Chapter 4
Benson
When Remi asks if I want to join the ranch workers for lunch today, I say yes.
He leads me through the house to the bathroom on the main level, as if I could have possibly forgotten over the years where it is. Shooting me a smile, he disappears upstairs, presumably to wash up elsewhere.
I can hear the lunch crowd already, a steady buzz interspersed with the occasional call or laugh. My unease is expected. Something I’ve dealt with my entire life without knowing quite why social situations make me uncomfortable in a way no one else ever seems to show.
Surely everyone feels like they’re navigating a minefield with a simple conversation? We’re all putting on a happy face and faking it, right?
Apparently not.
Some people, I’ve learned, actually enjoy being in a room full of others. Although I cannot, for the life of me, understand it.
I tug off my coat, hat, and gloves before using the toilet and washing my hands twice, making sure to get all the grime out from under my fingernails that I acquired while mucking stalls and pens today. Running a quick hand over my beard, I take in a breath and open the door.
The ranch house has an addition off the back that serves as a grand dining room.
I say grand because it looks that way. Three of the walls are entirely windows and the table could easily seat twenty.
It’s made of wood, the surface one long uninterrupted piece, the edges sealed but live cut, with the bark still attached.
Hank made it. Mr. Darling. I remember him sanding it down when I was a kid.
He’s the first to spot me as I enter the dining room, barely knowing where to look. He makes it easy for me, waving me over with a hearty smile that sets me at ease some.
“Benson,” he says in greeting, standing to pull out a chair next to him. A few of the other Darlings are seated nearby. Jackson. Mrs. Darling, or Marigold. No Remi yet.
I offer a thanks, hanging my coat on the back of the chair before remembering my manners. “Hi, Mr. Darling. I hope it’s okay that I’m joining you today?”
He waves his hand through the air with a psht. “Of course it is. You’re always welcome. What are you doing on the ranch?”
“Oh. Remi is showing me around a bit.” Realizing how odd that sounds considering I was running around this land before Remi was even born, I add, “Lots of changes over the years.”
“Sure have been,” Hank says, passing me a bowl of pasta salad as Remi himself pulls out a chair across from us. “You interested in getting into ranching?”
That has a laugh spilling from me. “No, sir. I don’t think I’m the chaps-wearing type of person.”
For whatever reason, that comment has Remi peering at me in an almost contemplative manner. He lifts his hands to sign alongside his spoken words. “He’s good with animals, though.”
Hank nods approvingly, passing me a platter of ham sandwiches as someone’s fork scrapes loudly against their plate. I try to hide my wince, setting the sandwiches aside and grabbing salad instead.
“Not a fan of ham?” Mr. Darling asks. He, too, is signing simultaneously now. I imagine with so many voices and other sounds filling the room, it’s more difficult for Remi to parse out individual conversations.
“Um, no,” I manage after a long second. “I’m a vegetarian.”
Belatedly, I add the sign for vegetable person, realizing only once I’m done that the entire room has fallen silent. I look around sharply, several heads turned in my direction.
Remi is the first one to break the quiet. He barks a laugh, a wide grin on his face. “Holy shit. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them speechless.”
“I…”
“Ash,” Hank hollers.
A blonde man peers around Jackson’s head. “Right here, Hank.”
“Can we get some vegetarian options on the menu?” Mr. Darling asks.
“Done,” the man named Ash says simply.
My mouth opens. “You don’t have to—”
“It’s no trouble,” Ash cuts in. “Any other dietary restrictions?”
I shake my head, wanting to tell him he shouldn’t bother making changes for my sake. It’s not like I’ll be here often.
But Marigold gives me a warm smile, catching my eye from across the table. “Benson, you just let us know when you’ll be stopping by, and there will be options for you. All right?”
I nod, all I can do.
Remi has a smile on his face as he digs into his lunch, conversation picking up again around the room. My heart won’t stop thundering. There aren’t over a dozen sets of eyes on me anymore, but I don’t think it’s just that.
Do these people truly want me here? What for?
I finish my meal mostly in silence, answering the odd question one of the Darling family members tosses my way. There’s plenty to eat without meat in it.
When the ranchers start getting up to head back to work, I look Remi’s way. He cants his head toward the doorway into the rest of the house, and I hasten out of my seat to follow him.
He’s waiting near the kitchen when I round the corner, my coat over my arm and my plate and silverware in hand.
His eyes drop there. “You don’t have to clean up after yourself, Ben.”
“I’m supposed to just…leave these on the table?”
