Page 120 of Hell Bent

The smell was more pronounced now, disinfectant over the musty sweetness. A different woman came out of the back bedroom. Older, taller, heavier. Strong. She said, “You mustbe Ben and Sebastian. I’m Evelyn. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

She glanced at Alix and the dog, and Alix said, “I’ll wait in the kitchen too.”

Ben was breathing faster, and I knew how hard those last few yards were to cross. Through that door again, and we were there. The hospital bed, and a chair on either side. Too warm in here, and that smell.

And Solange in the bed.

She couldn’t have weighed ninety pounds. The flesh had been eaten off her, leaving skin over bone. Her eyes sunk deep in their sockets, her cheeks hollow, her skin tinged with yellow. That would be her liver, shutting down. Her eyes, though, sharpened into focus on Ben, and her skeletal arm lifted.

It can’t have been easy, but he did it. He walked to that chair, sat down, took her hand, and said, “Hi, Mom.” His voice broke on the word, and my throat tightened.

“Benji.” Her voice was a thread. “Baby. You came.”

Ben’s face worked, and then it crumpled. Her other hand came up to hold him, and she said, “It’s OK. It’s OK.”

The sight of his curly head on his mother’s breast, his shoulders shaking. Her hand in his hair, the way she’d have held him and comforted him all his life. When she’d been the mom. When she’d been in charge.

My father’s voice in my head. “Promise me. Promise.” Too much to bear, but there was no choice.

Solange looked at me, then, though she didn’t let go of Ben. She held Ben like he was her lifeline, because he was. He was what she’d been waiting for.

“Seb,” she said, the voice even more thready now, thin lines of tears down her cheeks. “Thanks.”

I put my hand on her shoulder, and it was like touching abird’s wing. “I was always coming,” I said helplessly. “I was always going to be here for you.”

She said, “I’ve been … watching you. On … TV.” A pause for breath, then, “You’re … strong. I’m glad.”

Ben had sat up, but he was still holding his mother’s hand. I said, “I’ll be strong for both of us. And for Ben. I promise.”

The tears were still snaking down in those two thin lines, and I grabbed a tissue from the box and mopped them up, gently as I could do it. She whispered, “I’m sorry.”

I said, “You have nothing to be sorry for. This is what we can do for each other. You can give me Ben, and I can raise him. You can count on me.”

“I didn’t … know,” she said. “We wasted all our … time.”

“No,” I said. “We know now.”

She closed her eyes like she was too tired to go on, and I said, “I love you.”

She didn’t answer, but her lips formed the words.Love you.We’d never said them to each other before.

I said, “It’s OK to go now. It’s OK. You don’t have to fight anymore.” The tenderness filling my entire chest, so strong it hurt.

Ben said, “I don’t want you to die, Mom. Can you not die?” Crying, now. Looking so young. Looking so scared.

She didn’t answer, because she’d fallen asleep.

Or something.

Alix

I’d known it would be hard. It was harder than that.

Ben’s back, walking down that hall, and Sebastian’s, following him. I watched them go, nodded to the woman who came past them, took off my coat and work boots, and heldLexi back when she would have followed Ben. She sat down, looked at the place where her boy had disappeared, and whined, and I put my hand on her head, said, “I know, girl,” and took her into the kitchen.

“Hi,” I told the woman. Evelyn, she’d said. “I’m Alix. How is she?” Not dead, or I’d know. The house had that hushed expectancy about it. Everything too neat, too quiet, too bare.

Too sad.