Never enough words but I like to try.

Happy Father's Day.

To Lochlan who fought for and took custody of both children and more than made up for the years when we didn't know Ruth was even his. He's had nothing but love for them and has been the voice of freedom when I have hesitated and wanted to lock the kids safely away. He continues to give advice and teach them life lessons and he is there at every hour of every day for them no matter what and always will be. He is  the best father. Present, affectionate, patient, loving. Generous to a fault. Never on his phone or too busy or away. If they need him he drops whatever he is doing, no questions asked. He taught them magic and wonder and fire safety too, along the way and they are forthright and pragmatic and honest, just like him.

To PJ, who has been the constant since Jacob stopped being there. Who stepped in and managed wake ups and breakfast and packing school backpacks and doing crazy hair day and pajama day. Who drove them to sports practice and band. Who made sure they did their homework and walked them to school after lunch. Who questioned school dances on weeknights and taught them to always throw the second punch if it came down to it. Who gave the kids a Flintstone vitamin every second day for twelve years straight just in case they didn't get five servings of vegetables in a day. Who made a rocket from a toothpaste tube one morning at seven for physics class when Ruth forgot. Who baked for baked sales and was honestly a better mother than I could have ever hoped to be. He gave us routine and a safety net when what we had was ripped away and he never asked for anything in return. 

To Benjamin, who has spent every minute he was home with the kids from birth. Who was always the first to rock a baby to sleep or sing a lullaby to slowly wake them up. Who never ever failed to swing them from both hands as they walked, spending countless hours strolling down the sidewalk looking at houses and dogs and birds with them. Who was the beneficiary of just about every piece of art they ever made at school and he still has them. Who was always the first to show up with an elaborate plan for the afternoon and follow through right until bedtime. Who learned to be less loud and more tender via them and who stepped in and looked after us, along with PJ when things went wrong and who stepped out again when Lochlan came back for us without question. 

To Caleb, who was the first to find out Henry was Jacob's and made the sweeping decision to just cover everything. All of it. Life. Fatherhood. Who lied to make it easier for me and said Henry was his, in order to let me let him do this. He spent every weekend watching kid movies and making pizzas and being there, and helping to teach Henry (and Ruth because they were and still are inseperable) about manners, money and the world at large. He taught them a hard work ethic and good business practices and he backs up Lochlan's discipline without issue to show a strong united front. Even if it isn't fair. 

To Daniel and Schuyler, who taught the children tolerance and love and the value of family. To Christian who brought the fun and adventure and the idea that kids sometimes should learn the hard way. To Batman who brought the mystery and made sure everyone else was on their toes and then some and then sent money every single month just in case. 

To Duncan and Dalton, who always say Go ask your mother but then let them anyway.

To Samuel, who stepped in and gave them spirituality  and faith when I couldn't find it anymore.

To Jacob. Who gets to miss it all and never knew until it was too late.

To my own father, who's absence and lack of interest spurred a wolfpack who took over and raised me instead, who came around at the absolute end in his advancing age with regret. It touches me and we can finally talk, albeit long distance. 

And to Cole. The first of the pack to become a Dad who died without knowing he actually wasn't but that's probably a good thing. He softened and changed when the kids came along. I had already checked out on him but he was a good father. Thank you for that singular virtue. 

We are blessed with strong men with hardcore values and incredible fortitude who make each other better men by virtue of how we live and I am forever grateful. Today we celebrate them like we do every single day already and there aren't enough words to explain how thankful I am that they belong to us.

He's the spectre, I'm the wraith.

Intrusive thoughts-

No, they're not. I know where they're coming from-

Bridget, please. As in Bridget, please stop interrupting me for once so I can get this looked after and go back to my crises of self.

Hallucinations-

No, they're not. He's actually out there. I can SHOW him to you if you-

BRIDGE. 

Ignoring the elephant girl gets you a trip to the edge of the circus fence. 

This isn't a circus-

Like hell it's not. 

But Caleb is back to doing damage control, Asher is back in charge of my every move, what I wear, where I am when I fall asleep and what I eat and Lochlan as always is being blamed for not sounding the alarm fast enough even though I've been ringing the bell for three days now. I'll tell you every way short of sky-writing and Lochlan chooses that exact moment to only find the good, to only have optimism for the future-nay, the moment. 

God, I love him so for that. 

It's fine. He's fine. He doesn't cause any problems out there. (I mean Jacob, not Loch.)

What is he doing, exactly? 

Waiting. For me. 

Well, what does he do while he waits? (I've been waiting for them to acknowledge him as a person all this time. My heart sings as it spiderwebs into cracks.)

Reads his bible. Talks to God. Walks the rows. Helps things grow. Tries to be as helpful and inconspicuous as possible. He's patient. He doesn't want for much.

