Fool me twice.

Chipping away at finding chords to replace the strings in the soaring bridge of No Time to Die. Billie Eilish sings a great song, does she not? And as soon as I can make it all the way through the first verse without disintegrating I will too. I am permitted exactly five grumpy minutes a day to work on it before Lochlan will lift me right off the bench and make me do something else. 

We're trying to decide if I ever wrote enough information here for one certain new Lifetime movie to have lifted the plot for its 'groundbreaking' (? Oh yeah. Americans have only had gay marriage for a few years, y'all are so lagging) new Christmas movie from me. I don't think I did. It's fairly well-known that Sam and Matt fell for each other and then broke up when Matt took a job in London, furthering his career in the best way while shredding his personal life to ribbons. But then he came back! They reconciled and got remarried and now we have a hard time getting them to leave the boathouse. The movie is called The Christmas Setup and I'll be watching it to see. 

But never did I ever see two people more content to hunker down and work from home without ever once having wanderlust or cabin fever or even a need to go for a damn drive like Sam and Matt. They only leave the house for church at this point. Sam does everything else from home on zoom and doesn't even do weddings or funerals right now, those are done by one of the other ministers in his pool. 

Which makes me happy, actually. I want all of my boys to be safe here in the Perdition Bubble. 

And they are which is good. But honestly I just want to finish working out this song but Lochlan won't let me. He said it's the equivalent of seeing a huge pothole far off in the distance as you're driving and you know damn well you should avoid it but you won't so I'm taking the wheel.

Where we going? I ask, game for whatever he comes up with. 

Outside to decorate for Christmas, he says with a frown. God, he's so serious all the time. I wouldn't trade him for the world.

Wait, isn't that supposed to be fun? I tease him for his expression.

It will be! He growls and then breaks into a laugh.

Meh.

 Today it rained. Today I mistakenly dipped one of the cat's paws in Lochlan's teacup when I was handed both while he did something on the computer. I gathered up the almost empty tea cup in one hand and the cat in my arm and when I got to the top she had a wet tea-covered paw. It was funny but sad. I have a blistering headache and someone's ordered out for Indian food (Indian food for 15 people isn't nearly as daunting as you expect) for tonight so I managed to get my chores done and a little extra stuff (we let the inventory lapse on the big freezers and I will never do that AGAIN let me tell you) and now I can relax tonight and watch movies and eat my body weight in pakoras (a sport, if you will) and my beloved keema naan and then all will be right with the world. I need a really good nights sleep. Today was so early. Ruth had to be up to register for a program and Ben had to be up for an early meeting as he has suddenly decided that he doesn't like the later ones and so off we go at five each day which is too early even for me. 

And I get up around then virtually every day. 

But yeah. Stupid headache won't budge an inch. So I've had more aspirin and once I eat I can beg for a neck massage from John or Duncan or even Ben and then I will hopefully feel a lot better. Sleep should be programmable. It's 20freaking20. In the meantime I am watching the end of Unus Annus. Some of it is hilarious. Blame Ruth for this but it's addictive.

Ironic! My favorite character in Les Miserables was Eponym.*

Everything has an equal and opposite-

Right? I went grocery shopping with PJ and wanted to pick up a case of red but they don't sell it at seven in the morning, apparently, so that's one step back. But then I decided I would like a cordless wet/dry hand vac so I ordered one on Amazon and Intelcom rolled up in a high-end mustang and set it in my hands twenty minutes later. So that's one step forward.

Sometimes I love convenience. But not with rules. I bet if I go back on Amazon and order a case of wine the mustang will do a u-turn halfway up the ninety-nine and bring it to the house before lunch is over. 

(Wait. Does Amazon even sell alcohol? Don't answer that.)

Actually I think Amazon is ridiculously dangerous. We got on a kick last week** of watching tiktoks with people showing us things from Amazon that will change your life and wow, that was a mistake. I already bought a mini heat-sealer for candy bags and a happy light for the bedside table (the big therapeutic one sits on the kitchen counter. This one is like an eight-by-ten picture frame size). I bought a ring light for Ruth's iphone for a stocking stuffer. I bought rechargeable lighters that look like  freaking plasma guns from Quake 3: Arena and I bought a case for Henry's switch because he didn't have a case and I didn't realize it until a few days ago. 

