The Nothingness of Ben (4 page)

“Nothing’s been decided yet.”

“Bullshit. Do you honestly expect me to believe that you’re going to be a part of the solution? You’re going to stand there and make that argument? Since you left for law school, you come back here once a year.
Once
. I’m their big brother, Ben. They turned to me when this happened. But I’m not old enough to take care of them, so along you come and… what? Tell me. Really, I want to hear it from you. Are you actually thinking about moving back to Texas? Now’s your chance. Shock the hell out of me.”

Ben looked away and said nothing.

“I didn’t think so. It
has
been decided, so fuck this conversation. Don’t you dare try to tell me this’ll be the best thing in the long run. If it was just me, I wouldn’t give a shit. Really. It’s a hard-knock life and all that crap. But Cade? What do you think’s gonna happen to him? And if you knew anything about what Jason’s going through… if you knew anything at—” Quentin stopped himself in resignation. “I might as well be talking to your voice mail.” He shook his head and turned toward the front door. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll dial back the hostility if you make sure we can at least spend Christmas together. Here. In the house.”

Ben didn’t move.

“Alright, then. I’ll take that as your way of saying yes.” Quentin walked to the door but then stopped. “Thanks for the chat,” he said, entering the house and leaving Ben alone on the porch.

W
HEN
they returned from a painfully quiet lunch, Ben couldn’t help but notice Travis’s truck in the driveway. He needed someone to talk to and Travis had offered the night before. He thought they ended on a good note despite the obvious awkwardness of Ben’s mechanic-for-the-rest-of-your-life comment.

“I’m going over to Mrs. Wright’s house to talk to Travis for a minute,” he announced to everyone upon entering the front door. “I won’t be long.”

Quentin and Jason looked at each other and wrinkled their foreheads.

“I don’t know, big brother,” said Quentin. “Are you sure you don’t want to rethink your timing?”

Jason made no effort to contain his laughter.

“I’m just going over to say thank you again. Little brother.”

Quentin grinned. “Forget I said anything.”

Ben exited back out the door, then went down the porch stairs and across the street to Mrs. Wright’s side door. The top half consisted of nine small panes of glass, so when Ben stood on the steps, he could see Mrs. Wright’s kitchen, a sliver of her living room, and the door to the back bedroom.

He knocked on one of the glass panes. The door made a racket as it rattled in the frame. Commotion broke out behind the back bedroom door. Ben heard voices and immediately realized what he’d done, cursing himself for not listening to Quentin. He waited about five seconds too long, though, because as he was about to turn and bolt, Travis stepped out of the bedroom with nothing on but a pair of blue jeans. He was barefoot and shirtless, displaying a lean and muscled torso. He had a natural dusting of reddish-blond hair across his chest and down toward the button of his jeans. He tiptoed into the kitchen, threw back the deadbolt, and opened the door halfway.

“Ben—”

“Travis,” Ben interrupted. “I’m so sorry, really, I didn’t realize.” Ben couldn’t look at him so instead he looked down at his feet. They were perfect. Pale with beautifully shaped toes and ivory nails. Ben stood, his head lowered, hypnotized by the man’s feet. What was wrong with him? Finally, he snapped out of it and looked up. “I just came by to say thank you, again. But I’ll come back another time.” He took a step backward and began his retreat.

Then he started to laugh.

“Oh, man, I’m so sorry. I’m having a twelve-year-old moment. I haven’t interrupted anyone having sex since… I don’t know. My roommate in law school, I think.”

Travis cracked up too.

“You dick.”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. But can you spare a minute? I know this is a total cockblock, but I desperately need to talk to someone who’s not an angry relative.”

Travis smiled. “I’m the one that offered. Wait for me on the back porch. I’ll be out in a spell. You actually saved me from the cuddling.”

“See that? I make an excellent wingman.”

Travis closed the door and Ben went around to the backyard and let himself into the screened-in porch, which was furnished with the standard plastic patio table and chairs, both clean and presentable. Ben took one of the seats and waited for Travis.

When he reappeared around the corner, Travis wore a burnt orange Longhorns sweatshirt and work boots, in addition to his blue jeans. He carried two bottles of Shiner Bock. Behind him came a young woman with bleached blond hair and a pretty face. Ben stood up to greet her.

“Ben, this is Trisha.”

“Nice to meet you, Trisha. I apologize for intruding like this.”

She put out her hand to shake his and then started to sign.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your parents,” Travis said, translating. “I wanted to go to the service but couldn’t get off work. I only met ’em once but they seemed like good people.”

“Thank you.” Ben looked at the two bottles of beer. “Aren’t you going to stay?”

She shook her head and continued signing.

“No. It was time for me to leave anyway. Sunday night is girls’ night and I’m hosting this week. Need to clean the apartment. But I hope I’ll be seeing you again real soon.”

“Me too.”

Travis put the two bottles down on the table and escorted Trisha around the corner. After a couple of minutes, he returned and took a seat on one of the adjacent plastic chairs.

“Cheers.” Travis raised his bottle.

“Salute.” Ben clinked the neck of his own bottle against it. “When did you learn sign language?”

“As a boy, growing up in Lubbock. My next door neighbor and only friend at the time was deaf. Jamie Johnson. My mama always said I talked with my hands, so that’s why it came natural, I reckon.”

“Well, I’m sorry about my bad timing. Really.”

“You apologize a lot, Ben.”

“I like to keep my bases covered. Catholic guilt, and all.”

They drank for a moment in silence.

“Mrs. Wright is gone most of the day on Sunday, with church activities and her ladies auxiliaries and a whole bunch of other things I don’t dare ask about.”

“And you use the time wisely.”

