When All Is Said And Done

Part One, cont.

After watching the boy scurry into the house, Ben counted fifty and followed, closing and locking the sliding glass door behind him, gearing himself up to face a roomful of people. Right now, his head was pounding and his heart was thudding so loudly inside of him he felt as if were on the verge of an attack, though he knew he was imagining it. In the past three hours his entire life had been uprooted and replanted, and only now did he understand what Alexa had meant when she apologized so profusely. She knew, damn it, she knew this would change everything, and it had.
When he opened his eyes it was to a roomful of strangers, and in a sense he was grateful that they had not asked Claire and Caleb or Lennie or anyone else he might know. Perhaps they had asked, he couldn't be sure. But Ben felt safe in everyone's ignorance; this way he could make small talk and smile his way through this evening, then collapse and sleep for the next forty hours when it was done.
"Ben, you must be eaten alive by those mosquitoes." Alexa found him first, and pulled him by the arm cheerily into the living room, where everyone had gathered. A pile of brightly-wrapped gifts weighed down the table, and it was only now that Ben remembered his own was wherever his briefcase had disappeared to. He'd have to pass it on to her later. He stared down at her, at her luminescent smile, and wondered how she could be so calm in the face of the betrayal of her body, how she could smile when he felt like sobbing at her touch. "Everyone," she continued, offering him to the strangers in the room, "this is my old friend Ben. Ben, this is...everyone."
Most of them nodded, or lifted their hands in greeting, and someone pushed a Scotch in his hand. It wasn't his normal choice, but he sipped it gratefully. "So you started without me," he said, and pushed a smile on his face. If Alexa could do it, so could he. The room laughed genially, and he felt a first layer of superficial acceptance from them, taking a seat on one of the couches and finishing off his first drink.
The rest of the night was, for Ben, an unqualified surrealist nightmare.
Someone kept filling his glass, and the Scotch took no time at all to worm itself into his body, making the high-pitched, glorious laughter in the room seem even louder and hysterical. Everyone was talking. Someone was talking to him, asking him about himself. Someone else revealed that they recognized him, that's right, he was the DA for Manhattan, and then felt they had to tell everyone else. Suddenly everyone who spoke to him had a legal question to ask. He saw their blotchy faces, their teased hair, their painted eyes and skewed ties, bad shoes and ripped hose and all he wanted to do was flee; if he had to swim back to Manhattan he would do it, and just when he felt the most claustrophobic and wild-eyed, Alexa stepped over to him and placed a reassuring hand on his arm, asking quietly if he was all right. And he came back to earth, sipped some more drink, and nodded back at her that he was having the time of his life. She knew he was lying, and he knew she was having about as much fun herself, and that synchronicity calmed him. But it was during one of these calm periods that he caught Mike staring at him from across the room, not staring in any particular way other than fixedly, tipping the neck of a beer bottle into his mouth but never averting his eyes. Ben didn't like that look; it chilled him, and as he began to realize that he had been lured out here he began to feel even more nervous. If Alexa was hating this party as much as he was, and if Mike himself was even unable to enjoy it, why had they held it in the first place? Ben thought he knew, if not the underlying reason, at least the superficial one -- to get him out here, on Staten Island. But why? He rubbed his eyes and tried to tune in to the person who was talking to him at that moment, and when he looked back, Mike had disappeared from where he was staring. For that matter, suddenly, he didn't even see Alexa.

He pulled her roughly into the bathroom near his study and locked the door, not even bothering to turn on the lights. "Mike, we can't," she said, but her words were cut off as he pressed his lips on hers, tasting nothing but seltzer on her lips, salty and wet, false ocean spume, and she kissed him back, tasting the beer he had been downing since he got back home. He reached up and gripped her head, kissing her harder, forcing his tongue in between her lips, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, pushing his hands down but holding him in place. It was like a battle between them; they wanted each other so badly that when she had come over to offer him another long neck just a few minutes ago he had gazed at her eyes and pulled her from the room, and she had gone willingly, knowing. But they were desperate; they knew there was no time, and certainly no time right now, and yet they could not wait for later. You can't take this, you bastard, Mike thought wildly, you can't have this, he repeated in his mind over and over, and lifted his wife up on the marble countertop as she undid her blouse buttons and let him grip her breasts hard. It wasn't until she got sick that Alexa had liked Mike rough with her; something about feeling so frail and tired all of the time had made her frustrated and angry, and at least when they pulled and pushed at each other this way she knew she was feeling something other than pain, at least she was living.
At the same time -- in the past ten years they had grown more and more attuned as to when the other liked to move forward, to the point of doing it together -- she reached for his belt buckle and he groped under her skirt, pressing the flat of his hand up between her legs, then pulled her hose down, trying not to rip them, and starting to laugh harshly at the very idea of his caring about something so mundane. His mouth was everywhere on her, it seemed, on her face and her neck, then down to her breasts, and she felt him sucking harder and crueler than he had before. It was a tremendous turn-on; she knew Mike would never really hurt her, he would die first, but the harder he pushed the better she felt. And earlier this evening, she hadn't been feeling very well at all.
