VI
It wasn’t the best night sleep. He had certainly seen worse and he intended to crawl back in bed and get a couple more hours of shut eye before having to tend to Gabe. But the minutes continued ticking away as he searched further on Alexa Brantley, coming up with nothing of consequence and nothing to jog his memory over why the name rang a bell.
The two missing bullets jangled about in his head and he did a search to see if there were independent labs nearby where he could run a ballistic test, assuming that there were indeed bullets to be found. To his gratification, there was a facility less than two hours away. Before he knew it, the clock was reading 5:30 and, rather heading for his bedroom, he headed for the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee. Sitting in his recliner, he waited for it to brew and went over once again in his mind the seemingly implausible connections between Gabe’s bike accident and the skeleton a quarter of a mile away, trying to concoct a credible scenario.
At six-thirty, the sound of Ben’s alarm clock kept echoing in his head until finally bringing him to consciousness, still taking him another few moments to orient himself and realize the source of the music. Groggily, he pushed himself out of the chair, vigorously shaking his head and trying to emerge from his muddled fog. He felt worse than if he had stayed awake and, from his past experience, the bleariness would stick with him through most of the day accompanied with a good dose of irritability.
Turning off the alarm, he headed for the bathroom, relieved himself and turned on the shower when the circumstances of the past few hours fully set in.
“Molly?” he called out, looking around the living room.
“Good morning,” she said, perched on a window sill where she had shredded the wooden ledge.
“Ah, shit,” he said a bit too loudly and hoped Molly wouldn’t add it to her vocabulary.
“Oh, Molly.”
He took a moment to compose himself and contain his anger before walking over to her. Slowly he put his hand out to see if he managed to conceal his anger well or if she was picking up the irritation boiling below. She hesitated, cocked her head, eyed him carefully before finally jumping onto his arm.
“Good girl,” he said, walking her over to the cage. “I need you to be in here for right now.”
Once more he headed for the shower but stopped and looked over at the computer desk. Letting out a big sigh, he ran both hands up along the side of his head, through his hair and resting at the back of his neck with his head down and his eyes closed; lying on the desktop and on the floor below, as well as scattered around the room, were fragments of the skeletal hand. A couple of hours earlier, thinking that he had a name to go with the remains, Ben began to feel guilt at having taken the hand. Now, the desecration felt complete.
Ben looked up and took in the full extent of Molly’s work with his scan ending on his magnificent bird eyeing him through the bars of her cage.
“Breakfast?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
He quickly mulled over what his plan of action would be for the time remaining before getting over to Gabe. A quick shower, some breakfast and lots of coffee. The fragments could wait but he felt an obligation to get them picked up and gathered back into the ammo box, as if the hand would feel less defiled if they were at least congregated in one place. The time he normally spent with Molly in the morning would have to be nixed. Even though she had much of the early morning to roam as she pleased, Ben knew she would miss their morning routine and, so would he. He walked over to the cage, stuck his finger in and rubbed her beak and tongue. Then, he headed for the shower, thinking about Alexa, the fingers of her hand that he held so delicately in his palm, thinking if he was in any kind of mood for talking with Gabe, and, with the relaxing feel of the warm water coming down on him, thinking about the coffee maker, which was set on automatic, going off with no water in the well and the earlier untouched pot of coffee still sitting on the burner.
When Ben entered Gabe and Beth’s house in the morning, he always gave a little knock on the door and announced himself with a melodious “Hooah.” This was meant for Beth’s sake as Gabe was safely tucked away in bed awaiting his arrival. Usually, Beth was either in the kitchen with her morning cup of coffee or back in her bedroom, changing from her morning run and getting ready for work. If she was around, Ben would exchange a few words with her to see how her night had gone and to find out if there was anything about Gabe he needed to know. He could tell immediately if her sleep had been disturbed as she made no effort to hide her irritation of being roused in the middle of the night. This had, in fact, been a point of contention between the two of them. She felt that since Ben lived on the premises, his duties should include, at least some of the time, answering those redeye calls.
“I don’t think it seems to be too much to ask if at least once a week you would be responsible for tending to Gabe if he wakes up in the middle of the night.”
“I can see where you would feel that. I’m right here, so why not?”
“Exactly.’
“I would be willing to do that but I need to be able to recoup the time elsewhere.”
“I don’t get to recoup the time. If I have to get up, I still need to go into work that day, even if I can’t get back to sleep.”
Ben folded his arms, pursed his lips and nodded lightly. He felt caught in the middle of a sour relationship sensing that this was much more about Beth feeling trapped in having to stay with Gabe now that he was confined to a wheelchair and less about equity of rest time.
