A Life More Complete (38 page)

Ben extends a hand and my mother
loosely shakes it and returns her steely gaze to me. “So, why is your husband
not present?”

“I think you lost the right to ask
personal questions of me when you decided that you didn’t want your children.”

“Oh, I don’t ask because I’m
concerned. You should know that. I ask, because the apple doesn’t fall far from
the tree.” She chuckles a little and waits for me to answer. This is her game. She
baits me and waits until I lose it. She knows I’ll make a scene and in the end
she will act appalled at my behavior and walk away looking like the sympathetic
mother. Not this time.

“Mom, the act is old and played out. I’m
an adult now. It won’t work, especially not here. I’d tell you it was nice to
see you, but that would be a lie. Good-bye.”

Pulling Ben toward the car, I leave
my mother standing there looking far more shocked than I ever imagined.

Ben and I drive back in a quiet
stillness that is somehow calming. I’m not sure how to approach the subject of
where he’ll be staying. We’ve spoken very little about his plans to return to
California. I suddenly feel guilty that I’m allowing Ben to be this intimate
with me while Tyler isn’t present. I should feel guilty, I guess. I held his
hand, he kissed my head, he held me while I cried. It’s far more intimate than
I’ve been with Tyler in months.

“Hey Ben? You have somewhere to stay?”
I ask casually.

“I was just planning to stay at the
hotel you and your sisters are staying at. I hope that’s okay. I didn’t book a
return flight. I thought you’d want some company on the way back.”

“Sure. The hotel’s in the same
parking lot with the Cracker Barrel. Can you imagine? The pregnant lady and a
plate full of dumplings just a few steps away? It’s been glorious.” I never told
Ben that I’m pregnant, so I slip it into the conversation knowing full well that
Bob did the deed for me. I let him. He loves gossip and all things scandalous. I
couldn’t bring myself to tell Ben, so I let Bob do the unloading. I gloss over
the fact that I’m pregnant because dealing with the actuality of what I’m
thinking is too much.

“I imagine so. You look good. Pregnancy
agrees with you. You okay with me catching a flight home with you? Given there
are seats,” he asks again this time with a bit more hesitation.

“Sure,” I answer again, pausing. “Thanks
for coming. This really means a lot to me.”

“No problem. I know the death of a parent
is hard regardless of your relationship with them.”

The car falls silent again for a few
seconds before my need to make conversation takes over. “Do you want to see
where I grew up? The town is quite beautiful. Tons of history, beautiful old
homes, a river? What do you say?”

“Why not. I don’t have much else planned.”

The night is cool, yet comfortable. The
May weather had taken a turn for the better after the wake and the chronic
misty mornings had given way to cool, calm night.

We head up Franklin Street to
Centennial Beach. It looks entirely different since I left home. The beach
still the same as we look through the tall chain link fence. The grounds
beautifully landscaped with walking paths and a new stone entryway.

“This is where Gia and I spent our
summers,” I tell him, smiling at the memory. “Her parents would buy us all
season passes and we’d swim from the time it opened until it closed. When we
got older, Gia and I would smoke pot in the back of the parking lot near the
ball fields. The best part about living here is that everything is within
walking distance. I probably would have left home earlier than eighteen if I
had been trapped in a suburb that wasn’t so accessible.”

Ben smiles at me but says very
little. We walk along to Washington Street and decide to take a ghost tour that’s
beginning near the military statue at the entrance to Central Park. As goose bumps
begin to dot my skin, Ben slips off his suit jacket and drapes it over my
shoulders. The tour lasts far too long and my feet begin to throb from walking
in my heels.

Both of us are starving after hoofing
it through downtown Naperville for the last three hours and I settle on Lou
Malnati’s. We sit down in the bustling restaurant and like everything in
downtown Naperville it’s packed. I order the pizza and know my growling stomach
will barely handle the hour long wait for a deep dish and I’m being conservative
considering the quantity of people currently jammed into this place. The
conversation is easy and we begin to talk about nearly everything.

“Thanks for taking me around. It’s
really great to see where you grew up. The town is really quite stunning. I
have to say, listening to you talk about it, I’m surprised you left.”

