Proper welcomes.

Angels on the sideline,
Baffled and confused.
Father blessed them all with reason.
And this is what they choose.

Last evening Ben and Ruth got all dressed up and went to a restaurant downtown while I fed Henry and Daniel. This morning Ruth and I ate cereal at the table while Ben and Henry took off for some pancakes down on the strip. It was Ben's idea to help undo some of the more difficult clashes that arise when he's gone for long periods and then comes home and has to fit back in to our family dynamic. It isn't easy but he had smoothed their feathers and quieted their concerns eventually. It will be a learning process for all of us.

It will trigger a new princess complex for a new generation, sure as shooting. Ruthie is doted on by the hunkles anyway. She knows how to manipulate them already. Henry just tries to fit in. But they did enjoy their one-on-one time with Ben and late last night, so did I.

I got ambushed after midnight, over ice cream at the dinner table, Ben took the bowls away and I remained at the table thinking and he returned with a kiss on the tattoo on the back of my neck, the one place that sends shivers to the tips of my toes. He slid his hands around my shoulders and continued the kiss up under my ear and I turned and rested my head on his shoulder as his capable hands pulled me out of my chair and into his arms.

We waged a silent and comical effort to rid each other of the clothing that stood in the way and then when enough of it was on the floor, he pulled me above him into his chair and goddamn it if he didn't just fool me into that coveted moment he's wanted all along. And I let him. But instead of a spectre in the doorway or the sweet and soft warmth of the past, I relished the changes of the present, the cold and angular fierceness of Ben and the strength he keeps inside for these occasions only.

When his hands went around my ears and it was only that epic strength of his keeping me from falling, I cried out and he tightened his hold on me. Before I could voice my preference we were out of the chair and tripping up the steps, kisses falling everywhere and scratches against skin leaving marks to prove it's all real and it is. Once we were upstairs under the warm blankets in the pitch blackness, Ben resumed his unacknowledged plan to take everything back and keep it.

This time when I cried out his hand slid over my mouth. This time when I flinched he held only tighter. This time when I shook with the effort and the exhaustion of the night, he was there with his arms to hold me, and not let go, not leave and not disappear into thin air like the mirage of failed rescues in my history.

This time, we got it right.

Waiting so patiently.

Open up your eyes
Take the devil from your mind
He's been holding on to you
And you're so hard to find

Nolan arrived around six-thirty last evening, a whim leading me to beg him to come into the city for dinner, to bring his guitar and some of the boys would too and I would cook and we could all just embrace the cold night and the warmth we could make within it. PJ stoked up the biggest fire that I've ever seen in the woodstove, and Nolan lapsed into an amusing blend of storytelling, punctuating the action with noises from his guitar that made me laugh.

Soon enough though, the narcolepsy that had chased me through the entire day finally caught up and I remember closing my eyes and leaning my head into the crook of Daniel's arm and hearing the music of the Eagles from Sam's fingers, giving up to the late night because even though I had received a phone call to the contrary, I assumed that based on the hour Ben wasn't able to make it on a plane after all.

I woke up when a familiar stubble brushed against my cheek. I opened my eyes and all I heard was You've had a long day, haven't you? and then he was here and I saw his brown eyes smiling at me and that was it. Lights out.

So while I get zero brownie points for properly greeting my husband after a four-day absence, he's home now and my long week is over.

Thank heavens.

The beach on the kitchen floor.

Manageable with parameters so tight others can hardly breathe, but I do very well, thank you. Open the door and a peal of dissent will rise from my throat, anguish in my eyes. Leave the light off too, if you please, because it's as close as I can possibly get to heaven when I sleep.

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do anymore. I think just keep on moving, one foot in front of the other and just keep a lot more to myself and open up just a little more at the same time. Loosen up but keep it together. I don't understand that.

