His Name was Ben

by Paulette Mahurin

  Taz’s gentle rhythmic snoring lulled Sara. Soon she drifted off to sleep. The beast trudged closer to the baby’s crib. His fat hand reached down to lift up the blanket. The baby was frantic. A voice told him to leave her alone. Holding his ears to make it stop, he looked around the room and smiled; he was alone with the hysterical baby.

  Taz, turning onto her back, jerked Sara awake. Heart pounding in her chest, she scanned the room to get her bearings. Why is this happening now, when I’m starting to feel better? Ommmm. She tried to direct her attention to the mantra she used during meditation, to no avail. What are these dreams all about? Ommmm. Her heart rate slowed. Am I afraid to be with Ben? Her body shivered. Ommmm. Am I scared I’ll look deformed to him? Fragments of the nauseating nightmare faded away.

  Ellen entered holding a cup of tea. “I brought you…” One look at Sara’s face, “You okay?”

  “Another bad dream.” Sara held up her right hand, “I’m still shaking.”

  “You’re covered in sweat.” Ellen felt Sara’s forehead with the back of her hand.

  “I don’t feel warm.”

  “You don’t have a fever. Let me get you a washcloth.”

  After wiping herself, “That’s much better,” she handed the cloth back to Ellen. “Thanks.”

  Ellen sat on a rocking chair next to the bed. “Want to talk about anything?”

  “It’s weird, El.” Attempting to clear a few strands of wet hair off her forehead, “Ow,” she pulled her hand back. Shifting to a comfortable position to ease the muscle spasms in her shoulder, “These horrible visions! One of them was a big fat monster. It reminded me of Jack.”

  “Your brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm, wonder what that’s about,” responded Ellen.

  “Probably just my mind playing tricks. But it felt so real.” Sara became thoughtful.

  “Think out loud. It might help.”

  “I wondered if it was my insecurity over being with Ben, but they started shortly after I was diagnosed, way before I met him.”

  “The shock from finding out could have initially triggered it.” Still in her hand, Ellen squeezed the cool, moist cloth. “We go along coping nicely, with our hidden trauma neatly packed away until something enters and throws the dirty laundry all over the place.”

  “And what’s this have to do with a terrified baby? I can’t make any sense out of these nightmares.”

  “What exactly did you dream?”

  “I don’t really remember. I just have this very uncomfortable feeling about them.”

  “Do you think it would help if you talked to someone?”

  “I am,” laughed Sara, “talking to someone. But no, that doesn’t feel right to me. It helps just telling you.”

  “You do look better.”

  “El…”

  Ellen swayed back and forth in the rocking chair. “Uh-huh.”

  “What would I do without you?” A warm comfortable bath of gratitude surged through Sara’s body, replacing remnants of the mysterious darkness. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  “You just did.”

  Sara’s eyes got teary.

  “Sara, you’re the best friend I’ve ever had and we’re in this together, till you’re healed.”

  “From your mouth to God’s ears.”

  “Yes,” Ellen stood. “If you don’t need anything else I’ll put this wet cloth away and finish making dinner.”

  Sara’s thoughts went to Ben and how he was doing. She wanted to know about his treatment. Hearing the weariness in his voice when they were on the phone, the jittery stutters through the laughter, it bothered her that she knew so little about him. She rationalized, He’ll be okay. I know I was a mess. The attraction she felt for him as a woman overrode her intuition as a nurse, and she convinced herself that if she felt as good as she did, He has to be okay. It’ll work out. Issues she’d had with abandonment took a back seat to her overpowering need for intimacy. Hopeful affirmations about being with him calmed the ambivalence, throwing caution to the wind. It will be okay! Ben, you didn’t arrive in my life at this time for me to lose you. We were meant to be together. Why else would I want you so much?

  Zimmerman phoned Ben to say he wanted to add something to his regime. He had read a study done at the University of Bern, Switzerland, where mistletoe extract was injected subcutaneously twice a week in patients with advanced ductal pancreatic carcinoma. Of great benefit was the fact that no severe side effects were observed.

