by Cat T. Mad
After the woman had left the hospital room a fortnight ago, she announced on her way back home that she wanted to spend two of the fixed six weeks of the minimum stay at the rehab clinic with her grandchild. Moreover, in the same breath, she informed the butler that it would be for the benefit of the family if he stayed with Jethro for the remaining time. Bennett was surprised at this statement, but all of his objections, that he would be needed in the household, were smoothed over by the old lady with the reasoning that Kate would be there for her.
“The first snowfall is early this year, although November has just begun,” Mrs. Reddington mused, while she looked out of the window of the car.
“That is true,” the butler replied nonchalantly, and he wasn’t ungrateful that the woman had changed the subject.
“I would love it, if the boy could be home on Christmas, Bennett. The holidays will already be bad enough without Charles.”
They barely talked during the remaining trip. Mrs. Reddington looked out of the window most of the time, and the grief in her eyes revealed that she was thinking about her deceased husband. Bennett’s thoughts however were with Jethro. For almost one week, he had already been in this new clinic, and due to this circumstance, the butler realized how much he had gotten accustomed to visit the man each day. Although he tried to avoid it, questions about his well-being and his condition of health were continuously running through his head. He pondered over Aethel’s statement. He wasn’t quite sure how much he meant to Jethro’s life. It had often been the case that he thought his visits had been meaningless, but each time when he had felt that way, the man uttered a few words which took this feeling away from him. Sometimes, he simply said, “Thank you that you are here”, or, “Please stay for a while longer,” although they didn’t talk to each other. Bennett often felt like talking to Jethro about his life, and he had the impression that there were so many unspoken words between the two of them which would need clarification one day. Until today, he couldn’t reconstruct the aversion the other one had already confronted him with in the first minutes of their encounter, and he also didn’t understand Jethro’s former behavior towards him which still was a big gray area for Bennett.
The man who was confined to his bed had considerably changed, and Bennett knew that Jethro wouldn’t attack him anymore as he used to do in his by his drug consumption created delusion, but he still remained silent. Bennett didn’t dare to ask him any questions or to confront him with his mode of behavior, because in his opinion, the circumstances already were difficult enough.
There were certain moments, when he wanted to ask Jethro, why he was so anxious that he, Bennett, sat in his hospital room, although they didn’t talk to each other. But on the other hand he thought to himself that he, too, truly wouldn’t like to be alone in such a situation, and he would certainly appreciate the company of someone else.
Because of the increasing snowfall, the trip turned out to be much longer than Bennett had planned. When they finally arrived in the early evening hours and entered their rented rooms in the small hotel, Aethel was too exhausted to start on her way to the clinic. The old lady announced that she simply wanted to have a snack and to relax afterwards. He however hesitated, and he wondered if he should drive to Jethro for a little while at least, in order to let him know that they had arrived safely. His reflections were interrupted by Mrs. Reddington, when she requested him to pay her grandson a visit.
On condition of a nurse to stay no longer than thirty minutes, Bennett was given the number of Jethro’s room, and he softly knocked on the door shortly before seven o’clock. Instead of waiting that he would be asked in, he entered the room. It could be possible that Jethro was already asleep after all. But it wasn’t the case. When Bennett walked into the room, he man in bed didn’t even look in his direction, but he stared at the cover of his bed.
“Hi,” the butler addressed him in a low voice, so that the other man would pay attention to him.
The fair-haired man turned around to him, and a hesitant smile was visible. A lump was building up in Bennett’s stomach, because despite of the slightly lifted corners of Jethro’s mouth, it was clearly recognizable that his eyes were red-rimmed and swollen. Bennett slowly approached his bed, and he suppressed the urge to embrace the man and to comfort him. He was more touched at the sight than he ever could have anticipated. Bennett was reminded of his visit, when he had been in Jethro’s hospital room for the first time, when he had looked at him fearfully and helplessly.
“Everything is shit?” Bennett asked casually.
He received a nod as an answer, and the other one stared at his own fingers. The butler approached even closer, until he stopped at the edge of the bed. He noticed that tears wanted to well in the corners of the man’s eyes.
“I am a damned cripple, do you know that?” Jethro uttered through compressed lips, while his facial expression reflected his torture.
Bennett was speechless for a moment. He swallowed, and he dared to ask him quietly, “Why do you think that?”
The head of the other man turned in his direction again, and the butler recognized the pain in his eyes.
Jethro panted desperately, “Why I think that? I can’t walk one single step, and I am not able to move my arms, because the skin on my body is so tight as if it got too small for me. They squeeze me in clothes which almost take away my breath, and I am even less in the position to move my limbs. Not to mention that I cannot sit up straight! And the worst of all…” Jethro went silent and closed his eyes for a moment.
Bennett feared that the other one would pull away his fingers, but nevertheless he plucked up his courage and reached for Jethro’s hand in order to hold it gently. It took a load of his mind, when the man gripped it and held it firmly.
“The worst of all?” the butler asked softly.
He observed that the voice box of the blond man began to move. Jethro firmly clenched his jaw and shook his head cautiously, as if he didn’t want to give the butler an answer.
