Pink bunny suits (this is not patronizing, Matt, I promise.) (Not our Matt.)

You're technically second only to Jesus, and Ben is jealous.

Lochlan just snorts, because he's used to this. Used to being passed over for what he calls infatuations and ideals that will pass in time but this time is going on decades now, if you want to be technical, and we are, because I said we are, second word of the day. Look. See?

After all the big scary Pacific Northwest bugs and the fine highwire act of late and staring down fall and the long slow slide into little sleep and crowding ghosts and not nearly enough coffee and searching for radio stations on an overheated horizon I stayed in bed this morning. No rush to get up. No plans until later.

I rolled over and pulled my headphones on. Hit play on a mislabeled CD called 'Deluxe CD 2' because the boys are lazy and when we pooled into what is now the developed world's largest private iTunes library it became a bit of a mess. But there halfway down the page was the biggest midyear Christmas present I've ever seen.

9. Prime Time Deliverance (Acoustic)

OH. WHAT? Bridget's an ACOUSTIC VERSION MONSTER. BRING THEM ALL TO ME.

The CD is now labelled properly. In A Coma (Disc 2). And Matthew Good is my spirit animal. Though Sam said spirit guide might be kinder, and he would be correct, as Matthew's voice has been like a warm hand on my back where Jesus was nowhere to be found more than once. He's like a familiar face always there in a sea of strangers, a comforting melody in a room full of uncomfortable sounds, a hopeful feeling in a hopeless minute.

So when people say music saved their life, take them seriously. It did. Maybe you don't have to bear the weight, Matthew, if it's a burden. I know you have your own burdens to carry but know that at some point those words you put out there into the ether set to music found their way into someone else's soul and got stuck hard enough to cause permanent healing. It can be symbolic.

(Not infatuation, just profound gratitude, for if I had never spun that radio dial I never would have heard your voice way back when. Kind of like this morning spinning through random lists on my phone. It's fate.)

MORE FUCKING BUGS.

Tasted the first grapes. Ben broke a tiny bunch off and held them up over my face, and an earwig promptly fell off from somewhere in the middle, unseen, right into my open mouth.

I didn't know I could scream so loud.

After I was done spitting and pawing at my face and trying to throw up, I mean.

You got it, he said, pointing at a lovely splash on a concrete block. I look closely and see a crushed HALF.

WHERE'S THE OTHER HALF? 

You probably ate it. 

WHAT.

They're supposed to be full of protein. 

Cue more screaming.

Ben ate a few to show me it was no big deal. Jesus Christ. That just made the screams compound on top of one another. I don't know what he was thinking. It took almost an hour and the contents of four houses of people running out to the yard to get me from the screaming to the mildly-hyperventilating but-still-can't-speak stage.

We're going to spend the rest of the day sharpening our pitchforks and making as many torches as we can before dark. The war is ON.

Making plans.

School starts in a week. Ruthie has her University freshman orientation, and Henry has a two-hour find-your-homeroom/meet-the-new-admin-faces for Grade Eleven. I'm ready. They're ready. We had a fantastic summer. It was too warm. We did a lot without going all that far. We still have a lot to do. Ruth and Lochlan's birthdays span the upcoming week. I might perish from this heatwave and in between, yes I found pretty much every single thing on Ruth's ridiculous scavenger-hunt of a birthday list that I've been chipping away at since June.

The last thing arrived yesterday in the mail and she works the next two nights straight so I can get all the wrapping done. I'll bake on Saturday. Sunday is family day. She picks the meal, we have cake and presents. She'll pick a day to have her friends over to eat burgers, swim in the pool and watch horror movies if they can find a day clear for all of them with their jobs, university schedules and obligations, and then we take a deep breath and celebrate Lochlan's birthday on Tuesday, but probably Monday instead, since Tuesday is the first day of routine again and will be crazy.

