Chapter 4 Ben

Chapter 4

Ben

Living in a storm system carrying rabid badgers that could blow through your house at any moment, carrying turmoil in its wake. Such a badger-nado was currently turmoiling through his kitchen, slinging toaster pastry crumbs and insults at an alarming rate.

"I was saving those Pop-Pies as a special treat," Mina was shouting, her chestnut hair falling over her face.

Though two years older, sixteen-year-old Mina's forehead barely reached her lanky blond brother's shoulder, something Mina resented deeply. She'd always been tall for her age, with an older sibling's confidence in permanent superiority. And then Josh hit his freshman-year growth spurt, with all its shin pain and thoughtless snacking…and everything else was chaos.

"The grocery here doesn't have them, and I don't know how long it's gonna be before I can get more of them out on the Ice Planet Hellhole!" Mina yelled.

"The grocery has Pop-Pies," Josh countered, rolling his eyes. That had always been Josh's response to Mina's moods—indifference, quiet, calm…because he knew it got under her skin. Being so much bigger than other kids in his class, and knowing how any physical response from him might be seen as scary, Ben's youngest child had learned to master the strategic long game of emotional warfare. "They just don't have Banana Berry Beignet."

"So why did you stuff my Banana Berry Beignet Pop-Pies in your giant mouth?" Mina shrieked at a decibel only teenage girls could create. She was wearing flannel pajamas in an eye-gouging shade of yellow, printed with dancing fried eggs. Mina rarely wore anything but bright colors, her own form of cheerful rebellion.

"Honey, I'll take you by Starfall Grounds and get you a pastry for breakfast, OK? I hear that Petra's doing amazing things with rugalach," Ben said, keeping his tone soothing and even, his palms in the air—as one did when one approached an angry badger storm.

"It's not the same," Mina insisted. "And Josh needs to be held accountable for this clear violation of the Phoenix Breakfast Food Streaming Service Peace Accords!"

Ben pinched the bridge of his nose. Back home, the Breakfast Food Streaming Service Peace Accords had taken weeks of negotiation after an unfortunate incident involving Josh eating the last gluten-free salted caramel Cronut from Mina's favorite local bakery. Mina retaliated by child-locking all of Josh's streaming service preferences to classic children's television programs like the Teletubbies.

"You can just go by Starfall Grounds on the way to Starfall Pages in a Starfall pedal cab," Josh replied, a sly smile breaking out over the long-lined, even features that reminded Ben so much of his own late father, sometimes it hurt to watch Josh laugh. "And then we can stop at one of fifteen Starfall fudge shops. Why is everything on the island named Starfall Something?" Josh frowned. "Don't you guys find it confusing?"

"It can be," Ben acknowledged. "And I think people just want you to know how proud they are to live here."

"Well, I'm not proud of living here," Mina whispered, her hazel eyes seeming three times as large through the shimmer of tears collecting on them. "I'm just trying to get through it so I can go to college and get out of here. And Josh, I would be careful about using your toothbrush for the next twelve to fourteen days."

"What does that mean?" Josh asked, frowning. "And why are you being so specific?"

With one last narrowing of her eyes, Mina sniffed, stomping up the stairs and making sure Ben felt every single step. Josh turned to him, his own eyes widening with growing panic. "Why is she being so specific?"

Ben stood and poured them both a cup of coffee. He asked quietly, "So what's going on with your sister?"

He tried not to cringe as his son dumped three heaping tablespoons of sugar and a quarter cup of creamer into his mug. It wasn't as if it would stunt Josh's growth. The kid was three inches taller than Ben. "Look, we survived saying goodbye to your friends, the move, hauling all of our stuff to the house using pedal wagons, and the fact that the movers lost two boxes of Mina's books without a Mina explosion," Ben said.

"They weren't her particularly old and dusty books, which worked in our favor," Josh said.

"Is something else bothering your sister, or is it an accumulation of all of the very natural and expected anxiety she's feeling over…everything I just mentioned?" Ben asked.

Josh looked sad, but amused. Josh was more observant than the average teenager, certainly more observant than people gave him credit for. And as much as Ben hated to use his child as an informant, parents had to use whatever resources they had at their disposal.

