His Name was Ben Read online

  “German,” interrupted Candace. “Means the love of God, but,” she laughed, “don’t let that scare you. We named our dog Bodhi after a tree and not any religious figure. Anyhow, don’t get me started down those tracks. It’ll end in a train wreck.”

  “Don’t get us wrong, Sara. Nothing against any specific religion, we just aren’t fond of them being organized.” Michael gazed at Candace. “Who was it who said they distrust people who know so well what God wants them to do because it coincides with what they want to do?”

  “Susan B. Anthony.” Candace wiped a fragment of leaf off her blouse. “My favorite is from Gandhi. Of course I’m paraphrasing—I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, who are so unlike your Christ.”

  Sara breathed easier that this wasn’t heading into a religious rant. After all she’d been through with Henry, the very mention of religion or spiritual cults got her hackles up. Although her parents were Jewish, they didn’t practice the doctrine or teach her anything about it, and she grew up willy-nilly buying into whatever came along that served her at the time. This was why she gravitated to the Descartes movement, meditation, and Zen Buddhism before that—activities she involved herself in but did not adopt as her belief system. Nothing stuck, which added to her suffering when she was diagnosed with cancer—not having a ground in God or faith increased her misery. “I like that one too.”

  “Okay, enough religion and dog talk.” Ben fidgeted with his fingernails. “It’s getting late.”

  They all went quiet.

  Michael’s smile faded. “Have you phoned them?”

  “No.”

  Michael looked askance at Sara. “Oh man.” His eyes slid away from hers in an awkward silence.

  Ben, responding to his brother’s hesitation, “You can talk in front of her. She knows everything.”

  Michael remained reticent.

  “Seriously,” Ben urged, “I’ve told her.”

  “Edward’s on a bender, the usual started Friday night.”

  Seeing the disgust on his brother’s face, envisioning the scenario, “You spoke with him?” asked Ben.

  “If you can call it that. He answered when I phoned mom. Could barely make out what he said.” Michael glanced at his watch. “Ben, if he’s smashed, there’s no point in bringing Sara.”

  Hearing the repugnance in their voices, Sara was having second thoughts about talking Ben into coming.

  Glad that Michael brought it up, “I think you’re right, but,” Ben surveyed Sara, “how do you feel about it?”

  One look at the agonizing revulsion on his face was enough for her to see she’d made a mistake. Shitty! That’s how I feel. Her body felt heavy. What did I get him into? What was I thinking! The last thing she wanted to inflict on Ben was more stress. I can tell he doesn’t want me to go. He doesn’t want to subject me to it, but look what I’ve done to him! “Do what’s right for you. I’ll support whatever you decide to do.

  Candace interjected, “You made the trip up here for Sara to meet them.”

  “I’m happy we came,” Sara feigned a smile. Regret moving in on her, “It’s been great meeting you two.” She turned back to Ben, and repeated, “I’m okay with whatever you want to do.”

  Candace smiled at Ben, “She’s got a good attitude, this one.”

  “Yes, she does,” said Ben. Having made his decision back at the beach, “I’ll go it alone and let them know,” he looked at Sara, “we’re getting married.”

  Ben’s sorrowful demeanor made Sara want to grab hold of him and tell him to forget about it. I feel awful about this. And I feel stupid saying anything else. We’re here because of me. Shit! “I hope it works out okay.”

  “Me too.”

  Candace stood, “Come on Sara, let me show you our garden.” They left the guys alone to catch up.

  Michael watched the women leave. “Sara’s great. I can see…”

  Preoccupied, Ben interrupted, “Yeah.”

  Michael turned solemn. “You sure you want to go over there?”

  Ben put his chin on his fist. “Oh man. I don’t really know.”

  “You don’t need to go there if it’s too much for you.” Ben had made it clear to Michael in the past that if he wanted to bring up his health he would, therefore Michael steered clear of asking about it. “You need to take care of you. That’s what’s important.”

  “Mike, do you think there’s any chance, any possibility, that things can change? Things didn’t seem to flare up when you got married.”

