Bring Me Back(23)

My mom sets a plate of food in front of me. I stare at the rubbery eggs and greasy bacon.

Ben.

Ben’s going to walk in the door any minute from work and tell me this is all a big joke. Ha, ha! Got you! I’m not really dead but now I know how much you really love me!

On some logical level I know that’s not going to happen, but denial has set in and I’m holding onto it with a strong-handled grip.

“You need to eat, Blaire.” My mom pulls out the seat beside me and crosses her arms on the table. She leans her head down, looking at me with eyes the same color as my own, only hers are now lined with wrinkles in the corners from laughing so much. “Please, B. Eat something. You’re getting too thin.”

I shake my head. I know I should eat, I know my body needs it, but I don’t feel any sort of hunger, and the thought of eating makes me feel like vomiting.

She sighs.

From the family room, my dad says, “Leave the girl alone, Maureen. She needs time.”

I can tell he’s watching a football game and I cringe. If Ben was here Ben would be watching it with him.

Ben loves football.

Loved. Ben loved football.

Because he’s dead and can’t love things anymore.

I can feel my throat closing in.

No, no. I refuse to believe he’s gone. I can’t imagine a world without Ben in it. It doesn’t seem right that the world lost someone as kind and bright as him, while the drunk driver who murdered him gets to walk free. That’s how I look at it—murder. Cold-blooded murder. That person drank, knew they shouldn’t drive, and got behind the wheel anyway. They didn’t care who they hurt. The man’s tried to talk to me, to apologize—I guess—but I never even want to see his face. If I did I’m pretty sure I’d try to claw it off. I have no sympathy for that man, and he can carry the guilt of this for the rest of his life because he deserves that. He deserves to be punished just like me.

“Blaire?” my mom says. “Just one bite.” I shake my head. She sighs and forks some eggs onto the spoon. “Open up.”

I bat her hand away and the eggs fall on the floor. “I’m not a baby, mom. I don’t want to eat.”

“And now she talks.” My mom throws her hands in the air. It’s not lost on me that she uses the word she like I’m not sitting right there—because in a way I’m not there. We all know it. I’ve checked out. I haven’t even worked since the night I got the call. I can’t bring myself to continue on with my life without Ben—I’m so afraid that if I pick up the pieces and go on with my life that … that … I don’t know. I don’t even know what I’m thinking anymore. My thoughts are a jumbled mess.

“Is there anything you can eat?” my mom asks. “Seriously, Blaire, I will drive an hour away if it means I can get something you’ll eat.”

I sigh. I know I’m scaring my mom, and I feel awful, but I can’t seem to snap out of this ... this… whatever this is.

“I could have a milkshake from Chick-fil-A,” I tell her. “Vanilla.”

She breathes a sigh of relief. “Good, that’s good. I’ll go get that.” She hurries up and grabs her purse, probably trying to get out of there before I change my mind. “Anything else?”

“No.”

She nods. “Okay. I’ll be right back.”

“Kid,” my dad says gruffly from the couch, “you’re gonna dump that shake in a plant, aren’t ya?”

I laugh. “Possibly. I’ll take a sip or two for her benefit.”

He grunts. “Come join your old man over here.” He glances at me from the back of the couch.

I shake my head. “Nah, I’m okay over here.”

He turns off the TV. “It’s the football, isn’t it? We don’t have to watch that. We can talk. Or not. I don’t care. Just get out of that chair, kid.”

I sigh. It’s impossible not to listen to my dad. He worked a lot while I was growing up, but he always made sure I knew I could come to him with anything.

I get up from the chair and push it in, stalling for time.

“Kid,” he says in warning.

I want to smile at the familiar childhood nickname, but frankly I don’t feel like smiling.

I sit down beside him and he wiggles a bit. “Here, you want the blanket?” he asks gruffly, reaching for the blue throw blanket.

“Sure,” I say, even though I don’t really want it. I know my dad wants to feel useful in some way so I give him that.

He hands me the blanket, and I wrap it around me. It still smells like Ben. I close my eyes, and it’s like he’s right there. With me.

“When are you going back to work?” my dad asks. He never goes easy on me.

I shrug and glance toward the ceiling where my office lays upstairs waiting for me with several hundred emails. “When I feel like it.”

He grunts and wiggles some more. “When will that be?”

Never. “Soon,” I say, because I know it’s what he wants to hear. I pick at the frayed edge of the blanket. “When are you and Mom going home?”

He stares at me for a moment. His eyes are a kind brown, and he has short lashes. Like my mom, he’s wrinkled now from years of laughter and hard work. “We’re staying as long as we need to.”