"I want my life to be perfect."

I could see him walking up the beach. Just a blur at first, features coming into focus as he got closer to where I was watering the snow-in-summer flowers in the big grey half-barrels at the end of the walkway. The sand is blinding in the early fall chill, my favourite time of year. The beach is empty again, all mine again and I am selfish and quiet. I want to keep it this way. I want to be here by myself. 

Hey. A kiss on the top of my head and then on my cheek as I stand to greet him. Crinkles around his eyes and white in his beard take my breath away as I still see us like a mirror of who we used to be. 

Hungry?

I shake my head. Not yet. We can open wine though. He follows me inside. I leave my watering can and my shoes on the step and duck through the curtain that keeps the bugs out as I never close the door during the day. I like the salt air. I like the curtain. It billows out into the breeze just enough that it feels romantic and cozy to be here. Exactly like I planned. 

He opens the wine, I put grapes, crackers, cheese and olives on a small plate. He likes to graze. I put on some of my favourite winter jazz cafe music and he smiles and sits back. 

You don't change, Bridget. 

Maybe no one does, I avoid his question. 

Maybe we all would benefit from living a little outside of our comfort zones. 

I tried that, remember? I smile gently. I shake my too-long bangs out of my eyes and my hoops jangle against my cheek as I pick up my newly-filled glass and clink it against his. 

This life will be wasted if you're alone. 

Says who? I raise my eyebrows and take a sip. It's a dry viognier. It's the only kind I'll buy now. It's easier on my body and my mind than my beloved whiskey, and it's easier to find too. Up at the tiny bottle-shop in town they don't have Lagavulin off the shelf and I wouldn't ask for it if they did. The taste reminds me of death, and time, an undercurrent of terror I don't ever wish to revisit. This is new. New for the new me, reinvented each time the tide snakes up to leave treasures on my doorstep in the sand. Why I ever left I'll never know, but I'm back and that's the important part here. This is probably the only place in the world where my brain doesn't engage in an endless distance-sprint, overclocked and overwhelmed. Here it doesn't even simmer, it just hums to itself and I haven't had to push a panic button on myself in years. Here if something breaks I just try and fix it and if I can't someone else will. Here things are different and better and the way they are supposed to be.

Says me, maybe. 

Sorry, I can listen to advice but at the end of the day I do what's best for me. 

It's admirable as much as I hate it. He looks out the window, smile leaving his face. I don't think it should be like this. 

It needs to be. I follow his gaze. There's a sailboat way out on the horizon heading home. I may have seen it before, maybe not though, and it's really not something I focus on. The horizon is my backyard and I feel like I can breathe here. 

We should start cooking. He finishes his wine. I haven't really touched mine and so I bring it as I follow him to the kitchen, bare feet on wide softwood floorboards, cool to the touch, the occasional grains of sand reminding me I am home. 

After dinner (he mostly cooked, and I cleaned up and packaged up leftovers) we go outside to the big Adirondack chairs on the patio to watch the sunset, turning our chairs to the west.We slide back into our seats for the show and he reaches out with his right hand for mine. I let him take my left hand and he holds it, cool in his warmer one. He gives it an abrupt squeeze and lets go. 

I'm thinking of heading somewhere warmer for winter. I'd like you to consider coming with me. Then in the spring or whenever you need to, you can come back here. My bones hurt in this cold. I guess I got used to the milder winters out west. 

I nod and say nothing. I know my answer. He knows my answer. 

What would it take to change your mind?

Maybe next year. I soften it with white lies, bleached from the sun, from years of use. 

We don't speak any more and once the sun has set we head back inside, leaving our glasses on the weathered turquoise table, a practiced routine but never a habit. He kisses the palm of my hand and old feelings well up around the edges even as I work hard to push them down. Once in my room with the beautiful old quilt he turns back, pulling me against him, taking me up in his arms tightly so that I can scarcely breathe. He kisses me, a long familiar motion and then he takes our clothes off, putting them carefully on the back of a chair instead of leaving them on the cool floor. We remember everything for the next several hours. We lose years from our history in the dark and then as the sun begins to come back up the past comes rushing at us, a dark tunnel in front of a runaway train. A reminder that we can't go back or forward but we can remember any time we like. 

That's the joy of this independence. 

What if we winterize? 

What do you mean? 

I mean if I put in better insulation and rewrapped the cottage? Make it safe for you for winter. Then would you stay?

I would stay if you truly want me to stay. 

You seem so sad. 

