For fucks sake.

 This is a designated do-nothing day by degree even though I've already changed three beds, done two loads of laundry, made breakfast for nine people and am about to water all of the plants. I plunged out the shower drain, which started filling up with water around my toes as I finished my shower this morning and I tested the furnace because it's dropped five degrees in the past two hours temperature-wise and all is well. I had checked the filter yesterday and she's good for another month and took the turkey out to thaw for tomorrow's big full Collective Thanksgiving dinner. 

But I've also been up since five because I don't sleep any more but I did get my slice of pumpkin pie, which was delicious. We ate pumpkin pie and had tea in bed with Schuyler and Daniel while watching the first two Nightmare on Elm Street movies to get into the Halloween mood. They have tiny fairy lights lining every wall, doorframe and window in their huge bedroom overlooking the ocean and when you turn those on while the movie is on it looks so incredible. Their heat was already on in their house and Schuyler even snuck a forbidden dollop of whipped cream onto my slice of pie even though I skip it now because dairy and after I ate half of it on a forkful Lochlan took the other half off the top so that I wouldn't feel sick. 

But I did anyway. And that's why I've been awake since five. 

The good news is I finished all the chores and even went in and cuddled with Duncan for thirty minutes, almost falling asleep (he was asleep and I don't think he really knew that I was there) and my plan now is to relax. There are leftovers for today in the fridge for anyone and everyone, and so cooking is off the table for today and there is only one bed left to be changed, as soon as Henry gets out of it and I can do the last load of laundry for the day, or even leave it for tomorrow if I want. 

I'm not so good at relaxing. This is not news. But Ben said we'll have a nap later on and I'm holding him to it. I told him that and he agreed and said he would hold me to him too. 

Took me far too long to figure out what he meant. I need to learn to how to sleep more than five hours at a time.

A whole new man.

When they came over I was wearing my new cute print dress from H&M with the long bell sleeves that is so comfortable I live in it now and my doc martens, unlaced. One leg thrown over the arm of the chair, other leg stretched out against the bottom on the same side for decency. 

Daniel laughed. They like your hair? 

I nod. I let him chop it all off again but this time he left my bangs super long. They are driving Lochlan crazy but he likes it shorter these days, only since he said it makes me look adorable and maybe that's not a bad thing, and also because when I grew my hair out again I never left it alone, as it's a tic, after a fashion and I would twist it up, pin it and promptly take it down and do it over again. A nervous habit that was very physical and distracting. We're not going to mention the long hair left behind on everyone's sleeves, in their beards, wrapped around their fingers. 

Schuyler pulls me to my feet. Oh my God. So cute. Let's go to our place. It's a holiday. 

I need to be here to make dinner. 

That's on Monday, Bridget. It's Saturday. Tonight, you are dinner.

Oh. 

Oh boy, you mean. 

Shouldn't that be Oh boys? 

He laughs. He's had so much free time being retired, I think he's bored. He reads my mind. We're not bored. We're just having fun. Schuyler looks at Daniel and they both laugh again. Wow.

I can see that. 

So grab your Lochlan and come with us. 

When will we be back?

Who cares?

Rose petal vodka.

Indeed I am going to begin working as Caleb's assistant again this fall, starting mid-next week. We've narrowed my role to a scant fifteen hours a week to keep him organized, three days a week and no more. He is not allowed to lock me in his suite either. Seems simple. I am to keep track of my hours worked and prepare to work hard during the times when I am working as he agreed that it's not a lot of hours but it's a fair lot of work, as he points out and he wouldn't have anyone else do it.

(WTF! Oh, he means, he wouldn't trust anyone to do as good a job. OH, well, thanks for clarifying after I threw my phone at his head. WOW. Also, may I have my phone back, please, for the second time this week? What do you mean, no? I only threw it at you onc-

Thanks.)

I already dug out a beautiful brand new pink silk-covered notebook and same-coloured pen to carry when I follow him around. If I don't write it down it's gone forever. My brain is a like a beach towel that's lost it's absorbency due to the weight of sunscreen. Eventually I should probably soak my brain in vinegar too to strip off the coating and then maybe I can absorb more info but for now my mind is hard-coated in sunblock 60, so I write it all down. He likes that though. He says it feels official. 

