Page 25 of Hell Bent (Portland Devils #5)

It was hard to believe the amount of food Ben put away.

We ordered the rice table, because Alix said she wanted to try everything, and I may have wanted to encourage that attitude.

Soon, the table was crowded with dishes large and small, and Ben was grabbing handfuls of a sort of stretchy, flaky flatbread, dipping it into a spicy curry and then into another one, and practically lunging across the table to get more.

He had beef sambal piled on his plate, too, and was trying all the sauces.

He ate half the chicken satay dipped in peanut sauce, and at least a third of the zucchini and corn fritters, possibly because the vegetables were disguised enough for him to ignore them.

The place was busy, casual, and a little loud, so we mostly just ate. Maybe a better icebreaker anyway.

Things had quieted down a bit by the time we got dessert, which were some doughnut-hole-type things that Alix and I passed on, which left Ben happily eating all of them.

He was doing that, along with drinking his second Coke, and Alix and I were having grassy-tasting tea when she said, “I think Ben has something to tell you.”

Ben shot a look at her and said, “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” she said. “I told you, you don’t want to be a liar. Nobody trusts a liar.”

He exhaled loudly. “Fine. I drank some of your horrible Scotch, or whatever, Sebastian. You should probably say thank you, because it’s gross.”

I said, “Is this an apology? Because it doesn’t sound like one.”

“What, I’m supposed to be sorry?” Ben didn’t actually push the plate of doughnuts away, but otherwise, he registered his disgust. “I was mad, OK?”

I said, “I get that.”

“You keep saying that,” he said. “Like it matters. But I’m still stuck here. I don’t even know how my mom’s doing!”

“Didn’t you call her today?” He looked away, and I said, “Some of this, you realize, is going to have to come from you. If you care about her, and I know you do, you need to figure out a way to make her feel better about you being gone.”

“I need to make her feel better?” he demanded. “When you guys are the ones who made me leave?”

I breathed in, breathed out, and centered myself. “Yeah, dude. If you love her, I think you do. You can tell her how much you miss her, but do you really want to make her feel worse right now?”

Ben looked down and dabbed at some doughnut crumbs with a finger, and I said, “Look. I know it’s too hard. Of course it’s too hard. The whole situation sucks, for her and for you. As soon as my season’s over, I’ll take you back up there and stay as long as you both need.”

He looked up, at least. “But that could be, like, weeks!”

“It will be weeks,” I agreed. “And it’s hard, because I want to see her, too, and I can’t.”

“Because football’s more important than somebody dying,” he said.

“It’s my job,” I said. “It’s my team. You don’t leave your team when they need you. You just don’t.”

“You leave your family when they need you instead,” he said, and the force of the words had me sitting back in my chair.

“That hurts,” I said. Alix still wasn’t saying anything. She was just watching. I said, “Help me out here anytime.”

She said, “You’re doing fine.” Quietly, and now, she took my hand under the table.

I said, “Look. I get that you don’t understand any of this. How your mom can want you to leave. How she maybe …” I glanced at Alix. “Doesn’t want you to see her like that. Doesn’t want you to have to do things for her that you shouldn’t have to do.”

“I’d do things for her!” Ben practically shouted it. “How is it fair not to let me?” There might be some tears in his eyes now, but at least the emotion was out in the open.

Alix said, “You know what happens at the end of somebody’s life?”

“Yes,” Ben said. “Because I already saw.”

“No,” Alix said. “I don’t think you did.

They stop being able to get out of bed by themselves, and then they stop being able to get out of bed at all.

You have to help them to the bathroom and hold them while they go, because they’re too weak to hold themselves up.

You have to help them wipe. And later on, once they can’t even get to the toilet, you have to change their adult diapers and wash them.

You have to put the morphine under their tongue, and you have to hear the horrible rattle in their throat that means they’re on their way out, knowing this is the end.

You have to comfort them when they’re past being comforted, when they’re moaning and thrashing and you don’t know if they hurt, if they’re scared, how to make it better.

You have to watch them breathe their last breath, and know they’ve left you.

That they’re gone forever. That’s a hard, hard moment. ”

Ben gaped at her, and she said, “It’s an act of love, but it’s mighty hard to do. Hard to accept, too, from your child. A spot you don’t want to put him in.”

Ben swallowed, but said, “I’d do it.”

Now, she had one hand on his. And the other hand in mine.

Equal opportunity comfort. “I believe you would,” she said.

“But I can see why she doesn’t want you to.

Or to have you around once the cancer’s really working on her brain.

That may be what scares her most of all.

Losing control. Losing her self, the person she’s been.

Losing any ability to help you through this. ”

“How do you know?” Ben asked.

She smiled, but it was sad. “I told you that my grandfather died. The last year was rough. He had some dementia. In his case, he was still sweet, but so confused. He didn’t know where he was, and at the end, he didn’t know who we were, either.

My grandmother had been with him for seventy-five years.

Can you imagine that? Seventy-five years with one person? ”

“No,” Ben said, which was honest.

“Neither can I,” she said. “They were both independent people. Private. I don’t know how much they shared, and how much their separate selves were …

separate, but I saw my grandmother’s face when he’d look at her without recognizing her.

When she’d hold his hand and he’d shove it away.

When he tried to get out of bed and fell, and she had to come get me to help him up again.

When she couldn’t comfort him anymore. It just about killed her.

After all those years of loving him, of being there for him, that still almost killed her.

I found her weeding his garden and crying one day, when the hospice nurse was there.

When she didn’t have to be strong anymore and could afford to fall apart.

Just … weeding and crying. Helpless, but when the nurse left, she went back in again.

She sucked it up because he needed her, but it was so hard. ”

She paused, but Ben didn’t say anything, was still just staring at her, looking defiant, so she went on.

“I don’t think your mother can stand thinking you’ll see her like that, that you’d be trying to care for her when she’s in that state.

She wants to protect you, and this is the only way she can still do it.

I know you don’t agree. I know it hurts.

But let her protect you anyway. Be there for her now, when it’s hardest. Be there in the way she can stand.

Video call her. Tell her you’re all right.

Tell her you’re keeping up with school so she doesn’t worry, for as long as she’s able to comprehend that.

Let her see your face. Even when you’re not sure she recognizes it, let her see your face.

Let her hear your voice. Let her die knowing you’re safe.

” Her grip on his hand tightened, and he was staring at her, appalled, as she said, “If you love her, open your hands and let her go. Let her find her wings. You’ll never do anything harder, and you’ll never do anything that matters more. If you love her, please. Let her go.”