Jesus Beach returns.

A full house today, as Sam sent out instructions on showing up for outdoor church and he wore a blue suit and a bolo tie and his favourite sneakers and a baseball hat. He looked like an adorable alien and he was nervous and a little rusty as his usual audience is twenty and at any given moment only half of us are paying attention. He did require masks and when one elderly, fully-vaccinated gentleman balked loudly, Sam went and got him a chair and put him and his bare face a good thirty-five feet away and gave him a disposable mask to hold in case he felt like putting it on and joining the group. A quick explanation that not everyone is fully vaccinated yet and we all need to protect them, and he pointed to me.

Gee, thanks. I'm anxiously awaiting my second needle and I wish they would hurry up. 

Also, my hand is throbbing and so I didn't make it to the end of service and I wasn't keen on all the people anyway, or the bright sun and so I looked at Lochlan at one point and he put out his elbow for me to take and we waved goodbye to Sam who waved without breaking his cadence and we came home. Lochlan made coffee, shook out a few painkillers for me and asked if it was worse. 

Yes. 

Huh. I figured I'd have to work harder to get you to admit it. 

No, it hurts worse. Like every time I breathe it aches but worse. 

Okay, I'm going to call the doctor. 

Okay. 

Really? Not going to be the tough girl?

It's been a long year. I don't want to deal with any more. 

Says the girl who planted tomatoes with a swollen face from wasp stings the day before. Share the load, Peanut. You have enough to worry about. You need rest. You've been going at a million miles an hour your whole life. 

Is this about yester-

Maybe it is. 

I'm sorry. 

You don't need to be sorry. His tone is changing and I want to change the subject. Just let me help you not be in pain. Let's get you back to the doctor and see what's up and go from there. Then we'll talk about delegating. 

Okay. 

That's my girl. 

Everyone says that. 

But for them it's only wishful thinking.

True. 

Love you, Peanut. 

Love you Locket.

Naked memory thieves for the lord, naked advocates for the devil. Naked princesses, naturally. Is there any other kind?

It isn't a good memory, your brain is just constantly searching for sugar with which to coat everything. It's a coping response. Makes you think he's not that bad, that there are good things too. It's completely natural but it's also a step back, something you shouldn't be entertaining. 

He holds our hands up to the light, fingers laced together. The sun went down an hour ago but twilight persists in the form of fairy lights around the skylights in their room. It's just enough to accentuate the lighter night sky of summer without obfuscating it completely. Too bad Caleb isn't into these lights. They absolutely work and it never would have crossed my mind to put them up there. Not even sure how they got them up there, truth be told. Matt probably just stood on a chair. He's tall. 

I sleep with a clear conscience, my memory thief spending the night sitting on the floor, files like vinyl records spread around him and he plays them and then categorizes them in the sparkling new cabinets that Lochlan built after Sam burned the whole thing down years ago. 

This is for new, good ones, he told Sam. And Sam nodded and said it was maybe a good idea but we'll keep the fires burning for the old ones that I keep finding everywhere, tucked back on shelves in old forbidden rooms in this giant old castle inside my brain. It's centuries old. It's a Winchester house. I keep adding rooms and walling old ones off. I don't have a map anymore and there's no electricity and the part that Lochlan built tacked itself on to the end and from the outside you can't even tell. 

What if I want to keep it out anyway? You're subjective on this-

Bridget, I'm not.

Oh, but you are. 

What do I have to lose?

This. 

This is a dream. A fugue state. A Christmas wish I can imagine until the ends of time but it never happens. 

I'm here right now.  

You don't belong to us. 

Pretend I do. 

But you don't. 

What if you did? Matt entertains me. Matt will do whatever I say sometimes. He is the best. What would that look like? He asks Sam in all curiosity. 

She would be spoiled and cuddled around the clock. She would never worry. She would never be cold or be without someone to hold, or someone to hold her. She would have her spirituality nourished, her spirit raised and her fears drowned in the sea. 

Matt nods toward Sam but I see the holes. These are like bullet holes in a black-walled room, letting in all of the light. 

You don't think I have that?

There's a history that functions almost like an unwelcome visitor in the room with what you have now. 

But I would still be me, with my history being my shadow if I were here, I remind him. 

That's why you're not here, he says so gently and gives me one last kiss. The spell is broken, the night is over and the boys will throw on clothes and walk me home where I step into the day with more questions than answers, as always. 

My favourite part of all of this is how instead of Matt being jealous, he just joins in, and plays Devil's advocate the whole damn time. He's smart, that one.

Trust games.