“It’s a matter of burn out,” Gabe said, knowing that it didn’t really matter how he replied. “If I don’t get enough down time, it won’t be too much longer before I would have to pack my bags.” He didn’t mean for it to come out as a threat but he could see in Beth’s eyes that she took it that way.
“Yeah. Well, I’m burning out, too.”
Ben was not eager to run into Beth this morning as he had seen the den light on the entire time he was up. He gave a very light knock as he entered and a barely audible “Hooah,” hoping to quickly make his way to Gabe’s room with nothing more than a quick “Good morning.”
Looking to his left he didn’t see Beth in the kitchen and thought he made it home free. But a few steps in, Beth was on his right in the sunroom, in her robe and drinking a cup of coffee. Startled, he found himself stopping.
“Oh. Hey,” he said, making eye contact with her and carefully studying her manner.
“Good morning.”
Her reply lacked the bite that he expected and he felt further immobilized.
“Bad night?”
“You could say that.”
“Gabe?”
She nodded her head and took a sip of her coffee, looked at the painting on the wall and then gazed out into the morning. It was the perfect opportunity for Ben to make his escape.
“Was he too hot or too cold?” he asked.
“Too hot.”
“What time was that?”
“Two-thirty.”
“And, you’ve been up since?”
She nodded again and gave Ben a tired look, not the intense guilt-ridden glare that he expected. Her gaze moved back to the painting and remained there. Ben watched her for a moment and he looked at the painting as well. He couldn’t understand why she was focusing on it as he knew she detested the piece. Five feet vertical and two feet wide, it portrayed a very abstract caricature of what seemed to be a rock star playing a guitar; Ben thought it resembled Mick Jagger. Gabe had purchased the picture three years ago and mounted it without even asking Beth. Yet, now, she kept staring at it as if it held special meaning for her and was providing her with solace.
“Are you going into work?”
“No.”
This took Ben by surprise as well as he couldn’t remember her missing a day of work since he had been there. She was the curator of a new art museum that had opened in the past year, just two months before Gabe’s accident. She loved her position there and Ben admired her enthusiasm and drive. The museum was a real feather in the cap for the region and Beth was a driving force in its creation and seeing it becoming a reality.
“Was Gabe up long?”
“No. I took a cover off and he was practically asleep before I left the room.”
Ben looked in the direction of Gabe’s room even though he couldn’t see it.
“He’s still asleep,” she said, still looking at the painting.
Beth’s demeanor continued to baffle and disarm him. He took the tone of her reply to indicate that she wanted him to stay. A long silence overtook the room as he stood in the doorway, waiting, while she looked out the window catching the sun that was just peeking out above the trees.
“Are you happy here?”
“Pardon?”
“Are you good with the arrangement you have here?” she restated, turning to speak directly at Ben.
“Yes.” He was waiting for her to ask about midnight duty and he was steeling himself for standing firm. Once again, he was very glad that he had established boundaries from the onset, anticipating just such a development.
“And, do you see yourself staying here for another year or two?”
“I have no plans on leaving.”
She nodded and looked away. The sun was beginning to fill the room, bringing the potted plants to life yet landing on the painting and accentuating the gross caricature qualities. He and Beth may have had their differences but he was in full agreement on the so-called artwork and couldn’t understand Gabe’s desire on having it mounted in such a pleasant setting.
“I do,” Beth finally said.
“What?”
“I want to move out.”
She looked squarely at Ben to gauge his response. While he knew the topic ran below the everyday surface, her statement took him by surprise.
“I see,” he said, hoping to display a poker-face, but knew he already had shown her his true reaction.
“We had talked seriously about it before Gabe’s accident.”
“Gabe mentioned it.”
“He did?”
“Yes.” He felt himself blushing from embarrassment, an emotion he wasn’t used to, and was looking to extricate himself from the situation even if she couldn’t see his blood filling his face. “I didn’t think –“
“It doesn’t matter,” she said sincerely. “But that’s why I’m asking about your intentions. Can you commit to staying here at least another year?”
“That won’t be a problem,” he said, but his thoughts suddenly were filled with a vast array of logistical questions and how that would impact his job description.
“There needs to be consistency for a while.”
“Sure. When are you thinking of moving out?”
“As soon as possible. I’ve already been looking at apartments and houses near the museum.”
Ben nodded. Beth looked again at the painting and he followed her gaze there. Then, it struck him. Alexa Brantley, aka Alexa Fern, the artist of the hideous painting on the wall.
Copyright © 2012 Philip Zweig
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