Rock, paper, fingers.

(No church today. The floors are being redone.)

Caleb comes over this morning with a stack of receipts and a breakfast invitation that was cancelled on my behalf, because I was upstairs still sleeping with Lochlan who wouldn't let me get up before nine.

Sometimes Loch is all-play, ditch the day, hideaway fun too, you know.

We finally consented to get dressed and show our faces only to head out for a long rainy drive in the truck that ended in the instant magical pizza place. We took Ruth book-shopping. We bought Krispy Kremes. I need bigger skinny jeans. Maybe just-right jeans or post-pizza and donut jeans. But not mom-jeans, because I'm horribly offended by that label, as if you have children and suddenly lose your sense of style. You don't lose it, exactly, it just gets buried for a while in all the other stuff and then when you unearth it again you find you don't care as much as you once did.

I care but if it doesn't have a thousand buttons, some ruffles and come in all black I don't exactly want it or plan to wear it, most of the time. The only thing better than that is naked, I think.

Naked is good. It's a style too, if you're being picky. We could have probably been a nudist colony if not for the children present. Maybe once they grow up and leave this feathered nest we can slowly shift into one, except then when Caleb would show up with more work for me to do I'd have papercuts all over the damned place instead of only on my fingertips. Ow.

Tiny little Saturday things/My Little Flyer.

I was woken up at four this morning, thought the room was on fire, because the fireplace was on and Ben was all Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii Can't sleep let me molest you half to death okay shhhh and he did, pulling me right out of the dream when I saw Lochlan's face after my first practice on the swings and I don't mind one bit though I feel a little sheepish for maybe not being fully awake to reciprocate sufficiently. He smiles this morning and says he doesn't mind either as he pulls the quilts back up over my shoulders and Lochlan's too as he slept hard and hasn't let go of me much since five or so. We slept in for hours this morning. Much needed. Profoundly appreciated even though it meant waking up to cat vomit all the way down the basement steps that Sam somehow missed? Or tracked? Or something and other assorted fun items like a standoff between Duncan and PJ over the last cup of coffee in the pot, considering we...forgot to buy coffee on Friday on the weekend snacks/bank run.

Oops.

Ben, still all smiles, fixed that before it got out of hand. Crisis averted. Duncan gets his endless coffee pot and I get..New Jake to accompany me to the church to pick up Sam, who probably still has cat vomit on his shoes but no car because it's being detailed as per the old schedule Matt set to 'treat' Sam and just left because the half-year was paid for.

I am not permitted to drive yet until I suss out how the pills are going to work for my inner space cadet, who's a lot like Ben in that she's all Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii let's distract each other when I should be staying on my side of the road and actually going at green lights and such.

But none of that matters. What matters is when I opened my eyes after eight this morning (the barest luxury I would actually kill for, no joke) Lochlan was there with his arms around me and we weren't fighting and I didn't wake up in flight mode and I didn't know about the lack of coffee or the cat vomit but the bed was still warm in Ben's spot thanks to the heavy quilts and it was just..

Perfect.

Junk drawer.

When PJ passed my my Friday coffee this morning it was half Irish cream. I said nothing save for thank you and I'm sure no one else noticed. I love this man, truly I do. It's Friday, after all and I'm hoping for a weekend with endless pizza and maybe a screening of The Revenant. I'm hoping to sleep in. I'm hoping for a little less rain and a little more sunshine and I'm hoping for a little peace and quiet the likes of which we haven't seen in several weeks running.

The pot light is ticking like there's a grasshopper stuck in it. It will burn out within days. The dishwasher sprung it's springs and has been fixed. The rain turns everything to mush and the darkness is pushing away from five o'clock like a little kid on a swing. Yesterday I saw tulips busting up out of the ground in a neighbor's garden and I have all of our tax receipts out and organized by hard-sided folios, one for each, including Ruth, who now has to file taxes because she's got a job too.

I need a job.

I also saw that Sephora Canada now sells Anastasia makeup-makeup and not just the eyebrow stuff so I really need a job though I have a drawer full of lip products and a definitive problem already that precludes me buying any more until I use up some of what I have.

