other side. It's a chicken fight float where the chickens are attached at the beaks but as it turns out I still can't reach Lochlan's hands unless he leans way forward, which gives me far too much of an advantage to be fair.

It's so fun to watch the boys on it, though I then see right through them because they're savage with each other and far too tender with me. Or maybe that's good. I don't know. I've had five of these popsicles and tequila and I (especially in the hot sun) were never so much as friends but merely acquaintances. I know her name. I don't know her.

It's the last popsicle I'm having (I swear) and in an hour I'll go take an ice-cold shower and put on a pretty dress and host Henry's birthday dinner. I feel like this is part of a dream, where I have successfully raised two human beings to be adults and they're smart, healthy, motivated and determined and I want to pat myself on the back so hard this lime slice I almost choked on will shoot into the water and everyone will shout in dismay but at least I can breathe again.

This whole world that shares my fate.

I fought you for so long
I should have let you win
Oh how we regret those things we do
And all I was trying to do
Was save my own skin
But so were you

          So were you

The heat drove us in late last night, as the camper gets close and cloying when the temperatures hover in the thirties. The breeze off the ocean does nothing, we're too high up and the windows aren't large enough in the camper. We briefly contemplated open-air sleeping (done it a million times) before the mosquitos made that decision for us. And the coming weeks ahead are forecast to be super-hot so I think sleeping out there will be on a case by case basis for the remainder of the month.

I love camping. I love living light. I love not having a schedule.

I woke up this morning with Ben making a wall on one side, arm over Caleb (HA! It's aDORable), who bookended us at some point because the door wasn't locked (I forgot) and he takes that as an invitation. Lochlan is almost sideways, arms around my waist, head thrown back in dreams, hair in his eyes. I crawl out the bottom to go have a shower and deal with the pets and no one even stirs.

The more living, breathing men I can pack into my immediate area the less often I see ghosts. Besides, Caleb has somehow figured out how to be nice again, or maybe he ran out of hard drugs, or possibly he is mellowing, something we've been waiting for since he was seventeen and was so intense people would self-immolate under his gaze.

And still do.

But God he looks so cute when he sleeps. They all do. No one's advocating, fixing, fighting. Makes me happy.

Animal camp/Animal internet.

We made a huge painted orca mural for the side of the boathouse for our project for this week, rendered on sealed wooden squares as tall as I am. Lochlan forgot how fast I am at painting and we finished before lunch today and so he's got to parse out the remaining activities to fill this new space, thinking we would work on it for a couple of hours a day. Instead we powered through the entire thing. Tomorrow we'll screw it to the beach-side back of the boathouse and then admire our handiwork forever. It's very West Coast to me. It actually turned out really cool.

(Don't tell anyone where I live if you see it from the water. It will be visible if you come up along the coast on the water from the east, but only slightly.)

Remaining projects for this week include birdwatching and naming all of the local sea lions in order to catalogue them for funsies, because we see them and forget their names and every visit now is a fumble for a theme to name them within, like planets or present and former members of US Congress or kinds of cookies.

So this time it's hot cities around the world like Phoenix and Marrakesh, Bangkok and Kuwait.

(Kuwait City, proper. Don't @ me.)

Tomorrow it will be something else. As I said, we can't remember.

In the meantime, I had five minutes to look at my email today and there was an old password of mine in a subject line with someone who attempted to tell me they had video of me watching porn on my computer, that I had good taste and that if I didn't send them $1030 in bitcoin (how specific) they would send the video to all of my contacts from Facebook and my phone.

Uh...

They've been waiting for hours. SEND THE VIDEO!

Also I don't have Facebook or bitcoin. And I don't need to watch porn on my laptop. I am the porn on my laptop but go HAM already, would you?

Rabbit rabbit (run).

I don't feel foggy, fuzzy or dull this morning. I feel alive. Ready to fight back. Ready to push the darkness off the cliff, Lochlan beside me, Ben behind me for leverage, as I can lean against him and he won't move so I won't slide backwards.

Is that a euphemism? I doubt it. He physically does this and he mentally does this and somehow it's always been slightly easier to lose my shit on Ben's watch because there was never as much at stake, and only half the same amount of history to fight through.

