When All Is Said And Done

Part Two, continued

After much consideration, Ben thought about what he knew how to cook, and what Benjy might be interested in eating, and ordered delivery pizza. Fear had apparently made no dent in Benjy's appetite, and as he bit into his third slice, Ben began to relax just a little. The sudden, overwhelming changes in the boy had left Ben rattled inside, caught off guard, and he wondered if all children were this changeable. He couldn't remember with Melissa; in his mind she had always been quiet, deferential, sometimes resentful of her father's absences, but he did not recall her as causing much worry. Though he had just recently seen her over the July fourth weekend, when she invited him down to see the fireworks on the Mall in Washington, the pre-adult Melissa lingered in his mind like a ghostly cutout, a vague outline, and he realized he had never really known her.
His outburst aside, Benjy still wasn't making much conversation, and Ben was beginning to feel the ground he thought he had gained slipping from his fingers again as he lost touch with the boy. "Are you going to be all right if I'm late again tomorrow?" Ben asked him.
Benjy shrugged. "I guess." When Ben didn't answer right away, the boy looked up at him and they locked gazes. "Yeah, I'll be okay."
"I wouldn't just not come."
Benjy nodded, his face serious. "Okay."
"Your mom and dad are coming back too, you know that."
He swallowed his food hard. "'Course."
"Good." Ben ate some of his pizza and regretted getting it; he no longer digested greasy food well.
Benjy regarded him. "How come you're taking care of me?"
Ben felt tested all at once, and knew this was shaky ground. "I'm a friend of your parents'."
Benjy watched him, chewing and swallowing. Then he said, "No you're not. I never saw you before. You don't work with my dad or mom. You didn't even come to dad's surprise birthday party when he was forty-five. Everyone was there for that one, even Uncle Lennie and Auntie Claire. And I almost never see them."
It was as if someone had taken a club to his head; all at once Ben could not think straight. He felt like the greatest of all outsiders, useful when needed, push his buttons and he's all yours, but left out of anything meaningful or worthwhile. Auntie Claire, he thought, the words ricocheting in his mind. She never said anything about being Auntie Claire. And then, he heard his own dictum come back to him, when he and Alexa had separated, on that last morning outside of Barney's house. He had ordered her to stay away, insisted that if she invited him to the wedding he would not come. That was what she had meant when she asked him near the ferry what had come of "we can't be friends." And yet...while he meant it he had never considered the implications of it, that Alexa would, naturally, go on to have a life. That she had been able to move on and experience happiness, parties, children, and love beyond their weeks together was something of which Ben had never wanted to be aware.
"No," he said quietly, after a moment or two. "I'm busy a lot. But I know Auntie Claire, and she tells me everything."
"Oh," Benjy said, hearing an adult logic in the words, but they made no sense to him. "How come I never met you before, then?"
"You did," Ben said, still thinking about Claire's necessary deceptions. "A long time ago."
The boy sat up in his chair and squinted at Ben. "How old was I?"
"About five." Ben recalled the brief meeting in his office, when Alexa -- who had knocked -- had let her son walk in ahead of her. "You said, 'My name's Ben, too,' to me."
"Wow. You've got a good memory," Benjy said, and licked his fingers. Ben handed him another napkin, which he wadded up and put on his plate.
"About some things," Ben told him. "When they're important."
After dinner Benjy showed Ben his computer in the basement, a large beige piece of equipment through which Benjy had access to the internet, and they trawled the Web for a while, Benjy showing off his favorite sites. Ben still owned a bargain-rate Macintosh from the days when they were still named with code words like license plates, and once he had let one of the new detectives over at the 27th precinct guide him around, showing him e-mail, and how to set up his own Web page, in the end giving it up as something he just didn't have time to bother with. But through Benjy's eyes, he began to realize that this was no mere toy -- the ten-year old had a penpal from Sweden with whom he corresponded daily, and his personal Web Page had a sign-in book dotted with strangers' names from across the country. The world felt much smaller to Ben just then, small enough to fit inside a large beige computer. And then Benjy had showed Ben his computer games, the sophisticated graphics of some, the stomach-curdling violence of some others, and after Benjy had proven he was the better man when it came to mortal combat, he shyly brought out a large disk and fit in into a secondary drive. "Here," he said, offering the keyboard without explanation. "Try these."
Immediately Ben knew these were homemade, but just as instantly he was impressed by their scope. These had taken a long time, and a lot of imagination, and as he willingly lost three or four rounds in a row he felt a warm sense of satisfaction, as if he had had a hand in the creation of these games. Wanting to say something kind, he asked Benjy, "What store did you get these in?"
Benjy grinned widely. "D'you really think --" and his face fell. "Aw, you don't really think they're that good. You're letting me win again."
"Benjy, what I know about computer games fits in my hand. Maybe in my pocket. Sure, these don't look like they came off of a CD-ROM but they're really, really good. Even Michaelangelo had to sketch first."
He seemed more heartened by the truth. "How come you're nice to me?"
"Because I like you," Ben said, resolving to be as plain-spoken and truthful as possible with Benjy, who seemed to have an inner radar. God forgive me if he asks the wrong question, he thought.
