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My shoulders slump at her words, but then Jolie's hand is rubbing up and down my back, easing some of the tension away. I let Jolie and my grandma walk ahead of me into the kitchen where dishes line the counters. We each fill our plates and sit on the same couch, Jolie between me and my grandma.
Regina begins talking first, telling everyone about how her water broke in the middle of the mall and the many hours she was in labor with Ben. Denise and Mikaela talk about how annoying he was as a kid, always hiding their stuff, ripping their rooms apart. Then Regina turns to me and I swallow, feeling just like I did the last time I was here. It's the pleading in Regina's eyes that makes me search my memory for a story to tell. She needs this, to remember her son the way she wants to today. If it were me, wouldn't I want someone to give my grandma a good story about me?
"I remember," I begin, having to clear my throat to speak louder. "When we were in second grade, on the bus ride to school, he told me he had money to buy us both an ice cream. When it hit lunch time, I walked up to the lunch lady with him and he pulled a hundred dollar bill out of his pocket to pay for two one dollar ice cream bars. The lunch lady took the money but definitely did not give us any ice cream. Instead, she called the principal down. Once we were in her office, she kept asking us where we'd stolen the money from, and Ben proudly declared he hadn't stolen it, he'd just taken it from his mom's purse."
Everyone laughs and looks back at Regina. With the attention off of me, I let myself sag back into the couch.
"I remember that." Regina chuckles. "I was looking all over for that money and here Ben walks in like nothing happened when school was over. My hundred dollar bill in a sealed envelope, with a note from the principal telling me what happened. Oh my God, that boy."
Someone else takes over the story-telling, and Jolie's hand comes to my knee, giving it a squeeze.
"That was nice," she says low.
I've given Jolie all the sad parts of Ben. I smile at having given her something good of him too.
Things take a turn when the lights are turned off and the cake gets brought out. There's a huge number twenty-two candle on top, and people give each other's confused, and concerned, looks as Regina lights it. Emotions become turbulent inside me. Why is she doing this, of all things? An age Ben will never reach. An age he will never see and no one will ever see him turn. Why would she put that on top of the cake? She begins singing the happy birthday song to a son who isn't here anymore and Denise puts her hand on Regina's shoulder, trying to stop her, but Regina just shrugs her off.
"For God's sake," my grandma murmurs.
No one joins in with Regina's singing, and I can see some people beginning to fidget in place, probably anxious for this to end now. Regina stops singing and the room falls completely silent.
"My boy should be here right now," she croaks. "He should be right here, celebrating this day, celebrating another year on this earth. But all because of a stupid accident, he is gone from me."
Denise's eyes lock with mine, and I hurry to look away.
"But." Regina sighs. "He will always live on in my heart. Happy birthday baby."
She blows out the candle and for the moment of darkness before someone turns the lights back on, I bow my head, knowing the rest of the night will not be like the beginning of it. Too much tension fills the room now. Too many unspoken words, as I hear some of the people asking if she knows what really happened to Ben. Too many side glances and awkward raises of eyebrows are being passed around for this night to be salvaged now.
Mikaela cuts up the cake and hands everyone a slice while Regina presses the remote until a video begins playing on the TV. It's clearly some sort of collage she's made. It begins with Mikaela's wedding, Ben dancing with her and Denise, his fake smile in place as he makes funny faces for the cameraman. Then it goes through our graduations, elementary, middle, and high school. I'm in those videos, right beside Ben, but all I can look at are his dimmed smiles. No one seems to notice this but me.
"Look how happy my baby was." Regina cheers. "Had the whole world in his hands. You can't tell me he would've chosen to end a life like that."
God, please stop, I internally beg her.
The video changes to Ben's birthday parties, some with me, and then the one's he began having on his own.
"Look at him,” she continues. “Do you see that smile? Tell me my boy wasn't always smiling? Those dumb ass cops have it all wrong."
If I didn't know better, I would think Regina was drunk, but she doesn't drink. This is just a mother trying, so desperately, to convince herself, and others, that the truth she knows deep inside couldn't possibly be true. I try to remind myself of this as the anger builds in me more and more with each new shot. Because while Regina goes on and on about how happy Ben looks in each video, how much his eyes sparkle, how much joy is in his voice, all I can see is the mask he wore for everyone but me. All I can see is the pain, raw and right there in his eyes, if anyone had just taken the time to see it. If anyone looked beyond the fake smile and jokes that fell from his lips. If anyone had tried to truly notice him.
Then the video cuts to Ben's last birthday party, the surprise one his mom threw our senior year, even though he asked her not to. Because that year was the hardest for him. The darkest for him. Besides, well, the time right before his suicide. He didn't want a party. Didn't want to celebrate with a bunch of people who barely knew him. He just wanted to be that day. But he got a party nonetheless.
The video shows everyone popping out to surprise him as he and I walked into his house. It's painful to sit here and watch it all through another lens. The way my eyes shoot to Ben, concern clear in them because I knew he didn't want nor expect this. Because we were only coming to his house so he could get some clothes and spend the weekend at my house, probably under the sheets with the curtains drawn. But now, he was in the midst of a party.
It aches to watch Ben throw on that mask so fast because it was second nature to him. To have to wear it day in and day out so no one could see what was underneath.
"This was his favorite birthday party," Regina tells us.
No. It wasn't.
Regina grabs him in the video, pulling him further into the room, into the throng of people crammed into their living room. They tell him happy birthday and he thanks them, polite smile in place, even though I can see how dull his eyes are, how lifeless they look. I close my eyes, not wanting to see him that way again. In my mind, his pain is over now, his despair, his hopelessness, but now I have to watch it, see it all over again on this video, and it hurts like hell.
Regina continues making comments throughout the video, and my anger grows with each one. How can she not see? How can she not look at her son in these videos and see the pain he's hiding? How could she not have seen it everyday in her own house? His spirals, his ups and downs? Didn't she ever hear him cry at night in their house like he did in mine? Didn't she notice when he would lose weight from barely eating for days? Or when his grades would slip so drastically because he could barely sit still, let alone focus in school?
I feel like such a hypocrite. Wasn't I just telling my grandma she couldn't blame them for what Ben wouldn't let them see? But I can't help it. Because sitting here, watching Regina watch the same video as me, but see how differently she makes herself see everything, is infuriating. She should have been able to see, and a huge part of me is now wondering if she did indeed see and just chose not. The same way she chooses not to acknowledge his suicide, even when everything points to that being the truth. I always thought she was trying to convince everyone else that Ben was the way that she saw him. But now I have to question if she's really trying to convince herself.
Jolie's hand squeezes my knee again, and I open my eyes to look at her. I know that she, of everyone here, knows the battle raging inside of me. I turn my eyes back to the screen, willing this video of lies to almost be over and that's when I see it.
