Part Four
A Boy Wonders

 
He had the ball. The ball was in his complete control. This came as such a surprise to Benjy he nearly stopped running with it, which would have been disastrous. Instead, he kicked the soft black and white checked sphere, dribbling it down the field, aware of jerseys and legs and arms all around him, and at the same time oblivious to all of them. He caught Craig downfield, edging into his kicking angle, and at the right moment, Benjy booted the soccer ball at his teammate. It ricocheted off of Craig's chest, and effortlessly the bigger boy caught it underfoot, smacking it into the goal and turning to give Benjy a fist in the air.
Benjy grinned, feeling satisfied. He knew he was good at this, he was good in the same way he had sucked at baseball: he was wiry, he was small, and most everyone underestimated his accuracy once he took aim at a target. In baseball he had been awkward, with no arm power for hitting or throwing, and he never beat the ball to his assigned base. He caught just fine; his corrected vision and an instinctual ability to know where the ball would land had worked, but he had hated baseball. This was much better, he thought again as some of his teammates slugged him in the shoulders for getting the ball to Craig.
"Awesome," said Craig, the team captain, who slapped Benjy in the head in a friendly gesture as they slouched off the field, the practice over. "You're a shit-kicker, you know?"
Benjy grinned inordinately. It was one of Craig's higher compliments. "Kicked a lot of shit in my day."
"Heh, heh," Craig chuckled. "Wanna get some pizza? My mom's working late, bunch of us're gonna eat 'n check out the mall."
"That'd be okay," Benjy told him, basking in the camaraderie. Since moving to Staten people he considered his friends had come widely spaced apart, and over the past few weeks he hadn't seen any of those, either. If Craig was this cool after a practice, Benjy knew he would be practicing every afternoon to get really good for the first game, just another week away. "Gotta ask permission, though."
"Oh, yeah," Craig said, "I forget you're only ten."
Benjy flushed. "So?"
He shrugged. "So nothin'. Wait 'til you're twelve. No biggie. C'mon, I'll go with you."
They found Ben standing on the side of the field, arms folded, looking pleased. "Tough practice?"
"Hey," Benjy said. "'S okay. I'm getting better."
"He assisted a goal, that's what he did," Craig said, looking back and forth between the two, putting on his best young-man voice and offering his hand. "Nice to meet you, sir. I'm Craig Eichorn. You Mr. Logan?"
Ben shook it, immediately recognizing a young bullshitter, but decided quickly that even if Craig was putting on an act, he didn't seem completely insincere. "No, Craig. I'm Ben Stone, just here to pick Benjy up."
Benjy looked over at the team captain. "Ben's sort of watching the house 'cause my mom and dad are on a trip."
Craig nodded. "Like a babysitter."
Ben saw Benjy grow angry, and jumped in. "Well, not really," Ben told the boy. "Someone has to water the plants and make sure the place doesn't burn down, but Benjy pretty much takes care of things himself."
Benjy toed the ground. This was too much in the other direction. "Um, Ben, can I go get pizza with some of the guys? We wanna go to the mall later, too."
Craig stood tall. "My ma's picking me up late, sir," he said. "I gotta be home by ten and we can bring Benjy back then."
"Well," said Ben, "what if I took Benjy home to clean up and he met you wherever you're having pizza?"
"Aw, man," Benjy said. "I'm not dirty."
Ben looked at Craig. "Benjy got something in the mail today I think he should see before he meets up with you. Will that work out?"
"Sure, sir," Craig agreed, and gave Ben the location of the pizza place. "We'll wait there for him."
"Jeez," Benjy said, "can't I get my mail later?"
"Can you excuse us a minute?" Ben asked Craig, and veered Benjy by his shoulder over to the parked car. "Look," he said when they were out of earshot. "I thought you trusted me."
"I do, Ben, but come on, it's Craig Eichorn, he doesn't like to wait around..."
"He's twelve years old, Ben, he's got the next seventy years to wait around."
"Aw, man..."
"And cut that bullshit, Benjy, I don't know why you dumb yourself down for those boys but don't do it for me."
Benjy's eyes flashed at the older man, embarrassed at being caught out, playing a role he had been doing so long he had forgotten how he slid into it.
"That's better. Here's your mail. You can read it on the way home, or you can read it in the pizza parlor. You tell me."