“I love all the old homes and their
character, but you met my mother. You’d really think I could’ve stayed? I
couldn’t get far enough away. When I left for college there was nothing here
for me. Gia was leaving for college, Tyler and I had broken up, Tom and my mom
were in the process of a divorce. All I had were my sisters and at that time
our relationship was anything but loving.” Changing the subject I ask about
work. “How’s Annalise’s baby?”

“Adorable, obviously. Annalise is
obsessed. I don’t think she’s coming back. She says she is, but I get the
feeling she’s just saying that so I don’t lose my shit. I finally found a new
temp, but she still isn’t Annalise.”

“Well, can you blame her? I can’t
imagine leaving my baby with someone else while I’m at work all day. I mean I
know I’ll have to, but if I had the choice I’d be home in a heartbeat.”

Ben nods almost imperceptibly. His
eyes are down, “You know, you could have told me,” he says without making eye
contact. I can tell he’s hurt and I know exactly what he’s talking about
without asking for clarification.

“No, I couldn’t. I was...I don’t
know. Embarrassed is the wrong word.” My eyes finally meet his and I can see
the hurt in his eyes. Yet behind them is a promise that I can’t bring myself to
acknowledge. “Remorseful? Humiliated? Regretful? I can’t even express it. That’s
why I couldn’t tell you.” He places his hand over mine.

“You know that no matter what
happens, we were friends before we were anything else. It shouldn’t have been
this hard for you.”

When I whisper the words, “It should’ve
been you.” The urge to take them back moves over me. When he doesn’t acknowledge
them I realize he’s a much better person than I am.

We finish dinner without me saying anything
else idiotic. Both exhausted, we pull into the parking lot and my stupidity
returns full force.

“You can stay with me if you want. There’s
a pull out couch in my hotel room.” I can’t believe myself. Desperation much? I
sound like a trampy high school virgin on prom night. For some reason I don’t
even care.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll get
my own room.” I almost scream at his response. How much more obvious do I have
to be? “You’re married, remember?” he says as the lobby doors whoosh open.

“I know. I’m sorry.” My cheeks flush
and the warmth runs through my body. I should be embarrassed. I’m married and
behaving entirely inappropriately. Obviously not embarrassed or inappropriate
enough for me to ask, “Do you want to come back to my room for a little while. We
could just talk.”

He pushes his hand through his hair
and takes the key from the desk clerk before answering. “Sure,” he says
followed by a few muttered fragments. I catch a quick, “What am I doing?” It
makes me giggle a little and he smirks back.

Ben is sitting on the edge of the bed
flipping through channels on the TV as I emerge from the bathroom wearing a
t-shirt and pair of shorts. My feet are throbbing and slightly swollen from the
scenic tours in heels. I climb into the bed and prop my feet up on one of the
pillows. He hardly looks at me and I can sense he’s uncomfortable being alone
with me and right now I don’t blame him. Together we were simple and easy and
right now it is far more stressful than anything we have ever been through. I
have placed him in a situation that could be misconstrued by anyone.

“Ben?” As soon as I say his name his
head whips around in a near frenzy and his hand tugs through his hair. “I’m
sorry. Things are just really crazy right now and I’ve put you in an
uncomfortable situation. I’ll completely understand if you want to leave.”

“No, no. Really it’s okay. Honestly
it’s not you. We’re friends and I get that. You’re making it a little hard, but
I can deal.” He comes across as awkward, but composes himself rather well given
my insinuations. He takes a deep breath and turns away from me. “This is hard. We’ve
known each other for seven years, but...” I cut him short.

“I know. I’m sorry that I’m throwing
myself at you. I can only imagine how completely ridiculous I look.”

He turns back to face me and his
words catch me off guard. “Can you stop for a minute?” I nod quietly. “I have
known you for seven years, but there is something you don’t know about me. A
secret I pretty much keep from everyone. You know me better than anyone, but
there’s one thing you don’t know. I came today because I knew you’d need
someone and I also knew Tyler would fail you. He doesn’t know you the way I do.
I don’t think you’re right for him. I’m not trying to dog on your marriage or
your relationship with him, but you let him off easy. Grief is hard, even
harder when you go it alone.” I nod again as if I can read his mind. I know
where this is going and I can feel a lump form and the tears build. “You know
my parents are dead. I didn’t really have to tell you that. But unlike you, I
had the perfect childhood. My parents were obsessed with each other and they
were obsessed with their children. My brother and I wanted for nothing. We took
great vacations and my mom packed our lunches and we worked for my dad in the
summer. It was perfect.”

