Part Two
Arrivals

 
Benjy came to Ben Stone's house on a Saturday. His mother walked him up the sidewalk, across the grass, and on to the porch, pausing for a while before ringing the doorbell as she stared at an old, rickety swing hanging at one end of the porch, one that Benjy thought wasn't half as nice as the one from home. Benjy turned around to her and she knelt down to his level.
"You can go," he told her.
"I just want to see you in the door," she said faintly, wishing he could put away his surliness for one minute. He had barely spoken to either of his parents all week, not since the situation had been outlined. Caitlin had cried. They expected this, they knew this was coming. Caitlin acted like the child she was. She wailed, she pouted, she wondered why Benjy wasn't coming to see Gramma, but she was also easily distracted by promises of the beach and ice cream and flying alone like a grown up girl on a plane. Caitlin was easily bought off. But Benjy had shut down on them, turning eerily expressionless, and when addressed, answered in clipped, broken phrases. He had not been soothed or cajoled or threatened into acting any other way.
The boy scowled at her, embarrassed at being treated like a baby, wanting her back in the car with Dad and Cate, who were off to the airport after this on two separate flights. He had read stories about situations like this. Parents often threatened to just pick up and leave. He'd seen Hard Copy, he knew kids got left all the time. Sure, they said they were coming back, but how could he really be sure? He squinted at his mother and impassively read her pained expression. Inside his stomach roiled with nausea. He wanted nothing more than to embrace her and act the adult but this hurt too much, to be dropped off at some strange guy's house. Sure, Ben had been all right the other week, babysitting, but for two months...Benjy was pissed off and he had every intention of making his mother feel as regretful as possible over what she was doing to him. He was ready to be the martyr if it made everyone else feel better to have him that way, but he wasn't going to go easily. "I don't want you here," he told her.
Alexa stood and folded her arms, feeling every muscle in her tense. This is the worst, she thought, to have him pretend he's not even going to miss us. Miss me. Maybe he won't. She pecked him on the cheek and backed away from him, seeing him small and vulnerable against the door to Ben's house with only a small duffle bag for the weekend, and continued her retreat through the front yard. Had Mike decided to hurry things along by blowing the horn at that moment she would have dissolved into tears. It was hard enough coming back to this place; it was wrenching to leave her son. And for some reason, he felt he had to make it even harder. She did not know what to say to him.
The door opened and she froze in the grass as Ben peered at Benjy through the screen door, restraining a large golden retriever. Clarence, thought Alexa, oh, my God, he's still alive.
Benjy looked up at Ben and the dog and saw the rest of the house behind them, like a cave it seemed vast and dark, and he felt his resolve melt away. He was afraid, he didn't want to be left behind, not with this very strange adult for two months. He turned back to his mother, who far away looked thin and pale, ghostlike, and a hand gripped his heart with the notion that he might never see her again. He dropped his duffle and blasted through the porch door, flinging himself against his mother and holding her tight.
Alexa leaned down to him and hugged him fiercely, smoothed down his hair, and made him face her. "You know I love you, Benjy. You're the best son I've ever had."
He smiled through tears he hadn't remembered making. "I'm the only son you ever had."
She pressed her forehead to his. "Be good, Benjy," she told him. "That's all you have to do. Be good. And listen to Ben. He's smarter than he looks."
Benjy nodded silently, and let her pull back from him. Then he turned and ran back the way he had come, stopping hard on the welcome mat. Ben had not moved, but Clarence was still straining madly. Benjy turned, waving, and his mother waved back from the car. He could not see what his father was doing. He watched the car pull away slowly, then turned back to Ben, slightly embarrassed by his show of emotion. "I'm all done," he said, and Ben opened the screen door to let him in.
They stood awkwardly in the foyer for a few minutes, staring at one another, Ben holding Clarence by the collar and Benjy gripping the handle on his small bag tightly. "You can put that down," Ben told him, but the boy just hefted it higher and regripped it.
"I'm okay," he said.
Ben glanced down at Clarence. He was old, particularly for a large dog, and these days he rarely raised his head when someone came to the front door, but at Alexa's knock he had been instantly on his feet, scratching at the frame of the door, not barking. He rarely barked. But he was excited, his bushy blond tail smacking hard against the floor, and when Ben had unlocked the door he'd made a lunge for whatever waited behind it. Ben had taken hold of his collar, and when the door was fully opened, Clarence calmed almost immediately. But his tail thumped intermittently, as if trying to convince himself he hadn't been fooled by what he smelled just outside. With Benjy in the house, he had stuck his nose in the air, beginning to taste a familiar scent, and gradually was working himself back up into a frenzy. "Do you like dogs?" Ben asked Benjy.
He shrugged, but didn't take his eyes from the animal. "I guess."
"Well, Clarence seems to really want to get to know you, so I'd recommend putting down your bag before I let go."
Obediently, Benjy rested his duffle on the staircase, and Ben let go of Clarence. But rather than bolting forward, Clarence took wobbly, determined steps towards the newcomer, and began to smell him, walking a circle around Benjy, wagging his tail as if thinking the situation over. Finally, he stopped dead in front of Benjy and licked the back of his hand once, then sat at attention, as if waiting.
Ben had folded his arms and watched the performance with bemusement. When Clarence stopped, watching Benjy, he said, "I think he wants you to pet him."
Benjy reached out and laid a hand over Clarence's head and rested it there, then let his palm slide down the dog's soft, furry ear.
Clarence barked.
"Hey!" Benjy flinched. "He tried to bite me."
"He doesn't bite anything," Ben told him, and knelt down to the dog's level. "He hardly ever barks. I think he's overwhelmed."
"Why?"
Ben smiled faintly. "Could be lots of things."
Benjy picked up his duffle again, businesslike. "Can I see my room now?"