Benjy snatched the white envelope and held it loosely in his hands, then ran his fingers over the handwritten envelope as a blind man might read Braille. "Mom wrote me," he smiled. "She must be doing okay."
"I think she is, Benjy."
The boy looked up at him. "How do you know?"
"She wrote me, too."
Benjy was silent, reading his letter, neither laughing or turning away from it, so Ben decided Alexa must have hit the right tone, both reassuring and informative. Certainly, he thought, a different tone than my letter. He was still reeling from her sentences earlier in the day, and had reread his letter three times, trying to catch all of the different meanings from the vagueness of the words, and he ran over segments of it in his head as they drove back home.
When Benjy finished, he folded the letter up reverently and slipped it back in the envelope, turning to the window and leaning on his elbow.
"You all right?" Ben asked to break the silence, wondering what she had told him.
He nodded, digesting the letter. After a while, he turned to Ben and asked, "What'd she tell you?"
Ben shrugged. "She likes it there, it's hot, she goes for walks in the desert, that kind of thing."
"Me too," he said. "Dad didn't write, though."
"Something from him might come tomorrow, Benjy."
"Yeah, I guess."
Ben decided to try another route. "Your mom sounds like she's getting better."
"I guess," Benjy repeated, and wiped his eye fiercely.
Ben shot a glance over at him. "You're not okay, are you."
"I am," Benjy insisted gruffly. "I just miss her. I miss Dad. I miss Caitlin, yuck."
Ben pulled off onto the shoulder and put the gear in park, leaning over the midsection of the car. "I'll tell you a secret," he said to Benjy, who turned his head a little. "Do you know what she told me about how much she misses you?"
"No," Benjy said quietly.
"She says it's like losing your legs," he said. "That's how much she misses you. Like a part of her is gone."
Benjy didn't say anything for a long time.
"She'd be back if she could, you know that."
"I know."
Ben leaned back in his seat, staring out the windshield, trying to get the energy to start the car up again.
"Ben." Ben turned to the boy. "Do you miss her?"
Ben reached over and wiped a tear from the boy's cheek with his thumb, leaving one clean streak amidst the dust. "Every day, Benjy."

---

That third weekend, it rained. Torrentially. It started late on Friday evening and washed out Benjy's Boy Scout meeting, for which he was eternally grateful, a cold, soaking rain that would fade away to drizzle, then pick up speed all over again. Benjy was, for the first time since he had come to Ben's, bored. Clarence was acting tired out, snoozing on the couch, and even tossing a ball in the foyer had failed to raise any interest. Clarence had just thumped his tail, rolled over, and went back to sleep, as if the rain sapped his strength.
And Ben was no fun, either, saying he had some work that had to be done. Right after breakfast he shut himself up in his study and left Benjy to his own devices. Benjy knew none of the children in Ben's neighborhood, and he envisioned himself lost at sea, isolated, alone. Normally he would read, and even watching television was better than nothing, but by two in the afternoon Benjy's options had narrowed to black and white movies on TV, sleep, or further reading. He liked Silas Marner; it was cool how he thought the little girl was replacing Marner's stolen gold hoard, but that book wore Benjy out to read it, and he was tired of reading for now.
He began to wander the house.
Until now, there had been no time or impetus to explore Ben's living quarters. Benjy had only visited two other weekends, the first in a fit of despair, never moving from his bed. The second, last weekend, had been so full of Clarence Benjy could hardly remember anything else. Clarence and the tire swing and feeling like he really fit in here. He almost didn't miss Caitlin, it was almost like being an only child. This weekend, however, he felt how strongly he was in a grownup's house, without toys or neat things to look at, a lot of books but none about things he wanted to read. Some rooms barely felt inhabited: although clean they felt empty, and unused.
Ben started in the room just off the foyer. Opening the French doors, he discovered what might have been a library once, bookshelves starting around waist level rose to the ceiling, many closed behind glass doors, the leather-bound books brown and crusty. They seemed all have something to do with the law. Benjy felt if he touched one, it would crumble in his hands, so he did not explore. Eating up much of the back room, however, was a piano. Covered in a white tarpaulin it was shiny and ebony beneath, and Benjy, who had never played before except once in a Jordan Kitts' shop in the mall, pressed his finger down on one note, and a slightly off-key 'D' note erupted. Instantly he removed his finger and the noise stopped. Peering out from under the tarp Benjy half expected Ben to appear in the room and grumpily tell him not to touch things, but when nothing happened he tried another note. Same thing, a warbly 'C' sounded. Wish I knew how to play this thing, Benjy thought. The desire to play surprised him; never before this moment had Benjy thought of learning an instrument. Mom had always been the music-maker; for years it had been weird sometimes seeing her face in Tower Records, on a display or encased in a jewel-box with a "Nice Price" sticker in the upper right corner. But she had not done anything recently, and those memories of Benjy's were vague and hazy.