“You can, yes.”
Remi must see my internal battle because he chuckles and waves me into the kitchen. He opens up the dishwasher, and I deposit the items inside. He leaves the door open, presumably for whomever will be coming through with more dishes.
“So you’re a vegetarian?” he asks, kicking a hip against the counter.
“I am.”
“Does it bother you being here? On the ranch?”
It takes me a second to connect the dots. “Oh, no. It has nothing to do with any sort of moral objection. Sure, I wish every ranch was as ethically run as this one. But, no. Humans have been omnivores forever. I just… I can’t stand the texture.”
Remi nods his head slowly. “Huh. Well I’m pretty sure you gave Ira a heart attack when you uttered the V word.”
I huff a laugh. “He’s the, uh…”
“Older ranch hand? Yeah. He’s been around since before I was here.”
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I remember him.”
Remi chews on his lip for a moment, clearly mulling over thoughts I’m not privy to. He has a couple beauty marks above his lip. One on his cheek. Another on his jaw. They’re fascinating. Blemishes, almost. Except… They only make Remi’s face more interesting, not less.
When Remi says my name, I have a feeling I missed something. He dips his head to catch my eye. “Benson? Can I give you my number? In case you decide to stop by and can’t find me.”
“Oh. Yeah. Sure.”
Remi waits until I give him the go-ahead, and then he rattles off his digits. I save the number in my phone, even though it’s unlikely I’ll forget now.
Once I slip the device away, he lifts his hands, moving slowly. ‘You remember a lot of ASL?’
‘Little,’ I sign back. Stiltedly, I ask him, ‘Speaking more for me?’
Remi seems to understand. He smiles in a way that’s natural and kind. “I don’t mind it,” he voices.
I sign back, ‘Try.’
Again, he seems to understand what I mean. I will try harder to sign more if it’s Remi’s preference. He pats my chest the same way he did this morning in the petting-farm barn. Like he’s happy with me.
Like I pleased him.
Feeling warm, I follow Remi out of the kitchen. Ash passes us, a wide smile on his face that seems directed at Remi. Remi, to my surprise, pointedly ignores the other man, and Ash chuckles.
“Are you heading back home?” Remi asks, stopping with me in the entryway. There’s a rack just inside the door with a couple coats and hats on it and a mirror on the wall that gives a peek into the mudroom.
“Um, yeah. I have an appointment this afternoon.”
Remi huffs gently. “No explanation needed, Ben. You don’t actually work here.” I swear I hear a soft yet, but Remi’s lips barely move. “See you tomorrow, maybe.”
With that, Remi shoots me a smile and heads off, leaving me to find my own way out of the house and off the ranch.
On the drive back to my mom’s, I run through the events of the morning.
Starting with finding myself on the Darling Ranch for the second day in a row, not quite knowing why other than a feeling of excitement I woke up with and wanted to follow.
I can’t say I thought my return to Montana would involve doing manual labor for fun in my spare time, but truth be told, I’m still not quite sure what I’m doing back here.
There’s a small corner of my mind telling me I ran. Quit. Not just my career but…everything. I quit the life I’d built, the pretense that I was happy with the success I worked so hard for. I quit jogging. Quit shaving, which I hated nearly as much. I quit trying.
Trying to be like everybody else.
It’s as scary a realization as it is freeing. Because who the fuck am I if I’ve spent forty-two years not knowing I was holding up a mirror to those around me?
The other corner of my mind, the one not freaking out every second of every day for abandoning my life, suspects I came back here looking for some measure of comfort. Familiarity. I just wish I could find it, instead of feeling, like always, it’s two steps away.
When I get home, if I can even call it that, my brother’s vehicle is in the drive. I stop inside the house, listening.
“I’m in the kitchen,” August calls. “If you want to say hello.”
I shuffle out of my boots, which no longer look new, and take off my hat, coat, and gloves.
August is standing beside the sink, eating a sandwich over the basin.
I grimace as crumbs fall onto the countertop, missing the sink entirely.
Luckily, August doesn’t notice my reaction.
If he did, he’d take it as criticism, and our interaction would be over before it started.
“Hey,” I say quietly, the silence stark apart from a ticking grandfather clock in the living room. “You, uh, off from work today?”
August nods, finishing his sandwich before brushing the errant crumbs into the sink and washing his hands. “I’m covering a shift this weekend. Where’ve you been?”
For whatever reason, I hesitate to tell him the truth. My time at the ranch feels…precious, for lack of a better word. I don’t want to be judged for it.
