Exes With Benefits

by Nicole Williams

  My vision got foggy as I watched his hands explore the sealed folder. They looked so different from the last year we’d spent together. No split-open knuckles. No swollen fingers. No dried blood staining the creases of his palms. Other than a few dark smudges that I guessed were grease, they looked whole. Healed.

  As he opened the envelope, it was clear from the look on his face he had no idea what was inside. Even after he pulled out the stack of papers held together by a paperclip, it took him a few seconds.

  “I’d like to make it official.” I swallowed as my gaze moved to the lawn.

  He thumbed through a few pages. “What official?”

  The words had to be pried from inside me. “Our separation.”

  Beside me, Canaan stopped riffling through the papers. “I haven’t seen you in five years. I think that’s pretty official.”

  A pen. I’d forgotten to grab the pen in my purse. How could he sign all of those lines I’d marked with neon green highlighter without a pen?

  “I mean, legally official,” I replied.

  The papers crumbled into a cylinder in his hand. “You want a divorce?”

  My eyes stayed aimed on the yard. “You say that like you’re surprised.”

  His neck popped when he rolled his head. “You say that like you’re surprised I’m surprised.”

  When he stuffed the paperwork back inside the envelope, that familiar flicker of anger only Canaan could generate sparked to life. “We were practically divorced before we got married. We got married when we were eighteen because I got pregnant. If that isn’t a forecast for divorce, I don’t know what is.”

  Canaan’s head turned toward me, his eyes boring holes into the side of my face from the feel of it. “I married you because I loved you.” He said each word purposely, the tremor of anger rattling his voice.

  Fighting. The one thing in our marriage we’d done really well.

  “It’s not just enough to tell someone you love them. You have to show them.”

  He dropped the resealed folder between us, getting back to his tea. “I know that.”

  “Five years too late you know that.”

  “Better late than never.” He gave a lazy shrug, his voice back to normal.

  What the hell? I’d just given him the divorce papers we should have taken care of years ago, and without so much as reading one line, he’d tossed them back and moved on to sipping tea and stretching out beside me? So much for changing. So much for growing up and finding that maturity that had evaded him his whole life.

  I really could have used a drink of the ice-cold tea, if for no other reason than to attempt to cool the flames burning inside me. However, I didn’t trust myself not to toss it in his face if my fingers curled around the glass, so I left it where it was.

  We sat like that for three minutes. In total silence. Him sipping his tea, sprawling out on the stairs like he was considering taking a nap; me trembling from the volcano about to erupt inside.

  I broke the silence, reaching for the folder and waving it in his direction. “You’re really not going to sign these?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not over.”

  My fingers curled around the file. “It was over years ago.”

  Canaan looked in my direction, his eyes catching mine. He didn’t look away, and I couldn’t look away. “Then why are you still looking at me like that?”

  Even when I tried to look away, I couldn’t. “Like what?”

  His mouth twitched. “Like you want me.”

  When my eyes rolled, that was my escape. I aimed my glare at the lawn again. “The only thing I want from you is for you to sign your name in those highlighted boxes.”

  A chuckle came from him as he folded his arms behind his head and laid the rest of the way back. I was trying to have an adult conversation with him about something we both knew had ended before it ever really began—a conversation I’d practiced in my head hundreds of times—and he was about to take a nap.

  “Sign the papers, Canaan.”

  “I don’t think so. But thanks for the offer.”

  My feet stomped the stair. There was literally no other person on the planet who could piss me off more than the man I’d married as a naïve teenager. “Sign. Them.”

  His eyes closed as he shifted into just the right spot on the stairs. “It’s not over.”

  “You’re delusional.”

  “Maybe. There’s a fifty-fifty chance, because one of us is delusional about this whole divorce thing. Time will tell if that person is me. Or you.”

