by Lisa Sorbe
I hold up his coat, and he laughs. “I was wondering when I was going to get that back.”
“It’s warm and it smells good.” I toss it over the back of a chair and slide into his lap. “Besides, a guy should never give his coat to a girl and expect to see it again any time soon.” Relaxing against him, I run my fingers over his chest. “And that pretty much goes for any item of clothing. Sweatshirts, t-shirts. You know.”
Ben smirks, his hands finding their way to my sides, down my hips. “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”
I roll my eyes like I can’t believe he even has to ask. “Because we hoard it. All of it. Wear the shit out of it. And maybe,” I mumble, “some of us even sleep in it.”
Ben arches a brow. “Some, huh?”
I give a dismissive shrug. “Some.”
His laugh is a deep rumble in his chest, which is flush against mine, and I feel it against my heart as it breaks free. “Then why give it back now?”
“Because,” I say, moving to slide my lips over his ear. “I get to sleep with the real thing now. And that’s so much better.”
I skate my teeth over his earlobe before dragging my tongue down his neck. And as I do, he hardens beneath me, the want evident in the low noises he’s making in the back of his throat. But far too soon, he pushes me away, gently, just enough so that our lips are inches—oceans—apart.
I hum in disappointment.
“Before you get too carried away, California, there’s something I want you to see.” Ben shifts me a little to the left so he can grab a package that’s sitting farther back on the table. It’s a small rectangular box, flat and unwrapped save for a simple silk ribbon the color of Tiffany blue. Until now, I hadn’t noticed it; my focus, as always, was on him. Always on him.
He hands it to me, and for a moment I just sit there, taking it in, rubbing my thumb over the ribbon’s silk. “What’s this?”
Ben chuckles, a deep sound laced with nerves. “It’s for you, weirdo.”
“But it’s not my birthday.”
He raises a brow, gives me a stern look. “Just open it.”
I blush and peel off the ribbon, smoothing it over the lid. Then, pushing back a thin layer of tissue paper, I pull out an apron, one that’s creamy white and so buttery soft I can’t stop touching it. It’s the professional kind, not the small half-size apron I pulled from a hook in Lenora’s pantry and have been using these last few months. In the upper right corner, embroidered in an elegant script the same soft blue as the ribbon, is my name.
“Your eyes,” Ben explains as I run my fingers over it. “It’s the same shade. I couldn’t resist.”
I shake my head and look up in to his face, hoping the appreciation I feel is obvious on mine. “You didn’t have to do this. It’s amazing and I love it, but…”
Ben just grins and nods toward the box. His eyes sparkle mischievously, and whatever nerves plagued him seconds ago seem to have fled. “There’s more.”
I shoot him a look before rifling through more tissue paper, uncovering a second box. This one is small and chunky, and when I open it, I find that it’s packed full of business cards. Business cards with—my eyes widen— my name on them. The cardstock is pale blue and the design minimalist, striking in its simplicity. Beneath my name is a white outline of a rolling pin bearing the words Cakes & Desserts, and on the back of the card is my contact information in shiny gold print.
My mouth drops; I don’t even know what to say.
Ben’s arms rest loosely around my waist, and he tightens his grip while he watches me lift a card and trace the lettering. “I thought it’d be a good idea to make it official.”
I still can’t speak, can’t find the words to express how much his belief in my newfound dream means to me. And truth be told, there are no words. None that are able to convey what it means to have his support, his unwavering faith when, some days, I can barely find it in myself.
“Do you like it? If you want another color or…”
Ben’s smile falters, so I lean forward and, resting my palm against his cheek, kiss it right back into place.
I find the bottle the next day.
I’m busy pushing around the furniture in Lenora’s bedroom, moving it to the center of the room, when I see it. The orange prescription bottle with the name Andrea Cook on it. As I pick it up, a vague memory teases from a distant corner of my mind, and Daniel’s voice sounds like it’s coming from the end of a long tunnel as I remember his words: I thought your grandmother’s name was Lenora?
