A Human Element

by Donna Galanti

  "Laura?" She looked right through him. It haunted him, as if she were broken forever. He would take care of her. She had to come out of this catatonic state.

  He stripped off both their filthy clothes and took her to the shower with him. He washed her as he did the other night. This time she stood before him, conscious but in a daze. Mud flowed around them as the soap washed it away. He wished it was as easy to wash away the night's events. His body felt sore, bruised, and cut.

  He tried to be gentle in washing Laura's cuts. He hoped she didn't feel any pain. She was traumatized, but he didn't know how to help her. Afterwards, he cleaned both their wounds and put bandages on them. Then he dressed her and himself in clean clothes and stretched out on the bed with her. She remained far away in her mind.

  "Laura, come back to me, please." He held her to him.

  Tears slid down her face, but she still wouldn't speak. She stared at the ceiling. Something must have just snapped inside her, after all she had been through her entire life. This was too much. Perhaps losing Jim had been the final piece of her life destroyed she couldn't live with. Jim had been the last link in her life between her past as a child and future as a woman. So Ben held her and murmured words of reassurance to her. He loved her. They could make a life together. It was over. But it didn't matter in the end, after all. When he woke up she was gone.

  He stood at the motel window overlooking fields that graced the highway. Trucks roared by to their destination. He had no destination now, without Laura. A week had changed everything. He stared at the sunrise, alone, her note in his hand. He read it again.

  You're better off without me. Find a real woman. One that is human. I'm no good to anyone. Everyone I love dies. I'm cursed. Forget all this. Forget about me. You're free now. Laura.

  Why did she leave when she was the only woman he ever loved? The first woman he wanted to give all of himself to. He flashed back to all the years wasted, taking from women what he wanted, but not giving himself to them. He was lost then without purpose and lost now, in Laura. She gave him purpose. He wanted to be lost in her. He needed it. He needed her. Why couldn't she need him?

  He watched the sun rise on another day, determined to find her.

  CHAPTER 34

  Ben gazed out over Puget Sound, his camera in his lap. In the four months he had been staying with Andy and Likini, most of it had been spent looking for Laura. After three days in Binghamton trying to find some trace of her, the only information he got was after showing her photo around the bus station.

  One clerk getting off the night shift remembered seeing a woman that looked like her board a bus in the middle of the night to Charleston, South Carolina. Ben had no idea why she would go there, but it was the one lead he had. He returned his rental car and took the next bus out to Charleston, hoping to find her there.

  The muggy, warm air assaulted him once he headed south. He embraced it after the cold September days in New York. He walked the cobblestone streets through the marketplace and historic district for days, stopping to show vendors Laura's photo. None had seen her. He visited the beaches, thinking she sought solace at the water's edge. He visited hotels asking the desk clerks if they had checked her in.

  Every road he drove down held a memory of Laura. Every corner he turned held another scene of her in his mind. Skin to skin, enveloped in her softness, her eyes, her mind, her heart. Every night alone in his motel room, the dark surrounded him driving a piercing ache into him. He had a burning need to touch her again. He had to find her. If not, then what was this all for they had been through together? Nothing? He couldn't believe that. Fate brought them together once. It had to bring them together again. It had to re-align itself, like Felix said. Didn't it?

  But after three weeks of looking for Laura he found nothing. The trail ran cold in Charleston. Perhaps she had moved on somewhere else. He sat on the beach one overcast day, realizing he might not find her. He couldn't accept that. Maybe he could stay with Andy for a while to figure things out. He would be back by now from his assignment. Andy always put things in perspective for him, whether he liked the advice or not.

  He had told Laura his friend Andy lived in Bremerton, Washington. He wanted to believe in his heart she might seek him out there. It was a small chance, but he found himself with no other answers. So he had called his old friend and was told he had a room waiting for him. Andy must have heard something in his voice, had a dozen questions, but he didn't probe on the phone, just told him to, 'get your skinny ass here.'