"Why?"
"Why?" Ben frowned in thought. "You don't ask the easy ones. All right, you're smart, you're good at cards, you know what needs to be taken seriously, and you're honest." This he knew innately. "And there are plenty of reasons that just can't be explained, Benjy. Sometimes you just meet someone and you like them, because you feel it here." And he rested his hand across his chest.
"Yeah," said Benjy, beginning to resemble the boy Ben had first met on the porch, the boy before his parents had dropped the world on him. "You're okay too, for a grownup."
"That's about all I can ask for," Ben said, and smiled at him.

Before bed, they played a half-hour of poker, the cards fanned across Benjy's sheets, Power Rangers glaring through the downturned deck. "The thing about poker," said Ben, "is it's skill, but it's luck, too."
Benjy remained impassive.
"Wish I'd never taught you poker face," Ben told him. "You look like you're going to bite me."
Benjy giggled. "No way," he said. "Cate used to bite when she was four. It sucks, being bit."
"Surely you can think of a better word than 'sucks,' Benjy. I thought you were smart."
Benjy gave him a look of irritation, as if being called on to think outside of school were some kind of betrayal. "It's odious," he said.
"That it is," Ben said. "Okay, I call. What do you have."
Benjy showed his hand. "That makes six dollars you owe me."
Ben had an idea. "How about we keep it on paper until your parents get back. Then I'll pay you everything I owe you...or you owe me. Want to do that?"
"Okay!" Benjy scrambled off the bed and came back with a blue marker and some notebook paper. They made the marks, and the boy scurried under his sheets. "Where're you sleeping, Ben?"
He hadn't given it any thought. "Basement, I guess," he said. "That's where I stayed last time. That and the couch." He half expected Benjy to smile, but the boy began to tense up. "What's wrong?"
"Stay up here," Benjy said. "Please."
"You're not scared, are you?" Ben half-grinned teasingly.
It was the wrong tactic. "Forget it," Benjy said, and rolled over.
"Okay, okay," Ben said. "I'll sleep upstairs."
Benjy turned halfway back. "Thanks, Ben. I had fun tonight."
"Me too." He had to resist an almost overwhelming urge to ruffle the boy's hair, or give him a kiss, and decided against either. He didn't think he should get that close.
The problem was he was now committed to sleeping in the bedrooms, and after a cursory glance at Caitlin's tiny single knew it couldn't be there. Hesitantly, as if he were descending into a well, Ben stepped into the master bedroom and flipped on the lights.
Of course, it was just another room, and yet it was not just another room. As soon as he stepped in Ben was repelled; the master bedroom was a kind of sanctuary he had no right being a part of. And he knew he was being silly about it, and he knew he was being silly about it because he still thought of Alexa. Every day since he had seen her again images flew unbidden into his mind, like a slide show no one remembered to turn off, and now, here he was, about to try and sleep in the room...in the bed...
Ben tried not to complete his thoughts, and changed quickly, ascertaining her side of things and sliding in there. Quickly he slipped off the light, though not fast enough to catch the framed photo on the bedside table, amidst the medicine bottles and Kleenex, and he flipped the light on once more to make the torture session complete. It was like every family portrait ever made; Daddy beaming, his little girl hoisted high on his shoulders, one small hand across his forehead for balance, Mom radiating up at the two of them, her hands wrapped around her son's chest. Only Benjy seemed to be with the photographer, smiling a smile where his two front teeth were too big for the rest of his mouth. Ben folded the prop inward and put the whole thing in the night table drawer. There was no point in making this even more difficult. He flipped off the light and slid all the way into her side of the bed, and felt where years of sleeping had made an Alexa-shaped indentation. Ben curled himself into it and felt lonelier than he had ever felt in his entire life.

He dreamed a long, winding dream. He was finishing a meeting with the accused, and he and Alexa were trying to force a deal, performing in front of a long table filled with people Ben had not thought of in years, like his ADA before Claire, Paul Robinette. Schiff was there, as was McCoy, all watching like a parole board. Ben leaned down to Alexa -- in the dream she was so much younger, it seemed, in a strange black riding jacket, formal in a way he had never seen her before -- and she whispered her recommendation. He stood straighter, and told the perp to accept concurrent life sentences, or there would be no deal. When the perp did, sobbing, everyone was immediately freed to go and the room cleared out. Jubilant, Ben walked Alexa out to the hallway and put an arm around her. "I love doing this with you," she said to him.
"You know I'm in love with you," he said to her, leaning up against the far wall, standing very close to her. "I know you can see it in my face but I can't see it in yours."
She raised her fist to her chest and told him, "But Ben, I feel it all in here."
And suddenly the possibilities were endless.