Did I take it too far? (Did I take it too far?)
Now I know what you are (Are)
You hit me so hard (So hard)
I saw stars (I saw stars)
Think I took it too far (Too far)
When I sold you my heart (My heart)
How'd it get so dark? (So dark)
I saw stars (I saw stars)
Stars (Stars) 

One of my most treasured childhood memories is of standing on Caleb's Chuck Taylor All-Stars (black, of course, every other boy in the neighbourhood had white or pale blue ones. My brand new ones are baby-pink, in case you're wondering and I wear them with dresses), my feet on his, at the very end of the dock by the lake, holding one of his hands, and twirling around off the end of the dock, an endless arabesque, though at the time I pointed out with great joy that I was practising my camel spin for figure skating in winter. He would pay attention without seeming to, switch hands, catching me, spinning me back out over the water, a distracted dance to entertain an eight-year-old out past her bedtime, while the older teenagers hung out and talked. I could extend my free arm out dramatically and I always felt as if I could fly, out over the water and back safely toward land. That tiny dancer unaware of a future coming down the tracks like a freight train and she couldn't hear it at all, she couldn't feel it and she never saw it, in the end, a ballerina popping up only when you open the box but when you close it again she starts screaming.

I still do that dance sometimes, but now the dock juts out over the ocean, and Caleb doesn't wear All-Stars anymore. If he's down there he's got his brown leather boat shoes and I am always in bare feet, leaving my shoes by the steps. I twirl out with one hand and realize that I can't switch on the way back but he is prepared for that, with his other arm out to bring me in as I habitually let go. I keep my broken hand close to me and still I persist in old morning habits dying hard. The water is cool and dark grey today, reflecting the sky full of clouds and ash. We're on the moon, we're over it all. We're not built for the sun.

I let go but Caleb himself has never let go, even as every other boy has taken the opportunity to see me fall in the water for laughs after a semi-awkward twirl or two because he was always the tallest. He never lets me go. He says that should mean something. I don't know if it does. Maybe it should? Or maybe it's just a memory and I can close the lid on it and throw it far out into the sea. Or maybe I can keep twirling on his feet, a connected but disconnected novelty, kept in a box far out of sight until it's all you can see for miles and miles.

Filling holes in my life with cherry pits.

I'm baking some tarts from the cherries we picked in the orchard. A couple of the trees produce dozens of pounds of fruit and so I spend most of the summers harvesting and preserving as much as I can because fresh tastes better than canned, even if it's in a jar from six months ago, and free is better than overpriced, always. Plus it's a strange sort of cap-feather to display, as I always thought there was some sort of summer magic involved in watching my grandmother tie back her hair in a kerchief, tie her apron around her waist and light up her wood-fired stove to cycle through endless hot water bathed jars full of spiced carrots, pickles, applesauce, jam, tomatoes and anything else that she could keep. 

And so now I do it too, though PJ and Ben are actually doing the heavy lifting while I direct and stir with one hand and supervise and plan. I'll never have enough jars or enough space. I worry that all of this work will be destroyed in the next heat dome, and therefore I've frozen a lot of the prepared fruit for later in the year, just in case. We kept enough out to snack on for this week and next and the tarts have been requested after the pies went so quickly and none of the growing vegetables will be ready for another month and a half and so this is the plan, to enjoy everything we can, until it's gone.

There are nine men absolutely hovering right now. It's great. Also my fingers finally stopped hurting, and I haven't been to the beach in a week.

Fighting Destiny alright.

(And No! Commas! Where! There! Should! Be! Commas!)

I have three beach towels wrapped around me. I am the hemp-fleece burrito today, and the pool is a glorious twenty-seven degrees but I'm not touching it because I'm suddenly ridiculously freezing cold and I love it. I am sitting with my phone contemplating throwing it into the deep end because someone sent me the first book in the Fae Chronicles series in .pdf form and...

Look. I expressed interest because everyone is talking about these fucking books and I love to start books and never finish them and really I belong in a small group of ultra elite readers anyway because I think the last book I finished and still remember is the House of Leaves which is just insanity and wonderful from start to upside-down finish and why the hell not have that feather in my cap. I am well-read. This is an utter shame though, a deviation, an...an...abomination. 

Why? 

The characters have... "tattoo's"

The main character is "Mag's" 

I want to cry. 

But THEN. 

It turns from a cheeseball snappy-ass campy Underworld thing into straight up endless, languishing porn. 

Which-

Well? I don't even know. I won't be finishing it. Next time someone suggests a book with that many inappropriate apostrophes I'm going to burn a friendship bridge. And the porn isn't even that bad.