Bennett inquired one more time, “What is the worst of all, Jethro? Come on, talk to me!”
The other one opened his eyes, but he merely looked out of the window into the darkness.
“I…even Frankenstein’s monster was nothing in comparison to me,” the man lamented ruefully through clenched teeth.
Bennett felt that the fingers he was holding were quivering. Cautiously, he sat down on the small, vacant spot on the edge of the bed.
“You are alive, Jethro, and nothing else counts,” the butler replied quietly.
“Tell me, which kind of life is that? I am a cripple who looks like as if someone has pieced single parts together.” The blond man laughed bitterly, and then he continued, “Have you ever seen in books the images of animals to be slaughtered? How they are drawn there sometimes? With lines which mark the different areas, and below the pictures, you can read neck, shoulder and so on? You can do that with my body as well now, Bennett. Lumbar vertebra, right shoulder, left shoulder…we can refer to my butt as a puzzle, and everything is accentuated with dark colors which certainly will remain for the rest of my life. I am a damned monster.”
The butler swallowed hard, it wasn’t exactly because of Jethro’s description, but his embittered and desperate tone of voice discomforted him terribly. Bennett didn’t know what he could respond, because each sentence that was on the tip of his tongue in order to comfort him seemed to be much too hollow.
“Probably it is God’s revenge, because I have been such a damned asshole. He would have better let me kick the bucket!” Jethro gasped out in a rage of fury.
“I don’t want to hear you talking like that, Jethro. You are alive and it is the only thing that is important.”
“For whom is it important, Bennett? It would certainly have been one more shock for grandmother, but now she has a damned cripple around her neck that killed her husband and insulted you endlessly!
Leaving aside the fact that I even got violent, or do you actually want t
o tell me that all of this isn’t so important?”
Bennett loosened the grip of his hand, and he reached for the chin of the man in order to be able to look in his face. Jethro reluctantly complied with his request. His eyes reflected fury and desperation at the same time.
“What do you want to point out to me, Jethro Reddington? You weren’t yourself anymore. Your pupils were as big as marbles, and your body will presumably be disinfected for the rest of your life by the high-proof alcohol you poured down your throat. Tell me in my face, here and now, that you are a human who exactly would have done the same without any drugs, because I won’t believe you!” Bennett replied angrily.
The man, whose cheek he was still holding, didn’t react to Bennett’s announcement. Instead of that, his gaze was fixed on a spot on the other man’s chest, so that he didn’t have to look into his eyes.
Bennett bent forward a bit in order to approach Jethro closer. He lifted his chin so that the other man didn’t have another choice than looking at him.
“Tell me, Jethro Reddington, which of these things would you do again? You were drunk, and your best friend was cocaine, I am aware of that, and Aethel also knows it by now, and you should realize it, too! Neither me, nor your grandmother reproach you for your mistakes, and therefore stop tearing yourself apart over the things that happened! You were a completely different man, and nothing, absolutely nothing would have happened, if you had been the master of your senses.”
Jethro’s pupils were still fixed on a spot below Bennett’s eyes, and his lips began to quiver.
“It would have.” The blond man contradicted.
“What would have?” the butler inquired with surprise.
“I…,” Jethro hesitated for a moment. His gaze searched Bennett’s eyes, and then he continued, “I would try to kiss you again, Bennett True.”
Before the butler could react, the face of the blond man came closer, and he felt a warm touch on his lips. The approach lasted a few seconds only, before Jethro pulled back. He turned his head around and stared out of the window again.
“I guess you better should leave now, Bennett,” Jethro whispered heavy-heartedly.
Bennett felt as if he had been hit by a stroke of lightning. And his eyes widened with surprise. He didn’t jerk back, and he didn’t intend to get up and go away as the man had demanded, but he remained sitting while he was completely taken aback. The touch of Jethro’s lips had caused a heat in his stomach that he couldn’t couch in terms.
He cleared his throat, since he didn’t trust his own voice, and he merely asked, “And why shall I go now?”
With contentment, he saw that Jethro turned around to him again, and his face also mirrored surprise. Bennett knew that he looked at the other one neither with disgust nor snidely, because he didn’t feel that way at this moment, it was just the contrary.
“I…you…I mean,” Jethro stammered.
The corners of Bennett’s mouth jerked, when he saw that a red color flashed over the cheeks of the man. It was something he had never expected from Jethro Reddington, in retrospect of his shameless behavior on their former encounters.
Then his facial expression changed, and his tone of voice as well. “Do I have the compassion bonus, or why don’t you slap me?”
Bennett was stunned, and he lifted his eyebrows, because the man’s voice sounded belligerent. The butler was still confused by the feeling of Jethro’s lips on his own ones. The touch had felt so completely different that the brutal violence which had accompanied the kiss a few months ago.
“If you attack me like that, you obviously are on the road to recovery,” Bennett pointed out, while a slight smile played on his lips.
