43. Forty-Three
Forty-Three
BEN
L ena and Ruthie huddle under my umbrella to the church breezeway, where Dot, Jaye, and Cherry await us. Dot paces, her wet black boots squeaking along the pavement. She looks uncharacteristically nervous, fisting rumpled index cards in one hand and waving a stack of programs with the other.
Her brow cocks upon seeing me. “Good, you’ve finally come to your senses. Make yourself useful, huh? Hand these out in the lobby?” She pushes a stack of programs into my chest.
“Guess you were right to go with the family logo, Lena. My bad. I honestly didn’t think you’d be back,” Cherry adds, turning to me.
My eyes cut to Lena, taking in her worry with her L brow and nibbled lip. She mouths words no one else sees. “Not now.”
She hasn’t told them about Lauren.
I accept the programs, relieved that she’s spared me from her best friends clawing my eyes out on sight. For now.
But I ache, too. Lena’s lived with this information for over a week, hoarding her pain with no one to help her through it so that she could be strong for everyone else. Shit.
“Whatever you need,” I tell them before leaving for my assignment.
Forty minutes before the starting time, the church is empty.
The front altar and side tables are adorned with flowers—so many that the air is thick with their scents—and pictures.
Large collages of Mrs. Moore’s life line the front.
There’s no casket or urn—Mrs. Moore donated her body to one of her loves, science.
I take my position at the lobby doors. I mentally prepare for the inevitable backlash. The community may not want to see me. Lena is their sweetheart, everyone’s daughter, sister, and best friend. And they all know I’ve hurt her.
Dark clouds, heavy and angry, linger outside the main doors as the first vehicle arrives—Mr. Wickers’s Prius. Trisha emerges from the passenger seat and dashes through the rain to the Fellowship Hall with a covered dish. Mr. Wickers makes his way toward me.
“Welcome,” I say, handing him a program.
“Ben.”
“Mr. Wickers.”
Though the entire sanctuary is available, he plops into the pew beside my post. He swipes his bald head free from the rain and cleans the drops from his glasses with his tie in silence.
I’ve always appreciated his word economy.
I watch for more attendees through the church’s glass doors, but the driving rain pelts the gravel lot, and I expect people are waiting it out.
“Lena saved me,” Mr. Wickers says. “Everyone knows that.”
Pause.
“What they don’t know, and she doesn’t either,” he starts again, “is how true that statement is. Two months after my retirement, on a Thursday morning, she visited my house with her little bin of cupcakes and interrupted, well… let’s say I was about to take another early retirement.”
My pinched eyes dart to his.
“Ben, I’m fine now. I promise,” he says, amused at my concern.
It’s my job and responsibility as a human to be concerned—I don’t see what’s amusing.
“Better than fine. When I think of all I would’ve missed…” His head shakes like he’s ashamed.
“It was the right time to retire from work. Things started to slip, you see. My energy, motivation, and speed weren’t there anymore. You do a job for fifty years and get tired of the grind. I wanted to hang up my blues.”
He chuckles, though again, I don’t know what’s funny.
“Little do you know how much of your self-worth is tied to work. How much purpose it gives you. When the novelty of having all that time on my hands wore off, I looked around and didn’t find a purpose anymore. I didn’t know what to do with myself. And thought I’d be better off… well, you get it.”
I do—after Adam, I lost my purpose.
He stops to rub his hands along his legs like he’s warming them up. “There she was… She asked how I was doing, she hadn’t seen me in a bit. Made chitchat, like she does.”
I nod.
“I said to her, what made you think to visit me? She said, ‘When you love someone, you show up. Ben taught me that.’”
A soft sigh puffs out as I try to remain unmoved.
I taught her to show up, but I haven’t been here.
I taught her to rely on me and failed her repeatedly.
I promised always and wrecked us the moment things got hard.
Mr. Wickers fiddles with his tie knot, taking it from straight to crooked.
“She didn’t stay long, but handed over her cupcakes and invited me to the café.
I’m always there, bright and early, she said.
Come anytime. So, I did. I had a purpose again.
She made me see that my worth wasn’t in a job.
Or a paycheck. I’m worthy just being me. ”
Lena’s words from comic-con whisper through my thoughts. “We don’t need you to be a cop or a hero or anything. You are enough. You are all we need.”
“I’ve treated her horribly,” I say, the words rising from some deep pit inside me. I don’t say things like this aloud. I don’t talk to people. But where has my silence gotten me?