  I dropped the folder in my lap since he clearly wasn’t going to be signing anything in the immediate future. Like I didn’t have enough to deal with on this visit home, now I was going to have to add Persuade My Estranged Husband to Sign Our Divorce Papers to the list.

  “I can forge your signature,” I threatened, mentally tabulating the other routes I could go to get a divorce from an uncooperative ex.

  He made a face. “You really think a forged signature is going to stop me?”

  “Stop you from what?”

  Rising from the stairs suddenly, he stared down at me as I continued glaring at the lawn. He didn’t answer until he was moving down the walkway. “Getting you to realize that you and me, we’re not over.”

  A dream. That was what it was. Nothing but an upsetting dream. There was no way my grandma had died, I’d made my first homecoming in years, come face-to-face with my ex, and had said ex outright refuse to sign our divorce papers. No way that had all happened within the same twenty-four hours.

  That was the thought—the misguided hope—I awoke with the next morning. Of course it took all of three seconds for me to realize that none of that was a dream. Not even the part about me acknowledging just how much of a pull my ex still had over me. I should be immune to him. Calloused. Totally repulsed by his very presence. Instead, I had to pretend I was all of those things so he didn’t glom on to the knowledge that in some way, to some degree, some part of me was still drawn to some part of him.

  That yellow folder was back to riding shotgun, its unsigned remains mocking me the entire drive to the funeral home. I wasn’t leaving until they were signed though. No matter what—whatever it took—I was leaving Farmington with those papers signed.

  I’d had them drawn up a while ago, but I had been waiting for the “right” time to deliver them to Canaan. That the right time was when my grandma died seemed way messed up, as I reflected on it, but I supposed there was never going to be an ideal time to confront Canaan with divorce papers in hand.

  The longer I thought about him, the more angry I became. Mainly because my thoughts kept taking tangents down forbidden trails such as The Years Had Been Good, or Hot Damn, Those Eyes, and Holy Hell, That Body.

  He might have aged well, but he was still Canaan Ford, the person who had broken me in places I didn’t know a human could break.

  When Marks & Bennett Funeral Home came into view, all thoughts of a forbidden nature finally fled as a different kind of knot roped around my stomach. It was the same funeral home that had taken care of the arrangements for my parents. It was the only funeral home in a fifty-mile radius. The sign had been updated and they’d re-landscaped the grounds, but it felt the same as I pulled into the parking lot. That feeling of gasping for air, as though I were drowning, rushed over me.

  Death made me uneasy. There was nothing natural about it. There was nothing peaceful about it. Maybe for the deceased it was different, but for the living, death was not the end. It was only the beginning of a new nightmare.

  My appointment was set for ten, and I was already fifteen minutes late, so I shouldn’t have been taking a few extra to try to compose myself and work up some courage. As I swung the car door open, my phone rang. When I saw the number, I let it go to voicemail. This was not the time to recap the past eighteen hours since I’d texted to let him know I’d made it safe and semi-sound into Farmington. That call would have to wait.

  As I started toward
the entrance, the front door swung open and a man in a dark suit started toward me. It took me a moment to realize that the man with the measured smile was Trace Bennett, who I’d gone to school with since kindergarten. His hairline had started to recede, his frame had filled out, and that hint of a prank that always used to twinkle in his eyes was gone. I supposed that was important when you went into the family business. Pulling the most legendary pranks in the county wasn’t a skillset that had much demand in the business of death.

  “Maggie, I’m so sorry for your loss.” Trace stopped in front of me, his expression just the right amount of sympathetic without diving into overdone territory.

  “Yeah, me too.” My teeth worked at my lip as I eyed the funeral home entrance behind him. I could do this.

  “Betty was the best kind of person there is. We’re all better for knowing her.” Trace glanced back at the door I was still fixated on. “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone when we talked yesterday, what with you just finding out about Betty’s passing, but all of the funeral arrangements have already been made. Unless you’d like to look things over or add anything, everything’s taken care of.” Trace motioned at the building behind him. “But there’s no reason for you to do anything besides show up on the day of the actual funeral.”