It isn't your problem, Bridget. 

Sure it is. I care for your feelings. 

If you did we wouldn't be in this predicament. 

What predicament?

The one where I became a drifter and you dug in and made the life you really wanted. 

Everyone can change. This works for me.

It doesn't work for me.

Then you need to change it.

I will but she won't listen. 

I look to the ceiling for peace. I don't want to do this. Every time he comes into my life he turns the screws and I promised myself I wouldn't let him. Ever again. 

'She' made you an offer that would see you have company for the winter. That's generous but if it's not what you want then move on. 

That's my cue to go. And we waste another six months when things could be different. 

But maybe not necessarily better. 

From your side maybe. I still say I'd rather be miserable with you than miserable alone. 

I know. 

Get some sleep, Princess. 

I put my hand up against my chest to quell the impending lurch but it happens anyway. I will. Drive safe. Safe flight. 

And he is gone, into the early morning. I watch the headlights as they disappear around the curve of the highway along the coast and the solitude crowds back in. Any regret is engineered, I tell myself. He's still trying to manipulate me emotionally. It's not exactly true but it helps me when I feel like I might bend from my convictions, sort of like the old One Day At A Time coin Ben stared at for decades. It didn't mean you will get through this one day at a time. It actually meant I will haunt you one day at a time until you give in, give up or give out. 

And I refuse. 

I rattle off a quick thanks for the night to his phone from mine and leave the phone on silent on the desk afterward. I pour a glass of orange juice and throw a load of laundry in the washer. Once it's done I'll hang it on the line in the front yard (the little cozy garden between the cottage and the highway) and then have a nap in the sunroom, where I'll dream of what life would have been like had I stayed. 

***

Who is it? Who is the man in this? 

Does it matter?

This is not what I expected when I asked you to write your future. 

It wasn't what I expected either.

Devil may care.

Caleb is smiling at me, eyes included and I'm thinking he's about to lie but instead he has a secret and he's excited to keep it from me but also wants to share it very badly. 

You found a spot for our getaway next month I'm guessing?

I have. That handsome smile gets bigger and I bean him with my pillow. 

Spill it.

No. I want to surprise you. 

I bet I can guess. 

No, for the first time I don't think you'll be able to. But just know I spent a great amount of time considering what you would like in preparation for the week and I think you'll be so pleased. 

Really? Is it far? 

I'm keeping the clues to myself. The flight isn't long, if you're worried. No transatlantic. Unless that is what you'd prefer. Now stop with your questions and come back and nap with me, just for one hour and then you can go. 

I love the way he gives me a specific time, within which I will be excused? Released? Given back? Not even sure but I bet if I said I was going now he would refuse to allow it as he is exceedingly protective of his time with me and uses it to the fullest extent to sleep deeply and love hard and dream about a future that doesn't even belong to him unless he books it, as a time or a trip or some sort of formal or informal plan. 

Or maybe I'm the one who doesn't belong and I'm an interloper into his time, into his future, or not, and I am the one formally requesting time I won't get otherwise. In any case, we end up in a weird and gratefully familiar place and I am happy to be here this morning to snuggle in to his dangerous arms in a smoky cold night that saw me not needed elsewhere for once. 

Lochlan knows? 

He does and he's fine with it, Bridge. 

Okay. 

I said if it's nice I would take us all back. 

Sounds iffy. 

It's not but it might be less romantic with a group. That's usually the case.

Well, sometimes it's not. 

He laughs. This is true and only you could say it. 

He leans his head back, closing his eyes, smile still playing on his lips. I follow his lead, putting my head down, closing my eyes.

Blog news and literally NOTHING ELSE today. Ha. See you tomorrow.

Coffee and more rain this morning as I watch Lochlan sleep. Ben brought up breakfast in the form of three coffees and a plate of cinnamon rolls warmed with a little butter but we're not hungry yet. There's a fire in the fireplace but we're going to let it go out and all the windows are open wide to listen to the rain and it's my favourite kind of Sunday morning, having already decided that the liturgy can wait and the rest of the house can wait and life can wait just an hour. 

***

Late last night I was forced to make some big changes to the blog, behind the curtain, as it were. So if your feed is broken and you don't get updates anymore when I post, well, sorry but you'll have to bookmark my blog and visit it regularly (I would suggest daily because that is mostly when I post) to see them. 