There comes a moment in some lives when time catches up with your movements and begins to track along with you. When there is no future but this very instant in which you live, no past than that same breath you just exhaled, when nothing you have ever done or will ever do again can have the same significance. It is within these times, Ben felt, that we truly live. For a moment the veil encircling our daily habits and movements is lifted and we are faced with a dazzling array of what really is, and then the veil falls again, and we are left with only the after-vision, like the bright luminescent flashes seen when the eyes are squeezed shut. For a moment, everything that can be is, and everything you could want will be, and when Ben took Alexa's hand that very first night and kissed her in the darkened Manhattan streets he saw her shine hard at him, burning at his touch, and Ben loved the feel of this heat. The world swelled, and his thoughts were that of a wise man in whom all of the goodness of life has been stored. This was the one moment he had lived for all his life. For the rest of his existence he would only be allowed to search for it. That was, Ben decided, the price for the vision.
But oh, he thought, what a vision when it comes.
In the dream that night in Alexa's bed, it arrived again fully.
And then he woke up.

The thunderclap had been horrific; the rain that had been coming down steadily all night had blossomed into a full-fledged storm that seemed to have no chance of abating. Ben sat up in the bed, trying to hold on to the gauzy, fleeing memories of his dream, but he was only left with the sensation of talking to Alexa, and of finding her his for the first time. His throat felt raw.
Again, the thunder made a snapping, broken sound, and a bright white light flashed behind the shades of the bedroom. Ben pulled the shade up a little, to see if any trees had been knocked over, and when the moonlight spilled in it painted bluish brightness over the floor and bed. He half expected Benjy to be in there with him. The noises were so loud; they somehow sounded louder in a house this size. Ben shivered, and decided that if he was up anyway, he may as well check to see how Benjy was doing.
He pushed open the boy's door as slowly and carefully as possible, and Benjy was still out cold, his shades drawn, the room dark save for a night light plugged into the wall in the corner, giving the room a warm, orangy glow. It was so cozy and warm Ben stepped all the way in and stood there, next to Benjy's bed, just feeling the difference. The house was not his, nothing in it was familiar, but in here, next to Benjy he felt much less alone, as if the room had a personality he agreed with. After a few minutes he decided to stay a few more, dreading going back to the Alexa-shaped indentation, and wondered when he had become such a coward. There was a low, soft chair in Benjy's room, and he lowered himself into it, leaning back, and watched Benjy sleep. He had been there for only a few minutes when another enormous thunderclap broke the back of the sky and Benjy shuddered in his bed.
His eyes opened, and he sat up, rubbing his face, and gazed sleepily around the room. "Dad?" he whispered, seeing Ben in the chair.
Ben leaned forward. "Just me."
"Oh," Benjy said. "That was loud."
Ben stood, a little embarrassed at having been caught in his room. "Just wanted to make sure you weren't...afraid."
Benjy moved over to the far side of his bed and Ben sat next to him. "I'm okay," Benjy said, but shivered once, quickly.
"Aren't you afraid of storms?" They were whispering, for no particular reason Ben could fathom, but it felt right, as if in the dark speaking aloud was too much.
From behind the shades a bright white apocalyptic light flashed, and Benjy flinched. "No," he said, staring up at Ben, his open eyes glowing in the moonlight. "It's just rain. Just weather." He squirmed back under his sheets and yawned. "Just...clouds. I'm not afraid."
Ben stood and headed out the door, watching Benjy as he went. The boy was already unconscious. Such bravado from the young, he thought. "I can't remember when I wasn't," he murmured, and closed his eyes.

Having made an unspoken truce with one another, they fell into a routine of sorts that would last for the first few weeks. Benjy was learning how to cook some meals, and occasionally he would have something ready when Ben, always trying to be earlier, made it through the door. Benjy no longer fretted when Ben was late, but Ben noticed nearly all of the lights were turned on whenever he came home after dark, which was most of the time. Somehow, it was just impossible to extricate himself on time. If Benjy had a meeting to attend -- he had soccer practice every Thursday, Boy Scouts each Friday, and every so often he'd go to a friend's house -- Ben would pick him up in the Logans' car, usually finding him reading any one of an endless stream of books when he drove up, and Ben would make them both something to eat.
They developed a kind of rapport, a slow appreciation for the other's thoughts and expressions. Ben felt himself groping in the dark to try and identify with the boy, and tried his best to avoid sounding too authoritative or ignorant, but it didn't always work. Still, Benjy seemed to trust him, which was a good first step, and chattered on freely about his daily activities, who said what to whom, what teacher had given the most homework, and the upcoming first soccer game of the season, still two weeks away. "You'll be there, won't you, Ben?" he asked.
"Of course," Ben told him, averting his eyes from the road for just a moment and glancing down at the boy. "What position are you playing again?"
"Probably point guard," Benjy said, "on account of I'm small."
"You're not small."
Benjy shrugged, as if he had heard this before. "Compared to the rest of the guys on the team I am."
"Well, they're older. They're hitting puberty, I bet."
Torn between wanting to look the word up for later and risking sounding stupid, Benjy's curiosity won out. "Puberty?"
Ben rested his head against the back of the seat. Here was a speedbump he had no intention of going over, not if he could avoid it. "You know...when you get older and your voice changes and you grow taller. I thought they had classes for this kind of thing, Health or Sex Ed or something, these days."
"We had Sex Ed," Benjy said, "but Dad said I was too young to learn that stuff. But now I don't know when they'll have the class again. Maybe I'll never learn it."