Suddenly wanting to be away from the piano Benjy crawled out from under the tarp and scanned the rest of the room, staring out the bay window at the endless rain, the drops dancing like natives in a dance, splashing and puddling. Benjy rested his head on his folded arms, leaning on the windowseat, and his eyes ran over several framed photographs propped up on the wide windowsill, their colors washed out from the sun, their styles dating them. He found a younger Ben in one, standing against an old car from the 70s -- Benjy's dad had taught him how to recognize cars, and they'd built a few models once, but that had stopped for some reason -- next to a woman Benjy did not recognize. She was wearing a baggy sweater and had fluffy blonde hair and wide, round eyes. Ben and the woman looked around the ages of Benjy's parents today, and they were standing next to a girl about Caitlin's age, each holding on to one shoulder of the girl, who had long, straight brown hair and was staring right at the camera, very serious, as if this was the only photo she would ever have taken. Benjy looked a little further and found the same girl but older, posed in a school picture, with her hair dyed blonde and poking out at angles. She had on a really ruffly shirt and too much makeup, but it was the same girl. She had Ben's nose. Benjy didn't realize until just then that, quite obviously, this was Ben's daughter. I didn't know Ben had any kids, Benjy thought, then realized this girl was probably no longer a child; she was probably Benjy's mom's age, maybe a little younger. He looked a little longer at the other faces in the photos, but recognized no one else, occasionally looking hard at a face to see if they were a relative of Ben's, because quite a lot of them had a nose that looked like his, longish and straight with a slightly knobbed end. Benjy had never thought about that kind of thing going around in families, he always thought it had to do with eye and hair color, but that wasn't even always true because neither his mom or dad had the color hair he did, though Mom did have blue eyes.
And then, to his surprise, in the back of the other photos, framed by a thin metallic band, was a small photo of his mother. She was alone, flat against the ground it seemed, her arms thrown behind her, resting in a pillow of brown leaves. She had on a dark blue coat and was grinning, and she looked younger than Benjy had ever known her. There was nothing else in the picture, just the leaves and his mom, and he brought the photo down to the light, wiping the dust from it, and stared at her, wondering what had made her laugh just then. After a time, he could bear not to look, and put it back where he had found it, feeling sad that it was being hidden behind all of the larger photos.
Benjy wandered across the foyer again and into the living room, where he had spent a fair amount of time already, but had never expended energy looking at things. Above the ashy fireplace on the mantlepiece he gazed for a long time at the ship in the bottle, his eyes wandering to a small award on which Ben's name was engraved, though for what Ben had won he could not be certain. He took time examining every clock, every knick-knack, every picture, every oddity in the room, which did not take very long; Ben had never been a real collector of material items. Benjy ended up back at the entertainment system, television set and VCR as old as Benjy himself was, a tape player, a record player. The only new-ish piece of equipment was the CD player, next to which were stacked thirty or so compact discs. Benjy ran his fingers down the plastic spines, hardly recognizing anyone. Count Basie? Thelonious Monk? Frank Sinatra he knew but had no interest in...some soundtracks to movies he hadn't heard of. It was disheartening; this was like the bookshelves. If he had recognized the concept yet, Benjy would have thought himself in a kind of purgatory -- books and music aplenty, and not a one of interest. Then, at the bottom of the pile his finger snicked against some still wrapped in plastic, and he shifted the pile shorter until he could pull them out without knocking anything over. There were three still in plastic, and the one at the very bottom was unwrapped, but still sealed by the manufacturer's hologram sticker. Benjy spread them out in front of him, amazed: they were all of his mother's CDs. Of course, it made sense, Ben was a friend of the family. Benjy realized he had given him short shrift before, when he'd said Ben couldn't be a friend because he himself had never seen him before. Obviously that was wrong, for here was the proof. But why would someone buy a CD and not play it?
