AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Clearly,” he clips out curtly, “seeing as how you’re here. You must be desperate if you’re coming to the man who doesn’t want to let you near her.”
“Yes, sir, I am,” I confirm. “And Luna loves and thinks the world of you. If you have any insight on how to earn her trust again, it would be invaluable. I’ve been a miserable excuse of a man since I got home, and I don’t expect to be forgiven for the way I’ve been, but I do want you to know that I’ve been getting better. I’ve started therapy, and if I can stay married to Luna, I’ll show up for her every day. I will guard her heart with my life. I will never again let my pride or insecurities get in the way of loving her,” I profess, my voice rising just slightly with the emotions the words are evoking.
Luna’s father continues to glare at me for a few moments as he takes all this in before releasing a heavy load of air through his nose.
“Grab a hammer,” he finally responds with a huff.
* * *
Apparently,Luna’s mom went down to Indianapolis to be with her and took Matty along. Ben stayed behind to let Kasey be there for her in a womanly/motherly way. Matty was allowed to tag along to cheer Luna up, and so that Ben could secretly get some work done on the fort he’s going to surprise him with on his birthday.
I’ve spent almost two hours now, measuring, sawing, and hammering, while I talk and Luna’s dad listens, occasionally breaking to direct me in some way. Once in a while, he stops his actions to simply stare down at the grass, hopefully giving serious thought to the things I’m saying. Finally, he calls for a break and heads inside the house, returning a couple of moments later with a couple of beers in hand, and we take a seat on the deck steps.
“Look, I was an ER doctor for years. I’ve seen a lot – including people struggling with addiction, trauma, addiction because of their trauma,” he laments with widened eyes and a heavy sigh. “I’ve seen war veterans just tortured by their ghosts; their demons. They come home and don’t even know who they are anymore, and feel like no one in their private world will understand them ever again, and so they push away,” he finishes before lifting his beer to his lips while I nod thoughtfully.
“Yeah, I guess I could say that’s part of what happened,” I voice, remembering how I’d feel that way on occasion when Luna and I would FaceTime with her safely here at home, and me reaching out from hell.
“All Luna ever seemed to want out of all this was for you to be okay.” He voices his thoughts out loud as he looks out over the lawn. “For you to have a chance at what it feels like to be loved, and have someone care about you.”
“I know. She gave me that, and I was too much of a stubborn, ill-conceived asshole to accept it, but now–”
“You’re focusing on the wrong part of that sentiment, son,” Ben cuts me off, his tone easy and neutral, and I try not to feel nostalgic at the way he just referred to me. It was probably just a figure of speech and not an endearment, but he sets his beer down and turns to me, repeating his previous statement, this time a little louder and with clipped words. “All she wanted was for you to be okay… do you understand what I’m saying?”
No.
“Well… yeah. I’ve always known that, but I don’t see how it pertains to earning her love again.”
Ben sighs, drawing his knees up and wiping his brow with the back of his gloved hand before folding them over his legs. “When I met Kasey… I was a mess – well, kind of.” He furrows his eyebrows while bobbing his head side to side with indecision. “I’d lost my first wife five years prior, and it had been a pretty harrowing experience. I shut down and went on autopilot, traveling like a goddamn nomad for the next few years. After a while the pain eased, but I’d become stagnant. Then I met Kasey and Luna, and they brought me back to life again.” He shakes his head nostalgically, and I swear I see stars in his eyes. And I get it. Luna gives me those, too. “They made me happy. But when I looked inside myself, I realized I couldn’t just let everything go and just jump into a life with them. I had to be the best version of myself, and while they certainly woke that up in me, I had to do the rest. I had to show them that I could be good for them without it having to fall on them. That I could be strong for them too, and not just the other way around.
“The thing is, Kaleb, we’re two very different men with few but very profound things in common. I lost everything – at least, at the time, I felt like I might as well have. When my wife died, it was harrowing and I retreated into myself. I let my medical license lapse and ran to the other side of the world to hide. You lost everything too, only at a much younger age – your mother, and then you basically lost your father as you knew him.”
“The thing about that is, what hurt me more wasn’t his fist, it was having him turn over a new leaf again and again, giving me love and gaining my trust before he’d turn back into a monster in the blink of an eye.”
“So… maybe you thought it was better to not get attached in the first place?”
“Sort of. I attached myself to Luna because at that time, I didn’t even have a sliver of a doubt. And then I came home a wounded wreck, and the idea of it became real. I told myself that we’d both changed and our dynamic would never be the same, but I was terrified.”
“Sounds like you two need to talk to each other more,” he laments thoughtfully. “You’re both practically still kids, and you don’t get what really makes a marriage work. You’re both too busy trying to be each other’s hero to share the load with each other.
Something in his words stops my world and makes me contemplate that for a moment, staring down at the grass on the ground.
“You’re half right,” I voice out loud. “She was trying to be my hero while I pouted, feeling sorry for myself and pushing her away. Just like when she wanted to know about more of my childhood back at camp. I didn’t want her to see me as some poor, abused little boy. I just wanted to be her Kaleb. And when I came back stateside, I knew I definitely couldn’t be that. I was embracing the damaged, self-loathing, shadow of myself that my demons were trying to make me become, and I didn’t want her to see it. I wanted to succumb to that particular animal, but little by little, she brought me back to myself – almost. She did the heavy lifting, made me as close to whole as she could…” And now I need to do the rest, I think to myself. I need to get myself the rest of the way there so I can pull her up with me.
It’s like a crystallizing moment, having my father-in-law’s words click together perfectly in my mind, and I find myself slowly nodding.
“You don’t have to be your father, Kaleb,” Ben adds. “You don’t have to give into the ugliness he did. You can embrace the love and happiness that’s still being offered to you.” He tips his beer again, taking a hearty enough swig to polish it off. “Thanks for the help on the fort,” he says as he waves his empty bottle at the small, shed-like enclosure. For the most part it’s finished; it even has a doorway and a window. There’s a fine layer of sawdust to knock off it before he paints it, but I take his observation to mean he’s got nothing else to add on the advice front… but I still want to know one more thing.
“Dr. Isaak?”
“Ben,” he corrects me.
“Ben,” I nod, and proceed with caution. “I know that Carter did something to her.”
Ben’s body stiffens so suddenly I catch it in my peripheral.
“Did Luna tell you?” he asks, sounding like it’s taking extra effort to keep his voice steady, and I shake my head.
“I found the hospital bills,” I fill him in. “And when I saw her earlier today, I got it out of her that it was him that put her there, but she wouldn’t tell me anything more.”