Out of nowhere in the dark he was away from her, and she shivered at the space between them, the space which lasted for just a fraction of a second, and then he was back, pulling her to the edge of the marble and plunging into her. She wrapped her legs around him and tried to get some kind of purchase on the side of the marble, gripping the cold, slippery rock and pushing back at him, breathing heavily. Mike arched his back and leaned over her, seeing the two of them in the mirror behind her as one dark, pulsing being, illuminated by strands of moonlight coming in the blinds of the bathroom window. He felt her wet and warm around him, and he knew they were both on the edge, ready at any moment, but he waited. Leaning over her face he opened his eyes and stared at her, and they gazed at each other, locked. "I love you," he growled at her, "damn it."
She took a gasping breath as he pushed again, and hooked an arm around his neck. "I love you, too, Mike," she said in a thin voice, waiting for him, knowing she had to wait.
"I only love you," he growled again, his voice deepening. "Only you."
"Oh, Mike," she whispered, "I only love you."
And he came in her, and she came with him a few moments later, their mouths pressed together to prevent any noises from escaping, and when he was done Mike pulled out and fell against the back wall, sinking down to the carpeted floor, resting his head against his hand, making a choked noise. Alexa cleaned herself off and sat down in front of him, pulling him to her chest, and they cried quietly against one another, holding tightly in the dark.

Slowly, Ben began to realize how tissue-thin the illusion of this party really was: after being approached by nearly everyone in the room, he discovered the Logans had invited no friends, other than himself -- the people in this room were all relatives. Alexa's mother, who had just bought a small condo in Florida and was moving in three weeks, her younger sister who had just begun her master's degree in California, her elder brother and his fiancŽe, who were to be stationed at an army base in Germany, leaving in another day or two, a retired cop uncle who had come down from Canada, her grandfather and his girlfriend, who lived in a nursing home an hour's drive away. Perhaps earlier in the evening there had been friends over and guests had only winnowed down to family as the hours grew longer. He couldn't be sure. After as much Scotch as he had downed, of course, Ben could barely be sure of what city he was in. But as the hours grew longer and the bottles of drink grew lighter, the mood rose to a peak of hilarity, then turned ugly.
Somewhere in there he saw Alexa again, and raised his glass to her. She smiled slightly at him, her eyes shining from across the room, seeming larger than ever before. And then the argument started, between Alexa's mother, Mrs. Radin -- her husband, Alexa's father, had died of diabetes some years back -- and Alexa's grandfather, Julius. They were arguing about nothing in particular, just banter, but slowly the children were drawn into it and the voices and tempers grew louder. A glass fell, and broke. Alexa dove in to pick up the shards, glancing over at Ben, her brow furroughed, on the verge of tears. At some point, the mask had fallen, and she was no longer able to act cheery and vivacious. Ben hated them all for making her pretend, he hated being one of them for whom she was pretending, and he looked away.
"Take me home," Mrs. Radin suddenly ordered, her voice shaking. "I will not sit here and hear this -- malarkey."
Ben bit the inside of his lip to prevent a burst of laughter. The party broke apart after that, everyone cooing and petting Alexa, telling her how wonderful she looked, and how she and Mike must bring the kids to visit. Ben watched them, and heard their sentiments, which they probably thought they even believed. But the truth of it was that they were abandoning ship, drifting off to their own corners of the world, none of which were in Staten Island, all cut off from Alexa, her husband, and their problems. He watched Alexa holding Mike's hand, waving them off, rides arranged with the sober drivers, realizing none other than himself had been invited to stay the weekend, and noted how in their abandonment Mike and Alexa were still a team. He had to give them that; no matter how he felt towards her or how they had once acted together it could not be argued that Mike and Alexa were closer to being a single unit than they had ever been before. He wanted to feel jealous, he wanted to think that it could have been himself with her, had he played his cards differently, if only he had left Mike in the dark as to who really rescued him from that basement, but the jealousy simply wouldn't surface. It was wrong, he knew it was wrong to feel that way, and knowing it, Ben simply couldn't manufacture an emotion.
And then, he was alone in the living room, sitting in a soft easy chair with the empty sofas and recliners gaping like open mouths back at him. They had never opened the presents, which still sat on the coffee table, glowing brightly, falsely. He supposed there had been food once, but Ben could not recall having eaten. Surely at this party there had been cake, and ice cream, and party hats, but he remembered none of it. The Scotch had gnawed away his evening, both the horrendousness of it as well as the sweeter parts. After a time, he put his glass down and rubbed his face, trying to muster the energy to move. Distantly, he began to smell the thick odor of coffee brewing, and all at once Mike was standing before him. Ben jumped a little at Logan's appearance; suddenly the world seemed to have no space between events, and everything was thrown rudely into his face.
