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Benny Whitaker could only hear the rushing water underneath from where he stood; his teary eyes would not adjust to the dark abyss below him. There were no cars on the bridge at that hour, and it wouldn’t even matter if there were anyway because only drunks and addicts were running around in the crack of night – the shadows forgotten by conventional eyes.
It was just one step forward.
Only moments earlier, a police car slowed by him, bellowing, “Do it, bitch!”
The exhaustion overwhelming his mind was a balm to his reality. He felt his body sway with the changing winds whipping over the bay, and he continued leaning forward.
Benny wanted to claw at his own chest to rip out the throbbing and shattering weight.
He wanted to relapse to something primal, something that screamed back at the void.
The cell phone was slick in his shivering hand; a blast of wind almost sent it below. The bright screen lit his pained face, and he forcefully tried to unlock the phone, but he had difficulty with the four-digit code.
He didn’t want his body missing.
0-3-2-2.
0-3-2-2.
The phone screen unlocked, revealing the familiar dark blue Facebook icon and the social media’s scrolling wall. Before he could shut the app to dial 9-1-1, something caught his burning eyes – something familiar, pausing his trembling finger hovering over the exit button.
Grace Wilcox’s father was dead – the obituary was posted, with eighty-five Care clicks, eighty-three Sad clicks, and one, seemingly accidental, Love click. Grace wrote earlier at 8:53pm, “It’s with great sadness and a heavy heart that my family announces the passing of my father, Franklin Wilcox – a father, husband, brother, and friend. A celebration of his life will take place at Cedar Tree Funeral Home. In lieu of flower, please donate to the Hospice Foundation. Find the details attached.”
The carefully chosen photo for his obituary showed an old man propped-up in a hospital bed, surrounded by smiling family, all identical in red and white Where’s Waldo costumes. Some faces Ben recognized, but most he did not. Grace was by her dad’s side, holding his hand in one and a blue balloon that had “Happy Father’s Day!” written across it in black sharpie in the other.
Despite the round black glasses and stocking cap, Grace looked the exact same as the last time he saw her – twenty-two-years ago – at a bar in the city, but Ben didn’t say anything. He was visiting friends at Boston College and suddenly the crowd parted; there she was, sitting in a booth with a crowd of people, laughing, drinking, and singing. He fought his longing to reach for her, so he left, disappearing in the mob outside. He later told his friend that he knew she was happy and didn’t want to disturb that.
Thirty-four hours after instinctively stepping down from that bridge rail, and driving all night, Ben’s run-down Honda Odyssey pulled up in front of the funeral home an hour before the service. After a quick nap and a shower at nearby highway motel, he changed into the only black suit he owned, worn only once. The funeral home’s marquee sign had “Franklin Wilcox – 1:00pm” with white letters as if he were the closing act. The building was old brick, newly painted white and Ben’s fresh shave left his face feeling raw, exposed.
He pulled at his black tie, loosening its defiant grip, and sat at a high-top stool that faced the street inside of the warm Dunkin’ Donuts, sipping on the steaming black liquid in the small white cup. The hot liquid soothed him; the round table was sticky. Customers came and went, as usual – most were regulars. Stoned teenagers came in and dumped change out on the counter, asking “How many munchkins came we buy with this?” hiding their giggles poorly.
Ben silently chuckling, thinking about his own misspent youth.
Through the dirty glass, the line of black, sorrowful cars glided down the downtown street, pulling around to the back.
The great room smelled like fresh flowers were doing their very best to cover up morbid tastes and the glossy dark casket loomed from the front of the space like an ignored focal point. It reminded the gathering of their own mortality, so after a quick glance, attention turned elsewhere. The sea of grievers stood aimlessly, some sat in folding chairs arranged in orderly lines. He didn’t recognize anyone. Wafts of perfume from the elderly smacked his sense of smell; he almost gagged. Black speakers tucked behind vases spread soft melodies from a once-played organ.