"Oh," said Ben, "I sincerely doubt that. It's kind of an on the job training everyone gets, eventually."
"How old do I have to be?"
"A few more years. I don't know. It depends with each person." Ben took advantage of the momentary silence to glance down at Benjy's reading material. "That the first time you've read that?"
Benjy squeezed The Count of Monte Cristo. "Nah. Second. I kind of ran out of books to read at the library in Rochester, so I'm rereading some of my favorites."
"How do you run out of books to read at a library, Benjy?"
"Dad says I'm too young for the adult section, and I finished the kids and teenager books a while ago."
Ben sighed. Everywhere he turned, he seemed to run into a brick wall invented by Mike. He'd tried to understand it; after all Benjy wasn't his kid, and who knew how he might react differently. To Ben, there was no earthly reason for Benjy to avoid a class the rest of his peers were involved in, or pick out any book the library deemed fit to put on the shelves. He was surprised at Mike, and yet sensed a latent paranoia there, a need to put a rein on his son getting too old too fast. Now, if Ben had been the boy's father...
But I am, Ben thought in the back of his head, a slight tickle, and he bit down on it. That was a place he didn't want to go, an area he would not explore.
"If your dad says no, I guess it's no," Ben said after a pause, "but perhaps if you came with me and we picked out one or two books together, that might be all right. Would you want to do that?"
Benjy nodded quickly. "Oh yeah, yes, sir. That'd be just fine."
After they ate their meals, no matter who cooked it, the other automatically assumed cleanup. Ben had insisted on this; this way they made as little mess as possible. Then they would both sit at the kitchen table -- scattering to different rooms of the house felt eerie, and distancing, and neither of them liked it -- to do their homework. Ben often had folders with him at night, and Benjy invariably had something to work on, so the house would be filled with sounds of their pens and pencils scribbling, papers rattling, the occasional question being fired, usually from Benjy. He was on fractions, and adding them, and was trying to wrap his mind around common denominators. Later he was studying for the rudiments of American History, up until the Civil War. He had to memorize the preamble to the Constitution, and Ben helped guide him through that, feeling warmly attuned to the task, as if some kind of connection had been made through him to Benjy. It was barely law, but it was so close he ended up spending a lot of time explaining what the memorized words meant, one phrase at a time. To his surprise, Benjy seemed genuinely interested. Ben felt as if he had a new colleague in the office, someone eager to learn, who he could keep tabs on, and much of their time together both Ben and Benjy treated each other with the sort of kind politeness to be expected from co-workers.
Around eight-thirty or nine, they allowed a break for television or cards or something they could do together, and by ten both of them would begin to nod off, the day ending quietly. Benjy had not repeated his appearance on the floor next to Ben, nor flung himself around in anger. Ben decided he had adjusted, and let it go. He could hardly expect instant hero-worship worthy of a parent, and Ben felt just fine without any emotional outbursts. Eventually, he figured they would need to talk about his mother's illness, but until Benjy brought it up, Ben would not force the issue. Until then, he was perfectly content with the order of things.

They went to the library that first Friday afternoon after Boy Scouts, and Ben led Benjy into the adult section. Here the shelves were twice his height, and Benjy felt he had finally been given the gates to a new city, full of bookshelf skyscrapers. He felt slightly illegal, as if someone would come from behind a stack and force him back with the other kids, but with Ben around he knew nothing like that would happen. Around Ben, he felt protected and safe: the older man walked around with confidence and self-assurance, something Benjy sensed and absorbed, as though it radiated out from him.
Ben offered him a few suggestions, and Benjy read the flaps on the inside of the books, weighing them as if deathly afraid to pick one he wouldn't like. It was hard to choose. Many of the ones he knew he'd like -- there was one about this basketball player named Rabbit, and of course he tried to sneak a Stephen King book through Ben's watchful gaze -- were rejected. "They just won't mean anything to you yet," Ben told him. "That's not your fault, but there's no point in wasting a good story if you haven't got the equipment to enjoy it."
Benjy looked doubtful.
"You wouldn't try to read a book with the wrong prescription glasses, right?"
Benjy continued to look dubious.
"You wouldn't give The Count of Monte Cristo to a five year old, would you?"
"No."
"Well, then."
In the end, they compromised, and while Ben stood off to the side, looking in the glass archive cases at the few rare books the library owned, Benjy checked out a collection of Roald Dahl short stories ("He wrote James and the Giant Peach," Ben had said. "But these are definitely for older readers") and Silas Marner, which Ben had recalled liking when he was learning it in school. Benjy was nearly jumping up and down at the prospect of taking them home and reading them, not only diving into fresh material but diving into books for grownups, and he hardly heard the librarian when she spoke to him. "Excuse me?" he asked her, ready to bolt as soon as she stamped his second book.
"I just said that we're glad to have you as a new member of the library," she said. "It was nice of your grandpa to bring you out to sign you up," she added, nodding at Ben across the room. "Will he be checking out any books today also?"
Benjy paused, and made a face at her in bemusement. "He's not my granddad. He's just a friend of the family."
The librarian's eyes slid between the two of them and she nodded. "All right. Well, enjoy them, Nathan."