  Now here he sat, on Andy and Likini's enclosed sun porch looking out over the cold water from their home in Bremerton, not far from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service where Andy worked. Ben woke up early on this late winter Saturday morning. His friends still slept. Ben enjoyed the quiet, thumbing through photos in his camera, stopping on Laura's photo as he did a few times each day. He wished her eyes were open in the photo as she sang in the tree. He wanted to look into her eyes again and tell her he loved her. He was losing hope it would ever happen. After almost five months, she had become dream-like in his memories. Often, he couldn't remember if his dreams of her were real or things that actually happened were dreams.

  He even hired a private detective to find Laura, but he had no luck either. Ben admitted it might be time to give up. Clients were calling and he had to get back to work if he wanted to keep his business going. He wasn't sure about that either. It was time to get his own place here or move on. At eight months pregnant, Likini's swollen body still moved gracefully along. She and Andy were both genuine in telling Ben he could stay as long as he needed, but he they would need their own space as a family soon.

  He had spent time each day searching for leads of Laura on the Internet, hoping for a scrap of public information on her location. Nothing ever came up. The other time he spent traveling Washington State photographing its beauty. Its rugged mountains and towering giant trees grabbed hold of him. It was a place of big things and space, unlike the tight forests and urban areas of the Northeast. This was a place he could breathe in. A place he might stay in, if he had someone to stay for.

  Taking pictures eased his mind of the pain of Laura. He needed to keep busy so he didn't have to make a decision yet about his next steps, which were one of two things—continue to search for Laura or move on.

  But some days his heart would skip faster as he drove by a girl on the street, catching a glimpse of shiny chestnut waves flipped over a shoulder. Or as he walked along, it might be a flash of large, brown eyes cruising past him in a car that would send him back in time. They spent just a few days together but it was as if they lived years in those moments. And it was as if she followed along with him now, around every bend.

  Every street he turned down, every photo taken, held a memory of him and Laura. Their time together played out like a movie in his mind, rolling on, taking him back to the want and need in her eyes. And love. She had helped him remember how to love. It tormented him wondering where she was right now. Was she somewhere thinking of him too?

  And the nights haunted him too. As he gazed at the full moon, he really stood under another moon where he had once stared at the midnight-blue sky near a mountain lake. A night where he felt Laura warm and real beside him, moving beneath him by the fire, sweet and burning. He would try and shed her from his mind and drift off into the lonesome darkness only to see her again in his dreams.

  When he arrived those months ago Likini had asked him no questions, and he was grateful for her silent acceptance. But Ben spilled the entire story to Andy that first night he arrived. They sat alone on the porch, blinded by the setting sun sparkling on the Pacific Ocean.

  Ben couldn't stop talking. He spoke out loud for the first time of his foster father's death, and the night the Samoans kidnapped him and took him to the Pali Lookout. He told Andy how the man in black saved him. Felix was part of the story and Ben couldn't leave him out of it. Then, finally, he spoke about Laura. It felt good to talk about it, at last. And
y was speechless at first, fascinated by his tale, but soon engrossed in the fantastical details.

  "What if you don't find her, Ben?"

  "I don't know. We're connected. There's no one for me after her. There never could be."

  "Maybe your meeting her was meant for other reasons, did you think about that?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, perhaps having had your experiences with her it will help you move on to finding someone else. Someone you can open yourself up to and settle down. Now that you've done it with Laura, perhaps you can do it again. Your coming together was so short and intense do you think it could ever translate to a long term relationship?"

  Ben shook his head. He didn't want to think about it.

  "You know that saying, Ben, how some people come into our lives for a reason, even if for just a season? Maybe that's what Laura was. She came for a reason, to help you move on from your past but the two of you weren't meant to be forever."

  "I never believed in forever, and now that I do it's gone, you know?"