"It's nothing personal," Josh told him. "I think she's just struggling with the move, which is, I remind you, preventing her from graduating with her friends next year. And this environment is the exact opposite of what we're used to, weatherwise. And people act like they know us, just because they know you. You know how she hates it when people assume…anything."

"Do you think a job would help?" Ben asked. "Something to keep her occupied?"

"As long as you make it seem like her idea, yeah," Josh said. "If you suggest something, she'll just quote a bunch of child labor laws at you."

"Smart. She does like to memorize things out of spite," Ben said, nodding. "What about you? There's not exactly a music conservatory for you to join up with here. Or a school basketball team. We've got to find something for you, too."

Josh shook his head. "I don't know, Dad, I think I'm OK with giving the violin a rest for a while. That was always more of Mom's thing. I think I'm looking forward to having a break. And maybe I can find some pickup games with some of the guys around here. There are some kids my age at school, just not enough to form an official team."

Ben placed a comforting hand on his son's shoulder. Josh had shown an interest in the violin, and a moderate talent for it, at age ten. His mother had pushed him to practice, hours upon hours, until the joy had been completely sucked out of music for him. And yet, he was still expected to practice. Nothing Ben said to her could convince Isabelle that she was ruining any chance they had of Josh pursuing the violin long-term. Not even when Josh threatened to run away if she made him quit the basketball team to protect his hands, all for an instrument he only showed some interest in. Isabelle had insisted that she was only trying to bolster Josh's future college applications, but Ben suspected her vehemence was based on classical music being a "more refined" interest compared to basketball. The women on her charity boards wouldn't be impressed with basketball.

And poor Mina, whose talents were less quantifiable, didn't get used for clout at all—which was somehow worse. When Mina fought back with her neon clothes and gleeful sarcasm, Isabelle only tried to restrain Mina's personality further, admonishing her to "be practical" and "take life seriously." The silent implication was that there was nothing special about Mina, so she was going to have to work harder to make it in the world. Mina's rebellions were maliciously rainbow-infused, and Ben admired her all the more for it.

"So, what's really going on with your sister?" Ben asked.

Josh peered up at his father, sipping his coffee. "Remember how we were supposed to be visiting Mom in Colorado this summer?"

Ben nodded.

"Mom texted," Josh told him. "She said that Tom isn't comfortable with the idea of hosting us in his house so soon after the wedding, and with the bonus room remodel…"

"Wait, what do you mean so soon after the wedding?" Ben exclaimed. Glancing up toward the stairs, he lowered his voice. "Your mom's wedding is supposed to be sometime this fall!"

"Apparently, they decided to move it up…to last week," Josh said, pursing his lips and nodding.

Ben felt an awful pressure in his chest as he watched Josh try to fight back the hurt, the absolute insult of his mother making such a huge step without a thought to Josh or Mina's feelings. "Your mom got married without you guys?"

Josh nodded, staring down into his coffee. "She said the venue had an opening and Tom just happened to have room in his schedule. Tom's family was in town for Easter and with the spring flowers coming into bloom, they just couldn't waste the opportunity."

Ben raised his hands, bewildered. "And she said all this by text ?"

Josh nodded. Ben raised his hand to the back of Josh's neck and pulled him close. Josh was trying not to sniff, but he was a fourteen-year-old boy, and his mom was the one behaving like an inconsiderate kid. And she'd hurt Mina, which was a particular hot-button issue for Josh. They might occasionally bicker and stage elaborate negotiations-slash-retributions over petty pastry squabbles, but the pair of them were tightly bonded because they had, in essence, served in a bad parental marriage foxhole together.

Ben swallowed the lump building in his throat. "It's OK to be upset, to be hurt. You don't have to pretend you're not because it's your mom, or because you don't want to worry me."

Josh's head moved up and down against Ben's shoulder.

"And maybe we need to get in touch with the therapist back in Arizona?" Ben suggested.

Josh squeezed Ben's arm. "Yep."

"You know you can't use your toothbrush until we get a replacement, right?" Ben asked.

Josh nodded. "Yep."

"Also, you might want to hide the replacement where she can't find it," Ben added.

Josh sighed. "My floss, too."

It had required both chocolate rugalach and raspberry rugalach to mollify Mina's pastry-based indignity. She'd threatened to steal Josh's chocolate rugalach, but then he'd held it up over her head, out of her reach no matter how high she'd hopped. While she protested mightily, it always made her laugh. And, thus, a delicate peace was restored with their world.

