“No!” I shouted back again. Some of the patrons and staff looked disappointed by my reply. Clearly they wanted more drama to play out.
“Okay, let me explain it to Bruce then and let him tell you what he thinks.”
I looked to Bruce and he shrugged.
“You can explain it to me,” JJ said, stepping up again, claws out. Our audience grew extra excited and a few “ooohhhs” rose up from them.
Ben looked momentarily panicked, but collected himself, turned to JJ and managed a confident, “Okay.”
JJ pranced out the door indignantly and the two of them took up positions on the pavement outside. Everyone in the restaurant looked out the window. Some even got up for a closer look. Bruce came up behind me and slipped his arm around my shoulder. We both watched Ben as he desperately tried to explain his side of the story. JJ didn’t look impressed. He tutted and scoffed and switched his hand from hip to hip a few times . . . but then something changed. His face started to relax, so did his posture. He started looking at Ben with a strange look and by the end of it, JJ was hugging Ben and wiping tears from his eyes. Ben too looked like he had a tear—WTF?
Bruce and I exchanged looks.
JJ walked away from Ben and came back inside looking like he’d just watchedSteel Magnolias. The crowd looked like a bunch of hungry lions at feeding time now. “It’s good. It’s really, really good,” he said, wiping a tear away.
“What is?”
“His reason. It’s a really good one.”
I looked out the window; Ben was sitting on the cold, hard pavement holding his head in his hands. It was freezing outside and he looked like a sad, sorry, pathetic mess. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to illicit sympathy by pulling the depressed-pavement-sitter act on me.
“Go and talk to him,” JJ said, taking me by the arm and shoving me out the door. I clearly had no choice in the matter. JJ closed the door behind me and locked it when he saw me coming for it. It was freezing outside and I shivered. Ben stood up and looked at me. His eyes looked a little red, as if he’d been crying.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about this—My dad always cried when he was sorry. Standard practice at our house really.
“I’ll never gamble again. I’m sorry.”(cry, cry, cry)“I’ll never steal again. I’m so sorry.”(cry, cry)
Ben started walking towards me slowly. I rubbed my arms as the icy wind blew through me. Ben took his jacket off, and without saying a word, draped it around my shoulders. He did it so quickly I didn’t have time to protest, even though the last thing I wanted was an item of clothing that smelled like him anywhere near my body.
We stood in silence for a while before he spoke. “Thanks for agreeing to listen to me.”
“Whatever,” I said belligerently.
There was another silence as Ben looked like he was readying himself. He took a deep breath and began.
“Mei is my ex-wife,” he finally said.
“Ex-wife?!” This wasn’t starting out well at all. I didn’t know what shocked me more, the fact that he had an ex-wife, or the fact that he was in his early twenties with an ex-wife.
“We’ve been divorced for four years already. Truth is, we should never have gotten married in the first place.”
“So why did you?”
“She was my girlfriend in high school and she fell pregnant when she was eighteen. It was an accident and I thought marrying her was the right thing to do.” Ben looked at me. “It wasn’t. We weren’t compatible, and getting married just made things worse.” He paused and ran his hands through his hair again. “We fought constantly, we even fought on our honeymoon. We knew nothing about being married and becoming parents and I was young and dumb, and I was a shitty husband. I . . . I . . .” He paused again and took a deep breath before dropping the bomb, “I wasn’t ready to settle down and didn’t really take my duties as a husband seriously . . . and I, cheated.”
“Really. You’re not doing a very good job of redeeming yourself right now,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.
“I know. Not my finest moment.”
“Finest moment? Well, that’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one!” I was appalled.
“Okay. It was disgusting. It was wrong, I was stupid. I was twenty years old and I was a dick, bastard . . . . is that better?”
I didn’t respond. What was one meant to say to that anyway?
“But the things is, I was always a good dad.A great dad.I loved Li from the second I found out Mei was pregnant. I was the one who had to convince Mei to keep her, and I think that was part of the problem. She resented me for that, because she wasn’t ready to be a mother at eighteen. Who is, I guess?”
“Maybe she resented you because you were a lying cheat,” I snapped back and he looked up at me. He looked genuinely hurt. He started pacing up and down the pavement now, looking agitated.
