In her mind, Ally replayed the message she left him on his cell phone that morning.
“Ben, it’s me.” Her voice had been raw from crying. “We aren’t having a funeral or anything, so there’s really no reason for you to fly out here all that way. I’ll be fine.”
Fine.
Four little letters she had been telling herself since Ben left.
I’m fine.
Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.
Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.
After a lifetime of putting everyone else’s needs first, Ally was left with only herself. She had no idea what she wanted. What she needed.
No. That was a lie. She knew exactly what she wanted and what had eventually turned into the biggest need of all.
Ben.
But did he need her? Or still even want her? She feared she had lost her chance at a future with him when she turned him away all those months ago at the beginning of summer. She squeezed her eyes shut.
I’ve just got to get through today and I’ll be fine.
* * *
It was the anti-day for a funeral. The sun shone so brightly that everything was a glare in its wake. Not one cloud hung in the blue sky of morning. Ally wore dark sunglasses not only to shield her puffy eyes, but to mask the redness and dark circles. Gram hadn’t wanted a formal funeral ceremony, so Izzy was driving Ally to the gravesite to watch the burial. Ally wanted to be there to see Gram laid to rest next to her precious Henry. They were together now. For eternity.
Ruby planned to meet them at the cemetery and it would be just the three of them. Three women warriors paying last respects and saying one last, final goodbye to one of their own.
Ally wore a black pencil skirt and black blouse and Izzy wore appropriate black slacks and a white Calvin Klein shirt with a blazer.
They sat in silence for most of the ride until Ally abruptly said, “You think God could show some respect and block out the sun today.”
Izzy looked over at Ally’s profile. Her jaw was clenched and her hands lay tightly clasped in her lap. “I love you, Ally. You know that, don’t you?” Izzy reached over the gearshift and patted Ally’s white knuckles.
“Yeah, Iz. I know.” Ally turned and looked out the window. At the stoplight, cars played follow the leader. She wondered where everyone was going in such a hurry. Why did they have to dart in and out like that? Didn’t they know that it was a time of mourning? Didn’t they know that this wasn’t the time to be dropping kids off at school or commuting to work? Her world had come to a stand-still, but the rest of the world kept on turning.
When they pulled into the cemetery, Ruby’s Volkswagen was already in the parking lot. Ruby was bent down talking to someone inside an unfamiliar car. When Ruby saw Izzy pull in, she straightened herself to wave hello.
Who else was here? This was supposed to be a private ceremony.
Ally watched a tall figure emerged from the driver’s side of the unfamiliar car and she could see through her blurred eyes that it was Ben.
Ben.
He came.
Ally couldn’t hold the tears back when she saw him and struggled to get out of the car. Seeing him walk toward her was all it took for her to completely break down. He had come back to her. To comfort her in her time of most desperate need and sorrow.
A few strides of his long legs and he was in front of her, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her close.
“Oh, Ally, I’m so sorry,” he said into her hair. It smelled like strawberries. How did she manage to do that? Smell so wonderful, even at the most tragic time of her life.
“She’s gone, Ben,” she sobbed.
“I’m here now. You don’t have to be alone.”
The small group was quiet at the burial site. Ally looked over at the next grave and read the inscription on the tombstone.
‘Henry Walter Monroe, Beloved Husband’.
Beside it, a matching stone would soon read ‘In Loving Remembrance of Kay Allison Monroe’.
Oh, Gram. I will miss you, Ally repeated in her head. She laid a bouquet of roses on the casket and watched them lower it into the ground.
When it was done, Ally walked Ruby to her car and thanked her for everything. Izzy went over to Ben and looked up at his brown eyes. “Thanks for coming.”
“Thanks for calling me.”
Izzy smiled knowingly. “She didn’t want to bother you with flying in, but I knew you’d want to be here for this.”
“I did. Thank you, Izzy.” Ben took a deep breath. “Why didn’t she want me to come?”
“She did,” Izzy sighed, “but she’s trying to make herself let go of you so you can be free to have a new life.”
“But, that’s not what I want,” he protested. “I want to be with her and nobody else. I asked her to marry me for Christ’s sake!”
Izzy shrugged. “Maybe she needs to know that it wasn’t a one time offer.”
He sighed and shifted his feet. “She knows.”
“Well, maybe you should remind her.”
“Damn it, Izzy. She’s so stubborn sometimes! Why is she fighting me on this? On us? On being together? Now, more than ever it seems so right.”
“She’s convinced herself that she’s not good enough and that she lost her one and only chance for the glass slipper.”
Ben shook his head in disbelief. “I don’t believe it.” His love didn’t have an expiration date.
“Look Ben, you need to either make this right, or let her go once and for all. She’s been through about all she can handle. Good luck.” Izzy winked at him and walked away.
After Ruby left, Ally and Ben stood by his rental car.
“Can I give you a ride home?” he asked.
She nodded and hung her head. “Will you stay with me tonight?”
