Dismantled devices.

 The safest place was never in a fugue state, addled by this haloperidol-haze, nor is it standing behind the Devil, an oddly cold and stark space, all smooth concrete and solid grey walls, lit from somewhere I can't see, perfectly safe and sterile. It isn't at the edge of the cliff and it isn't at the bottom of the dark teal sea. It's certainly not in my mind, they never gave it back and now I fight for every fucking. single. letter that bounces along in slow motion into the space where my dark little twisted mind used to be before they threw it away. It's not necessary. No one, least of all me, needs the thing anymore so take it out, make some room. We're going to stack it up with new memories, or at the very least, nothing at all. 

I had so many song lyrics. Four decades worth of rare beloved tracks, a collection that belonged in the Smithsonian for its vastness and pure attention to detail. I don't know where it is now. Someday someone will come across it and it will make barely a ripple in the news but people who catalogue songs in their brain like I do will understand the value and the significance. 

Oh well. 

Another thing gone. Like Cole. Like Jacob. Like Bridget, who used to live in colour and now exists in monochrome. Monowail. Monodidactic. Monotheistic. Monophone, to be sure.

Almost wrote 'shure'. You see this fight? Can you watch it from there? Should have broadcast live but they don't like that so I don't. Instead I exist here in this safe place I began with and then quickly lost track of. 

Underneath Lochlan's chin. There's just enough room for me to stand here. To sleep here. To wait here and take shelter here. This is comfort, nostalgia and security all in one place. It's the perfect size for me. Throw in a bonus heartbeat and his arms and I want for nothing today, not even words. Not even plans or meetings or emergency triage or saltwater baptisms or chemical lobotomies or long breaks for sleep. 

Just this. 

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

Fists clenched under my chin against his chest I can drag the music back line by line but I don't have to see any ghosts. Like I said, it's perfect.

I am yours and yours alone
Forgive me for my wandering on my own

That's the only time I feel better, is when I dream and He's there. 

I have an electrolyte sucker in my hand and a warm cardigan over my far-too-light summer dress. My favourite brown Doc Martens. I'm holding the rope of the swing with one hand and Caleb frowns at my rings. Wearing the whole stack. Heart diamond, simple white gold band, Ben's skull ring (I stole it years ago) and my Claddagh. I can never bend this finger. The sucker is wild orange. It's kind of chemically-tasting and not sugary but it works great and is far better than the IV I had yesterday. My skin is so bruised from it. The younger Russian doctor came by, left a trunk full of pills and checked my vitals as I slept for three days under duress, drugged up the wazoo but also I didn't share before that, at some point late Saturday afternoon I went outside to fuck around in the garden and managed to faint, face-first in the dirt. 

That was not a popular move and they had already booked him to come see me yesterday and so the visit was appreciated. He drew some blood, which I'll have the results for tomorrow, but predicted I am anemic, dehydrated and exhausted. Everett's sheets are barely laundered and I never did get a chance to demonstrate exactly how awful things can get for me even though we got pretty darn close. 

How is your sucker? Caleb is trying to wear me down. More words. More pills. More doctors, a better plan than talking to ghosts after breakfast and the dirt by dinner. He's so desperate to cover this up and somehow redeem himself he doesn't even listen anymore. We've had this talk a million times. I have it with someone just about every week. Am I getting worse? No, I'm the same. Always the same.

It's okay. 

You get so rundown so fast. 

I shrug. A hundred pounds doesn't give one a lot of leeway to bounce back. 

Tell me what to do because what I want to do is find a way to keep you from reverting over and over again. 

You know why and you know what my prognosis is. 

So we find a different doctor.

We've already tried dozens. They all say the same thing, the romantic definition being that I am a hopeless case if every there was one. 

I wish I had never touched you. 

But you did and now this is what's left of her. I bite the sucker in half, put the stick in his hand as I jump off the swing and head back through the orchard to the house. The whole way back toward the moon and away from the sun his shadow towers over me. Fitting, in a way.

Out of order.

When I wake up Lochan and Ben are sitting on the floor beside the bed, covered in blood, feasting on my heart in order to get it away from me and keep it safe. If they consume it it means no one else will and I'm suddenly grateful and ashamed all at once. My brain has been thrown off the cliff, far out where it can't come back on the tide, electricity neutralized by the saltwater, bloating it up into a balloon, plucked out of the waves by a seagull, carried to a different coast, never to be seen again.

