My best defense.

Don Henley is singing our life over the shitty speakers from the jukebox in the diner. My eighteen-year-old self believes in Don, believes this truly will be the last worthless evening, and that the life ahead of me is full of promise, stability and excitement. That everything would soon change and become wonderful, as if Don was about to just snap his fingers and fix it all with one single catchy ballad tonight. 

I took Don at his word. I was a hopeless romantic, sitting there ignoring the french fries left on my plate, staring at the window watching our reflections while a twenty-three-year-old Lochlan smoked a cigarette and wrote out our midway working hours in his notebook with a pen that was almost out of ink. All of this provided by the last round of pickpocketing I did while he did teardown last night, zigzagging through the dispersing crowd, bumping into people, trying to squeeze around people, thinking I had three wallets when I zagged away from the crowd again, only to find out one of them was a soft leather cigarette-pack holder with a fresh unopened pack of Player's Light inside. 

I wish he wouldn't smoke before my milkshake is finished. 

We can leave after this, he says suddenly, putting out his cigarette in the clear glass ashtray by the window. Don starts a new song, singing about how he's learning to live without her now, but he misses her, baby. 

The only person who calls me baby is Caleb and he can't find us now. We've only been staying with a show for a few weeks at a time now. We don't use the camper, we rent motel rooms in town. We call home more and lie better than ever, and our friends are fed a constant stream of benign disinformation in order to make it work. 

But it doesn't change the fact that I am not the person I used to be. Lochlan used to tell me to eat my vegetables and to not be afraid of the dark, and that he would love me forever. Eighteen-year-old me now knows the world is different. That vegetables aren't important. The dark is something that one should be afraid of, for that's where the monsters hide. And that love is fickle and difficult and hard to make consistently, especially when those monsters get in the goddamned way.

I go back to the jukebox at the end of the diner and feed another few quarters in, hitting the same numbers I hit twenty minutes ago. I come back to the booth and fish out a cigarette. Lochlan's eyebrows go up but he lights it for me and I sit back against the glitter vinyl and take a long drag as I stare at the strangers in the reflection.

Someday I'm going to buy a piano and learn to play this song, I think to myself. Poisoned by fairy tales? Me? Never. Now I want to believe in them more than ever.

Jesus delinquent.

Today's t-shirt says SALTWATER HEALS EVERYTHING on it and my pajama pants are an all-over moose print. I've got some coffee that is supposedly a 'pioneer blend' and true to form, I have earned it today, breakfasting on fresh homemade bread AND last years final bottle of jam. I'm listening to Nickelback ballads (yes even that one, that's the litmus test for this moment) on repeat, reading the news of the NDP landslide (I voted! For the winner even!) and singing along at the top of my lungs. 

Ben walks into the room and watches me for a moment, rolls his eyes and says How Canadian. 

I shrug. He is jealous. His culture is Disneyland and guns, he once told me. He is Canadian now, by choice.

Today I'm planning to skip church and will get speed-blessed instead, as sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. I listened to the new Missio album twice already, prior to switching over to the 'back and I still love eighty percent of it, and the other twenty percent of songs are only mildly weird. And now after the laundry is done, I drew a few seasonal but also difficult chores that I want to tackle right away. I also have more bread to go in the oven later and yes, I'm pretty sure someone put something in my juice because I feel like I can slay the whole fucking world right now and that feeling is absolutely NOT my default. 

Still on antibiotics though. I really am one of those horrible people you need to shoot with a tranquilizer dart to get them to stop moving. And then they will still crawl.

Good things. Sam, is this what you mean?

Nine years ago this coming Wednesday Schuyler and Daniel got married. It feels like yesterday but also like a thousand years ago in a way. They are the constants in a life of endless upheaval, a safe haven in a chronic storm. They love their privacy but also maintain a modified open-door policy for the lost lambs around them (mostly me). They are Godfearing men, free-spirited and beautiful and I love them both in a way I can't even articulate these days. Schuyler retired finally and they are having the time of their lives. Daniel is so content, so happy to have Schuyler around more and so far Schuyler hasn't tried to work past returning a couple of phone calls for some creative brainstorming, both of which he pulled Lochlan in on.

