“He might be doing it to get a rise out of you. Renee and I had this cat once that could open our laundry room door because it was one of those sliding ones. He’d get his little paw right under the joint where the hinge was and pull it open. Didn’t ever go in there, because the machines scared him, just popped it open and walked away. He could be dead asleep, and if he heard Renee close it afterward, he’d jump up, and as soon as she was out of sight, the little shit would open it right back up again.”
“A battle of wills with a cat,” I said, surprised into laughing.
“One that we lost every time,” Jack answered, grinning good-naturedly back at me. “It’s good to see you laugh again. How you handling things?”
“Better now. Taking action is helping. I’ve been seeing a behavioral therapist, scheduling more tests, like this one in D.C., helping my parents with the foundation, speaking with my doctors about other treatments. It seems…more manageable now, if that makes sense.”
“It does,” he said, nodding.
Of course he understood, what with his history with Renee. I should have talked to him about all of this sooner.
Together, he and I reintroduced the dogs. It was like they’d never been apart. Fred and Sam immediately rushed the puppies and gave them a thorough sniff down, all four of them soon yipping and barking in greeting. Jack was going to have a rowdy house the next few days, but from the grin on his face, he looked forward to it.
Once they’d said hello, the older dogs turned their attention to me. I dropped to a knee and let them leap all over me. Fred jammed his head into my hands when I wasn’t fast enough to pet him.
“I missed you two,” I told them. “You better have been taking care of your mom.” The last I added under my breath, so Jack wouldn’t hear.
I stood a few minutes later, feeling overwhelmed. Jack and I said goodbye, and I thanked him again for watching the puppies before climbing into the Jeep and heading back down to my place.
“How’s Jack?” Mom asked when I walked in.
“Good. Fred and Sam were there.”
Her face brightened. “Ella too?”
I shook my head, and her expression fell. “She’s in Boston, visiting her sister. He said she’ll be back Friday.”
Mom gave me a pointed look. “Same day as you.”
“Same day as me,” I said, nodding.
My parents were flying down to D.C. with me, but we planned to part ways afterward. They needed to get home. Back to their lives. We’d been arguing about that a lot over the past few days. They wanted me to put this place up for sale and move back with them. I’d been dragging my feet about making the decision. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that. A return home felt like a return to the spotlight. Plus, a lot of the specialists that had agreed to treat me were out here on the east coast. It was much faster to fly to New York from Maine than it was from Hawaii.
And I had unfinished business here. I couldn’t bring myself to leave until things were settled with Ella. One way or another.
“Are you going to talk to her?” Mom asked.
I sighed. “I want to. But I don’t know if she’s ready.”
Mom frowned. “Ella is an empath, Ben. She’ll give you space even if she doesn’t want to, because she won’t want to pressure you into something you’re not ready for. If the opportunity presents itself, you need to be prepared to take the first step toward bridging this gap between you two.”
“I will.” I sighed and scrubbed a hand over my face. “We have so much shit to wade through though.”
Mom nodded. We’d talked about this a lot as a family. She and Dad had sat in on several of my therapy sessions. “I think Brian was right when he said that the first thing you two need to do is promise to be open going forward,” she said. “You need to talk to her about Zach and your diagnosis. She needs to talk to you about her own struggles.”
“I still don’t know why she didn’t open up to me about them. Especially since we’d talked so much about other hard topics. She was fine to tell me about her adoption story, but not her own lows during winter?”
Mom just looked at me. “Really? You don’t get it? You didn’t think that maybe it was for the same reason you never said anything about Zach? Or, like she said, because you weren’t the only one putting unseen pressure on her to be a point of brightness and positivity in your life?”
I held up my hands. “Okay. I hear you.”
“You can’t change the past, Benny,” she said. “You can only try to do better going forward.”
Chapter 27: Ella
Megan dropped her fork onto her plate with a loud clatter. Several people from nearby tables turned at the sound.
“You’re being a fucking coward,” she said.
