Black Cake(4)

“We just woke up one morning and realized we’re not going to live forever,” her mother said, touching the sofa. “It’s time we enjoyed it.” Benny smiled and petted her end of the seat like a stuffed toy. The sofa was still an ugly thing to look at, its brassy fibers glinting in the light, but just the feel of it under Benny’s fingers helped to calm her nerves as her father began to raise his voice.

When she was little, Ma and Dad used to tell her that she could be anything she wanted to be. But as she grew into a young woman, they began to say things like We made sacrifices so that you could have the best. Meaning, the best was what they envisioned for Benny, not what she wanted for herself. Meaning, the best was something that, apparently, Benny was not. Letting go of a scholarship at a prestigious university was not. Taking cooking and art classes instead was not. Working precarious jobs with the hope of opening a café was not. And Benny’s love life? That, most certainly, was not.

Benny walks over to the sofa now and sits down next to her father’s empty chair, placing a hand on the armrest. She leans in and sniffs at the tweedy upholstery, searching for a hint of the hair oil that her father used to use, that green, old-style stuff that could fuel a pickup truck. Benny would give anything now to have her parents here, sitting in their favorite chairs, even if it meant they might still have trouble understanding her.

Benny finds herself smiling, now, thinking of a different time in this room. Her mother, perching her rear on the arm of this sofa, watching MTV with teenaged Benny and her friends while Benny kept hoping Ma would remember she had grown-up things to do and scoot. Ma had always seemed different from the mothers of other kids. Super athletic, a bit of a math wiz, and yes, a fan of music videos. The whole music thing was something that Benny, in her thirteenth year, had found somewhat embarrassing. It seemed Ma was always doing things her way. Except when it came to Benny’s dad.

Benny’s phone is pinging. It’s Steve. He’s left a voice message. He’s heard the news. So sorry, he says, though he never knew her ma. He’s thinking, maybe they should get together, when Benny gets back to the East Coast. Steve’s voice is low and soft, and Benny feels the old stirring of the skin along her shins, just as she did the last time he called.

Benny and Steve. They’ve gone back and forth like this for years, now. Every time, Benny promises herself it’ll be the last. She never calls him back. But each time, there has come a moment when she’s finally answered Steve’s phone calls, when Steve has made her laugh, when she’s agreed to meet him.

Steve’s laughter, Steve’s voice, Steve’s touch. Years ago, these things had helped to pull Benny out of the muck of her breakup with Joanie. She had followed Joanie all the way to New York from Arizona, though later she was forced to admit that Joanie had never given her a reason to think that they would get back together. So there Benny was, a few months later, staring down at her boots in the music section of a bookstore in Midtown, when Steve came up to her.

Steve wiggled his fingers in front of Benny’s face and she looked up to see this gorgeous block of a man with a broad smile, pointing to his headphones, eyebrows raised, then pointing to the console where she was plugged in. Benny smiled and nodded. Steve plugged his headphones into the jack near hers and, at the sound of the music, he nodded his head and laughed silently.

By the time they stepped out into the slushy streets together, Benny had begun to feel that maybe she was still made of all of those things that Joanie once saw in her and that maybe someone else could see them, too. It would be a while before Benny would realize that Steve, her music-loving, yacht-sailing new lover, could make her feel as threatened as he could make her feel desired.





Byron





There are things to do, things to discuss, Byron knows this, but he doesn’t feel like dealing with his sister right now. The funeral arrangements are set. Byron took care of them while waiting for Benny to fly out to California, and everything else can wait. Byron sits out on the deck at his place, scarf up to his chin, watching the waves. He will stay here as long as he can before going back to his mother’s house.

After all those times he’s felt Benny’s absence, she’s finally back, but instead of relief, what he feels most is resentment. If things had gone differently between them, Benny would be sitting with him right now. She’d probably be drawing something in one of those sketch pads of hers. He still has that goofy surfing sketch she did of him, wiping out big-time, legs every which way. But Byron has been bitter for so long that it even kept him from calling Benny about their mother’s illness until it was too late. He’d intended to call her before this happened, he really had, he knew they were running out of time. He just didn’t realize how quickly.

Last Friday, Byron walked into the house and sensed right away, before he reached the other side of the kitchen, that his mother was gone. He found her just beyond the kitchen, on the hallway floor. It could happen that way, the doctor said later, the kind of sudden episode that might claim someone’s life unexpectedly. It could happen to a person when their body was struggling against something fierce. Ma had still been able to get up on her own most days, wash her face, pour herself a glass of water, though with trembling hands, turn on some music or the television, until the effort of it sent her straight back to the sofa.

As Byron took his mother’s head and shoulders in his arms and held her cool face against his chest, he thought of Benny, wondered how he would tell her, felt a new grief over the loss that Benny, too, would soon feel. He couldn’t get the words out, at first.