you need, Len?”
“I just wondered where you were,” Len said. His voice that had commanded a room when he spoke was querulous and wavering. “I couldn’t hear you.”
“I was just in the kitchen,” Ben said. “I’m making a quickie marinara sauce for supper.”
Len smiled “Sounds good,” he said. “Can you help me walk in there? It’s lonesome in here by myself.” Len had a walker, but did not trust its fragile tubing to hold him.
“Sure,” Ben said. “Put your arms around my neck and I’ll lift you.” Len wrapped his arms around Ben’s neck. Ben felt them quivering. He put his arms around Len’s shrunken chest and clasped his hands behind Len’s back. He lifted. Len grunted as he got to his feet. Ben held him with one arm as he slid to Len’s left side. Slowly they shuffled toward the kitchen.
Once they got there Ben helped Len sit in the kitchen chair. Then he went to the counter and continued peeling the onion. He carefully deposited the flyaway onionskin in the trash. He cut the onion in half, then sliced the halves and diced the slices. He put these in his skillet with some extra virgin olive oil and turned the heat to medium.
“Strong onion,” Len said, wiping at his eyes. “Got me tearing up clear over here.”
Ben glanced at Len. Some strong feeling struggled to express itself on Len’s face. Ben pretended not to notice. “Maybe your eyes are extra sensitive today,” Ben said, “or mine aren’t as sensitive as usual.”
Len didn’t hear Ben. He was looking out the window. “A few daffodils left,” he remarked. “I wonder if the cannas will come back.”
“They’ve already put out leaves...”
“They should bloom, then.”
Ben put the pasta kettle to boil. He decided to use spaghetti tonight, after briefly considering fettuccine and discarding the idea. He crumbled ground beef and mild sausage into the perspiring onions. Len watched him stir and brown the meat. When the meat was nearly cooked through, Ben took canned tomatoes, tomato sauce, and tomato paste from the cupboard. He opened the cans.
“Making enough for your breakfast?” Len asked Ben.
“Yes,” Ben said, “just like always.” He stirred the tomatoes into the browned meat. When the mixture came to a boil, Ben added the tomato sauce and the tomato paste and lowered the heat. He stirred the sauce while it simmered.
The timer dinged. He drained the pasta, catching the cooking water in a bowl. He set the colander of drained pasta over the hot water in the bowl and covered it with the pasta kettle’s lid. He looked at Len. Len seemed to be asleep.
When the sauce had cooked to a thick and smooth texture, Ben took basil, oregano, rosemary, cinnamon, and parsley from the spice cupboard. He cast in a generous amount of each. Then he went back to his cutting board and crushed several cloves of garlic. He chopped these finely, and stirred them into the marinara sauce.
“How’s it coming?” Len said.
“Be ready in a few minutes,” he said to Len. “The sauce needs to simmer a little longer. Do you want a salad?”
“No, not tonight,” Len said. “And, please, only a little spaghetti to start. You know how my appetite is these days, Ben.”
Len looked out the window again. “I wonder if those daisies will be back this year,” he said. “You know the ones I mean? The yellow ones with orange stripes?”
“Oh, yeah, the gazanias.”
“I call them daisies.”
“They should show in a few days, if they’re going to.” Ben checked the sauce. “I think we can eat now,” Ben said. He took plates from the cupboard and placed a generous amount of spaghetti noodles on one, a small amount on the other. He topped each plate with sauce, and sprinkled parmesan/romano cheese he had grated earlier that day on top. He brought the plates to the table, and helped Len draw his chair up. Len slowly fed himself his few forkfuls of supper while Ben ate his larger meal.
When they had finished Ben got up and put the leftover pasta and sauce together in a bowl. He wrapped plastic over the bowl and refrigerated it. Then he helped Len back to the living room. He turned on the low light over the television.
“Stay with me a while,” Len begged Ben. “You can clean up later.”
Ben hesitated. “Okay,” he said. “Want to watch TV?”
Len shook his head. “I’d rather have it quiet, for a little space,” he said. He leaned his head back on the chair and closed his eyes. Ben sat in a chair near Len. Len was soon snoring softly. Ben considered getting up to clean the kitchen, but sleep overtook him, too.
