#bridget naismith

[bastardtrait]

3.

"...my son my son my son. my Noah. I have never known a love like this before. in this, the autumn of my life, I never thought that I'd feel so fulfilled again; I was so convinced that the end of my miserable, sorry work was going to be my magnum opus, my crowning jewel."

"I was wrong, Noah. it's you."

"may nothing take you from me too soon. I want to be a father for as long as I live. a husband. a brother. a son." "stay with me. dad still has work to do."

[bastardtrait]

9.

"...it was winter again. the flowers face the moon as they do the sun. the earth was frozen, harsh and rocky, and unwilling to yield. even a mild winter was unforgiving out here." "Shaw must have been cold."

"the river that flowed around Indian country still gave fish, though a little unwillingly. that was a new thing for me. maybe I was just bad at it. maybe I couldn't be everything everywhere all the time. the thought was disheartening."

12.

"...I love Bridget." "of course I do."

"I hope I showed it enough. I think I did. I hope I said it enough. I think I did. I think I did."

[bastardtrait]

65.

"the day Bridget left it was the dead of winter ahead of a season we didn't celebrate because it was too hard too cold too horrible here and there wasn't any joy. we hadn't even been looking forward to it."

"she took Noah she went to Angela and she left." "she left she left she left." "'I can't do what you want me to do anymore, Ezra,' she said. i don'tknow - maybe i asked too much? i couldn't remember!"

"maybe i didn't tell her i loved her enough after all. maybe i gave her too much space. maybe her love ran out - mine didn't. i didn'tknow. but there was no amount of arguing that could stop her from leaving me in Akwesasne alone." "in the dead of winter. when the soil was frozen and my brother was already bones and the noise in my head became LOUDER LOUDER LOUDER."

[bastardtrait]

i made over Aurelio and Wolfgang in time for prom but guess FUCKING what. prom didn't mcfuckening work. high school years i will cook you and eat you and shit you out.

[bastardtrait]

120.

"...still, the months went on. for the longest time, i almost forgot about work. about the growing about flowers about facing the sun and facing the moon and the loose, loamy dirt. it was fall again, terribly long after we had first come here." "had it been a month or many? had it been a year yet? had it been more? i had genuinely no idea." "it didn't matter, i thought. i could forget it all. i could be here with Bridget, with our baby--a son, by the way. time was of the essence but it was also warped and rolled into itself like a messed-up blanket."

129.

"...another bad dream i think. it was cold, too cold by far." "like before i couldn't remember this one either."

[bastardtrait]

47.

"...i was becoming older. me and Bridget began to sink sank sunk into the couches like we were lead weights. like we were being lowered into the earth, cold, closed, to make friends with the worms at the end of our lives."

"she talked to Angela all the time. she always had her. more so than me. she didn't talk much to me if it wasn't about Noah."

"i still needed her to help me raise him. to make sure he was alright. but i gave her space. i made sure of that. did i give her too much? i didn'tknow. she would tell me."

"she would tell Angela. that's fine. she could have her the way I had Shaw. sharing things that were too private to tell each other, too sacred. we all had confidantes."

[bastardtrait]

99999111 91.

"...I cooked a lot nowadays. I never used to at home. Bridget would ask where it came from but she never liked the answer I gave her. 'from the society,' I said, and she would always press her lips into a tight, hard line like she regretted asking." "but as long as she was eating, she was happy. she sometimes wanted weird, really specific things. I wasn't so stupid that I didn't know what that meant."

"if I was really being honest, a lot of the cooking knowledge came from a book I ordered from the society. if I sat back and really thought about it, it was concerning just how much money I'd poured into the solution over a year." "and I didn't even know if it was a solution. a small part of me thought it was just a pipe dream. a small part. so I just didn't think about it." "instead I thought of Shaw. damp, and becoming bone, and asking me, why why why why."

[bastardtrait]

28!!!!!

"...Bridget liked my cooking. i was doing it all the time. she said she wonders who i was doing it for. for her of course! and for Noah but he was still a little guy so i had to make it different for him."

"she said my bannock tasted like her mother's. i think she was just trying to make herself feel better because her mother was now gone. she joined her husband Simon wherever they were now. i didn'tknow."

"for you of course! i told her all the time. but her face showed me she didn't believe me anymore. even if it was true. i don'tknow where when we strayed from each other, but my love never ran out. never." "nevernevernevernevernevernevernevernev..."