"C'mon," Mike said, offering a hand, and gently pulled Ben to his feet. "Good stuff, that Glenfyddich, isn't it," he said.
"Oh, yeah," said Ben, wondering just how much money he had drunk down this evening; that brand did not come cheap. "Never let it be said you skimp on your guests," he ventured.
Mike nodded. "You held up your end."
"I can't remember very much of it."
Mike laughed suddenly, loud and clear. "Then you definitely held up well, Counselor. Come on into the kitchen, we're brewing java."
In a few minutes, Ben found himself in the brightly-lit, cozy kitchen, staring at the grain in the solid wood table, trying to keep his head from spinning. Coffee, he thought, as if I need to be more dehydrated. But when Alexa placed a caramel-colored mug in front of him, the steam seemed to wake him up and he lifted his head, staring across the table at her, where she had sat next to Mike. Briefly, he glanced at the clock and was shocked to find it past two. Where had the time gone? And when he turned back to Mike and Alexa, he was even more surprised to find them both looking at him. Suddenly, he felt like fair game, and wished his mind was clear enough to cut through their motives, and figure out what they were up to. He resented that Alexa had not prepared him better for this, whatever this was, and bit down on it. That simply wasn't fair.
Cautiously, Ben lifted his coffee cup and took a sip, the hot liquid racing into his stomach, waking him up slightly, and he widened his eyes. "Happy birthday," he said to them both.
Alexa fingered the mug in front of her. "Thank you, Ben. I'm so glad you were here...and got to meet my family."
Mike laughed shortly. "Such as they are." Alexa glared at him, and he apologized. "But true to form, you have to admit, honey," he said, and looked at Ben. "Always ends in a fight, always."
Alexa's lips thinned, but she did not argue with him.
"Wait," Ben said, trying to break the tension. "Where's my briefcase?"
"I'll get it," Alexa said, opening a side closet and pulling it out. Ben reached down inside and withdrew a small, silver-wrapped rectangular package.
"I thought I should bring something for the birthday girl," he said. "You can put it on the pile out in the living room."
Alexa held it gently, running her fingers over the paper. In all the time she had known him, Ben had never actually given her a material gift. She glanced over at Mike quickly, hoping to see something positive in his eyes, and found it there. It was all right; this far was all right. She leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thank you, Ben. I'll open it right here."
"Oh, no," Ben began, holding out his hand, and smiled sheepishly at Mike. "You don't have to. It's nothing...."
But she had already torn apart the sliver paper to get to the present beneath, and a slow smile came across her mouth as she revealed the book inside, a gilt-edged, hardbound leather copy of Little Women. She looked up at him and he knew exactly what she felt just then, for he had felt it twice that night already, looking at the swing and thinking of slaying the dragon McCoy. She held it back, just as he had, and handed the book to Mike, looking over at Ben. "It was..." she said to Mike without averting her eyes, "the book I picked up in the pawn shop." She paused. "It was the book that made a hollow noise against the bookcase, and led us to find you."
Mike looked at Ben, and back at Alexa, and squeezed her hand. "Thanks, Ben," he said, nodding slowly. "I've always said I owed you one."
Ben sipped his coffee.
After a moment, Alexa rose, yawning a bit. "I think I have to catch some sleep," she said carefully. "Getting up at six am is still pretty much routine around here on a Saturday, so you might hear some clomping around..." she paused, staring off at the wall. Mike frowned, but she came back to herself before he could say anything. "Around....upstairs. You've got the spare room downstairs, Ben. It's all ready, when you go down." She walked around the table and poured her mug into the sink, stepping, as Ben noticed, even more lightly than she had earlier that day. As she passed his side of the table on her way upstairs she gave his hand a slight squeeze, but he made sure not to react. Ben wasn't sure what he thought he was hiding any more, but he saw no reason to be overt, not in Logan's home. Besides, hiding what had gone on between him and Alexa all those years ago had become an obsession, not just a habit, hiding it from everyone else, and hiding it from himself. "Good night, Ben," she said. "I'm glad you came."
Mike stood and followed her out of the kitchen. Ben decided it was time for him to stop being the third wheel and quietly creep off to bed. He was in the act of standing up when Mike returned, the swinging kitchen doors flapping behind him. "No, Ben," he said, gesturing with his hand. "Have a seat."
"Well," said Ben, "I'm a little worn out myself. I should...."
"No, Ben," Mike repeated, more firmly, and there was no trace of the friendly, grinning man who had picked Ben up at the docks. "Sit."
It wasn't a request.
Ben sat back down.