What does he do when you come out and see him?

Talks to me. 

About? 

Things to watch out for. He can see things we can't. People's true nature. The future. The present. The past. All of it. He sees our weaknesses and our problems from an objective viewpoint.

The idea of Jake being objective when it comes to you-

He has patience even for me now. 

What if..what if you asked him to leave.

He won't go. 

Did he say this? 

No, it's just the way it is. My brain wants him to go but my heart won't let him. And the heart is always more powerful than the mind. It just keeps him here.

What if you weren't here? Would he leave?

No, he would wait. I told you. 

Maybe we should go talk to him. 

Maybe you need to not enable her and this bullsh-

Cale. Shh. Bridget, what do you think we should do?

At least acknowledge that he's here. Ignoring someone is rude. 

Asher looks pale. I think I'm over my head here, guys. Maybe you all are too-

Just keep doing what you're doing. She's fine. We just keep a close eye.

Shouldn't this be transferred to professionals at this point?

Tried that. Tried everything. This is where we are now. Keeping her happy and making sure she doesn't become disoriented or distressed. 

Wow, you talk so cold. Like I'm not even here. 

Bridget, please. 

I guess we've come full circle today. I don't have much else for you today. Jacob is still a little shy about Asher. Asher, to his credit, is scared shitless.

Nevermind. Found a good song to practice and the way I sing it apparently everyone will be crushed by lunchtime.

 

Ricochet pinecone 
riverside elderberry 
underwater rushing 
tightrope walker 

Whistlestop coming 
soon I gotta go, gotta 
tiptoe mudslide 
tightrope walker 

Timid as a raindrop 
bold as the iceberg 
broken as the thorn of the 
blackberry crushing 

Goose-down comfort 
blackbear hideaway 
going out for winter 
tightrope walker 

Undertone overcast 
in breath outside, going on a limb 
and tearing of the bandage 
uncover fearlessness 
when lightning 
strikes it meets 
in the middle, as a 
bone-bent riddle be met with a 
riddle be found 
inbreath outside… 

Ricochet pinecone 
cavernwide honeyberry 
waterbent keeper 
tightrope walker 

Elderwise timestone 
rise a gaze east-side 
telling to the cradle 
tightrope walker 

Told as a footprint 
burned as a brightening 
sudden as the rush of the rib-bent whistler 

Windsweep set-down 
shadowside lightaway 
fool-eyed leader of the 
tightrope walker… 

Ricochet pinecone 
riverside elderberry 
underwater rushing 

Underbelly overcast 
going on a limb and 
tearing of the bandage 
(tightrope walker) 

(when lightning strikes) 
outbreath inside 
(when lightning strikes) 
inbreath outside 

outbreath inside 
inbreath outside

Everything you dreamed that it would be.

A good day to sit down before coffee and bang out This is Your Life and whoever thought it would be a good idea to put a smaller Sauter (upright) piano in the great room and ignore the Petrof grand in the parlour needs to have their head examined unless they actually enjoy me wailing through the end of this song, a particularly poignant song at that, as those are the only ones I sing. 

(Kidding, this was literally the greatest thing to ever happen to me and I've done nothing but play constantly.)

Duncan says he's just happy I moved on from Jar Of Hearts, and that it was a long winter because of it. The song started to weave it's way through my smooth holey brain and I had to instantly start figuring out chords for 24 instead, as 24 is the next song in my sappy morning-warmup playlist. 

PS The very newest Switchfoot song is really really good. I liked every single thing about it save for one line. The one that goes You've got your light and I've got my wings. 

And you only want to see the shit that starts to wind it's way through my shrivelled up little tear-soaked brain at that line, let me tell you. 

Makes me want to shine brighter, just to show Jake how bad he fucked up. How hard he tried to ruin me and how close he actually came and how in spite of the irreversible damage I am still here and I demand to be loved, even with the scars and he can look at them. They can all look at them and they can keep their regrets and they can suck it up and do what they should have done from the beginning and they can still fix it but I will never trust a soul or a song or a key every again.

You don't answer for any of this

 Ben and I had a waltz through the great room this morning to I Need You (to be wrong) which is the most unlikely but perfect slow dance, a smoldering banger of a song swelling into a summer-Beach Boys masterpiece by the end. Second song tonight. Album August twentieth. I am excited. Only three or four bands ever get me spooled up waiting for albums and Switchfoot is the Most Important of those. 

Also again, they stole an album title from me. Probably because over the years I have managed to use every word there is and in multiple languages besides so I am doing a correlation=causation moment here, give it to me, please.

Besides. Hello Hurricane. Their album came out a year and a half or a little less AFTER my post of the same name. 

In other rock star news, there's a beautiful house out in the valley (*link now removed. I figured out who it belonged to. I don't know him but he has a family and so I took the link down) and I'm trying to figure out who owns it based on the belongings and music equipment in the photos. Kind of fun, if you ask me. 

