5
The next morning, I tell Ben I’m going to run a few errands.
He blows me a kiss goodbye, as he is busy composing for a friend’s independent film. When treatment got too intense, he transitioned
to work from his at-home studio, but he has never slowed down. Work keeps him going, gives him a purpose, an outlet.
As I walk down the street, I think about what he said about me giving art another shot. It’s not like I don’t want to know what would happen if I went all in. I just haven’t made time for it. Deciding to forgo the market, I turn right and
head toward my art studio instead.
While I come here sometimes to think, it’s been a while since I’ve created anything. When I let myself into my sacred space,
however, I audibly exhale. The loft sits on the top floor of an old, converted textile mill. Years ago, I got it at a steal
and luckily have a landlord who keeps his promise of rent control. My body releases all of its tension as I spot my line of
acrylics and step gingerly onto the giant tarp, eyes roaming over half-finished canvases.
Though Ben doesn’t know it, before this final prognosis, I’d started a series about his life. His mother was kind enough to send me all sorts of photos, and I’d begun to capture him in his simplest moments as a child: sitting, standing, walking, reading, and later, moving, composing, racing. I haven’t ventured into the cancer series yet, mainly because it’s still too close to home. Maybe that’s why I’ve been avoiding coming here altogether. It’s just too hard.
I clean my brushes and organize the space, pausing on a portrait of Ben standing on the beach, sun setting behind him, arms
thrust wide. It’s my favorite picture because on that trip, we’d talked about our lives: all the places we’d go, all the things
we’d see. We were going to live our lives to the absolute fullest, not settle into a domestic rut like so many couples we
know. But then life slapped us in the face, and here we are.
I check the time, decide there’s nowhere I really have to be, and crank up some good music. Dipping my brush against my palette,
I tune out the depressing commentary of what could have been. Already I’ve spent so much time trying to get back to what Ben
and I once were, but also dreading what we will become... what I will become.
Today I vow to stay right here with my art I’ve long neglected, to hopefully find some sort of flow. As I work, I keep my
mind focused on the task at hand, and before I know it, it’s lunch. I break and stretch, judging my work in front of me. I
want it to convey all the best parts of our lives together, tiny details I would normally never share with the world. I want
to capture those moments. I want to capture Ben.
Less than three years, under normal circumstances, is not enough time to really know someone, especially when a chunk of that
time has been spent battling death. But I know Ben more than I’ve ever known anyone, because we have faced the darkest, hardest
part of being human.
I make some notes for the current pieces, then decide to pack up for the day. When I get to the pedestrian bridge, I freeze. Ben is standing there, waving. He looks well, the sun shining on his face.
“Hey, you.” I give him a kiss. “What are you doing here?”
“I hoped you might have gone to your studio, which, from the looks of you, you did.” He motions to the paint under my fingernails.
“And I figured today is a beautiful day for a bucket list adventure.”
“Ah, it is, isn’t it?” My heart flutters as I consider what he’s come up with. I mentally scan our most recent list, but before
I can think of what it could be, he interrupts.
“It’s a new one,” he says. “Follow me.”
He takes my hand and leads me back toward my studio. We take a right on Walnut Street and stop near a tattoo shop. I turn
to him, floored.
“Tattoos? Can you even get a tattoo?”
While he was in treatment, he couldn’t do anything that would risk excess bleeding, but I’m not sure what the restrictions
are now. “I can,” he says. “And so can you.”
I nod. I’ve never gotten a tattoo, though I’ve definitely thought about it over the years. Before Ben’s diagnosis, I put it
off and said I would do it someday. Now that we’re here, I have no idea what I want to get. We go inside, and he says we have
a one-thirty appointment.
“Wow, confident, are we?” After handing over our driver’s licenses and filling out paperwork, with words like infection and death turning my stomach, we are led back to a small space with a black table covered with the same crinkly paper they use at doctors’
offices. The artist introduces himself, and Ben turns to me.
“So, I’ve given this a lot of thought because, frankly, you are going to have to live with this much longer than I am.” He smiles. “You know I’m not into symbols or zodiac signs—”
“Thank God,” I interject, immediately relieved that I won’t have a yin and yang symbol tattooed on my butt.
“Instead, I thought about words. How important words have been to us throughout our entire relationship. How, when I was too
sick to speak, we could look at each other and say one simple phrase that would bring us back to each other.”
I swallow the gently forming lump in my throat because I know just what words he’s referring to. He grips my hands loosely
and whispers, “I see you.”
“I see you,” I say.