Sam is being a prince of a guy to take up the case of me finally again now that the dust has settled between him and Matt. Barring their emotions they have remained friends, even going out for lunch together yesterday so Sam could give Matt some photos he wanted him to have. Argh. If only the rest of us were so civilized but we aren't. We're heathens. We're feral. We're lurking in the woods, dirty and damp to chew on the first person to cross our paths and we hardly listen to reason most days.

Bear with me while I try and find a way around or maybe through the fog. As usual I'll do my best. As usual, you prefer me at my worst.

Glacial Awareness.

There is nothing that I would not face
With vengeance and annihilate
Sever off the hands of fate
If it were to keep you safe
If a million reasons came my way
None of them could take your place
You will never be alone
I will never let you
Let you go

Pinned watching the old man flick his newspaper to his lap every time the young children across from him yell and run down the hall. One lady is knitting a sweater in the corner with round needles. She looks unhappy but satisfied she is using her time well enough. The young woman with her phone buzzing incessantly transmits every movement, thought and feeling into it for validation and the man beside me is wearing shoes and carrying a bag that belies his young minimalist approach to life, highlighting maybe a trust fund or merely a comfortable upbringing. You can tell a lot about a man by the shoes he wears, both size and make. I don't know why that is but I'm bored and constructing life-stories of those around me, based on flash judgements, based on nothing.Weighing as much as these clouds but no more. You can't put any effort into something so light.

My headphones are on very low. I'm listening to songs I love. I'm ignoring the words in favor of the near-dark around me. The grit and damp of early January. The cold/warm, sun/rain, wind/still sort of dirt-filter that hallmarks winter here in the rain forest. No one seems to notice how strange the sun seems after a week of heavy rain. No one notices my sketchbook or the flowers I'm drawing from memory. Not a lot has changed in my waiting in twenty-five years. I can wait for hours, weeks even, as long as I have headphones and a pencil. Lochlan once said one of those days we travelled I was going to be left behind in a bus station somewhere in New Jersey because I would tune out the world so easily. I knew that wouldn't happen because he was there to make sure I went with him when time was up.

The man to my other side shifts his legs and checks his watch. His pockets are stuffed with stolen memories. They fall out and people leave shoe-marks on them, a travesty under any circumstances. These are not his and so he pays them no mind but the person who belongs to each one would most likely ransom their own soul to have them back.

But then I remember that they are all mine, and that I have no soul to use for collateral to get them all back. In fact, Sam assures me I won't get them all back anyway and the ones that I do may be altered in order for me to be whole enough again for people to make judgements about my shoes or my waiting-style or the number of bracelets going up my left arm because that's what people do. He doesn't care that I worry about some of the bigger ones that get dented and roll away into corners and he doesn't worry that I care that he might miss something. He sits and waits with me, reading his notes, highlighter in hand, sheets of cheap paper balanced on knees. Just like Jake except for the fact that it isn't Jake, its Sam and maybe that's what he meant by changing memories. I don't hate it, exactly. It's easier even though somehow it weighs more than the other parts of the day. I guess that's part of my New Abnormal or whatever Lochlan called it last night when he told the story of the time he left me on the bench, caught up in my brain-music and drawings while he got on the bus, just to see if I would actually notice.

I didn't but he didn't take it personally either.

What if the driver had refused to stop to let me on? Sometimes they don't, you know. Sometimes they have a schedule to keep and no patience for teenage pranks.

He was an old guy, Bridge. Had pictures of his grandchildren taped up all over the sun visor. I knew he wouldn't leave a young woman in a deserted bus station late at night alone.

Risking my life with his own weightless judgements wasn't something I want to repeat, so now I make sure I look around in between each song, at the very least.

144/106

Another doctor visit, another smoothie reward from PJ, a little banking and the tiniest bit of tax filing this morning before Lochlan lost his nerve and called me in. Caleb went from looking so content to looking fierce, agitated and unamused as he escorted me out to the driveway where Loch was pretending to clean out the truck. Loch is in that sweater and his favorite jeans that hang off his butt and make him look too thin but somehow it's how I know him best and I smile as I make my way down the steps. He comes to the bottom and holds out his arms in case I go ass over teakettle again but it's too warm for the steps to be icy.

