Page 118 of Hell Bent
“I don’t want to know,” I said fast. “I know there’s bad stuff out there, because he said something about it, but I don’t want to know something he didn’t tell me.”
“Right,” she said. “OK. Ten minutes.” So I drank my beer until I decided to rest my eyes for a minute. It had been a pretty adrenaline-packed day, and tomorrow wasn’t going to be any easier.
I jolted awake to voices beside me. The flight attendant had covered the table with a white cloth and was setting plates in front of us. Harlan hadn’t been kidding. Steakandsalmon, plus asparagus and thin-sliced crispy potatoes, and suddenly, I was starved. I picked up my knife and fork and told Alix, “You’ll have to do your research after dinner, I guess. I just realized I haven’t eaten much since breakfast.”
She smiled. “The research is already done. Since you were out for forty minutes.”
I stared at her. “I was not.”
“Yep. You were.” She cut a bite of salmon and ate it. “Wow. I’m going to have to start doing all my travel on private jets with personal chefs. This isgood.Downright silky, and this fish wasn’t farmed.”
I had to agree, since I was trying not to inhale my own food. “Adrenaline’s tiring, I guess.”
“It sure is,” she said. “So are you ready to hear my ideas?”
“Go for it,” I said, though I wasn’t sure what kind of ideas were possible here.
“Two things, then. Help for veterans, because Harlan does some work with disabled vets, and domestic violence. Awomen’s shelter, something like that. Portland has a few good options. The domestic violence thing might be a little sensitive, though. You said you didn’t want to know, so I’ll just say that it might hit too close to home.”
“For what? What am I doing here?”
“You make a donation in his name. Don’t give him a dollar amount, so it’s not like, ‘Hey, dude, thanks but no thanks, because I paid you back.’ You just say something like, you appreciated his help and wanted to do something to pay it forward, so you made a good donation to a cause you thought might mean something to him. There’s a group in Portland that helps vets who are homeless or at risk, but you can check out all of them and pick the one you like. See, that doesn’t insult him, but it lets you keep your pride.”
“You said ‘brainstorm,’” I said. “I distinctly heard ‘brainstorm.’”
“My brain stormed. And, see? Homeless vets. About as good a cause as you can get.”
“Brainstorming,” I reminded her, “is when you both offer up ideas, and somebody writes them on a board. It’s a team project.” The steak was medium-rare, tender, and flavorful, with a sort of mustard-butter sauce that worked for me. Also, I seemed to have another beer. Bad idea to drink two with the conference championship next week, but I could keep it to half of this one. That worked.
“Oh,” Alix said. “All right, then. Pretend I didn’t say anything and have this brilliant idea about homeless vets yourself. It can dawn on you suddenly.”
I laughed. I hadn’t thought I could, but I did. “No, I’ll take that. That’s pretty brilliant, actually.” I paused, then said, “I donate quite a bit. Locally, wherever I am. I don’t normally mention it. Not sure why I’m doing it now.”
Her hand was on my arm. “And nothing about that surprises me. That you do it, and that you don’t make a bigdeal of it. Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me. And I don’t think I’ve told you this enough, so I’m going to tell you now. Probably a good time anyway, since I just insulted you. I’m proud of you, and not just for the game today, though that was amazing. Not just your skill, but your composure. None of that could have come easily. But I’m more proud because everything that’s happened lately is something you didn’t ask for and didn’t plan for, and you’ve stepped up anyway. With Lexi. With Ben. With your sister. Even with me.”
“Well,” I tried to joke, “it hasn’t been too much of a strain to accommodate you in my life. In fact, I’d call that one easy.”
She said, “Stop raining on my big speech,” and I smiled and ate some more steak. “I guess I want to say one more thing,” she said, “and then I might fall asleep myself, because this is my second glass of wine I’m finishing here. I know you’re dreading this. Not just for you, but for Ben. But I’ll be right there with you, doing everything I can. I promise. I’ll be there.”
Alix sleptmost of the way to Portland, and I was glad. I headed forward to check on Ben after a while, and found him watching a movie on his phone with his headphones in. I asked, “Doing OK?” he said, “Yeah,” and didn’t look up, and I thought,What am I supposed to say here?and couldn’t come up with a thing.
It hit me on the way back to my seat. Ben on his phone. Ben watching TV and doing not enough else. Ben having feelings, and Ben going back to school as soon as I could manage it, because my attorney had told me on Friday that the paperwork had finally gone through. It would be waiting for me at home, and this thing was about to get real. Thepaperwork might say “guardian,” but I was going to have to figure out how to be a parent, and I wasn’t ready.
I don’t know why that hadn’t really hit me before. It had felt temporary, I guess. It wasn’t temporary anymore.
When you don’t know what to do next, do the thing that occurs to you. I went back to my seat and started making a list on my phone. School enrollment. School search? Clothes. Figuring out where to live. Was the Pearl District good enough, long-term? For that school thing, especially? I didn’t want him to have to change schools again. I needed to figure all that out. And when the panic rose in me like sickness, I told myself,You’ll do it one step at a time. You’ll figure it out,and kept going. I didn’t have to think of everything now. When I thought of new items, I’d add them. One week, two weeks, a month, and my new life would emerge. A life with a nephew who’d have to be more like a son, or I’d be doing it wrong.
All right.Thatone had me taking some deep breaths.One step at a time,I reminded myself, and then I coped in exactly the same way as Ben. I put in my headphones, pulled up a thriller movie on my phone, and stared at it until we landed in Portland.
Hey, it beat panicking.
Alix
I woke up because it was quiet. I was sleeping on Sebastian’s shoulder, and I devoutly hoped I hadn’t been drooling. I said, “Are we here? What?”
Sebastian said, “In Portland. Stay here. I just have to go grab those passports from Thomas.”
He stood up and pulled on his jacket, and Ben came back to us and asked, “Where are we?”