He pauses and I take the moment, “Ben,
you don’t have to do this. I don’t need an explanation of why you’re here. We’re
friends.”

“I know. But I need to tell you. I
need to tell someone. Seeing it all again and knowing what you’re going
through.” He stops and walks to the opposite side of the bed. He pulls his
shoes off and slips his tie off over his head. Tossing his suit coat and his
tie over the desk chair, he climbs in next to me. “My mom worked as a high
school history teacher for twenty years. That seems like along time, doesn’t it?”
he asks but I don’t answer. “Not long enough. She was so good at her job. She’d
spend hours grading papers and putting together lesson plans. My dad worked equally
as hard. When he found out she was pregnant with me he wanted her to quit her
job. He spent years building up his business so that she would never have to
work again. But she couldn’t leave. She loved it and he never once made her
feel guilty for continuing to work.” He stops again and swallows hard. “She
went to the doctor because she kept getting headaches. My dad would joke with
her that she spent too much time on the computer. But in the end she went in
for headaches and was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Two totally unrelated
things. She died less than six weeks after she was diagnosed.”

I look over at Ben and he’s crying,
silently. I can’t control myself and tears fall fast. I take his hand in mine, “Ben,
I’m so sorry,” I say, but he stops me.

“Please let me finish,” he chokes
out. “It was the summer between my freshman and sophomore year in college. I
sat by her bed for hours. My dad wouldn’t let her die in a hospital. He hired
the best nurses and doctors. She had chemo and radiation. She lost all of her
hair. She had the most beautiful hair I’d ever seen. She was born blonde and it
stayed that way her whole life. When it started falling out I think I was more traumatized
by it than she was. I wished I had blonde hair when I was little, but my
brother and I both looked like my father. I remember thinking how unfair that
was. She carried us for nine months and the reward in the end was that we
looked nothing like her.” He wipes at his eyes with the back of his hand. “She
made me promise to finish college. How was I supposed to go back to school and
leave her? How was I supposed to carry on with my life?”

I can’t even look at him by this
point and a ragged sob leaves me. He grips my hand tighter and continues.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Not
for us. Not for my perfect family. She died the week before I needed to go back
to school. I left even though everything in me told me to stay. I stayed gone. I
didn’t come home at Thanksgiving or Christmas. I was drunk all the time.”

As he speaks I can’t help but think
that Ben and I were only a few hours away from each other. I can picture him
drunk in his apartment in Berkley on Christmas. It was the same Christmas that
Tyler went to the Maldives with his family, leaving me alone to serve steak to lonely
people on Christmas Day. I was the only waitress on staff because I was the
only one without family. I ate my Christmas dinner with Marco, the bus boy and
my manager, Josef, that night.

“When the school year finally ended I
went home only because my brother had called and begged me to. I didn’t realize
how bad it was. My dad had fallen apart. Josh called me a lot, but I blew him
off. I guess I didn’t really want to hear it.” Ben releases my hand causing me
to look at him. He reaches over and wipes the tears from my cheeks and shakes
his head. “The business was failing. Terribly. It had basically gone to shit
after my mom died. My dad wouldn’t show up to work because he was still drunk
from the night before. Luckily for him, his crew was good and they kept it
running as best as they could. I took over from there. My dad’s secretary
trained me on the billing and scheduling. I’d only ever done the labor portion
of the job. I had to learn payroll, which by that point was four weeks behind
schedule, but somehow I pulled it together.” He smiles a little, but I know it’s
just for show. The hurt is still in his eyes. “I dropped all my classes. It
killed me but I knew my mom wouldn’t have wanted me to let my dad suffer. My
dad got it together a few weeks after I came home. He stopped drinking, came
into work with me every day. Things were really good. Business picked back up
and we added the pool installation and cleaning. Josh went off to Texas A&M
in early August and I stuck around to help run the business.” Ben stops again
and I can hear his breathing accelerate. He reaches for my hand and I slip my
fingers into his willingly. “My dad killed himself on the anniversary of my mom’s
death. Looking back on it now, I don’t think he got better. He just pulled it
together long enough to make sure I was okay with running the business.”