---

Once, it had been his daughter's room. During her stay, Melissa had used posters of rock bands, artwork, mirrors, and newspaper clippings as wallpaper, but after college she and Ben had spent the day turning into a neutral guest room, painting over the tape marks, rolling up the posters and storing them in the basement, putting her youth in cold storage. After Melissa had come Alexa, who had only slept in it a few nights, and taped nothing on the walls, but who to this day occupied it, or so it seemed to Ben. Since Alexa left, he had not ventured into the room since to do anything more than raise the curtains or install storm windows. A few days ago he had replaced the sheets on the bed and sat on it for a while, staring out the window, resting his hand on the pillow. But that had been it. There were several rooms in the house he rarely bothered with any more.
"You're the first boy to live here," he told Benjy, but the boy in question didn't respond, just slung his bag on the bed and took a quick look out the window. Ben watched him, waiting for some kind of effort at real communication, and got nothing. Ben began to feel like a bellboy waiting for his tip. "Hungry?" he tried again.
Benjy shrugged. "Not really."
Ben sighed. Obviously, he thought, I overestimated my charm. Why did I think this was going to be easy? "Do you want to take a nap?"
Benjy folded his arms, irritated. "I don't take naps. I'm not tired. I'm not hungry."
"Fine," Ben said, frustrated, and thought, Let him stew. "I'll be in my study when you feel like coming down."
He barely reached the staircase before the bedroom door closed hard down the hall.
It was the last Ben saw of Benjy that weekend. Every time Ben came upstairs and knocked on the door to see if everything was all right, Benjy would repeat back to him that everything was fine, and no, he wasn't hungry. Ben let him have his space, leaving a plate of sandwiches and a container of water outside, and when he came back up later the plate was empty.
At first, he thought perhaps Clarence had been at the food, though it would have been unusual for the dog to go after bread and jelly. Earlier in the day, Ben had felt the silence of his own house, somehow more empty for having a child that made no noise in it, and realized he had not seen Clarence in some time. After looking around the house and checking in the backyard, Ben ventured upstairs again and caught his dog leaning across the width of the door, his head between his forelegs, unmoving. When Ben had come to the top stair Clarence's eyes had shifted, and his tail thumped once or twice, but had not budged. Ben had sat on the steps and leaned his head on his hand, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do next. For once he had left much of the work he needed to do in the office, assuming this first weekend with a guest in his house would mean he would have no time to do it anyway, and without it, for the first time in a long time he saw hours of time draw out like a long road.
He felt like Clarence, waiting and waiting, utterly rejected and confused by conflicting emotions. Clarence, who had sat dutifully at Ben's front door each day, waiting for someone who never arrived, who spent time with Ben like a prisoner under sentence; because he had to, and because there was no one else. Alexa had found Clarence, she had nurtured, loved, and saved him, and he missed her every day of his life. She had never come back. Now, Ben was sure, Clarence could smell the Alexa inside of Benjy; he knew it like an aura that surrounded the boy, he knew that Alexa had been close to this person. And that new person was on the other side of a door that did not open. Finally, Ben moved Clarence's water and food dishes up to the door, too, out of the way of when Benjy would inevitably have to get out to use the bathroom. Ben marveled at how the entire continuity of life in his home had shifted, and at the same time wished he had words, any words, for Benjy in there. But he had no idea where to start.
It was one of the longer weekends of his life.