  Andy nodded and said no more. They sat in comfortable silence and watched the sun slip over the ocean's horizon. That night Ben had hope of finding Laura. Now, today, months later in the daylight, it was time to move on. Perhaps Andy could be right.

  But some nights, when the moon pulled him to the window, he felt someone watching him. Once he thought he saw her, in the shadows, but when he blinked she disappeared. He wanted to believe she watched over him, although she couldn't bring herself to be with him.

  He understood the conflict raging inside her. He had felt the same for many years. The conflict of wanting love, yet turning away from it, and creating the wall to protect yourself from being hurt. He knew that wall. She had taken it down brick by brick, and all that remained was an empty foundation waiting to be filled. Now he didn't know if it ever would be.

  Here, months later, he had to make a decision about what he was going to do. He had lost hope that Laura would seek him out at Andy's. In telling Andy this, his old friend jumped on the make-Ben-feel-better-bandwagon and invited the sister of one his colleagues over for dinner.

  "What?" Andy shrugged his shoulders at Ben's frown. "It's not like it's a double date. It's just dinner. Besides, I saw a photo of her. She's smokin' hot."

  "It is a double date. That's what this is. I never said I wanted to find someone else. No matter how smokin' they are. What are you doing?"

  Andy's blue eyes sparkled at Ben. "I'm just trying to get you laid, my man. She's really built too." He whispered, so Likini wouldn't hear on the other side of the kitchen. She was putting together a traditional Polynesian feast for Ben and his 'date'.

  "Ben deserves more than that, Andy," Likini said, without looking up from her dish.

  Andy rolled his eyes at Ben. "You don't miss a thing do you, pretty lady?" Then he whispered again to Ben. "But it wouldn't help to get laid just once to get Laura off your mind."

  So his friend's sister came and she was indeed pretty and sexy in a blonde, lanky kind of way with enormous breasts pushing out in all directions. She made it quite obvious she wanted him, and Ben laughed at Andy's behind-her-back grins at him.

  She was an intelligent, beautiful girl, but she wasn't Laura. She wasn't lithe and brunette with perky breasts and sloe-eyes that drew you in to their passionate depths. And he thanked her for a good evening and shook her hand at the door. She went off a bit miffed, he could tell, but then again this date wasn't his idea.

  "Ben, why didn't you get some of that?" Andy wanted to know, as they sat on the porch later. Likini had gone to bed, becoming more tired in her final month.

  Ben laughed. "Are you kidding? I told you I'm not ready to move on."

  "You mean you don't want to. There's a difference, man. She could have been a transitional woman, you know?"

  "Really."

  "Yes, really. I mean, hell, she practically was offering herself to you at dinner rubbing up against you like a cat in heat. Meowwww!"

  "Well, maybe I want to work a little harder for it than that. I don't need some desperate chick."

  "Why not? 'Cause it's no fun when they just fall over with their legs in the air?"

  "Real nice. Yeah, something like that."

  "Maybe if you got rid of your blue balls you could think straight and figure out just what the hell it is you're going to do next. Because right now you're in limbo and I have to see you moping about every day."

  "Fine. I plan to move out anyways. I know I've overstayed my welcome."

  Andy shook his big, blond head. "It's not that. We're family. I want you around. But you've got to move on from finding Laura. I don't think it's going to happen."

  Ben was silent. His friend was right. "I know. It's time to forget about her."

  Saying those words made them real to Ben. Once he put them out there, the time had come. So now he sat on the porch deciding today would be the day he was going to go find his own place to rent in town. Maybe somewhere near the water. This town was as good as any to make a home and it felt good to have Andy and Likini nearby. They were his family now, and maybe all he would ever have. Besides, he would be "Uncle Ben" soon to their child and that would be something, right?

  He put the camera down and heard a door open somewhere in the house. He looked at his watch. 9:00 a.m. About time those two love birds got up. He stood and gazed out over the ocean before turning into the kitchen, when a taxi cab drove slowly up the driveway. The car pulled up to the front door and someone stepped out, covering their eyes from the sun. Chestnut hair shone in the light, falling in waves.

