Coastal Friday photographs, spilled on a hardwood floor.

Prisoned am I to this shell of the dust
It speaks of only fiction that I could never trust
Captured alive in this sinful estate
Vexed am I to see I do the things that I hate

 Rip out the framework leave no stone unturned
Until my heart forgets all that my flesh ever learned
Tear down the structure till nothing is left
God deliver me from this body of death

 

This morning before I woke up Ben pulled me backwards, underneath him, facedown in the quilts, lifting me up back up against his chest in the dark, practiced hands all over, until we were back to where we like to be. He turned my head to the side for a painful, thorough kiss just as he brought us over the edge into heaven and I looked for Jake (I always do) but then Ben pushed my head back down and brought us home. 

***

Sam sitting at the piano after dinner last night. Matt is helping in the kitchen but Sam has finished his jobs and so he sits, picking out the notes before Lochlan finally offered to play the song if Sam would sing. They proceeded to bash out an impromptu and beautiful version of  Wolves At The Gate's Lowly that saw us all stop to listen, almost at once. Sam was somewhat shy about the attention but unfaltering in his choice of song, Lochlan was not shy, never is. As ever Lochlan is a showman and will volunteer to entertain at any given moment but he loves to give the spotlight away just as much. 

(Someone asked me last week if I liked being a carny or a sideshow performer more. I would pick carny any day. I never liked the schedule for the circus. So much training. So much preparation and then you had to be waiting forever for your show to begin. In contrast, I had so much more freedom on the midway. I was a lot younger and far more naive and I just remember the lights and how I had to stay within sight of Lochlan, which gave me a good six hundred yard latitude in at least two directions from the wheel and I could daydream because I had no weight, no responsibility. Performing is focus and discipline. Fairs? Fairytales, through and through.)

***

Late last evening the rain held off so we had a bonfire on the beach, bringing our picnic basket with glasses and a forty of the good whiskey for those who drink, and bottles of cream soda for those who don't. We sat around the fire and talked softly, if at all, eight of us available to wash ourselves in smoke and salt, the stuff of dreams and the best way to fall asleep, bathed in the acrid sting of fire and water. It's magical to me and I'm pretty sure it's what set Ben off this morning, still on a high from yesterday's strides and major victories, both physically and mentally. He is almost at his best at this point and my heart has stopped skipping beats, trembling, hesitating and tripping, running flat out ahead while looking behind me just in case he isn't keeping up. 

He is again, at last.

***

 I went down and had a coffee this morning, early, after Ben went back to sleep and Lochlan failed to stir at all. In the dark by myself. I sat on the bench where we put on our wetsuits by the big patio doors in winter (when it's too cold to do it on the docks) and I watched Jacob pacing the rock wall at the end of the yard. At first I'm annoyed that he didn't let me know he was here, didn't come in, didn't wade into my dreams, pantlegs and sleeves rolled up but still soaked from the surf, didn't wake me up. Now he's just there and I'll see him all of the sudden and that's how I know my brain is still broken, tenderized and then stuffed with my own heart, rolled up, pinned and burned until blackenend, whereupon they will tell me to 'smarten up' and 'stop scaring us' but I can't help it. 

I run and run, as always looking back over my shoulders for the monsters to catch up with me, and I turn and fall flat on my face. When I jump up, yelling I'm okay, he shakes his head sadly and then I can't see him any more because the rain is too heavy.

And Caleb? He's a retrocasuality. Or something. LOL

 No, we're not baby x-men over here. Okay, maybe we are. A lot of you asked about the pyrokinesis mention made yesterday, as if you simply fell from the sky, opened the internet and read the first entry of mine you've ever seen.

*rolls eyes* 

If you ask Lochlan directly he's a fire 'artist', nothing more, that's all. 

I know better. 

Jacob bent forks, the more stress he was under the less chance we had of returning the forks to a usable condition. I'm an easy clairvoyant, automatic writer and a reluctant but completely proficient psychometric (the paranormal kind, not the scientific kind). 

Sam is a prophet. He doesn't need anything else but he talks to us from his mind too.

All of the boys are practised in divination and varying levels of psychic abilities and telepathy. By the telepathy levels I mean most of us can have entire conversations with each other without speaking and that's one of the problems I reference continually when I talk about privacy here on the point. 