---

Monday morning.
He heard nothing; by the time Ben came down the steps to grab his morning bagel, Benjy was already perched on the side of the couch, a small backpack on the ground next to him. Apparently, he had been instructed well -- leave the overnight things at Ben's, his parents had told him, and only take your school books. It was seven, and he had a long day ahead of him -- Ben was to drive him into town, put him on the outbound Staten Island Ferry, where he would be picked up on the other end by a friend's mother and driven to school. After school he was to go back to the gingerbread house on Staten, and Ben would arrive at some point with his own overnight bag. This was the week. The weekends meant back to Ben's place. Ben hated the idea of leaving Clarence under the care of neighbors for a week at a time, but the option was trying to force Benjy to take the ferry every day, both directions, and no one had thought that would stand up to much of a test.
That was how Mike had explained it to Ben over the phone earlier in the week, in any case. Mike, whom Ben could almost picture crumpling up a coffee cup as he spoke, tight-lipped and agitated, while Ben had not made the conversation any easier for him. He was disliking Logan in a way he never had before, and for a fleeting moment wished to God he could have only felt this way all those years ago, when it had mattered and could have made a difference. And then, the moment had been gone. It had been a terse, tense, ten minute conversation that felt like it went on for an hour, and Ben had been exhausted at the end of it.
"Breakfast?" he asked Benjy absently as he rounded the staircase.
"No," Benjy told him. They had been reduced to single syllables to communicate, over the weekend, and Ben thought to himself that simple, single-subject sentences seemed to transmit better over the canyon that lay between the two of them.
On the long car ride to the Ferry terminal, Ben felt nearly alone, with just the radio playing and news chattering forth, NPR broadcasting from Washington, and he had nearly put from his mind that Benjy existed at all, when it happened.
"When do you get home tonight?" Benjy asked.
Ben jerked slightly, almost a flinch. "It speaks," he said, and felt immediately better. And just as immediately, felt petty and idiotic for expecting a child to act as if nothing were wrong when his mother was sick and his parents had dumped him off for two months.
Benjy didn't speak again for another few miles, when what he had to know overwhelmed him again. "So what time?"
"About six-thirty," said Ben. "I'm leaving early."
"Okay," Benjy said.
They rode on in silence.