He helped me hang the dozen cowboy hats on long racks above each side table in the foyer this morning and I have set out a few dozen pumpkins on the front steps, both sets so it looks super 'weeny around here now. There is a round table in the middle of the front hall with a big arrangement of fresh lilies. I think it might last until Sunday, and then I can choose something more hardy for the remainder of the month. Probably dyed zinnias and dark roses and a lot of heavy greenery. 

I put the good vodka in the flower water and they last a very long time with it, which is good because I don't like wasting money on things but who doesn't love fresh flowers and besides, the few months we tried to go without on that table, weird things started to appear on it and the weirdness multiplied the longer it went empty. It started with a nickel, then a cookie and then a sweater no one claimed to own, followed by a single cross-country ski, and then a full easel with charcoal on the lip so people could add to a communal drawing (it got hilariously ugly fast, as you would imagine), followed by a stuffed snail wearing sunglasses that remained for WEEKS until I ordered flowers again starting in September. 

I suppose it could have been worse. 

But I do like the hats. Also this frees up half a closet shelf. Which is nicer than anything else in a house full of people. I try to stay organized in the common areas of the house to a military degree, so I think I get how Caleb feels.

It's also Friday so I am pre-weekending/gaming, and though I thought about drinking the water from the big round vase before I changed it out, I didn't because the vase is too heavy for me to lift, and also because people judge. Judge me for my giant foyer instead. Biggest necessary waste of space ever, and I wish I had it when I used to try and wrestle both kids in their snowsuits when they were so little. God, that feels like a million years ago now, and now they are both older than me.

Lies (and fries).

 Caleb won't dare go up against Lochlan. He'll take what he needs, if I give it to him, and then he'll fade back into the shadows on the sidelines before he riles the lion, unwilling to cross my allegiance, since he knows it isn't to him ever and never will be. 

Didn't stop him from taking my phone away and locking the door, keeping me with him for too long to be overlooked.

And when Lochlan got me back the very first thing he did was undress me and check me all over. He found two brief imprints. One on my shoulder, one on my hand where I fought back briefly before I was told to give in and when I did it got better, and neither one broke the skin and I said I was fine and Lochlan believed me. He's trying to trust me and trust that I know Caleb well enough in that way that I know I won't be hurt again even though the self-control Caleb swore he had was hanging by thread there, at the end. And that's when I asked that he open the door and he did, if only to protect me from that. 

Because he knows. 

They all know. 

But I am fine and I figured out how to put myself back together (in Lochlan's arms) and now things are mostly ironed out, and I don't have to worry about another shoving match (not allowed, and every single person here will throw themselves in between two who start, because we're not about to ever risk any more surprise punches, head injuries, or long recoveries on a moment when things got too heated to use our words) because they've already spoken, if only to agree on the day on which we will celebrate Thanksgiving, Sunday or Monday (they chose Monday). 

We're having turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet carrots and cranberry sauce, along with butter rolls and pumpkin pie for dessert. I am excited. We have no plans at all, except for the meal. Last year at this same time I told Caleb that if I were planted I wondered what would grow, a tall flower or a stumpy turnip. He laughed and laughed and still calls me his little turnip every now and then but last night we finished the last of our homegrown potatoes from the garden, an irony considering I keep finding them in the dirt, gathering them up in the hem of my dress to bring back inside by the dirty dozen. 

A rotten potato, kicked around the garden but enjoying the very last moments of sun before winter sets in and the soil grows cold. 

 That makes me sad, Neamhchiontach. 

Me too, Diabhal.

You know where I've been.

I stood outside when the roof gave in
You crawled from the wreckage you were lying in
You're out of reach and we're out of time
But I took it all and toed that line
You held my hand and pulled me down with you

I told you what would happen. I give him a moment and he tries to take a lifetime. He sets the world on fire and I'm reduced to this in the early dark hours, finally free, sitting at the piano slackjawed and trembling, wrapped in a blanket, picking out notes with a blank mind and a ruined heart. He finds things stuck in that heart. Dark things, bad things and he tastes them, he takes them out and plays with them and he breaks them, leaving the pieces strewn all over the room and then I'm forced to picked them up and stuff them back in but they're sticking out all over and it hurts. 