Today I understand some small things that I've attached to. I have a huge crush on Jesse Hasek's voice this morning, I'm plotting a cake run in the morning because it's been a long time, too long, actually, since there was cake in my house. I need to call around for some prices on some work for the house that can't be done by my jacks of all trades and I'm going to manage a lot of editing this morning, if I can, just to get ahead of my future plans to dominate the publishing world under my own name instead of a made-up one.

We'll be driving outside the city tonight with a telescope to take in comet Lulin. I almost wrote Lupin there. She circles the sky like a wayward toddler star and it will make me feel small and full of perspective about my life and that might last until I can fall asleep, if I'm lucky. Dreams would be nice. Longer darkness would be nice. Unprovoked happiness would be a gift and instead it's an effort and I never fully understood why I'm the one who carries this while you all walk along beside me, lighter and happy until further notice while I fight so hard to pull my mood up off the floor where it languishes.

You think time will fix that?

Then you don't know me at all.

Ben is home late tomorrow night if I'm lucky. For a while. I'm so glad because when he isn't in this house I feel that much more lost and so very alone and it just serves to magnify all the flaws that I bite back and fake some happy for him and then he's still happy instead of concerned and wow, is that ever tiring and please don't throw anything else into the mix because I just can't navigate anything but a few simple steps right now.

So conservative fatalistic optimism is what you get even though you probably came for something else. I don't understand it either. But you're here now, so you may as well come in and if you want to go to the beach with me, that would be great. I have some jars of sand and I'm going to dump them out on the floor and turn on all the lights and play music very loud like I always do and then cry because it just isn't the same and it never will be.

Keep changing your mind.
Like clouds in the sky.
Love me when you're high.
Leave me when you cry.
I know it all takes time.
Like a river running dry when the sun is too bright.

Loops of endless avarice.

I'd say your worst side's your best side
I never hurt anyone
I never listen at all

There's a huge campaign to get me to call off the dogs where it comes to Caleb, you know, since he moved here to be closer to us and to provide whatever the hell it is that he thinks we might need from him, and couldn't I try to just get along for the sake of our family? This is the guilt levelled on me by Cole's parents. Which is lovely but I'm finding here as life goes on that the role of Satan has been filled with someone new.

Lochlan.

A hundred million years ago, when I was fourteen years old and he broke up with me (wow, I just realized how incredibly LOVELY it is that I have this twenty-three year long history of rejection from this man and yet he STILL gets whatever he wants.) he promised that he would look out for me. That he would never not be annoyed by me but he loved me still. Just not enough.

Not. Enough.

Bridget likes a challenge, apparently. Or Loch does. I don't know and furthermore this is one of those things I know I'll regret writing about but again it's here inside my head and it won't leave because it's not getting better and maybe if I just empty it all out and shake the crumbs onto the floor then I can wash the jar and store it away empty and things will be okay.

Then again, maybe I won't.

There's a desperate and pressure-cooker mentality to Lochlan these days that makes me want to rip him into little pieces and scatter them in the river because he clued in sometime around after I married Ben and then Ben and I have had some agonizing growing pains and there's a lot to deal with here. Lochlan saw an opening and threw his hat in the ring. Which was too little too late and yet he still thinks he's going to pull a Jake and wear me down. Even though that isn't what Jake did. Maybe it is to an extent but it really isn't, so no. And sure, writing it out once again puts Ben in his place because the weekend was fiercely beautiful and vaguely painful at the same time.

Lochlan told me last night that Ben should have been a fling, not a commitment and that Ben got greedy and jumped for the brass ring when he wasn't supposed to. I fired back that I've had a commitment to Ben forever, that if we didn't go our separate ways after all the awful things we've done to ruin each other then we're not going to now. And for the love of God don't you come back yet again with the same song for the same dance. Fuck you.

And he brings up the damn photo again.

