Then nights turned into weeks, weeks to months, and Mason still wasn’t home—but by then, I was wired differently. I was changed. Something had snapped in my brain, a taut rubber band that just couldn’t take the pressure anymore. Ben had begged me in the beginning, tried to pull me away from the window where I stood, feet planted, staring into the darkness.
“This isn’t doing anybody any good,” he would say. “Izzy, you need to rest.”
And I knew he was right—I knew it wasn’t doing any good—but still, I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t sleep.
“How’s work?” Ben asks now, straining for conversation.
“Slow,” I say, tucking a rogue strand of hair behind my ear. I had let it air dry, resulting in a wiry halo of baby hairs I feel tickling my forehead. “I’m not getting a ton of offers at the moment.”
“I would think business would be better than usual,” he responds, walking over to the couch and taking a seat. It annoys me he doesn’t ask permission, but then again, he did buy it. “You know, given the publicity.”
“I don’t want to do anything that feels exploitative.”
“And that’s different from what you’re currently doing … how?”
I stare at Ben, and he stares back. This is why he’s here—why he’s really here. He must have heard about it somehow: my keynote. I knew he would eventually, just not this soon.
“Why don’t you just come out and say it,” I say. “Come on, Ben. Just say it.”
“Fine, I’ll say it. What the fuck are you doing?”
“I’m trying to keep his case alive.”
“It is alive,” he responds, exasperated. We’ve had this conversation so many times. “Isabelle, the police are working on it.”
Isabelle. He doesn’t call me Izzy anymore.
“You’ve got to stop this. All of it,” he says, gesturing to the dining room. I noticed him steal a glance earlier, that subconscious flinch as he rounded the corner, like steeling for a punch, his eyes skipping over all the pictures cluttering up the space where an oil painting of our wedding once hung. “It’s not healthy. Besides, it looks—”
“How does it look?” I interrupt, anger building in my chest. “Please, tell me.”
“It looks wrong,” he says, wringing his hands. “You, standing up and doing that in front of some sick audience the day before the anniversary. It doesn’t look normal.”
“And what exactly would look better, Ben? What would look normal? Doing nothing?”
I stare at him, my nails digging into my palms.
“They have nothing,” I continue. “They have no one, Ben. Whoever did this is still out there. Whoever took him…” I stop, biting my lip before I start to cry. I exhale, try again. “I don’t understand why you don’t care. Why you don’t want to find him.”
Ben shoots up from the couch, his face suddenly flushed with blood, and I know I’ve gone too far.
“Don’t you ever say that!” he yells, pointing his finger at me. There’s a bead of spit on his lip, quivering. “Don’t you ever accuse me of not caring. You have no idea what this has been like for me. He was my son, too.”
“Is,” I correct, my voice a whisper. “He is your son, too.”
We’re both silent, staring at each other from across the living room.
“He could still be alive,” I say, feeling the tears well in my eyes again. “We could still find him—”
“Isabelle, he’s not alive. He’s not.”
“He could be—”
“He’s not.”
I watch as Ben sighs, pushing his hands through his hair and tugging at the ends. Then he walks over to me and wraps his arms around me. I can’t bring myself to hug him back, so instead I just stand there. Dead weight.
“Isabelle,” he whispers, his fingers running their way through my hair. “I hate being the one to keep telling you this, I really do. It rips me apart. But the sooner you accept what happened, the sooner you can move on. You have to move on.”
“It’s been a year,” I respond. “How can you move on in a year?”
“I haven’t,” he says. “But I’m trying.”
I’m quiet, feeling his hands on the back of my head; his breath on my ear, warm and damp, and the gentle thump of his heart against my chest. I open my mouth, ready to apologize, when suddenly, he pulls back.