  The Missouri sun was already assaulting, and I wasn’t exactly at my best given the lack of sleep I’d gotten the past two nights. “The ceremony? The cemetery? The flowers?” I swallowed, unable to vocalize the rest of my list.

  “Everything. It’s taken care of.”

  My feet changed positions. “Who took care of it all?”

  “Betty did. She took care of all of this years ago, before you’d even left Farmington.” Trace waved me over to a tree casting just enough shade I could fit into it. He appraised me like he was guesstimating how close I was to passing out. “The expenses, the arrangements, everything is all set.”

  My mind was still reeling, despite the shade. “Is it normal for people to do that? Plan their own funerals?”

  “For seniors, yes. A lot of them try to take care of most of it before their passing. Of course when it comes to unexpected deaths of younger—” Trace’s voice cut off. A clearing of his throat followed.

  I’d been too young to plan my parents’ funeral. Grandma had taken care of all of the arrangements. Even in the midst of losing her only child and daughter-in-law, she’d planned the most beautiful funeral that surely ever could have been done. I remembered focusing on the flower wreathes propped in front of their caskets, counting the number of white roses in each one so I didn’t run to my mother’s casket and attempt to curl up beside her like I’d been wanting to do from the moment I walked in. I’d wanted to cuddle up beside her one last time. I’d wanted to feel the kind of comfort only one’s mother could bring.

  Of course I didn’t. I stayed in my pew, counting white roses, trying to hold my five-year-old self together before I even knew what I was made of.

  “What about letting friends and family know? Someone will have to let everyone know when the funeral is.” I started to write a list in my mind, making note of who could give me the numbers I didn’t have.

  “That’s already been taken care of too. Truly, Maggie, there’s nothing you need to do besides show up.”

  My emotions had been all over the place, so I wasn’t braced for the rush of relief that came. My knees wobbled enough that Trace’s arms came out, ready to catch me if I went down.

  “I’m okay,” I said, repeating myself when his arms hovered at the ready. “When is it? The funeral?”

  “Two weeks from Saturday.” Trace didn’t miss the confused look on my face that followed. “Betty wanted to be cremated. With cremations, there isn’t a rush to schedule the funeral in the same way there is a casket burial.” He closed his mouth, like he’d somehow said too much.

  “But two and a half weeks?” I said, remembering how my parents’ funeral had followed less than a week after the accident.

  “Betty had no shortage of friends and family. I don’t think she wanted anyone to have to stop what they were doing to attend a funeral. Plus, I think she wanted to give you some time to get used to the idea of her passing before having to attend another funeral.”

  I toed a pebble on the asphalt. “She said that?”

  “I inferred that. She was Betty Church. She didn’t do anything without thinking of those she loved first.”

  I suddenly found myself wishing I’d kept my sunglasses on, because I didn’t want to cry in front of Trace Bennett. Surely most everyone he did business with cried in front of him, but I didn’t want to be one of them—the criers. My grandma deserved so much more than a wash of tears shed outside some funeral home.

  “Okay, so you’ll call me if anything comes up? Or you need anything? Right?”

  “Absolutely.” For a moment, I saw a shadow of the Trace I’d grown up with. It was gone almost as quickly, making me wonder how much we’d all changed in a few years.

  “Thanks for everything, Trace. I appreciate it.”

  He glanced back at the sign hanging above the door. “It’s what I do.”

  “You’re good at it.”

  He leaned in, lowering his voice. “Don’t tell my dad. He’s been telling me since I was born I was destined for the family business. He keeps hearing I’m actually kinda good at it, he’s going to go all I-Told-You-So on me.”

  “I won’t say a word. And if they ask me to fill out a comment card when this is all over, I’ll give you straight Fs.”

  Trace’s carefully placed smile cracked into the one I remembered before I headed for my car. “It’s good to have you back, Maggie Ford. Don’t be such a stranger.”