God these pills are great. What would be someone else's abject nightmares bring me so much peace. 

Not going to let him win, Lochlan says behind a mouthful of crimson pain. 

Ben shakes his head and continues to feast. He's blocking the door. I notice this almost like an afterthought, an intrusive thought that sees this mess from their perspective. Lochlan is comforted somehow, by the simple facts that Ben is there, that I am alert and fully aware that my brain is trying to sabotage me, that prolonged grief, exacerbated by trauma and PTSD is an easy, obvious but fairly recent diagnosis and a likely one just by virtue of what we already know and have seen. It's simply too much. I can't handle this and I've been struggling so hard for so long and sometimes I slip and I can't do it at all anymore and at the same time, here I am. Fighting to be brainless, heartless and whole like I've never fought before.

It's very very hard and I hate it. I hate what it does to Lochlan. I hate what it does to Ben. I hate what it does to Bridget, most of all. She had so much promise and now she's a pretty prisoner and this is the home they have put her in and she'll be lucky if she ever gets to leave the house alone or earn back shoelaces or be able to slice an apple or pick a song ever again.

And that's infuriating but I can do mad. I can't do my brain telling me to go get Jacob because that's where I belong. 

I don't belong there.

(Don't be stupid, Bridget.)

But my brain is so loud. Maybe being deaf is a psychological response (it isn't but oh how I wish it was and how grateful I am that my brain is muffled and easily drowned out).

I'm getting full. Get someone else. There's so much left. Lochlan protests. Red up to the elbows, blood in his hair. Blood on his teeth.

I can get Caleb, Ben says. Or Sam. 

Nevermind, I'll do it, Lochlan promises and continues on. It's my fault. We didn't get the help we needed at the beginning. It's my fault. I'm so sorry.

You were a child too. He's off the hook. He did his best and then some. He continues to fight long after everyone else has given up and left. 

It doesn't matter. I'm responsible for her.

We all are, Ben reminds him gently. You're not alone.

Lochlan's grief over me is going to be exactly the same. We should just get used to it, swimming in blood, tortured, ruined. Always a second from drowning in feelings. Always on high alert. 

Eat faster, I tell them suddenly and they look up in surprise.

You're awake! It's been days, Peanut. How do you feel?

Afraid.

We're fixing it now. Just hold on.

Don't need Jesus just need these pills but they're taking forever to kick in and I wish it was a little faster.

DON'T READ IT. 

I just need headphones and my bed, my green blanket that's warm and covers me perfectly and this rain. How fast can I type? How much should I share?

I got a pass on church podcast, breakfast, probably lunch and talking at all. Sam's been up to see if I want to talk, Lochlan got any words I did have. Ruth got a hug, and Henry too but they have plans and won't be home until late. Ben understands and didn't need words, Lochlan filled him in before he flipped the switch from thinking everything was fine to knowing it's not, and Caleb wondered if we should just cover in the holes and build over them, since we see where they are. 

Duncan blames himself, but he did everything right. I don't sleep enough and it sometimes means my guard is down and it triggers a hole that just opens up right in front of me and I step into it without hesitation (which means Caleb is wrong). 

And Jacob waits. 

Cole laughs at him. 

Caleb wishes he could revise this but I feel like myself today. Barely a white-knuckle grip on anything, slipping through the hours like a petal on the wind. Paper-thin and fragile, feelings like nerves stretching out, growing around everything, choking off life, blocking out the sun, fending off the rain, keeping the ghosts just out of reach. I guess it's better than letting them in but it feels like I am behind glass. What if it gets more frightening and Lochlan can't hear me from back here? What if I can never sleep again? What if Jesus has finally given up and Lochlan is right as he has been every single time thus far and what if this never changes? What if every goddamn feeling is here on my sleeve, burning my fingertips, causing the noise in my brain to reach a fever-pitch, crackly-static, roaring to the point where I might just throw myself off into the sea where it's quiet and still. 

Is this what Jacob felt like? 

Is this all there is? Is this what it means to become so overwhelmed that you can't speak in case you scream, to try and fade into the quilts so you somehow ride out a ride you don't even qualify for. You're too short, too small, not strong enough but then they shove you into it anyway, laughing, fastening the buckle all the while grinning at you blackly, and they tell you to have a good time.