It was the one thing they simply did not discuss. Ever. Mike had taken his cue from Alexa early on; to bring it up now, even now when time suddenly seemed to have a definitive expiration date attached, would be like admitting it mattered. That was something she would not have tolerated in the old days and to mention it now would be like hitting her when she was already down. Overly cruel, and unnecessary. Besides which, he was fairly sure she knew he knew, she gave him more credit than he deserved most of the time, but on this she was right. He had known nearly all along.
For Benjy was not his boy, he knew it with the certainty that he knew Caitlin was his girl. It had started when the baby came nine months after he had been found in that basement, and while that was a period of his life Mike did not revisit unless absolutely forced to, the math had been impossible to ignore. Certainly, babies were born premature every day, but there had been nothing early about Benjy's arrival. Still, Mike couldn't say when his sense of certainty had taken complete hold of him, and when he had begun to feel just that extra gap of space between himself and Benjy, a space he knew Alexa would not have tolerated. Had she known of his feelings, or suspected any distancing Mike felt almost positive she would have left him. It had been her edict from the start: she had been adopted and no one had ever made her feel like a second-class citizen; if this child was not Mike's then it was best for him -- and her -- to never know the difference. And Mike had gone into it with all of the best intentions, he had never been so reliant on genetics and blood that he could not make any child of Alexa's his own, but his intentions had simply not been enough.
Oddly, when she had agreed to give the baby old Ben Stone's first name, he had not actually caught on. Stone was, in Mike's mind, if not exactly a eunuch, certainly sexless. His demeanor, his whole way of involving his life in his job made him an enigma to Mike, one of those faceless millions who showed up for work in the morning and vanished into smoke at the end of each day. Mike had seen Stone in court; knew there was a latent vitality and vibrancy that emerged, but he had never heard one whisper of the man's personal life beyond his divorce, and even that had not been from Stone himself. No, when Alexa had turned to him and asked that the boy's middle name be Benjamin, he had glanced at her face, glowing against the hospital white bedsheet, and said he thought that would be fine -- Nathan from his choice, Benjamin from hers. It made sense, in a way, since Ben was the one who brought Mike and Alexa back together. Mike might have never swallowed his pride long enough to learn the part Alexa had played in getting him out of the basement, and lost her forever, if Ben had not come along and set him straight. Mike had said that would be fine.
He supposed he might have begun thinking about it more when the boy began responding to Benjy, not Nathan or Nate. Even Mike had to agree that Nate sounded like such an old name for such a young boy, though, and he had let it lapse. Besides, Benjy was not Ben. And there it might have stayed, except for the one thing Alexa had not taken into consideration -- that sometimes genetics do make a hell of a lot of difference.
Mike decided finally that he realized the boy was not his subconsciously long before his aware mind had acknowledged the fact. It had not been one particular event that had decided it for him; more like the past ten years slowly accumulating, during which the pensive, cautious baby turned into essentially a miniature version of the man who now occupied the office of the District Attorney in Manhattan. By that point Mike had been away from the 27th Precinct for eight years, but he did not forget a face, particularly when that face looked up at him every day and called him Dad.
It was not even that Benjy could be considered a throwback; there simply wasn't enough of the bog-Irish in the little boy that allowed him to fake it. Stone, Mike knew, had grown up a few generations down, immigrant Irish too, but his kind were lace-curtain Irish, the Prod wannabees. They divorced, they married outside the faith, they lived up North in the occupied country. He and Alexa had taken a month's trip to Ireland when Benjy was three, and there he saw the differences: Mike's parents had come from the farmers out West and South, where the land was by turns bleak and mountainous, verdant and breathtaking. When they visited the industrial north the crags and harsh beaches surrounded them, the grayness of Belfast, and everywhere he looked Mike saw the thin pale Irish of the cities. He saw flashes of Stone everywhere. And he saw flashes of Benjy everywhere: the loose, flaxen pale hair, the translucent, sometimes ruddy skin, the cloudy blue eyes. Back on his own turf the people were hardier, sturdier, their hair thick and curly, eyes that reflected the skies and land around them. Alexa had not noticed; over the years she had blinkered herself to not notice the outsides of people, not to rely on what struck the eye first. But Mike had no choice.