  “When do you want to start?” asked Ben.

  “You can start today. Can you get over to my office? I’ll do it here a couple of times a week on the days it doesn’t conflict with your treatment at UCLA.”

  “I can’t have it done there?”

  “It’s not on their protocol so they can’t administer it.”

  Ben’s mouth turned dry. “Will it interfere with the other drug, the treatment I’m getting there?”

  “No, it shouldn’t.”

  Ben flashbacked to his conversation with Sara about her being started on Coumadin and having to sign papers and thinking she was cavalier to go forward. Now faced with a decision that might save his life, he understood the choice she made and why. Feeling it was the right way to go didn’t stop the visceral angst. “If it’s not on their protocol,” he faltered, “I won’t be taken off the study, will I?”

  “No. It’s my study and I wrote a clause into it that covers me administering things at my office. UCLA can’t do it unless they get the okay for that specific medication, and the paperwork red tape would take too long. I want to get you started right away. That’s the only reason we’re not doing it there.”

  “Okay then, it’s Tuesdays and Fridays at your office?”

  “Yes.”

  On his way to Zimmerman’s he thought of Sara, how she looked when he last saw her. Stirring a tenderness in him that no woman had done before, it hit a sensitive nerve to see her so helpless. I’d like to see her again. Wanting to phone her, I don’t know how I’m going to feel after the injection, he opted to wait.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Zimmerman’s waiting room was crowded, a solemn reminder to Ben that his doctor had a lot more patients to worry about than him. Ben wondered what their stories were, especially the teenage boy sitting beside his mother, who kept telling him to sit up straight. The poor kid, jaundiced, looked like hell. Another, a sixtyish woman, sat with nothing covering her bald head.

  Lost in thoughts of what his chances might be, he became distracted by a woman who entered wearing heavy perfume that permeated the suite. Resisting the sickening odor, he was relieved when the nurse called his name and took him to the treatment room.

  Zimmerman entered, carrying some papers that he handed to Ben. “Here’s the study for you to have a look at.”

  Hopeful until he glanced down at the highlighted part that said, “can stabilize quality of life in their few remaining months,” apprehension hit him hard. What he expected would be good news took him by surprise. Any hope that mistletoe extract would afford him years was a joke. Aggravated that he’d agreed to commit to twice a week, “That’s it? That’s all this is about?”

  “Ben,” Zimmerman, having not seen any dramatic improvement in Ben’s lab work since he started the study, paused, “we have to consider the data, be receptive to change if…” He broke eye contact and looked pensive, like he didn’t know what to say, then, “Ben, I wish I could tell you I might be wrong, or even that miracles happen, but I don’t want to mislead you. I wish it were different. I’m so sorry.”

  Ben knew there was no escaping into denial and that if the study at UCLA had helped he wouldn’t be here now receiving something that only offered comfort for the little time he ostensibly had left. Months? That can’t be right. But that’s what it said. Feeling the dampness under his arms, he wished he could turn back the clock to before his first abdominal pains, which he thought were just something he ate or gas pangs. Then he could look f
orward to more than a bundle of weeks; there would be years ahead and a future filled with plans. The one question he hadn’t asked that he feared the answer to crept into his head. No reprieve was possible till he coughed out, “What’s your best guess? What’re we talking about here?”

  Zimmerman squared his shoulders. “Look, you’re my best friend’s brother and this isn’t easy to say, especially to you. I’m in this job to keep people alive, not give them news that drains the hope out of their eyes, but sometimes I have to. This is one of those times. Your prognosis isn’t good. Maybe six months. I’m sorry, Ben.”

  Ben’s stomach rose to his throat. “Oh shit!” Turning pale and clammy, Zimmerman had him put his head down between his knees.

  “Ben, I can check around to see if there are any new studies starting.” To Ben, it sounded like his doctor was bordering on platitude, yet aware he should switch gears and refocus back on what may offer relief, so he listened with a dull mind while Zimmerman said, “Maybe Johns Hopkins, Mayo Clinic, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, or MD Anderson will have something. If not directly, they are the best cancer centers in the states and will be tapped into the international scene.”