He stopped thinking about the whys after a time, though, and stared at his mother on each of the CDs. On the first she was crouching amongst snarling, protective wolves, the whole thing in black and white. The calm look on his mother's face was soothing; as if she was saying that she had no reason to be afraid, you the listener were the one to watch for the wolves. Ben liked this record cover of hers the best. The others were like paintings, where you could see Alexa's face but the rest of her was absorbed in swathes of colors, blues and whites, or beiges and reds. Ben opened up each one and took out their inner sleeves, spreading them before him, finding his name in each, and the longer he looked the more homesick he felt. He lifted one of the CDs up and turned it around, peering at his face in it, opaque and downturned, and he stood, turning on the player and opening up the wide drawer, which could hold up to five disks at once. He filled all but the final slot and pressed 'play,' then turned on the receiver and left the sound low, curling up on the sofa closest to a speaker, holding on to the wolf CD, and stared at the ceiling, letting his mom's music fill his ears and the room.
Benjy knew all of the songs by heart, and hearing them from a speaker, hearing her voice cooing and chanting like whalesong he felt the homesickness abating, replaced by a strange sort of emptiness. The songs, he realized, were so sad, he had no idea why he had ever thought them magical and funny. His mom had never made conventional music; she had never sounded like the bands you'd hear on the radio, but you could hear her almost everywhere else, in the movies, on commercials on TV, the songs Benjy had grown up with were like soundtracks for the movie everyone else was living in.

---

It had been too quiet for too long, and Ben had begun to wonder if Benjy had begun to tie up Clarence, then decided the dog was too smart to allow that kind of thing to happen. But it remained quiet, and for a long time Ben was glad that Benjy had the sense not to disturb him while he worked, but as the afternoon wore on and the quiet dragged on he began to be suspicious. After all, how long could a ten year old boy go without breaking something, requiring something urgently, or poking in places he shouldn't go? Ben lifted his head, thinking he heard something moving, then shrugged it off. One more file and he would go check to see what was up. There wasn't much left to do, and they could do something interesting on Sunday. In the meantime, that old bastard Harrington was making Kincaid's case that much more difficult, and it looked like it would be up to Ben to figure out what her best options were. She was getting married in a week, and they wanted to have her caseload either transferable or wiped clean so she could be away on her honeymoon in Tuscany for two weeks. That meant either making friends with Harrington or circumventing him entirely.
And then, it came creeping like a fog under the door into his office, first a slight, hesitant, airy sound, not quite music and yet hauntingly musical, a gentle piano and strings making the sound stronger, and fairy-like voices, layered one on the other cooing and harmonizing, until there was no doubt: this was music, and it was filtering past his closed door, inescapable. It was beautiful, soothing and affecting, and Ben began to wonder if Benjy had brought his own tapes over to play, yet somehow doubted this would be the choice of a boy his age. Still, he didn't recognize it from his own collection. He listened, frozen from his work, trying to place the music, which felt more like an instrumental than a song, per se, the words masked and hidden under layers of gauzy haze. There was a brief pause as the next song came up, more powerful and forceful, and there were discernible words and voices in this one. Ben sat up straight. He had heard her sing only once before, but he knew. Benjy was playing Alexa's music.
It was his own fault, of course, for leaving them out and not hiding them away, but Ben couldn't think clearly for a moment. Would he never have an hour in which she did not invade his mind, his heart, his home, ever again? He had been trying for so long to begin over, and had done generally well, until recently, and with every new unearthed memory, to say nothing of the constant presence of Benjy he felt himself losing control over himself. He had always sworn he would never play that music, and here it was, being played for him. He had told her never to see him again, and yet there she was five years ago, and five years later. He hated his own weakness, he hated that he could not shrug her off -- but he hated the most that in truth he had never really wanted to let her go. Something burst inside Ben when her music came into his study; it was less the desire for Alexa as she was today but more for what she represented of yesterday, what her music was reminding him about her. He tossed his glasses on the desk and pushed a heavy book to the floor. It wasn't enough. The music still played.
He shook his head. No more, he thought to himself. Mercy. Uncle. I give in. And he flung open his office door.

---

Benjy, relaxing quietly on the couch, still holding the wolf jewel case, jerked upright when the office door suddenly opened and Ben, white-faced, emerged. Benjy cringed; he had not known Ben to be furious before, and that was certainly how he appeared now. But Ben hardly saw the boy, just made a beeline for the CD player and hit it with his fist until it stopped making music. Then he forced the drawer of the player open and took all of the CDs out, throwing them down on the floor and slammed the drawer shut again. With the room again filled with silence, he paused, the rush of anger draining from him, and rested his hands on his hips, taking deep breaths, facing the CD player because he could not face Benjy. But he was not quite done. Down by his feet were the jewel boxes and he kicked them out of the way, striding over to Benjy.