Back home, his eyes opened, Mike saw more and more how little he was like his own son, and not just on the outside. Mike knew he himself was no imbecile, but he wasn't going to give Einstein a run for his money any time this week. Benjy, however, had done everything early, from crawling to standing to walking, and had read his own books almost as long as he could hold them up. Alexa taught him how to read by setting out letter-blocks on the floor, and one day she had led Mike, just home from work, in the living room, where Benjy was in the process of spelling out his entire name. He ran out of letters before he came to "Logan," though, and Alexa had smiled a bright, maternal pride at her husband. Benjy was eighteen months then. From there he read voraciously; he and Alexa brought large tote bags to the library and came back once a week with several dozen new children's books, and when those ran out she simply moved him on to the young adult novels, which took a little more time to wolf down. He had glasses by the time he was four. He skipped fourth grade; not out of Mike's idea, but because he was assured by all of the third and fourth grade teachers at Benjy's school that there wasn't a thing he was going to miss, other than learning all of the county names of New York and their capitals. Mike had to go along with it; Benjy had recited capitals and counties three years ago. But being in the fifth grade at the age of nine had its limits; Mike had put his foot down when he learned they were going into sex education for six weeks, as part of learning about the systems of the human body. "What does a nine-year old need to know about sex?" he'd stormed, and they had let Benjy work on a separate project. The thing that frightened Mike most about that incident, however, had not been the fact that his boy was moving into territories he thought he wouldn't have to deal with for another five years, but that more and more he was coming to realize the boy was smarter than either he or Alexa.
Mike had tried for a more rounded atmosphere, getting Benjy on the boy's softball team, helped him with his hitting in the backyard between games, then watched him still play right field all season, and didn't protest when Benjy didn't want to repeat it the following year. The boy was good at tennis, so he let Alexa send him to tennis camp for the next three summers and resigned himself to getting to figure out the rules on this one the hard way. They did the Cub and Boy Scouts thing, but that wasn't working out, either. Mike made Benjy stick to it, though, refusing to allow quitting without reason, so Benjy had invited him to come along to a meeting and watch. Mike had stood in the back of the room, just an empty cafeteria in the elementary school, watching the boys, all scabbed and rough and tousle-haired learn about tying knots. They had broken off into groups for a project, and as they did Mike felt an intense, sharp pain as his son was ostracized, put into a group of three not by choice, but because the leader assigned him there. Mike had gone outside then and taken several deep breaths. He had never, until that moment, realized the extent of Benjy's differentness. That he heard about his son's friends only occasionally, he had assumed, was because a boy didn't tell his father everything. Of course, Mike thought outside during the Cub Scout meeting, that was me. I didn't tell my dad shit, because everything that came out of my mouth got me popped one. No matter how different he had thought Benjy was compared to himself, it had never occurred to him that everyone else in the world did not see him as unique, original, special, and the smartest kid in the world.
But even though he felt pain, Mike had never felt outrage, or that it was a personal affront, to have Benjy so treated, and it was perhaps with this realization that he began to admit things. Had he truly in his heart felt that Benjy was an extension of himself he would have wanted to kill those other boys for not accepting his son, because to not accept Benjy would have been not to accept Mike Logan. And that would have been a terrible blow to his fatherly ego. But Mike felt nothing like that; he felt as close to it as any human being could feel, but there was that small space between sadness for a child's non-acceptance and rage for your son's rejection by others. And that was where Mike's emotions fell, square in the middle. Slowly, he began to accept things, little by little, lowering the blinders he had been wearing, going beyond that Benjy was not his own flesh, because that had been obvious for some time, but delving more into the other question, the one he had let lie when Alexa ordered him to. If not me, who?
And when that door had opened in him again, the answer came flying out, unbidden, without warning. He wished he had never thought about it again, after Alexa told him no. But once out, the genie could not go back in the bottle. He knew, with utter certainty, he knew who, and the slap-on-the-forehead obviousness of it had knocked the wind from him for a few weeks. When he had come back to himself, admitting that sexless Ben Stone, who was thirty years older than his Alexa if he was a day, had knocked her up and never said a word about it, he was as close to coming to terms with it as he would ever be. He could never speak to Alexa about it, or even hint. She had long gone on with assuming he knew everything, without their ever speaking of it, and if he tried to admit he had just figured it all out, after eight years now everything made sense, she would hate him for his stupidity and hate him for his lack of tact. And he had come to terms with it, to an extent; he had been telling her the truth all those years ago that he was marrying her, not the baby, and he also gradually realized that Ben Stone had been under no obligation to tell Mike anything, and could have had Alexa all to himself. Surely, Mike decided, he knows. Why else would Alexa have insisted on bringing Benjy and Caitlin by when they had last visited Manhattan, five years go? Of course Ben knew. And Alexa was right; they owed him more than she had ever let on. Mike was okay with it. Mostly.
But the boy was not his, and would never be anything like what Mike had expected in a son. He had always dreamed of a boy's life again, a better one than he had growing up, but very much an old-fashioned boy's life, where you hated girls one minute and adored them the next, where school was a hated but necessary thing, where books supplied your adventure just before you went out to shoot rockets to the moon with your friends. Of trophies on the shelf next to your favorite baseball cards. All the things, Mike thought, that I didn't have running around the Lower East Side. And though he knew even less about little girls than he understood about Benjy, slowly, subtly, Mike unconsciously was drifting towards Caitlin. She had always been such a daddy's girl, with her long ebony locks and flashing eyes, she was a flirt from the start and she had Mike's heart in her dress pocket. And with Caitlin his only link to the familiar, his only way of trying to see the mirror of his childhood again, he felt not only the gap extending between he and Benjy, but a firmer, growing link with his daughter.