It's amazing. 

So this morning we got invited to their big anniversary party to be held next Saturday night, Halloween, to be exact. Which is great because we have no other plans and the night is open, as we don't go out anymore, don't entertain anyone off the point save for Ruth's boyfriend and Henry's two best friends who are also safe and not a covid risk so this is a full Point Perdition soiree and I'm excited. 

The theme is To The Nines, (a pun on their years married which is CLEVER) which means tuxes and gowns. I don't know which of the boys will wear gowns but I'm hoping all of them because that would be fun, I think, I get tired of being the only one who has to hike up her entire outfit to manage stairs, truck siderails and just life in general. I got caught in a fridge door once getting more champagne and had to call for help and it's still a favourite joke around here so damn right I want them all to wear what I wear. 

But also with heels because why not up the difficulty across the board?

(Don't worry, I don't think they make stilettos in Ben's shoe size (fourteen) or he would probably already wear them.) 

And so this week the house next door (Andrew and Christian are co-hosting the party as they live in half of the house) have asked for assistance in decorating. Specifically in carving all two hundred of the little basketball-sized pumpkins that were dropped off this morning next door in the driveway for the party because they have a decorating plan in mind. 

 And I volunteered! I hate carving pumpkins with a passion but I love the roasted seeds, I love the fact that I don't have to host a party this big and I love love LOVE the fact that suddenly I am looking forward to Halloween instead of dreading it. The wish remains. We want things to be right.

And for them, it's all that and more.

Counting the words I never said to you.

Distant memories
Form constellations of despair
Guiding through the state of disrepair
Illuminate
All the hurts that have accrued
Unlock the cage, holding back the truth

Oh, wonderful. Pallbearer puts out a new album (their fourth) this morning and I can absolutely tread water in my misery with it. It's stunningly beautiful, slow and mega-heavy with gorgeous, sophisticated lyrics and memorable albeit slightly softened hooks. It's not overproduced but it's no sophomore effort either, in fact, it's exactly what I needed, and the singing is all clean so I can join in if I like. 

It's perfect for standing just under the eave of the roof by the patio doors while the rain pours down just out of reach, headphone cord snaking down the hall behind me. A hazard if you come too close. A tether, if you stop to consider. 

I should be planning a fiftieth birthday party. I should be getting ready for Halloween. I should be happier right now and not weighed down by this terrible past. I should be a lot of things I am not. 

And I should not be a lot of the things that I am. 

I should learn some voodoo, some kind of resurrection science or afterlife technology, some way to conjure him home in a more tangible form. I want to see him wet from the rain. I want to see him age. I want to see him bond with the others in a way he never truly did and I want him to see the children, not children anymore but beautiful adults, one who looks exactly like Lochlan with her slight graceful form, angular features, fierce personality and long wavy red hair, and one who looks like him, but also me, somehow, with his ridiculously tall and lanky form, his beautiful blonde hair that won't behave no matter what and his focused, gentle demeanor. 

I want to shove Henry over to him and yell at Jake that he was yours after all and you checked out and guess what? We raised him without you and it turns out we didn't need you after all. We wanted you, though. I wanted you. I've decided that this is the final birthday of yours that I'm going to mark. You're going to stop growing old right here. I will fight my way through the next two weeks like a prize and then I'm done. Finally. Because I can't wish for you. You're not coming back, there is no point to any of this anymore.

You built a gazebo where I put him and then act surprised when he's there.

Loch is on the beach. The fisherman-knit aran sweater has been taken off the shelf and put on over his flannel shirt and waffle-weave long-sleeved t-shirt. His hair is tied back loosely, errant pieces too short or too stubborn to be coralled by a leather cord make for a halo of red around his face in the wind. His jeans are dark blue and wet up to the knees with saltwater and he is threatening to swim if I don't tell him exactly what's on my mind. 