Which was none of anyone's business to begin with and I'm so pissed right now. They resort to going through my phone because the times I am in control of my own life they don't like it. Lochlan saw a picture of me that Ben took on the weekend and in front of me on the table are two glasses, almost empty. Wine glasses. Two of them. Which means the alcoholic isn't on the wagon and they're all mad because I didn't run from Ben, I didn't rat him out and I didn't say a single word about it. I don't plan to say any more about it here.

And wow, she's doing really good again in so many ways, exactly how much like Cole is Ben going to be? They stroke my hair and whisper that I just need to tell them exactly what's going on and they can protect me from repeating history.

I didn't ask them to. And I find it fascinating that the minute I take over my own control again and exert a tiny bit of independence they all lose their minds.

And it looks like Lochlan wrote that letter but he didn't. Caleb did and it found it's way to my inbox because his email is set up to do that, with help, so that I would have records if he tried to contact any of my friends behind my back. And I'd like to know exactly what Caleb did for Ben that helped further Ben's race to my heart and I'd like to know what Loch thinks he's going to achieve by tearing Ben down almost continuously, as always, in my eyes and I'd really like to know why if I did everything right on the weekend, by not saying a word while Ben sat in front of me and drank wine, not berating him, not helping him get any, not making it my problem and instead focusing on getting what I wanted out of my weekend with him, then why do I feel so helpless when it comes to him? Clinging to the times when he's here and fearing for him when he isn't?

But not lost, oddly enough. And that is what makes Lochlan so crazy.

He can't fix a damned thing and oh, boy, does he ever hate that helpless feeling. Tell me about it. So instead he tries other methods. No more yelling, just his glassy-eyed affirmations that I no longer indulge in because life didn't turn out that way. We're reduced to whispers at four in the morning because we can't just fucking drop it already. Just take what I can give you and let the rest go. Jesus Christ, I need to get off this endless loop.

Enough already. You got Ben's supposed role, take it now and play it to the fullest.

Bridget, it was always supposed to be me, and instead I let you go.

There's no room for you here, anymore, Lochlan, why won't you just go?

Is that what you want? Because you keep saying it, Bridget and yet here we are. So you tell me, is that what you really want?

No.

I'm a coward.

A photo begat a letter.

Didn't write it, didn't receive it, don't have permission to post it. Doing it anyway.

Don't kid yourself that things are different now. The eyes are on both of you but it's such a helpless feeling to watch her. She's like a wounded bird. In her eyes it's there. It follows you. It makes you feel inadequate but larger than life at the same time, doesn't it? She wants you to make it better. She wants you to make her safe. Take away all her worries, repair the damage somehow. She has full confidence that you can. That you will. Don't forget who helped you get to this place where this is even possible.

It's a helpless love she gives you and you're exploiting that, deferring her needs but she doesn't withdraw from you. She didn't ask for what she wants, though. She doesn't point out your shortcomings, they're dragged from her. She is always so fucking slow to give up her secrets or tell yours. She is smarter than this. So are you.

You don't even care. What you care about is touching her skin and capturing her heart so that it can be yours. Are you mad? Are you really this stupid? You should be running but instead you're drawn to her like a moth to a flame and you don't change as much as you adapt to this fucked up life, only you're making it worse. You have no idea how lucky you are. None of them ever did, why should you be different? You should have taken what you wanted and moved on.

So now you hold the biggest responsibility of your life in your arms. Smarten the fuck up or live to regret every breath you've ever taken because if you let go of her again, I'll kill you.

Whirl.

You know those moments when you're dumbstruck at finding out that someone really was listening while you prattle on and on endlessly?

Yes. That was my weekend. Not the prattling on part, the dumbstruck one.

The heated 'cottage' Ben hinted at over his shoulder which I had to jump to catch because he's very tall (don't talk away from me) and I'm very small (and almost deaf besides) was an eight-bedroom picture-perfect house with a path that led straight to the beach and is so not available in the off-season I don't even begin to want to guess what he paid for it. All I was permitted to do was breathe and walk on the beach and draw a little and ask when I wanted orange juice. I was not permitted to wear any clothing after dark, blow out any candles I might come across or worry about anything, which is easier said than done but I might have pulled it off.