It’s a hollow memory, one without substance. But it’s not so ethereal that I chalk it up to a figment of my imagination.
I twist the bottle in my fingers, the plastic slick against my grip. It’s missing a cap, and the name of the drug can’t be deciphered with my simple-minded knowledge of pharmaceuticals. But a sinking feeling hits me, like I’m standing in quicksand and the ground is slowly being sucked out from beneath me.
This sensation stays with me the rest of the afternoon. It clings to me as I wrap the furniture in plastic, trickles through me as I mix paint and pour it into trays. And three hours later, after I’ve covered most of Lenora’s room in a cool shade of Swirling Water, the ache in my shoulders is more from the burden of doubt than from the strain of pushing against the roller.
It’s eating away at me. The empty bottle. This stranger’s name.
Andrea Cook.
Who is she and why is her medication in Lenora’s room?
Maybe Lenora had a friend stay with her, and this bottle, once emptied, was easily forgotten and left behind.
But no. I don’t buy that explanation.
My insides continue to swoop and swirl, dip and dive for another few hours until, by the time Ben comes home from work, I’m pacing in the kitchen, ugly thoughts running through my head.
I had a lot of time to think, pushing and pulling that paint roller. A lot of time to mull things over, for ugly suggestions to take root in my mind, turning into scenarios that leave me nauseous.
Ben looks exhausted, but when he sees me, his eyes light up and an easy grin slips over his face. It’s extinguished almost immediately, however, when he takes a look at my face, my expression, the way my eyes are squinted in accusation.
Because he knew Lenora. Held her as family.
Ben lived in this house for an entire year, and if there was anything shady going on, then certainly he had to know about it.
Or was the cause of…
No.
No.
As ugly as my thoughts are I can’t, I won’t, let them go there.
“Hey,” he says, heading straight for me, concern creasing his brow. “What’s wrong?”
Instinct causes me to take a step back just before he reaches me. And I hate it. Because all I want to do is fall into his arms, fall right into his open arms and bury my head in his chest. I want to forget about Andrea Cook, about this bottle and the missing pills. I want to pretend I never found it, throw it right in the trash along with all of my questions and the jagged conclusions to which they give rise. I want to wipe these suspicions out of my mind, paint over them as easily as I painted the walls in Lenora’s bedroom.
“Lenny.” My name on Ben’s lips is like a sedative, soothing the tension pulling on my shoulders, squeezing the back of my neck. “Talk to me.”
I take a deep breath, wanting to both stall and get it over with at the same time. Uncurling my fingers, I reveal the prescription bottle and set it on the kitchen island. “Do you know anything about this?”
I want to scream the question, force it through my mouth in such a way that it snags the hunk of dread sitting in my throat and pulls the foul lump out right along with it.
How is it possible that we can know the truth, truly know it without a shadow of a doubt, when there’s absolutely no earthly explanation for why we know it?
Ben’s face turns hard, turns to stone, turns back into the face of a stranger.
I cross my arms over my chest, waiting.
He swallows, stalling.
So I call him on it.
“I’m not stalling.” He sighs, a quick exhalation of…annoyance? Irritation? Guilt? “Nora said she was going to tell you. She assured me that before…” He pauses, runs both hands down his face before shaking his head. “She said she was going to tell you. In her own way. I guess I never thought to ask just what exactly she meant by that, but I assumed…” He lifts his chin, his gaze distant. “I assumed she would. But then I started to wonder. And if she didn’t tell you, how the hell was I supposed to?”
“What are you talking about? Tell me what?” The muscles in my throat are pinched so tight I can barely get the words out.
But Ben isn’t listening. Just runs both hands down his face again, mumbling to himself. “All this time. All this fucking time. She swore. And I told her, but no…she said…”
“What, Ben? All this fucking time what?”
He’s scaring me. And it’s not due to the worry that he’s going to snap and physically hurt me. No. It’s not that at all. It’s the sort of fear that comes with knowing that your whole world is about to be flipped. The certainty that you’re this close to losing everything—the good and the beautiful and the wonderful—that makes life worth living.