Benjy turned away and cringed at the use of his first name, which had to appear on his library card. He trotted over to Ben, who pointed out the manuscript inside the glass case. "Look."
Benjy tiptoed over the glass and peered down, his breath fogging up the case. "What is it?"
"Letters from Edith Wharton," Ben pointed, "and a first-edition of Ethan Fromme."
"Never heard of it."
"It's depressing," Ben said. "Cold and dark and depressing. You'll love it, someday." They headed out into the September afternoon, and Ben could feel the distinct oncoming of winter. It would be early this year, and it would be long, he could sense that, even though the leaves had only barely begun to turn. It was something he knew instinctively, after sixty-three winters, he just knew.
As they walked to the car, Benjy grinned up at him, holding his books to his chest. "Thanks, Ben, thanks. I'm gonna read all weekend."
"I suppose that'll mean I won't see much of you," Ben smiled down at him. "Don't forget, we'll be at my place Saturday and Sunday."
"Oh, yeah," Benjy said, his mind drifting back a little. "Know what?"
"What?" Ben echoed, opening Benjy's side door, and walked around to his side of the car.
Benjy leaned across the seat. "It was pretty funny. The library lady asked if you were my grandpa."
Ben stood back up and leaned over the roof of the car, feeling his stomach hollow out. These sucker-punches kept coming from every angle, and he was never prepared. He had no interest in venturing on to this subject, and could only hope Benjy's curiosity wasn't aroused during his stay. But how could Ben anticipate every possibility? He simply wasn't going to tell the boy anything. Still...would there not come a time when the boy might figure it out for himself? Ben took a deep breath and swallowed the comment, as he had swallowed everything else. He suddenly recalled how after that terrible weekend in Staten, when he had been forced to bottle everything, when he had arrived home he had been unable to sleep, and he had sat up all night in his easy chair, staring out the window, wanting to let it out now that it was safe, and finding he had buried his scream so effectively it was lost in the maze of his soul. He tried to make this last statement find that scream, and live down there with it. Ben closed his eyes and counted to ten, then slid into the car and closed his door alongside him. "Yeah, that is pretty funny," he said, tightly.
"How come you think she thought that?"
Ben put the keys in the ignition and tried to turn it but his wrist muscle was jelly. "I don't know. Maybe because I'm old enough, or I look old enough." Finally the key turned, and he gunned the motor to life.
"Yeah," Benjy said, staring at Ben and somehow seeing him for the first time. "We kinda look alike, too, only you're older."
"No, we don't," Ben told him, and pulled out of the parking lot in fast jerks, wishing his mind would start working again, so he could move this conversation into a safer zone.
Benjy was confused; Ben didn't normally negate anything he said without an explanation. But it wasn't important. He shrugged. "Yeah, guess not," he said, to placate the situation, and get things back to the books he had just taken out. "So what's Silas Marner about, anyway?"

Clarence greeted Ben as if he had been gone months, not just a few days. Ben, who other than one trip to Tuscany three or four years ago had been coming home regular as clockwork, had forgotten himself how much he missed the shaggy blond face, and let the dog jump up on him, something he generally did not allow. Standing, Clarence's paws came up to his shoulders, and the dog licked Ben's face in warm, sloppy greeting, knocking his glasses askew. But when Clarence calmed down enough to realize Benjy had also come back, he jumped down right away and ran out the front door, halting reverently in front of the boy as he had in the hallway the week before, as if waiting for the okay. This time, rather than just patting him diffidently on the head, Benjy knelt down to the dog's level and gave him a hug, talking to him. Ecstatic, Clarence wriggled to where he could lick the boy's face, and they ran up the stairs into the house together.
The change from the week before was so drastic Ben wondered if he should trust it, but it seemed to last. The weekend was filled with dog games, Benjy reading on Ben's sofa, card playing, and hiking out in the woods behind Ben's backyard. Occasionally, when Ben sat back and had some tea on the back porch steps, watching Benjy fling a Frisbee for Clarence to catch, Ben would marvel at the dog's staying power. Neither Ben himself, nor Alexa before him, had tossed Frisbees with the dog or run him as ragged as Benjy was now doing. After Alexa left, Clarence's main occupation had been resting, dozing in the sun, and now, watching him bound around the yard at his advanced age, Ben had to wonder if Clarence had been saving up all the lost energy from those years for this very purpose.
He sat on those back porch steps and watched the two of them circle the broad oak tree in the middle of the backyard, the pink Frisbee a miniature flying saucer bitten from the air by a hundred pound projectile missile. After Alexa, Ben had almost gotten rid of the dog, and gone so far as to take him to the ASPCA. Though she had presented Clarence to Ben, he knew full well whom Clarence owned, and when she had gone they were both bachelors again. He had dropped the dog off, feeling fairly certain someone would come to get a young, housebroken golden retriever in no time, driven most of the way home, back down a road that took him by the reservoir, and then he'd pulled off to the side of the road, seeing the waters through the leafless trees and turned right around again to reclaim his dog. Once, at the end of her stay, Clarence had protected Alexa out there from being frostbitten, and as hard as he might try Ben could not stand to see every element of her eradicated quite so quickly. Clarence never knew how close he had come to being abandoned.