Ben trusted that his children would return to the house and not reduce the island to rubble within the next few hours while he worked at the Starfall Point Community Clinic. That was new for him, knowing that his kids were somewhere, unsupervised, and he told himself that this was part of the reason he'd moved them all "home." For all its shortcomings in grocery availability and extracurricular activities, the island felt safer than the busy city environment the kids had grown up in. Given that cars weren't allowed in the more historic areas of the island, including their neighborhood, they didn't even have traffic on Starfall. Ben's commute to work was a seven-minute walk.

Ben stood in the supply closet that had been converted into an office for him. The clinic had been designed for one primary care provider at a time, and the clinic's other physician, Dr. Toller, had been flying solo for more than ten years. He was very much looking forward to sharing the workload. Ben wasn't quite up to seeing patients yet, but he was moving into his office, becoming familiar with the filing system, reviewing the cases of longtime patients, so he could be prepared for the inevitable illnesses and emergencies.

Life as the doctor of a small island clinic was a never-ending cycle of back injuries in adults and children with colds and flu. And in the summer, the tourists would come with their sunburns and fishhook injuries. The strange accidental death of a boy named Kyle Ashmark over the winter was one of the few emergencies of its kind in years.

"I know you're not going to have a lot of room, but the good news is all of the files are kept into another room…now," said his new nurse practitioner, Samantha Vermeer. Samantha was a newcomer to the island, a Milwaukee native who was looking for a break from the bustle of the city. Personally, Ben thought she'd overshot it a bit.

Ben paused to put his hand on the newly hung wallpaper—a strange khaki color with maroon and navy-blue pinstripes. He was pretty sure it was left over from when the clinic was originally built in the 1940s. It gave the room a sort of Norman Rockwell sepia-toned quality, as opposed to the antiseptic white of most medical offices. What hadn't changed was the constant ringing of the phone. It never stopped ringing, which didn't seem to perturb Samantha at all, as she leaned her tall frame against the door.

"Between me and you, Dr. Toller's just tired," Samantha admitted. "He's been doing this alone for so long. That's a lot of weight to have on his shoulders. He doesn't get sick days, himself. He doesn't get vacation days. And sometimes, it can get frustrating, dealing with people who don't listen to advice and are surprised when they have the same problems over and over."

"Well, that's why I'm here," Ben chuckled, closing the digital patient portal on his new desktop computer. Knowing his patients for decades…well, it was going to present its own set of challenges, in terms of awkwardness, but he knew things about them personally that would help him serve their interests. For instance, he knew that—no matter how he might protest that he was sticking to his diet—Mr. Qualls hid behind his garage every night so his wife wouldn't see him enjoying a bowl full of ice cream, even in January.

Samantha asked. "How are the kids settling in?"

Ben paused. "Well, I don't hear screams or sirens…but the island only has the one ambulance…so…"

"I'm sure they're fine," Samantha said with a laugh.

"I'm gonna go get lunch and then go check on them," Ben said. "First full day tomorrow."

"I'm going to warn you now, it's going to be a big one," Samantha told him. "The phone's ringing off the hook, and you're booked out for appointments for the next five months."

"That's what that is?" Ben cried as the phone jangled to life in the background.

"Oh, yeah, we normally get maybe ten calls a day," Samantha said, nodding. "It was part of the reason I took this job, Dr. Hoult."

"Sorry, Samantha," Ben said, running his hand through his sandy hair. "And you might as well call me ‘Ben' if I'm causing you this sort of stress."

"Well, I was going to eventually anyway," Samantha told him. "I was just trying to be First-Day Polite. And it's OK, it just reminds me of why I quit working in a big-city ER. And technically, the clinic is closed today, so I'm just letting most of them go to our voicemail."

"Can I grab you a sandwich or something, for your emotional distress?" Ben asked.

"Oh, for the amount of calls coming in, you're going to have to pony up something from Petra's," she retorted, leveling a pair of dark-brown eyes at him. "Possibly a whole tray of something."

"Understood," Ben said, sliding into his jacket. He texted the kids, telling them they could join him for lunch. By the time he made it to Main Square, they hadn't responded, which was troubling.

