“Ben!” Lucy squealed from the staircase. She jumped down four steps so she could run into his arms. “Ben! Ben! Ben!”
Abby followed and Jace raced over too. They attacked him with hugs, screaming his name and jumping up and down.
“Are you going to eat supper with us?” Abby asked excitedly.
“I’m going to make it for you,” he told her which brought on a whole new level of screaming.
“Okay, settle down! Get off Ben or he isn’t going to come back!” I tried to pry my kids off of him, but they wouldn’t have it.
“You mean, he gets to come back?” Lucy wrapped her arms around me as a thank you hug for lifting Ben’s exile.
Oh, gosh. What had I done?
“If he wants to,” I told her.
She looked up at me with bright green eyes and said, “He does! I know he does!”
I patted her head and smiled down at her. I didn’t think he did, but I couldn’t tell her that. “Go help Abby find the crayons.” Jace galloped after her.
When it was just Ben and me and miles and miles of distance between us, I said, “You didn’t have to come over.”
“I know,” he said back.
“You don’t have to stay.”
“I know that too.”
He tucked his hands into his pockets and stood there stoically. He didn’t make a move toward the kitchen even though the kids were calling his name. He watched me instead, without saying anything, without seeming to want to say anything.
The quiet was too much for me. I couldn’t look at him there without filling up this space that separated us in some way.
“How have you been?” I was thrown off by how much I wanted to touch him. I had broken it off with him in an attempt to end my heartache, but ending things with Ben had only worsened the pain. I had been a mess before Ben left, but now… now I was a disaster.
Maybe on the outside things had gotten marginally easier. We could make it to school on time this year. I didn’t forget nearly as many after school activities. Dinner had fallen into a routine. My kids brushed their teeth twice as much as they did last year. But internally… internally I was a pile of ashes. I was broken, jagged pieces that cut and tore and damaged everything they touched.
One of his eyebrows rose in a challenge to my inane question. “How have you been, Liz?”
I cleared my throat and banished the tremble that threatened to give me away. “Oh, you know… holding it together.”
He took four steps forward until he stood just a few inches away from me. His dark, stormy gaze hit me with the power of a hurricane. “Liar,” he accused.
My lips parted, something was bound to come out of them. I just had to think of it first! He turned away from me and walked into the kitchen. I stared at his back and decided that was probably a good thing.
I didn’t know what I would have said. I doubted it would have been kind. Or maybe it would have been the truth.
I missed him…
I needed him…
I didn’t know how to reconcile my feelings for my husband and for him, but I wanted to try it again…
Those thoughts scared me more than anything. So, like the pro I was, I buried those thoughts as far down as I could and moved on to helping Abby with her science project.
While Ben helped Blake with his homework and talked to the kids about school and the rest of their summer, I made the best damn monkey diagram this world had ever seen.
Okay, it was probably a B+ effort. But we tried.
I worked with Lucy on her flashcards while Ben and Blake made dinner like they promised. We sat down to grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup as a family with the addition of our estranged next-door-neighbor.
“How are your parents, Ben?” I asked over the laughter of children.
He looked up from where he had just painted Abby’s nose red with tomato soup. The wide grin he wore died as he looked at me from across the table. His shoulders stopped shaking with laughter and his entire demeanor grew serious.
He hated me.
And why shouldn’t he?
“They’re good, Liz.”
Okay, that attempt at conversation was a bust. Apparently he didn’t want to make this easy on me.
“How’s work?”
He took a patient breath and said, “It’s good, too.”
I was too stubborn to give up. I should have stopped but I couldn’t. “Lucy’s art project is going to be featured in the school art fair next month.”
His level gaze held mine, “I know. Emma told me.”
Betrayal hot and sharp cut straight through me. “Emma?”
“Yes, Emma.”
“When did you talk to my sister?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Liz, Emma and I never stopped talking. We’re still good friends.”
“She never said anything.” I couldn’t believe my sister had kept this from me this whole time! I made her come over and eat boxes of chocolate with me just so I didn’t have to face this alone and this whole time she had been talking to him?
“She was probably afraid of your reaction.”
I glared at him, “I wouldn’t have reacted.”
“You can be very irrational. She probably didn’t want to risk it.”
He had a point. But I didn’t want him to know that. “She’s my sister. I will love her no matter what she chooses.”
“That’s funny,” he said with the driest expression ever. “Because I feel the exact same way about her sister.”
The breath left my lungs and I nearly knocked over my bowl of soup. “Ben-”
“Who wants dessert?” he asked loudly. “I saw popsicles in the freezer!”
I watched my kids jump around his legs as he pulled out the leftover boxes from summer, all but Blake who sat at the table pensively watching the excitement. Ben dealt with each kid patiently, making sure they walked back to the table with their icy dessert and had everything they needed. He held out the box to Blake and then pulled back just as Blake went to grab one. Maybe it was a little cheesy, but Ben got Blake to smile and that was all I cared about.
“Liz?” he held out the box to me. “Would you like one?”
“No, thanks.”
“They look pretty good,” he pushed. “Might help cool you off.”