Peter did find himself being depressed about his wife, however. She’d been so depressed after Peter was murdered. He had too. Peter wondered if he had paid a little more attention to her back then whether she might have been here to enjoy this little man. It was something that would haunt him at times.
“I just thought of something I’d like the two of you to do. You should name your children anything you wish, but I was thinking if you had yourself a little girl, my late wife and my mom would be perfect names—also your mother, Don. My mom’s name was Elizabeth Marie. My father’s name, of course, was Peter. Dad called Mom Em when they were both alive. I think with all the family you guys have, it would be simple to figure out a name for a child easily. I just wanted to put my two cents in there.” He looked at Parker, wanting to let her know how she made him feel by making him a part of all this. “I never thought, not in all my life, that I’d ever be able to hold a grandbaby in my arms. This feels wonderful. I wanted you to know that this little man and any children you have, they’re going to be my everything.”
He wasn’t going to die. Peter had been told that yesterday when he and Don had sat down in the living room to talk. Mae had been buried that morning, and he’d been feeling sorry for Raymond. The pain of loss was something Peter had known all too well in his life.
Don smacked him upside the head and then laughed. “I’ve been calling for you for the last ten minutes. Where were you?” He said that he’d been thinking of all the people he’d lost. “I know what you’re going through. My dad was a prick and a bastard. He beat us and our mom. But let me ask you what my grandma asked me. Can you change anything? Could you have loved your wife any more or less? Is there a way that you could change anything by feeling sorry for yourself?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know that I could.” Don asked him if he thought he might have. “I don’t think it would have mattered to my wife at all what I did. She was in a deep depression for so long after Peter was murdered.”
“Good. Then you have to let it go. If you don’t, it’s going to eat you alive. Since you’re an immortal now, that is going to be a very long time for you to have something eating away at you that you could no more change than you could the fact that she’s gone. Right?” He nodded. “Tell me something, Peter. If I could make it happen for you, what if you were to become a part of the high school where I teach? I’ve recently found out that you have a doctorate in social justice. Also, that you’re an attorney. They could use someone in human resources with your kind of skills.”
“I think I’d like that.” Don nodded and smiled at him. “Is this your way of telling me I’ve been lazing round the house long enough?”
“Sort of. But I’ve figured out that having something to do makes the days go by better. I like being with people. I’m sure you do as well.” He said he missed that by living alone. “You need to get out and be human again. Be a man about town. You need to be a person anyone would feel comfortable coming to when they have issues. Kids would love to have you around at the school.”
“I think I might enjoy steering kids in the right direction too.” The more they talked about it, the more excited he became. So now he was going to start school in August, being the head of the HR department of the local high school. “Thank you for that, Don. You hit the nail right on the head with this.”
“It was my pleasure. You’re a good man, Peter. I’m glad to have you as part of this family.”
He was so touched by his words that he hugged the younger man. And when he wrapped his arms around him, Peter, still to this day, felt he could take on the world and win.
As soon as they pulled into the drive of their home, he was given the pleasure of carrying Pete into the house. He was so excited to have the first picture with him too that he was hard-pressed to give him up to Meggie. But he did. And in that moment, a moment that he’d remember forever, he kissed Meggie on the cheek and told her how he was going to enjoy being a grandparent with her.
“That’s right. We will be. I can’t think of a nicer person to share that with than you.” They both laughed and laughed again over the baby’s head. Pete woke up then and fussed about being squashed. “We’re grandparents, Peter. Do you believe it?”
“I do, and I’m so glad I have you to thank for this.” He kissed her again. “I’m already head over heels in love with this family. And this little guy makes is even better.”
Chapter 10
Benson was afraid now that he was here on the ball field. After being introduced to the team, he hung back so he’d not get in the way. Mr. Don told him his job was to make sure he kept an eye on all the players, to make sure they rested when they were looking exhausted and that they had plenty of water. It wasn’t until the first kid he’d been watching limped to the starting line that he realized it wasn’t a lame job, but a most important one.
“You need to get off the team.” The kid just looked at him. That was when Benson noticed his eyes were all wrong. “You can’t play here. You have to go home. No drugs. No drugs.”
“Says who? You? I don’t listen to retards.” It hurt him terribly to have someone say that to him. But his momma had told him to stand up for himself because he was the only one that could sometimes. “Get out of my way, retard. My dad will eat you alive if you fuck with me.”
Pulling his whistle out of his shirt, Benson blew on it as hard as he could. All the coaches had one. It was an emergency thing, Mr. Don told him. All the coaches came running to him when he put his whistle back under his shirt. The kid, he didn’t know his name, started complaining about him right away.
“He’s trying to be bossy to me, Coach. He thinks he’s in charge or something. I don’t want him near me when I’m trying to practice with my team.” Mr. Don asked Benson what he found. “Nothing. This person hasn’t anything—”
“He’s not right.” Mr. Mason asked him what he meant. “I don’t know the words, but he’s not right. You have to look at his eyes and his arms. He’s not right. No drugs. The sign says no drugs.”