It hurts. 

He hurts. And he's a biter. He's the kind of man that always promises you he'll be better this time and then he isn't. He bites and he forces and his eyes burn right through me and he bends my limbs far past what they can manage and breathing is a privilege not a right. My eyes are bloodshot, my head hurts and her little brain doesn't even understand why I let him get to her. 

Do I though? Or do I put up a defence and he can destroy me instead but she will be okay?

She won't talk to me right now so I can't answer that. 

When I was ten he looked me in the eye and told me that if I was his, he would eat me up. I thought he was scary and a chill ran down my spine but I was at the same time thoroughly fascinated, flattered even, by his intensity. 

Still am.

Jesus Admin. Asst.

 Ben wanted to go to church so off we went. We stopped at a drive-thru and got hot pumpkin-y fall drinks. I wore a dress + tights + sweater + scarf and my docs and felt pulled together but also look like I might take a running jump into the nearest leaf pile if you let go of my hand. I sat between Ben and Lochlan and held my cup in two hands. We don't sing in church anymore but it was nice to sit and listen to Sam and then we left without waiting in the line, distanced on lovely peel-and-stick stained glass floor tiles, because it looks nicer. We wore our masks when we weren't sitting down. We took them off in Lochlan's truck and drove home through the leaves, listening to some rainy jazz and being quiet. 

(Normally we would have found a diner and had breakfast out but that didn't happen because takeout is difficult with some cravings and honestly I want a monte cristo and nothing else these days but I don't like to make them at home.) 

The dog is lying at my feet beans-out and my cup is long empty now. The woodstove is burning out but the lights are on. Boys in sweaters. I love this. I have to tailor a pair of Ruth's pants, take out the garbage and make dinner tonight-probably monte cristos- and I have to talk to Caleb about his latest offer. October fifth is back to routine for him and falls are reasonably busy with his various business dabblings and he does indeed need an assistant. I would be mostly filing, cleaning and answering his phone, screening emails and entering figures on spreadsheets. That's not that any one of those is hard, per se, it's just a lot to juggle and I don't know if I'm up for it this time around. He pays very well and we do work well together but then we settle into bad habits and that's the part that I'd like to avoid. To his credit it's busywork, a distraction from the upcoming unlucky anniversary but it's also a way to spend hours with me almost every day, a side benefit being that he will be impeccably organized once again. That's a good thing. 

Right?

Broken lies I still believe.

Below the willow tree

I get hung up on my insecurities
Rose-coloured dopamine
My soul feels like it could be make believe

 

Below the willow tree
I search to find some sense of identity
This weeping willow tree
Sits in silence, sheds no tears for me

 

Last night on a walk I saw the moon with Mars and I knew they wanted privacy, a rare coupling that I haven't seen for a while and I'm not cuckold and so I turned back in the cold, crunching through the brown leaves all the way back to the house where the warm lights beckoned me home. 

 

We did go LED to save energy, money and effort in changing bulbs all the time. It was an ice-cold light and so everything was changed to warm. It took a while and I am still finding fixtures that were missed. 

You're looking up cuckold because you haven't seen that word in a while, aren't you? You don't care about my lights or the planets or my crunchy-leaves walk. 

Ah, she admitted it. 

It's holdover teenage curiosity, that's all. You see someone and you stop and watch and rarely will you move until it ends, someone catches you, or you risk being seen by them. 

That was me and Mars. I turned away first.

Ghosts and...and..pirates.

My heart is pierced by Cupid

I disdain all glittering gold

There is nothing can console me

But my jolly sailor bold

 

His hair it hangs in ringlets

His eyes as black as coal

My happiness attend him

Wherever he may go

https://lyricstranslate.com

My heart is pierced by Cupid

I disdain all glittering gold

There is nothing can console me

But my jolly sailor bold

 

His hair it hangs in ringlets

His eyes as black as coal

My happiness attend him

Wherever he may go

https://lyricstranslate.com

My heart is pierced by Cupid

I disdain all glittering gold

There is nothing can console me

But my jolly sailor bold

 

His hair it hangs in ringlets

His eyes as black as coal

My happiness attend him

Wherever he may go

https://lyricstranslate.comMy heart is pierced by Cupid

His hair it hangs in ringlets
His eyes as black as coal
My happiness attend him
Wherever he may go.