"If you ever play that music in here again you will not be allowed to come back. Do you understand?"
Benjy retreated into the pillows of the couch. "Yes, sir," he said in a small voice.
Ben was breathing heavily, and raised his hands slightly, as if to shake understanding into the boy, then lowered them again, and turned away. Benjy took this opportunity to scurry off of the sofa and rescue his mother's CDs, which had landed in various corners of the room. He had two or three when Ben turned around again, and bore down. "What are you doing?" he barked, and realized what had burst inside of him. It was the scream so long repressed; it was coming out, or starting to come out. And he began to fear his own reactions. "Leave those alone!"
Benjy had frozen in place a moment, feeling tears came to his eyes, and then he continued picking up the CDs. "No," he said, frightened but driven. "It's mom's music. You shouldn't throw it around." He reached across the floor for one of the cracked jewel cases and methodically began replacing the CDs to their homes.
Ben tried to snatch it from him. "I said, leave that alone."
Benjy pulled back. "No!" he cried. "I'll keep them in my room. I won't play them. Let go!"
Ben bent down and held fast. "Just because I don't want to hear them doesn't mean I want to give them away. Now let go of it. I'll put them back."
The boy released the jewel case and sat down hard, bewildered and frustrated. "I don't understand," he said, embarrassed that he was crying.
Ben whirled on him as he reached to scoop up two more jewel cases. "That's right," he spat. "You don't understand."
It was too much. Benjy shot to his feet and ran up the stairs, back to his room. Clarence, sensing the change of venue, chased after him.
Ben heard the door slam and felt a rising knot in his throat choke him. He sat on the floor, amidst the scattered music, and did absolutely nothing for a very long time.

---

The door, he knew, never had a lock on it. Two weekends ago, he had let Benjy pretend that because it was closed it was sealed off. This time, he entertained no such pretense. When he was ready, Ben swiveled the knob open and strode in the room, unsurprised to find Benjy flat out on the bed, clutching one of the jewel cases to his chest still. At his entrance, Benjy rolled over and faced the far wall without a word. Ben sat on the other side of the bed and focused on the cherry wood dresser in the room, leaning on his elbows.
"You're not going to believe this," he said finally, "but I am sorry about what happened."
There was a long silence, and a slight rustling as Benjy looked over his shoulder. "Are you still mad at me?"
"No, Benjy, I'm not angry at you. I may be angry, but never at you."
Benjy rolled back over. "Why did you do that?"
Ben rubbed his eyes, stretching the skin from them with his hands for a moment, feeling grotesque about what had just gone on, and resolved himself to whatever came next from it. "I'm not entirely sure, Benjy. That's the truth."
"Oh," Benjy said, obviously disappointed at the answer. "You scared me."
Ben leaned back on one arm and sighed. "I didn't mean to." He paused. "I didn't think."
"I miss mom."
"I know, Benjy." Ben smiled. "You love her very much, I can tell."
There was no hesitation; Benjy nodded vigorously. "She tells me," he gasped, "I'm her favorite son, see, and I tell her I'm her only son. And that's funny. But she still means it. I really really love her."
Ben turned to Benjy. "And so do I, Benjamin."
That took a moment to register. The way he said it, everything about the way Ben had just acted kind of made sense, and it made Benjy's stomach flutter. He was being let in on a big adult secret, and he knew it, but he didn't know exactly what to make of it, as if he were drifting on the outer rim of vast knowledge with no clear entrance. "You mean..." he drifted, trying to find the words, "not just like friends. Not just like that."
"No," said Ben quietly.
"You mean like boyfriend-girlfriend."
"Yes."
Benjy's curiosity was fired: this meant something important but he still was existing on the edges of knowledge. He wasn't sure someone other than Dad was supposed to say that kind of thing about Mom, but he didn't know why he thought this. There was something in Ben's voice that told Benjy that there was much more here that he could understand than Ben would tell just yet. The boy slid off the bed and went to the dresser and pulled back the top left drawer, extracting some small paper. "Here." He handed Ben the paper. "I found this."