Horribly invasive*, Ben says. 

Excuse me, they put the photos on the internet. Invasive how again?

The internet is an invasion, Ben says. And he isn't kidding. 

If Ben were not so metal, he would be Amish too. Like me. Not as a derogatory label but as something we aspire to be. I broke my sewing machine this week and have resolved to double-down on hand sewing, as I was meant to do because I like it more anyway. 

You can control your tension, Lochlan snorts. 

EXACTLY, FOLKS. 

In other news. Jacob is still in the orchard. Ha. Jesus saves everyone BUT me here, folks. I haven't recalled Asher from Batman's in spite of a million requests a day and now a deadline to bring him back over to work before someone else does, Fidget and I fell asleep at a stoplight yesterday and lost my driving privileges for the summer, as something has triggered my (diagnosed, don't worry) narcolepsy and now I have zero trouble falling asleep. I am the army recruit now, having graduated boot camp with that treasured ability. I sit down in a lawn chair and fall asleep. I close my eyes and fall asleep. Feel the sun on my face as I close my eyes? Nope, I'm in dreamland. Fuck you. 

The doctor (called hastily who came and checked me because he was concerned it might be a blood pressure thing but then stuck around for a quick cup of tea and got to see me in action, don't you know as I knocked off holding a teacup full of hot liquid no less and Lochlan seemed far more alarmed by that then by someone waking me up with horns blaring at a light on the highway up the mountain) said it's probably related to all of the recent stress (HA) or possible the vaccine (GREAT) so yes, I will recall Asher because now I need a driver. It's fine. I'd rather control the music than the wheels any old day. Summers are for sticking your hand out the window and riding the wind, not defensive maneuvers in shitty North Van traffic.

That lion slept for two days hence and we should have robbed him blind. Instead we robbed him sighted and that's good enough for me.

You would have done it too, but for the payout. I know Lochlan is fond of stockpiling money, as he is technically retired but also not in the least and never stops hustling, and this is probably his most-least favourite side-income generator. 

I am a piece of meat dangled in front of a hungry lion. A means to an end. A thorn in each of their sides, cleaved in half in order to inflict as much damage as possible. A poultice, a panacea designed to cure quickly and without leaving scars, though at this point our delicate skin is thickened with them and the fire (and the brimstone too) no longer affect us in the same way it once did. There is no shock left. No surprise. No remorse. No promises and no vows to never do it again.

And there is magic, in such an easy event. An audience of one. A spectator who nods along as the rules are carefully relayed at the outset, agreeing to follow each and every single one, as the punishment is the end of the evening. One who holds out right until the bitter final moment, breaking every rule at once and by then we are too spent, too overstimulated and too gratified to level any sort of castigation for his efforts. Instead we take the money and run into the dark headlong and foolishly, where we finally stop just off the road and by the light of the moon and a single flame Lochlan checks me first, making sure I'm all there still, making sure I'm real, and then he counts the money, making sure it's all there, making sure it's real.

We have not, in all these years, learned the difference between the price of something and the cost of something. I fear we never will.

Wastrels, minstrels and the objects of their affection.

I am tired. Maybe here's part one?

***

God. My favourite thing in the world is when the Devil gets drunk and gets tender. It's better than Christmas and Burning Man and a good line of cocaine all rolled into one hot stumbling machine of a man and it's so rare these days. Not sure what to make of it. Especially on a rainy Monday evening in June. 

Lochlan and I are playing in the pool. The rain is pouring down on the roof. It's loud but we have music on and are swimming away from and then back toward each other. He takes me into his arms and treads water easily, and I wrap my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, weightless in the deep end.  I always end up clinging to him in the pool if he is there. The deep end is extra-deep, the bottom of the pool is dark blue and it feels bottomless and scary without him to hold on to. He uses one hand to tread and keeps one arm around me tightly and is moved to pull me in hard against him for a long chlorine-soaked kiss. 

One hand slides off the arm of the chaise nearest us. The Devil is paying attention, his eyes flashing caustics from the surface of the pool. He straightens up, puts his glass down on the table next to him and leans forward, elbows on knees, fist in palm. 

Do you both even realize how beautiful you are together? 

I nod and kiss the tip of Lochlan's nose. We are fire.

You are! Between the striking colouring and the tension, I can't even take..my eyes from you. 

So watch, then. Lochlan still hasn't looked at Caleb.

I'd like to, with your permission. 

There's the cost of admission-

Name a price and I'll cover it.

Can't buy this kind of love, Diabhal. Lochlan says with a laugh. Thought you learned that lesson.

I'm only asking for a night of..inclusion.

You can't afford it.

I can offer a generous sum. Don't be a fool, Locket.