And then, about a month or two after Mike had found his courses shifting, Alexa got sick.
Mike thought about all of these things as he stared at Ben Stone, staring and waiting, gathering his resources to speak. He felt strangely ephemeral, as if he were not really there, because Ben would not gaze back at him, instead only occasionally darting a glance, then looking away to sip his coffee again. Mike felt an odd sense of power, but it was less a rush than a simple fact, a vague power muted by what he knew he would not say, and what he had to say. For of course they had lured Ben out here on partially false pretexts; of course the birthday party had not been a party at all but a family get-together spiced up with the Glenfyddich Mike fed Ben all evening. No, Mike did not feel good about this at all, in fact he felt sick to his stomach, and wanted nothing more than to crawl under the comforter with Alexa and burrow tight against her, trying to forget all those nights she wasn't there, when the bed was empty for the first time in many, many years. He wanted to go upstairs and hold her and make love again, this time slow and gentle, but she would be asleep by the time he got there, and from the way she had been drifting into all-too-familiar pain lapses by the end of the night Mike suspected she would need all the sleep she could get. Tomorrow would not be a good day for her. For now, Mike pushed that aside, focusing on the guest at the table, feeling an immense distaste for what he had to do next, and took no pleasure from it. Once he had fancied he could get pleasure out of hurting Ben Stone, but that time had come and gone. Instead, he felt a definite smell of desperation attached to his power over the DA, because it was true that Ben was their last hope.

"Ben," he said finally.
"Mike," Ben shot back quickly, glad that the waiting was over. He was more than uncomfortable; he was getting downright jumpy and anxious.
"You spoke to Alexa, then," Mike said simply.
Ben nodded. At least he's being direct, he thought, trying to hold on to rationality, then tried to buck the control. For God's sake, he thought, I'm the District Attorney for the city of Manhattan. I can damn well go to bed if I'm tired. But he didn't move.
"That's it?" Mike leaned forward, eyes wild, gripping the edge of the table. His sudden movement made Ben flinch. "You just shake your head? You can speak to her and just nod away like that? God damn you."
Ben felt his brows knotting, and his heart began to fill again. I'm not unfeeling, you son of a bitch, he thought. How could Logan possibly expect him to break down, here, in front of him, of all places? His eyes began to sting; he was overtired, he'd had the longest day of his life, and he was being slowly tormented at two-thirty in the morning. He made a noise between a cough and a gag, and looked at Mike. "It is back," Ben said in a choked whisper. "She does have it again."
Mike looked hard at him. "Yes," he said.
Ben buried his head in his hands, and couldn't hold it back any more, Mike or no Mike. He began to weep, all the time gasping for breath, feeling his hands damp and his face sticky he wept. And when he remembered the last time he had cried like this -- when Mike had come out of his semi-coma and Ben knew Alexa would run back to him -- he lost control of himself, and sobbed. It felt good to do this, something he hadn't allowed himself to consider doing before, but now it seemed like the only thing to do, and he felt the frustration, the anger, the jealousy he had not felt before forced out of him through his eyes.
After a time, a paper towel was pushed under his arms, and Ben waited a moment before he used it. And the tears began to dry up, leaving him taking in enormous, shuddering breaths, trying to regain his composure. But the fact was, he had lost it, and he didn't think he was ever going to have composure, whatever that really was, back again. What was the point, after this, of pretending that he didn't feel for her any more?
Finally, Mike spoke, in a gentler tone than he had used before. "You're lucky," he said, and Ben turned to him. "You can do that." He paused. "I used up all of that a couple of years ago. If I can squeeze one drop out of these works, I feel lucky."
"I didn't know before," Ben said quietly.
Mike nodded. "Yeah. Most people didn't. We kept thinking it was a storm that would blow over. You know, just zap her with some chemo, maybe she loses her hair, but she's done in a few months. It was bad, but we didn't see any reason to call out the death squads." He flinched at his own words. "I mean...oh, hell. It was bad, Ben, it was worse than the basement, she didn't look like herself, she couldn't talk for a couple of weeks, and all I could do was sit around and watch it. She's right when she says it was poison in her blood, but there's more to it than that. We found a marrow donor for her, which was a miracle in itself, because at one point I almost knocked on the Pages' door and begged. I almost went to find her twin sister where we left her, rotting away. Can you imagine? Jesus. I didn't have to go that far, but I came close. Have you ever seen those needles they use for marrow transplants, Ben? Big long motherfuckers. I was so scared for her; by that time I don't know if she even could feel scared any more. But it worked, my God, it worked, and she came back to us."