Only it's too cold to swim and he is doing this to prove a point. The point is that I am so desensitized, inappropriate and jaded that it takes these big dramatic moments to get me to move on something. That I am all or nothing now. That I used to be content with the smallest of gestures and now I want it all.

No, you're wro-

Am I though? He scoops up water with both hands and sprays me. 

Stop it.

Tell me I'm wrong again. He's ready to soak me, too. Only I am holding our phones, my keys that were in the pocket of my dress from earlier and the lantern that was left the other night that we forgot. It needs more fuel so I'll bring it up, at least and then it's ready for the next twilight trip. 

I drop everything to the sand and put my hands on my hips. You're....WRONG.

I close my eyes waiting for the impending soaking. It takes four seconds and I am drenched and frozen, gasping for air as he continues to scoop water at me as fast as he can. The one fun thing about Lochlan is that he never ever bluffs, and I will never fail to call him on one. So I'll have to program a new keyfob and we'll have to rinse our phones in distilled water and hope for the best. The lantern can take it, much like the girl. 

He wades back in to me almost in slow motion and takes me into his arms, soaked or not. How am I wrong?

This. This is everything. 

Following a Big Gesture, you mean. 

Nope. You didn't need to do that, Locket.

Wish you'd told me that before I wrecked my phone. 

I feel like we should just buy them in bulk. 

So why did you say he was there? 

Because he is there. 

Don't scare me, Bridget. 

You said if I don't tell you it's worse. 

I'm sorry I said that, right now at least. How long has he been there, again?

Eleven years. 

Jesus, Peanut.

I'm FINE (Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional).

It covers the back of his hand, ink mixed with blood against alabaster flesh

 The day is done, and the darkness falls from the wings of night

I love it. It's from The Day is Done, one of the Longfellow poems I can easily recite from memory and most of the boys can too. Caleb had it tattooed this morning. He has a bunch of hand tattoos but this is a full back of his right hand, all the way across in three lines, a neat block of gothic script that suits him to a tee. 

I can't take my eyes off it. It's a nice cheer-me-up on a day that sees me in my Cinnamoroll pajamas, fever still chugging along, kidney infection raging on full blast this morning, after yesterday went downhill rather quickly all of the sudden because that's how I operate. I go go go and wonder if more sleep is all I need only to find out my body wants to betray me like my mind already has. Everything is just jumping ship altogether and I can't say I blame any of it, these days.

The tiredness is not only the not sleeping, the perimenopause, the mental exhaustion that never quits, it was far more sinister. Lochlan called the doctor who made yet another house call and now I'm on these giant bumblebee antibiotics that have finally slowed me down and I'm going back to bed here before eleven in the morning. PJ has the conn. 

Hey, Bridge, want to go car-shopping with me? Caleb's heading out to get his new vehicle which should be fun. With his hand wrapped up like that he looks like he's been in a bar fight. Besides, he's not shopping, he's just trading his in on a new one, and so it's just a quick drop and go. 

No, PJ can keep you company, as I said. I'm going back up to sleep. I'm not feeling good. 

Can I bring you home lunch?

Is it Vietnamese?

If that's what you'd like. 

Then yes. Duh. 

Ha. That's what I thought you'd say.

You're the one place I call home.

 He slept sitting up. 

I asked for help before breakfast and what I got was a rare and wonderful change in that he didn't find someone to babysit my brain, someone to hide all the weapons and keep me from running outside to jump off the cliff and shock myself in the sea until I felt something better than this. He made me sit on the couch in the bathroom until he was ready, hair combed back behind his ears while wet only to spring up into crazy curls no matter what the minute it's dry. I only wish I was as resilient as Lochlan's curls. Nothing could flatten me ever. I would just jump back up and keep going. 