But goddamn. Stuff arrives here in seconds. Hard to hate on capitalism with that kind of minimal effort for maximum payout. Save for the fact that I sold my soul to Jeff Bezos this Christmas so that I wouldn't have to crawl the mall during a second or third wave pandemic (whichever we are on now), boys in tow, trying to tick everything off a list that never ends. We try to do homemade most of the time for gifts but we also have a big list of things people need. Like August needs a new blender. Andrew is wearing through his pajama shirts. Lochlan needs guitar strings that are nylon so that his fingers hurt a little less and Ben's big truck needs mudflaps (one ripped off in a car wash, he had a coupon. Never again) and also seat covers with warmers built-in because its never warm in that truck, ever. 

I have a couple of books I've been wanting to read that I can't find (The Museum of Extraordinary Things, and Blessed are the Weird: a Creative Manifesto) so there are always things to buy, as Andrew wears those t-shirts in the evening until they are rags, and Lochlan will suffer endlessly instead of changing out his steel strings. We're not actually very materialistic, truth be told and so holidays are tough as it is, but we do okay and have a lot of fun and have a lot of wonderful traditions. I am looking forward to this. Especially since this holiday won't revolve around whatever time Schuy has blocked off-

Back to my point, Neamhchiontach.

Which was? 

If you spend time with August, you have to know the rest of us are going to be put out by that and-

You're Newton's law-ing my relationships?

Well, yes, in that-

Cale?

Yes, Bridget?

You can't forget about Mooer's law, then. 

Which is?

If it's more painful for you to know certain information then it's better not to tell you at all, or something like that. 

Seriously, Bridget? 

Yep.

 *(Yes, I know it's Eponine. I was trying to be CLEVER.)

**(This week's flyby/kick is Unus Annus on Youtube which finishes tomorrow. Figures. Ruth told me if I watched all the videos at 5x speed I might be able to finish them all (one for each day for an entire year) but I don't want to see the gross ones. It's hella funny sometimes though.)

Barometer, as requested (crushing every bit of bone).

I have a huge burn mark across the base of my thumb and onto the back of my hand from the oven rack, navigating a giant dutch oven. I have three other finger wounds from picking out splinters from trimming up rose bushes for winter. I wore gloves. The thorns bite right through.

I'm listening to Deliver your Children because sometimes a day wakes you up and tells you to listen to Wings. It's on a playlist of earworms along with Bottom of the Deep Blue Sea and I am a Stone.

I'm making chicken for dinner, speaking of Wings. And baked potatoes and broccoli too. It's my night to cook and so I pick healthy. There are homemade chocolate chip cookies, homemade bread and homemade bakery-style chocolate chip muffins already made if people are looking for treats. Also the haul from H-Mart is downstairs. We go there to get weird chips and pocky sticks by the case. This week's chips are chicken sauce flavoured. Chickens fucking everywhere. Including me. Bawk bawk. 

Which is a lie. I was brave. 

(Once.) 

I'm finished my antibiotics and finally feel better after two visits with the doctor and one long phone call, though I am feeling massively run-down, hair-trigger hysterical and like I need a weekend to just sit down and pet my brain somewhere quiet. Music helps. Walking on the beach or in the woods helps. I am collecting acorns and tiny pinecones and want to learn how to electroform them. I may also have collected dead intact moths and a whole pile of little bird bones too and yet I left them in the grotto on the little table because the forest gets first dibs and also when you bring home living dead things people tend to think you're about to become a serial killer. 

I do, anyway. 

(Not intend to become a serial killer. I mean I assume you are one if you do that.)

 I bit my nails right off this week. They are ragged and painful. The tips of my fingers already split from the cold and from the endless washing, endless questionable hand sanitizer as I walk into stores masked to the eyelashes, just trying to keep up with groceries and supplies for twenty people without being able to look down because the masks are always too big and I never realize it until it is too late to adjust them. PJ is always game and never complains as he follows me around silently, carrying the heavy things. Driving the cart. Driving one of our Jeeps, usually his, because I hardly drive anymore, not allowed to head out with my windows down and my stereo up because alone is something I can't be.