---

He had a meeting at ten forty-five with Claire; other than that Ben's morning was relatively clear. He made a few perfunctory calls; the mayor needed some information on a particular case; Ben was trying to decide on a campaign manager, as much as the idea of one made his skin itch; his old friend Barney Hoskyns rang to see what Ben thought of meeting up for drinks in the Oak Room later in the week. But his mind was on none of his work, running over the length of the weekend Ben realized he should have made more effort with Benjy. In retrospect, that seemed easy, he could have told the boy they did not shut doors in his house, or he could have tried to talk more through the door, or he could have dragged him kicking and screaming out and forced him to be sociable.
No, Ben thought, that's what my father would have done.
Still, he thought, he should have done more. Leaving the boy to fester in the room all that time had been unnatural. He hadn't even heard any sounds coming from behind the door, as if Benjy had escaped out the window and really been away all that time. Ben tried to catch up on some pending cases, skimming through Claire's and Jack's first to familiarize himself with their workings, but concentration was elusive. He had been staring off at his bookshelves for an indeterminate amount of time when a soft cough brought him back to the real world. He turned, and Claire was leaning in his office. "Ten forty-five," she announced, and stepped all the way in, closing the large oak door behind her.
"Knocking has gone out of fashion?" he snapped at her.
She turned swiftly around, opened the door again, and knocked.
It was so ridiculous he smiled at his own crankiness. "Fine, fine," he said. "You made your point."
Claire took a seat in the sofa at the back of the room and waved at him to come around. "A little out of sorts this morning, Mr. District Attorney?" she asked, taking out her reading glasses.
Ben shrugged. "It's my right. You live in this office long enough, you turn into Adam."
Claire smiled sadly at the memory of Ben's predecessor, who had died six months ago, grumpy and well-loved to the end, master of the pithy understatement. It had been rumored around the office that his final words had been "This is just dandy," but no one had ever had the gumption to ask his widow. "I did knock," she said. "You realize that. You were just out in space, Ben."
"Thinking," he said, and took a seat in the armchair next to her.
"The election?" she asked gently.
"Some," he told her.
Claire eyed him, and Ben met her gaze.
He liked Claire Kincaid. Nearing forty, she'd been working in the DA's office almost fifteen years now, first as Ben's assistant, then once he was elected DA more directly for his longtime rival Jack McCoy. He liked her, but that had not always been the case: for some time in the early days they had not been on the same wavelength and for many years they had not quite understood one another. Still, when she had slipped early on and had to resign temporarily, facing censure, Ben found working even temporarily without her had been stifling, and had used his influence to get her not only reinstated, but back in the DA's office. And then, similarly, when he had nearly gone off the edge with a personal relationship conflict of his own -- Alexa -- Claire had made it her business to look out for him. Ben was aware it was a job she continued even to this day. Since then they had come to a silent agreement, and began to see each other as humans as well as co-workers, and often he had felt like her protective sibling more than a boss. She had admitted feeling the same way to him once over drinks, saying, "Working with you was so serious at first, Ben, I didn't think I'd last."
"So what changed your mind?" he had asked back, finishing his G&T.
"Well, the whole thing with Alexa, really." She had paused, testing the waters. "It was, let's just say, heartening back then to find you able to make professional mistakes in the name of giddy love. I didn't think you'd had it in you."
Ben had not commented.
Once he had been elected, however, the days of working directly on cases together ended, and she had been transferred to Jack McCoy's department. But that had not lasted. After only a few months, she made a formal appointment with the new DA and told him that while she was willing to wait to be promoted to EADA, she could not stand working for McCoy any longer. "I'll leave," she had told Ben, "if you can't think of a better solution."
For her to threaten resignation, Ben had realized the discomfort level must be severe. He knew she had grand ambitions to be the first female DA, and had confided them to him once. "After McCoy gets it," she had said, "after you leave. Then me. I'm just biding my time." So he had known she was serious about the dissention. "But why, Claire? What could be so bad? You've worked with him before."
Claire had folded her arms and stared out the window a moment, then back to Ben. "It certainly can't harm the relationship between you two, because I know you can't stand each other, so here are the beans." Apparently, as she had said, after starting work for Jack McCoy, it had been amusing at first to hear Jack treat Ben like a stodgy old fart. Jack had thought Ben was more concerned with his own personal morals than the legal merits of a case, but then it grew wearying, and now she had to make a formal request to change. Among many other things they had done differently, Claire had told him, Ben had never professionally denigrated McCoy in her presence, and she was highly suspect of someone who would do such a thing.
Ben had taken a week to think it over, then promoted her. Jack had been furious, never convinced that she could do the job. But now, Ben knew her inquiry about the election was not just small talk; he knew she had to be thinking about backtracking quickly if Ben was not planning on running. Surely Jack would be elected in Ben's stead, and if he still held a grudge, she could be out of a job. But Ben did not calm her fears; he had other things on his mind.
Claire crossed her legs and took out a pen. "Okay," she said, giving him his right to say nothing. "Then what about Merkison?"
"Mmm," he said, still wandering in his thoughts, then refocused on the case. "I suppose the police never do learn when they need a search warrant, do they. What judge did you draw?"
"Harrington."
Ben winced. "Do your research, then. If he could, he'd require signed permission before the police were even allowed to knock on your door." He scanned the room. "Where's Duffy?"
"Figuring out how to get past Harrington without a valid warrant. He's had his nose in the books since eight."
Ben gave her a little smile. "Got jitters yet?"
Claire rolled her eyes and took off her reading glasses. "Ben. It's still a month away. Give me a little credit."
"Allow me to be amused."
"Granted."
And he was. Her impending wedding was one pleasure he freely, joyously teased Claire about; she knew how much affection there was behind the teasing. He had had no idea, when Caleb Duffy had joined the DA's office five years ago after stepping down from a much higher-paying private law firm how much trouble could be generated from pairing him with the offices' newest EADA, Claire Kincaid. It had been almost an offhand thing Ben had done, thinking the two of them could show each other some new tricks, and he had been more right than he knew. Ben had known immediately when their relationship had become sexual; it had been shortly after Claire's first big murder trial win, and she had glowed with more than just the after-trial halo for weeks and weeks after. He had commented then on her penchant for younger men -- Duffy was five years her junior -- and she had, at the time, raised her eyebrows at him and said merely that she learned all about it from Ben. He hadn't brought up the age differential again after that, instead allowing himself some reflection to recall how he must have acted with Alexa all those years ago. Claire had suspected him then, and confronted him, Adam had only suspected, but as Ben watched Claire indulge in pure, extended ebullience he realized Adam had to have known all along, too. The office was too much like a small town, and everyone worked too closely to not know these things. Surely, the whole building had to have known about Ben and Alexa.
Jack McCoy had known.
Suddenly, Ben realized that that could be very bad.