Oh, I'm not. Maybe a joker but never a fool. Not anymore. He pulls me up, hands locked around my shoulders and drowns me in a kiss that sends us both under the surface. 

When we come back up for air, Caleb is gone but there's a post-it on his chair. Lochlan pushes me up the ladder and I grab our towels while he bends to get the post-it. He reads it and shakes his head to get the water out of his hair. It springs up into crazy long curls and his mouth curls up on one side. 

Well, at least he knows the value of a private show. He shows me the paper. 

My eyebrows go up. VIP. Lochlan nods without a word. We should probably go get ready.

I didn't know it woud all turn out this way and I wouldn't change it for the world.

I'd rather waltz than just walk through the forest
The trees keep the tempo and they sway in time
Quartet of crickets chime in for the chorus
If I were to pluck on your heartstrings would you strum on mine?

I've been longing for
Daisies to push through the floor
I've never really felt like this before
And I wish plant life would grow all around me
So I won't feel dead anymore

 

Sunday is Father's Day and Midsummer all in one and we are planning a beautiful acknowledgement of both for this coming weekend. I still am light on energy and short on sleep but we're just going to make a feast to eat by the bonfire on the beach on the longest day and I'm going to make everyone flower crowns. We will chase the night as far back as we can push it and relish the light until it's disappeared over the horizon.

We will celebrate all of them, some biological, all honorary. All pitching in, having gone above and far beyond what most friends would have and I remain forever blessed, touched and grateful. Henry is twenty years old in one month from now and he is the man he is because of them. Ruth is a beautiful woman at almost twenty-two, independent and raised with a fine balance of utter freedom and perfect safety. Again, because of them.

And they will renew their vows to each other, to the army and to me, once cutting palms and sealing their brotherhood in a field with a stolen, questionably-rusted blade, now doing it on the beach at high tide with a sharp, clean and new knife. They will solemnly remember the conviction, the passion that only teenagers can muster and they will remember why they're here. We will add a few more, as the eight has shifted and changed due to life, death and circumstance, we have grown and reevaluated on this night, for this purpose. The beginning of summer always heralded a reminder of why they stick together. Why they're here. Why they chose me and closed the circle and just worked doggedly to make it all perfect and yet it's so flawed it's amazing the sun even bothers to grace us anymore when the dark would do just fine.

I long for a day like this again.

I was having a grand time. Being absolutely miserable, as is my right on a day when it's dark and pouring rain. I learned the simple chords for A.A. Williams' Control a while back but I was working on timing. She's in my headphones just faintly while I sing out loud at the piano. I can't do the guitar part obviously. Will have to hire Pallbearer to do that for me or maybe ask Ben about it. I just pound the keys louder. 

Hear me out. (It's actually tattooed across the palm of my hand. It's faded because I wash so many dishes but it's there.

A hand lands on my shoulder and I flinch so hard I choke on the words and it all grinds to a halt and it makes me vaguely disappointed because I think I finally had it. The fingers grip without squeezing and I take off the headphones to see who needs me, even though I know who it is by touch.

His green eyes are glassy and his face is almost as sad as my heart. 

Stop. Peanut, please. You're killing me here. 

Do you have any requests, then? 

Not today. He kisses the top of my head. Maybe just quiet. 

Sometimes he can't stand listening to me try to hear myself. I don't know what to do about it but everyone says if I subject myself heavily to things that scare me eventually I won't be afraid of them any more so it should probably work for Lochlan too.

(Maybe the electricity was always obvious.)

Walking through the garden centre, staring at the back of Lochlan's neck. He is golden-pink but only down to the neckline of his t-shirt, as he always has his hair tied back now. It's longer than ever and he doesn't plan to cut it, he says the curls are less aggressive the longer it gets from the weight of that length and he's not wrong but there isn't a person alive who has met Lochlan who isn't in love with his giant golden-red pop-can curls save for Lochlan himself. 

He bought me a small pot of roses for the kitchen and a big stone fountain bubbler for outside near the apple tree. He carried the fountain and I carried the flowers. Within hours the hummingbirds were bathing in the fountain and the roses were blooming on the kitchen counter.

Staring at the back of his neck makes me feel ten years old again, watching for him in the crowd, focusing on following him without getting distracted, making sure to stay close, his ever-present t-shirt and jeans a flag, his hair a beacon, his scowl a casual master. He turns and gives a half-smile in relief that I am keeping up. He loads our purchases into the back of the truck and ties everything safely down so it can't roll around or fall and off we go for the drive home. This was a whim but it also finishes the food garden corner of the back lawn and so it's worth it, even though it involved a very expensive very long outdoor extension cord to pull it off and we'll have to spend time burying that so it runs by magic instead of obvious electricity. 

Like us, he points out and the smile goes full.