A reluctant, solemn reply came from Michael, “Two weeks.”
Startled, convinced he had longer, a little more time than that with Sara, “You sure?”
Michael, clearly upset and not wanting to continue, “That’s what Zimmerman said.”
“You wouldn’t have told me?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand.” Ben glanced out through the pulled venetian blinds. “We’ve been having sex. I thought that was a gauge.”
“Maybe Zimmerman’s off.”
Ben became aware of the lavender growing near the street and Michael’s voice faded. Swarming worker bees drank nectar, and Ben thought those bees are going to be around longer than me. Trembling from the rush coursing through his body, “How long you planning on staying?”
“As long as you need us. We’re both covered.”
“Did you tell our parents how I’m doing?”
“No.”
“They got the note I got married?” The mere idea of Sara, the vision of her face, calmed him.
“Yes,” Michael broke eye contact.
“I take it, it wasn’t pleasant.”
“Ben,” Michael’s attitude pleaded, “let it go. The last thing you need is a stressful discussion about what ranks top of our tension Richter scale.”
“He was drunk when he read it? Tell me, Mike.”
“You are tenacious. Good old Edward,” Michael emitted sarcasm, “was smashed and disgusting. He had nothing intelligible to say. Okay?”
Ben reached out a droopy hand to Michael’s thigh and gave it a pat. “Thanks, I needed the reassurance I was right.”
“Well you were right.”
“Mike?”
“Yes.”
“I’m fine with it,” Ben smiled. “I mean that.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Michael nodded. “Now how about you get some rest?”
“Okay.”
“And,” motioning to a filled glass on the nightstand, “keep drinking that water.” Michael found the thermostat was eighty-eight degrees in the house. No wonder you feel like crap. Turning on the air conditioning, he set it for seventy-two.
The women arrived back to a comfortable temperature and Ben back up at the couch, doing better. “I told you I didn’t do well in this hot weather.”
The rest of the evening involved a light meal, conversation, and soft music. Around nine, Michael said, “I think it’s time to hit the bed.”
Ben and Sara were out on the deck, with Michael and Candace in Sara’s bedroom when Ellen got off duty and quietly made her way to the guestroom, ushering Tazzie in with her.
Ben was wide-awake.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Yes, but I’m not ready to sleep.” He stroked the velvet texture of her cheeks, her slightly upturned nose, and outlined her full lips. Too sluggish to do anything else, he sighed into her ear, “You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Ditto, my hubby,” she looked up at the starlit night.
“Even though I’m hubby number two,” he murmured.
“Oh Ben, I was so young then. What I had with him was nothing compared to the depth and completeness I have with you. I never felt joyful with him like I do with you.” Turning to make eye contact, “With you I’m certain I’m meant to be exactly where I want to be. That’s never happened before. I’m a different person now than I was then. You helped me find myself and work through so much. It’s difficult to explain.”
“I’d say you’re doing a great job of it.”
Looking at the orb of night reflected in his pupils, “I’ve often heard the expression ‘the light within’ but never fully understood it. Not till being with you,” she stroked his arm. “Now I see that my happiness rests inside me, in my heart, and it’s not from someone or something external. Your support brought me to the core of all I’d been escaping from my entire life, things too painful to deal with. Until I saw and went through that, I was nothing but a shell. Henry and the men before you were chemical cocktails superficially filling my emptiness. With him I was always slightly off kilter and uncomfortable. It took my being with you to see that. And yes, I was wounded and raw in the end, when he left me, but those wounds were already there. He just poured salt on them.” She kissed Ben’s cheek. “That’s history now, thanks to you.”
Seeing tears moving down her face, “I didn’t want to upset you.”
“Upset?” she laughed. “I’ve never been happier.”
“Aww, honey.” He caressed her face with his hands and kissed her. It was a deep and loving kiss, filling her with the energy to last a lifetime. No wounds or scars impeded his forever love from entering her. “It needs no further explanation. I feel it also.”
Feeling his body against hers, their legs touching, “Why’d you bring that up now?”
“I think it’s the only thing we haven’t talked about. I wanted to be sure you didn’t need to communicate with me or might be avoiding it because of how I’m doing.” He kissed her forehead, ran his mouth down the side of her face to her neck, where he lingered. “What you’ve just said is a valuable gift for both of us.”