I want to bake cinnamon rolls but there's no energy here and no room left on the counter. Duncan said I can borrow his counter, if I need storage space but he is kidding and will eat them all sharing them with Dalton because they're brothers and they share everything. 

I haven't had a drink, a full nights sleep or a break in forever and it blows my mind. My diamond ring hurts and I don't wear it. My mind races and I can't catch it. My thoughts are full-blown insanity but I won't admit it. I sink to the bottom here with Missio in my headphones and I can't see the surface anymore.I can take a deep breath and hold it for as long as I can and eventually peace will come creeping back to me. Right, Sam?

Or if it doesn't, you will.

Functional dosage.

I was up at the crack of dark, fighting, pulled hard underneath Ben, who was so awake I'm still blushing hours later, only to be thoroughly loved before being led into the shower along with him where he painstakingly washed my hair while he washed his own, soaped us both down gingerly and then held me under the spray with him until we were warm and renewed again. Then he wrapped me in my robe and put his own and we made the cold rainy trek out to the sauna for a little further warming before starting his physio in the pool at six. His team comes in waves on Tuesdays and Fridays only now and we are capable of filling in the other days. By seven fifteen he was having a well-earned (and also therapeutic) massage and I was back inside drinking coffee, having had a second shower. 

Days are long here between care for him and for me and for the wellbeing of every soul here on the point but as I said before Ben's progress is rapid now, with lingering issues that seem so minor but drive him completely mad. He still gets frustrated easily but he is working at it like he works at everything so hard and I feel lucky that he likes having me close virtually all the time now. It's somewhat of a second chance after an easy acknowledgement that in the Before Universe, he honestly was a workaholic who barely had time for himself, let alone a wife with abandonment issues. 

(I'm taking notes as self-improvement for him at this point is a necessary sport for him just to regain all of the function he had before, while I resist every last effort to make any progress at all. 

The difference between Ben and I? Depression, probably. He is amped as fuck. I just want to hide.)

But what we are doing right now is having a mini honeymoon for three, here, as time and rehabilitation schedules permit. That's the one thing Ben can always manage. A strict, tight schedule. He hasn't touched his phone more than one or twice in the almost-three months now since his accident and he rarely wears his watch but he always knows precisely what time it is and what he needs to be doing. Throw in his daily meetings and he needs all of the hours in each day, though once five hits he is all ours, and we make dinner together, listen to music and then go to bed toddler-early, almost as everyone is worn out by then anyway. 

Ben and Lochlan will build a fire in the fireplace upstairs and we talk for a while. Eventually I fall asleep as the drugs are so good right now, whatever it is, and I wake up gasping for air, dreaming of drowning around four, like clockwork, and then we doze for another hour before getting up to do it all again.

So the answer to your question is yes, everyone here is okay.

Seven beating hearts and the rusted strings on my violin.

They make an invisible fence, the men in this house do. Their arms are the perimeter and each one of them represents my range. This range is not very big right now but as things go we will add on to it. When everything gets better. When I stop staring at my fingertips for so long they turn to golden grains of sand, pouring away in a river only to reveal darkened bone beneath. The saltwater runs from my eyes, courses through my veins and makes up my view this morning and forming a coherent thought is an effort, a battle, an achievement right now.

It's a new kind of mourning. Instead of clinging desperately to whatever I have left I am looking for a way to move ahead and let it all go while still retaining the memories and moments that Henry needs to navigate in order not to forget. Lochlan and Caleb work together to be Henry's father in Jacob's absence or removal, as it were since it's not as if he's coming back, is he? Henry made his peace with that. As I said, it hurts him to his very core but he's a pragmatist and a dreamer and he gets that life sometimes is so unfair but also so stunningly beautiful. 

Like my sea. 

This one isn't my sea, though. It's maybe someone else's. And this coming spring will mark eighteen years since I've lived in the place I want to live and done the things I want to do and thirteen years of white-knuckle hour-counting and wishing for the lobotomy that never came and here now this morning finds me completely without a brain. It doesn't feel good but at least nothing hurts and sometimes that's good enough because here I am now prepared to go to a better mindset but it doesn't show up on maps and no one knows the way. I can drag my fingers through the waves while the salt bleaches my bones but that won't help me either.