  “He was completely out of it at my wedding. You don’t remember that?”

  “His drunken fits are a blur.”

  “Why do you even want to do this?”

  “Good question,” Ben sat up straighter. “Being with Sara has changed my perspective on so many things. What’s even possible. It’s hard to imagine anything changing with Edward but…”

  “I wouldn’t get your hopes up.”

  “I won’t. I just have to put it to rest one way or another.” Ben had had enough of the prelim. “You did a lot of work on your place.”

  “Yeah,” Michael told him about the renovations. “You going to take Sara to yours?”

  “I didn’t let Claire know I was coming,” referring to a legal intern working under Ben at NASA, who he had dated a couple years earlier and remained friends with. Having the use of Ben’s house was a good exchange for taking care of his mail and watering the plants.

  “Does Sara know?”

  “Yes, that’s no secret. I told Sara that Claire is rooming with three other law students and was happy to have some space. Sara’s aware we’re just friends and has no issue with it.”

  “Maybe she’d like to see an Eichler.”

  “I’ll ask her.”

  As Ben drove to his parents’, the image of his drunken, stumbling incoherent father sickened him. Arriving at half-past-seven to an unlocked front door, he found his mother plopped down in a chair, outstretched skinny white legs spread apart revealing what the hiked-up skirt failed to cover, a glass of booze in one hand and a cigarette in the other, ashes falling to the wood floor. Wrinkled old newspapers and dirty laundry were littered about. The volume on the television was so loud he had to shout over it to get her attention. “Mom!”

  Her glass flipped over when she put it down to grab hold of the TV remote control. “Look who’s here,” she slurred.

  The smell of smoke, drink, and musty odor from lack of ventilation was nauseating. Cracking a window to let in fresh air, Ben uttered under his breath, “Pathetic!” He had long given up trying to do anything to ameliorate her situation, and left her to her enabling, codependent life with his father. “Where’s dad?”

  “I don’t know,” she peered through bloodshot glass eyes. No attempt was made to make conversation.

  He found his father passed out cold on the couch in the den, snoring out alcohol fumes. The room was dark; the only light came from a streetlamp through a break in the drawn curtains. Jesus, you put on a lot of weight. Like a bum on a park bench after a night of drinking, with his huge belly hanging out over his underpants, slobbering onto himself and unaware of his surroundings—it turned Ben’s stomach. Clenching his jaw, “You don’t even know I’m here, do you?”

  There was no response.

  Ben wanted to grab and shake some sense into him, to cry out, Wake up you slob! Look at yourself! Look what you’ve done to Mike and me, you loathsome wretch! He hated the odor that lived in the walls of this house that was never a home. An inferno in his body bristled. Get out and don’t ever return. If the cancer doesn’t kill you, this surely will.

  A ton of bricks pressed in on his chest as he walked the slow purposeful stride of a prisoner entering jail, to the hollow cave he grew up in, down a hallway to his old room. The door still had kick marks on it from his father’s violent outbursts. Saturated in his painful past, he looked around at the dark space for what he knew was the last time. His eyes fell on a bowl he’d made in a ceramics class in hi
gh school. I got an A+ for that, the best grade in the class. He thought back to his dad’s reaction. You made fun of it. Said pottery was “for girls.” He felt the polished texture of the hard glazed clay, the curves he’d smoothed out, as his fingers lingered in a long goodbye. Ben made his way to the kitchen to find a pen and a pad of paper on which he left the note, “I came by to let you know I’m getting married, Ben.”

  Outside, he upchucked his guts on the lawn, what was left of stomach content from the meal in Carmel, and continued to retch yellow bile, sending his intestines into spasms. The wedge of his heart that his parents shattered raced hatred through his arteries, like the pain that turns a decent human being into a murderer from the furor of injustice and deprivation. Like the cancer, the insurrection in his pancreas, the stress with his father was a sickness he wanted to puke out. Grabbing hold of his abdomen to stop the cramping radiating to his backside, he left.