I also had to turn off every sharing button I have so if you want to share a post you can do so by clicking on it's title so it's by itself on the page and then copying the URL in your address bar and sending it wherever you please. So you can still share posts with people. It's just slightly less easy. I'm not sorry. Took me forever to do this so please congratulate me on my HTML skills, as ever. 

In my next life I will be returning to full luddite, I think. No laptop. Nothing. I will weave cloth and milk cows. If it has electricity I will shun it with great force. If there are strangers involved I will just turtle. It's going to be great.

Don't explain; I think I get it.

It's finally raining. I was outside when the morning cracked open through the night and I'll probably be outside when the moon shoves the sun back down over the horizon to our west when it's time is up for this calendar square and it can rest until it's turn in the next one. 

Duncan stares at me while I ignore him completely. I know he's doing it. I wish he would stop. 

Glad you came back around. 

A boomerang. 

A second chance, that's all. 

Did you have fun? You used to call it a mini-vacation. 

I nod, in spite of my plans to be a hardass, maybe even pick a fight to lessen the hard part of leaving them. I did. Thank you for being a good host. 

Bridget, you're honestly the easiest girl to talk to. You don't play headgames or look for anything more than this. 

Screwed you right out of any potential relationships though. This isn't right. You're a waste of an incredible man. You're hiding out here, feasting on scraps. I never envisioned this for you. Somehow I don't think you saw yourself like this either.

So come down more often. 

Poet-

Bridget, the world is opening up. Do you see me running off to engage with it? I'm so fucking happy right here. No one bothers me. I'm closer than ever to my brothers and there are no hangups to worry about. My dream was a solid, low-stress life with no baggage and thanks to you I have that and a pool. 

Thanks goes to Caleb-

Who did it for you, so I'll give credit where credit is due. 

I really hope you're not going to make it to the bitter end with me and tell me that you lied too. 

Oh, like PJ did yesterday?

You hate the tags too?

Hate em. And my weird fears are getting electrocuted by a frayed patch cord, which can't even technically happen, and powerful women. 

Ah. Then this is the perfect place for you. 

Not really. You're pretty powerful in your own right. Just not at all in the way that I meant.

Are they all Outsiders? Well yes, of course. Leave my teenage daydreams alone.

(Besides, I romanticized the book and not the movie so it just worked to give them all a role and they still manage to fit those roles four hundred and fifty lifetimes later.)

No, I didn't sleep with Duncan. I went to my own room and lay in the middle of the giant double-king and listened to the eight minutes of rain we got, though this morning most of the rest of the point insisted it was only about three minutes, and so the other five was most likely the white noise from the ceiling fan but I'm fairly certain my teenage dreams can turn that sound into a cascade of endless rain in the dark.

Because I don't know about you but white noise is one thing I actually can't stand, whether it's the slight hum from a guitar plugged into an amplifier, air-conditioning in a truck, the sounds the fridge makes or static from a television, I just absolutely hate it. I also hate neck-labels in shirts, wet potato skin residue on my fingers and I can't even look at frayed toothbrush bristles so there you go. I don't know what any of this means. 

Add it to the raging fears of blooming teas...and what was th-

Peat fires.

Oh yes, added to the irrational fears and I would say you're probably....autistic. 

Since EVERYONE has a thing or a whole list of things like that, I'm probably completely normal. 

Not if they are strange, highly-specific things like that. 

I have never heard of a single person on EARTH say HEY! I love those scratchy tags in the backs of my shirts! Have you?

They don't bother most people.

PJ, you're a liar. 

Take a poll. 

I don't have time for that. Now please stop picking on me and fix the fan so it doesn't sound like that?

"Show a little faith, there's magic in the night" is my all-time fave from Bruce. Also Eddie Vedder could do this, easy.

Duncan and I have squared off at either end of the pool, and we're trading lines from Bruce Springsteen songs from his Greatest Hits album. Duncan's playing cool. He's been so far under the radar this summer I think he's gone into hiding and I'm determined to bring him out. He'll step in to assist in emergencies but when I'm in a perpetual bad mood or, as he calls it, a whine-machine, he tends to check out. 

This is why he's single. Because his looks are definitely not a problem. Actually they can be a problem and from here, I can tell his swim shorts are slung too low to look anywhere else and gosh, I hope the water drags them right off him halfway through Thunder Road and then my teenage dreams for the day will drown in thrills along with his incredible lack of modesty ever. 

Also, he might be single because he lit a cigarette once in the pool and the outcry was stunning and in that moment we realized how self-absorbed he can be. Hahahaha. He is wearing patches now, soaked with chlorine and trying his very best to quit. He doesn't think that's cool and doesn't know what to do with his hands if he isn't smoking or tucking a cigarette behind his ear like an Outsider.

