Valentine’s Surprise

Ben’s silence told me everything I needed to know. While his constant working had started as an effort to make up for lost time, it had since turned into an exercise to keep himself occupied so he wouldn’t have time to think about the nightmare he’d lived through over the previous two months. I understood and wasn’t angry about the fact that we hadn’t gone to bed or gotten up together since he returned home, ten days earlier. But I did miss him, and the frustration of not being able to relieve his pain was starting to eat at me.

“Come,” I said. “There are better ways of forgetting for a moment.”

For the first time since I’d entered his room, Ben turned his head to look at me, and my heart broke a little, as it did several times every day. Gone was the happy-go-lucky bear of a man I’d met almost a year ago. This Ben looked drained, his eyes dull and his formerly full cheeks sunken. Even the short beard he normally kept neatly trimmed looked ragged and neglected.

“You’re right.” He closed his laptop. “I should probably come to bed.”

When he stood, I took his hand and led him away from the desk he more or less lived behind when he wasn’t in his office, wondering what I could do to help, desperately searching for a way to lift his spirits. I could never make up for the loss he’d suffered, but surely there had to be something I could do to shift his focus, at least a little.

When we reached our bedroom, I let go of his hand. “You go and brush your teeth and such. I’ll wait for you in the bed.” As I have been doing for the past hour. I didn’t say those words out loud. Ben had more than enough on his mind without me adding minor and rather selfish resentments to his burden.

As I listened to the sound of the water flowing from the tap, I closed my eyes while my mind went over the events of the past two months. Ben hadn’t been particularly worried when he’d received the phone call telling him his father had been admitted to hospital. Even the subsequent diagnosis of cancer hadn’t thrown him too much. My Ben was an optimist, and he’d been convinced his dad would pull through, defeat the dreaded disease.

As the toilet flushed in the bathroom, the image I had been incapable of pushing from my mind flashed up again. I could see it as clear as if the scene were playing out in front of me. Ben standing amid the gravestones, his shoulders slumped and his head bowed as the coffin was slowly lowered into the grave. His poor father hadn’t stood a chance. By the time the diagnosis had been made, his body had been riddled with tumours. The doctors had offered treatment, but Ben’s dad had put his foot down and refused despite Ben’s protestations.

Not for the first time, I wondered if I’d done enough, been enough, to support Ben during that time. I’d held him, listened to him rage, and hadn’t uttered a single objection when he moved to Ulster for what turned out to be the last three weeks of his father’s life. They hadn’t gotten together very often, but Ben and his dad had been close and, what was more, with his father gone, Ben had no immediate family members left.

The mattress sagged, making me tilt to the right, and I opened my eyes just in time to see Ben pull the cover up to his chin, his head turned away from me, as it was so often these nights. I knew better than to take it personally. The distance between us had little to do with Ben not wanting to be near me. It was all about him having convinced himself that he wasn’t good company right now, and his unwillingness to accept that relationships meant that two people were there for each other even, or rather especially, when one of them barely functioned.

“Don’t shut me out.” I put my hand on his shoulder and tugged lightly, hoping he would respond but unwilling to force him into anything he wasn’t ready for.