The Measure(24)

There was a part of Ben that wondered if he was being punked. Something about returning to a middle school made him particularly suspicious that the letter might just be a cruel prank by one of his fellow group members, like the time a few lacrosse players had removed all of the batteries from Ben and his teammates’ calculators right before the Math League contest. But Ben wasn’t that geeky boy anymore. A cursory glance around his office could remind him of that. And he simply couldn’t believe any members of the support group would ever toy with him like that. Their bond was too special.

So the only explanation, Ben concluded, was that someone else inside the school had found his letter during the week and decided to write a response.

When he phrased it like that, it almost sounded normal.

Which made Ben feel better about his decision to write back.

Dear A,

I’m sorry to disappoint, but I know as little as you do. I’d like to think that your first reading was correct, and that nothing, not even the war, could interfere with the soldier’s love for Gertrude. But after the past few months that I’ve endured (including a bad breakup, a long story), I’m not sure that I’m the best person to ask about love.

I’d honestly rather think about the war. Do you ever wonder what might have happened if the strings had appeared before WWII? Or any major war? If millions of people across the world—entire generations in some countries—had seen their short strings, would they have known that a war was coming? And would that have been enough to stop it?

Maybe they would have just assumed that a plague was about to break out, and the war would have happened anyway.

But it does make me wonder. Why didn’t the strings come then? Why now?

Of course, having the answer to either of those wouldn’t help with the question that I most want answered.

Why me?

—B



It was surprisingly easy for Ben to share his thoughts on paper, much easier than speaking up in front of the group. But, as he reread his letter, he realized what he had written—essentially confessing to being a short-stringer—and wondered if he should start over, remove that final part. The stranger on the other end certainly didn’t need to know about Ben’s string. Yet there was something about the physical, intimate act of writing a letter that made him want to be honest. If knowing about Ben’s string scared off this anonymous correspondent, so be it.

Besides, Ben needed some practice telling the truth if he was going to tell his family that weekend.



Equally as difficult as Ben’s struggle with his string was his decision to share the news with his parents. For weeks he had kept it a secret, not wanting to saddle them with the horrible truth that would only corrode their golden years.

It was Lea, from support group, who convinced him otherwise.

“I know exactly what you’re going through,” she said. “You’re worried that telling them will ruin the rest of your time together. But not telling them, and living with this secret festering inside of you, combined with the guilt of keeping something this important from your family, that’s what would ruin your time together.”

“How did your parents react?” Ben asked.

Lea paused. “They cried a lot.”

Ben nodded sympathetically.

“When I was a little kid,” she said, “it felt like the worst thing in the world to see my parents cry. It only happened a few times, like at a funeral or some rare national crisis, but there’s something so deeply upsetting about seeing your parents sob. And apparently you never grow out of that.”

Lea pulled her sweater down over her fist and wiped the corner of her eye.

“But I still think you should tell your family,” she said. “It’s too big of a burden to carry alone.”



I’ll take your part when darkness comes, and pain is all around.



The haunting rhythm boomed throughout the station, in a voice like Ray Charles’s, silencing all those who heard it, and Ben stood anxiously on the subway platform, breathing in the deep bass of the busker.

Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.



An elderly woman next to him closed her eyes and swayed.

Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.



The man’s singing was eventually swallowed by the screeches of the approaching train, and the elderly woman dropped a few coins into the baseball cap resting at the singer’s feet before following Ben onto the subway car and settling into an empty seat.

Ben’s gaze drifted from passenger to passenger as the train sped through the tunnels, finally returning to the older woman across the way, now mumbling to herself.

Ben looked aside, not wanting to appear rude, but he could still hear her quiet, garbled utterances, which seemed to be gaining in speed and conviction. He noticed a few other passengers staring, as well.

“There’s even more crazies now than before,” a man next to Ben said with a sigh.

But Ben felt sorry for the woman, whose muddled conversation with herself continued on until his stop.

As he was exiting the train, he quickly glanced down at the woman’s lap, where her hands had been resting behind her purse, hidden from everyone’s sight.

Her fingers were shifting from one bead to the next. She was praying the rosary.