He is easy to shop for. We don't really do presents so much. Never really have. He loves a good meal, a good drink and the speeches we make. He loves fire. He loves the dark. He loves fire in the dark. He loves me, and the kids and his friends and this life and he'll probably be a sappy drunk but we'll celebrate 18 and 52 in style. The way we always do.

Chickens can't swim.

I'm swimming with the Devil this morning. It's forty degrees in the shade and the sea feels like a bathtub. Hardly refreshing though it's not as if we are here for R&R. Caleb swims for sport, for fitness, for endurance. Caleb is one of those super-pro athletes who does everything from long-distance running to triathalons to hockey to cross-country skiing to twenty-eight thousand rounds of golf before brunch. He always has the right gear, it all matches even, he knows all the right terminology and he knows everyone in all the sports and they know him. It's a little disconcerting. It's downright weird but at the same time I like it better than if he were Mr. White Collar twenty-four hours a day. Did I mention he rides as well? Horses and motorcycles. He's in to freaky sex. He likes chocolate and romantic movies. He buys scented candles for when I'm over. He holds the fucking door open every single time.

The guy's perfect on paper.

Off paper, well, I warned you.

I should have worn a spare bikini because it's so hot out but when ocean swimming I wear a Nike tank suit. It's purple and navy and it covers everything and it's highly appropriate and it yet OF COURSE I brought my loud mermaid towel because I'm like that. There are the remains of glitter temporary tattoos on my legs and arms and I'm streaky white after Duncan insisted on the 60 Sunblock and put it on me too thickly.

In other words, nothing matches.

I can't keep up with Caleb anyway. I'm still technically a novice swimmer, but much better than I was and I don't start to panic until we pass the end of the breakwater and I look down and I can't see anything and I start thinking of Cole's monsters and Caleb tells me to breathe, that along here it's mostly clean, dredged bottom, mostly small rocks, like the beach over at Whytecliff. That I know better than to think there are sea monsters for all the deep dives I have done from these cliffs.

But I can't do it.

I turn toward shore and forget all my moves, falling back on a mental paralysis that leaves me paddling like a dog, biting my lip not to cry and wishing I had never come out here this morning, that he's a bully and a savage and that I don't need his shit, that if I have issues after all this time and he can't understand or accept them, then someone else will. Anger slowly absorbs my fear and by the time my feet touch the rocks again I'm okay and he's right behind me anyway, full of apologies.

He follows me right to the rock with our towels.

You don't have to come up. 

I don't swim alone. 

I'll wait here and watch you then. 

It's fine, I think we've had enough for one day.

Sorry. 

Bridget, don't be. I understand. I think you did terrific. If you want this is something we can work on. 

You're going to help me learn to conquer my monsters? I laugh.

This one, I can. 

I think I'm good, thanks. Maybe bring John or someone who can keep up. 

Bridget, stop for a minute. 

Why? 

You did wonderfully. I know it's hard. I'm proud of you. I'm thrilled that you leave a trail of glitter in the water, and that you have a rainbow mermaid towel and that you lose your shit thinking of sea monsters the minute you can't touch bottom. I'm happy you offered to come with me anyway, and I'm touched that you worked so hard to try to keep your shit together when you were freaking out. I want to know if a drink would make it better. Maybe we can each go home, shower, change and meet back on my patio for a nerve-stabilizer and maybe talk about some dinner plans in an hour? 

I nod.

Oh, and for the record. Bridget? I would have preferred the bikini too. 

I don't think it fits you. 

He laughed out loud.

Er...Tarantula Jesus.

We started in the camper and ended in the bedroom because Benjamin came out and he doesn't fit in the camper so we left the door open and were promptly joined by a spider the size of my fucking FACE which elicited no small amount of screaming from me and I may have said the next time I go out there without a blowtorch in hand there will be snow on the ground.

The spiders here are huge. HUUUUUGGEEEEEEEE. Ugh.

On the upside, going in the house led to ice cream sundaes in bed and binge-watching Ozark in the buff and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Unless you ask Sam, who popped in on his way home from church. We invited him to join our naked sugary Netflix binge but he only frowned and pointed out our glaring absences.