  The minute Sara saw his defeated body language and drawn face she knew not to question him. I see you need space. It hurt to see him looking so caved in. What happened?

  Candace, diverting to something insipid, picked up the slack and brought him up to date on some of their recent activities. “I’m thinking of enrolling in the master gardener program at Stanford.” The mindless chatting slowly drew Ben out of his introspection.

  “So, what are your wedding plans?” asked Michael.

  “Something easy, probably at the courthouse.”

  They stayed up late continuing the simple conversation about movies, books, and Melanie, who was away at Berkeley. “Good for her for not going to Stanford,” commented Ben, now feeling a little lighter.

  “She broke the Gottlieb curse,” Michael laughed.

  The next morning, they said their goodbyes and left shortly following breakfast. Appreciating that Ben wasn’t ready to talk about what happened over at his parents’ house, she told him she’d like to see his home. Ben welcomed the distraction and phoned Claire to arrange it.

  “Is your friend going to be there?”

  “No, she’s going out to grab a cup of coffee.” Ben went on to explain that, “In the early fifties, Eichler homes were a branch of modern architecture. Open floor plans of glass walls.”

  “Was Eichler the architect?”

  “No. He was a real estate developer who took modern designs from custom residences and office buildings and made them available to the general public. He used the flat and A-framed roof design attributed to Frank Lloyd Wright. Steve Jobs grew up in a home designed by Eichler’s original architecture team.” He continued, “I read somewhere that’s one of the main things that inspired in him a passion for making beautifully crafted products for the mass market.” He saw that Claire had straightened up the mess he’d left behind in his hurry to leave for Los Angeles.

  “That’s so interesting that Jobs’ home influenced him in that way. That’s some ripple effect.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What a great place. It’s so neat.”

  Thank you, Claire!

  Sara was instantly taken with the floor-to-ceiling glass windows viewing an atrium filled with colorful flowers and hummingbird feeders. “Oh look, Ben,” she pointed to a green violetear hummingbird.

  “That’s my friend, Hector,” he smiled. “I name the creatures that stop by here, a habit picked up from my niece.” He watched the bird fly away. “I love Melanie, but,” he continued in a melancholy murmur, “I never wanted to have children. Not after how I grew up.”

  Sara related to what he said, her ambivalence being rooted in her own flawed family. She was not opposed to having kids with Henry but never became pregnant while they were married, and after him, she shut down the idea of another marriage and children altogether.

  They sat on a couple of old plastic patio chairs among the plants in bloom. “It’s so serene here.” She relaxed next to him as the stillness of the garden lifted their spirits.

  His hand in hers, he whispered. “My home is with you now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Driving down Highway One, what started as feeling queasy had turned into gut-gripping nausea, distracting Ben’s attention from the road. When his vision grew hazy he knew they needed to stop. Having just passed the sign, Morro Bay five miles, “How ’bout lunch?”

  “At Morro Bay?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Gibraltar of the Pacific.” She had walked its trails along the estuary and sunned on the unspoiled beaches years before.

  Ben found a sandwich deli right on the main strip across from the quay. He went into the men’s room to splash water on his face, and get his bearings from the disorienting dizziness in his head. Back outside, he saw Tazzie driven to distraction by another dog in the vicinity. Over her growling frenzy, Sara said, “Why don’t you go in, get us something?”

  As Ben reached for the leash his clammy hand grazed Sara’s. “I’ll take her back to the car.”

  Sara shot him a worried look. “What do you want?”

  Jerking on the tether to rein in Taz, “How about we split a sandwich? You choose.” Turning toward his vehicle, wet acid burned into his esophagus.

  He drove out slowly across the causeway to the tied island where they parked by the big rock and found a secluded bench. Birds were nesting, gull and cormorant species, and to their amazement a peregrine falcon was pecking at debris on the ground near a trash can. “Sara, look,” he whispered so as not to disturb it, “they’re endangered. Most of the prohibitive avian laws are because of them.” The bird stayed for a few more minutes then flew off.

  “Wow, that was amazing.”