  Ben was aware that if there were something, Zimmerman would have presented it to him. Since nothing other than the offering that came with little chance of benefit was all there was, he muttered, “I don’t believe this.” He stared out the window beyond Zimmerman’s office to the large hospital complex and thought of patients in there on their last legs who had received similar news. Hearing a tumble of words coming out of his doctor’s mouth, nothing made any sense to his dizzy head.

  Still, Zimmerman persisted. “Keep a positive focus. Make the best of every moment.” When Ben didn’t bother to respond, “Ben, don’t give up on living.”

  Living! That word collided into Ben, like a strike in bowling, jolting him out of his funk. The slippery slope into a morose hell, thoughts of nothing left for him to look forward to or be alive for except what the cancer would bring—that future brought nothing aside from a painful headache. Alive, that’s how I feel with Sara. He knew there was something about her that he couldn’t put his finger on till now. You make me feel alive. A lot of healthy people walk around blankly staring into space but no one’s home. There you are battling with cancer and those eyes of yours are lit up. Sara! The room suddenly brightened when he saw, Right now I’m okay, alive, functioning well, and no one knows what tomorrow will bring, no guarantees for anyone.

  Ben realized that what’s important, as Zimmerman brought home to him, is living. He’d never fully understood the power of a positive attitude until this moment, when the chemistry inside him shifted—dissolving adrenaline and stress hormones—to allow his body to relax. Oddly, he thought of the last time he was at Lake Tahoe with the sun beating down on his back, listening to boats rippling on the water, inhaling fresh air, watching birds drift along with the cumulus clouds. He knew what it felt like to be alive, then and now. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let whatever is left of my life slip away. Who the hell knows what’s in store for me anyway? “You’re absolutely right. I need to stop dwelling in tomorrow and what I think will happen and just pay attention to where I’m at currently. No guarantees for any of us for what’s going to occur in the next hour. This is definitely a shift in big picture perspective,” Ben smiled. “Thanks, I’ll do the injections here and anything else you think will help one way or another.”

  Zimmerman heaved an audible sigh. “I’m glad that you had a change of heart and agree to stay the course with the program. And it’s true what you said, no guarantees. And no one, including me, can predict the future with total certainty.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chicken with mushrooms baked in the oven as Tazzie’s snout sniffed upward. Ellen, ignoring the dog’s whining, continued to prepare dinner. Taz sat still, staring a thick intention into Ellen’s every move. When the whimpering failed, the dog nudged Ellen’s hand.

  Ellen, laughing at the persistence, “You just ate,” headed for the dog cookie jar.

  Taz’s golden eyes were fixed on the prize.

  “Here!” Ellen threw her a treat. “Now stop bugging me.” As she washed her hands, she heard an outcry. Taz sprang out, followed by Ellen who made it to Sara’s bedroom short-winded. “What happened?”

  “I don’t believe it!” Sara, beside herself with exhilaration, said, “He called!”

  “Okay, and that means what? You’ve been talking to him all week.”

  “Ben’s coming over here!”

  “That’s great. Stop shouting and tell me when?”

  “Now! He’s coming now!”

  Ellen went back to the kitchen and added more chicken to the meal, while Sara slowly maneuvered herself to get ready.

  When the phone rang, Sara’s first thought was Ben had changed his mind. Instead, the number was Rosalie’s. “Oh crap!” She knew if she didn’t pick up her mom would phone every five minutes until she did. Anxious that Ben would be arriving any minute, unsure what else to do, she answered. “Mom, hold on a minute, will you?” She went to the kitchen to have Ellen put Taz outside and intercept Ben when he got there.

  On hearing it was Rosalie calling, “Oh shit, lousy timing,” Ellen pulled a face. “Don’t worry I’ll handle…”

  Back in contact with her mother, Sara girded her loins. Not having seen her parents since being released from the hospital, she could well imagine what she was in store for. “Okay, sorry mom.”