Sorry, Sam. Bridget saw a spider the size of her face-

The SIZE of my FACE-

And so she's traumatized so we're having a pajama day to cheer her up. 

I don't see any pajamas, Sam says wearily, tugging at his tie.

I ate them, Ben says helpfully and Sam giggles. Ben grins. He likes being the one who cheers everyone up.

Don't miss next week, it's your pumpkin spice service. The back to school one. 

We won't. I promise as I roll my eyes at his description.

Is the show good? 

The BEST. 

What happened to the spider? 

I'm pretty sure it screamed back and ran off across the lawn. 

Great. So no more bare feet in the grass? 

No, we can still do that, but just remember your pitchfork and torch. 

Okay, gotcha.

A cure for wanderlust.

Hey. 

I'm coming. It's late. I need to get dinner started, I know. I was stalling maybe. I get overwhelmed and then I procrastinate.

No, I was going to tell you, we've got pizza downstairs. 

Really? 

It's Saturday night, and it's almost forty degrees. You're not cooking. Do you want to go down and eat in the kitchen or I can bring some up for us? 

(Ruth is working and Henry's at a sleepover so it's not like we're willfully bowing out of family dinner or anything).

Maybe we could eat out front. 

Or in the hammock. Take the whole pitcher of lemonade and a box of pizza and barricade ourselves in the hammock for the night.

Why don't we just take it to-

The camper-

The camper.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We smile at each other stupidly because suddenly it's 1982 and all we have in the world is a stupid pizza, some cold lemonade and each other and we're so happy we can't even stand it. He always could fix things. Better than anybody.

Raisin hell.

August is going full-bore today. Not in the fun way, either. He sat in a chair on the other side of the living room and told me I could sit anywhere I wanted. So I curled up in bed with a granola bar.

(My hands just kept on going there, and I wrote granola bard. Now I have this vision of an old hippie standing in the sun with his grey dreads mixing into his beard quoting Shakespeare while he talks to the skull of a baby goat and I want to draw him before it goes away.)

If you could do anything today, what would it be, besides get crumbs in my bed which you know I really don't like?

I would have brunch on the beach, go for a quick swim, finish my book and then come back up, tracking sand all through the house, empty my pockets of shells onto the counter beside the sink, leave all the doors and windows open and the lights on, have a shower, put on a comfy sundress and cook a light supper while drinking a bottle of wine and listening to music. 

How is this different from any other day? 

I lock my doors. Also I don't really like wine all that much.

So security is a concern, and you've forgone the wine for whiskey and water. 

Where are you going with this? 

What's keeping you from doing this? 

No one's up for brunch. Everyone had breakfast, or is still asleep. I can't cook a light supper while drinking wine or whiskey because there's too much work to be done and as hard as I try to track sand into the house by the time I get up here there isn't much left. 

What do you get from that explanation? 

Well, clearly my first-world problems consist of having to exist within everyone else's schedule and being too far from the beach! Way to make me feel like a spoiled brat. I want to simplify my life, not resent it, August! 

How would you simplify it? 

We've had this discussion before. Y'all live up here together. I move down to the beach to my own cabin. I come visit whenever I want. Perfect solution. Okay, are we done? I have to start dinner soon-

Sit down, Bridget. 

I get back into his bed, crumbs and wrapper and all and pull the covers up over my head. I give out a mournful sigh and hear him chuckle. I yell asshole just loud enough for him to hear it.

Let's talk about PJ. 

Isn't that a conflict of interes-

Only if I'm interested, and I'm not-

Oh, wow. I think I'll go home now. Thanks for the granola barb. (Now I'm picturing him stabbing me all over with pointy sharp things that hurt, like he's filed peanuts and raisins into shivs, which, let's face it, that's pretty much what he's done here.)

Bridget, sit down. 

Only if PJ is off the list of appropriate subjects. 

Okay, let me do it this way. Did anyone give you a hard time about him?

Yes. 

Who? 

Caleb. 