What are you up to, Neamhchiontach?

Considering resuming novel-writing. Also plotting a Monte Cristo since in a week and a half we'll probably be on lockdown again.

Oh? Why is that? 

No one's wearing masks any more. 

No, the resuming of the long-dead career. 

Writers today are terrible and completely free-range, unedited, and fanfic-quality. This book is all bad grammar and porn. It's horrifying. 

That's what I liked about your works. 

The fanfic quality? 

No, the snappy editing and absolute flawlessness. 

Oh, he's buttering me up. That's meeeeee.

He laughs. Want to swim? 

Too cold. 

It's a change isn't it? 

Yup. 

We could act out some of your book and see if you heat up at all?

Oh my God, will you play the Dark Prince? He owns everyone, it seems. With his dick.

I mean, I can, if I can find you under all of these towels. 

Touch my towels and I murder you with my ice-fingers. 

Sounds like it should it be a line in that book.

I think it is, actually.

It's the only lie he'll let me tell him and he never ever calls me on it.

His arm is tight around my waist, keeping me in close against his chest, my back pressed so hard against his ribs I expect at any moment to pushed inside his ribs and absorbed into his heart. 

What makes you think I haven't already done that? He says with a soft laugh. A shiver runs down my spine and I try to turn around to address him properly but he won't allow it. He reaches with his other hand, taking my wine glass, putting it down and then that hand slides down, from my heart to my ribs, over my stomach to rest on my hips. He pulls me in hard and it's my turn to laugh gently. 

This could be easier if you would let me turn, Dóiteán.

For my efforts, that free hand goes to my mouth. No more words will be said. It's rare to be so quiet. His head comes down next to mine, pressing hard, helping to steer me around and then I am dropped on my face into the quilts. Then he flops down beside me, facing me, grin across his face in the sunset light that is probably the most wonderful view, eclipsing the ocean by the leaps and bounds my heart now makes, loping around the room, picking up speed. Bridget zoomies. 

And he laughs out loud. I just had a vision of what you would be like as a puppy. Jumping up all excited and running around the room. I smile to myself because he's had too much wine and can't zero in on my thoughts. He is wild and affectionate and just a little bit too rough and I'm not going to give this up for anything. 

He leans forward and kisses me. Peanut. I have an idea. 

Hmmm? I'm pretty sure I know exactly what his idea is going to be.

Let's...Why don't we run away and join the carnival? Or the circus. Something. He starts to laugh out loud, and keeps laughing until tears start to run down his face. Let's just go. 

Soon. Soon we can go back. 

It's been too long of a break. I might be too weird even for them now. And you are definitely too weird for it now. 

I turn on my back and think about that. What if we did go back? What if we picked up where we left off. Not like it's full years away. We could come and go. Except that I'm not willing to go until the kids are grown and independent and part of the deal is that we settled down to give them a normal life and everyone was on board with that and we will continue to chart this course until we get to that point in time. And things have changed. The world has changed. I have changed.

Won't be too much longer, I lie, looking over at him but he is already asleep.

Inbreath outside, redux.

(UndertoneovercastInbreathoutsidegoingonalimbTearingoffthebandageUncoverfearlessnessWhen lightningstrikesIt'smetinthemiddleThere'sabone-bentriddleBemetwithariddlebefoundInbreathoutside-)

There's actually something weirdly liberating about taking my coffee way down to the far corners of the garden in the morning when it's cool, before the sun beats down on our heads, a scorching drum heralding the dog days of summer, as it feels like since the heatwave. I feel free and dangerous, adult and accomplished. I feel like I can manage walking and drinking a coffee at long last, something I've wanted to master ever since I saw Sophie walking around with the hugest Starbucks cup in hand, wearing her high boots and a perfectly-wrapped scarf around her shoulders, sunglasses perched on perfect hair because she doesn't need actual reading glasses ever and wow, it's also weird to see perfect people but honestly she's never been happy in her life and I wouldn't trade places with her for anything. 

Then I spill it. 

Ah. Lochlan laughs. Well, at least you get further every day. Maybe practice more when your hand is healed. I heard the tiny pause where he was going to say wing. They've all done it, multiple times.

He turns to move the wheelbarrow from where it was left last evening and I stop in my tracks, a practised habit as I see a hummingbird nearby. The hummingbird goes straight to the tool shed, a fairy-house if ever there was one, ten feet tall with a cedar shake roof and sides and a mirror on the door. The bird considers itself for so long my breath catches. Has it never seen its own beauty? Has it never realized how such complex beings as humans will stop from their minor, pointless travails, considering the bird the miracle in this equation?