Ben could hear the forced mingling:
Good to see you again followed by Good to be seen.
He was so young and He lit up every room he walked into.
Passive How are you doing’s were strictly asked along with sympathetic head tilts. When groups dispersed, arms were lightly squeezed, shoulders were patted.
God needed another angel.
Benny Whitaker took a seat in the back row. Each seat cushion had a Celebration of Life brochure featuring out-of-focus photos of the deceased through the years, almost like a band’s Best of… album that comes right before the split.
The lighthearted symphony suddenly ceased, and then a hush absorbed the room.
Eyes followed the deteriorating widow as she entered from the side, holding the hands of her daughters, Grace and Gabby, her sons, Rick and Will followed. The family acknowledged the guests, reaching to squeeze some hands or lightly kiss cheeks. Dan remained seated. The Wilcoxs’ were now adult versions of his memories, and small children in little suits and dresses followed in the adults’ footsteps, unsure of how to stand or act, awkwardly shifting in their conservative outfits.
Ben watched Grace as she tended to the two children sitting with her, a boy and a girl, while also making sure to give time to her mom. Her mom looked much older than the last time her saw her, drained and failing. The kids looked just like Grace, all showing the chunky Wilcox cheeks and auburn hair. The slight freckles under the wind-chafed complexion. He recognized them, and then Grace’s husband, from Facebook, but now they were right there in front of him, and Ben was the stranger.
The Wilcox family sat in the front row together; the priest took his position at the podium, and then, Benny Whitaker realized that he had no clue why he was there.
The priest’s words faded as Ben rubbed his sweating palms on his suit pants. He considered making a quiet exit but soon Gabby leaned into Grace’s ear, whispering, and then Grace glanced around the room, meeting Ben’s eyes, before going back to rocking a child on her lap. His face flushed warm, and he thought of the first time their eyes met back in middle school. The Wilcox and Whitaker lockers shared a wall, so on the first day of school, the two nervous twelve-year-olds agreed to secretly look out for one other, and despite the gender difference and inevitable hormonal inebriation, they did just that.
After the service, Ben parked in the line with the other cars on the gravel road that ran through the middle of the cemetery, but remained in this car, trying to suppress the panic growing in his chest. He could hear the nearby sobbing. Turning on the radio, the middle of “I Got a Name” by Jim Croce bellowed, and he cranked his seat back a little. He changed the radio station where he found the end of Nirvana’s cover of “About a Girl.”
A hundred feet or so away, the mourners were gathered around the hole in the earth.
What the fuck are you doing? He turned the rearview mirror away from his eyeline, refusing to see himself there. What the fuck are you doing?
The Odyssey’s passenger door suddenly and gently opened; Grace fell into his car. Her green eyes, framed by running black mascara, lit the hollow space, and he was speechless at her sudden presence.
“Hi,” she sputtered out. She was out of breath and slightly bewildered, her vibrating eyes staring directly at Ben. “You’re here,” she said, almost to herself.
“I’m – here,” he said, barely. “Hi.”
“Hi.”
A pause consumed them as they adjusted to being in each other’s orbit – a shift in energy, the instant directly before two magnets snapped together.
“Okay, well – drive,” she said, buckling the seatbelt. “Head to the quarries.”
Ben was frozen. “I – I – I’m so sorry – your dad,” he managed to say, tilting his head sympathetically.
She nodded, accepting the automatic courtesy. “Go. I don’t have long.”
The wheels kicked gravel back as it started to break down the path, causing a few mourning heads to turn. The pair turned right on to Hobart in silence and continued that way until they merged onto the highway by the dairy farm.
“It’s so great to see you,” he said, gripping the wheel. “You look the same.”
“You too,” she replied, wiping a finger across her cheek. “You’re the last person I thought I’d see today. I didn’t – I didn’t expect -”
Her phone ranged in her black clutch, so she pushed it off her lap onto the floorboard.
“Was that an escape?” he asked. “You tell anyone?”