My smoothie was lunch. Breakfast was leftovers. I'd like to paint but I don't know what. I'd like to finish listening to Strawberry Swing, the song that was on when I left Caleb's house, and I'd like to have a nap in front of the fire because these pills make me a little drowsy and my blood pressure is still way too high for anyone to be happy. I was told to call immediately if I have any fluttering or pounding or faintness when I get up suddenly so I've become a little blonde turtle with my sudden movements, where before you would whip around and I'd be gone and you'd say Where's she go? It's how I managed to steal so many wallets on the midway back in the good old days. Though the ones I steal nowadays have far more money in them, that's for sure. I have to keep the boys on their toes and my own talents fresh, as it were. When we came back inside I put Caleb's wallet on the counter just inside the door. But not before taking all the money out of it.

I'm buying dinner for everybody, I think. Wow.

The Penny to his Medusa.

Last night's whiskey and courage went long past dark and into wavery, drunken, dangerous territory for some of us. Including the Devil, who watched us closely, me and Loch, proclaiming us adorable more than once. We sat quietly by the fire sometimes, and sometimes danced and sometimes laughed at the radio play on the stereo. We went outside to watch the rain and we almost gave in to his invitation to extend the night when somewhere we found a crumb of self-control (learned so recently but maybe not) and politely declined.

Tomorrow I'll come by and we can swap Henry things and look at the taxes. It's almost February. Time to do up T4s for the locals. I catch myself trying to make things up to him to soften the blow.

Or just stay on.

Sorry. Not a good idea.

On the contrary.

Nothing changes, does it?

Again, on the contrary, Lochlan is learning to roll with it if you step outside of your boundaries.

No, he isn't.

We should test him. Better yet, bring him with you.

And let you eat him alive? Never again.

Caleb shows his teeth briefly and then the levity is gone in a flash. Sam is standing behind me. I can feel it.

Bridge, come back in. Loch, you too.

I'm having a great time being talked about, Sammy. Loch is lit from within. He's in slow-motion, liquor is mud to him. It paralyzes and calms him like nothing else.

Let's go.

Ah. I should give you a stipend for being her keeper now?

If no one else is around, maybe. August and Joel have gone home. PJ made sure the kids were ready for bed and then crashed in his room. Duncan is watching TV downstairs with Ben. No one would have saved us, truth be told.

What is she worth to look the other way this evening?

Far more than you might guess. She's been working hard. Don't try and mess with it right now. The newness of it has barely worn off.

Sam, the newness of you hasn't. This is dogma. She belongs with me.

She belongs with them.

I was first. I'll be last. You shouldn't stick your nose in where it doesn't belong.

Bridget, you ready to go inside? You've got to get some sleep. You too, Loch.

We nod but continue to stare at Caleb. I always wait for the figure as he tries to buy his way in.

But he doesn't. Not tonight. He's right, Doll. I'll see you tomorrow. Get some rest.

Sam looks relieved. I reach up and kiss the Devil's cheek and burn against the stubble. Oíche mhaith, Diabhal.

Neamhchiontach, coladh sámh.

Lochlan snarls mildly at Caleb on his way past but says nothing. By the time he thought of something, he'd be upstairs anyway and saying it in a language near no one can understand. The midnight ramblings in English/Gaelic/Romanian/Scottish Outrage are usually broken and lose their efficacy quickly when pickled.

Caleb smiles. Still adorable, he tells Loch. See you both tomorrow. 

He never is happy when I'm out of his sight.

(Back to business on a Monday morning and damn. These drugs though.)

It's Robbie Burns Day which means Ben has been interrupting this day with horrifyingly regular recitals with his bagpipes out on the telescope platform and PJ and I spent half the morning procuring haggis and finally found some thanks to the creepy butcher who said he makes extra for the last minute types like us.

Huh?