But I got flattened. He shook out a pill and then he shook out another and he laughed bitterly but it didn't reach his eyes, which remained a green concern in a face fighting to keep a neutral expression, because if he worries then I worry and I'm not able to add any more load to the current right now. 

What should we do today? He's asking questions as he holds a glass of water in one hand and my chin in the other. Drink. I can't answer. I want to hold on to today so I don't get flung right off or trampled underneath it. That's what I want. 

(And the kids aren't like this. They miss Jake like he's a close uncle they haven't seen in a while. It has faded for them though, mercifully. They are more sad for me. And I try so hard with them but sometimes I can't get it together and somehow they understand, the 'somehow' being useful, intensive therapy to make sure he didn't fuck them up to but by virtue of proximity to me, he did.)

He continued to ask me questions all day, and I was noncommittal and sometimes silent. Sometimes I had an opinion. Once I tried to wrench myself away but for that I was clotheslined by his arm that shot out so fast I didn't have time to take a second step but there must have been force behind the first. 

Bridget. Stay here. Stay put. He said it gently, outside of his usual penchant to bark things at me out of his own fear that creeps in when things get bad. He is so pragmatic, so necessary in an emergency but it's also the one time you won't find him, as he can't stand by helplessly and watch. If he can't lead he sure as hell isn't going to follow. That's one thing about Lochlan you might not know and people usually find that out the hard way. 

Let's find a new distraction. We painted a picture together. We went for a long walk along the beach, finding treasures and tiny sea stars. We napped. We made some pancakes together for lunch and then he cleaned up while I sat on the corner of the island and watched, because he just wasn't comfortable with me any further away. We did indeed watch a couple of really bad horror movies we found on Netflix and then we went up to our room. Lochlan poured himself a whiskey and settled in, pillows behind his back, jeans still crisp, flannel shirt still soft, always with the white t-shirt underneath. Still with his knife clipped in his pocket, brown hair tie around his wrist in case he has to get down to business. He told me to come and snuggle in with him and I put my head down against his chest, face in on the glorious winter flannel, his arm around my back. He took my sweater and tied it around me and his one leg, which was something else you didn't know. He would do that to childproof me when I was ten. To make sure he didn't sleep too deeply and fail to see if I got up or left. He was in charge and he wasn't going to screw it up and even though he did, we did, we ruined everything, we're not going to give up this incredible second chance to get it right, ghosts or no ghosts.

It was a comfort and I didn't wake up until this morning, still tied into the sweater, still with the lights on, him still dressed and still propped against the pillows. My head is an empty paper bag blowing down the road, my memories absent. My limbs are jello and yet my soul feels rejuvenated somehow, as if his presence alone was all I needed. Just an intense amount of time together like when I was little and I hung off every word he said, content to believe that he was right, that he knew everything, that all I had to do was listen to him and everything would be okay. 

After testing that theory I can tell you he's been right all along.

The only book on how to navigate this is the one I write for you.

 I almost took it down this morning. The post I just went and reread for the seven thousandth time. It's called Run like Hell and it's from October of 2007, detailing the night Jacob left. The night I never thought a single human could endure so much fear and despair and still come out alive. And I still have moments where I just stop and sob like a motherfucker for that horrible feeling of helplessness where Jacob had some sort of break with his handle on life and decided he couldn't handle my baggage when he had so much of his own and he left and he never came back and then the guilt ate him right through and he died by his own hand (there's a phrase I have never written before. I write that he flew because it sounds more magical and less final) and these memories are quicksand and lava and...pain. 

Sometimes the rabbit hole is so deep it goes right through to the other side. You can look in and see stars but you can't see Bridget. She doesn't even cling to the ledge just out of the light, she lets go. She falls right through, into the void and she's still in there somewhere.