Sometimes Ben can be the weirdest, most closed-in person, running ahead of life on a slightly-different plane than everyone else, being strange and difficult and aloof and quiet and hard to read and just when I think he doesn't hear me or notice me or cave to my whims (as extravagant as they can be), he strikes me dumb and hits every last detail and then a whole bunch more that I didn't think to consider. He says he hates the princess complex as much as every other human being I've ever spoken to and then he goes and perpetuates it to the extent that I am left stunned by how much he loves me.

There is a reason the house isn't available year-round. The wind was freezing cold and relentless, ice choked off the surf, the rocks slippery along the breakwater and the nights so dark and desolate you wondered if you reamined on earth, or still yet, if anybody else did.

Ben brought the light with him, having bought fireworks and dozens of candles in town, for the three-point-two seconds we lasted outside after he set off the fireworks and I clapped my hands appreciatively. We ran back to the house and once inside he locked the door behind us and shoved his freezing cold hands under my coat, my shirt, against my skin and ran them down into my jeans and I howled and beat on his arms and he just laughed and pinned me harder until I was begging for things I usually fight against.

Of the thirty-six hours I was AWOL from home, I was in Ben's arms, nose pressed way up against his collarbone for thirty and the other six I was hand in hand with him, our fingers woven together and locked tight in a way that kind of makes you throw away the past in a huge rush of empty cold space that vanishes forever and you were glad you couldn't feel it when it left you because it would have been the most unpleasant experience you could ever imagine.

I never see Ben that relaxed. Ever.

Early this morning I opened my eyes to the fleeting sun and then he blocked it out, looking down at me and saying he wished we didn't have to but he had to get me home and then he had to fly back to where work is right now but on Saturday he is home again. For a while.

We packed up our things and took the house keys to the owner in town and then the happiness drained out of Ben's eyes as we drove to the airport to get on planes again. He didn't have enough time to come all the way home and see the kids. We parted ways at Logan because he thinks somehow I can manage flying home alone, and I proved that I can.

He went straight through to his gate after leaving me at mine and then when there was no time left he came back and kissed me so hard my whole face tingled the whole way home and I came out of arrivals by myself to August's easy hand with my fingers on my lips, once again holding fast to blow those hollow kisses that are never caught.

Just like that.

Did you have a good time?

Yeah, we did. It was incredible.

Then what's wrong?

Not enough time.

Hey, he'll be home before you know it.

I know.

I'm sure they think we just argued the entire time, or maybe we just didn't get enough time to unwind because of the urgency of the trip and the insane timeline we met but they don't really get it. I took a full breath while I was there, a deep one, the kind that fills up your whole body right down to your toes. I didn't think about anything. I left my ghosts at home, which is something I've been learning to do with little success up until now, and I felt like I was normal. Average. Alive, even.

It's amazing how the past three days could fly past but the next three will crawl. Worth it, though. Worth it by far.

Make it up to me.

Choose your words
Choose them wise

Far be for me to ever keep up. All week long I really thought that, judging by the hints Daniel has been dropping, that Ben was planning to fly me to New York to meet up with him for the weekend, that he had asked Lochlan up here to share babysitting duties with Daniel and PJ and also keep me from going left of centre field in the meantime, as in Keep her out of the pantry until I can get her down here with me and apologize to her face for the last time I was home.

I was mentally plotting dresses to pack.

I won't need any of them but we're still taking off.

He's rented a heated cottage somewhere but he won't tell me where, only that it's on a beach and that I won't need any clothes except warm ones for when we get off the plane, and he's got almost two days to make up last weekend to me and all of that will involve fresh memories but he said it in his growly voice and he didn't say fresh, he said flesh and he laughed and then I was laughing too because if anything, we need some fresh memories but I liked his pun anyway.