August huffs, his annoyance with me clear. “Whatever.”
He’s halfway out of the room when I manage, “You didn’t give me time to answer.”
My brother stops, an eyebrow cocked as he turns back my way. My pulse is firing, my innate instinct to keep quiet not winning out over the frustration I’ve felt these past many months. Longer than that, even.
“You didn’t give me a chance to speak,” I tell him. “You assumed you knew what was going through my head, which is impossible. You assumed you knew how I was going to respond or not respond at all, which is also impossible. Why ask someone a question if you’re not going to listen to their answer?”
August crosses his arms, even as his brow is furrowed. “It shouldn’t be hard to answer. It was a simple question.”
“Not to me.”
The silence between us stretches, the tick, tick, tick from the living room clock like a metronome to my coiling discomfort. My nail digs into the pad of my thumb, but, finally, August drops his arms.
“Okay, so, where were you?” he tries again.
I ease out a breath before meeting his eye, his expression guarded like usual. “I was at the Darlings’. Visiting.”
“Who?” he asks. “Colton?”
Colton is younger than me by a few years, but I was always closest with him growing up.
I shake my head. “Remi.”
My brother’s head rears back, as if I’ve shocked him. “What? Why?”
“He was just…there,” I answer.
It’s a simplification of the truth, but I don’t know how to explain the way I’ve been enjoying his company.
Remi is my brother’s age. Twelve years younger than me if rounding down the difference.
In theory, spending time with him should feel just as awkward as it does with August. We have nothing in common.
And yet… There’s a stillness in Remi’s company I haven’t found with many people. It makes it easy to just…be.
August lets out an incredulous sound, the way he’s looking at me making me feel like my answer was the wrong one. “Okay, well… Okay.”
He leaves the room without another word, and I blow out a slow breath, the tick, tick, tick of the clock almost mocking. Once again, I managed to make things worse without trying.
I head up to my old bedroom, my skin itching under my shirt. I tug my sleeves straight. Roll my shoulders.
“It’s fine,” I say quietly, even though it feels anything but.
Checking the time on my phone, I make myself comfortable in the chair beside the dresser. Everything in here was redone years ago, made into a guest room. Now, I’m the guest in what should be my own home.
It doesn’t feel like mine at all.
I don’t bother pasting on a smile as I call Steph. She’ll see through it anyway.
The video call rings twice before she answers, a lilac shirt on today and a welcoming smile on her face. “Afternoon, Benson.”
“Hi, Steph.”
“Where are we at today?”
I mentally catalogue all I’m feeling and thinking and try to answer as honestly as I can. “Upset. Uncomfortable.”
“Where at?” she asks.
I pull in a breath. “My stomach and chest. My shoulders.”
She hums. “Try taking a deep breath all the way into your diaphragm. Hold it. And now let it out, all the air, all the tension.”
My exhale puffs out as instructed, my shoulders a little looser than they were before.
“Better?” she asks.
“Little bit.”
She nods. “Do you want to talk about why you’re upset today?”
“You said…unmasking isn’t always conscious.”
Steph doesn’t miss a beat. “That’s right.
You can make conscious effort to show yourself to the people around you.
But, like we’ve talked about, you personally hit a point of extreme fatigue last year.
And now, holding up the weight of that mask might not come as easily as it once did. It’s not a bad thing, Benson.”
“But what if… What if people don’t like the real me?”
Steph’s expression is understanding. “I won’t tell you that fear is unfounded. There’s a reason we learn to blend in, right? But I want to remind you of two things. First, you’re not the same child who was trying to get by in a world they didn’t understand.”
“I’m still not sure I understand it half the time,” I mutter.
“Fair,” Steph says with a small laugh. “But the difference is you are safe now. You’re not dependent on others. You’re an adult responsible for yourself, and that won’t change.”
Steph waits until I nod to go on.
“The second thing, which might be harder to hear, is that not everyone is going to like you. Regardless of who you are.”
I rub my chest, my brother’s disappointed face fresh in my mind.
“That one hit, huh?” Steph asks.
“Yeah,” I admit. “I can feel it slipping more and more. The…mask. I’m afraid I’m going to lose the people in my life if they see…me.”
Steph is quiet long enough that I meet her gaze through the video chat. She offers me the smallest of smiles. “Benson. You’re worth knowing. But are they worth keeping if they can’t love you for you?”
I let my therapist’s words settle over me. They aren’t exactly comforting.
Because I suspect I know the answer.