Sara nestled her head next to his. “This gesture from you, this very simple beautiful act of caring kindness and loving support is one of a zillion reasons why I adore you.”
“Oh good.” With effort, growing weary, he joked, “How about enumerating the rest of them.”
“For starters,” she raised his hand to her lips and kissed it over and over, displaying the overwhelming affection she felt for this wonderful man. “And there’s more where that came from.”
A peace moved over him, an inexplicable energy, a sixth sense, without fear. “Did you ever wonder if there’s life after death?”
Transcended in this union with Ben, she spoke from a place where mystery is revealed to those who see with open hearts. “I’ve had patients on their deathbeds, moments from the end, who woke up, literally sat up, and told of conversations they just had with their loved ones who had already passed away. They wake from comatose states with a lucidity that boggles the mind. It does make you wonder.”
“I feel something, Sara.” He inhaled her skin, fresh and inviting. “There’s a knowing, something I’ve never experienced before, a certainty that we’ll never be apart.” He looked at the moon, glowing down on them, a couple of days from its fullness. “I don’t understand why I’m so tranquil inside.”
As if God tapped her on the shoulder, she recalled and told Ben about a story she had read of a five-year-old boy who had remembered a past life vividly. “There was no way anyone could have fed him that info. No one in his family or close circle of friends had any knowledge about the things he mentioned from another country. He described a house with detail that an investigative reporter validated. The clincher was the memory came to him in a different language.” Awe-inspired, she rhetorically asked, “What’s that about?”
The clarity he lacked moments before came into focus when the miracle of life and mystery of death fused and he realized that this eternal now is forever, without separation. He saw that which is not available to the human senses—waves of light, decibels of sound, the structure of an electron—the space between heartbeats where eternity lives were present yet not perceived, not with a body and its restraints. Illumination, beyond time and matter, the force that flows through bodies but is not defined with limitations had ignited him. He knew that his feelings for Sara had brought him to this place, where the physical dies but the bond continues.
With his breath caressing her neck, she noticed a movement in the sky. “Did you see that?” She lifted a finger to direct his attention to a shooting star.
“It means we’re soul mates, destined to be together for eternity.”
“That’s right. The heavens know what’s true.”
That night stars danced and melded into billions of pulsating living organisms, friends beckoning them. What they saw was endless, timeless, mysterious life—and
it was filled with love.
Epilogue
Zimmerman’s prognosis was off, and Ben went on to live another seven weeks. Michael and Candace visited until they saw he was stable and Ben insisted, “Go on home. I’m okay.”
During that time Ben experienced laughter, nature watching, meaningful conversations, and lived to hear Sara tell him, “I’m in remission.” The news from her scan came two days before he died peacefully in her arms, surrounded by his new family—Rosalie, Irving, Ellen and Tazzie. His last words to Sara were, “See you later, my love.”
Nightly, as the stars grow bright in the darkened sky and Sara relaxes into sleep, she gazes out of her bedroom window to watch Orion twinkle. It is then she is reminded of the first time she met him, the handsome stranger in Zimmerman’s waiting room, when she glanced over to the form he was filling out to see his name was Ben.
Postscript
In 1998 a drug without disabling side effects was approved by the FDA for treatment of advanced metastatic breast cancer in women with a certain protein that causes the cancer cells to grow very fast. Some of the subjects in the trials experienced a slowed progression of disease while in others the cancer completely disappeared.
About the Author
Paulette Mahurin lives with her husband Terry and three dogs, Max, Bella, and Lady Luck in Ventura County, California. She grew up in West Los Angeles and attended UCLA, where she received a Master’s Degree in Science.
While in college, she won awards and was published for her short-story writing. One of these stories, Something Wonderful, was based on the couple presented in His Name Was Ben, which she expanded into this fictionalized novel in 2014.
Semi-retired, she continues to work part-time as a Nurse Practitioner in Ventura County. When she’s not writing, she does pro-bono consultation work with women with cancer, works in the Westminister Free Clinic as a volunteer provider, volunteers as a mediator in the Ventura County Courthouse for small claims cases, and involves herself, along with her husband, in dog rescue.
Profits from her books go to help rescue dogs.
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