After a quiet pause, she said “No – it was over. I told my mom I’d be by in an hour. William took the kids home. It’s – it’s been a bad week and I had to get out of there.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead. “I don’t feel like hearing how “nice of a service” it was. And Gabby’s kids need a nap so they’re all heading home. I need air.”
They pulled off an exit away, heading straight into the heart of Gloucester. The quarries were a local secret, one that was passed down from one high school generation to the next, and the only access were a series of trails that spiderwebbed through dense forest. Cops left well enough alone back in their day, but Ben was unsure of the protocol now.
Ben and Grace parked at a dead-end – a metal guardrail stood feet before them with a yellow reflective sign that read “Road Ends.” Grace didn’t move when the engine ceased, so he remained still, glancing to the familiar figure in the corner of his eye. The air inside the car was static.
“Did we used to park in a lot around here somewhere? This place is diff -”
“Dad has ALS for a few years now.” She stared ahead. “Did you know that?”
“No,” Ben admitted. “I just saw your post on Facebook, so – I just came.”
“It’s a relief, you know? I hate saying it, but he was suffering for so long, just being buried in his own body, just fucking drowning into himself. I mourned him already. Today was just about burying a body. Watching it happen – it’s just not normal. And I feel bad that I feel relieved, but I am. He was not himself anymore, lashing out and just deteriorating. And he didn’t even want the kids around him anymore. How do you explain that granddad is slowly dying to a bunch of children?”
“You don’t,” Ben confessed.
“So – it was his choice. Morphine. He wanted this and we all agreed, as a family.”
Family.
The word made Ben’s heart plunge. The well-known fatigue returned, and he struggled to get through his next breath without Grace noticing. His hand shook with apprehension. He tightened a fist and released it, wanting to run from their suffocating enclosure.
Breathe in, breathe out.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t put this all on you. I just saw you and – you know.”
He nodded his head, understanding, but she didn’t clock it.
“How are you doing?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. She placed a calm hand on his shoulder. Ben didn’t reply, staring directly at the steering wheel. “You don’t want to hear this. I’m sorry that I didn’t reach out to you, before – the kids, and life. I can’t imagine – I’m so sorry.” The reflective barrier caught his attention. There was graffiti on the stone slabs behind it: an amateur attempt at a Batman logo, which looked more like a wounded duck. Grace continued: “My husband and I were separating when I heard – it’s no excuse, but I think that reaching out to an ex during a separation wouldn’t have helped, especially with kids involved. It’s tough, but I heard and did want to reach out, but…” She was defeated.
“Jess was pregnant,” Ben muttered, a flippant shrug, the words falling from him – but he finally verbalized it. “We were six months; it was a girl. We didn’t want to know the sex and we kept reminding the nurses, and one day a nurse tells me, “You don’t have to keep reminding us every time you visit – it’s on a Post-It on your file so we know” and the next visit, I held back. Jess gave me the eyes, like Don’t do it, so I didn’t – and the first thing the nurse said when the monitor came on was, “Well, it’s still a girl.” It was good though, because like, we still had the shock since we weren’t prepared to know. We were going to name her Scout – and then Covid hit – and it was quick.”
Grace sat, listening.
“Widower at forty wasn’t – I wasn’t even allowed to see – at the end.” Ben felt the choking pain grow in his throat. His voice trembled. “…to see…”
“I’m so sorry, Ben – I don’t have the words.” She squeezed his arm. “Are you talking with anyone?”
“Yeah…” he found her green eyes “you.”
Grace understood; she always understood.
Ben grew up in the foster care home on the river. There was no foster mom in the home, just the foster dad, Albert, a quiet and obese fisherman. Ben worked on the small trawler when he wasn’t in school, pulling in traps, stacking crates in the hold, scraping barnacles, and running the winch line. Grace remembered how Ben would come to school reeking of fish and bleach. No one really judged it; he was the only one in sixth grade with a real job and income.
“She knew you loved her. You were always good at expressing that.”
