Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
"So I was wondering what you thought of Dr. Reynolds?"
Ben tried his best to not look nervous or concerned about what Mason's answer was going to be.
It was Sunday afternoon, and they were spending the entire afternoon down by the river.
He'd seen Hannah in church that morning with her friend, Dr. Stephanie Brunswick, who looked every inch the successful doctor, even though she had been dressed in church clothes and not scrubs, and there had been no white lab coats in sight.
He'd wondered again if Hannah was going to regret her decision to give up any hope of a big career and would be happy in Mistletoe Meadows.
Or was she going to be like Peyton and decide after they were married that she wanted something else?
He was jumping the gun, because they hadn't discussed marriage at all. But he supposed at his age, he wasn't interested in dating unless it led to that, and maybe he was crazy, but he thought that Hannah was the same.
For him, the only hurdle he had to get over was his son's permission.
"I think she's awesome. She's always teaching me new things. I learn something new every day. It's always interesting too. And she has great stories about when she was learning to be a doctor and even in school. Did you know that they cut up dead bodies?" Mason asked, sounding amazed.
Well, this wasn't exactly where he thought the conversation was going.
"I believe they're called cadavers."
"Yeah. That's what she said too."
"I guess I did know that. But it's not something I think about a lot," he said, trying to keep the irony out of his voice.
"Why? Hannah is a good influence on me. You're always talking about how I need to have good influences. You weren't going to make me spend less time in the medical center, were you?" Mason asked, pausing as he picked up the wood that Ben had just split and looking at his dad with concern.
"No. On the contrary, I was hoping we could spend more time with her." He paused and then took a breath. "I was hoping it would be okay with you if Hannah and I dated. I'm interested in her, and I guess I wouldn't date her lightly. I would be thinking about marrying her eventually."
Maybe that was too much for his kid, but he didn't see the point in pretending anything else.
Mason stood staring, holding the wood, although it seemed to be forgotten in his arms.
"Like Dr. Reynolds would be my mom?"
"Your mom will always be your mom. But... I guess she'd be like a second mom, yeah. Eventually. I haven't asked her yet, but I wanted to make sure it was okay with you first."
Mason's face had fallen, and he stared at the ground, his nose wrinkled a little, obviously thinking hard about it. Ben preferred that over an off-the-cuff answer that maybe didn't take everything into consideration.
Of course, Mason was not an adult, and it wasn't like he wouldn't change his mind a million times.
"Do you think she'll leave?" he finally asked, looking back up at Ben. "Do you think she'll decide that she doesn't like me after all?"
That cracked his heart. He hated the fact that was what Mason had taken away from the experience with his mom. That she would leave, and that it meant she didn't care for him.
He didn't want to defend his ex, and he didn't want to say anything that wasn't true. But he also didn't want Mason to carry around scars from what someone had done to him, and a parent had the power to hurt a child more than any other person in the world.
"Sometimes people do things and we can't control those things.
It has nothing to do with us, and it has everything to do with them.
I know that's a really hard lesson, and it's kind of hard to differentiate between what's their responsibility and what's our responsibility.
But if someone leaves you or doesn't seem to like you, it's not necessarily your fault.
" He paused. "I'm not saying we can't always look at ourselves and try to be better, but when you're talking about a parent, it's not the child's responsibility to be the kind of person that will make a parent stay. Does that make sense?"
Mason's brows had drawn down, like he was thinking about what Ben had said.
"I guess so. You're telling me that it's not my fault that Mom left."
"Right. I could've been a better husband, I could've been a better dad, I could've been a better person, but that really has nothing to do with your mom leaving.
She had to make the decision to do what she said she was going to do and fulfill her responsibilities.
She chose not to. That's not our fault."
"I guess I understand. But you're right. I do wonder if sometimes—if I had been a better kid, maybe if I'd gotten better grades or hadn't caused so much trouble. There was a time I colored on the wall and one time I scratched the table with my knife—"
"Stop. All of those things are normal things that kids do.
I could go on and on about the things I did too.
But again, when people around you don't meet your expectations, that doesn't mean you get mad at them and leave.
That means you love them anyway. And that's what we have to do.
I guess your mom can decide if that's what she wants to do or she wants to do something else, and that's where we have to realize that we can't control her. We can only control ourselves."
"That makes sense. But I guess it doesn't really answer my question about Dr. Reynolds. Is she going to stay?"
"She's the kind of woman who does. Yeah.
" He hoped he was right about that. It was part of the reason why he felt like he was falling in love with her.
Because she was the kind of person who did what God wanted her to do rather than what she wanted herself.
She was also the kind of person who looked around to see who she could help rather than looking around to see how she could help herself.
Those were two of the main things that he loved about her.
Did he love her? It seemed a little soon to think so, but the kind of love he was thinking about wasn’t the kind the world thought of. It was deeper and better than that. He should tell her.
"I guess there aren't any guarantees in life. We can't say for sure that she will or she won't. We can only control ourselves."
Mason said the last two words with him, and they laughed.
"I guess what I was asking is if it was okay with you, I would like for Dr. Reynolds to eventually be part of our family. But you're part of this family too, and every decision I make affects you as well."
"If I say no, are you going to not date her?"
That was a hard question. He had told Hannah that Mason was just going to have to accept it, and he'd meant that, but he really wanted Mason to want it.
"I'd really like for you to like her and want her too.
If not, I guess we'll have to cross that bridge, because your gram recently told me that life is shorter than what we think it is.
" He huffed out a breath. "That means you only have a small amount of time to do all the good that you can do, and you shouldn't waste any of your time doing bad things. "
"Like keeping my dad away from someone that he could fall in love with and spend the rest of his life being happy with?" Mason asked, one brow raised.
Maybe his son was a little more mature than what he gave him credit for.
"If it's in the power of your hand to do good, you should do it,'" Ben said with a little grin. He was pretty sure Mason was just messing with him now.
"I can't think of anyone else I'd rather have in the family. We could talk about medical stuff all day long, all night long, and all weekend long. She could be here right now, and we could dissect a frog or something."
"I think frogs are hibernating right now," Ben said, picking the mallet up and putting another billet of wood on the stump where he was splitting it. "Plus, I'm a policeman, not a doctor, and there's a reason for that. Blood makes me dizzy."
"I'll have to make sure I tell Dr. Reynolds that. That could be a pretty good thing to have hanging over your head if, say, I get in a bad fight or something."
"I can control it. Don't think I can't." Ben swung the mallet down, and the wood split nicely in two.
He loved doing manual labor like this. And he loved it even more doing it with his son.
And even more than that was doing it with his son and having his son enjoy it as well.
Who would've thought that working at the medical center would've turned his kid around so completely?
He knew it was the Lord working, but it was also Hannah allowing Him to work through her. He smiled at the thought.