Beautiful Sorrows (18 page)

Ben fell to his knees in front of her, dropping his forehead to her lap.

“I thought, I thought,” he repeated. It was okay for a man to cry when he realized that his life has been taken from him, or given back to him; he couldn’t decide which.

“Shh,” she whispered, and stroked his light hair. “Shh, my boy. My love.”

Her short hair was carefully brushed and her lipstick was applied with extra care. Ben didn’t know that Angelica had decided that, just this once, she would be willing to break her rules. If there was anything that she needed right now, it was to be loved. It was to be kissed by her Ben and to kiss him back in return. There was life in a kiss, and love in a kiss, and more than anything she wanted life and love, but it was not to be. Ben sobbed into her skirt just as she had sobbed into his shoulder months before. The moment came and the moment went, and Ben was fortunate enough not to realize it.

She truly could have been his.

—

“Ethan is in daycare,” she said to him one day. She sat on Ben’s lap with her arms around his neck. She wanted to feel all of him. She wanted to make sure that they were both breathing.

“Is it too difficult for you when he is home? Are you tired?”

She shrugged. “Yes and no. He always wants something. He wants a drink or a cracker or to show me a new toy. It gets wearying. You have no idea.” She stretched. “You’re so lucky that you don’t have children, Ben. They’re just so...”

He waited, but she didn’t finish. Finally he spoke.

“I want kids someday.”

Angelica was surprised. “You do?”

“I do.”

“But why?”

He didn’t know. It’s just the way that it was. To have a child who followed you around, who wanted to be with you and who wore your hat when you came home from the shop. Who wanted to see your tools and made faces when you kissed his mother at night.

“I like kids,” he said simply.

Angelica snorted. “Well, you won’t be getting any from me, that’s for sure. Not that I can have any more after the surgery, anyway. But still.”

She eyed him then, and he tried not to sigh as he recognized the look in her eye.

“Do you want kids that badly? You really want them?”

“Let’s talk about it later, Ang.”

It was dangerous territory that he was wading in. He rubbed her back in what was usually a comforting manner, unless she was riled. And she was riled.

“No, we will talk about this now. You really want kids? I can’t give them to you.” She hopped off of his lap, and Ben knew it was over now, it was over and he would have to watch her self-destruct.
When somebody faces cancer,
his doctor had told him when he had asked,
there is an emotional toll. People lose a part of themselves. They face their own mortality.
Whatever it was, it had turned angelic Angelica into something shriveled and mean. It had eaten away at her soul as well as her organs.

“Ang, I was only saying—” he began.

“I’m not enough? You want more? I can give you my heart and my soul, but you want children?
Children?
It’s impossible! You won’t get it from me, do you understand?”

People were staring at them. Ben wanted to shrug and duck his head. He wanted to push Angelica down and cover her mouth with his hand. But in the anger, he could see her fear, the absolute wildness pushing itself against the shadowed glass of her eyes.
I’m broken,
the fear told him.
I’m broken and I can’t give you anything, not even my last name.

“Maybe you ought to find yourself another girl, then. Somebody who is whole—” her voice cracked “—and complete and healthy. And you can start a family, and she’ll be there... Oh, God, what have I done to you?” She turned and wheeled away, her hands over her face. She ran through the park toward her car, and people slowly turned their heads away.

Ben looked down at his hands. He flexed them, watching the veins ripple under the skin, seeing the strength underneath the grease he could never quite wash off. His hands were empty, as usual. More than ever, he was beginning to realize that.

—

She disappeared. Again. Ben didn’t know what to think.

He thought about skipping their meetings. That would show her. She’d sit on the bench in the hot Arizona sun, waiting for him. For hours. She’d wait and get hot and thirsty and think he had abandoned her. She’d feel how he felt when he sat there alone. It was a lonely feeling, the worst feeling in the world.

He never missed an appointment.

It gave him time to think. Did he love her? Yes, he did. More than anything. More than his family, more than his old friends. More than school and the hope of finding a better job. When she told him about moving, a small part of him always resented it, because she would never move for him. But still he dropped everything because of her. His Angelica, his angel. How could he live without her? Would he really have a life to go back to?

One particularly windy day, he approached the bench to find a little girl sitting on it. She looked up at him worriedly.

“Are you Ben?” she asked.

He was surprised, and stood there. He shoved his hands in his pockets. He was seventeen again, a child again, back when everything first started. His chest hurt.

“Yes. I’m Ben.”

The girl looked relieved. “I have something for you, and I couldn’t go until you came. She said you would come. But it’s so windy and the dust is in my eyes and I don’t like the sound that the wind makes.”

She stuffed a bent envelope into his hand and started to turn away.

“Wait,” Ben said. “I don’t know who you are.”