  “What kept you?”

  “I had to let Taz out.”

  Rosalie, sounding constipated, forced out, “So, how are you?”

  “Healing nicely, mom. How’s everything your end? Dad?”

  “He has his good days and bad days. You know how it is,” was her usual no-answer response.

  “So listen, mom, El’s making dinner and I need to get ready to eat. Can I get back to you tomorrow?”

  “We thought we’d drive up tomorrow.”

  Bad timing! I may be too tired.

  The ring of the doorbell, sending adrenaline pumping to Sara’s already nervous stomach, vied for her attention. I hope to God she can’t hear it. Words stuck in her throat. “I have friends coming from the emergency room, staying the night. It’d be too much…” she lied.

  “Too much to have your parents there in that big house of yours?”

  The disgust in Rosalie’s voice hooked into Sara, sucking away the joy she’d felt moments earlier. She abhorred the effect her mother had on her, the utter lack of control to let it pass. Not now, damn it! Wanting to slam the phone down, she flashbacked to the last time she hung up on her mother, which took weeks to repair.

  Calm down before answering. Don’t let her get the better of me. Breathe.

  “Well?” Impatiently, Rosalie continued, “We’ll see you…”

  No! “Mom, I want to see you, but I need to take it slowly, please…”

  Silence.

  Sara didn’t know what was worse, the cold shoulder or the caustic attitude that made her feel unloved and small. “Mom?” She twisted her bedspread into a ball she wanted to throw out the window.

  “Go eat your dinner,” carped her mother before the line went dead.

  Why now? Mood deflated, like an inner tube with a leak, she wanted to release the exasperation howling in her brain. Why! What the hell is wrong with you! The worst part of it was the heartache, craving a relationship she desperately wanted—a mother she could talk to and be close with.

  Still out of kilter from that conversation, Sara attempted to regain composure by looking around the room focusing on objects there. When that didn’t help, she grabbed the stuffed elephant on the bed, and felt the imprints where she had held it in the past for comfort and security. This instead of you! Her mother was always at a guarded distance away from arm’s reach, too far for hugs. She squeezed its soft belly as tears welled up, until commotion in the other room between Ben and Tazzie summoned her.

  Chapter Fifte
en

  Blinking away residual tears, Sara wiped her face and made her way to the laughter, toward the aroma of food, out of the dark bedroom to the light dining area where large French doors let in the sunshine. She found Ben on the floor being licked to death by her dog, and Ellen in the kitchen finishing up the meal.

  Looking up to Sara, Ben rubbed Tazzie’s shoulders. “Vicious rottweiler,” he smiled.

  “Yeah, she’s the devil incarnate.”

  Taking a closer look, he noticed her red puffy eyes and stood up. “You okay?” With the backdrop of her bandaged ribs, her vulnerability in the hospital, and how authentically friendly she was when they lunched together, he felt himself softening.

  Ellen spoke up from the kitchen, “Her mother!” Sprinkling seasoning on the rice, “Oh yeah, I invited Ben for dinner.”

  Ellen’s exclamatory remark about Sara’s mother caught Ben’s attention. He’d been thinking of his own childhood, none of it pleasant. Although he wondered if they had an unhappy upbringing in common, it wasn’t something he wanted to broach with her.

  “I’m okay now,” Sara motioned to the step-down living room. “Want me to show you around?”

  Lots of windows afforded him a view of the park-like property with a creek running through it. “Sara, this is a great place. You have redwoods?” He looked at one of the trees, the needles turning brown.

  “I think it was a transplant.” Sadly discouraged, “Some aren’t doing that well in the warm climate and drought we’ve been having. I hope they make it.”

  “I hope so too.”

  She walked him out to the front deck of her rustic country house. “Considering how little rainfall we’ve had this year, there’s still a lot of bloom.”

  “You planted these?” he asked, referring to the overgrowth of a colorful array of geraniums, and Matilija poppies.

  “Yes.” Interrupted by a coyote barely visible, running down the side of the property, “Look,” she whispered.