Does it not know?

Lochlan straightens slowly, shaking his head as he sees the bird, and reads my thoughts. So loud inside my head they leak out everywhere, between my eyelashes, between my teeth, slowly dripping out of my ears, flooding his thoughts via my sudden tears. 

It doesn't, Peanut. It's a lot like you. Same heartbeat, same absolute oblivion.

Not so hot so time to work before it gets hot again. (I know you love these short pointless posts. Sorry.)

I got to stand around today in another pretty sundress, with my face obscured by a huge cup of coffee half the time and the other half I was directing garden cleanup. Weeding, reminding the boys what each plant is called, hilling the potatoes, strengthening the supports on the blooming tomatoes, tying up tall plants and bushy plants, harvesting herbs and cut flowers and putting in a path of stones where I have worn a path in the earth, walking through. 

We also raked up dried leaves from the heatwave and gave everything a thorough watering. The chickadees came to visit in the orchard, and so did the hummingbirds and bees and no, I don't have PTSD from the yellowjackets but I also didn't stray off the path. 

Lochlan absolutely loves working in the sun. He is already tanned and golden and said I need to enlist them more often instead of trying to look after most of it myself. Otherwise how would PJ know precisely when phlox blooms, or Dalton know when to stop harvesting oregano in order to let it bolt for the bees? 

After gardening I switched from coffee back to champagne. Busted fingers hurt like the dickens and no way am I taking vicodin anymore. I think I'm done with seeing unicorns on the lawn.

Trying out Batman's speech to text program and then just adding in my McCarthyistic editing. Tedious!

Coffee, bills paid, hummingbird feeders cleaned and refilled with my own very popular mix of one part white sugar to four parts water, sugar stirred into boiled water to dissolve, then cooled. I had to shake the feeders with vinegar and salt to clean out the insides as the extreme heatwave ruined the previous mix. While I was taking them down a ruby-throat came right up to within ten inches of my face. He thought I was a big flower. I'm wearing a green swing dress with cotton crocheted lace trim on the ruffles and the ties on my shoulders are too loose so I need to change before I have a wardrobe malfunction but it is easier to wear this than anything complicated. One-handedness is tough even though it's my left. Still healing a bad burn on my right. 

Ha. 

I'm not actually doing any of this though. Lochlan shook the feeders. Ben dressed me. Asher made the coffee and copied down numbers as I read them out. Caleb came down and picked a pre-coffee fight with Asher, blaming him for my stumble, as Lochlan's been adamant for the past hundred years that I don't go up the steps alone. Or down for that matter. I'm easily distracted and horribly farsighted. I don't hear you when you tell me to slow down or be careful. I saw a sea lion and was looking over my shoulder and for that Caleb feels Asher should be given a first strike. 

Don't be ridiculous, I point out. It could have happened to anyone. Besides, my Birkenstocks are a tiny bit too big but I grab them first since they're easy to kick off at the bottom and I can step into them on the way back up. 

He's supposed to protect you. 

FROM THE STAIRS?

Bridget, watch your tone-

You mind your own business! I fucking tripped. It was my own fault. Stop trying to find a villain in every moment so that you don't have to be one! 

With that Lochlan snorts coffee everywhere. 

Caleb gazes at him in amusement and then turns back to me. It shouldn't have happened, that's all. 

I say that a lot too. I feel you. 

He does not laugh. At least three of the others are now cracking up. PJ leaves the room. Lochlan has abandoned the idea of drinking coffee. Asher, to his credit, figures out how to turn his own amusement into an open grin. I see now what you mean when you say you have to be right there, next to her. It won't happen again. 

Ooh, he knows how to work the devil. Maybe he can teach me. 

Caleb seems pleased that his orders are being implemented at once. Thank you, Ash. He says it softly. I just hate seeing her in pain. 

I bet that's how they named it. 

Named what?

Champagne. It's actually Champ-Pain and it's a reward for hurting yourself. Also a mild painkiller. 

Are you saying you would like some champagne, Neamhchiontach?

Well, sure, if someone else will join me. 

It's eight in the morning. 

What does that have to do with anything?

Just laugh with me or I'll cry.

Don't mind me. I tripped coming up the steps and landed on my hands and face and broke two fingers and have a lovely road rash on my face from the anti-slip treads that held me up in the first place.

So I can't type. Or I can but it takes forever. Sorry.

Goddammit. Fun summer so far. How about you?