Henry will be nineteen years old this week and I figured out that's why Jake is suddenly breathing down my neck, unable to hide himself or step back into the night, or hang out around the edge of the hole. He can't disappear away to heaven or mire himself in purgatory right now. It seems I'm not the only one who fights curiosity so hard I get myself in all sorts of messes when I ultimately give in.

And maybe that's what Jake wants to see. He wants to see this tall (six-two and still going, by the measure of his work pants which no longer come to the tops of his shoes) blonde handsome man, who has a steady job and is starting university in the fall after taking a year to do a few extra courses to prepare for the program he wants. He has close friends, easy humour and is ridiculously kind, sensitive and logical.

He sounds like Lochlan when he talks. The pragmatism shines. Nurture over nature, every time. And he really doesn't look like Jake except in colouring and stature. I'm grateful for that. He looks more like me and a lot like himself. He is an amazing man and I thank my lucky stars every day that my children are both well-adjusted, empathetic, smart people. Good humans, as I always say. Raising them I put values over rewards and honesty over laziness. I never took the easy way out. I demanded consistency and kindness because there were some major upheavals in their lives and I didn't want to ruin them.

And it's not over. My job isn't done. I'm still teaching Henry things like how to distract himself when he feels down or overwhelmed, even as I battle for a way to accomplish that myself. I'm still teaching him how expensive life is and how he has to save far more than he spends and how a plan and a trajectory is a good thing because there will be detours and fallbacks and huge strides forward along the way. I'm teaching him that he is a gift and that every time something bad happens, that's when you learn the most and a good day is there to keep you looking forward. That life is also a gift. That mental health is a precious thing and that we will all be okay, even when days seem dark or when things get really hard.

And that he will always and forever have the entire Collective to back him up and help him out. No matter what. For the rest of his life.

He's one of them now. One of the boys. He's been moving toward this and now they just include him when they're working on projects or going out. He has made it to this time and I am a proud mom. He only has one more work shift this week and we're celebrating after that. For days.

Requiem for the easily-startled.

I just feel dull today, as if someone has taken the point of my knife and ground it all along the pavement all the way out of my neighborhood, and when I hold it up to the light to see the damage it's now an icing spreader, just a rounded flat tin safe now even in the smallest of hands.

Church was ineffective. I slid into a bench between Lochlan and Caleb. Lochlan had gone through a drive-through for coffee for us on the way and once in he handed me my coffee and then took it away again just as fast while he watched Sam's sermon float right through one ear and out the other. Sam finally came over during collection and told me I should just go home and nap in the sun. That he will bring me some God later if I want. I laughed because I took it the wrong way but continued to doze standing up, eyelashes and hands fluttering, slack-jawed staring at the sky.

Jake just keeps watching me from the corner of every room. I know what it is. I brought him in. I brought him here and I keep him here and years and years have passed and I still don't understand how I fell so hard. How I mowed right over my boys for this incredible interloper who had no stake in us, no stake in the collective and no way of knowing how hard he would fall in return before he let it all slip through his hands.

You can't bring God over later. God isn't welcome here. Jacob moved right into my heart, fixed it up and redecorated and now I can't get him to leave.

I watch Lochlan as Sam mumbles. I can't even make out the words for Lochlan's curls spilling over his shoulders in lazy loops. The brilliant piercing red of early summer, before they fade to strawberry blonde, the sheer circumference of each single pop-can curl that has riddled me with jealousy my entire life, even as I can wake up in the middle of the night screaming from nightmares and ghosts that won't leave and Lochlan doesn't complain one bit as he lets me wrap those curls around my fists, falling back asleep right in his face, not letting go for hours. He does it right back, save for the screams, and it's been a thing for so long, long before Jake and now long after him.

Go away, I mouth at the man in the corner, in his rumpled invisible linen and bare feet. Leave us alone now. You've done enough.

I close my eyes and rest my head on Lochlan's shoulder and he squeezes my hands tightly in his.

This took a fucking hour and it's a story about an apple slice. Jesus Josiah Crackerbarrel.

Watching Lochlan cut up an apple for me and he asked me something but I am watching for the next slice to come off his knife and in my waiting, I forget. It's like being ten again and he wouldn't let me use our kitchen knife at all. He still cringes when I pick one up on a good day but on a stoned day I don't even have to approach the kitchen. I am seated at the table so he can keep an eye on me.

(Watch me, not wait on me, I remind him.)

