Page 15 of Letting Go at 40

“And Mila.” Ben swallows again but the strain in his voice sounds more like emotion than dryness. “Her mother might be queen, but she’s my princess. Make her strong and independent like her mother has grown to be. Make her see she can do anything, like her Aunt Autumn.” Ben chokes on his sister’s name. “Let her know that being a woman is a gift, not a curse. Her body. Her mind. Her life.”

“Ben,” I whisper, slowly coming to terms with what he’s saying. What he’s asking of me.

“And get your girl. Spoil her.” Ben’s brows are pinched. “Tell her you love her every day. You can do this, Mason. I believe in you.”

Ben knows my father never said those words to me. Not that he loved me. Not that he believed in me. His expression of affection: You’re just like me, son. We were cut from the same cloth, according to him. His opinion was we crave women, different women. We aren’t meant to be loyal to only one. Like he hadn’t been faithful to my mother.

“You don’t always think with your pecker, Becker,” Ben teases while his lids close like they weigh too much to remain open.

“Are you suggesting I have a brain?” Like the scarecrow or some shit in The Wizard of Oz.

“I’m reminding you that you have a heart. Use it more often.” Ben’s voice drifts and his breathing grows steady but heavy. His treatments are merely experiments at this stage.

I don’t want him to suffer.

He doesn’t want to suffer.

And neither of us wants Anna to suffer.

Immediately, I close off my brain.

My heart isn’t strong enough when it comes to thoughts of her.

+ + +

Once I’m confident Ben will sleep for a while without rushing to the toilet, I exit the room. In the dimness of the hallway, I nearly trip over Anna. With her back against the wall, just outside the doorway, her knees are pulled up to her chest, as if tucking herself into the shadows. She’s wearing some kind of sleep shirt, that’s long and pulled over her legs. The collar of the nightshirt is low, and with the stretching of the material, I have a clear view of her breasts.

I quickly look away. It’s a visual I shouldn’t see and won’t be able to unsee once it’s in my mind’s eye. And the image of Anna’s breasts would certainly be burned into my memory for eternity.

She looks tired as she looks up at me. Those dark eyes of hers are dull from lack of sleep.

“What are you doing out here?” I ask, curious why she’s out of bed.

“I came to say goodnight to Ben.” At times like this, when Ben’s body acts out of his control, he demands Anna isn’t near him. He doesn’t want her cleaning up his shit.

“Were you listening to us?” The question comes out defensive and raw. Unfortunately, Anna is one of the people most judgmental of my relationship with Samantha and Lynlee. She’s made similar assumptions to my original thought, that being motherly should be in Samantha’s nature, but it isn’t. Anna also doesn’t understand why I haven’t brought Lynlee around our friend-family.

She rolls her head against the wall, her eyes still focused on me with her head tipped back. Her hands are on the floor on either side of her hips. “I only heard you two quietly murmuring. I figured it was something intense. Or just guy-talk.” She weakly smiles.

With a hand on the door trim, I slide down to the floor and place myself against the thin wall space between her and the doorway.

“I was telling Ben again how you would have picked me.” The words tumble out before I think. Once upon a time, our ribbing was done openly in front of Anna, but after Ben told me that Anna found the joke offensive, we kept the jesting private, only between us.

Anna rolls her head against the wall again, craning to look at me beside her. She doesn’t speak for a long while, only watches me. I don’t look back at her face but observe my pinky finger twitching beside her hand braced on the floor. Her left hand is closest to mine, and my littlest finger hovers upward, eager to reach over for the rings on her finger. The ones that remind the world she belongs to another man. She isn’t mine to touch.

A month or so back when we hugged in her kitchen was the first time I’d risked holding Anna in years, decades maybe. For all the times I’ve wanted to embrace her, I hadn’t. One touch would break me. I wouldn’t be able to let her go, like some reckless animal capturing its prey. Still, that night, I don’t know who moved first. Was it her? Was it me? It hadn’t mattered. For mere seconds, she clung to me, and I tightened my hold on her, not wanting to release her, needing her comfort, craving her warmth.

I hated myself.

My pinky pulls back in line with the rest of my fingers, and I lift my hand, swiping it through my hair.

“Whatcha got there?” Anna’s hand covers something I can’t see.

Her fingers scoop the item up and she flips her palm to show me. “It’s one of my heart-shaped rocks.”

I bite the inside of my cheek and nod once in understanding. She’s convinced they come from Ben.

“I thought Ben could use the strength, so I was going to place it on the nightstand.” Her thumb casually caresses the flat surface which looks almost polished to a shine. I haven’t missed how she carries a rock with her and tucks her hand into her pocket when she’s agitated or anxious.