It was full dark outside when Ben woke, certain something was wrong. The house was too silent. He roused himself when he realized he couldn’t hear Len’s breath rasping in and out. He leaned over Len. Len sprawled in the chair, an oxbow chair carved from rosewood. His eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling. Ben felt Len’s neck for his pulse. Len had none. Fear rising in him, he checked Len’s wrist. No pulse there, either. Great sobs choked Ben’s throat. Ben closed Len’s eyes, tears blurring his own.
He had known it was coming, this time when Len was not. He had thought himself prepared. He wasn’t. He choked back his grief. He looked for the telephone. It was lying on a bookshelf near the television. Ben picked it up, and wondered what number to dial. He had thought about what to do when this moment came. He had once started to write out a list of things to do. He didn’t know where the list was. He started to dial, and dropped the phone. For a long moment, he stared at it lying by his feet. Then he bent over and picked it up. He dialed 911, and the sympathetic operator helped him start contacting the proper authorities.
While he waited for someone to come, he sat in his chair and tried to plan what to do, step by step. He couldn’t plan. His brain was numb. The doorbell rang. Ben looked at his watch. It had been only a few minutes since he had hung up the phone.
The ambulance crew came and took Len’s shell away. Uniformed people politely questioned Ben. He answered, not sure what he said. Whatever he said satisfied the uniforms. Other people thrust papers at him. He signed them, accepting the people’s explanations of their contents at face value. Some helpful functionary cleaned off the rosewood chair where Len’s passing had left the last traces of his corporeality.
When the bureaucracy of death departed, Ben called Minnie Vann to let her know Len was gone. He wanted to hear Minnie’s voice. She was out. Ben left a message on her recorder. Then he went to his kitchen to clean it up. When the pots and pans were washed and put away, he got out the cold spaghetti, put some in a bowl, and soothed his soul with his favorite food. He fell asleep at the table, and slept until the gray morning knocked on his eyelids to waken him.
Ben spent the three days before the memorial service calling friends and acquaintances with the news and making necessary arrangements. In after years he remembered very little of that time except his numbness. He wept little. By doing all day and drugging himself to sleep at night, he got through it. Several well-meaning friends remarked on his courage. He knew better. He knew he was simply in automatic pilot because he had to be.
Setting up the memorial service itself was easy. He and Len had put it together soon after Len’s diagnosis came back. The cremation preceded the service, so Len was present only as ashes in an urn and a large photograph. Len had written a list of his life’s highlights, and the accomplishments he was proud of. He concluded it with a two-paragraph goodbye to his friends. A chaplain read it, so Ben didn’t have to. The chaplain included a couple of short prayers, and read the twenty-third Psalm. Ben endured the religious frills, as he thought of them. Neither he nor Len had much faith in any religion.
Afterward Ben greeted the people who had come. Many of them were friends and professional acquaintances Len had made over the years. Ben didn’t really know many of them. He thanked them for their condolences, and let them pass by. Several of his friends and acquaintances, and people he and Len had known together
also came. They all murmured words they meant to comfort Ben. Ben was too numb to feel their comforting. He thanked them anyway.
The last mourner in line was Minnie Vann. Gray speckled her hair. She had grown stouter over the years, but today she had encased herself in a tight-fitting and sober black dress with an ankle-length hem. She said nothing at first. She grabbed Ben and squeezed him. Her powder (When, Ben wondered, had Minnie taken to using cosmetics, especially powder?) folded him in a claustrophobia-inducing haze of rose scent. Ben sneezed, twice, hard. Then his tears came in rivers over his cheeks. Minnie patted his back and held him. When he had cried out his grief for that time, she released him, and handed him her handkerchief. True to Minnie’s form, it wasn’t a lacy bit of nothing. It was a man’s handkerchief. When all the mourners except Minnie had gone, the funeral director brought Ben the urn and the photograph. Ben took them. Minnie led him to his car. He put the photograph and urn on the seat beside him. Minnie leaned in the driver’s window to kiss his cheek.
“Do you want me to go with you?” she asked. Ben shook his head. “Then go home, Ben,” she said. “Go home and face the emptiness. You’ll never fill Len’s place in your life, but you may find somebody else someday.” Ben grimaced. Minnie patted his arm. “Don’t fight it off, when it
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