Just going to blow up the top of the driveway and I'm all set.

When I was younger I thought that the dog days of summer meant the very end, what we called 'Indian Summer' when the last few days of the season were languid, scorching, bleached-out days in which we could hardly think for the waves of heat broiling down upon our heads, that somehow it was a last burst, if you will.

Now that I'm older and have internet I see it's from July 3-Aug 11 and it means hot days, mad dogs and bad luck, thunderstorms and drought. Fire.

I think I liked my interpretation better, although now Indian Summer is something we no longer say because it's not politically correct and also because the internet says it's in October, a false summer, so to speak so I guess I'm off on all counts but that's okay. Summer still contains so much promise, though of what I don't know anymore. Everything is closed. I stand on circles everywhere I go. I ran out today for an old-Bridget singular adventure (sober, given one hundred minutes exactly). I went to the store to pick up eggs and lettuce, I got gas for my Jeep since the price gets higher and higher until the long weekend is a memory, and I went to see my favorite hairstylist (the one I only see every two or three years because Daniel loves to play stylist and who am I to deny him?) who cut ten inches off my hair. I have a hella cute pixie bob now which makes me look shorter and smaller than ever but I also don't have to worry about it taking four hours for my hair to dry nor do I have to gather it up and drape it over people's arms so they don't pull on so much. I can skip conditioner if I want and I also have much better baby bangs now, because I cut them myself after Daniel didn't do them short enough and egads, bad idea. She fixed them. I don't know how but they're longer now.

 I feel a little better. I wore my mask the whole time. I saw a lot that didn't. Most people seem content to skip the mask, the arrows, the circles, the instructions. There is no 'greater good' for them. They are the permanent misery of this summer, the mad dogs, ready to bite. I saw a man get in an altercation outside of a restaurant because he wasn't wearing a mask and got too close to another and it ended after a few minutes of shouting. I saw people driving like fools. I saw everyone trying to feel better but in this heat with everything that's going on there's no chance of that.

I came home with my prizes and my new look and everyone loved it. It's me. It's better like this. They took the groceries out of my arms and gave me hugs as I told them about how I *almost* came home but then finished what I set out to do (bravery is hard to come by for me) and am more relaxed for it.

I'm not leaving again until actual Indian Summer though. Mid-  to late September, we were always told but probably into October too, if that's what the official record says, to be certain.

Cabin in Candlelight version.

It feels like a Friday morning even though it's only Thursday, hot and dusty, dry and burning-bright. A day for long drives down familiar roads only to jump out and explore abandoned barns with glass bottles of orange crush, gulped down like water while I shake out polaroids and step on Lochlan's shoelaces, not paying attention, getting too close but never close enough.

God, I miss those days. But today is even better.

It's a day for bacon and eggs in the big skillet, fresh hot coffee and black rye bread with last summer's grape jelly. A day for very short dog walks (down the driveway and back, his legs are five inches tall, it's enough, trust me), and patio umbrellas and water-misters attached to the hose. Not-hot chocolate (thanks to Matt, who pulled out this surprise recipe which is a weird mousse-ice cream hybrid but he calls it frozen hot chocolate) to chill us from the inside out and mackerel and salad, picked from the garden being prepared for tonight's dinner.

I am blessed. Everyone is healthy, employed and safe. Everyone is happy. Everyone is navigating this strange time with grace and aplomb and I now try to take my cues from them in order to learn and to grow.

When the photos develop every one is of us, slightly out of focus, not quite ready but smiling even as we wait to get a cue like say cheese but selfies don't work like that. The pictures he'll stick on the dashboard of the truck where they will fade in the sun, melting in the heat into an unrecognizable but precious memory all the same.

Love you to the bones.

Open fire on the needs designed
On my knees for you
Open fire on my knees desires
What I need from you

I was trying to figure out the words. I couldn't do it drunk, I couldn't do it sober. He was patient. He finally got irritated enough to deploy the worst nickname he has for me and I hate it so much. He started calling me it when I wouldn't snap out of a undeserved mood or wouldn't listen to reason after an appropriate amount of time.

He's not saying on the needs, he's saying underneath. I think all of these lyrics are posted wrong.

Okay, Sad Clown. That's enough of that song for now. 

I only played it eight times. Okay, more like twenty. It's a very Nirvana song though it's Silverchair. It's a good song. It came out the very first year of my life that I didn't run off to the circus for the season. The summer after I met Jake. The summer Ruth was born.