Why doesn't anyone else feel this way? 

We do, sometimes, but we try to be strong for you. Lochlan assures me none of it's real, maybe it's not good but it will be okay. 

How do you know?

It has to be, Peanut. You just need sleep.

I didn't tell him I'm afraid to fall asleep to the sound of Cole's laughter but I don't think he can fix that. I wish someone would.

Like training an attack dog to ignore the meat.

Three in the morning and I'm doing laps around the house in pajamas and bare feet. Bedhead. I was asleep but now I am rapt, wide-awake and panicking in that quiet middle-of-the-night way when you know you just need to be talked out of it but everyone's asleep so you decide you will wear yourself out instead.

Besides, the house is a fishbowl. Lochlan changed the alarm code again so I can't get out without alerting him so he didn't wake up when I left, safe in the knowledge that I'm not throwing myself off the cliff or anything drastic. The very worst thing I can do here is...Duncan, who is now blocking the hallway and I almost screamed because he came out of nowhere. 

He didn't though. He heard footsteps and walked upstairs like a regular large man. I just didn't hear him because I am deaf and my blood pounding in my ears cloaked the vibrations from his steps besides. Batting zero here. I will die by intruder because I will never hear them coming. That or someone yelling DUCK as something fatal flies through the air toward me as I turn to them and say what?

Can't sleep? 

I shake my head, biting my lip. If I do that I won't cry by default. Frustration. Helplessness. 

I can fix this. 

How?

Trust me, Poem? 

I nod and no sooner does my head move slightly does he grab me up in his arms and walks back downstairs. Chucks me in his bed and laughs. 

I'll give you something to sleep about. He covers me with his body, wrapping his arms around me, rolling sideways so his weight isn't crushing me. His bed is a nest. Clean sheets that smell like vetiver and spruce. I exhale and he smoothes my bangs off my forehead. His hands are warm and I exhale. He plants a long kiss against my temple and then he tells Siri to text Lochlan and say she's here. Siri confirms and then he locks his arms and he is asleep. 

And I don't remember anything else until I opened my eyes at six. He was still asleep. Still holding me safe. Still breathing on my forehead. Standing in for his friend without taking advantage even though I gave it to him. I kiss his cheek and tug against his elbows and he releases me.

Go straight back to your room. No stopping. I was only there last night because I cockblocked PJ. 

Oh. It's not a disappointed Oh or a sad Oh, it's just a slightly surprised Oh. You didn't have to-

Last night I did. Sometimes you have to not push Lochlan so hard. He's had a long week as it is and he let you go anyway. That tells you how worn out he is. 

I nod and bite my lip again. 

Please stop doing that, Poem. That's how you get in shit in the first place.

Someone should have told me.

Oh my fucking God. The joy of growing up before the internet existed was that I have an idea of who sang what and a 'vision' from the play of what they look like (in costume) and then I continue on and forget to check and so just today I was scrolling through my favourite musicals because it's Friday and sometimes you have to have Broadway Fridays (blame Lochlan, he was humming something from Phantom of the Opera and I fell down a rabbit hole listening to All I ask of you and thought huhhhh her voice sounds just like Ellen from Miss Saigon. 

Well, my favourite Christine from Phantom is also my favourite Fantine from Les Miserables who also happens to play Ellen in the original cast recording (yes, my favourite) of Miss Saigon. All three are played masterfully by Claire Moore and it took me thirty whooping years to figure it out. 

If you need me I'll be in the library with my beloved vinyls because they are easier to manage than boys, hearts, ghosts and devils, that's for sure.

Permanent, water-soluble.

I got to do the completely messy and chaotic but much coveted monthly job of cleaning and refilling all of Caleb's fountain pens. I do my own at the same time. That's one of the few things we have in common, we both adore nice pens. Not too nice mind you, he keeps his mostly to the high three figures maximum price (okay there's a few over that) and my daily driver is literally a ten-dollar Chinese Lanbitou that is rose-gold coloured brass and weighs about three pounds. It's exhausting and I love it. It forces me to slow down and concentrate on my penmanship which is terrible at the best of times and I like to write every chance I get. It's rough because everything seems digital. Our shared Collective grocery list, delivery list and Google Calendar are all online but I maintain a traditional leatherbound planner that I love forever and ever. It's a calendar/to-do list/smashbook/doodle pad and reminder book all in one. It's full of paper clips, Oliclips, stickers, post-its and receipts. An old losing lottery ticket is a bookmark and it holds my leuchtterm planner for the year and then a moleskin as well. A5 because I need space. I have talked about it before. This year around Christmas I ordered a bespoke leather traveler's notebook system with all of the pockets and things I needed and it arrived in late January and it's so beautiful.