Mike took a deep breath. "Until now. Just before Claire's party, Ben, we found out she went out of remission. God, I was stinking drunk there, but I had to be. It was awful."
"When..." Ben ventured, "when does she go back in the hospital?"
He blinked several times and averted his eyes. "She doesn't."
Ben frowned violently. "What do you mean?"
Mike's expression turned down, and he looked despondent. "She won't go back," he said.
"What?" Ben frowned, feeling his throat catch again. "You make her."
Mike shook his head. "I've argued, gotten mad, pleaded, yelled, tried to talk sense, and nothing works. She won't go. She knows, and I guess I know, if she goes back it doesn't matter what they do, she'll never come out. And Benjy and Caitlin will have to remember her like she was when she was sick the first time, like this white, pale skull. And she simply won't have that, Ben, she just won't do it."
Ben tried to wrap his mind around it. Surely she wasn't going to sit around, she had to fight, he had to convince her of this, if nothing else. "What are you going to do, Mike?"
"We did a lot of research," he said. "And we found a place in New Mexico. It was on 60 Minutes and everything, they even had this article in the New England Journal of Medicine about it, maybe something with the waters down there. No chemo. Different kind of therapy. That's what they call it, therapy. Anyway, they're pretty confident they can help us." His voice had taken on an edge of desperation, as if he didn't quite believe this but had to, because he had no choice.
"Mike...don't do this."
Mike slammed his palms on the table. "I don't have a say," he said. "She won't go back to the hospital. And I won't let her just...die on me." He paused a very long time. "But maybe there is something down there. We have to try."
"They're charlatans, Mike. They're charging an arm and a leg, aren't they," said Ben.
"I don't think that's any of your goddamn business," Mike fired back at him.
Ben nodded, and rubbed his face. "I can try to convince her...." he began.
Mike shook his head. "No," he said. "She's...positive this is what she has to do. And Ben, I do believe her when she says if she goes in a second time she won't come out. You weren't there that first time. I wouldn't make it out a second time, either."
"So you're going."
Mike nodded. "As soon as we can."
"How long." Ben heard his voice, expressionless, interrogating Mike, but he felt removed and separate from the person asking the questions. His hurt and battered psyche was hiding in the corner somewhere.
"They say two months," Mike said. "I'm taking a sabbatical, I have to go with her."
"What about your children?"
Mike looked at his hands. "They aren't allowed. They're too young."
"So you're sending the kids to Grandma."
Mike laughed. "Have you seen Grandma lately, Ben? As a matter of fact, you have. See, she just bought a condo in Florida. Talked all night about how damn small it was. Other Grandma? Dead. Grandpas? One in a nursing home, and my dad...he has a tendency to whack what comes too close by. Sisters? Abroad. Brothers? In the army or in jail. No, Ben, the kids are not going to Grandma's, not mine or hers."
Realization began to dawn in Ben. He stared at Logan, his mouth slightly open, and knew. "Oh, no, Mike. No, no, no, no. A thousand times no. I can't."
"Ben, you have to. We need you. There's no one else to turn to."
"Mike, I'm nearly sixty-four years old. I haven't had a child in my house in twenty years, and never two of them. I work all hours. I'm cranky and irritable and you don't want to know the rest of it. No, Mike, even for Alexa, no, I just...can't. And it's totally impractical. What would they do about school, their friends, where would they live?"
"The house could be yours," said Mike, methodically, getting his hopes up. "And on the weekend, maybe you'd go back to your place. I mean, it's a commute for you but this way they could stay in school here."
Ben shook his head the entire time. "Mike, be realistic. You have to realize this is impossible."
Mike was quiet, leaning back in his chair, studying Ben.
Ben grew nervous again; what fresh hell did Logan have planned for him? Imagine, asking him to take in an eight-year old girl and a ten year old boy. It was insanity. They would simply have to think of something else.
"If that," Mike said slowly, finally, "is your decision, I can't force you. I was hoping you'd jump at the chance." He paused. "It is your decision, of course." He stood and took their mugs to the sink, leaving them there and walking back to the table, but not sitting down. "But here's the thing." He leaned against the table where Ben sat. "Remember how I always said I owed you one, for what you did for me all that time ago?"
Ben nodded slowly.
"Well, see, over the past couple of years, I've come to decide that I was wrong. The fact is, Ben, you owe me one. You owe me a real big fucking one. You know exactly what one that is, and I'm calling it in, in spades. This, you owe me. After this, we're clean. But I need this. Alexa needs this. And you are, by God, the only person we can ask." He held Ben's gaze a long moment, then stepped through the kitchen swinging doors, holding one open. "Sleep on it, Ben. Don't decide now. You can tell me in the morning." And he turned quickly around, darting upstairs, as if he could not be away fast enough.
So that was it. That was why he had been asked out to Staten Island. Ben slumped in his chair. He could not remember when he had been this tired.