He lowered his gaze, and suddenly remembered their 8th grade semi-formal, when he asked the DJ to dedicate a Boyz II Men song to her. He pulled a hidden bouquet of roses from the bleachers. The entire assembly ooohhh’d and awwww’d as he approached her.
“Sometimes I felt like it was always for me, my ego. I always tried to be the best boyfriend, so if the women had any complaints, it was them and they were crazy.” He chuckled. “Can you be selfless if it’s really for selfish reasons?”
“It’s the actions that define character, I think, so yes.”
A tear fell from his cheek; she caught it with a tissue.
“It’s crazy that you’re here,” he admitted. “It’s – been bad. I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t want to lay this on you, today of all days.” He looked away from her, ashamed of his actions stemming from his grief – the drugs, reckless nights, and deterioration. How he should be, tried to be, gone. “I – I guess I’m not meant to have that life – to have a family. It’s not in the cards for me. It’s the only thing I’ve wanted. To be a dad. Jess and I were together for fifteen years. We waited, we wanted to be secure in our careers first.”
She accepted his illogical admission without argument, but her silence triggered a memory.
“I don’t mean anything about us,” Ben added, thoughtlessly. “I’m sorry. I’m just talking – I didn’t mean us.”
“It’s fine, Benny. It was a long time ago.”
He exhaled, numb – and he remembered. “Shit.” He rubbed his stubbly chin. “We’d have a twenty-five-year-old right now. Can you imagine that? Another life.”
She nodded. “My dad was so mad – I blamed him after we lost it – I punished him, even though it had nothing to do with him. For months, just because he didn’t want us to be parents so young. We never really talked about it after. Things just went back to normal.”
“He was right. We were kids – there’s this veil of ignorance that lifts sometime in our late twenties. Things were so intense back then, like life or death.”
“It just wasn’t meant to be for us then,” she said, reflexively placing a hand on her stomach. “And you said it, we were just kids. And we didn’t need to have a baby to be family, you know – we were always okay, Ben.”
He agreed, adding, “…but we’d still be in each other’s lives, one way or another.”
She let the statement fall without acknowledgment.
“You know – yeah, I’m a pharmacist now, over at Lahey. No debt, too. I’m up at five every morning so I can get some time to myself. I walk with other ladies in the neighborhood after I drop the kids off. I like country music now, and I spent a summer in Vienna for this summer-abroad thing – and I thought of you most of the time there. You’d love it. The coffee shops and book shops. I was engaged once before William, but it didn’t work out, thank Christ. And I – uh – haven’t smoked or had a drink in ten years, not for any real reason. I just get headaches after a glass. And I also feel like I’m turning into my mother.”
Ben smiled; he was impressed.
“Well – I spent a few years on the water, and then I went to school for English, but ended up in stocks after I graduated and paid off my student loans quickly. I still don’t like county music. I’ve only ever been on the East Coast, from Maine to Florida, Maine to Florida, back-and-forth.” His finger glided through the air. “I followed Phish around one summer. And I think I’ve lost friends as I’ve gotten older, which is strange. I used to be wicked social, but plans get pushed back, more time between – no one’s fault, of course. I drink, more than I should. I wish I could show you how great I turned out, but I can’t – I got to be honest – it’s been hard. And I’m up early too – but lately, it’s the mornings that are the worst. It all comes crashing back.”
Grace’s head turned to Ben. She saw the new winkles under his eyes, his distress, his stressed grip on the lifeless steering wheel, and she remembered the night that she knew it was over. The pregnancy changed their future plans quickly, and then the miscarriage changed them again. Grace’s parents sat them down, told them both that they loved them, and then recommended that they took some time apart “to find themselves” after Grace was accepted to Boston College. They knew that Ben was offered a spot on a commercial trawler out of Gloucester, so one night, the summer after graduation, Grace and Ben met at the quarries, made love, and then promised that they’d see each other when he was back.