I can do what we did once, which was to pick a direction and just begin but I don't know if that's a good plan or a bad one. It's supposed to snow tonight and I am loathe to be too far from anything familiar and instead I think I'll just burrow down here and continue to wrap these hearts for safekeeping. This fence is safe. It holds. It's big enough that I didn't get cabin fever (yet) but small enough that they would miss me if I broke free within seconds so I will gather myself up and ride the tides back in when they come and hope that tomorrow brings some answers, and not more strings.

Jesus aftermath.

Time is fucking me over. It's wearing me down. Fifty is the age they turn into something wonderful. Maturity, confidence and life experience buffing them to a warm glow. Fifty is a milestone, an achievement. 

It's a sea change. 

It's another winter. Another wrinkle (or four). Another car or a trip somewhere new. Another illness or another scar. Another heartache and a fresh heal-

Bridget, stop.  

Sorry, Sam. 

You coming in with me? He sips his coffee. They all have the same tired relief for an expression this weekend. Another one under our belts. Lucky thirteen. I didn't jump off the cliff only to be dragged down by the sea and I didn't lose my mind. I was so brave going in and then all of the bravery vanished and I was just me. Not brave. Not good at this. Not getting better. Just the same. Maybe you could say today that I'm a little disappointed for all my efforts (and theirs) to talk me out of my usual schedule of despair. 

No, I think I'm going to go back up and snooze with Ben. Ben has improved to the point that I think sometimes they forget he got hurt but I haven't. 

Bridget, your heart is so exposed, here on your sleeve. You might want to tuck it into your pocket for safekeeping. He presses a long kiss into my forehead. The Jesus badge. I can wear it all day and no one will even know because while it's very large it's completely invisible. 

Is it though? Sam winks, reading my mind. I hope fifty will be as sobering and monumental for me as it has been for the others. You describe it so compellingly. 

It will be. I'm not certain of much, but of that? Yes. And by the way, yes your kisses are invisible because you don't wear lipstick. 

I didn't mean the kiss. I meant the Jesus badge. 

Do I look like a Jesus freak? 

He stares at me for a long moment. Tattoos. Pajamas that say fuck you all over them. Hair sticking up. Coffee mug with an anarchy symbol etched into the stoneware (a gift) 

Yes. You do, actually. It's uncanny. He laughs. Love you, Bridge. See you after lunch. 

Wait! There's lunch involved?

The diner. Last easy Sunday before we ramp up for Lent. I thought I mentioned that. 

No one mentioned it. 

Go get dressed. I'll wait. You're only a Jesus freak if there's bacon involved. I see that now. 

Can you blame me?

Of course not.

Abundance.

 I took the glass down to the wall before the sun was fully risen. I hand it to him with both hands. 

Happy Birthday, Preacher. I can't believe you're fifty today. 

He takes the glass and raises it before taking a sip. What would you like to do to celebrate, Piglet?

Find my courage. 

Did you lose it?

Yes, all of it. 

Where did you see it last?

Thursday when I was with Caleb. 

Jacob frowns. It powers him. He takes it all from you and he grows stronger. You grow weaker. 

He stuck around.

Not to help the others. It's a bitter laugh at the end. 

I don't need to defend him to you. I spend all my time defending you to all of them. 

And?

They agree with me. You're a coward. 

I didn't have a way out of this, Princess, or I never would have left. 

All you had to do was practice what you preached, Jake.

I don't have as much courage as you do, Bridget. Here. I found yours yesterday but you didn't come to see me. 

I couldn't move yesterday. I couldn't even breathe.

Don't mark these days anymore, he says as I take the bundle from him. Courage is heavy and warm. Courage glows under the early morning winter sun. Courage is a shield against men like Jacob who want you to turn them into heroes when they've been nothing but villains. 

Courage works fast, thank God. 

I hear shouting and I close my eyes to feel the wind and the rain.When it gets louder I open my eyes again and instead of Jake standing there, it's Lochlan. 

You were supposed to wait for me. Don't come out here alone! He sweeps the broken glass fragments into his hand and holds out his other one for my own. Come on. Let's go inside.