---

"Speaking of being amused," Claire continued the teasing vein as she put away the folder on Merkison, unaware that Ben was no longer in the mood for joking around, "you've been acting a little distracted this past week or so yourself. Anyone I know?"
He stood abruptly. "I have some calls to make. Let me know after Harrington makes his decision."
She let him sit heavily back behind his desk, then uncrossed her legs and strode over, leaning on the polished wood desktop. "Ben," she said sternly. It was a tone she had stolen from him, and coming from a face as handsome as hers it carried a great deal of weight.
"Don't you have some work to do, Claire?"
"Come on, Ben, you can tell me. If anyone, you can tell me."
"It's nothing," he told her. "Really." Then he shook his head. "No, it's not. It's very much something. Claire, do you have any idea how to take care of a ten year old boy?"
She was so ready to be blithe the meaning passed her by at first. "Last I heard if you feed them every day and put them in fresh sunlight they kind of take care of themselves, don't they?"
Ben frowned. "Yes, exactly, Claire. Thanks. You know how I value your gardening techniques."
She stood up and shrugged, not willing to deal with Ben's version of enigma. "I'll call you," she said, and walked to the door, pausing when her hand touched the cool brass doorknob. "What ten year old boy, Ben?" she turned and asked, suddenly hearing his words.
He didn't look up from his papers. "Nothing, Claire," he said airily, "you go work your magic on Harrington, and get Duffy to finish that rebuttal." He waved his hand at her.
Claire folded her arms. "Quit being coy with me, Ben, it doesn't become you. What ten year old boy."
Finally, he looked up and leaned back in his chair. "Why, he's the Logan boy. You know, Alexa's and Mike's."
She felt cut to the quick and whispered, "Benjy?"
"Or didn't you know?" Ben asked, tilting his head. "And here I was thinking you were in tight with them."
Claire pointed at her boss and re-closed the door. "Stop that. If I am, as you say, 'in tight' with the Logans you know the reason behind it perfectly well."
Ben folded his hands in his lap and stared at them. "Yes," he said, and paused. "I do know. I'm sorry, Claire."
"I started it, I suppose," she admitted, trying to back away from the whole conversation, wondering how this had begun again. What were the Logans -- what was Alexa -- doing? What game were they playing with Ben? Her mind raced. Having let Ben lean on her all this time, she felt personally wounded by the tactlessness of others when it came to him. "Ben, how did this happen?"
"She's sick," he said plainly, then spat, "again."
So now he knew it all. Claire had done her best to filter what information the Logans shared with her over the years; she had heard so much she knew Ben would have loved to know about Benjy (for the fact was that since Alexa visited with Caitlin and Benjy six years ago Claire had been aware of the obvious fact of the boy's parentage, even if they never spoke of it) and consciously she had kept him in the dark. And when Alexa had been sick that time ago, if Claire had been able to tell Ben anything that would have been the time. But she had not; she had been unable to see him wounded yet again. They had all kept him in the dark, because it was the only way to continue functioning. And now...the Logans had thrown back the curtains. But it still didn't quite jive. "I don't understand," she said. "Why is he with you?"
Ben explained, telling her of his visit to Staten, leaving out most of the brutal parts. Then he told her of his weekend with Benjy, and the disaster of it. "Oh, my," she said finally. "You never did have a choice."
He hit his fist on his desk, not hard, but forcefully. "It doesn't matter," he told her, "none of it matters. All that really counts right now is figuring out how to live with Benjy for the next seven weeks. I have no idea where to start." His eyes pleaded with her. "I don't know why I think you'd have the answer, but you're my only friend in this, Claire. I'm lost."
She leaned against his desk. Not in fifteen years had he called her a friend, and never before had he truly asked for help. In all of their dealings she had never really thought of him as a friend -- certainly they never went to the movies together, or spoke much outside of work, but on reflection, considering the word, she began to realize that somewhere along the line she had considered him as her friend, as well. They were mutually dependent. "Okay," she said, and settled down in a chair near his desk. "Let's see what we can do."