Ben pulled his hood up to protect his head from the light snow-rain mix pelting the sidewalk. There was a certain fluid energy he enjoyed about summer on the island, thousands of feet on the cobblestone streets of the historic district, the smell of melting butter and sugar wafting out of the fudge shops. But this quiet, windblown solitude had its charms.

Isabelle had always insisted she got this sort of "meditative space" from those yoga retreats in the desert…but Ben had never seen the appeal. The desert could be beautiful, but it was so…unwelcoming. Any time he'd tried to hike on the paths near their gated community, his thoughts were on a loop of That might be a rattlesnake. That might be a scorpion. Am I drinking enough water? Why does everything here want to kill me, including the sun?

He preferred snow and wind, the way every winter seemed to have its own personality. Ice could kill you, but it followed rules. Desert creatures didn't care about rules.

His feet crunched through the slush as he passed a number of restaurants and shops closed for the season. It just wasn't feasible for the owners to stay open without the huge summer crowds. Petra's bakery, the bookstore, the general store—they were included in the handful of year-round exceptions.

So much seemed the same about Starfall, and yet, so much had changed. He wasn't sure if that conflicted with his expectations or not. It wasn't as if he'd never come back to the island after he left. Cell phones had only just come into common use when he'd left for school, and even then, texting and social media hadn't developed into what would have given him a constant window into what was happening back on Starfall. He'd come home, those first few Thanksgivings, but he'd mostly stayed in the house with his parents.

And if he had happened to see Caroline, she'd acted like she barely knew him. She'd stared past him, barely spoke to him, actively looked for someone else nearby to talk to. After his sophomore year, he'd studiously avoided seeing Caroline at all. It hadn't been hard since she was always busy, running the Rose. That was Caroline, always working. She complained about the strain of it, but she could never just sit still—unless she was reading. There were times he wondered if her brain developed her reading interest as some secret coping mechanism to give her body a break.

Even when they were young, Caroline knew how much her parents depended on her to keep the bar going. Her brothers might show up for their shifts, but they spent more time jawing with their friends than they did serving beers. Caroline was always the shoulder to take on the burden. But if one pointed that out to any of the Wiltons, they would have protested mightily, insisting that the boys helped in "other ways."

Almost without thinking, Ben had turned toward The Wilted Rose. He hadn't been able to talk to Caroline at any length, and he wasn't sure he was ready. He wanted to see her so badly, he didn't think he could trust himself to behave like a rational man. And yet, there he was, standing in front of the battered wooden exterior.

The Wilton family had changed the sign back in the 1970s, all dull gold lettering and overtly curled script looping around a drooping red rose. People were still talking about it. As he walked into the bar, Ben was struck by the familiar smell of spilled beer and savory home cooking. He hadn't spent much time there when he was young. It was too awkward, being served by Caroline's family. They knew what he was doing with their daughter on the beach. Everything was as he remembered, though, just older, more worn. And the same was true for Caroline's mother, whose small shoulders seemed more stooped, her hair almost entirely gray, while it had been a shiny sable when he'd left for school.

Gert moved through the dining room crowded with locals, warming up coffees, grabbing empty plates on her way past tables. As she bustled back into the kitchen and returned a few minutes later with a tray crowded with soup bowls, Ben wondered where Caroline's brothers were. Even as kids, the Wilton kids had helped out in the bar, doing whatever chores minors were allowed to do by the state—basically anything that didn't involve touching alcohol.

Behind Gert, Caroline was moving about the bar with a brisk efficiency and a teasing smile. But when she saw Ben, it just sort of slid right off her face. That hurt. He certainly hadn't expected to be a delight to her, but he didn't want to steal her joy. Maybe he should just leave?

"Ben! It's so good to see you!" Gert cried with an affection that startled him. Gert was not a warm woman. Instead of hugging him, she patted him on the shoulders with both hands, an old, strange habit, but Ben found some comfort in it. "We were all so glad to hear that you were moving back. Why don't you sit in my section, so we can catch up?"

Gert led him to a worn wooden table for four, and he felt guilty for occupying it as one person. Maybe he should text the kids again so they could join him? He eyed the menu Gert handed over and saw that it seemed that the burgers and smoked whitefish dip of his youth were still on offer with some expensive-sounding additions—candied this and sun-dried that.

Weird.

