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“We’re sorry to bother you at work,” Scarlett said, giving me a small smile. “But we have something important to tell you.”
“I won’t be able to pick up Fern today,” Ben told me. “We got some news, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to be out of town for a while.”
My heart skipped a beat in a moment of terror. Almost immediately, I was making excuses in my head, because Ben hadn’t specifically said he was moving out of town. He wouldn’t just disappear on me for another four years. But despite that very real fear, seeing as he’d come with his sister and they both looked uncomfortable, I could tell it was something serious.
“What happened?” I asked, speaking quietly while moving them to the side so Mom and the client wouldn’t overhear the conversation.
“It’s about my dad,” Ben admitted, his expression grave. “He’s sick. Scarlett’s seen him a few times, and he needs some serious help. We were thinking of heading out to see him. We’ll have to stick around there to make sure he accepts the treatment.”
I bit down on my lip. On the one hand, he at least had a good reason to leave this time, and I was getting notice before he made the trip. But on the other hand, there was still that fear from before, that if I let him leave, I would never see him again.
Scarlett, as intuitive as ever, glanced between the two of us before backing away with a smile.
“I’ll leave the two of you to talk. Ben, I’ll be waiting in the car.”
He nodded at her and watched her go, but I kept my eyes on him until he turned to meet my gaze.
“I’m sorry about this, Ginger,” he said, taking a tentative step closer and holding onto me by the tops of my arms. “I promise I won’t be gone long. I’ll stick it out for at least a week and no more. Just apologize to Fern for me and let her know I won’t be around?”
“She’ll be sad to see you’re gone,” I murmured. “She’ll miss you.”
He gave me a shaky smile, and I knew he’d read between the lines. Fern wouldn’t be the only one that was sad, the only one that missed him.
“I’ll be back soon. And when I get back, we’re going to talk. I don’t like that I only get to pick Fern up for two days out of the week from the nursery. I’d like to raise that number up. There’s a lot of time I want to make up for, and we’re going to start when I come back from dealing with my dad, no more holding back.”
I nodded, sniffling a little and blinking back the sting in my eyes. In the past couple weeks, the only time we’d met up, was when he dropped Fern off with me after spending some time with her after he picked her up from the nursery. It was barely enough time for me, and it was nice to know that he felt the same way I did.
“We can do that,” I agreed. “And you don’t have to worry about proving yourself to me anymore; I can tell you’re sincere.” I smiled sadly up at him. “I don’t like that you’re going away, but I understand why you have to.”
A part of me couldn’t help but be proud of him, even. Before, he would probably have reacted to the situation by running away. He’d distanced himself from his dad even before he left, and I knew it had to do with his mom’s death and his dad going off the rails because of it.
But the Ben in front of me wasn’t running or hiding, or trying to escape responsibility. It was enough to prove to me that he was a changed man, whether he realized it or not.
“Go now,” I said, waving him off with my hand. “I can tell you’ve changed, and I don’t want to be what holds you back. You say you’ll be back in a week and… I trust you.”
I ignored the fearful beat in my heart, repeating the words to myself several times in my mind to hammer it in. I trusted Ben not to lie to me about this that he wouldn’t leave me and his daughter again.
Before he left, he leaned toward me with his arms opened wide, and I stepped into them willingly, holding him tight for a moment. Then he turned his back to me, and he was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
Ben
I sat beside my dad’s bed in the hospital, watching him sleep. I was feeling exhausted because getting him to sleep hadn't exactly been easy.
Dad was the same as always, if a little more unhinged than before we lost Mom. Being in the hospital was making him even worse, and if he wasn’t trying to escape, he was complaining about everything and bothering the other patients. Most of the nurses were sick of him already, and it was only the second day since Scarlett and I managed to get him admitted.
“Is he finally out?” came a whisper from behind me.
I turned to find Scarlett peeking her head into the room.
“He’s out,” I confirmed.
She let out a sigh and walked inside, and I gave her the stink eye.
“You could have come in here and help, you know,” I grumbled. “You’re still Daddy’s little girl, after all. He’d be more inclined to listen to you than me.”
“But I thought the two of you needed some downtime,” she scoffed. “You have been gone for four years, after all. How much did he eat?”
I gestured to the tray of food left in a small desk drawer on the other side of the bed, and we both sighed.
“It’s less than yesterday,” Scarlett whispered. “He left so much…”
She’d moved, so she was standing beside me, and I reached out to take her hand for both our sakes, giving a gentle squeeze.
“I know, but we just have to be strong and hope he’ll make it through this.”
Scarlett didn’t reply, and I guessed she just didn’t have anything to say.
While I didn’t quite understand what had my dad down, I’d caught from the doctor that it was because he was growing old. He got tired easily, and he did plenty to tire himself out already. His heart wasn’t as strong as it used to be, either. Dad wasn’t in a good way at all, and besides being there for him, neither Scarlett nor I knew what we could do for him when he was so insistent on pushing us both away.
“Do you think he's going to be okay?” Scarlett asked, her voice quiet.
It made me think back to the time after Mom was gone and we could both see Dad about to blow before it even happened.
“Sure,” I blustered. “We made through some tough shit before, why can't we do it again?”
I didn’t believe that, but for my sister’s sake, I would have to force myself to.
“We should go for the day,” she sighed. “Visiting hours are almost up, anyway. And you’ll want to call home before it gets too late.”
I perked up a little at the thought of talking to Ginger and Fern. I’d called them every day since I left, as I would do for the whole week. No matter what happened at the end of the week, even for only a little bit, I wanted to head back to see them and make sure they were okay. Ginger had told me she trusted me, but I knew that didn’t necessarily mean that she wasn’t worried. The phone calls were part for my sake as they were for her.
“You need to talk to Dan, too, you know,” I told her as we left Dad’s shared hospital room. “I’m sure the guy’s pretty worried about you. You were gone for a week, only to come back and disappear again not long after. Did you even see him before you came for me at the hotel?”
“Of course,” she scoffed. “I do love you, bro, but I have a kid to look after now, you know? And, of course, I wanted to look in on Dan, too.”
“Do you guys have a date set for the wedding?”
She shook her head. “Nope. We’ve kinda been putting it off for a while, but I guess it’ll have to happen at some point.”
We made it out of the hospital, and to my car. I drove us to the hotel we were staying at, a single suite with two bedrooms. As Scarlett ordered food for us, I picked up my phone and dialed Ginger’s number. She answered the call on the third ring, and I grinned when I heard her voice.
“Hey, Ben,” she chirped, seeming just as happy to be talking to me as I was to her. “I almost thought I’d missed you for today.”
“Never,” I declared. “You know I’d just keep badgering you with
calls until you took it, right?”
“Well, that’s good. Also, you’re just in time to talk to Fern before she goes to bed.”
“Is she nearby? You can put her on.”