What did he do? 

Sent a dozen alternating threatening and disappointed texts to me and threatened PJ physically. 

How did that go? 

How do you think? PJ laughed and put him on his ass. May I please go now?

On one condition. If you want to talk about PJ, you know where I am.

And if you want to stop kidding yourself about how much you love me, same. Because you're not the kind of man who sleeps with someone for kicks, but nice try. Again, thanks for the granola scar (yup, ruined for LIFE.).

If you're cranky and you know it *CLAP*

Let it rain until it floods
Let the sun breathe life once more
Reborn

Sam found me on the way upstairs, maybe looking for a little redemption of his own. He put his arms up to embrace me and I put my hands up to block my face, suddenly completely unwilling for the first time in my life to accept another moment of affection in a way that isn't me. I backed up until I hit the wall and slid down until I was on the floor.

Who were you with. It's an order. The longer Sam lives here the more his anger comes out sounding exactly like Caleb.

Because apparently it's never my fault. But I'm not outing anyone today and PJ didn't do anything wrong.

I shake my head. I'm just really tired and I can't do this right now.

Come with me, I'll get you to your room.

I know the way, Samuel. Please. I'll see you later. Look, I've been up all night and I'm just really touchy. I need some sleep and then I'll be human again but I'm at that barf-stage of being tired and it's the least-pretty and I don't need you to see it. Please. 

Can we talk later? 

Of course. 

Love you, Bridge. 

Me, too. He watches as I get up and head upstairs. Once I close the door I let out a huge long sigh and burst into fresh tears. Oh my God why am I so tired? Why did that whole exchange go so wrong so quickly?

What's wrong? 

Lochlan's sitting on the bed. Jeans and a rumpled flannel shirt he was wearing when I last saw him show me he didn't sleep yet either.

Sam just left? 

He slept here. I just booted him. I worked all night on the camper. No point sleeping alone. But when I came back here he was. He laughs but it's bitter. I figured you'd come back eventually but you never did. 

Sorry. 

Well, that's a singular excuse I didn't really expect. 

PJ didn't pay attention to the time. 

You were pretending you were Nukes? 

No-

It's fine, Bridge. I used to do that to. When I was with Keira. We actually were a nuclear family for a heartbeat. I'm not upset about it. I didn't think you'd be gone for so long, that's all. Where is he? 

Sleeping. 

He nods. We should do the same. What happened with Sam? 

He made a move and then got oddly quiet-ragey. 

Sam's having a rough go. Just treat him gently. 

He should do the same for me! 

He does, Peanut. Don't cry. Come get some sleep. You'll feel better in a couple hours. 

I sure hope so. Remind me not to do this anymore. 

I have been for a while now. But he said it so softly it took my brain a while to piece the sounds together, discern the meaning and deliver it to me as I fell off the edge of my consciousness, and I didn't get to respond.

[Probably NSFW] Choose your own adventure.

Oh my dear
Heaven is a big bang now
Gotta get to sleep somehow
Bangin' on the ceiling
Bangin' on the ceiling
Keep it down

He put the big headphones around my neck, dialed up the music and smiled in the dark.

Come sit on your throne, Bridge, he laughs.

And then he stretched out on his back, pulling me up onto his face until I had a great vantage point of the stars from somewhere between his nose and the end of his beard.

At some point his left hand came up and pulled the back of my head down and his right hand came up and covered my mouth. The headphones slid off my skull and the world got quiet again, save for my whimpers and cries but eventually those faded too, replaced with competing heartbeats, as they tried to sync up like all the other parts of us, save for our faces. He's too big and I end up tucked into a warm place just underneath the same beard. It's okay though, eventually he dumps me on my face, lifts my hips up and takes a sweet but somewhat degrading turn, always tempered with one hand underneath me, just so it's fair. Just so I'm screaming into his pillow. Just so he gets those bragging rights he can't even share because he's not like that, because this is rare, because we don't technically have a thing.