Steal Bridget's licorice? Dalton says helpfully.

Hush, you. I admonish him. That's MY licorice. Also, Poet, that's whining. 

Yeah but it's me so I don't mind it. 

Wow. My eyes are big. What a jerk. A super-hot adorable jerk. 

I duck back into the pool, keeping my arms out, inching along the side, til I can get back around to the shallower end where the steps are.  Time for me to get out. My arms hurt. I don't want to hold the one heavy broken one out of the water but I don't want to get it wet anymore either since it never seems to dry and I'm honestly interested to see what's next after Springsteen season ends. 

Buckingham Nicks, he says.

Oh, score. I don't have to think for the words, then. I can trade off lines in my sleep.

Non-apologies.

Hey. 

Hi beautiful, he smiles so wide it puts the sun to shame. Lochlan is the sun right now. It's August. We've had no rain. No clouds. No indoor days. His hair has brightened to such an incredible pale strawberry gold I want to spin it into fine thread to sell, keeping him locked in a high tower so I can have it all. He is so striking when he lets it grow long and lets the curls go wild and it bleaches so quickly now, never quite darkening back to the brilliant dark red of deep winter's end any more. He has a little bit of permanent gold around his ears, in his eyebrows and beard. His eyes are beginning to fade ever so slightly. Not at the same rate as mine but I'm seeing him change and I think I love it, though when I look at him the very first thing I see is that obstinate thirteen-year-old Outsider with the rolled-up jeans, and t-shirt sleeves cut off, expression of total annoyance that slid so easily, charmingly into endless patience I was hooked from the first moment. 

This CD is amazing. (The Code of the Flowers. Ayla Nereo. I just can't turn it off, I'm afraid)

Right? 

You've got the words yet?

Mostly, yes. 

Wow. He nods in amazement. I can hardly hear him for staring at all of that gold. What did you need? Or are you just here to say hi? Stay a while?

I came out to apologize.

For? There goes the smile, behind the clouds. 

Now I understand what you went through with your arm. And also may we please cut this thing off? I hold up my pink mitt. I am so done with this cast. I discovered this morning that my plans to kayak are off, as I can't do it one handed. Ben offered to take me around but that's not the same. What saw can I fetch? The grinder, maybe?

I think you're stuck with it. 

Oh, I'm stuck with it and so I need it off. 

Peanut-

What's the worst that can happen? 

You fuck up your hand forever.  Leave it alone. Four more weeks. We can kayak all fall and winter. Once your hand is cleared for use.

This is maddening. 

Listen to music?  

That's all I do! And follow Ben around the grocery store directing. (No. Put that back. We'll need four of these.  You don't want to eat that. No. No you actually don't. Jesus, Ben!) Oh and watching tv. And trying to do stuff with my left hand. 

Sounds good to me. 

No, it's too hard. 

Remember what you told me? To let my body rest and heal? It was good advice. 

You cut your cast off. 

Well, I would have done it sooner but for your advice.

Hmm. 

What? 

Good for the goose, then it's good for the gander. 

Who is who?

The male is the gander. 

Then your saying is off. 

It doesn't matter! 

He laughs again. What can I do?

I told you. Get the grinder. 

He frowns again. Guess who's not allowed in the garage for the rest of the summer. 

Ben? 

Jesus, Bridge. This is a first world pro-

Oh, don't even go there. 

You know what you need? 

A monte cristo?! 

What else? 

Vodka lemonade and french fries. 

I can do all of this. Give me twenty minutes to clean up. 

Okay. I'll be in the garage when you're ready. 

No you won't. He laughs again. This is going to be a full time job, isn't it? 

Wait. If I hook up the sail to my kayak I can just zoom around with the wind-

No, Bridget. It would be irresponsible to go out if you can't paddle. 

If others go they can help if I get off course. 

Not going to happen. 

Day-drunk it is, then. 

That we can do. He winks and eight-year-old me can't focus on a single thing else, ever.

Regularly scheduled programming (5:44/8:47)

I'm back. Finished my coffee, my cheese toast and my singular chore of turning on the sprinklers out front, something I do every ten days for one hour because we're trying hard to do our part and conserve water. We're changing over as much grass as we can. What remains is just moss and it's mostly golden yellow of deep summer anyway. We are surrounded by people with lush green expanses of heavily daily-watered lawns because none of our neighbours up the road give a shit, as long as it looks perfect. 

