Burying Ben (19 page)

Chapter Twenty One

The
Go
m
e
z
es’
li
v
ing
r
o
om
is
filled
to
overflowing. The
tops
of
all
flat
surfaces,
ta
b
les, chests and bookcases are covered with f
a
m
ily photographs in silver fr
a
m
es. Soccer trophies
line
the
m
antelpiece like
an
ar
m
y
of
toy
soldiers,
their
ranks
doubled
by
the reflection in the
m
i
rror behind them. Mrs. Go
m
ez invites me to sit with her on a velour sofa. There is a pitcher of water and three glasses on the coffee table in front of us.

“I still see hi
m
, you know. I turn a cor
n
er and there he is. I think
m
aybe he’s not really dead. Maybe they put
him
undercover and
m
ade a fake funeral. I keep hoping that one day he’ll knock on our door and tell us about
his adventures, all the arrests he
m
ade. My husband thinks I’m
crazy.”

“I do not.” Mr. Go
m
ez co
m
es into the
r
oo
m. H
is black hair, wet from
the shower, is shiny like onyx. He wears an ironed over-shirt and trousers. “I apologize for
m
aking you wait. I wanted to settle t
h
e children down in the back r
o
om so we could talk in private.”

He sits opposite us in a flowered
ar
m
chair. The television plays softly behind a closed door, so
m
e kind of cartoon
w
ith
m
usic and canned laughter.

“
W
e have many questions.”

“That
’
s the sad legacy of
suicide. Survivors are left with
m
any unanswered questions.”

A door to the living room opens
slightly. A child’s voice says so
m
ething in Spanish. Mr. Go
m
ez w
a
ves his hand and the door closes.

“Please co
n
tinue,”
h
e says, his face earne
s
t, e
x
pecta
n
t, li
k
e a stude
n
t li
s
tening for i
m
portant clues about what
m
i
ght show up on the final exam.

“Thank you for agreeing to talk to me. I’m
hoping that you can help
m
e understand why Ben took his own life. I only
m
et him
a f
e
w ti
m
es. I know very little about his childhood. It
w
ould help if you could fill in so
m
e of the details.”

They look at each other with radar born
of a long partnership and silen
t
ly decide that she should begin.

“After our daughter and
s
on-in-law died, we took him
in.
W
e
would
have
taken him
long before, but
m
y daughter refused.
She was a good mother. She kept him
clean, sent him
to school. It was just hard, you know, for her to cook regular
for
hi
m
.
When
he ca
m
e to us, he was very skinny. Reme
m
ber, R
a
mon
?
”

“Like yesterday. He used to steal food from
the refrigerator. We told him to eat whenever he was hungry, he didn’t need to steal
f
r
om
us. For months, whenever Lupe cleaned his roo
m
, she would find food and candy wrappers hidden under his bed and in his shoes.”

“
W
e could hear him
at night, crying. He didn’t believe his parents were dead. They were cre
m
ated.” She winces slightly. “That is against our religion, but
m
y son-in-law didn
’
t like the Church. So we didn’t have a grave to show Ben.
W
e planted a tree in our backyard in their
m
e
m
o
r
y but he
ripped it out. He kept saying
that his parents were alive, they just didn’t want him any
m
ore. We wanted to adopt h
i
m
right away. Give him
a new start. It took him
a long ti
m
e to agree, beca
u
se it
m
eant he had to acce
p
t that his
p
are
n
ts were really dead.”

“I know sadness in
m
y life.” Mr. Go
m
ez pushes hi
m
self to the edge of his chair and plants his s
m
all feet on the floor. Outsi
d
e, the afternoon light is fast fading into a gloo
m
y pall. He switches
on a table l
a
mp, illu
m
i
n
a
ting us in a
c
ir
c
le of
light. “I ca
m
e to this country from
Mexico. Snuck across the
border with
m
y two brothers when I was sixteen. The coyote left us in the desert and we had to drink our own urine to survive. My youngest brother died in the heat, lay on his side curled up like a pork rind cooking in
f
at. My older brother never got over it. He started drinking. The last ti
m
e I saw him
he was ho
m
eless.” He stops and bends his
head so that I can
’
t
see his eyes. “I told the st
o
ry
o
f
m
y brothers to Benja
m
in over and over to show
him that he had a choice. He could survive his parents’ death, build a good life for hi
m
se
l
f like I did, or he could give up like
m
y brother. It
w
as up to hi
m
. Maybe I
w
as too
hard on hi
m
. I w
a
s only trying to give him hope.”

“You see how we are?” Mrs. Go
m
ez says. “
W
e keep going
o
ver and over everything. Was it our fault?
W
as it so
m
eth
i
ng we did?
W
as it so
m
ething we didn’t do? We tried to get him
help. He went to counseling for a year a
f
ter he ca
m
e to us, and we thought he was doing better. He smiled
m
ore
a
nd started
m
aking friends. He got involved in sports. The older
h
e was, the better he was. His teachers li
k
ed hi
m
. He did well in school. He was very responsible, had a job on the weekends as a bag boy in the grocery to help us out. He seemed to stop gri
e
ving.”

She stops, her eyes unfocused, caught so
m
e
where between then and now.
W
ithout a word, Mr. Go
m
ez picks up the story as though he and his wife are tied together by an
invisible rope.
W
hen one flags, the other pulls forward.

“So
m
e people say it was h
i
s job. He always wanted to be a police officer. He wanted to help people.
B
ecause he
w
as Mexican, he thought
h
e could help
our people. The police we had, they treated people bad, M
e
xican people especially. He was working his way through college when he
m
et April in o
n
e of his classes. They fell in love.
W
e didn’t want him
to get married before he finished college, but he wouldn’t listen. He worked hard in high school and didn’t have ti
m
e or
m
oney for dating. He didn’t know girls. April was his first girlfriend and he was totally
e
n
a
m
o
r
ado
. Maybe we should have let him
act like a teenager, go out on dates, have fun.” He looks at his wi
f
e. “They eloped. Not even a church wedding. That hurt us deeply.”

Mrs. Go
m
ez clears her throat. “He told
us ta
k
i
n
g a job with the police
w
as to
m
ake money for college. That
the police would pay for his tuition. He pro
m
ised us he would finish his degree. But by then we didn’t see him
so
m
u
ch any
m
ore. Between
m
arriage and the police training,
he didn’t have ti
m
e. You h
a
ve to let them go, you know. What could we say?”

“Did you notice any changes in him
a
f
ter he started police training
?
”

“He was excited at first. Loved the job. But pretty soon he started to look bad. He lost weight, said he wasn’t sleeping
good. He told us it was much harder than he thought it would be.”

“Did he have trouble with anyone at w
o
rk?
For instance, did he ever
m
ention his field training officer?”

The G
o
m
ezes look at each other and s
h
ake their heads. “You have to understand Doctor, that after a while, he d
i
dn’t talk to us much about anything. Not his wife, not his job. And then he stopped co
m
i
ng around all together.
W
e heard about his death on t
h
e tele
v
i
sion
.
”

Tears co
u
rse over Mrs.
G
o
m
ez
’
s cheeks. She dabs
at her face with a white handkerchief.
“
W
e couldn’t believe
it. He had been through so
m
uch, losing his parents. How could losing a
job be worse than that?”

“Did he leave a note for you
?
”