---

It was late when he got home. Though he'd left the office relatively near the time he expected to, it had been raining, and the wait for the ferry had been interminable. Outside the main cabin the wind and water had slashed against the walls, rocking the boat and making the whole journey miserable for everyone packed inside. Ben had felt a little green by the time he had stepped on land, and by the time he found the spare Logan car -- left for him to use as needed in the parking lot -- he was chilled and soaked to the bone. Still, he felt invigorated by talking to Claire; she had no children of her own but had listened to him grouse and muse, then given him some legitimately clear ideas on how to handle Benjy's withdrawal. Claire assured him it was most likely not personal. Benjy didn't know Ben well enough to have developed a grudge against him.
"Gee, thanks," Ben had told her.
"Not what I meant," Claire had said, smiling behind her hand. "I mean, he sounds like he's mad at just about everything but you. I bet he wants to fight right now, but since you're the wrong person to yell at, he's feeling completely lost. You need to screw up royally, so he can fight back. Then maybe he'll talk to you."
"Oh, great," Ben said. "And how am I supposed to do that?"
She half-grinned at him. "No doubt, Ben, you'll find a way."
"You're a charm, Claire. Now I know why I keep you around."
He found the house without a hitch, but the delays had made him later and later, until it was nearly eight before he pulled in the long, curving driveway and made a dash for the porch. He averted his eyes from the swing, fumbled with the keys, and tried to figure out why light was blazing from nearly every window in the whole house.
"Benjy?" Ben leaned in the front door and pushed it closed behind him, scanning the broad foyer, confused by all the light. Every lamp seemed to be turned on. "Benjy?" he called again.
Not a sound.
Damp, Ben ventured forward to the kitchen, unaware he was leaving a long wet trail, and shivered at the strangeness of the echoing, empty house. "Benjy?" he called again, beginning to wonder. Alexa had said he worked on the computer in the basement a lot; perhaps he was just out of hearing.
A blur of movement colored the end of the corridor as the boy appeared, holding one of the saloon-doors wide. "I hate you!" he cried, and a textbook saucered at Ben, who ducked. And then the blur once more, and he was gone.
His strides grew long as Ben followed, but by the time he reached the kitchen there was no sign of Benjy. "Where are you?" A quick scan of the kitchen revealed nothing, but when he crossed into the living room there was the boy, curled up in his father's armchair, gripping the armrests with whitened fingers. His face was contorted in a twist of anger and fear, his cheeks flushed pink. Ben approached him "What happened? Are you hurt?"
"I hate you," the boy said again, but more evenly, less hysterical. His eyes glittered bright. "You lied."
Ben knelt in front of the armchair, feeling his knees pop. "Benjy, start from the beginning. What scared you?"
"I'm not scared!" he backed further away into the seat as Ben got closer. "You lied to me, you lied and I hate you."
"So you said." But he uttered the words quietly; Ben was confused and indignant. He stared at the boy's face, which was streaked with dried tears, and he reached forward.
He seemed to explode all at once, flinging himself against Ben, trying to push him away, and caught off balance Ben toppled backwards and sat down hard. "You said six-thirty!" he cried. "Six-thirty!" And he turned away, wiping his face furiously.
In those few words Ben heard all the anguish he had been spared during the weekend and realized everything he had done up until that point, including getting home late, had been the wrong thing. He sat back up and leaned forward, holding Benjy's arms at his sides, making the boy face him. "Benjy, I'm sorry," he said, his brow creasing. "I'm so sorry." And he was.
Benjy lifted his gaze to Ben's face, his cheeks flushed even darker now, his breaths short and pained. "I thought you weren't coming back."
"Oh, no, Benjy," Ben said, his heart softening. For the first time he tried to see the way Benjy was seeing things...he had come home to an empty house, in which even Ben had been creeped out a week ago. And it had stayed empty long after it was supposed to. Night closed in, he was all alone, and even for a Boy Scout who has skipped a grade, loneliness was one monster turning on all the lights could not defeat. Ben let go of Benjy's arms and hugged him against his chest, and after a moment Benjy collapsed against him, crying. And they sat like that, for a long time in the living room, Ben still in his wet overcoat, briefcase by his side, holding on to a boy who, once started, seemed to have a never-ending supply of tears.