Mr. Don was the one that understood first. Pulling the kid toward him, he jerked his sleeve up and looked at his arm. It was all marked up with holes. The bruising on it looked like his momma’s arms did when she went in for her treatment.
“Roger, call the police, please.” The kid started screaming at them that it was nothing more than a cut he’d gotten. That his dad had money, and they were going to regret treating him like this. Mr. Don wasn’t having it. “Call them and tell them that Larry Jude is high as a kite and that he’s getting it from his parents.”
By the time the police got there, Benson was as scared as he’d ever been. Larry was still yelling at him, calling him names. The other kids were standing around too. Mr. Don looked at him and asked him if he was all right.
“I’m not a retard.” Mr. Don told him he certainly wasn’t. “He called me that. I don’t like it. But he’s been doping up, and that’s not right either. I don’t want to lose my job, Mr. Don.”
“You aren’t going to, Benson. Without you, I wouldn’t have seen this. This is why I needed you to keep an eye on the kids. Not just this, but in the event one of them gets sick. It’s an important duty, and I’m so glad you did the right thing.”
Benson nodded but wasn’t so sure. The other kids were looking at him funny too. Backing away from it all, Robby, a nice boy, asked him if he was all right. Nodding, Robby shook his head before speaking again.
“You’re not all right. You’re upset. I would have been too if he called me names. Don’t be. Some of us knew he was high, but we’re afraid of him.” Benson asked him why. “Well, the biggest reason is his parents are meaner than snot. Also, he has money. Enough to hurt us if we were to have told on him. I’m glad you did it, Benson. You did the perfect thing with this. Thanks.”
It was still hard for him to get it into his head that he wasn’t going to be in trouble. Th
e police asked him questions about how he’d known. After telling them about Larry’s eyes and stuff, the officer shook his hand. It was the best thing he’d had happen to him in all his life.
“Can you show us how to do the pick-up and run drill, Benson? It’s a lot harder than I thought. If you can show us like you did first thing this morning, we might get it better.” Robby was pulling him away from the ambulance that was checking out Larry. “I think some of us got it, but I don’t understand how we’re to make it work with eleven guys from the other team running at us.”
Benson enjoyed working one on one with the boys. Whenever he’d look in the direction of the police and medical team, someone would get him back to helping. He wanted to be good at his job and not mess up any. He really hoped Mr. Don didn’t fire him.
Benson watched football all the time at home in the cool weather. He had some moves he’d picked up from there that kept him busy with the boys. By the time Larry was taken away, he had them running drills with the dummies. The kind that they had to hit, not ones like him.
When practice was over, Mr. Don called him and the other coaches in to have a meeting with the players. He was ever so glad that it was in the building. He was sweating like a hog on a hot summer day. As soon as they were all given something to drink, Mr. Don started out by telling them to applaud him. Benson didn’t know what to think when the boys not only clapped for him but thanked him a lot for getting Larry away from them.
“Benson took a big chance today in calling out Larry. That is the reason I’ve hired him to work with us. Also, I noticed he was working well with the rest of you, keeping you working even though there was other stuff going on. You’re a team, and I’m thrilled to death to see that you can work well under all kinds of situations.” Mr. Don shook his hand too. “You did a good solid for all of us today, Benson. I can’t thank you enough for it.”
When his momma came to pick him up after he was done helping clean up, he was almost too excited to tell her what happened. But he shouldn’t have worried about it. Mr. Don and the rest of the staff told her about it and made it seem like he’d saved the day. Even the team, before they left, was talking to his mom and making sure she knew he’d been there for them all.
As soon as he got home, he had to sit in his room with the lights off. He was too excited. When he got that way, he would mess up. The last time he’d been this excited, he’d wet his pants. Benson rocked back and forth in his special corner until he could think with his mind again.
“You did a good job today at your work. I’m very proud of you, Benson.” He kissed her on the cheek and told her he had so much fun. “I’m happy for you. I knew Mr. Don wouldn’t steer you wrong.”
Benson fixed his momma and him a salad for dinner. She said she was just too exhausted to eat, but he did get her to take a few bites. After she went to bed, he washed up the dishes and put things away. Checking on her before he went to bed, it scared him a bit when she started coughing and couldn’t stop. Benson put the phone down when she laid back on her bed. He was ready to call the doctor if she got any sicker.
“I want to tell you something. You’re not going to like it, but I have to tell you, all right?” He nodded, then asked her if she was going to die soon. “I am. Very soon. I can’t hang on much longer, Benson. I’m hurting badly all the time now, and it’s just too much on me. I don’t want to leave you, but I’m afraid I will.”
“I don’t want you to hurt no more, Momma. I know you do all the time, too.” She said she did and started coughing again. Benson picked up the phone, but she asked him to put it back on the cradle for now. “I want to call you some help when you need it, Momma. You showed me how.”
“I did, but there won’t be a thing they can do to help me.” Benson started to cry when Momma asked him to listen to her. “If you find me when I’ve passed on, you call the ambulance first thing. I’ll be gone, so they’ll know what to do for me. Then I want you to call Mrs. Parker, Mr. Don’s wife. Her phone number is right there by the phone for you. She came by today and helped me with a few arrangements. The doctor told me it’s only a matter of time now.”