He was still tired, but wide awake an hour or so later when he heard noises. It was too early for the clomping around Alexa had referred to, that of the children waking up, but it was similar. Someone -- more than just someone -- was awake and moving about the house. Ben blinked, but did not move from where he laid out in the basement spare room's bed, arms folded under his head. He listened.
After Mike had left the kitchen, Ben had sat in his chair for a while, hearing the refrigerator hum, hearing the occasional creak from upstairs, noises of an old house settling. I feel like an old house, he thought. I just want to settle on my foundations. It was spite, that was what it was, he could tell it from the way Mike had ambushed him. Surely this hadn't been Alexa's idea; it would be just like Logan to try and use his children to get back at Stone, under the pretext of having no choice. But that scenario, pat and easy, didn't ring true. Ben didn't know enough about Mike to have any idea exactly what he would do with his children. He wondered if Alexa knew about this, knew how Mike was cornering Ben into accepting responsibility, and while he wanted to believe she remained innocent of the plan, Ben knew her better than that. Alexa was aware; Alexa had to know how this twisted at Ben's heart.
He had liked Benjy, for the few hours they had spent together, but a game of cards is not fatherhood, and he knew Caitlin even less well. They were children, they were separate entities, a breed he had forgotten how to deal with and perhaps never learned how in the first place. He would hardly accept some rare specimen of endangered animal into his home, he certainly had no space or time for a precocious ten year old and a moppet-like eight year old. It was insane. He had his job to think about. He was about to run for re-election, he kept late hours -- though, he admitted, not as late as he once did, and still later than he really had to -- and, on top of it all, Ben did not know if he could handle having other people around him. Children demanded time, they didn't ask for it, they simply assumed they would get it. They demanded energy, a life-force he didn't think he still had in him, one which since seeing Alexa and feeling his age in his bones had felt even more diminished. No, there simply was no way. He would have to call Logan's bluff.
The noises went on for a while, and finally he heard hushed tones leaking into the basement from the upstairs kitchen. He could not make out the words, but the tone sounded tense, and rushed, and he began to wonder if everything was all right. He did not trust the two of them together; Alexa he knew and Mike he thought he could figure out, but as a unit were an entity he did not know, and not knowing what they were up to in the kitchen made him anxious. He sat up in bed, still in his clothes from work, and stepped over to the bottom of the basement staircase. There, the voices were hushed, but less muted, and doors were opening and closing, squeaking and protesting. Something was going on. He ascended the staircase and carefully opened the basement door leading to the kitchen, freezing in place.
He noticed her eyes first, for they seemed to eat up her face with their glazed luminosity, round saucers red-rimmed and wet. Alexa was slouched in one of the kitchen table chairs, a long overcoat covering her nightgown, her feet bare and whitely bony, protruding and bent on the floor, as if she had been dumped there. "Ben..." she said, but it wasn't quite like speaking, it was a scratching, crawling sound. Undisguised by full clothing, her hair rumpled, and in that unnatural position, Ben saw the second sham of the evening; that she was only recently out of remission.
At Alexa's voice Mike, who was rooting through the pantry for something, turned, the expression on his face anguished, and it morphed quickly into an ugly, sneering mask. But he said nothing, just tossed a few plastic bags from the cabinet until he came on what he was looking for, and pulled out a small cardboard box. Ignoring Ben, he strode to Alexa and pulled out a bottle from the box, offering her a fat yellow pill. "Come on," he said. "Come on."
She turned away, and slid her chair back, trying to get away. "No," she said. "Not again. I'm not starting that again. Don't make me." Her words dissolved into tears as she pushed Mike away. He reached for her, to hold her still, and she sprung from the chair in one quick movement, lost her balance, and crashed backwards against the chair and sink, falling down. It all happened so quickly, Ben had no chance to react.
And then she was still. Mike let the pill fall to the floor and picked her up like a sack. "Get the door," he barked at Ben, who could not think for himself. Ben ran to the front door, holding it open for Mike to pass through. He paused on the porch and ordered, "Get the keys, Stone. They're on the kitchen counter." And without waiting for a response, he took careful, measured steps, walking Alexa out to the car.
In a moment or two they had her in the front seat, and she was beginning to come to. Mike slammed her side door closed and wrenched the keys from Ben's fingers. Ben could only stand back and watch, frozen, completely useless. Mike turned to him. "I'll call you," he said. "I'm just taking her to the hospital. We'll be back tomorrow." He started to turn away, then looked over his shoulder, noticing how Ben stared at Alexa, knowing it was how he had felt when all this started. Now, it was a nightmarish routine. More kindly, but still gruff, Mike said, "We've done this before. This is nothing."
And for the second time in less than twelve hours, Ben stood in the sweeping driveway as Mike threw the car into reverse and sped down the road, out of sight.

Part One, continued