  It was Laura. She was real. She wasn't a photo. Her eyes were open and she looked up at him.

  Ben blinked, unable to move. His heart raced in his chest. Then he broke from his stance and bolted down the stairs to the front door. He opened it and she stood there, holding a suitcase in front of her. She looked as lovely as ever. Doves cooed in the woods above the house in the quiet morning. She smiled, tentative and unsure of herself, he could see. After all these months. Why now?

  Laura walked slowly toward Ben, as he had seen her in his dreams many times. Only now, she was here. Her face looked fuller and her hair longer.

  And he loved her as much as ever.

  CHAPTER 35

  Laura put her suitcase down and faced Ben on the stoop. She had longed to see his gray eyes again, feel his arms around her. She didn't know what to say now.

  "Laura."

  That's all she needed to hear. She moved into him and he held her close. She never wanted to be apart from him again. They held one another still for a moment. He pressed her deeper into him and she hoped he would feel something different there. He looked down. Laura stepped back, opening her coat, and placed his hand on her belly.

  "Felix was right," she whispered. He shook his head as if in disbelief. "I'm five months pregnant."

  After months of moving from town to town, trying to get her head right then discovering she was pregnant, she now placed her faith in making the decision to find Ben. Would he turn her away after all this time and knowing she was pregnant? She knew he had been looking for her. But could it be too late now?

  She had used Felix's belt to watch Ben. After many frustrating nights of trying combinations on the belt's button panel she had succeeded. She remembered Felix said you just needed to think of the person you sought and it would transmit you there, like a holograph image. It didn't transport your body but gave you a window to look through.

  And finally one night, using the belt, she closed her eyes and wished to see Ben. When she opened them, she was watching him from the shadows of his room as he slept. She ached to be with him but couldn't bring herself to go to him. She was afraid that she would bring a curse to his life. She still felt responsible for so many deaths of those she loved.

  If she didn't go to Ben, he would live. It was simple as that in her mind for a long time. When she discovered she was pregnant she agonized for weeks over whether to have an abort
ion. After passing the three-month mark, she felt relieved as now the decision was out of her hands.

  She watched Ben many other times, hiding in the shadows, listening to his conversations with Andy and Likini. Once, in the dark, he stared right at her and she feared he saw her. For a moment their gazes locked, his gray ones searing into hers. She pushed the button on the belt to stop transmission, and found herself back in her motel room a moment later.

  Then one night, when she heard him say it was time to forget about her, she had to do something. She either had to start her life over, find a new job with her money running out, a place to call home, a daycare for the baby—or go to Ben now. And now she stood in front of him, waiting—hoping—for his acceptance.

  He looked down at her belly. Laura sensed he too felt life growing there and was amazed. She looked into his gray eyes. They were so beautiful, like him. Like she hoped their child would be.

  "I tried to let you go but I couldn't," she said, simply.

  "Neither could I."

  He smiled and pulled her back into him, kissing her long and deep. And she knew it would be all right. He led her into the house and into the kitchen where Andy and Likini stood staring at their entrance. Likini smiled and nodded. Laura sensed Likini's gladness.

  "Andy, Likini, this is Laura."

  Likini went to her and took both her hands. She was the most beautiful woman Laura had ever seen, even in full bloom of her pregnancy.

  "I hoped our Ben would find his Laura someday," Likini said. "Welcome. Now come eat, your baby needs it and so do you."

  Laura nodded. She didn't know what to say. Her coat covered her belly once again and she didn't know how Likini knew, but she did. Andy grinned at her and nodded.

  "Yes, welcome. You're just in time for breakfast. All of you." Andy bear hugged Ben. "Congratulations." And he kissed Laura on the cheek, who blushed. She felt shy about just showing up at the home of these two people who were so happy to see her, although she was a stranger.