Ben had never seen her so vulnerable. “Of course.” He hadn’t even checked into a hotel room because he didn’t want her to be alone.
The little yellow house was empty and quiet. A finished jigsaw puzzle sat on the kitchen table like a map of the past. Pieces of Gram were everywhere in the house. Her flowered tea mug on the counter, her reading glasses on the coffee table. There was no escaping her presence. She was a part of the tiny house like the plumbing and the electrical wiring.
Ally tried to be a good hostess, but everything felt forced. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “Ruby dropped off a casserole this morning. There’s pie, too.”
Ruby and the ladies from bingo had put together a care package of food for Ally. It was more food than she could eat in a week even if she were eating.
“Yeah. That would be great,” he answered and followed her into the kitchen.
Ally microwaved two plates of food even though she wasn’t hungry. They sat in silence in front of the television, Ben eating with gusto as usual and Ally barely picking at her food. Maybe someday she would feel like eating again, but not now. How could she even think about food now that Gram was gone?
After dinner, Ally went in to take a shower in hopes that the water would wash away some of her sadness. Her salty tears mixed with the hot water, neither cleansing nor washing anything away from her jumbled mind.
After her shower, Ally got dressed, went down the hall and heard Ben on talking on his cell phone. She stood in the kitchen doorway, watching him. His back was turned to her, his broad shoulders slouched. The mountain air must have done wonders for him because somehow he was more handsome and sculpted than ever.
“I’ll be back in town tomorrow,” Ben was saying as he ran his fingers through his hair.
Jerrold wasn’t too happy with the side trip Ben had taken over the weekend. There was too much going on in Denver to skip town now. Jerrold knew it must be important to Ben because he wasn’t the type to blow off his responsibilities, but Jerrold still needed to keep him on track.
“Ice-Ix Hockey Equipment is offering you an endorsement deal. And we need to schedule time to shoot a promo commercial for the team. Oh, and Sirius Radio wants to do
an interview.”
“Wow. Endorsements?”
“You’re hot, Benny. I’m getting calls for you all the time. The media is having a field day with you being back in Denver. Speaking of Denver, we need you. Here.”
“Don’t worry. My flight leaves in the morning,” Ben assured him.
“Okay, Benny. I’ll talk to you soon.”
“Bye.” Ben shoved his cell phone into his pocket and turned around to see Ally standing in the doorway. “Hi. How was your shower?”
“Good.”
“That was Jerrold.”
“Ah. How is “show me the money” Jerrold doing these days?”
“Busy. He’s scheduling a photo shoot for the annual team calendar and they want me to do another satellite radio interview when I get back.”
“You’re quite the celebrity these days.”
“Nah. That stuff is cool, but when it comes down to it, I just want to play hockey. That’s all I ever wanted. You know that.”
Until I met you. Now I want both.
It was then that they shared their first awkward silence together. Before, when neither one of them had something to say, it was comfortable and didn’t matter how many words filled the air between them. Just being close to each other was enough. No words were necessary. Now, everything seemed different. It was different. Ally felt like she had to keep talking or else he might try to talk about something significant to their relationship. And lord help her, she couldn’t handle having that conversation now. Maybe not ever.
“I’m glad you’re doing well in Denver,” she finally said.
“Yeah, it’s good. Can’t say I’ll miss the hundred and ten degree summers here.” Great. Now he was talking about the weather. “How is school?” He decided to choose a neutral topic before he could start rambling on about the Doppler Effect.
She shrugged. “I’m not going. I decided to take a semester off. With everything that’s been going on, it was the last thing I could focus on.”
He nodded. He didn’t know what else to do. She sounded so bitter and he wanted to kiss away the bitterness, but he was afraid of her reaction. The things he wanted to do to make it up to her weren’t appropriate at the moment. “I see. That’s too bad.”
She leaned against the doorjamb and let her gritty eyes sweep over his body. Once upon a time, she had intimately known every inch of his body. “You look great.”
He had always looked great. But now he was more toned than ever. How she had let this man get away from her, she would never know.
“Thanks. My new trainer is working me out pretty good. In fact, he’s been busting my butt to get me back in shape for training camp.”
“What’s he like?”
“Well, picture a guy from one of those Bowflex commercials. That’s him.”
She forced a smile. “Why don’t you take a shower while I clean up the dishes?”
Normally, they would have cleaned up the kitchen together, but he was too tired to argue with her. Normally, they would have taken a shower together, too, but things were different.
“Sounds good.” He nodded and went into the bathroom.
Ally started washing their dinner plates when the phone rang. It was Izzy.
“Hey sweetie. I’m just calling to check up on you and make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine.”
“It was nice of Ben to fly out.”
“Yeah.”
Izzy’s tone softened. “How is he?”
“He’s good.”
“That’s good. Is he happy?”
“I think so. He’s seems excited about everything and is adjusting to Colorado.”
“I heard they’re putting together a good team.”
“Are you still even following hockey?”
“Of course. It always makes for good conversation with clients to know what’s going on in the sports world.”