Ben took it from him and stared at the photo, lowering it to his lap to keep his hand from shaking. It had been taken on the same roll of film as the one photo he had of Alexa in the book room downstairs, only this one had been from earlier in the day. A neighbor had happened by and Alexa had handed her the camera, and the two of them had posed with their arms around one another. Ben was smiling like a cat that had just had the canary, standing straight up, the arm not around Alexa poised, as if holding something, staring right at the camera. Alexa, laughing and partially bent over, was leaning into him with one mittened hand on his stomach and one leg bent upwards. Her hat was nearly over her eyes, and her long hair spilled out over her shoulders. They were standing in the backyard; Clarence was visible as a blond blur in the background. They were in front of the oak tree. Ben had never seen the photo before; all he could imagine was that before she left nearly eleven years ago Alexa had put it in the drawer for him to discover someday. He had avoided this room so well it had taken this long to find it. And even then, it had been found by Benjy. He envied the man in the photograph with an intensity that surprised him.
"When did you find this?" Ben asked him softly.
"First weekend," Benjy sat down next to Ben. "But I put it back cause I didn't think about it, I was unpacking and stuff. I just thought about it again now."
"A long time ago," Ben told him, "your mother wasn't married. And she stayed over here for a few weeks."
Benjy looked at the photo again. "And you guys were boyfriend-girlfriend then."
He nodded, slowly, staring at the photo. "We were."
"Oh." Benjy paused. "Wow." He looked up at Ben and saw the creases between his eyebrows, saw that the older man looked very sad, and he slowly pulled the photo from his grasp, propping it up on the nighttable. Ben did not move, and after another moment, Benjy slipped his hand into the one of Ben's which had held the photo, giving it a slight squeeze. He liked when his mom did that to him, for reassurance, for whatever. Ben glanced down at the boy and squeezed back. "It's okay," he told Ben.
"Aren't you angry?"
"Angry?" Benjy didn't know if he was supposed to be. He loved Alexa because she was his mom. She was funny, she was smart, she did everything for him and his sister, and except when she was sick she was always there for them. He knew some kids who had parents who embarrassed them, some much worse, but that had always been something that happened to other people. To him, his mom was everything that was good. So how could someone not love her? In a way, it only proved that Ben was an okay guy. If Benjy put his mind to it, and tried to imagine what boyfriend-girlfriend people did, holding hands and kissing and going to the movies and acting all goofy he guessed it would be weird to imagine his mom being like that with anyone other than Dad, and the images didn't come to mind. That made him feel strange, that part of it. But in the abstract, as something that had happened a long time ago, before he was even born, that part didn't feel odd at all. He tried to think of some books he had read, or movies he had seen, where it was like this, but substituting actors and actresses for his parents didn't feel right, either. He didn't feel angry. He wondered if he was supposed to.
"I don't know what you're expected to feel," Ben told him. "I just wanted you to know."
"That's why you turned off the music?"
Ben nodded. "You don't have to hit someone to make them hurt, Benjy."
"I know." Benjy paused. "How come it hurts to hear mom's music?"
"I think," said Ben, "that I'd rather not talk about that right now."
"Oh," Benjy said, abashed. After another long silence, he said, "How come mom and you didn't stay...like that."
Ben felt the mines sprouting up on every side of him. He was not going to admit to this child that Alexa had left him for Mike. He just wasn't ready to admit that aloud. "She had to go," he said finally. "She had some choices to make, and she made them. One of those choices involved leaving. So we said goodbye."
"Does Dad know?"
Ben almost laughed, completely out of place. The whole stupid mess boiled into three words. Sure, Benjy, he wanted to say, Mike knows everything. And he hates my guts for it. He won, and he still resents me. "I think so, Benjy. But...this is one of those things I want you to keep between you and me. All right?"
And Benjy knew it was a secret, a real secret. "Okay," he said. "I won't tell anybody."
Ben looked down at the boy, and put his arm around him, for the first time thinking to himself that he really did like Benjy, not just a knee-jerk attachment because he was a child, but for himself. The distinction, which registered clearly and strong in his mind, came as a surprise, and Ben wished he knew what it meant. All he could sense was that despite his best efforts, he was being drawn deeper and deeper into Benjy's life, and when all of this was over, he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to relinquish it again.
After a few more minutes, they went downstairs to pick up the pieces of the jewel cases.

Part Five