Ben ordered the turkey artichoke melt and tried not to feel like a creeper as he watched Caroline work. When she didn't look at him, she was relaxed, at ease, comfortable. And again, he had to wonder, how could she still be so beautiful after so many years? Every time he looked in the mirror, he seemed to see an older and more exhausted man staring back at him. He'd thought time was to blame, but given that Caroline barely seemed to have aged, he was starting to wonder if it was his two adolescent roommates. Or maybe the desert sun…or Mina insisting on learning how to ride a moped.

He needed to find something else to focus on.

He checked his phone and found a text from Josh:

No

? for . Mina found about creepy next door on grandpa's shelf. Fallen down reading hole. Won't see her for .

Why did his son insist on communicating in tiny pictograms? Was it really easier than spelling? At this point, Ben supposed he should be grateful for punctuation. Between phone hieroglyphics and the legalistic international treaty language during arguments…no, he definitely preferred the treaty thing, even if it did leave him feel incredibly stupid compared to his own children.

Mina would probably toss the book aside earlier than Josh anticipated, which could lead to trouble. There wasn't much real information about Shaddow House available, even in the books written by locals. Ben was pretty sure his father only kept them around for renters who didn't know any better. The Shaddow family wouldn't even allow photographers inside the house, so all of the pictures were exterior shots. There were theories, of course, among the locals about why the Shaddow family never came to the island anymore, why they never allowed locals inside the house, whether the Dentons were somehow secretly related to their employers through some scandalous love-child situation.

And of course, with any old house with a mysterious past, there were rumors that it was haunted. If he wasn't a man of science, he might even be tempted to believe them. Living next door, Ben had seen things as a kid, shadows moving in windows—the shape of which seemed too tall to be old Miss Denton. He'd heard noises, laughing, screaming, the sound of a veritable crowd of people when Miss Denton was always alone. His parents had always dismissed his reports as imagination and told Ben to leave nice (though distant) Miss Denton alone.

Maybe it was better just to watch Caroline than to think about these things.

Over the course of the lunch rush, Caroline seemed to get distracted. Her eyes kept darting across the room, to the little hallway entrance to the cellar. He couldn't see what she was looking at. That corner was a rare, shadowed area of the dining room…though it did seem darker, somehow, than it should be in a room mostly lit by neon. Whatever Caroline saw, it was putting a little frown line between her brows.

A series of pops overhead drew his attention to the ceiling. Outside, the weather seemed to pick up, the wind moving wispy clouds across the sky like a bad comedian getting the hook. The ceiling seemed to be creaking…a lot. He supposed that was normal. His own house never seemed to stop groaning and popping. It took a lot of getting used to after living in new construction for so many years. The good news was the kids would never be able to sneak out of the house. Every step would be loudly announced by squeaky floorboards.

He could only hope.

"Caroline, dear, how are you?" Margaret Flanders asked as Caroline brought her table iced tea refills. It was the veritable council of Starfall social cornerstones. Margaret, who had run the children's section at the public library for as long as anyone could remember, was holding court over several core members of the Nana Grapevine. Judith Kim was the island's longest-serving postmistress. Regina Clemmons opened her ice cream store, Starfall Scoops, right before Ben left for school. Norma Oviette seemed to single-handedly run Clark's law office, which only proved the woman had the patience of a saint…or she was going for some sort of long-con revenge situation to destroy Clark's business, which Ben wholeheartedly supported.

"And how is your little friend, Riley?" Margaret asked.

Caroline, still preoccupied by whatever was happening near the cellar door, turned to Margaret as Margaret continued, "She hasn't had much to say to me since the winter. I'm afraid she's a little skittish around me since I fibbed to her about Eddie leaving. I was just trying to help the two of them get over their little fight. They're so sweet together."

"Oh, Riley's not a grudge-holder," Norma assured Margaret. "She's just had a lot on her plate since she moved here. It can't be easy, running that house on her own. Hell, it was a job for her aunt, and she'd done it all her life."

"She could have help, if she opened the house to the public, like Eddie wanted," Margaret sniffed. "But I suppose he's dropped that since he's been able to move into the house himself."

"Interesting way to go about research." Judith chuckled.

"Riley's never gonna break tradition beyond that," Regina said. "She may not have known Nora, but you can tell she respects her memory."

"When have you had time to learn so much about Riley?" Margaret asked, her gray brows arched.