“With clients…or men?”
“Hey, I’m a one man woman these days!”
“Right. I’ll believe it when I see it,” Ally joked unenthusiastically.
“What’s wrong?”
Besides everything?
“Oh, nothing,” Ally sighed.
“Aren’t you glad to see him?”
“I don’t know. Everything is weird between us now. Everything is…different.”
“Well, sweetie you are different. A lot of stuff has happened and it’ll probably take a while to get back to normal. Whatever that is.” Normal was not an accurate gage of everyday life.
“I guess,” Ally grumbled. “It’s just so awkward. He’s like this superstar now.”
“Honey, he’s always been a superstar. The Razors just didn’t recognize it.”
“But it’s weird. He has all these interviews and commercials to do in Denver.”
“That’s the life of an athlete, Al. This isn’t something new. Get over it.”
“Thanks for your support.”
“Try to get some rest and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Ally hung up the phone and finished rinsing off the dishes. Ben came out of the bathroom and leaned against the doorway.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Standing between them were all of the words they left unspoken.
Instead of talking, they sat and watched television for a while before following each other to bed. He lay next to her on her tiny bed with his arm around her. Silently, they lay together in her room, the room that she had slept in since she was five. The room across the hall from Gram’s. No matter how close he pulled her to him, she felt far away from him.
He was losing her. Fast. And he knew it.
Ally woke the next morning physically and emotionally drained. How had a semi-truck managed to run over her in her sleep last night without damaging the house?
Then she remembered.
Ben.
His arm was still draped over her. A protective shield against the harsh, outside world.
His eyes flickered open when he heard her stirring and he smiled at her. “I love you.”
She smiled back for the first time in weeks. Then she remembered something else. He was flying back home today. And Gram was gone. The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come.
“Make love to me,” she said softly.
One last time.
He did. Slowly and gently like she was made of delicate porcelain, he made love to her. She took him into all of her senses. To tuck him away in her memory. Forever. The way he smelled, the sound of his breathing and the taste of his skin. The feel of his touch up and down her body. She wanted to remember everything.
Because he was leaving today. Forever.
When they finished, she lay spent, curled against him, not wanting to leave the warmth of his body. “I love you, Ben.”
“Mmm. I love you too, Ally.” His voice was still husky from their lovemaking. “Marry me,” he said. He felt her stiffen the instant the words left his lips. Propping himself up on an elbow, he tried to gauge her troubled thoughts. “Allison Price.” He tested the name and it sounded nice. Damn nice. “I think that has a nice ring to it.”
She shifted away from his loving gaze, got out of bed and quickly covered her naked body with a robe. “There’s so much going on right now, Ben. I don’t even know what I’m doing or what I’m going to do.” A ragged breath escaped her lungs and her body deflated. She willed herself not to start crying. Instead, she started fidgeting with papers on the desk and straightening things that didn’t need to be straightened.
“If nothing else, come back with me to Denver for a couple of days. I’d love you to meet my aunt and uncle. It‘ll do you good to get away.”
“There’s too much I have to do around here.”
He got out of the bed and went to where she stood hunched over the desk. He put his strong hands on her jittery hands, forcing her to stop stacking a pile of books. He lifted her chin and looked into her blue eyes. They were already pooling with tears. “Take
all the time you need.” A salty drop ran down her cheek and he wiped it away with the pad of his thumb. He took her in his arms and stroked her back.
For a second, she let herself enjoy the embrace, then pulled away from him. “I can’t ask you to do that,” she whispered.
“You don’t have to. I’m telling you that I will wait for you. However long it takes for you to do whatever it is you have to do.”
There.
He laid it all on the table.
Again.
“I need to let you go. It’s not right for me to hang on and keep us in limbo. You have everything--”
“Not everything,” he protested.
“You have a phenomenal career that you need to focus on and I have to let you go.” She said it again. Why did she keep saying it over and over?
Let go.
“But Ally, I don’t understand. We can give it a shot long distance. Hell, even when I lived here in Red Valley I was always on the road during the season anyway. I don’t want you to let me go. Whatever it takes, I’m willing to do it.”
“I don’t think I am. It’s too hard. To see you and then have to say goodbye again and watch you fly off to your fabulous life.”
“Then come with me,” he urged.
“I can’t.”
“So, you’d rather not see me at all because it’s too hard to say goodbye when we see each other?”
It was absurd, but it was how she felt. All or nothing. And for some reason she couldn’t give him her all. She had nothing left to give.
Let go.
“I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but its how I feel.”
“Okay.” He stepped away from her and pulled on his jeans and shirt and began stuffing his things back into his overnight bag. “If that’s what you want.”
“Yes.”
Let go.
“Okay,” he said again. After he pulled his socks and shoes on, he zipped up his bag and flung it on the bed.
“You’d better go. You don’t want to miss your flight.” Her words were clipped and static. It was the last thing she wanted and she feared she might never see him again, but she said it all the same.
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