It's also one of the reasons we all have such a ridiculous, close bond with each other. It's one of the ways I've picked my friends and it's another way that I can shut you out completely (see Corey. Mark. Rob. Anyone I've talked about who doesn't live here currently.)

No one can teleport though, sadly, and I've been trying to raise up my mediumship skills for exactly fourteen years and it's rough going and I'm not at all happy with where they are, clearly. I talk about that every fucking day so if you haven't noticed by now and need it all spelled out like this then go away. 

You can hone your own psychic abilities if you work at it. It's just easier for some people. I don't choose to believe we are special. We are to each other, of course but to you we're nothing. We just have opened ourselves to a lot of things most people wouldn't dare. 

***

Speaking of the retrocasualist, Caleb came roaring back this morning with an armful of mea culpas. Apparently he has a whole plot on the other side of the orchard where he grows them because this year has been a bumper crop for sure. 

I overstepped. 

Dude, you went off in a flat run. 

Dude?

Blame PJ. The more time I spend with him the more I'll call you that. 

It's funny. 

Probably. 

Bridget, I don't mean to hurt you. I want to make new memories with you. Fun ones. The kind of memories that last forever and make us think fondly of each other. 

We have the ones that last forever but they're all wrong.

Not from my perspective.

And we know your perspective is warped and twisted. 

Help me straighten it.

Go help yourself. 

He walks away. He knows I'm not in the mood to accept a thing from him, let alone his charming words as a way of asking for forgiveness. I am a brick wall today. An unmoving stone cliff and he can bash his head bloody against it but it doesn't move. That is me today. Strong and beautiful and I have no time for your bullshit, can't you see I'm over here holding my own heart up in both hands, blood and sinew dripping down my elbows, making an offering to a ghost who keeps his own schedule and shows up only when I'm at my weakest? 

No, of course you can't, and I'm far worse at this than I thought I would be.

White fire is made with magnesium or melamine, and ethanol. Don't try it unless you have a pyrokinetic at home.

All these broken souls
Each one more beautiful
They don't, they don't know my heart
They don't know my heart

I'll send out my soul
To worlds more beautiful
But they won't, they won't know my heart
It's the darkest part 

When I came in he was already hungry. The fire roared in the hearth, biting back the chill of the night, reflecting in his eyes, making him look like a lion in the dark. He pulls me in for a kiss and then walks us backward, pulling me down into his lap, kissing the space up underneath my ear with a groan that sent a shiver right up my spine. I reached my hands up into his curls to hold on to his face when he came back for the kiss on the lips and he laughed. 

There's my girl. 

I forced him all the way back and his eyebrows went up, the grin remaining on his face for the next hour or two as we devoured each other in our practised familiarity, every curl, every freckle, every tattoo so well known at this point we have forged a well-travelled route and if you look closely in the light, beyond the scars and the burns of the past you'll see a worn path along our limbs that shows where we travel and how we get home.

There's my Locket.

His eyes fill up suddenly. Jesus, Bridge. How did I get so lucky? I have nothing to give you. 

You give me everything. You give me you. That's all I want. 

And your ghosts.

Only in the white fire. 

I'll only ever throw the red, then. 

I look up at him and he's no longer smiling. Sometimes he gets very serious and we have very meaningful talks and we make promises and plans and fun of each other and then we're back on track. We fight too much. We struggle too much. We call each other horrible things and we wish we had never met. And we wouldn't have it any other way at this point. 

I might save Ben first. I might wish for Jacob on an absolutely hourly basis sometimes and I might dance with the Devil a little too close but if I take one step backwards I will crash into Lochlan and he's promised me I always will. 

Even as he hates all of it. So, so much.

***

Caleb never threw the mug, never brought up how much he loved me being high, how much he adored being in control, dusting me with angels or snow, watching me check out in slow motion. He listened to my unspoken directive as I attempt to control my own narrative with him for what always feels like the first time in my life even though it's been nothing but a magnificent struggle over the past fourteen years since he came back into it. 

I never thought he'd come back. I never thought it would be this hard to get past certain things. I never thought I would fail so spectacularly at it most of the time. 

I didn't yesterday though. So I'll call that a victory and hope it's the first of many.

(They also call it 'embalming fluid' on the street but that's just fucking wrong.)