I am startled out of a sound sleep. It's almost light out and Ben is gone. He gets up very early now to go and have coffee with August. Maybe that's what woke me. Him closing the door.

Who is your allegiance to, Princess?

I survey the empty room. It was Lochlan's hand on my cheek and Jake's voice in my head. I knew it wasn't Lochlan's words because he reached out in his deep slumber to make sure I was still there and besides, he doesn't call me that and rarely says the word out of a reluctance to put the focus on a spectral memory when a real one is taking place as we speak. 

I wouldn't leave you, you know. If Jake was alive and came right through that door after lunch I wouldn't leave you. Never again would I stray out of your reach because this is where I belong.

Hmmmm? Lochlan heard my answer and woke up. You okay?

I stare at him. I can't focus. He is not awake. Yeah, go back to sleep. 

Just for a half hour. 

Okay. 

By the way? I wouldn't leave you either so tell Jake piss off.

Can't even bum a bite of bacon off these jerks.

October one. The first day of the rest of my life, to be sure. I'd like to make some time for hot chocolate and drawing. I'm going to do a little sewing and a little gardening. I'm going to be thrilled at the fall leaves and cozy in warm sweaters and I'm going to cook and bake right through. I've already started sewing Halloween costumes and shopping for  Christmas presents and I wouldn't even dream of being sad that the sun goes down now before we have the curtains drawn or supper cleaned up each night now because that would be ironic and pointless.

It's going to choose it's time and I don't get a say and suddenly I find myself mourning summer all the while I hug myself in these oversize sweaters and hold my mug close. 

Dumb, is what it is but completely normal, Joel tells me. He, August and Sam are going to take Ben out for breakfast, which will consist of takeout that they bring back and eat in the gazebo or probably the patio, heaters on, hours spent while they sort out exactly who Ben can rage at and why he needs to get a handle on this because we're all understanding but Jesus Christ. 

This is why he got punched in the first place. 

And I'm about to punch him again, if not for the fact that we're giving him patience he might not even deserve but does at the same time.

I don't get to sit in on the meetings because I am distracting and too emotional.

Too...emotional. 

Huh. 

I'd rather be that than not emotional enough.  

It's okay though, like I said I have things to do and if you can even believe it this week I am the glue and they are the cracks. Go figure. I just hope they get it together before the first week of November because that's when I might need help. 

But then again, I might not.

We're going to call it the birdcage, I know it.

I watched Caleb and Dalton walk Ben through his physio in the pool. It's warm and relaxing and his muscles will get stronger and he will regain some of the coordination he lost. He does this every single day, rain or shine and I've got a couple of people coming to give me quotes on glassing the whole pool in so it will truly be year round. I'd like drop lights and maybe those super huge circumference ceiling fans in it too. And a lock on the door, of course. It isn't a lap pool, however and so in order to maintain the aesthetic around the pool with space for chairs and such this could wind up costing as much as the boathouse did. 

Not like I care, exactly. Ben's rehabilitation comes first and Caleb can pay whatever I tell him it costs. 

(His soul is on the bill, trust me. That shit's mine, so I can kick it like a soccer ball. Right into the sea where it will bloat up, blackened, rotted and unrecognizable. Kind of like it is now.)

After he showers and gets dressed Ben has promised me a trip up the road to the coffee shop for a fall drink and maybe a drive to see the leaves as they begin to change. Then fifteen minutes later he snapped at me for being selfish when he's too tired and can't drive anyway (it was his...idea...and PJ had offered to drive?) and once again I'm struggling with not taking any of this personally, as I was struggling before with this exact issue when it came to him using. 

Probably why it's the same. Because it's the same. He's been clean for five days and not without struggle. He was told to take the pills if he had headaches. The headaches continue, and he's trying to weather them with ice packs and biofeedback. A lot of naps. Coffee. Slow walks in the cold air. Whatever works, we're doing it but it feels like nothing when he yells at me.