Regina shrugged. "You give people ice cream, they tell you things."

"Ladies, enjoy your lunch," Caroline said, stepping away from their table and turning to Ben. For a moment, it was like she'd forgotten he was the one sitting at the table and the customer service smile fell from her face to a much more reserved, blank expression.

That was not becoming more fun with repetition.

"Ben, how are you settling in?" Caroline asked.

"Oh, there's always a million things you forget you're going to need for a new place. You know how it goes," Ben said, nodding.

"Not really," Caroline said, just one octave short of a verbal eye roll.

Ben wanted to slap his hand over his face. He was an idiot. Caroline had never moved into any new home—just an older house inherited from family. He sighed.

"Look, Caroline, I'm not trying to make things uncomfortable between us. I know we're probably not going to be best friends, but I don't think we have to be this…awkward? I thought we left things on a pretty decent note."

"Yes, and then we didn't talk for almost twenty years," Caroline said. "That was not an accident. At least, on my part. You had your own life, and I was happy for you."

"And you've had your own life too—" Ben said.

"Not like you have, and you know why . I told you about it when we were kids. And now is not the time for this conversation," Caroline replied, glancing over at Margaret's table. Then her eyes darted upward as the ceiling groaned.

"I can't believe we're having this conversation at all," he said, lowering his voice so the members of the Nana Grapevine within earshot couldn't hear him say, "Talking about curses like they're a real thing that exist."

"I thought you understood," Caroline whispered. "It wasn't personal. It wasn't that I didn't want to be with you. Do you think it was easy? Knowing you were out there in the world? While I'm stuck here? You know what's happened to my family. Hell, you went to a couple of the funerals."

She looked so upset. And he wanted to turn the tide of this conversation. He hadn't been able to talk to her in forever, and he was messing it up. "I understand that you believe the curse is real, and I'm not going to insult you by trying to change your mind."

"Don't patronize me," she said. "I don't care if you think it's real or not. I do, and I'm the one whose neck is on the line."

"Caroline, please. This isn't how I wanted this to go," he pleaded. "I've been trying to tell you how much I missed you—down to the marrow in my bones—since I got back on the island, but I keep messing it up."

"Well, it's not exactly how I pictured this conversation going," she huffed. "At this point, I can't even fake the dignity of pretending I haven't rehearsed what I was going to say to you…over and over in my head, when I couldn't sleep. And in those imaginings, I didn't picture the words ‘curse' or ‘funeral' coming up."

"Let's start over, please. I don't care why we split years ago. It still hurts, but I don't want it to keep us from—" He sighed. "So much has happened since then, and I'm so afraid that I'm going to mess this up this time around. And I might miss out on connecting with you again, on hearing how you've been, what you've been doing. I just don't want to lose out on the chance to know who you are now."

"Oh, sure, I'm a whole new person," Caroline said, smiling and shaking her head. "Living in the same place, working the same job, in the same building. It's the sort of huge change that spurs personal development."

"Technically, we're both different people, on a cellular level," Ben told her, making her laugh. "You're body regenerates cells every minute you're alive. I'm a doctor. I know things."

Oh, how he'd missed that laugh.

"So, I'm new Ben, better than New Coke, I promise," he said, reaching out to her. He saw the hesitation cross her face, as if for a moment, she considered letting the business of the bar distract her and let her dash away. But she took a deep breath and extended her hand.

"OK, new Ben," Caroline sighed. "Nice to meet you."

His fingers closed around hers, warm and familiar, and it was like his homecoming was complete. For just one second, everything was right.

And then, overhead, it sounded like the fist of God was knocking on the roof.

"What the?" Caroline looked up, blinking as plaster dust sprinkled down on her face like snow. Ben stood, a sour, heavy feeling settling into his gut as the other customers slowed their movements, looking up at the ceiling with their forks halfway to their mouths.

Ben started to say, "Caroline, I think we need to—"

The building shook and the room went dark as wood and debris cascaded over the windows facing the water. Ben launched himself and pulled Caroline under the table with him as the floor trembled. In the distance, he could hear screams as he tucked his chin over Caroline's head.

She fit against him as she always did, like she was made for him. But he didn't want to admit to himself how happy he was to have her in his arms again, when her world seemed to be collapsing around them.