“It won’t be like this forever, Ben,” she said. “Look at us. We’re in our forties – soon another decade will fly by, and we’ll miss this time now. I mean, we used to sneak into Fitzy’s pool, raid her mini fridge in the pool house, and now we’re worried about mortgages and health insurance. It goes by so slow and then sudden. Just a day at a time.”
“I miss those bonfire nights, on the river. It was all in front of us then, now it’s all falling behind us,” he said. “We’re who we are now.”
“People warn you but growing up is -”
Her phone buzzed again.
She looked at the flashing on the screen and paused before lifting a finger to him. “Hold on,” she said. “I’m sorry.” Grace opened the door and stepped out. Ben watched, trying to make out her conversation through the glass. She was quickly upset, pacing around the front of the faded hood of his minivan. Her eyes and free hand clenched in frustration and then switched to sudden resolve. “You can figure it out,” she said, before lowering the phone from her ear. She leaned back on the hood, so Ben got out and joined her.
“You okay?” he asked. The wind flew through the scattered pines, carrying the familiar salt air from the nearby Atlantic.
“William – he can’t figure anything out on his own. He wanted to know what clothes he should change the kids into.” She scoffed, continuing to pace. “I remember when, like the first time I went out with friends after Brady was born, he called the fucking restaurant I was at to ask what he should feed the baby for dinner. I set out a Gerber meal, for the record. I even circled the instructions on the back, just thirty-seconds in the microwave. I just – I just grew when I became a parent and he just stayed the exact same – it was all about him, even when we were dating, like he’s just another fucking child. He lives his life, and nothing has changed – golf, tennis, work, cigars – and then he’d get resentful at me for taking care of the kids and not him. Motherfucker really complained that a warm meal wasn’t on the table for him when I went back to my full-time job too.”
Ben remained by her side, unable to offer much to her, so he listened to her justified complaints and frustrations about her marriage. What a fucking idiot this guy is, Ben thought, but two things that Albert taught him about women: don’t date a woman that uses ultimatums and don’t talk shit about another man because it makes you look weak.
“What are your kids like,” Ben asked, hiding his shaky hands in his pockets.
Her annoyance abruptly lightened from the mention of her kids, and she leaned back on the hood of the car with him.
“Brady’s four and is a typical boy. Gets into everything – very mischievous, a big risktaker, so I’m always busy chasing him. I caught him walking across the top of the monkey bars in our backyard the other day, gave me a heart attack. He loves cars – knows all the makes and models, for some weird reason. Neither William or I care about cars but Brady’s obsessed, but he’s very sweet and loves his sister. And Anna is seven now – she has mild autism and ADHD so that’s been a struggle, but she doesn’t need any accommodations, which I’m not sure is a good or bad thing. I do homework with her every night. And she also finds every excuse to wake us every single night – just has to use the master bathroom or to give me a hug or wants to check the bedroom door to see if it’s locked or not. She takes being a big sister very seriously – and is in a Frozen stage right now which is annoying as fuck, but they’re really good kids.”
“You’re a good mom,” he admitted, truthfully. “I knew you’d be good at it. I remember when your mom would make us hot chocolate after we went sledding. And the fireplace would be going, and she’d brush your hair. And she’d help us with our homework.”
“Well – no matter what people say, you can’t prepare for it being a parent. Once they’re born, it’s like your life gets yanked in a riptide and then it’s all about the kids.”
“I guess there’s two sides to these things,” he replied, looking down.
Familiar thumping of music grew nearby, and behind them, in the distance, a black Honda Civic came to rest on the same road, and four teenagers, two boys and two girls, emerged holding towels and a cooler. The four strangers glanced at the couple at the dead end, dressed in a suit and dress, and openly laughed at the sight, disappearing into one of the trails.
“Fuckin’ kids,” Ben said.
Grace gripped his forearm tightly. “We should go – to the quarry.”
Ben watched a smile grow on Grace’s face.
“For real?” he asked.