  When I glanced back, I saw he hadn’t realized his mistake. “It’s Maggie Church.”

  Trace’s head shook. “I finally get used to calling you by a different last name, and you switch it up on me again.” He followed me to my car, wiping sweat from his forehead. “You two finally make it official after five years?”

  My gaze wandered to the passenger seat as I climbed inside. “We’re as good as divorced.” Trace didn’t say anything, and just as he was closing the door behind me, my arm reached out to stop it. “Who’s calling everyone about the funeral?”

  “Your husband”—he caught himself instantly—“I mean, Canaan. He called everyone.”

  My head fell into the headrest. “Canaan.”

  “I guess Betty and him worked that out a while ago.”

  So Grandma had indeed kept in touch with him. I shouldn’t have been surprised. They’d been close and she’d welcomed him into the family, even though she might not have been keen on us getting married so young, regardless of me being pregnant. Grandma might have been born in the forties, but she had been a modern woman who didn’t believe in marrying a man just because he’d gotten you pregnant.

  Setting aside this latest Canaan development, I forced a smile as I turned on the engine. “Thanks again, Trace. It’s good to see you.”

  “It’s good to see you too.” That easy smile adjusted as he remembered the whole reason I was there in the first place. “Wish it was under different circumstances.”

  Holding that smile, I closed the door and pulled out of the parking lot. I had no idea where I was going; I just knew I couldn’t head back to Grandma’s house. If I went hunting for Canaan to try forcing his signature, I didn’t trust I wouldn’t commit some crime when he refused with an “It’s not over” comment.

  What the actual hell? It’s not over? Please, it was over the night I left him in the rearview. It was over the day I agreed to let him take me to Winter Formal our freshman year. It was over the night I let him kiss me that following summer. And it was definitely over the night I agreed to marry him after telling him I was carrying his child.

  It’s not over.

  If he told me that one more time, I would have to prepare for another funeral. Although that one I actually might not mind attending.

&nb
sp; A drink. I needed one. Actually, I needed more like five, but one was a good start. There was only one place I knew of that served beer before noon. Since pretty much every business in Farmington was on the same stretch of road, it wasn’t even five minutes before I was whipping into the mostly empty lot of Diamond Bowl.

  I’d spend countless hours of my tween years with friends at the one bowling alley in town, downing Mountain Dew and trying our hands at flirting with the opposite sex. Of course Canaan had never once stepped foot into Diamond Bowl. He was the town badass, even as a tween, and badasses, as a rule, didn’t step weathered-leather boots in bowling alleys.

  Too bad I hadn’t fallen for Benjamin Reeves. I would have been better off wasting my teen years making out with him. Ben left town the summer he graduated for college. Ben was the kind of guy a girl could shed a few tears for and get over. Ben was safe.

  Canaan was not like the Ben Reeveses of the world.

  My skin was sizzling from the heat as I moved toward Diamond Bowl’s entrance, so the rush of air-conditioned air that hit me when I threw open the door practically sent me into shock.

  Nothing had changed since the last time I’d visited as a freshman. Not even the neon-starred carpet that had been in need of repair back then. The sounds of balls breaking through pins, the banter of old men, and the hum of the old televisions playing soaps welcomed me.

  But nostalgia would have to wait until after I’d marinated my liver in a couple pints of whatever beer I pointed at first. Marching toward the bar tucked into the back of the building, I ignored the call that came in on my phone again. This still wasn’t a good time to talk.

  “Maggie Church back in Farmington? They keep preaching about the second coming, but I didn’t think it was coming so soon.”

  I’d been distracted by ignoring the call, and I didn’t notice who was working behind the bar until it was too late. “Rachel?”

  I wasn’t sure why I’d voiced it like a question. She looked pretty much the same, except her blazing red hair was cut to her shoulders instead of halfway down her back like it had been in school.