Benson wasn’t sure what that meant, but he nodded anyway. It was wearing his momma out talking to him, but he was careful not to get too upset about what she was telling him. The only thing he had to worry about, she told him, was that he didn’t get upset with anyone, and maybe they’d let him live in this house alone.
When she closed her eyes, he sat with her for a while. Watching every breath she did, in and out, Benson could tell how hard it was for her. Also, Benson could tell she wasn’t breathing the way she should have been. Picking up the phone, he went to the kitchen to get the number for Mrs. Parker.
“Mrs. Parker, this is Benson. My momma said I should call you after the ambulance was called. My momma, she’s not breathing too good.” Mrs. Parker said she’d be right there. “I don’t want her to die. She’s all I got in the whole wide world.” He couldn’t help but cry then. His heart was broken. Mrs. Parker didn’t make fun of him at all. She just kept saying it was all right that he called her.
“You stay with your momma, Benson, and I’ll be right there with my husband. Would you like me to bring anyone else with me? We’ve all been told that your momma is really sick.” Benson said he’d be all right with Mr. Don too. “All right. We’ll be there in a few minutes. You just stay with your momma and hold her hand. She’ll know you’re right there with her.”
When he hung up the phone, he laid down beside his momma. Taking her hand into his, he held it gently, not wanting to hurt her anymore. He told her about his day and how much he had fun. Benson also told her how much he loved her.
Counting as high as he could, up to fifty, he would count off numbers when his mom would breathe in, then out. She was all the way up to thirty-five now between her breathing, and it worried him something terrible.
“Momma, you’re my best friend in the whole wide world. I know you’re hurting, and I’m sorrier than I ever been about it. If you need to stop breathing, I want you to know I’ll be all right.” He knew he’d not be. Benson had never been alone in his life. But he knew his momma was hurting bad. “I love you, Momma. I love you to the moon and back.”
The number got all the way to fifty this time, then to five again when he counted. It was getting harder and harder to count them on account of her breathing so soft. When the door opened and closed in the living room, he didn’t even get up. Mrs. Parker was coming into the room with Mr. Don.
“She’s not breathing good.” Mrs. Parker told him she was sorry. “I don’t know what to do. I told her if she needed to stop breathing, it would be all right. I’d be all right. But I don’t know that I can be. I got nobody else.”
“You have us, Benson.” Mr. Don hugged him tightly as soon as Benson stood up. “You’ll always have us. My entire family is going to be here for you. We’ll not let you be alone.”
The next time he counted his momma’s breaths, he got to fifty-three times before he realized she wasn’t going to breathe again. Holding her hand in his, he rocked back and forth, crying hard about how much he loved her. His momma had been good to him, and now she was gone. Mr. Don, he said he’d take care of making the phone calls. Benson never left his momma’s side as she passed on to Heaven.
The police came in first. They were ever so nice to him, telling him he could say his goodbyes to her, and they’d not bother him. The man with the big old ambulance came too, and he waited in the other room. Mrs. Parker, she was nice too.
After his momma was taken away, he sat on the bed, rocking and crying. Mr. Don told him there were things for him to do. Things that the funeral director needed from him. Mrs. Parker helped him pick out his momma’s favorite dress then. He’d been scared by how it wasn’t going to fit her. Momma had been a big woman, but she was nothing but twigs now.
“It’s fine, Benson. They’ll make it fit.”
He asked her if they had someone there to sew it in for her. “I think they’ll figure it out. Don’t you? Now, did your momma have some shoes that she wore with this dress? Perhaps a hat. I noticed she had quite a collection of them.”
“Momma liked hats; she sure did. After she’d get her treatments, she’d wear one of them when she had to go out to the grocery. I think it was like a party when she wore them.” Benson picked out the blue one she’d worn the last time he’d seen her wearing a hat. “I don’t want her to be looking like she’s sleeping, Mrs. Parker. Do you think there is something we can tell the funeral man, so she looks like she’s been out having fun? I sure would like that.”
“I’ll do that for you. I think you’re correct too. She would have loved that idea, Benson.” They looked through her dresses again and found one that looked bright and fun. He’d not seen her wear it in a long time and was happy to see there was a pretty hat to go with it. “Now, we need to see what you can wear. Don and I have talked it over, and we want you to come and stay with us for a few days. At least until the funeral is over. That way, you won’t have to worry about answering questions you might not know the answer too.”
“Oh, no. I can’t be pushing into your house.” He didn’t think he’d said that right, but she told him it would be nice for them to have him there. Then she told him about the new baby. “You got yourself a baby? Oh my lordy, I bet he’s a cute little man.”
“He’s not so little. With you there, you can hold him too. He loves people.” Benson told her he wasn’t to hold babies. “You can hold my baby, Benson. I’d be very happy to allow you to do that. You might even help me out by feeding him a bottle or two while you’re staying there.”
Donahue: Foster’s Pride – Lion Shapeshifter Romance (Foster's Pride Book 2) Page 13