"Hey," Benjy waved over to Ben from under the tree, and pointed up. The Frisbee had gotten stuck in a low branch, and after a quick survey, Ben knocked it down with a broom handle. Clarence picked up the saucer in his teeth, ready for another go-round, his sides heaving, but Benjy remained staring up into the tree. "Ben," he began. "Do you know what a tire swing is?"
Ben rested the broom brush on the ground. "I may have heard of something like that before."
They put it up on Sunday, a small, easy project, just a length of thick rope slung over the fat branch about thirteen feet off the ground, looped around an old tire, and tied by the knot expert, who assured Ben that this knot would never come undone.
"It better not," warned Ben. "I think your parents want you back undamaged."
The tree area became Benjy's haunt: so long as the weather and light held out, he would be out there for all hours, swinging or reading or throwing things for Clarence. Even when he read Clarence would crash out beside Benjy and rest his head on the boy's leg, dozing until the next required throw-and-catch session. Ben would catch glimpses of them from his inside study and thought to himself that for the first time in years the dog actually seemed to be happy.
Ben wondered if the same could be said for himself. Having Benjy around was a second full-time job, no matter what the boy was doing there was always the concern of knowing what he was up to that kept Ben alert. They talked, sometimes, and there were no outbursts like those first few days. And yet, Ben felt the beginnings of several different kinds of emotions he was unable to define exactly. One was a strange, instinctive connection with Benjy, which made logical sense but, in Ben's mind, not emotional sense. He was doing his utmost to emotionally distance himself, having been burned before, and knew full well in another six weeks there were several people who were hoping things would go back to normal. One of the other mysterious changes Ben could sense in himself was a latent sense of guilt, brought on by the fact that he knew something potentially life-changing about Benjy, and could not decide for the life of him what to do about it. At first it had seemed clear: Ben's priorities were not the most important, therefore for this brief period of time in which he would know Benjy he would remain just a favorite uncle, or godparent. He had decided this early on. But as the first week passed gently into the second, Ben began to wonder if he wasn't oversimplifying matters. It all came down to what he intended to do after Benjy's parents came back; whether he would disappear into the mists again or if he might become a recurrent visitor. And Ben himself wasn't ready to answer that question yet. But happy? Ben wasn't sure he remembered what happy really was.

"Well?" Claire asked him before their meeting on Monday morning while they waited for Duffy to arrive with the coffee and bagels.
Ben took his customary seat next to the sofa in his office, which he sometimes had to force himself to remember was no longer Adam's, and leaned back. "Well, what?"
She smiled at him. The situation between he and Benjy had obviously improved; Ben was more relaxed, the small lines between his eyebrows were no longer roughly knit. "Come on," she said. "I mean, I can tell for myself, but how was it with Benjy over the weekend?"
He opened up the file folder on his lap and flipped through a page or two. "Oh, fine." He looked up at her briefly. "Just fine."
Claire was a little disappointed in his reserve. "One week it's 'help me, you're my only hope,' the next week is 'fine.' All right. I can tell when I've been used."
Ben made a face. "It's not like that, Claire. What could I tell you? He's adjusting fine, we're getting along, he loves Clarence. It's fine."
"Fine," she stated.
"Fine," he emphasized.
She pushed. "Going to bring him in the offices one of these days?"
The crease between Ben's brows came back, and Claire realized she rather preferred him this way. "No, Claire, I don't think that's necessary at all."
The office door swung open and Caleb Duffy pushed through, carrying half of a cardboard box laden with coffee and bagels. "Third in my class at law school and I'm still toting breakfast," he grumbled good-naturedly, and handed out the food. "We had secretaries to do this at Goodman and Baker. Morning Ben, morning, Betrothed." He winked at Claire, who flushed. "Sorry. Couldn't resist."
Ben coughed into his fist. "Right. Now. So you got the search admitted, even with Harrington. Good. Let's move on, then."

Later in the day, Claire stopped by Ben's office, carrying her filofax notebook with her, and drew her glasses down over her eyes. "Wednesday," she said without warning. "Wednesday night's good for me."
Ben looked up from his papers, bemused by the non-sequitur. "I'm glad for you, Claire. Have a nice evening on Wednesday."
"I meant," she said, "that if you were free you might invite me out to visit Benjy on Wednesday night."
"Oh, so you came in to tell me this?"
"I didn't think you'd invite me if I didn't ask first. I am Auntie Claire, you know."
Ben smiled wryly at her. She had her ways, and he had come to trust and appreciate them. She was right, it had never occurred to him to have her over; she knew Benjy, and it would make him feel even more comfortable for her to come by, he was sure of it. "What about your intended? Doesn't he have a free Wednesday night?"
"It's bowling night," Claire said, with a turn of her mouth. "I shudder at the shoes alone."
"He's a trusting soul." Ben raised his eyebrows.
"He's got the key to the chastity belt," she said, delighted that Ben was upbeat enough to tease. "So, what, after work we go to the ferry?"
Ben shrugged. "All right. You can stay over if you like; it's a long ferry ride back at night. In any case, the place is big enough to house the national guard. Have you been out there yet?"