“Indeed I do. Quentin and Jason know better than to come around knocking on a Sunday afternoon. I’m surprised they didn’t warn you.”

“They did. That was my fault. I have a listening problem.”

Ben heard a car start up and then drive away.

“She seems like a nice girl.”

Travis shrugged. “What else you gonna say? But yeah, she is. So, what’s up?”

Ben took another swig of his beer and let the icy sensation slide down his throat. “I need to make a decision.”

“You’re in a bad way, Obi-Wan, if you’re coming to me for advice.”

“Somehow I doubt that.”

Ben decided he liked Travis’s nickname for him, an obvious but still clever
Star Wars
side reference to Ben’s name.

“This about custody?”

“Of course. My Aunt Julie thinks I’m in no shape to be a parent. She thinks they should be raised in a more
traditional
setting, even if it means splitting them up.”

Travis rubbed the top of his head with his right hand, scratched behind his ear, and then matted down his short red hair in a petting motion.

“What do
you
think?” Travis asked.

Ben looked at him. “I don’t know. This is serious shit. If I fuck it up, then I’m fucking up three lives. And I don’t know if I can do it. I have a life back in New York. I’m supposed to walk away from all that?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you said yesterday,
don’t split them up
. You have an opinion.”

“Of course I have an opinion. Is
all that
really more important than your brothers? They need you right now, and you may not know it yet, but you need them too. Your parents died, Ben, and those three boys are the only other people on the planet who know exactly what you’re going through. How do you think that splitting them up and you hightailing it back to New York is gonna do anybody any good? Dressing it up with excuses ain’t gonna change what you’re doing. You can put your boots in the oven, but that don’t make ’em biscuits.”

“Me being a failure as a parent isn’t going to make them biscuits either.”

“Making a few mistakes here and there is a hell of a lot better than living with that kind of regret. I’m telling you, Ben, if you leave ’em behind now, they ain’t never gonna forgive you. In fact, Quentin may never speak to you again. And no matter how successful you become or how much money you make, you’ll never be able to come back to this moment and fix it. Your aunt is two sandwiches short of a picnic, and I would tell her so to her face.”

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary. Besides, Julie is only half the problem. Quentin is just so….” Ben paused. “He hates me.”

Travis shrugged again, a gesture that suited him.

“Can you blame him? He’s a smart boy—he knows what’s going on. If you’re thinking about splitting them up, then I’m sure he knows it.”

“Oh, he knows.”

“And besides, he don’t hate you. He hates your absence. There’s a difference.”

“I’m not sure he even wants me here.”

“Well, now you’re just being silly. He misses you like crazy. Take it from your replacement.”

Ben was stunned. It had never occurred to him that his absence had left a void in his brothers’ lives—or that someone else could fill it.

“Any advice?”

“All you got to do is be there. They don’t need you to be the perfect brother. Ninety percent of life is showing up. I think somebody famous said that.”

“Woody Allen.”

“Really?”

“I think so.”

Ben took another swig of his beer and looked around the brown backyard, some raked leaves still in a pile next to the chain-link fence. The neighborhood grew silent again, like the night before, except for the rumblings of nearby freeway traffic. Ben could feel Christmas approaching. He put his hands over his face and took a deep breath.

“What if it’s too much?”

“Christ. Stop being so dramatic.”

“Don’t underestimate how selfish I can be.”

Travis reached over and pulled Ben’s hands away from his face.

“Then let it be too much.”

“What does that mean?”

“Whatever comes your way, accept it. Accept what you can’t change. Let it rain. That’s what they used to say in Al-Anon.”

Ben looked into his eyes, remembering something. Why did Travis seem so familiar? For a moment he thought he might lean over and kiss him, but then he realized how crazy that sounded and panicked.

“I should go,” Ben said, getting out of his chair. “I told them I wouldn’t be gone long.”

Travis stood up and sighed, looking disappointed, as if nothing he said had sunk in.

“Thanks for talking to me. I heard you. Really.”

Ben turned to go, but then stopped and asked, “What are you doing for Christmas?”

Travis grinned. “Your father had already invited me to spend it with your family. Now, I think I’ll just stay in and watch some movies or something.”

“If you’re watching movies, then you should definitely come over, because that’s what we’ll be doing too. I know that much about my brothers. Maybe we’ll do a theme—things blowing up, saving the world, that kind of stuff. A real testosterone fest.”

“
Armageddon
?”

“That’s what I’m talking about. And
Deep Impact
.”

“
The Day After Tomorrow.
”

“Always room for Jake. And
Speed
, of course.”

“It does sound like fun. Count me in.”

Ben said good-bye and left Travis on the back porch to finish his beer. He crossed the street to his house and bounced up the front stairs. He felt better, that was for sure. Talking to Travis had gone a long way toward clearing his head. He went into the house, hoping to find his brothers hanging out in the living room, but there was no one.
Must be upstairs
, he thought.
No rush
. He felt confident about tomorrow and the meeting with the lawyer, and because of that, he knew there would be plenty of time to get to know them.

He heard something splattering against the window and looked out to investigate. It had started to rain. And for some reason that he couldn’t explain, that made Ben smile.

Chapter 4

O
N
M
ONDAY
afternoon, Julie explained that she was returning to Dallas directly from the lawyer’s office, so she would be driving on her own. When Ben arrived for the appointment at three in the afternoon, Sam and Nick, Julie’s brothers, surprised him. He hadn’t even known they were driving over from Houston.

They all said hello and then went inside to meet with Russ Hardwick, his parents’ attorney. He had two copies of the will, which he handed to Ben and Nick. They sat down, and Ben started reading while Sam and Julie huddled on each side of Nick, scanning the first page of the document.