15. Benji

BENJI

I needed air. I didn’t care how cold it was. I walked through town, exhaling steam like a train huffing through the snow.

I was initially heading straight home, determined to bury myself under a mountain of pillows and blankets and try to make sense of Bastian’s decision to block me out of his life, just when he needed me most.

But I soon realized the echo chamber in my head would drive me insane if I did that.

No, I couldn’t be by myself at the moment.

I needed company.

I needed the voices of reason around me.

“If I just splash a splish of this yummy gooey one in with this delicious creamy one and give it a good stir, I can no longer feel the gout in my big toe. Isn’t that something, Bartholomew?”

So maybe I picked the wrong place to go in search of voices of reason.

In fact, I wasn’t quite sure whose idea it was to give Great Nan free rein of the bar in Aunt Bea’s boudoir, but it certainly appeared that Connie, Maggie, and Bea very much approved of Great Nan’s drink-mixing skills.

Bea was back in a sequined dress, wig, and tiara, and the three of them were lolling merrily about on her bed in such a relaxed state that Maggie had even lost the neck brace.

“Maggie? How’s your neck?”

“Fixed!” Maggie exclaimed with a burp. “Thanks to Great Nan’s medicinal remedy. In fact, I’d better have another dose, just in case.”

“Coming right up!” Over at the bar, Great Nan stirred up a storm, clinking ice with her swizzle stick as she swiveled her normally frail old hips to Chuck Berry’s “ Run, Run Rudolph .”

“Come and try this, Barnabas,” slurred Great Nan, her hand flapping like a loose sheet of roofing in a twister as she waved me over. She handed me a glass and I was about to take a sip when she added, “It goes down like mother’s milk, straight from the titty.”

I pulled the glass away with a “splish” over the rim. “Ew! Did you have to say that?”

“Aw, come on, sonny. Like you never enjoyed a suckle on your mother’s breast.”

“Not since I was six months old, no.”

“Drink up, Cuz,” said Connie. “You know you need it. Now come and join us over here on Bea’s bed and tell us what the fuck went down after we left.”

“Indeedy-doo,” agreed Maggie, her eyes moving in different directions as she tried to catch her straw in her mouth. “We wanna hear all the juicy details.”

Bea seemed to be the only one not clamoring for gossip. “Now, now, ladies. If Benji doesn’t want to spill the tea, we shouldn’t put pressure on him. Even if he made me abandon my Jimmy Choos for a pair of muddy boots that may have altered the shape of my feet forever.”

“Are you trying to make me feel guilty?”

“Did it work?”

“To be honest, I don’t know how I feel anymore. About anything.” I took a big gulp of Great Nan’s mystery concoction and after panting for air for several moments, I plodded over to the bed and plonked myself down. “We did some shouting. We did some crying. But I’m not sure I’ll ever fully understand why he did what he did. The fact is, he had cancer, and rather than let me share in his pain, he broke everything off. He broke any chance we had of a future together. He broke our dream of running the BnB. He broke my heart.” As I sniffed back more tears, I felt Connie, Maggie, and Bea scooch across the bed and drape their arms over my shoulders. “Why wouldn’t he want me there? I could have left the BnB, we could have put things on hold while he underwent treatment in Chicago. We could have found a place to live. I could have taken him to his doctor’s appointments, I could have got myself a job to help pay the medical bills, we could have gotten through it all. Together. But instead, he left me to muddle through alone, not knowing what the fuck I’d done wrong, while he leaned on Sterling to get him through.”

“Who the fuck is Sterling?” asked Great Nan, propping up the bar with two elbows. “And while I’m asking, who the fuck is that girl dribbling on your shoulder?”

“Great Nan, that’s Maggie.”

“Who?”

“Never mind. The fact is, Bastian chose to break both our hearts because he didn’t want me by his side, when I should’ve been there for him every minute of the day.”

Bea laid a hand on my leg. “My dear honey-child, if I may ask, is he still…”

“No. He’s through the worst of it… I think. He said he’s in remission, but he still has tests and infusions of… God, I don’t remember any of the words…” My breathing became labored, I stammered back tears. “It’s all so much. It’s too much. I could have handled it if I’d been there with him, if we’d gone through it all together, one day at a time. But finding all this out at once. It’s overwhelming.”

Connie wrapped both arms around me as tight as she could, her drink spilling a little down my arm. I didn’t care. “Oh Cuz, this is nobody’s fault. Nobody made the wrong decision here.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because these were decisions made under the darkest of clouds. When a storm is coming, none of us know whether we should run or take shelter. None of us know whether lightning will strike or a flood will wash away everything we hold dear. All we know is, we need to protect the ones we love. No matter what Bastian chose to do, the fact is he wanted to protect your heart.”

“How can someone protect my heart by breaking it?”

“Oh, my delicate little frosted cookie,” said Bea. “We broken ones are always better off.”

“How do you figure that?”

“Because we learn how to put ourselves back together the right way.”

Suddenly Maggie leapt off the bed, suddenly alert as she stared down at her watch. “Oh shit, the Christmas Eve parade starts soon. We need to get our asses there right now, except…”

“Except what?” asked Bea.

“Except I think I jumped off the bed too fast and now I’m gonna blow some serious chunks.”

“Oh, my precious child of Satan, that does not happen in the boudoir! Connie, get her out into the snow now. Benji and I will bring Great Nan down shortly.”

As Connie grabbed Maggie by the arm and raced for the stairs—just as Maggie’s cheeks puffed and she clapped a hand to her mouth—Bea plucked a red and white faux fur shawl off the corner of her privacy screen.

“It’s time to save Christmas, my pointy-eared Elves. We’re going to turn our frowns upside down and attend the greatest spectacular this side of Macy’s Christmas Parade.”

“Oh Bea,” I moaned. “The last thing on earth I want to do right now is go to the parade.”

“Nonsense! I won’t hear of it.” Bea took me by one hand and my very woozy Great Nan by the other. “Come children, the Mulligan’s Mill Christmas Eve Parade awaits!”