Chương 9
No grand goodbye.
No final wisdom.
No forgiveness written in advance.
Margaret had expected another conversation.
That hurt most.
She had believed there would be time for one more argument.
Ben read the note again.
Then again.
He put it on the coffee table and walked to the bathroom.
He vomited.
Afterward he sat on the tile floor because standing seemed unnecessary.
His tuxedo jacket bunched around his shoulders.
He loosened the bow tie.
For a while he stared at the bottom edge of the vanity cabinet.
One hinge was loose.
Margaret would have noticed.
He laughed against his knees.
Then he cried in the least dignified way possible.
Not loudly.
There was no screaming.
His body simply stopped cooperating with his preference for restraint.
He cried because his mother had wanted him.
He cried because he had wanted her too.
He cried because eleven days existed in which both people had been waiting for the other to cross a distance that someone else was deliberately maintaining.
He cried because during those eleven days he had also been stubborn.
Olivia had not invented the fight.
She had exploited it.
That distinction mattered.
It did not absolve him.
At four-thirty, his phone buzzed after he turned it back on.
There were ninety-two messages.
The first one he opened was from his cousin Daniel.
Did you really cancel the wedding?
Ben wrote:
Yes.
Three dots appeared instantly.
Holy shit.
Then:
Sorry. Bad response.
Then:
Do you need anything?
Ben stared at the question.
He typed:
Can you bring me a shirt?
Daniel replied:
That is weirdly manageable.
Twenty-five minutes later, Daniel arrived with a blue Oxford shirt, jeans, running shoes, two coffees, and a bag containing six bananas.
Ben looked into the bag.
“Why bananas?”
“I panicked.”
“About potassium?”
“I was in Wawa and thought you might need food.”
“So you bought six bananas.”
“They looked emotionally neutral.”
Ben laughed.
It hurt.
Daniel sat on the sofa.
He was thirty-eight, an emergency-room physician who could remain calm through blood and chaos but became useless around grief. At Margaret’s funeral he had spent forty minutes explaining parking regulations.
He looked at the note on the coffee table.
“I won’t ask.”
Ben handed it to him.
Daniel read it.
When he finished, he placed it carefully on the table.
“That sounds like Aunt Margaret.”
“Yeah.”
“Especially the part where she insults you in writing from hospice.”
Ben nodded.
They sat quietly.
After a while Daniel said, “I knew something was weird.”
Ben turned.
“What?”
Daniel immediately regretted speaking.
“I don’t mean I knew this.”
“What did you know?”
“Nothing useful.”
“Daniel.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Your mom called me about a week before she died.”
Ben stared.
“She called you?”
“She asked if I’d heard from you.”
“And?”
“I said yes.”
“What did she say?”
“She went quiet.”
Ben felt sick again.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Daniel looked miserable.
“Because you had told me not to get involved.”
Ben remembered.
Three weeks before Margaret died, after a disastrous family dinner, Daniel had said Margaret and Olivia were turning every gathering into trench warfare.
Ben had snapped, “Then stay out of it.”
Daniel had.
“I thought you knew she was asking for you,” he said.
“I didn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“You could have told me.”
“Yes.”
Ben stood.
The anger came quickly.
Daniel remained seated.
“You called me the day after.”
“I know.”
“You asked if I was okay.”
“I know.”
“And you didn’t say my mother had called asking about me.”
“I thought you were choosing not to see her.”
“Based on what?”
“Based on what you said.”
“What did I say?”
“That she wanted distance.”
“Olivia told me that.”
“I didn’t know.”
Ben walked toward the window.
Below, pedestrians moved through late-afternoon light.
Daniel said quietly, “This isn’t going to become one person’s fault no matter how badly you want it to.”
Ben turned.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means Olivia did something awful. It also means your mother made things difficult. You were angry. I was lazy. Everybody assumed everybody else knew more than they did.”
“She blocked my number.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t an assumption.”
“No.”
“She told my mother I didn’t want to come.”
“I know.”
“So maybe don’t give me a philosophy lecture today.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“I’m not.”
“It sounds like one.”
“I’m trying to keep you from doing the thing you always do.”
“What thing?”
“Find the cleanest version of blame so you don’t have to sit with the messier one.”
Ben stared at him.
Daniel immediately looked tired.
“Sorry.”
“No. Finish.”
“I don’t have a finish.”
“Convenient.”
“See? That.”
Ben turned back to the window.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Then Daniel peeled a banana.
Ben looked at him.
“What?”
“You bought six.”
“I’m stress-eating.”
“Fine.”
Daniel took a bite.
After swallowing, he said, “There’s something else.”
Ben closed his eyes.
“Of course there is.”
“Nothing dramatic.”
“Your definition of dramatic is broken.”
Daniel ignored that.
“Your mom asked me whether I knew anything about a North Coast donation.”
Ben turned around.
“When?”
“Same call.”
“What did you say?”
“I said no. I barely knew what she meant.”
“Why didn’t you mention that either?”
“Because I’m a doctor, Ben. People ask me strange questions every day and I forget half of them by dinner.”
Ben nodded.
That was irritatingly plausible.
“Olivia announced an eight-hundred-thousand-dollar pledge that apparently never existed.”
Daniel stopped chewing.
“Okay.”
“Mom found out.”
“That explains some things.”
“What?”
“The foundation dinner.”
Ben remembered the event.
Margaret leaving before dessert.
Olivia crying in the hotel room afterward, saying Margaret had humiliated her by refusing to clap.
He had spent an hour telling Olivia she deserved the recognition.
“What happened?”
Daniel shook his head.
“I don’t know. Aunt Margaret asked me if I thought Olivia was ‘constitutionally allergic to uncertainty.’”
Ben almost smiled.
“That sounds like her.”
“I assumed she was being mean.”
May you like
“She probably was.”
Daniel put the banana peel on a napkin.