 I can fix you. 

I bet you could fix me but it's never for very long and never in a way I want to be fixed.

Caleb stares at me, holding his whole coffee mug in his hand, ignoring the handle part in a way that makes me think he's about to throw it. 

We used to be able to block out the world. Easily. 

 Ah. He's looking to reminisce about the good old days when happiness came in a needle or a vial or a baggie and he would sound out the name of what it was and while I couldn't get my brain or my mouth around that word (phen-cyc-li-dine) I fell in love with the nickname for it. I thought it would solve all my problems. But instead of that happening I would get almost two days of real live Disney birds around my head and an unwillingness to say much, because I just wanted to enjoy the happiness and not worry about everything but then it would all come rushing back far too soon.

Caleb decided eventually that it was time for a change and switched to cocaine or heroin or whatever looked like fun and moreover, could keep Bridget dancing all night every night until the party stopped (or Caleb said it did) without creating any permanent problems (but it did). He wanted a machine to match his own but I'm not a robot and he would give me the same hit he'd give himself in spite of the close to a one-hundred-pound weight difference between us.

And he couldn't understand why it hit me different, and to this day he thinks it would be fun to revisit the past, as if we had such good times instead of what it actually was, including whatever permanent brain damage I suffered being given so many drugs for so long. I still stare off into space. I still have weird cravings for bad things, and I still have debilitating depression. Apparently half of that is from the drug use and the other half? His abuse of me. One cancels the other out but honestly, I'll take the latter because at least it's now predictable behaviour. Sex addiction and the fears borne out of that pivotal time period are far easier to manage than the holes in my memory and the ridiculous sadness because of the fucked up chemicals, burned off on a street paved with gold, snorted up the holes in my head with a holler of recklessness and abandon.

Angel dust, I would point out, fingers in my own mouth, eyes wild. 

Touched by the heavens, he would whisper and I would laugh and laugh. 

Not true, I shake my head, fingers still against my lips. Touched by hell. No one's laughing now but my worries have disappeared and left pink clouds behind for me to sail through.

It didn't happen like that, Bridge-

Let's go dancing. 

I never let him finish because I know he's trying to revise our history as we make it and I don't plan to let him. I wouldn't then, and I won't now. 

You want more coffee?

Yes, please. He knows the subject's closed. I know he'll bring it up again.

For fucks sake part II: Happy Thanksgiving!

Firstly, some Internet housekeeping. We just learned this morning you don't have to suffer through dubbed versions of shows on Netflix (To the Lake, if you're wondering). I learned this after suggesting to Netflix that we have a choice, as I know the visually impaired would also like to enjoy shows and not have to try and learn the language first. I went to look up why dub editions of things are so goddamned BAD and found a link to an article from Digital Spy on how to enjoy originals without overdubbing.

From two years ago.

(Sacre bleu! *holds head in hands*)

In this house we range from extremely technologically proficient to...me. 

And no one knew this. NO. ONE.

Jesus Christ.

(What do you mean you don't look up questions that have been haunting you for all time? What's the difference between a gamble and a gambit? Why don't the outer halves of my eyebrows grow? Why do people have to tell me their dog is a rescue when I pass them with my own dog (also...a...rescue? But I don't need to point that out. I thought maybe I did, but as it turns out they are either virtue signalling or they're scared people will assume they bought from a mill.)

(I still can't believe you don't look up these hard-hitting questions. Man, if I had had access to the internet growing up instead of the little blue library tucked off a side street behind the diner in my hometown I would be so fucking smart. SO smart.

Instead I learned how to be a teenager from watching Bon Jovi videos, which clearly didn't do me any favours.)

 ***

Also I am not feeling better but sadly the internet just keeps telling me that menopause is fun and absolutely every symptom that exists right now, if you're a woman my age is literally just menopause and nothing more. Hot flashes? Perimenopause. Never sleeping again? Perimenopause, you idiot. Oh, chopped your leg off trying to jam tree branches into that chipper machine? Clearly perimenopause, you fucking dingbat.

God, I hate it so much. 

Oh and according to the internet it can take five years or more to complete and then once you haven't had a single period for over a year you get your congratulatory beard! Can't wait for that, because finally, a payoff for everything I've been going through.

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.