Coast.

 Caleb messaged me this morning, early. Just a heart and when I asked if he was up, if he wanted to have coffee, if he needed something he didn't reply. I went down the hall, down the three steps and knocked lightly. No answer so I let myself in, went through his den, down the hall and knocked again on yet another closed door. No answer. My heart's awake now, instant concern and I open the door and cross to his bed where he is face down in a swimmer's pose, arms up around the pillow, dark brown hair sticking up, tattoos on glorious display. 

Diabhal. I lie down next to his face and he opens his eyes and grabs me in close. I shriek in response. Jumpscares when I'm already scared to death aren't fair and damn straight someone in this room is going to have a heart attack and I don't think it'll be him this time. 

Fuck, Cale! I am angry. I don't like being tricked and he knows damn well if he asked for me I would have come anyway. I try to shove him away but his iron grip holds me in against his warm skin. I give up because there's no point to fighting him. 

Sorry. I actually did have a hard time staying awake long enough to type a whole message so I figured you would understand. 

What do you need? I pull back to look at his face.

Cuddles. His eyes are big. Medium blues that I've seen darken to black before my own eyes. Please. I just want to hold you for a while. 

We're all worn out emotionally and physically. I'm sick. He's worried, not unlike the others, and everyone is subsisting on reassurance and affection these days and little more.

What can I do, Neamhchiontach?

You know what. Bring Jacob back. 

I'm not doing that to L-

So I can leave him, and then I'll have closure. And the upper hand. 

Was that it? You're looking for control?

Maybe. 

I believe you have it now. If you tell us to jump, we wait for you to follow with how high.

Do you think I do? I twist my head to look up at him. 

Definitely. The tides have turned, Bridget. You're in charge now. Of your happiness. You don't run after Lochlan. He wants to be with you. He's not going to leave. 

I relax all of my muscles. It takes effort and a reminder lately. 

So you're not going to bring Jake back so I can do all this?

I don't think you need to do all that. I think Jake knows exactly what you would do if he were here. And I think you don't have to be afraid anymore.

He wraps his arms tight around me again, pulling me in against his chest while my brain explodes.

Men who sing.

It only took me a minute. I woke up and heard screaming.But the screaming quickly formed a familiar pattern. I run and look outside and I see Lochlan is out there singing in the gazebo and Ben has one of his guitars and he's accompanying Loch. 

Holy cow, he's so loud. Ben taught him a trick once, one I was taught a while ago, and that's if you really let go and amp up your volume you can hit a range that otherwise you won't reach. Lochlan's having a blast now. It's opened up a whole new world for him.

He's out there doing Ricochet. In the rain. Arms gesturing wildly. Practicing. He always was one to have inspiration hit at odd times, but we're definitely both morning people. 

Damn. It's one of my favourite songs but now when I listen to it I only hear his voice. Kind of like when I listen to Relient K or Thirteen Senses now, his voice sounds like that. Friendly. He sings their songs a lot. 

I don't know, it's comforting to me. A man who sings is a man who has let go of his self-consciousness and opened his heart to the world. Not that Lochlan's ever been self-conscious in his life unless it came to figuring out how to be romantic when I was a teenager. He's a showman. He would light something up or do some death-defying acrobatics (that was such a short time frame and he hates it when I bring it up. We spent far more time on the sideshow than we ever did in the Big Top, that's for sure, but most of it was political and shady as fuck and that's why we left.) and never once was he surprised at the applause or gasps of fear and appreciation. 

Never once. 

But he was also (and remains) humble and appreciative of all of it because he considers it a life skill, like swimming or doing your own IT. 

(Did I tell you I moved the television last week and figured out every last input and HDMI cable? It all works and I have Netflix that I can see from anywhere now because watching things on a laptop or iPad if we're not in the big theatre downstairs isn't compelling at all and he is SO PROUD).

But yeah, the singing he decided he likes much better than the ever-complicated guitar, and life is short. You want Bridget's heart, you better sing for it. 

And besides, his voice is high enough to drown out Jacob's. It's always in my head and now I can barely hear it. He's still a blur out there but my focus is surprisingly clear today.