"No," Claire told him. "But I get the feeling I'm in for a surprise."

They sat outside after dinner in the warm, evening air, a last gasp of summer's breath, and watched Benjy show off Clarence's dexterity with the Frisbee, glowing pinkly in the darkening sky. Ben had brought out coffee for the both of them, and they sat on the steps leading to the porch, resting against the thick wooden supports, relaxing, and digesting. Claire was still a little awestruck by the house. The Logans had invited her out to see it when they first moved in, but what with her work and general feeling of unease at their return to home base, Claire had politely declined several opportunities. Caleb was a good source of blame; if she didn't have to work late, she could say he did, or it was his bowling night, or some such excuse. She had kept that ruse up until her engagement, when the invitations ceased abruptly. Claire had thought they had just given up on her for the time being; now she knew they had had bigger problems on their hands. Alexa sick again.... Claire thought to herself, not wanting to take it to the logical conclusion. Right now, there were no logical conclusions, anything could still happen. She refused to think it through.
Meanwhile, there was the house. Claire had been as dumbstruck as Ben had been on seeing it; in Rochester the Logans had not been ones to flaunt anything, so the fact that they had this kind of money came as a rude shock to Claire. Not that it was ostentatious, or even showy; it was a solid, large home, but Claire knew her antique houses, having gawked at many as she rode by them. Her mother used to take her on rides through old neighborhoods, and they would fancy particular dwellings. This might have been one of the ones she had chosen. Ben had let her stare for a while after they got out of the car, folding his arms and re-seeing it with her. "Gorgeous," Ben had said, "isn't she."
His voice had been tinged with anger and Claire had not understood. "Seems that way."
"Inside," he said, "it's a sarcophagus. I hate it here." And he had gone in the house to find Benjy.
Claire had stared after him.
"Hey," he had called out to the boy, sprawled on the living room rug with Silas Marner. "I'm home."
Benjy had rolled over on his stomach and dog-eared the book. "This George Eliot guy writes weird," he said, striding over to Ben. "Hardly any quotes. Talking."
"Dialogue."
"Yeah, that."
"So how far have you gotten?"
"Chapter five. Marner seems like a scary kind of guy."
"He gets better."
Benjy had peered around and asked hopefully, "So, did Auntie Claire decide not to come?"
Ben had made a face at the tone. "No, she's right outside."
"Oh."
"Why aren't you excited? I thought you liked Claire, I thought it would be fun to see her again."
Benjy had tossed the book on the kitchen table and shrugged. "I do, she's cool, I guess. I just kind of liked...you know, things like they were."
Despite himself, Ben had felt flattered, but he had masked it and told Benjy, "Well, it's one evening out of your life. Go out and make her feel welcome, she's a guest." And he had watched Benjy rush out the front door, giving Claire a hug where she stood in the driveway. She had pointed at something, and he had led her by the hand inside.
"Dad calls this the ten-cent tour," Ben heard Benjy tell her as they strode up the stairs.
"I've only got a nickel," Claire tossed back at him, and then their voices had faded away.
Ben had stood in the kitchen for a moment, still feeling warmly pleased at Benjy's earlier comment, and yet somehow disconcerted at the same time. Though he didn't really want her there, Benjy had rushed out to her, and hugged her. There was a layer of familiarity between them he did not have -- and would probably never have -- with Benjy, and he had sighed once before loosening his tie and removing the thawed chicken from the refrigerator for dinner.
Now, outside on the porch, the Frisbee came careening at them, and Claire snatched it from the air, flinging it back from whence it came. It was Clarence's first visit to the house, too, Ben having brought him up just for a few days because the neighbors who had been looking after him had been called abruptly out of town. In the distance, crickets and cicadas began to chirp, their songs first swelling, then fading to a dull buzz. "It doesn't seem so bad," she told Ben. "A little spacious, but very well-restored."
Ben shrugged. "So are museums," he said. "It's not a home."
"And your place is?"
For one intense moment, Ben hated her, then backed away from it. "Yes," he said forcefully. "Yes, it is. It remembers what it's like to be a home, so even when it's just me and my dog it still feels like a place you can live. This place forgot how to be a home I don't know how many years ago. It wouldn't matter how long they stay here, it'd still feel stiff to me."
"I'm sorry, Ben. I didn't mean to imply..."
"Don't worry, Claire. Really. Don't."
They watched Benjy a little longer. He paused at one point, holding the Frisbee aloft as Clarence snapped for it, and waved at them. Claire said, "He likes you, Ben. He does."
Ben raised his eyebrows but didn't comment.
"He talked all about you while he showed me the house, and I didn't even have to ask. He said you taught him poker."
"Guilty," Ben said, expressionless.
"He says he's reading Silas Marner because you recommended it."
"I know, Claire."
She watched him for a moment, unable to read his expression in the dusk. Someone would have to turn on a porch light soon, she thought absently, and tried to prevent her confusion from spilling into angry frustration. Surely Ben had to realize this was no small achievement...this was his son...and he was treating the whole thing as offhandedly as changing subway lines. "Are you so aware of this that I should shut up, Ben, or are just indifferent to how he reacts to you?"