“Well, a compassion bonus indeed,” the man panted crankily. “I don’t need your sympathy, you can tell me with ruthless candor how disgust…”
Bennett cut him off. “Stop being so furious, Jethro, and most of all, don’t accuse me of something which isn’t the truth.” Subsequently, Bennett frankly voiced his feelings, “I have missed you the previous days, and that doesn’t have anything to do with sympathy.”
Jethro’s expression changed all of a sudden, and the man looked at him with a mixture of surprise and uncertainty. “I have missed you, too,” he whispered softly.
Even before one of the two men had the chance to say something, they heard a knock on the door, and a nurse entered the room. She pointed at the clock above the entrance, and she explained, “I request you to call it a day, and you can come back for a visit tomorrow.”
Bennett uttered a discontent, growling sound, and the other one gave the nurse an equally disgruntled look. The nurse however wasn’t impressed at all. Her gaze was so stern and unyielding that the butler got up with a silent sigh.
“You will come back tomorrow?” Jethro asked, and he educed a grin from Bennett, because the look of the other man seemed to be almost shy.
“Of course I will. Aethel surely wants to visit you as well, she was simply too exhausted from the trip today. By the way, she intends to stay a fortnight, but she has released me for the remaining time of your rehab, so that I can keep you company.”
“Thank you…”
“Gentlemen,” the woman interrupted them quite unfriendly.
Jethro rolled his eyes, and he quickly whispered, “Can you guess why I want to get out of here?”
Bennett smiled from ear to ear. “Until tomorrow,” he said, and he briefly squeezed the hand of the man.
He turned around, and he smiled at the nurse who shook her head and sighed in the meantime.
When Bennett left the clinic, he hesitated for a moment, and he stopped walking in the middle of the way. Not only that he was still grinning all over his face, but he lightheartedly had to think of Jethro’s kiss.
He furrowed his brows in disbelief. He turned around and looked at the building again. Bennett shook his head in bewilderment. When he subsequently continued on his way to his car, he wondered what was going on with him, but despite of that, his content smile didn’t vanish from his face.
Family Circumstances
“Bennett True, stop standing beside me and take a seat,” Aethel Reddington requested him for the second time.
“But…”
“No but. You have put down my breakfast and my tea, and now please do me the favor and provide yourself with something from the buffet. Subsequently I expect that you sit down opposite me.”
Bennett was on the verge of contradicting her, but Aethel’s look interdicted it immediately.
With a brief nod, he headed towards the prepared food, and he selected his breakfast. Finally he took a seat as the old lady had requested him.
It certainly didn’t slip his attention that some of the hotel guests looked at them with irritation, but he was her butler and she was his employer, after all.
Bennett felt uncomfortable, and he stared at his plate. He was accustomed to have his breakfast in the kitchen in the mornings, and he usually ate alone, because Kate was always busy at this point in time. The fact that he was sitting opposite Aethel released his embarrassment.
“How is Jethro?” the woman asked casually, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to share the table with her butler.
“He could be better, I suppose. He is impatient and frustrated. Apart from that, he seems to realize the seriousness of his burn wounds to the whole extent for the first time...”
Bennett hesitated before he went on, “I guess it is eating him. He expressed it quite drastically yesterday at least.”
Aethel nodded, and she looked at him sadly, “Before he lost so much weight, he had set great value upon his physical appearance. I only can imagine how much he is suffering now. He was a handsome, young man, Bennett, he always had a smile on his face and he didn’t have these sullen cheeks as he has at the moment. He has been of slender built ever since he was a child, but he never was so thin.”
The woman went silent for a minute, and then she added in a low voice, “I should
have taken better care of him.”
“He is your grandson, and he spent his life in London,” Bennett pointed out in order to comfort the old lady to a certain degree.
“I should have taken better care of all of them,” Aethel Reddington responded. Even before he could object something, she began to explain, “I loved Charles, but his obstinacy destroyed the family cohesion. You must know, Bennett, we used to have a small, but fairly well-established hotel chain. My husband had his plans for our children. He never took into consideration that the two of them might have other things in mind for their future. He took it for granted that they would take over his business, and he was taken aback all the more, when our two children wanted to take another path. When our daughter immigrated to Australia, her decision brought discord into our family to such an extent, that the contact broke off completely. Subsequently, Jonathan, together with Esther and Jethro, moved to London. My husband imposed on him to run only one of the smaller hotels for the time being. Charles always conveyed Jonathan the feeling that he wasn’t good enough in order to entrust him with the whole business.
Instead of retiring, Charles remained to be the old despot who couldn’t keep his hands off, and he believed to know everything better.
Sometimes I wonder, if this was one of the reasons why Jonathan began to drink. My husband was the iron fist in the neck of our boy, always ready to strike as if he was a naughty child that had played a trick. After Jonathan’s death, Charles behavior changed profoundly. He sold the hotel chain, and he gave to Esther a considerable amount of money. I assume he wanted to calm down his bad consciousness. Jethro casually mentioned to me years ago that Esther was more occupied with the content of bottles than with taking care of other things. I suppose as a result, I had the desire to give to my grandson everything he wanted. Charles disapproved, and he was disgruntled, of course. I had the illusion to bind a part of our family together again, even though only a minor part. I obviously have failed.”