The girl nearly smiled back at him, but not quite. “You’re friends with my aunt Angelica. She’s not feeling very good.” The girl ran away then. Ben stared after her, and then his eyes slowly focused on the envelope in his hand.

He opened it, and saw a lined piece of paper with words written in an unfamiliar, bold script.

Angelica Brogan

St. Mark’s Hospital

Room #301

Please Come Quickly

He stared. He stared. He read it again and again. Angelica Brogan. Beautiful. And she was in the hospital.

It was time.

His feet pounded on the ground as he ran. Real men run toward danger, not away from it, but he wasn’t thinking about this at all. He was thinking about his Angelica, and her little boy, and whether or not he had time to kiss those lips for the first and last time. What would they taste like? Like death and chemo and pain, most likely. Her tears would taste the same way, but he couldn’t wait to hold her and kiss the toxicity away, just as long as he could finally see her. Because life without Angelica wouldn’t be any kind of life at all, and he knew it.

—

She lay in a hospital bed. No hair. No eyebrows. No eyelashes.

She was sleeping, but her face contorted in pain. It ran underneath her nervous system. Ben stepped into the room hesitantly. He felt gangly and awkward. What if he stepped on the electrical wires? Pulled the plastic tubing from her nose and veins? He didn’t know what to do with his lumbering, oversized hands and stuffed them in his pockets. Surely they would be safer there.

“You must be Ben,” a voice said behind him.

Ben turned to find an ancient man standing in the doorway. His eyes were tired but kind. His face collapsed in on itself in sorrow.

Her husband.

“I’m...Ben,” he said. He didn’t know what else to say.

Angelica’s husband reached forward to shake Ben’s hand. Ben started, then fumbled his hand out of his pocket. The other man’s grip was firm and strong. His wedding band flashed.

“I’m Allan,” the man said. His lips tried to lift in a smile. He wasn’t nearly as old as Ben had first thought. Fatigue and misery had done this to his features.

“It’s...nice to meet you, Allan.” It was. Ben’s eyes slid over to Angelica, who moaned in her sleep. He looked back at Allan.

“It isn’t long now, my boy. She’s...she’s ready to go, I think.” His face crumpled even more, but he straightened it out. “I’m glad that you could come by. I think it’s good for both of you.”

Ben’s world was veiled with intangibility. Angelica was dying. Her husband was shaking his hand.

“This isn’t real,” he whispered, and wobbled a bit.

Immediately Allan had him by the arm, guided him into a chair.

“Sit down,” he said. “We don’t need both of you in that hospital bed.” He frowned suddenly, and aged in front of Ben’s eyes once more. Ben had never felt so ashamed.

“Sir. I...Ang. Elica. Your wife. She and I never...” He couldn’t finish. Allan shook his head.

“Not now.”

Ben didn’t know what to say. He watched Angelica’s breathing. It was irregular and frightening. She had never looked so tiny.

Allan cleared his throat and looked away. “I thought you might need to say goodbye. You’ve meant a lot to her over the years.”

Ben bit his lip. Allan stood up to leave, but Ben grabbed his sleeve.

“You don’t have to go, sir. I can say goodbye with you here.”

Allan made an ugly sound. “I don’t want to be here for this.” He gently shook his sleeve free and did a curious old-man shuffle to the door. He reached the door, but couldn’t make himself pass through it. He leaned his head against the doorjamb and his hands trembled.

Ben slid out of the chair and knelt by Angelica’s bed. He tried to be respectful of Allan, but seconds after patting her slender fingers, he was running his hands over her skin. Up her arms and across her butterfly eyelids. He felt her delicate skull and the hollows in her cheeks.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,” he said. She didn’t move. She couldn’t respond. He rubbed his cheek against hers like a kitten starved for affection, and really, that wasn’t far off. He wanted to say, “Don’t leave me.” He wanted to say, “I can’t survive without you.” He wanted to say, “I’m sorry,” but, really, there wasn’t anything to be said except one thing...

“I think that I will always love you. Sometimes I wish this wasn’t the case.”

His kiss was a tender thing, half an inch from her lips. He closed his eyes.
Goodbye.

He turned toward Allan. “She had the utmost respect for you, sir. She wouldn’t even tell me your name.”

Allan’s blue eyes regarded him sharply. “Do you know how I found out about you?”

Ben took a step back in surprise. “No...no, sir.”

Allan’s laugh was bitter and morose and baffled all at once. “We have a boy. His name is Ethan.”

“Yes, sir.”

Allan eyed him, but Ben returned his gaze evenly. Allan continued.

“I wanted to name him Ethan Lauran, after my father, but she wouldn’t have it. She was adamant about it, which wasn’t really like her at all.”

It wasn’t?
Ben thought, but he didn’t say a word.

Allan deflated. “No,” he said softly. “She had a name all picked out. Benjamin Ethan.”