Maybe I'm meaner now. Maybe I don't believe you when you say you're going to stay forever. Maybe I'm afraid of death now in a way that would make Jacob ashamed, because the guilt he felt for leaving when I needed him the most, when we were just figuring out how to live together and make it work, when my children had finally accepted him and settled in with a love for him that surprised even me, well, it's nothing compared with the guilt he would have had to see this now. To see what he's done. See how I've changed. I don't trust anyone. I will cut you off if you move too close or pry too hard. I will shut down without warning like a faulty robot and stop talking. And I'll hate you for taking that beautiful new stability and trust away from my children because you changed them too and I see it now. And they talk about it now with a horrible pain I can't take from them and this is your fault. You were supposed to be the strong one and you weren't. 

It was me.

Lead me down the path they went.

Come here, Bridget, said the Devil.

And I did, and I was lifted up into his arms and I didn't touch the ground for the next three hours and I didn't know which end was the sky and which was the sea or which hands belonged to whom and in my high I just focused on breathing and climbing out of the waves to get back to the stars, only to be pulled back in until my flesh was numb and my limbs exhausted. I believe Caleb and Ben did the heavy (or maybe I'm light) lifting and Lochlan drifted in and out of my periphery and Sam prayed right against me for his own soul in the face of temptation he could not fight off. 

This morning I will join him, more than a little bothered that I can't with certainty tell you if Matt was there or not. 

Do I ask? My eyes drift to Caleb, who winks and lifts up his coffee cup to take a sip, never breaking his gaze. I shift my head and look at Lochlan's hands. He is reading the news on his ipad, eyes scanning the words on the screen. His breathing is even and content. He is relaxed and warm. 

Ben is still asleep. 

Sam went home (I think) and his car is gone so he's most likely at church. 

I don't dare go, lest I burst into flames inside the front door, one foot over the threshold, purse singed as it drops to the tile floor, the one who held it vaporized by God in an flash. 

An example, he will say, of the sinner I wish to purge from your precious souls. Unable to be sanctified properly I have expunged her from this heaven on earth because she's far too edacious and wanted too much to make up for everything she has lost, instead of understanding that by losing everything she now has everything. She can't be consecrated like this. Guys, I've got nothing to work with here.

Oh, well, hello, you're right, God and I'm sorry. No more early Sunday morning orgies for me! I have seen the error of my ways. 

Lochlan snorts abruptly and I realize he's listening in. 

But I still love you most, I think, not to myself but broadcasting it wide.

He smiles but doesn't say anything, kissing the top of my head for a long time instead. I stretch like a cat and get up to go get more coffee. Matt falls through the back door, in wrinkled chinos and a shirt that shows he maybe got dressed for church but then fell asleep and didn't make it. He meets my eyes and it's a vaguely weird but appreciative look on his face that I know well, oddly enough and I am suddenly grateful I don't have to ask.

Oops. Clearly he was there too.

The one skill I wish for now is necromancy (come listen to the words of dead men and the clinically insane).

 Lipstick on my headphone cord, coffee in my blood, Mick Moss crooning in my ears and the rain continues to soften the ghosts out on the lawn, making them easier for the boys to digest without rough edges. When the rain let up I studied Jake intently, and that's when I noticed Cole far behind him, standing in black, just on the rough sideline of my vision. He's hard to find because he is darker while Jacob glows with the moon. They were always night and day and now they are somewhere between but I didn't expect them to travel as a team now, of all times. At one point I thought they might even be friends but looking back, where things are always clearer I can see that that was wishful, selfish thinking.

You have it, if they're here. Lochlan's voice tells my brain. And it's the one gift I wish you didn't even know of. His voice disappears back into sleep and I turn back to watch Jacob, watch him frown as he gestures for me to stop chewing on the cord, when he knows damn well I don't bite on it. I just blot my lips and it's there for the tactile sensation. It grounds me when I get distracted.

God, Mick's on Liquid Light and it's the one with that line from my title (come listen) and he lets his voice break over the words like waves and I feel like he knows how I feel. If he doesn't then he's written the perfect accompaniment to my grief, which never seems to shift into anything workable, anything new. 

Anything even remotely navigable, ever.