Five Ways to Fall (Ten Tiny Breaths, #4)(87)

Ben releases me to pull Wilma’s tiny frame into his arms. “None of this was ever your fault.”

She steps away, guiding him back to me with a sad smile. “I’m just so happy to have you both here. You go enjoy yourselves. Benjamin, I’m going to fix this. I’m going to make it right.” With that, she turns and steps away, a fierce smile of determination painting her face.

And I’m left standing in the middle of this vast open space, watching a very quiet Ben stare at that old unfinished coffee table with a lost look on his face, battling something privately.

“Ben?” I call out, fighting against the shiver as I hear his name bounce off the high walls.

It seems to break him free of his trance because he turns to me and cracks a grin. “Come on. Let’s go.” The strain in his voice is unmistakable, though, and there’s certainly no twinkle in his eye.

“What happened in here?”

“Ahh . . .” His gaze drops to the ground, his lips tucking into his mouth in a tight purse. “The worst day of my life. That’s what.” He tries to cast it off with a lazy shrug.

My sneakers scrape against the concrete as I do a circle around the table, running my finger along the deeply defined grain of the wood. “It’s beautiful wood. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Reese, don’t . . .” he starts when my fingers run over a giant splotch, as if someone spilled something on the untreated wood and stained it. I look up to see the pained expression on Ben’s face.

“Come on. You’re my obnoxious, loud, insensitive Ben! I’m the melodramatic one.”

“I’m yours?” he repeats with an arched brow, though that teasing lilt is missing.

I gulp. “What’s wrong with this table?”

He strolls over, making a point of sidestepping an area on the floor instead of walking straight to me. “You remember what I told you about my dad and the things he did behind my mom’s back, right?”

I nod quietly.

Licking his lips, he studies the wood for another long moment. “Normally he’d stay away from the local bars. It’s a small town and people talk. Everyone’s up in everyone’s business. Well, one night he decided the local bar was good enough. The next morning, Mama started getting calls from friends. So-and-so’s brother-in-law or something saw him stumbling out with my football coach’s wife. I guess Coach was out of town.” Ben snorts as he shakes his hung head. “Mama was mortified. And not even for herself. She knew Coach would hear about it and she was afraid he’d take it out on me.

“When my dad pulled into the driveway that day, I guess she laid into him. Slapped him across the face. Well,” Ben grits his teeth, “he swung back. I came home a few hours later to find her hiding in her room with a broken nose and an ice pack. And when I found out what happened . . .” His mouth twists up. “I charged in here, ready to beat the hell out of him. He was already hitting the bottle again, working on that table. I was so angry, I ran at him. I shoved him. Hard.” Ben pauses to swallow, a hand running through his hair. “And then, I don’t really know how everything else happened. One second he was tumbling back, the next his arm was lying on the ground and there was blood everywhere. Jesus, Reese! The whiskey made it worse. It was pumping out of him like we were in a Quentin Tarantino movie.”

My stomach tightens with the visual he’s painting. I look at this table under a new light, seeing that stain for what it truly is.

“The idiot had removed the safety mechanisms off all the saws. Said they were a pain in the ass while he worked. He somehow hit the power switch when he fell.” Ben’s head is shaking. “I was pissed off but I never meant for that to happen, I swear. I called nine-one-one right away. He almost bled out on the way to the hospital. They weren’t able to reattach the arm.” He sighs heavily. “The one and only thing my dad was ever passionate about was carpentry. And with only one arm, he can’t do much. So he doesn’t. He doesn’t do anything but sit in this barn and hate life.”

Ben’s hand lifts to run along a particularly dangerous-looking saw.

“Is that the one?”

His nod answers me. “He was always a cynical man. Never happy. Not one to spend much time with his kids. After the accident, he hit the bottle even harder and went into a deep depression. He hasn’t come out of it yet and he refuses to get help. He blames me for everything. For the accident, for my brothers and Elsie not coming around. But the reason none of my brothers and sister come here is because they hate his f*cking guts for cheating on my mom and then hitting her. And for being a drunk. They’ve already said that they won’t step foot on this property while he’s here. And they’re angry with my mother for standing by him because she’s got it in her thick skull that this is the ‘for worse’ part of her marriage vows. Well, if you ask me, ‘worse’ is pretty damn bad.”

“Is she happy?”

“How can she be?” Bright blue eyes pierce me, his arms thrown up as if in surrender. “They sleep in separate rooms; he’s in here all day. He helps her with nothing. They live completely separately and because of him, she doesn’t get to see her kids or her grandkids. Is that what a marriage is?” He shakes his head. “And she wonders why I want nothing to do with it.”