Suddenly I know it’s the perfect tattoo. Those words take me back to a million what-if moments, when Ben was so sick that
he no longer resembled the man I knew, and I didn’t know how to help him. He would always look at me and simply say, “I see
you.” I see your fears. I see your love. I see your uncertainty. I see you.
And I would say it back: “I see you.” I see you beyond your diagnosis. I see your soul. I see your spirit. I see your love. I see you healthy. I see you healed.
The tattoo artist clears his throat, and I laugh, squeezing Ben’s arm. “Crying in a tattoo parlor is so not cool, Benjamin,” I joke.
For the next forty minutes, we get the words tattooed on the inside of our wrists. Ben’s is in small uppercase letters that
I write for him, and I opt for his cursive script. This way we will carry a piece of each other with us, no matter what.
When we leave, I have a boost of adrenaline at doing something so wildly spontaneous, like we used to. “Feel up for something else?” I ask. I don’t want to push it, especially if he’s tired, but to my surprise, he smiles.
“Lead the way,” he says.
“Follow me.” I wiggle my eyebrows.
We walk toward Coolidge Park, which is packed with kids since summer has just begun. As I approach the carousel, he laughs.
“Seriously? You want to ride the carousel?”
I nod. “I haven’t ridden one since I was little, and I want to ride one with you.”
“From tattoos to carousels,” he says. “A day in the life.”
“That should be the title of your memoir.” I stick out my tongue at him as I pay for our tickets and tell him to pick an animal
to ride. We choose seahorses side by side, and Ben groans as he hoists himself up and clings to the pole.
“We’re the oldest people here,” he whispers.
“Because adults are boring,” I say. We’ve spent so much time talking about how we simply stop playing as we get older, how
we stop wanting to do the things we used to when we were kids. No coloring. No playing games. No carousels. At this moment,
we are resurrecting that childlike excitement. At least I am. When I glance at Ben, he seems embarrassed, but I know he’s
in good spirits.
We go around and around, and I check to make sure he’s not getting nauseous. Instead, he’s already struck up a conversation
with a little boy beside him who is scared and searching for his mother. He points to a woman wrangling two more children
on the other side of the carousel.
I glance at my tattoo, which is covered with a shiny ointment. It is one of those surprising days I will look back on when
things are hard and I want to remember all the beautiful moments between us.
Finally, the carousel shudders to a stop, and after Ben makes sure the boy reunites with his mother, we hop off and step toward the park, where families run wild across the expansive lawn.
“Hungry?” I ask. “We could grab an early dinner somewhere. Or get takeout and eat in the park?”
“Sure.”
Ben is agreeable as we find a spot on the hill and sit. There are several groups out throwing a football, playing soccer,
or fishing at the water’s edge. I’m sure it’s odd for Ben to sit here instead of tossing a ball around with his buddies. Before
he got sick, I rarely saw him sit down.
“What are you thinking?” I finally ask.
His thin arms are looped around his knees as he stares into the distance. “Just remembering.”
It’s something we say a lot in the quiet moments. “Just remembering,” we’ll say as we catalog all that’s good. I just thought
the same thing on the carousel, and here he is doing it too.
“It’s a good day for that,” I offer, letting my own mind wander. Back to the past. Back to even a few moments ago.
“So that journalist called again. From the Times ,” Ben finally says.
“And?” For some inexplicable reason, my heart begins to race.
His face darkens momentarily. “Listen, Harper. This whole ‘find you someone to love’ is a ridiculous idea. I know that. He
and I talked about it a bit more, and I could see it playing out in real life like some terrible Hallmark movie.” He looks
at me. “I want you to know the idea came from a good place. If I’m being honest, I just feel so helpless. And responsible
for all the pain you’re going to go through.” He sighs. “I was just trying to think of a way to make it better.”
“So get me a puppy, not a fiancé.” I bump his shoulder playfully. “But seriously, don’t get me a puppy. I can’t handle that right now.”
“Noted.”
I understand Ben’s desperate need to cling to something that distracts him from reality. “Plus,” I add, “how awkward for you
to have to find me some new hottie.”
Ben breaks into a grin. “Who said he would be hot?” His eyes are light, and he’s smiling. “If you change your mind, though...”
“Zip it.” I lay my hand in his and squeeze. He squeezes back. I rest my head on his shoulder and sigh.
I’m relieved he’s choosing to drop this whole interview thing. I can’t imagine some journalist taking a deep dive into our
love story and Ben’s big, beautiful, messy life. I don’t want to share my time with him, not like that, not with a stranger.
Now that Ben’s idea and this article are off the table, I snuggle in closer, wanting to relax, wanting to let it all go, wanting
to stay present, but I’m still so anxious about what awaits us.
I’m still scared.