Page 112 of Summer Reading

I glanced outside at the porch but Ben wasn’t there. It was then that I noticed his motorcycle was gone. I hurried to get my phone out of my bag.

There was one voicemail waiting in the queue. I knew before I opened it that it was Ben. My fingers shook when I pressed play.

“Hi, Samwise. Sorry to tell you this over the phone but I didn’t want to wake you. I have to go away for a while. I have to figure some stuff out. Stay as long as you want in the house. I’ll... I guess... I’ll be in touch. Take care.”

The message ended. I played it again and then again. Away? For a while? What did that even mean?

I hit the callback button but it rang once and switched right over to voicemail. Damn it!

Why was he pushing me away? Didn’t he know that I was here for him? That I’d be here for him? That I loved him?

How would he know that when you were too chicken to tell him?the voice in my head chided me. I sighed and tossed my phone back into my bag.

I shuffled to the kitchen and poured myself some coffee. The heat and bitterness were the punch to the face I needed. I took a shower, tidied up the place, and walked home. It was only a few miles away and it gave me time to think.

Where would Ben have gone? Back to Moira’s? To his grandparents’? To work?

I took my phone out and called Em. She answered on the second ring.

“Sam, is everything okay?” she asked. “Ben’s on a sudden personal leave for a few days, and everyone is wondering what happened. Is he all right?”

“No, he’s not,” I said. I told her about what we’d learned about his dad, and Em blew out a breath.

“Moira is making my mother look like a saint,” she said. “And that’s saying something.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Hey, Ben left while I was sleeping this morning, so I didn’t get a chance to talk to him.” Ihated admitting this because it made me feel as if I’d been dumped, which I very well might have been, but I had to ask. “If you hear from him, will you call me?”

“Of course,” she said. “But I’m sure you’ll be the person he reaches out to first.”

And that is why Em was my best friend forever. She always said just the right thing when I doubted myself.

“Thanks,” I said. “Talk later?”

“Definitely.”

I walked through the neighborhood toward home. The sun was out and the temperature was climbing. I passed through the Campground, which is essentially a town green in the center of the famous gingerbread cottages, and the massive open-air iron tabernacle with its stained glass windows holding court in the center.

I paused at the entrance. I wasn’t a praying sort, which I figured meant that if I offered one up, maybe it would get moved to the head of the line. I thought about Ben. I pictured his grief and I simply asked for strength for him to get him through these dark days. If any place could be a conduit to the divine, it was the tabernacle.

I continued walking to the cottage. When I arrived, Stephanie was sitting on the front porch, reading. She glanced up, worry in her eyes, which she quickly masked with a welcoming smile.

“Sam, are you all right?” she asked. She put aside her book. It had a drawing of an ancient Greek orRoman man on the cover, so I assumed she was studying up for the coming school year. “Can I get you anything? How’s Ben?”

“I’m fine,” I said. I sat in the seat beside her. “I don’t know how Ben is. He left this morning before I woke up.”

“Left?” she asked. “Do you know where?”

I shook my head. “He didn’t tell me in his message.”

“Men,” she said. She shook her head as if she found the entire gender confounding. I was right there with her.

“Are you referring to Dad’s midlife crisis?” I lowered my voice and whispered, “Are you guys okay?”

“We’re fine or we will be,” she said. She stared past me at the driveway where Dad’s project car was. “As soon as he gives up the skinny jeans. I can handle the car, and the goatee is kind of sexy but the skinny jeans have to go.”

I laughed. “You have my full support on that mission.”

She smiled, a genuine heart-melter of a smile, and asked, “Do you love him?”

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