  Tazzie’s nose went wild inhaling odors from mosses and tide pool creatures.

  Referring to the familiar view of the horizon. “It’s so beautiful.” Sara bit into her half of the turkey sandwich.

  An unpleasant fiery sensation in the back of his throat threatened retching as Ben stared down at the wrapper.

  “You okay?”

  Holding a napkin to his pasty face, he could no longer hide the nausea grabbing his gut. “Just a little indigestion,” he mumbled.

  Obvious from his wincing, it wasn’t insignificant. “Talk to me. I can see you’re in distress.”

  He though of how much he hated his parents. What’s this resentment doing to my body? My immune system? His hands gripped the bench, squeezing it for dear life, doing to it what he wanted to do to his father. Breaking out in a cold sweat, “Oh, Sara,” was all he could bring himself to say.

  “I’m here.” She stroked his back, trying to be comforting, but her words were wobbly. “Take a few slow breaths.” He did. His pallor ebbing, a trace of pink returned to his cheeks. “That’s better.” She wanted him to unload what had happened at his parents’. “I’d like to hear what’s going on with you,” she patted his hand. “Want to tell me about it?”

  Glancing around to be sure they were alone, he looked out at the ocean. “I will never see my parents again.”

  “Ben,” she eyed his profile, “we don’t know what the outcome of the study will be.”

  “I’m not talking about that…” he stumbled. “I don’t want to ever see them again. They won’t change and,” he choked on the words that didn’t want to see daylight, “I need to let go of them.” Tears came when he said, “I’ve spent so much of my life hating them and I see what it’s done to me.” Observing him struggle to get it out, Sara flinched.

  Stammering, he continued to tell her what had happened at their house. “I have to stop deluding myself that there’s ever going to be a satisfying resolution with them. Sara, you were the one who told me that hanging on to anger ends up hurting you. I didn’t see it back then but yesterday it became clear to me. I have to wonder what’s worse; how they treated me or my holding on to it, festering and poisoning my insides.”

  Having never faced it with such finality before brought up sorrow that made him sad to the bone, and he broke down and cried—for baby Ben who was neglected, for the little bo
y growing up who had no parents at his soccer games, no parents at his graduations, and no father at his birthdays. He wept for the missing parents who would never hear from him, I have bad news—cancer. He let out everything he had held in, and once the crying was over he felt depleted. Abhorrence, remorse, shame, and regret—the complex jumbled emotions he’d resisted his entire life—had emptied out.

  “Ben, you’re in a powerful place of forgiveness, doing this for your health and healing and not to get even with them. I completely understand and support you. If it came to this, then it’s probably a positive thing that you went to see them.”

  “It was the final straw. And,” he smiled at her, “you were right.”

  “How so?”

  “It did give me closure.” He thought back to their last time at the beach and what she said. Just a visit, perhaps even closure. If you don’t make the effort you may live to regret it. “I’ve absolutely no regrets. I saw that I couldn’t change what’s happened. I can’t change them but I sure as hell can change how I feel about my relationship with them. I don’t want to waste any more time being angry with what I have no control over.”

  When another couple walked around the bend with a dog and Tazzie barked, they got going. The ride back to Ojai was quiet, with Sara musing on what had happened. Ben’s reconciling and rearranging the shattered pieces of his life back into place nagged at her. The back of her head started to throb, and appearing like a dissolving watercolor painting, Jack’s face dripping with sweat came to view. Screams, Leave her alone, melted the image until there was nothing but the sound pounding between her ears. Stop repeated over and over, giving her a full-blown headache. Denying a strong intuitive sense, she once again doubted herself. My mother couldn’t have known. That part of the puzzle was still murky. Is any of this real? Uncertainty pervaded her.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The baby finally got to sleep after a long bout of fussing. Nightly, little Sara would not fall asleep. The doctor said it was colic. Her mother paced. So did her brother, waiting for the medicine to take effect, for his mother to go to sleep and for his sister to be alone so he could touch her. Never telling where his hands had been, “No one will know why she’s crying.”