“Yeah, fuck it,” she declared. “We’re here. We’re not dead – we’re just forty-ish.”
“I don’t have towels.”
“I don’t care,” she answered. “We never cared before.”
The pair followed the uninhibited laughter of the teenagers echoing through the trails. Grace’s high heels sunk in the pressed sandy path; Ben steadied her, his own dress shoes shifting. When the massive, man-made gap in the earth appeared before them, the teenagers were already climbing a path to a perch on the north side, over by the forty-foot ledge. The golden walls of the quarry were flat like a mirror, as if someone smoothed them with sandpaper across a century, and small openings from the tree line that groups would informally claim were scattered around the massive ring.
The water below them glistened chaotically, small lapping kissed the sides.
“Didn’t seem this high back in high school,” Ben said, peering out.
Grace followed behind him, and then paused to unstrap her heels by leaning on a tree.
“Why didn’t we see each other?” she asked, looking up. “After we broke up. We didn’t talk. I always wondered, and time just passed.” They started moving again. “And I was around.”
He thought, looking down at his pace. “I didn’t want to fuck up your life,” he admitted, turning. “You told me once, to just let it be, and things would work the way it’s supposed to, so I just stopped trying to control everything.”
And then Ben confessed about seeing her in the city, that night so long ago.
She gripped his arm from behind, so he’d stop. “You’re fuckin’ kidding me? What year?”
“I don’t know. Like, 2004 or something. We’d been attached at the hip since middle school. Of course I wanted to hug you, but you were suddenly this adult, living in the city. You had a new life, and I thought you deserved that chance. You seemed so happy.” He chuckled at the memory. “Don’t be mad.”
“You’re not a curse, Ben. How we are, or were, isn’t for you to decide. We’re family.”
He nodded his head, accepting the declaration.
“Did Jess know about me?” she asked. “Did you ever tell her -”
“Yes,” he said. “She knew about you. Does William know about me?”
“Yes.”
They continued to make their way to a nearby landing, walking the sandy stone path that hugged the edge, dodging branches and uneven earth.
“Here,” she said, gripping his hand. “This is good.” The water was still, a giant log floated in the center of the lake – some turtles sunbathing on it. More graffiti decorating the rocks surrounded them and sudden music echoed from the other visitor’s side. There was life and laughter still happening.
“You never wanted to do this before. You always stayed up here with the other girlfriends, making us all hemp necklaces and playing bongos.”
She laughed at the memory. “I didn’t know who I was yet. I don’t think any of us did; we were just trying to impress our boyfriends by liking everything they liked. I’m over that phase.”
He smiled. “I’m sorry that you met me during that awkward phase. I had no clue what I was doing. All I knew was that I wanted to be around you.”
“We were both awkward, Ben. Mix in hormones and it’s a recipe for chaos.”
“Maybe.”
“Ready?” she asked him, inching her way to the ledge. Her patient hand raised to him.
Ben looked down at the water; the sublime sight raised unexpected guilt in his heart. Grace squeezed his hand, looking down, a realization washing over her.
“My dad died,” she said; her lip trembled. “My dad’s gone.”
Ben heard her, as if she was talking to the hole in the earth before them.
“My wife died,” he said. “And I still miss her. I miss her so fucking much.”
Ben turned to Grace, instinctually pulling her closer to collapse in an embrace – and, standing on the cliff face in a suit and black dress, they both cried together.
Moments later, they jumped, screaming into the water below.
About Mark Massaro
Mark Massaro received a master’s degree in English Literature from Florida Gulf Coast University with a focus on 20th Century American Literature. He is a Professor of English at Florida SouthWestern State College, teaching Composition, Literature, and Creative Writing. When not reading or writing, he can be found jamming at concerts or going on family walks with his wife, son, and golden retriever. His writing has been published in Adelaide Literary Magazine, The Pegasus Review, Jane Austen Magazine, The Sunlight Press, The Mangrove Review, and others. Follow his literary adventures on Instagram at: @bostonmahk4