Coming Undone (19 page)

“
Name one.”

She looked at him in annoyance and then shrugged as her gaze fell to her salad. “If you must know, I’m the spinster of the family. Mom thinks it’s a recessive gene or something.”

Ben reached for his water bottle and took a drink. “So you’re not married then?”

“
Huh. No.” Kathryn laid her fork down and scratched the base of her neck. “Pretty much no.”

He nodded as he set the bottle down. “Any prospects?”

Her patience slid over the cliff as she slumped forward and looked at him. “Do we have to talk about this?”

“
Oh!” His whole body snapped upward. “Too personal. Sorry.”

The slump grew. “No. It’s not that. It’s just…” She picked up her fork again and pushed the lettuce leaves around and around the little plastic bowl. “I get tired of trying to figure it all out, you know? The whole dating scene and guys in general. It’s all such a big mystery, and I feel like I haven’t been given the key to unlock it that everyone else has.”

“
Guys are not that big a mystery. Feed us and give us some love, and we’re happy campers.”

Kathryn laughed softly. “Yeah, right. I think it’s a little more complicated than that.”

Ben smiled. “Maybe some but not much.” He picked up his fork, cut a piece of the Jell-o, and put it in his mouth. “Mmm. Now that’s good.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at him. “Well, we’ve got the feed you part down.”

He took a drink and joined in the laugh. “Looks that way.”

The meal had been more than pleasant. Not once had Kathryn pushed about the situation or about his father or his life. True, she didn’t seem over-eager to open up about herself, but he couldn’t fault her for that. She was, after all, just doing her job. When they were finished, Ben knew he couldn’t put off going back any longer although he wanted to. Had it been up to him, he would’ve chosen to just stay right there with her forever. That would not have been a problem at all.

However, hiding out in the cafeteria with the counselor wasn’t going to win him any points in the good son column, so when she was obviously finished, he suggested it was time to go back. She agreed.

Somehow he had expected her to turn at the front doors, but she walked with him into the hospice. When he held the door for her to enter, a waft of her soft perfume danced around his nostrils, and he wondered if she always smelled so good after a long day.

“
Well,” she said when they got to the empty nurse’s station, “I guess this is it.”

Ben put his hands on his hips to keep from reaching out to her. “I guess so.” Then he just couldn’t help himself. He reached over to her and pulled her to him. Closing his eyes, he breathed in her smell and her softness. Maybe it was the day or the situation or his desperate need for a hug from someone, he didn’t know, but this one felt better than any one ever had. “Thank you.”

Her hand rubbed up and down across the length of his back as he held her there. “You take care of yourself.”

With a nod, he stepped back although he kept his hands on her arms. His gaze dug through hers. “Will I see you tomorrow?”

She nodded but never broke the connection.

After a moment his heart smiled for him. “Good.”

Kathryn gathered her things from her office slowly. What she really wanted to do was to go down to their room once more. But that was crossing a line, and she knew it. No, his brother and his best friend would have to take care of him now. However, her heart hurt as she got to the front doors and her gaze betrayed her by slipping across the room to that door. It was closed. Somehow that seemed appropriate although it killed her to think that. A moment and she dropped her head and shook it.

It would have been a nice dream if he had been anybody else, but he wasn’t. As much as she wanted him to be, he wasn’t. And with that thought, she pushed through the door and left.

“
No, I think you should come home with me,” Kelly said for the sixth time. “Jason can stay tonight. You need to rest.”

“
I can rest here.” Ben fought not to let his voice get too loud. The last thing he needed was a yelling match. Not now. Not after those few moments of peace. Moreover, he felt like he needed to be here. The time was drawing short, and even if that meant he still had a week, it was only a week. He didn’t want to leave.

“
You won’t get any rest here,” Kelly countered. “There are people coming in all night.”

“
Look, Kelly. I appreciate the offer really I do…”

“
I think you should stay,” Jason suddenly said, and both of them looked at him. “I do. Who knows how much longer… it could be.”

Ben hated that last part, but he was infinitely grateful for the first. He nodded and looked at Kelly in challenge.

Finally Kelly shook his head and lifted his hands. “Okay. Okay. Do what you want.” He checked his watch. “I really do need to be getting on home though.”

Jason was first to offer his hand. “Thanks for everything, Kelly.”

“
You’re welcome, man.” Then Kelly turned to Ben. The handshake became a hug. “You take care of yourself, okay?”

When Ben let go of his friend, he nodded and smiled. “Okay.” Kathryn was right. They were worried about him. He still didn’t want to admit he needed the worry, but maybe it wasn’t so bad to think that they cared. “Thanks for everything.”

Kelly’s smile was both warm and sad. “You got it.”

The drive home seemed longer than normal, mostly because of the dream-like state Kathryn had somehow fallen into. It was like a super-reality. One that existed somewhere outside of the world that went on as if nothing was different. She saw that world, but it didn’t feel like it ever had.

As she drove, her gaze slipped out the side window to the mass of people moving there. They each had their stories. They each had their loves and their losses. It was like being an apparition rather than a part of it. She wondered if anyone could see her, if she was even real, or just some imagined piece of an illusion. The feeling itself was odd, and she had no way to account for it. But some part of her suddenly saw the illusion of the world and could almost apprehend the realm of the physical and the realm of the spirit fusing as one and then separating once again.

She shook her head to get the thoughts to leave, but they didn’t. Not really. For a moment she wondered if anyone else had ever felt like this—like they could see the reality of the illusion.

At that moment her cell phone bleeped to life, and she shook out of the meditative state to rejoin reality. “Hello?”