That's twenty-one years.

I'm not allowed to listen to sad songs? It's a challenge. It's also hot out still and Lochlan has long come down off his own lighting and we have resorted to lazy stabs, half-assed verbal punches and stinging insults. It's the death by a thousand cuts and we've been doing it since just before Daniel Johns was born and would go on to sing that song I can't honestly confirm the words to.

These are the hardest parts. When I just can't focus long enough, just can't hear it well enough so it, like me, gets louder and more annoying, a shriek on the breeze, a pained soul looking for a place to rest and finding so many but there's no peace in them.

I know what I'm supposed to do, it's just a very hard pill to swallow at this point. It didn't turn out like it was supposed it. This isn't how the song really goes.

Bridget. Please stop. 

Or what.

I'll become a sad clown too. And I hate playing that role. So much. It's a whisper rising in waves like the heat off the pool this morning.

Fair enough, I whisper back. I'll call a truce for this day but I can't promise I won't pick up my knives and my words tomorrow and we'll resume.

(For the record, these days the only unproblematic song in my life is Owl City's Fireflies. ROTFL.)

Drunk on stars and juniper perfume.

I've been living in the shade by the far side of the pool, staying hydrated (with gin, sorry, this is a good vintage) and wearing bikinis under pretty sundresses when necessary, and absolutely nothing when not. I've been cooking elaborate, wasted dinners and spending hours talking about life and love with Ruth and Henry, and I've been drowning my memories in the fire of every sunset to cross my path, only to see them resurrected like phoenixes in the light of the next new day.

This isn't working. Maybe I should drink mor-

Or maybe less, Lochlan is so helpful. So helpful. Content to stand back and watch as always, a cuckhold soul I would trade for no one else at this point, since, as Ben points out, he's enabling me to a fault, something even Ben didn't do.

Oh, but Ben's a liar too. Ben is the original watcher, as long as I can remember. Caleb is a go-getter, Ben is a sit-back-and-see-what-happens, but Lochlan is a steady flame. You can't blow him off, put him out, smother him or make him cold.

Thank God. I tested him and he's holding and that brings me to my knees with a gratitude you don't even know the depth of.

But as I said. It's hot. And I'm usually drunk. Because it's summer and if you don't take advantage of it it's gone before you know it and the cool dark early nights of fall will close in tight around you like a vise.

I don't like the heat.

Right now I'm...

Plotting to build a walk-in ice freezer just in the middle of the driveway because at least there's some shade up there but this is getting ridiculous. I'd call Emmett to build it but honestly I don't want to deal with anything else today. Too hot. Sitting beside the cold air vent. Wishing on a frozen star.

So hot. I want to barf.

Heatwave Jesus and the slow to realize.

This morning is beautiful. I'm painting flowers on the southwestern side of the garage. I'm watering plants. I'm going to harvest the potaotes today and maybe have another beer. I'm trying to self-care without instructions. Then I'll sit at the bottom of the pool for far longer than anyone's comfort like every teenage boy in every movie ever made when the going gets tough.

But first, coffee. Coffee and an admission that I did indeed go looking to quiet my curiosity last evening but my curiosity quieted me instead, as we stayed up super late watching old movies and when I finally had enough and went up I knocked softly on Caleb's door and then finally let myself in. His rooms were dark and he was asleep in bed, covers thrown back, ceiling fan looping gently overhead. I let myself out again and went down the hall to my own rooms, asleep before I even got undressed.

Sam is playing Podcast Jesus again in deference to the coming heat wave, choosing to have people stay in and listen over sitting in a stuffy church trying to stay cool with masks on, baptized in hand sanitizer instead of saltwater, and I don't blame him one bit. He asked if he should just do a standard sermon and keep it formal but the answer to that suggestion is always no. Sam is better when he just talks from the heart, keeping things fluid and casual. I think I could listen to his voice all day and then I remember I can. I grab my gardening gloves and my airpods and head out to the garden. I never thought before to bring my music outside but on Sunday mornings this is even better, I think. I can show Jesus my efforts and he can call it a miracle and do nothing to help and I'll point out the only reason we're both here is because of his dad's good graces and he'll laugh and tell me I'm probably, no, one hundred percent right.

Bridget don't float.

