“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “I just… Ben kept asking me where she was, and I didn’t want him to feel like he wasn’t good enough for her to stay, or that something was wrong with him to make her leave. He was more than good enough. So I made it thatshe couldn’t have come back for us. That she wanted to, but she couldn’t.”
My eyes are burning. I look up to the clear sky. No rain today, only a pale winter sun. “Both of you were good enough, Jared.”
“Maybe.” He doesn’t sound like he believes it.
“What happened when you got older?” He’s five years older than Ben. “You’re twenty-eight?”
“I worked with a social worker to petition for custody when I turned eighteen. It took a while. I had to get an apartment, a job, prove that it was in his best interest to keep us together. We were separated for around ten months. But it worked out.”
I try to understand. Try to imagine a teenage version of Jared working to give his brother a home. “And it never came up? Your mom?”
He shakes his head. “Not from me. And we talked about her, especially after his diagnosis. Ben would have said if he’d found out from someone else.”
I sit back in my seat, trying to digest the information. “He wouldn’t blame you for trying to spare him from that. You were kids.”
Jared was a kid. A kid who tried to take responsibility for his little brother.
Don’t cry.
“It wasn’t right.” Jared’s jaw is tight. “It took me a long time to realize. He deserved to know, but I never told him. And I didn’t want to put it on him at the end. It would have been one more unresolved burden for him, and one less for me.”
We sit silently for a while as I digest.
Holding a piece of Ben’s life that he never got to have.
“Did you open your letter?” His question jars me out of my thoughts.
Breathing in, I shake my head. “It’s the last words of his that I’ll ever hear for the first time. I’m not ready for that yet.”
“Yeah,” Jared says quietly. “I feel the same way. There were a lot of conversations we didn’t get to have.”
Something tugs. Aknowing. “You didn’t leave him, did you?”
Because I’m slowly seeing all the little parts that make up Jared Bennett. And with that, I realize that there’s no way in hell that this man would have left Ben to face his illness alone.
He studies his empty coffee cup. “Not the way you think. He refused to have any more treatment. There were things we could have tried – medical trials. Non-traditional routes. We had options. But he wouldn’t do any of it. Said he’d had enough of being the dying one, and he wanted to live before he ran out of time.”
He looks at me, then. “I was so damn angry with him. It felt like giving up. There was a lot of yelling, and I… I left him. Just for the night. I needed to think. I hadn’t slept for days, trying to come up with choices when he didn’t even want any. And when I came back, he’d gone. Left a note, so the cops wouldn’t help me find him. And I tried. That was six months before he died.”
And three months before he met me. “I’m so sorry, Jared.”
Ben left him. Exactly like their mom did.
His eyes look damp. “I think he was exactly where he wanted to be, at the end. There’s a lot of comfort in that. And I got to see him again. I was petrified that I’d get the call one day, and he’d already be gone.”
He smiles. A wobbly smile. “There was never going to be enough time. But I got more than many. I got to say goodbye. It’s enough.”
It has to be.
He blows out a breath. “This is a tough conversation to have on a hangover, Emilia.”
I study his profile. “Then let’s talk about something else.”
A different topic enters my mind as he walks away to grab us another coffee. His hands shake as he hands me mine.
Today isn’t the day to ask him about how much he drinks. Even if it’s a lot. Every day, at the bar.
Besides, it’s none of my business.