“
Oh, good. I caught you.”

“
Hi, Misty.”

“
I tried you at home, but I kept getting your answering machine.”

Kathryn arched her gaze out the window to the now ever-so-slowly darkening sky and glanced down at the clock. It was nearly eight. “Yeah. I haven’t quite made it home yet.”

“
Oh, I forgot Wednesday night. Are you headed to church?”

Church. Bible study. She hadn’t even thought about that. “Uh, no. I think I’m just going to go home. Not really feeling up to church.”

“
You’re not sick, are you?”

“
No. I’m not sick.” Reality was starting to regain control. “I’m just tired and ready to take a shower and hit the hay.” Answering for her every move was getting annoying. “Did you want something?”

“
Oh, yeah. Um.”

The pause told her she was not going to like this. “Mist. What’s up?”

“
Well, I kind of gave your number to Nathan…”

“
You
what
?” The words were more of a shriek. “I told you I didn’t want you giving out my number. I don’t want strange guys calling me.”

“
Nathan is not some strange guy. And we happened to run into each other at the grocery store, and he asked for your number.”

“
That’s a lot of coincidences there, don’t you think?”

“
I’m just telling you what happened. He said he might call you later, and I wanted to give you a head’s up because I know how you are about answering your phone when you don’t know the number.”

Do you blame me?
“I’m not interested in going on a blind date.”

“
It’s not a blind date. He’s going to call you. You can talk to him. There’s nothing blind about it.”

There was too, but Kathryn was too out of sorts to argue the point. At a stop light, she reached back and pulled the clip out of her hair. It was pinching her head every time she tried to put her head back onto the headrest. For good measure she pulled the ponytail out and shook her hair out. She put her head back just as the light turned green.

“
Just don’t hang up on him, okay? He really is a nice guy. Promise me you won’t hang up on him.”

“
I won’t hang up on him.”

“
And you will talk to him like a civilized person.”

“
Misty.”

“
Sorry. I just want this to work… for you.”

Kathryn sighed. They were never going to give it a rest. “I’ll take the call, but I’m not promising anything.”

“
That’s all I ask.”

“
So, how was dinner?” Jason asked from his position in the chair.

Ben was sprawled on the couch, sitting but barely. He let his head roll to the side to look at his brother. “It was nice. Cafeteria food, but not bad.”

Taking that in, Jason nodded. “Kathryn seems really nice.”

“
Yeah, she is.”

The pause settled between them, but it wasn’t particularly arduous.

“
Kelly’s great,” Jason said after a long moment.

“
Yeah.”

“
So have you guys been friends long?”

“
Since high school. We played soccer together. I was the forward. He was my wingman. We made All-State together our senior year.” Ben took in a breath. “Man, that seems like a long time ago.” He let his head roll back and forth on the back of the couch. “Eons. I introduced him and Tamitha in college. She’s really nice. You’d like her.” Rolling his head again, he focused on the ceiling. It was so strange how his whole life was right there in his memory banks if he just looked, but how it all seemed like some kind of weird dream. “Her mom died a couple years back. Car accident. It was really tough on her.”

“
I can imagine.”

Ben tried to recall any specific thing he had done at that time for them. He found nothing. He hadn’t honestly thought more than a minute about what it must have been like for her or for Kelly. Now he wondered how they had weathered those awful days in the aftermath. With two kids, they hadn’t been able to just drop out of life. Somehow they had gone on. Only now did he wonder how.

Jason cleared his throat. “Have you given any thought to the… services afterward?”

And they were back to topics Ben would rather not even have to think about. True, his spirit was somewhat calmer now, but he still did not feel adequate to this task. “No, not really. I’ve just been kind of trying to get through this minute, you know?”

With a small nod, Jason pulled forward in the chair. “I think we need to start thinking about it, don’t you?”

Where was that answer? It was nowhere to be found in Ben’s head.

“
Have you called Dad’s pastor? I guess that would be the logical place to start.”

Logical. What was logical about this situation? “I guess.”

“
We should do that in the morning.”

We. Ben wondered if that meant he would have to participate. “Okay.”

“
Hi—hi. Um, this is Nathan Safron. Is—is Kate Walker there?”

Kathryn curled into a ball on her couch, pulling her knees and feet up under her as she held the cell phone at her ear. She shouldn’t have changed into her pajamas so early. It felt strange to talk to this stranger sitting here in her pajamas. She reached over and pulled the afghan over her as a sudden chill attacked. “Hi, Nathan. This is Kath… Kate. Misty said you might call.”

“
Yeah. Well, she mentioned that you might be interested in… going out sometime. She said I should call and maybe we could set something up.”

It sounded like making an appointment with the dentist. “Um, well, sure. Okay. If you want to…”

“
I thought… Oh, okay. That sounds great.” He hesitated, and she wondered again why all of this dating stuff had to be so hard. “Um, well. What are you doing on Friday? Maybe we could go to a movie or something.”

“
Um. Okay. A movie sounds good.” She hated the way her voice sounded so uncertain. Wouldn’t it be better if she was jumping to accept his invitation? Didn’t this sound like she really didn’t want to go but she was just being nice. Then again, she kind of was just being nice. Did she really want to go on this date? No. Not really. But she beat those thoughts back. He was a guy, a supposedly nice guy, and he was asking her out on a real date-date. And what was she doing? Analyzing. That’s probably why no one asked her out. Too much analyzing.

“
Okay. Great. Um, I guess if you want to give me your address…”

This was like Chinese water torture. Death by a thousand tiny drops of awkward humiliation. “Okay.”