I'm on the biggest floating chair, it's Ben's and he loves it because his weight doesn't sink his backside into the water like most of the other floats so I can bring a drink, sunglasses, a good book and even my phone (if no one's looking). I got out there early to get it. Ben won't go outside in this heat but I wanted at least thirty minutes with my Vonnegut (the Ms. Rosewater one, bought it and promptly lost it and found it the other night) and some silence before the point comes alive. The boys always want to build things, do landscaping, work on or clean trucks and then play hard in the pool before drifting off to rest or watch movies after dinner so I like to wake up very early sometimes and have some quiet time before then.

Except they won't leave me alone. Lochlan can see me from his chaise up above and Caleb is up and dressed in a light tank and his swim shorts, sitting at the other end of the pool in the shade on a lounger, checking his bank accounts, probably.

What are you drinking? He asks without looking at me.


Lemonade, I say. It's the truth, though it's eight in the morning and it's Bad Tattoo lemonade on an empty stomach in the sun.

(Why?

Why not?)

As I said. My sole focus right now is managing this anxiety before it begins to manage me.

What is that?

Busted. I show him the can. It's a pretty label.

Bridget, you haven't had breakfast yet. Also, what is that?

I said already. Lemonade. 

Kind of lowbrow. I can make you a mimosa-

Lowbrow? I lean forward in my chair to stare at him. Have you met me? 

You know what I mean. 

Not sure that I do. Want me to go don a Valentino so I can float to your standards? 

Neamhchiontach-

Oh, fuck off.  I slump down in the chair and tune him out.

But I forgot he's in his trunks and within a second he is beside me. Did you tell me to fuck off?

Is that lowbrow enough since you're slumming with the freak today?

I meant the stupid drink. It's not a reflection on you. You have the world at your fingertips so I was pointing out I could get you a nicer drink. 

I have the drink I want. 

Noted. 

Stop curating me. 

'Curating' you? 

Yes, dressing me up and putting accessories in my hands that you approve of. Just let me make my own way. 

Ah. This is not about me. 

I'm sorry? 

Lochlan's parental tendencies come back like PTSD whenever I try and lead-

Leave him out of it. 

Boy, you are cranky. Let me know if you need another. He nods at my can and strides back to the steps, leaving the pool.

I will. Thank you. I say it politely and return to Vonnegut. I don't know if this book is even my thing but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

And never ever tell me to fuck off ever again, he warns.


Or what?

You don't want to find out. 

Well, now I'm curious. Dammit.

On the crowning of a new memory thief: Introducing the memory keeper.

(Instead of stealing them he brings them back as they try and run.)

But I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss
I knew you'd haunt all of my what-ifs
The smell of smoke would hang around this long
'Cause I knew everything when I was young
I knew I'd curse you for the longest time
Chasing shadows in the grocery line
I knew you'd miss me once the thrill expired
And you'd be standing in my front porch light
And I knew you'd come back to me

On a smoky, rain-soaked Friday morning we were chasing nostalgia like a fox through the meadow, tripping over clumps of wildflowers, laughing at each other, stealing kisses and hearts with abandon, without responsibility, having left the weight of the fortune teller's premonitions at the last rest stop, on the curb before you pull up to the pump to spend your last twenty in the fierce humidity of late summer.

My sweatshirt is three sizes too big and has ADIDAS written on it. It's black with white stripes down each arm. It's Lochlan's but I got cold so he took it off and now I trace the goosebumps like a galaxy on his arm while he drives. His face is dreamy, focused on the highway but his mind is a thousand miles away, chasing dreams he's written on paper like promises, promises he'll never keep for the future has rules and none of this is permanent. None of this is real life. None of this will stick around when things get hard. He holds my face in his hands after the sweetest kiss I've ever shared and he says this is a memory we are living real time and he tells me to soak up every last detail, that it is magical and I can conjure it up whenever I want later.

And he was right. 

They sent Sam in in his full emotional armour and then hid behind the fucking door.

Your drinking-

No, I'm not. Okay, well right now I'm not. (Last night I found another bottle of wine and watched Rocketman alone, at the top of my lungs. And cried. And laughed. And swore whenever they approached to tell me to go to bed.)

I mean, we need to discuss the drinking. 

What about it? 

I think it's probably contributing to your anxiety right now. 

I think it's the only think helping me right now, personally. Better to be drunk most of the time and not give a shit then be on edge twenty-six hours a day. 

What are you on edge about, Bridget? Sam looks so kind. Fuck Marry Kill? All of the above, please. I always have a hard-on for kind people who sit and listen while I spool into a frenzy.

What am I NOT on edge about? Everything, Sam. You know this. 

How do we fix this? How can we make things easier?