“She’ll forgive you.”
“I don’t deserve it.”
“Let her decide.”
“She needs more than I can offer her. She needs me to be strong enough to be vulnerable. I’ve spent my adult life serving and protecting. I fear I won’t be able to do that for my own family.”
He nods, soaking up my words like a dry sponge. “Son, you do that just by showing up. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know that already.” His hand lands gently on my arm. “Don’t let go because you’re afraid to hold on.”
His words rattle around in my head like loose bolts. “It’s too late.”
“You’re here. She’s here. It’s never too late.”
He rises weakly and finds a better seat near the front.
When guests arrive, I do my duty, my guilt and shame gnawing at me relentlessly. Neighbors and friends greet me with smiles and kind words as if nothing’s happened, and I absorb their collective warmth like a campfire on a cold night.
A woman I don’t recognize rushes in wearing an elegant black dress and rain boots, which she quickly changes out of while leaning against the wall beside me. When she’s ready, I hand her a program.
“Can you point me toward the church’s pianist? Mrs. Moore called me last week to perform a special song for her funeral. I had no clue it’d happen so fast.” She scans the program. “Okay, I’m there, at least. I need to coordinate with whoever does the music.”
I direct her to the fellowship hall. She quickly weaves through the growing crowd and disappears.
Moments before the service begins, Lena texts. Can you hand off the programs to someone else and join us? I quickly obey, asking Jack Harvey to take over.
I find their small group in a nervous huddle in the fellowship hall while Reverend Jenkins watches in helpless resignation.
“I don’t want them here,” Dot says with irritation. Her eyes lock on me as I enter the room. “Are they here? Did you see them?”
“Your parents?” I ask, trying to catch up. A mental scan of guests in my head stops on strangers who most resemble Dot. “Yes.”
She scoffs and rolls her eyes dramatically.
“Would you like me to ask them to leave?”
The ladies turn to me, stunned, but I don’t see what’s surprising. Identify the problem. Solve the problem. Simple.
“Would you really do that?” Dot asks, almost dreamily.
“Yes.”
Lena smirks, knowing I mean it, and I feel superhuman.
“We generally don’t turn away mourners,” Reverend Jenkins says, looking worried. “View it as an opportunity for reconciliation.”
Dot scoffs again. “Forget it. Let them hover and judge. Let’s just get this over with.”
I turn to exit and find a solo seat in the crowded sanctuary, but Dot’s brash voice stops me with, “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Ben, sit with us, with the family,” Lena explains.
“Yeah, besides, what if I change my mind about you bouncing my folks?” Dot adds with a shrug.
I take a position next to Lena. Ruthie reaches out, her tiny face drooping with sadness. I lift her into my arms, and she rests her head softly on my shoulder. We file into the sanctuary and take the reserved section up front, me on the very end near the outer wall.
Rain hits the church roof, a fitting drumbeat to the occasion. Reverend Jenkins gives a warm welcome, shares about Mrs. Moore’s life, and peppers his sermon with Bible verses she provided in her detailed instructions.
After a prayer, the normal pianist moves aside for the woman in a rush earlier—one of Mrs. Moore’s former students, Reverend Jenkins introduces.
At the piano, she performs “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s ninth symphony.
I’m grateful that I can still hear the music, but mostly, I feel it in my chest. It stirs my emotions, kicking up everything that felt settled at the bottom.
My hand slips over Lena’s beside me—I can’t help it.
Her cast is gone, and I run my fingers over her delicate fingers, wrist, and arm, where her newly exposed skin feels strangely softer, if possible.
She should reject me. That’s what I expect. She believes I’ve committed the worst crime in a marriage. To her, my affection must incite betrayal and anger.
So, when her fingers interlock with mine, her wedding rings sliding between them, my breath catches and holds in amazed disbelief. She still loves me. Even now. She’s said it all along, but in that simple action—letting me hold her hand—her promises finally crystallize into absolute truths.
Whatever your reality, I’m with you, and I’ll try to make it better.
You belong here. With me.
I’m yours, always. No matter what.
You are enough. You are all we need.
The revelation astounds me—that she could love me that much, even after the million and one ways I’ve hurt her.
It’s like… damn, fireworks . My throat constricts, and wetness dampens the corners of my eyes.
I glance at our joined hands and then at her, her glassy blue eyes catching mine like a light through a long, dark tunnel.
The song nears its crescendo, but more powerful is her thumb running softly over mine and the small smile she offers me.