So yeah, no posts. No kids. No friends. Just Ben. Just me. Just the ocean roaring in my ears and his breath roaring against my skin and with any luck I will melt into a puddle of bliss and come Monday I will be poured back into my usual haunt here at the kitchen table in something resembling the previous Bridget-form, only more rested, less resentful and hopefully gloriously wind and stubble-burned.

High notes.

If you could do anything this weekend, what would it be?

Hug.

Seriously.

Hug.

Bridget, you're impossible.

Oh, now you're making me sad. Can I have a hug?

Sure, I'll be home tonight.

Are you serious?

Yes.

Yay! So why did you ask me what I wanted to do?

Well, I could have gotten us tickets to the Coney Island freakshow and I was waiting for you to say "See a freakshow." when I asked what you wanted to do. Then when you did, I would have said "Well, I just happen to have tickets to one." and then you would have laughed and it would have been cool but it didn't work and now I just have to be witty and cool with no material to work with.

Oh, see, now, someone REALLY NEEDS a hug. Come home, I have lots.

Then why did you say you needed one?

I don't like my own, silly. Only ones from other people.

Mourning routine.

Morning comes so early as I open my watercolored green eyes to greet almost complete darkness, still, at this hour.

I don't need an alarm anymore, I have trained myself to wake up just before my nightmare hour and so the house rests silent and still, cats and children, two to a bed, slumbering through the final few hours before their own days begin. I turn over onto my stomach and grope for my hearing aids, popping in the right one first and then the left, since my right ear is worse, though that is a myth, both ears share the same degree of loss.

I crawl out of bed and pull on the pink flannel bottoms that I discarded to the floor the night before. They seem to go well with Ben's faded black Affliction t-shirt that has become my security blanket when he is away. I sit up slowly and take a sip from the enamel mug on the nightside table. Both the mug and the table are dressed in chipped white paint and heavy use. I'm not sure I won't get lead poisoning from either one, eventually. I make a face at no one at the taste of warm orange juice and stand up, stretching my arms high above my head, then combing my hair away from my eyes in an impatient and often-repeated gesture. I grab my phone off the table and wish for faster nightfall already. First.

I check the kids, finding their lumps under heated blankets where I last safely left them, smaller furry lumps at the foot of each bed that purring greetings on guard and I back away down the hall, turning and heading for the steps, bare feet already sure of where the worst creaks of the wooden floor lie and moving to avoid them.

When I enter the kitchen I push on the ancient ceiling light, a beautiful embellished glass dome that I can't bear to remove, and the harsh glow flickers on full after a two-second hesitation. I squint at the sudden intrusion to the relative peace of the dark and then the phone rings in my hand, a buzzing irritant, a life saver, and I jump ten feet on the inside, disordering my brain and loosening my teeth.

I jab the answer button and Benjamin's voice floods into my skull, soft words to greet me, to confirm his missing us, to repeat his love from so far away. He has a pattern. Ensure that everything is alright and then detract from my plans, needing confirmation I won't step outside alone in the dark, wanting to close the space between us with more than our imaginations for resource.

We fail and say goodbye and then I blow him an invisible kiss, two fingers pressed against my lips and my eyes water up inevitably because I miss him too but I didn't tell him and I always wonder if he knows.

I wonder if he knows me as well as he likes to think he does. I let thoughts roll through my head as I absently butter the inside of the egg coddlers, one for me, one for PJ. I need to eat something before I run or I have a tendency to falter and fight against rubbery legs. I fish two pieces of wholewheat bread out of the bag in the fridge and feed them to the slots on the toaster and then I hear the gentle alarm beep and see the light flicker in the hall to let me know PJ just opened the back door. He and John enter wordlessly, and I get a cheek-kiss from each one before they settle into their customary habits, John starting coffee, PJ checking the eggs to see if they're ready yet. I won't drink coffee before running (it makes me have to pee. A lot.).