Let me get drunk. Perfect girl. Problem solved. 

I drank to deal with my problems once too, Bridget. Don't be flip. 

There's a reason all us deep-feelers are raging alcholics, you know. Deep people feel things more strongly. It's harder to keep out the bad. It all just pours in through the cracks and we get overwhelmed. I wish I could stop but it's better this way. 

There are ways to stop. I stopped. 

I just need a new hobby, like you all. Maybe like fucking my landlady!

Bridget-

Sam, saying 'stop worrying' doesn't work. This isn't normal, this is fear. Tied to everything going wrong. 

I know your diagnoses, Bridge. This is worse than usual. 

I have a 'usual'? 

Yes. This is at least fifty percent more. 

Ah. The value-pack Bridget. 

He laughs. My Lord. At least you can laugh. 

Only on the outside. 

What can I do to help?

Just pick up any pieces you find after I implode and put them up on a shelf for safekeeping.

Bridget. We worked so hard on mechanisms and behavioural shifts-

She isn't interested in being comforted or pacified. 

She is you. Stop it. 

Right. She's ten years old and has no power and is scared and sometimes I can't help her! 

But you can. You just won't. 

I can't believe you all sit there so high and mighty telling me not to do the one thing you all did to cope as if there's some magical thought process that I can go through to feel better when none of you could do it. 

We all do it now. We all did the work. I would save you the pain of having to hit bottom before you do the work. 

Exactly how high up am I then? 

Not bottom. 

You don't think?

No, I don't. 

Okay, that's a good start. 

Tell her it's going to be okay. 

I'm the only person that doesn't lie to her, Sam, and I'm not about to change that now. 

Let your light be mine (literally).

Blessed are the weird people – poets, misfits, writers, mystics, heretics, painters, troubadours – for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.
                                                                                             ~Jacob Nordby

Don't worry, Daniel was there too.

And Ben.

What?

I might still be drunk but you're fucking uptight. Why are you reading this if you're shocked? Go read some regular thing then. I really don't care either way but it's on the left-hand side of every page and if you want to follow a freak....then expect them to be freaks, you know what I mean?

***

Ben and Schuyler actually took mild offence to the day-drunk part of the day but once we finished the current bottle we didn't open any more. So between Lochlan and I that's two bottles for two super lightweights and I am definitely still drunk, just no longer disorderly.

Okay, maybe a little.

What's on today, little muffin? Duncan is in fine form this morning as I approach warily, like a rabbit near a lion. My head aches just enough but I don't care, which is my cue that tells me one more drink this morning and I might be right back where I started.

I pour coffee instead. Probably avoiding my Diabhal, I admit.

He on the warpath?

We were with Danny and Schuy yesterday..

Oh. 

Yeah. 

***

Caleb finds me easily. Not like I was hiding. Coffee and (yes, more) champagne in the library with music blasting out through the doors. My motivational playlist that I play when I need a little boost or a good hard shove all the same. PJ is within two rooms cringing so hard at me, as always.

Wonderful Feeling (SWITCHFOOT, NATURALLY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TOO) is blaring from the speakers and he pokes his head in, making me jump a thousand feet. He waves and waits until I dig out my phone from a deep pocket (dresses. with. pockets.) to pause my song.

Bridget. 

Listen. I-

Hey. You're coming out swinging and all I said was your name. It's a greeting. 

Hi. 

Hey. How are you doing?

Hungover. 

You'd never know it with this music blasting. 

Huh? Oh, that's default. 

He nods. Want to go get a greasy breakfast? We can pick it up and bring it back and eat it on the wall. 

I stare at him. Why-

If you don't feel well, I can help fix it. 

But you usually-

I told you I was trying. Taking my cues from Lochlan who is a whole lot more free than I will ever be.

He really doesn't have his possessive tendencies developed enough for them to stick ever. 

No, he does not. Caleb laughs kindly. I'm trying to see that this is okay. 

Is it?

Are you happy?

Depends. 

On my reaction? You clearly don't live by what I endorse, Neamhchiontach. But you are afraid after that fact. Insolent to a fault. As always.

Always and forever, Diabhal. 

So breakfast or not? 

Can I continue my music in the car?

Again, as always. 

Thank you. I'll go get ready. 

He looks so pleased. This is weird. He'll either throw me off the wrong side of the cliff after breakfast or he has already pregamed and poisoned my food. I can pretend I trust him but no way in this hell do I actually trust him one bit.