Ben stops pacing, stops rambling, and faces me with an expression that’s indicative of a sea captain staring into the face of a coming storm. “You didn’t know that Nora had Alzheimer’s.”
“No. You know I didn’t. She didn’t tell me…”
Ben cuts me off. “She didn’t tell anyone. Well, aside from me. And, as a necessary precaution, Roman. In case there was any…any…fall out.”
I frown. “Fall out? From what?”
“Nora’s death…” Ben sighs again, and it’s clear that what he’s about to reveal pains him. It’s in the way he clenches his jaw, the way his voice dips with emotion when he speaks. “Nora didn’t…didn’t die from natural causes. She…it was…” His mouth works, searching for the word I already know. A word he can’t seem to use, even now, all these months later.
“Nora chose to end her life.” And with these words, he finally cracks. The lines cutting into his brow soften, smooth out. His shoulders, before so stiff, suddenly sag, as if no longer able to bear the weight of my grandmother’s secret. “I should have told you. But then I wondered if maybe there was a reason Nora didn’t tell you, so I kept my mouth shut. And when you first got here, knowing what I knew and you didn’t? Hell, it was like I couldn’t breathe around you. It’s just… Lenny, I’m so sorry. Jesus, I’m so sorry….”
Ever since I fell for Cliff and his lies, I’ve honed my people-reading skills. It wasn’t something I consciously did, not at first, but learning to decipher another’s expressions and actions—in a sense, read between the lines—has become almost second nature to me. And while there are times that I can be fooled, it doesn’t last long, and it doesn’t happen often. In fact, Daniel’s controlling behavior was the first thing to slip past my defenses in years. And even then, at the risk of sounding pathetically arrogant (not to mention weak,) I think I always knew that about him. Knew, but didn’t care.
Because I was so tired. So damn tired of being surrounded by people, but still feeling completely, always, infinitely alone.
And here, with Ben, it seems I’ve made the same mistake.
Each emotion bears a unique signature, a tell of sorts, like a person’s penmanship does to a handwriting expert, I suppose.
And guilt? It’s the most expressive emotion of the whole damn bunch. It’s a tell that doesn’t whisper; it fucking screams.
The twitch of Ben’s lips, the pull at the corners of his eyes, speaks volumes.
If my grandmother chose to end her life, then why is he the one who looks so damn guilty?
Lenora chose to end her life. She didn’t want to exist as a shell of her former self, her memories sucked out of her head along with her sharp wit. She didn’t want to spend her last days in the drab room of a nursing home or hospice center, having to be bathed and wiped and dressed by strangers.
She didn’t want to become someone else in the blink of an eye, waking up one morning in a foreign body, with people she couldn’t remember and an intellect she couldn’t trust.
This is what Ben tells me, of course.
Because, of course, Lenora isn’t around to do it.
I listen, I listen, and as I listen, a dull roar fills my head, whispers alongside Ben’s words. It’s hard to concentrate on what he’s saying, even as he’s pushing a mug of steaming tea into my hand.
The hot ceramic against my skin clears the static in my head, and I look up to find I’m sitting down. Somewhere along the line I made it to the kitchen table, to a chair opposite the greenhouse. I look out the windows now, note the sunset fanning the sky, and wonder about cosmic consequences.
I’m not religious, and I don’t believe in Heaven and Hell the same way as, for example, a person of devout faith would. I’ve never had any sort of spiritual awakening, haven’t felt the hand of God on my shoulder as I walked through trying times. I’ve never had visions of my deceased father nor have I woken from symbolic dreams that later manifested into reality. And Lenora, for her part, hasn’t visited me once since her passing. I’ve never, ever had one damn thing—magical or supernatural—happen to me in all of my twenty-four years to dispute or support any of the romantic theories that have been tumbling around the globe for centuries.
My life has always been as heavy, as heavy, as heavy could be.