We eat quietly, the boys hear Ben's update and add their own to the patchwork of current news within our circle and then just as the sun begins to rise at last, John pours his coffee and heads to the den to read the newspaper and keep watch over the house while I creep back upstairs to get into my running gear.

Within five minutes PJ and I are out the front door and pacing down the deserted sidewalk. Me fifteen yards ahead, music spooling into my head to set the pace. PJ catches up, my own large human shadow working to keep his long strides in check so he doesn't leave me far behind. I could run flat out and I would never be able to keep up with his legs.

This is the easy part of the run. We don't talk, we just listen to music, check for each other and measure our own breath. Within twenty minutes PJ will begin to complain quietly and suggest turnarounds every six minutes. I ignore him until I get the message from my endorphins that I am high and can go home now. It usually happens fifty minutes in now. I could get it faster if I were in better condition.

That makes me laugh. I'm like a used car for sale. Hidden corrosion and the engine is seized but otherwise you would never know by looking. I think I can outrun my problems and they're waiting for me upon my return or I can wallow in them just to feel every last drop of agony, thinking full immersion might help me mover forward and instead when my head clears I've lost more ground than I expected and have to start over.

Par for the course.

Fuck you, this isn't golf. This isn't a game and I resent that you would compare it to one.

Bridget, you take things too seriously.

Someone has to or it all falls apart.

What are you talking about?

If I forget where I've been or what I've been through bad things happen. The absolute second I begin to take things for granted or relax and enjoy life something bad happens. It's always been that way.

You're imagining things.

No, I can imagine a lot, but usually good things. This is everything else. All the bad things that can go wrong. It's like my life is somehow the one that is all wrong and so there's no grace to guide it.

You sound like me now.

I listened you know. I always thought it might help, that maybe if I tried harder to believe in things and just coast like everyone else seems to, that things would change. Instead things got worse.

It wasn't you, you know.

It's always me, Jake. Always.

PJ cuts off my conversation there as he takes my elbow to signal that we're doing a turnaround so we can head back toward the house. We make the loop on the other side of the river and I can see the wooden benches with their bronze plaques wedged into the ice like ships in the arctic ocean and I press my fingers to my lips and then force myself to abandon a kiss to the wind, hoping it makes it across and will be divided equally. My eyes fill up, burning now and I grab PJ's arm for stability for just a second and then the world clears and I take the lead again.

We fly soundlessly down the sidewalk, following our well-worn but invisible path back to the big house in the middle of a block of like-houses, the gingerbread shrouded in the pre-dawn darkness. I stop just in front of the iron gate and look around, a new habit of taking in the unfamiliar street that I've only lived on for three years, and I listen. I listen for the noises that begin to creep in around the morning. Maybe a bird, maybe sirens far off in the distance. Maybe cars idling down the block.

Maybe Jacob, still whispering things to me long after I've stopped listening.

Bright boys.

Baby, baby, baby, when all your love is gone
Who will save me from all I'm up against out in this world
And maybe, maybe, maybe
You'll find something that's enough to keep you
But if the bright lights don't receive you
You should turn yourself around and come on home

Lochlan confirmed this morning what I've suspected for a quite a while now. All the boys are losing it and I'm doing really quite well now.

YES.

Well, if you don't count that I seem to have these drawn-out, hilariously long and convoluted conversations with Cole, but I don't see that as being any different from when the boys talk to me under their breath where they know for sure I won't hear them but then they can say they did talk to me later when a point comes into question.

I'm onto them. They think I'm in the dark all the time, they have no idea every now and then I sneak down the hall toward the light and hang out for a little while, just listening and biting my lip so I don't make a sound, warming myself in the sun before returning to the hole my head lives in.

Now the rest of this day I am crossing my fingers that Andrew comes home with a date. He went with Henry's class on their field trip. With Henry's young, pretty and very single teacher.

I'm going to fix up Lochlan next.

Oh, be quiet already.