By the time the stars fade into sunrise, he pulls me back up, untangles the headphone cord which had left me in a danger that I'm not sure he was all that concerned about, frankly, and then pushes me flat on my back for one more go. I can hardly keep my eyes open. The rush of oxygen and adrenaline is sapping whatever strength I have remaining but he is wired. He holds himself up above me, makes it hurt just a little, makes it slow, makes it beautiful, moving to a crawl, even harder until I think I might cry from exhaustion and then suddenly he switches to beast mode and I think I might cry from fear and then he squeezes me so hard up against him I worry I might burst and then I won't cry at all because there will be nothing left of me. Such a rollercoaster of emotions as I am kissed and placed gently back on earth before he stretches out beside me with a mighty sigh and a ridiculously sleepy grin.

He went a good six hours or more over his time but I didn't have the heart to tell him to stop. I didn't have the heart to leave. I didn't have the heart to let go. He represents normal to me. Always has. He personifies what would have been a normal life, had life ever been normal. Had I turned to page 67. Had I taken that offer to just marry him instead of anyone else, that he cooks and cleans and can take care of us in a solid, steady and loving way that is completely different and yet completely wonderful too.

I have to go, Padraig.

But he's already asleep. That's how normal he is.

Daniel called it the Muggle Struggle.

Finished.

Four days without music because iTunes up and randomly broke. Just...broke and Lochlan did that terrible thing where he snorted, blamed Firefox (which I had just reinstalled two weeks prior after spending a good six months dealing with crashing and blank webpages in Chrome) and told me to fix it myself.

I did. I just did.

It ate around a fifth of my music, removing random albums altogether, not caring if they were ones I ripped/imported, pirated or bought directly in iTunes. I don't know what the hell happened but I put it all back together (finally deleting all of the Ariana Grande/One Direction stuff from when Ruth was in Elementary School) and then did a back-up.

So I should be good for a day or so. Or an hour or whatever.

(Twenty minutes, I bet.)

I break things with my mind. I think it's the electricity. The random emotional energy that spills out because there's too much and it has nowhere to go. That's why key fob batteries die so fast around me, laptops up and spontaneously fail and I can make streetlights turn off just by pointing to them.

It scares Lochlan. That's why he's so brusque. That and he doesn't want to spend any more time messing with my machine after he misheard me a few days ago when iTunes started acting up and he gave me a playlist for every single artist. That elicited a mighty anguished wail. Oh my God. I hate playlists. Well, except for sex playlists. But I can't hear them anyway so nevermind.

(I deleted the playlists, one by one. It took a long time. Jesus Christ. My music collection should not be digital save for the fact that I would have to drive a U-Haul to carry it around with me otherwise. I used to have to stand there for forty-minutes in the morning picking a tape to bring for my bus ride downtown. I was late most days. How do you pick just one? I don't have room to bring extras and the ride's only an hour so there's only time for one album anyway. How can I choose? Every damn day was anguish. Cole would offer to pick for me. I would just swear at him. Nooooooooooo. Just MOVE so I can SEE THE TAPES, FUCKER.)

But this morning I picked up my iPhone and I frowned. Caleb looked at me.

What's the matter?

This feels light. 

He laughed. What are you talking about? 

Sure enough, that fifth of music was missing. But I've put it all back now and the phone feels right again, sitting with the weight of 64.96 GB of music on it. I was ruthless in what I left off, too. I could have loaded over a hundred on it. But once again Lochlan told me it would take me the rest of my life to listen to everything I have on here now and once again I asked him why that's so important while Sam stood very quietly in the doorway.

You can feel the weight of the digital music? 

She's weird, PJ reassures him, as if that answers his question.

Yes, I can and yes I am. Sorry but it's true. But I married a guy who can start a fire by snapping his fingers and that's not supposed to be weird at all, oh no. I get it.

Whatever. It's hot out. I'm going out to plug my phone into the underwater speakers for the pool (tech I adore) and then I'm going to sit at the bottom for a couple hours and see if they notice I haven't made dinner.