Sigh. 

The sun isn't setting that much earlier, I point out unhelpfully to Lochlan, who has been pointing out the harbingers of autumn all week. Soon it won't be so hot all the time. Soon the rain will come back. The leaves are already falling from the trees that got damaged by the heat dome and I am as always amused by the fact that some American regions send their kids back to school like, this week. 

But it is, he smiles gently, softening the blow.

I don't miss the scramble for supplies, the clothes-shopping and lunch-treat shopping and endless homework, packing backpacks and watching the clock. Henry now enters the final six months of his program and he is pretty self-sufficient at twenty, showing up to have breakfast and then taking a late lunch, working on his school stuff from home, and then joining his friends on weekends, days off or online in the evenings to game or hang out. 

I will miss Ruth living at home, as she's turning twenty-two and moving out. This is going to be a fall of huge changes here and yet does anything actually change? I wanted my garden to grow like crazy and now that it is, I wish it was done instead of staring down the fall of canning and processing and freezing. I want fall to be here. I want to wear sweaters and drink flavoured coffee and nap while it rains. I want to watch scary movies and decorate with pumpkins (they are growing now. Four HUGE ones out there at the very end of the garden by the service road, which is finished and allows for deliveries to Schuyler's house, Batman's or landscaping/construction materials, of which there will be no more because I am so done with all of it. 

Matt has a different theory. You're just burnt out. 

I know this. I know he's right. I don't know what to do about it, though.

Jesus firesmoke.

Sam cancelled church today. He messaged me to see if I was going in the morning on Saturday night and I said only if everyone wore masks and he swore at me and then within thirty minutes he messaged the group chat and said he cancelled and was going to continue with zoom Jesusing because his elderly congregation is almost celebratory in their rush to get rid of masks. 

So we stayed in bed with Lochlan, Daniel, Ben and Schuyler.

Sam and I did, I mean. 

And Lochlan made up drunken limericks about vegetables and viruses, and Schuyler and Ben sang along with every Bollywood musical they could find (they've seen all of them, I believe, which is a huge accomplishment) and Daniel smiled sleepily and snuggled into the middle of a big crush and it was cool and peaceful and loving and warm. Lochlan and I put on a very early show on Friday night and we crushed it and the rest of them could hardly speak since. I love it.

And I don't want to leave, which is why I think Sam actually cancelled church. 

Anyway. I've cancelled Monday too, in preparation for the week. Because I can.

I hate the heat part 57385735833627294856542618.

Daniel strolled into the kitchen this morning with his half-full coffee cup in hand, languid smile all but melting off his face. I refilled his cup for him and he took a chair by the window. 

Near Caleb, who is in pajama pants and a clean t-shirt, having the most relaxing Friday of his life, I think. 

They exchange greetings, commiserate on the weather and the start of the long weekend being a challenge. No one here really likes the heat. You can't be in the water twenty-four hours a day and you can only take off so many items of clothing before you're just in a goddamned nudist colony instead of a commune, which is what we'll soon be, at this rate. 

Collective, alright. Collective penises. 

Until that glorious day appears on the horizon we settle for closing and opening different windows and doors at different times with a military precision, with plans to run ductless A/C to any remaining spaces that seem warm in the near future. It's a little frightening how warm it's becoming and I long for the days of keeping my towel around my sunburnt shoulders after a swim in the ocean because it would be freezing in my ears and under my hair against my skin. A hot shower at home to wash the sand away and a thick layer of Noxema on the sunburn (to cool it, now I'm thinking that was probably the worst thing to do but like the baby oil for tanning, it was a seventies tradition) and then dinner was always sandwiches and chips. Cold. Kind of like now only the oppressive heat comes inside and stays inside and we can't get away from it. Can't escape the forest fires, the smoke, the rocks falling off the grand wall of Big Chief, it's so fucking hot, can't store wine since it explodes. Can't let the dog go out without carrying him down the patio steps it's so fucking hot and I hate it. 

HATE it. 

So we're going to just disappear into the cool dimness of Schuyler and Daniel's room and watch Netflix and drink wine until it's over. 

Maybe we'll invite Caleb. Maybe we'll bring the dog too. Maybe we'll just have a huge pile in and everyone can nap until the winter comes back. 

This sucks. I was so looking forward to summer. Not this kind of summer though. Just the longer days and gardening season. This is completely uncalled for. 

(I know! First world problems! Except I'm going to throw up.)