Wait. What?

Would you like a hot chocolate? We'll take them in to the couch and watch the rain.

I would but can we go to the front porch?

Sounds good. Do you want to go and put the blanket out and maybe light the lanterns?

(They are solar but have always-on buttons too.)

Yes.

I head out and Ben follows me, in case I walk straight into a bear's mouth or something. It's not a stupor, but a big pause. It's harder to focus, hard to worry. Hard to take the time to point out Jacob standing in the corner of each room I pass through, a midnight albatross rendered in blonde, an elephant in the room who is the biggest fan of Jesus. Death, maybe coming for me, maybe purely unresolved.

Ben-

I'll just be a shadow, fragile miss Bee. He walks right through Jake, opening the door wide. I was sure they could see him before. Now, not so much.

Lochlan comes out with a tray and three mugs, plus the plate of fruit. Ben is grateful. I am not even allowed to hold my mug until it cools. Forever ten years old, or maybe I was just high right through those wonderful terrible years.

Hey, I tell Lochlan as I watch him burn his lips on his own mug.

Hmm? He is attentive to a fault. Finally. The only thing I ever want in life is for him not to be forever half out of a conversation, distracted or distressed.

Thank you. For looking out for me with Joel and for being here now. Thank you, Locket.

Where else would I be? He winks and passes me my mug, carefully. When I have it he rocks a kiss against my forehead and a little hot chocolate sloshes over the rim of the cup.

He takes it back and puts it on the tray. It's hot, Peanut. Give it a few. He squeezes my hand. I see it but I hardly feel it. I'm happy he's here. And Ben too. We can be the three musketeers again, forever, except one hardly carries her own weight at all.

And he shall be a good man.

Ben critiqued my piano rendition of Candle In The Wind this morning by pointing out some of my notes are off. I play by ear. If I can make the chords I'm fucking thrilled. If I can't, I chip away at it until I can.

He puts his big over-the-ear headphones on me and tells me to have a listen with those. He is 'helping' me. He hates the fact (they all do, I know) that I can't hear things.

Oh. Wow.

Right?

There's guitar?

Jesus. His face falls. It's the only way I can teach them it's merely hurtful to keep rubbing it in and that unless I live in these headphones and have all sound filtered through them this isn't going to do anything but continue to highlight a flaw I can't ever fix.

Hearing aids are awful. I've tried a dozen different ones at price points ranging from five hundred to twelve thousand dollars, trust me. I hate the way they feel. I hate the way things sound. I'm better off missing the noise if that's how I'm going to be presented with it. A rusted tin radio with terrible reception and almost-drained batteries.

Ben is still hopeful. Maybe an ear transplant.

I shrug. Maybe, turning my attention back to my keys and he plants a kiss on the back of my neck, headed downstairs to his own music.

I change the song to Levon and change all the lyrics to be about Ben. He comes back and leaves a second kiss.

***

Had a day off from my brain yesterday. It got a lot worse, Jake came into the house and they called Joel.

Joel is like Caleb but with more connections and now I'm strung the fuck out on ghosts and benzos and no one cares if I can play the piano or if I'm drooling down the side of my cheek because at least I'm not screaming. At least now I'm quiet and not fighting and not losing whatever's left of my fucking mind.

At least I stuck around to do the hard parts. Jake just comes back to make this harder.

***

Lochlan didn't want Joel here.

I got her. I got this! Get BACK. He insisted. I heard him pleading. Heard his voice break as he struggled to be heard over me yelling. Heard him pointing out over and over again that this is his fight. That he's in charge. That he can fix this if they just leave us alone.

But they won't. Too risky. They just want it fixed before the kids see me. Before it gets any worse and they can't deal with it at home. Before they're no longer able to send the ghosts away with a good nights sleep and a perfect high.

Before it's too late for anything at all.  If I could feel anything right now it would be sympathy for him.

Why didn't you tell me, Peanut?

I didn't want to hurt you too.

His face falls. Just like Ben's did later on the same morning over the music. It's just another flaw I can never fix and I wonder what the dealbreaker point is now for him.

There isn't one. He kisses my face. Oh. There are tears. I can't even feel them but I guess my body is sad (perhaps from memory) while my mind doesn't care about a damn thing right now.

Then I am crying for you, I guess, I tell him.