I'm not last-minute. I swear I remembered just after breakfast instead of three weeks ago like I should have. I went and got some fresh scotch and some fixings to go with the haggis. Like steak because..well, haggis. It's cooking now and it smells delicious. I just don't...well, like eating the parts you're supposed to throw away. I tried to negotiate down to veal-stuffed pasta but he wouldn't budge.

Daniel and Schuyler went and offered magnificently to lead the dinner after I abandoned the procedure halfway through last years Burns Night on account of the overbearing thought of having to eat this meal when for me, eating turkey is a feat of courage only reserved for the most special of occasions, like Easter and Christmas. I also had the flu last year this time. Go figure.

But this is a special occasion, he insists. Lochlan is so excited. He put on his kilt instead of jeans first thing and is already coming up rash, more red than usual thanks to the rough wool. I won't go near him or I'll be red too but I will cook this if he wants it and organize this night to rival what I hope will be an equally exciting and revered St. Patrick's Day later this spring. The war is on.

My girl, she's airy, he begins.

Oh, shut up already.

Overwhelm.

I've reached that stage of exhaustion where it takes a supreme effort not to sit slack-jawed and vacant-eyed at the dinner table or in conversation or when I'm sitting by myself.

Nolan is gone. Claus went too. The old Russian doctor came by this morning and gave me some probably-not-a-good-idea pills for my headaches and thus it seems this week will be shrouded in fog. Even the ghosts are disappointed as the Devil is elated at how things turned out. How well I stood my ground. How well I balanced on the edge of life, good and bad, between the past and the future, between the buried and me.

Between Ben, Loch and Caleb.

I'm not sure Caleb is going anywhere. This wasn't supposed to be a magic fix, it was a beginning, a shift in the wind that might lead to a smoother existence down the road or maybe nothing will change. I don't know. Half the time I couldn't hear what anyone was saying because it rained so hard it drowned everything else out. And now both Nolan and Claus are gone again and yet Sam, Joel and August remain. I'm trying to figure out how to keep everyone happy while living within Lochlan's limits, protecting myself from the Devil and still being permitted access to my ghosts. Then they get all mixed up and I wind up living within the Devil's limits while protecting myself from the ghosts and being permitted access to Lochlan.

I do it to myself. I know that. I never said I had it all. I never said I had it all together. I never said I understood why the forbidden is so attractive or why it's so easy to ignore the danger Caleb brings but some things are just meant to be figured out over time. Even if time sometimes skips, drags and runs flat-fucking-out.

Bridget Reilly versus the world.

Sickening, weakening
Don't let another somber pariah consume your soul
You need strengthening, toughening
It takes an inner dark to rekindle the fire burning in you
Ignite the fire within you

When you think all is forsaken,
Listen to me now
You need never feel broken again
Sometimes darkness can show you the light

I'm a little overwhelmed, both at the support around me and the vehemence they share towards this collective, up close where you can see the dents the words leave in their souls. I regard their souls with such fascination, since I don't have one of my own to inspect, turning them over in my hands, exclaiming at the reflections, the imperfections, the uniqueness of each one. Each one is a work of art. Each one is so beautiful I want to cry. Each one is tethered here on chains. Each one seems completely, one-hundred-percent sure of this even on days when I say we should take it all apart again and walk the fuck away. They say it stands. No matter what.

Is this your favorite song? Ben asks on the fifteenth play through in a row.

Yes.

Fuckit.

She tied you to her kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

I would rather be blind than deaf.

Lying on the floor in the dark this morning protected from the torrential rains, I've actually got a studio version of Lochlan playing Hallelujah and singing along. He sounds nothing like Jeff Buckley. His voice is softer and more clipped. Deeper. Slower. Accent in force. Guitar hesitant and he messes up in three different places but it was a sound test from last week and I grabbed it before they could clear it off and do something else. I fall in love with voices before I'll even notice anything else. That was how I imprinted on Loch. He yelled first the night that stupid hockey ball knocked me down and changed my destiny. I was eight. I didn't know any better. They should have. This is a mess.