Ben finished his coffee. "It's nice to hear. I'm glad I'm not just an old fogey. He's a pretty good kid, himself."
"That's it? That's all you have to say about him?"
"Want some more?" Ben stood and offered his hand. "I need another cup, I think."
Defeated, she handed her cup to him and muttered, "Excuse me, Ben, I had forgotten about your vast experience in making friends with ten year olds. I should have realized it didn't mean anything to you."
Ben crouched down to her and even in the darkness she could see a glint in his eyes. "Just because I don't want to talk about it doesn't mean it doesn't affect me. I don't need to wear all of my emotions on the outside, just so you can say you've seen them, Claire."
She didn't respond, and after a moment he stood and retreated into the house, coming back out with two more mugs of coffee, milky and sweet, the way they both took them. "Just so long as you have them," she said after he sat back down. Ben looked up at her from the rim of his mug. "Emotions, I mean," she finished.
"I don't want to talk about this," he said firmly, his stern, cross-examining tone creeping in, and she knew he was serious. "I'm taking this one day at a time, no more, no less. And I don't want anything to make me see it differently." He rested his mug on the steps and strode out into the front lawn. "Benjy!" he called to the darkness; both dog and boy had vanished. Claire joined him in a moment, walking down to the sidewalk, and they scanned the neighborhood. "Where would he have gone?" Ben wondered aloud, hands on his hips.
"Look!" Claire pointed down the street; two shadowy figures carrying fluorescent glow sticks were hurtling their way. Benjy and Clarence -- holding his in his teeth -- stopped, breathless, in front of Claire and Ben.
"Todd's brother had some extra," Benjy said, catching his breath, "and gave me two. Here." He handed Ben one green cylinder, glowing like a radioactive stick of dynamite, and took the other from Clarence's mouth. "Watch!" And he ran across the front lawn, holding the stick above him, a faint green afterglow trailing behind, and began to spin around the lawn like a fairy dispensing dust.
Ben fingered the stick a moment and a half-grin played on his features. He turned briefly to Claire, who had never seen such an expression on Ben before, then raced after Benjy across the lawn. "Here I come!" he cried, and Benjy's green light paused in flight. "Ready or not! It's glowstick tag!"
Clarence barked once, and Claire stood back, grinning to herself, as the two of them chased each other around the lawn, the unearthly green glowsticks dancing around and around, and in a moment she felt a warm furriness brush up against her leg. Crouching down, she gave Clarence a hug and pointed at the lights flying around the yard. "See there?" she asked the dog, and Clarence panted, then licked her on the face. "See that? That's Benjy's dad out there."

That night, after their round of poker (Ben currently owed Benjy somewhere in the neighborhood of forty dollars), Ben wrapped the sheets around Benjy and sat on the edge of the bed. "See?" he asked the boy. "Having Claire over wasn't so bad."
"I guess," Benjy admitted, folding his arms under his head. "So you and Auntie Claire work together?"
Ben nodded. "I'm her boss."
"So you're a lawyer, too?"
Ben nodded.
"I thought you were a District Attorney."
"Same thing," Ben told him. "Officially, Claire's an Executive Assistant District Attorney."
"She's not your secretary?"
Ben raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Don't let her hear you say that. No, she's not. She's my right-hand man."
"Woman."
Ben laughed. "Yes, my right-hand woman."
"You like her?"
Ben shrugged. "What's not to like?"
"Are you like...boyfriend-girlfriend?"
Ben smiled at the idea. "Nope. Why do you ask?"
"I dunno. I thought it would be neat."
"Surely you have a better word than 'neat,' O Great Reader."
Benjy thought a moment. "I guess...I like you and I like her so..." he wasn't able to finish the thought.
Ben nodded. "Well, no, anyway. She's a friend of mine, though."
"Who wants to be friends with a girl, anyway?" Benjy made a face.
Amused, he told Benjy, "A few of us do. They don't all have cooties."
Benjy was quiet for a minute, then wondered, "The glowstick...it'll stay lit if we keep it in the freezer?"
"For a little while."
He paused a minute longer, but Ben sensed he wasn't done talking. After the nightly game, if Benjy felt like talking before going to sleep, Ben always stayed until the thread, or Benjy, was exhausted. "Thanks, Ben," he said after a while. "That was fun, tag in the dark."
"Maybe we can do it tomorrow night," Ben said. "If we've still got juice in the sticks."
"Yeah." Benjy's eyes lit up. "That'd be cool." He sat up and leaned against his headboard, turning serious. "Ben..."
"Hmm?"
"Is it okay to be having fun while mom's sick?"
Ben took a deep breath, and ran his hand along the boy's hair, smoothing it down. "I think so," he said quietly. "I think your mom would want you to not be sad all the time. I think it's okay."
Benjy smiled strainedly. "I'm glad you're here, Ben," he said after a minute, and leaned forward, wrapping his arms around Ben's neck and hugging him. After just a moment's surprised hesitation, Ben hugged him back, tightly, and squeezed his eyes shut as the world around him once again began to reshape itself.

Part Three