So I don’t know if what Lenora did condemned her to a literal or figurative hell, or simply wiped her soul right out of existence. For all I know, she could very well be a full-on light-being who, as we speak, is getting ready for another round of incarnation on another planet.
Or she could be nothing but dust along the shore of Lake Superior.
I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.
“Lenny?”
Ben’s voice draws me back to the present. Back to a reality I’m not sure what to make of.
Can I be angry with her? No, it was her life, and she had every right to do with it as she pleased.
But.
But, but, but.
“Why didn’t she wait? Why did she do…it…when she did?”
Translation: Why didn’t she wait to see me one last time, to call and tell me good-bye? To explain what the hell she was thinking, to explain why she did what she did with her will?
And then, when I realize that all of these things have to do with me, with my hurt and my feelings, I feel ashamed.
Ben slides into the seat next to mine, leans forward and rests his elbows on his thighs. “Once she made the decision, it was her intention to wait as long as she could. About two months before she passed, she had a really bad episode. I found her on the side of the road when I was coming home from work. She didn’t know who she was, where she was. Hell, it was late October and she was out there in slippers and a nightgown, walking around like it wasn’t snowing, like she wasn’t freezing. At first, she didn’t even know who I was. Fought me hard when I tried to get her in my truck. Nora was always feisty, but she’d never been vicious or aggressive. But man, was she pissed. She couldn’t understand that she was in danger of literally freezing to death, and when I finally got her into the truck and back to the house, I found she’d left the front door wide open. The entire entryway was filled with snow. Asha ran up to her once we got inside, and Nora freaked. Tried to kick her, thought she was a wild animal.” He stares at his hands. “Before that, it was just little stuff. She’d forget who I was and call me Christian—”
“—my dad’s name,” I whisper.
Ben nods. “But it only took a little nudge to get her back on track. She used to joke that the doctor diagnosed her wrong. And damn if I wasn’t starting to believe her. Then it was like it all just escalated overnight. She started spending more time out of her mind than in it. Of course, she was so embarrassed later, always w
orrying that the next time she wouldn’t be able to pull herself out of it. That was her fear, you see. She told me...” He pauses for a breath, splaying his fingers before fisting them tight. “She told me that she’d rather die than lose her dignity. So we…we came up with a plan.”
I hold up a hand. “Wait. We? What does that mean? Surely this wasn’t…” I stop, give him a chance to deny it. To scoff at my suggestion that he was the one who lured Lenora to an early death. But he doesn’t meet my eyes, so I barrel on. “Was this your idea?”
Ben doesn’t say anything; his silence is his confession.
“You conspired with my grandmother to kill herself.”
It’s not a question. Because now I know the answer.
I push away from the table. There’s a dull ringing in my ears, but I ignore it as easily as I ignore Ben’s voice, calling to me as I pull open the door to the garage and step through it.
The heat of the night, the stifling humidity that chokes Lost Bay two months out of the year…none of it touches me.
I’m in Lenora’s Land Rover before I know it, as if each second is passing in chunks, sped up and jerking like an old black and white film from the early 1900’s. I’m down the driveway, turning onto the highway, skirting the edge of town. Jasper’s is up ahead and then, the next second, barely a spec in my rearview mirror.
And when I get to Roman’s, I pound on the door with the ferocity of a woman who, after waking to find she’s been buried alive, rails on the lid of her locked casket.
Rage.
Ben hurried Lenora’s death along because he wanted her money. He slid into her life, slick as a snake, smooth as an eel, wrapping himself around her slowly, slowly until, when the time was right, he pulled…tight.
This is all I can think about, despite the reassurances that I’m wrong, wrong, dead wrong.
Roman’s voice is droning on and on. A deep, raspy timber laced with the remnants of sleep. I woke him up when I pounded on the door like a crazy woman, and I don’t think the shock of being roused in such a jarring manner has fully subsided. His white hair is ruffled, sticking straight up, and his Santa beard is slightly smushed. He squints at me through dry, sleep-filled eyes and scrubs a hand over a cheek that still bears the crinkles from his pillow case.