But anyway. I spread out on the kitchen island with a layer of newsprint underneath and a roll of paper towels and warm soapy water and fresh ink bottles and I took all of our pens apart and cleaned them and made sure they had working parts, that the nibs were smooth and the o-rings pliable and I soaked the grips and wiped down the barrels and the caps and I dried and refilled and tested all of them and everything is ready to go. It's a methodical, nitpicky thing that I enjoy doing and it keeps me busy for a couple of hours and it keeps my brain from seeing ghosts or flooding with too much anxiety at once and I'm always grateful for that, even if it seems like the most boring activity in the universe. 

It also serves as a visual reminder that yes I have enough pens, even though Caleb will spoil me rotten on a daily basis and keeps telling me to get some new ones if I'd like. 

I can only use one at a time. This is enough.

Measuring the joy of a moment against the depth of its history.

Jacob is surprised. I guess you can haunt someone and still be completely distracted, as always, failing to pick up the cues or catch the details as they go out into the world like fireflies in a field of wildflowers at night. 

And our baby's graduating next year? 

I nod. If I speak I will dissolve like ashes and blow off the end of the point, leaving the telescope covered in a light powdery film, and no one will ever know what happened to me. 

Jacob would have stayed if He had known Henry was his. Little Henry Jacob, here on the cusp of twenty years old, the enigma who looks and acts exactly like his late father right down to the ridiculous height and the deep voice. Even though now his official father is a passionate redhead who's angry at God for the rest of his life and bless his heart, only comes up to Henry's chin. 

And Ruth. Jesus, Bridge. You did such a good job with those two. 

I nod once more. Composure is the dust, coating everything for a thousand miles, I wish I could have kept it but there was no way to contain it. Until it turns to anger. 

I had so much help, since you didn't stick around. 

Maybe it's your anger that keeps us like this. 

GOOD. It's better than being sad. 

It's a Ferris wheel-

My favourite. 

I know, Peanut. I look up in surprise and Jacob is gone and Lochlan is there. 

He leaves when you show up-

I know, that's why I'm here. Maybe if I annoy the fuck out of him he'll go for good. 

What if I don't want that? Who do you think you are? 

He grabs my hand, pulling me up. I was your first love, and I'll be your last. And he'll never have anything close to what we have so the sooner he realizes that the sooner maybe he'll just leave so you can get on with the life you and I have rebuilt. 

Wait. 

He stops and steps in close, staring right into my eyes. Waiting and not saying a word.

Ask him to go for me, please. Just ask him to leave. 

Lochlan closes his eyes but he doesn't move. Doesn't jump at it. Doesn't take the only chance I've ever given him to fix this for good. 

I wait. 

When he opens his eyes they spill over almost immediately. His nose turns pink, eyes red. Hands shake, but just a little.

 I can't do that on your behalf, Peanut. You have to do it yourself. When you're ready.

*HEAD EXPLODES*

And with that I am the mother of a weeks-away-from-graduation (online? Or something) University graduate who is now finished classes forever, but also navigated the last year of her full-time studies while working full-time and holding a grand side-hustle too. Now Ruthie will get her bachelor degree in the next couple of weeks (?months?) and believe it or not Henry will follow in her footsteps, same program but a different major, and he's scheduled to finish in March of next year, having done an accelerated program that is headhunted also into a secure full-time career. Both kids have their drivers licenses and can take a vehicle out alone. Both kids save all of their money and don't spend foolishly. Both seem somehow leaps and bounds ahead of their peers in ambition and energy and I credit this house full of defacto parents for that. 

And I never have to make another tuition payment as long as I live. 

And Henry's classes are online so he's safe until Canada figures out these fucking vaccines. 

And I am the proudest mom alive right now, as ever, because I didn't finish university. And then Cole went and did on my dollar and time and then I got left in the dust and had to turn to other talents for money. 

At least I'm not shy. I learned that one quick. I'll thank Lochlan for the school of life diploma. I graduated with honours. 

Just like our daughter.