Waiting for Patrick (27 page)

He slides home, where he belongs, where Elliot wishes Ben could just stay. Ben starts to move slowly and reaches around between Elliot and the rug and lazily rubs what he finds there. His movements inside and outside match perfectly and Elliot rides the bliss Ben’s creating. It’s not frantic or aggressive. It’s probably the most loving sex Elliot’s ever had, and they both leisurely climax. Ben eases himself down until he’s draped over Elliot’s back, nuzzling his neck.

Elliot has never felt such utter contentment.

THE NEXT
day, Elliot packed up the rest of his things, except for the laptop, and carried his duffle to the car. Sheri and Malcolm were there to see him off. Daniel had been by earlier, but Ben had not wanted him there, so he had gone again. Now all there was left to do was to say good-bye to Ben.

“Ben, you around?” It had become a running joke, but that morning there was no answer. “Really? You’re not talking to me?” There was a long pause, and Elliot started shifting his weight back and forth, looking around the foyer. Ben wouldn’t really be so upset that he couldn’t say good-bye, would he? “I’m—” He paused again and stared at the keys. “—I’m going to close the laptop, Ben. I’m taking it with me. Please say good-bye.”

Just when Elliot thought Ben was truly not going to say anything, and he reached toward the laptop, the keys moved.

NO.

“No what?” Elliot asked, stroking the screen. “No, don’t leave? No, you’re not talking to me? No, don’t take the computer? No, you’re not saying good-bye?”

Yes

Elliot smiled and smacked the top of the laptop. “You playing with me?”

Maybe

Elliot put his hands on his hips. “Ben, for these kinds of responses, we don’t need a laptop. All we need is a Ouija board.”

LOL

“That’s a little more like my Ben.” Elliot chuckled and flicked the corner of the screen. “Thank you for saying good-bye. I know you don’t want me to leave, but I
will
be back.” Elliot put a hand on either side of the computer screen, as if holding Ben’s face in his hand. “I will.”

A silence fell over them; then, finally, the keys clacked.

I love you. You know that, right?

Full sentences with no abbreviations. Elliot interpreted that as meaning this message was especially important to Ben. “I know. I love you too. Two weeks, then I’m coming back. I promise.”

A long pause, then
I know you always try to
.

Elliot shook his head, not exactly sure what Ben meant by that. “I’d kiss you good-bye if I could.”

:-*

“What’s that?”

A kiss.

“Where do you get all these?” Elliot chuckled and shook his head, still looking toward where Ben might be. “You know more about them than I do.”

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He finally recognized what Ben was creating. It was a full-page heart. “I love you too.” He chuckled. After a short silence, Elliot couldn’t justify staying any longer. “Bye, Ben.”

Bye.

Elliot closed the laptop and put it in the case, then went outside to where his friends were waiting to say their own good-byes. He hugged Sheri, shook hands with Malcolm, then put the laptop in the passenger’s seat, leapt into the car, and pulled out of the driveway before he could change his mind.

HE GOT
to the private airport with no trouble and transferred his belongings. Not long after that, they were touching down at a small airport in Pennsylvania. He rented a truck, then went to the hotel he had booked. After luxuriating in the huge plantation house all this time, he was almost claustrophobic in the cramped hotel room. He had already planned on moving into Ben’s small house as soon as possible, but as he took in the worn carpet, thick, light-sucking drapes, and a comforter even uglier than the one he’d yet to replace, he knew he’d transfer his residence to the little house even if the contractors weren’t completely finished. The roofers had been working for a while and should be finished soon if they weren’t already. He’d buy a small bed and maybe a chest of drawers, pick up some groceries and supplies for the jobs he wanted to do himself, and that was really all he would need. He couldn’t wait to move in. In addition to not wanting to stay at the hotel longer than he needed to, he felt drawn to the little place. Even more so now that he was this close.

Once settled in the hotel, he couldn’t resist driving over to the house to have a quick peek at the contractors’ progress. Besides the roofers, he had hired people to fix the porch and front steps, as well as a plumber and an electrician. They were all nearing completion of the preliminary jobs he had approved sight unseen. In fact, a balding man in his fifties or sixties, whom Elliot assumed to be the plumber, was crouched down, tightening the outdoor hose hookup he had added.

The little cottage sat nestled in a small clearing that seemed to be magically protected from the encroaching scrub pines. He had hired a local guy recommended by the carpenter to mow the grass and would get around to having him plant flowers in the abandoned gardens on either side of the three steps. The poor house itself was run down and pleading for attention, but there was a welcoming vibe there. Elliot felt like the house itself was calling to him to come home, like it knew him and missed him and wanted him to visit.

Elliot was still in silent awe, standing at the base of the newly repaired stairs, when the plumber walked up and stuck out his hand. “Mr. Graham, nice to meet you in person, sir. I’m Clint Wilmington, plumber.”

Elliot didn’t bother to tell him that he had figured that out already from the pipe wrench hanging from his belt and the plumber’s crack he had flashed Elliot just a moment ago while he was tightening the outdoor pipe.

“The bathroom pipes are repaired and the ones leading up to the floor of the kitchen are fine.” The plumber shifted from foot to foot as he filled Elliot in on the progress. “The pipes to the sink itself need work. I thought I’d wait till you got here to ask what your plans are for remodeling.” Clint punctuated each word with wild gesticulations. “If you’re going to keep the small sink, I’ll go ahead and put back exactly what’s there, but if you were going to enlarge the sink/counter area, or put in a dishwasher, it would be more efficient to run the pipes differently.”

Elliot hadn’t given it much thought. The house was small to begin with, so it didn’t have nearly the historic air about it that the plantation house had. And over the years, new families had remodeled it and added onto it until it really didn’t look exactly like the house Ben grew up in—didn’t look the way Elliot imagined it would have looked back then at least.

“Yeah, I’ll probably go with a dishwasher.” He thought his modern ghost would like that, not that he was going to explain that to the plumber.

Clint perked up and started dancing around like he had to pee. “Okay, I’ll get started on the new fixtures tomorrow.” Elliot thought he looked like a kid on Christmas. Of course, for the prices he was charging, it probably really did feel like Christmas, getting word that there would be even more work to do. “If you want new bathroom fixtures, we can put them in anytime; the pipes are the same either way.”

“Yeah, I’ll want to update everything.” Elliot found that he was subconsciously holding himself extremely still, maybe to compensate for Clint’s incessant motion. “I planned to go into town and see what I could find there. Keep the money local.”

The plumber looked genuinely pleased. “Thank you, Mr. Graham. That sure would help our little economy.”

Elliot just smiled and shook the man’s hand when he stuck it out again.

The plumber made his way to his truck, and Elliot continued toward his original destination, the inside of the house. As he stood in the front doorway, his fertile imagination conjured up a scene of how it might have been all those years ago.

Ben is standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “About time you got here. We still going fishing?”

Mrs. Myers comes out and hands Ben two pails that somehow Elliot knows contain their lunch for the day. “Be careful, you two. The river is up with all the rain we had. Old man Miller lost a dog in that river the other day. Poor thing got too close, fell in, and was swept away before Mr. Miller knew what was happening.”

Ben leans over and kisses his mother. “We’ll be careful, Ma.”

A younger boy, a carbon copy of Ben, bounces between him and Elliot. “Still don’t know why I can’t come. I like fishing too.”

“Martin,” Ben’s mother chides. “We’ve been through this. Your brother is a man now. Men need some man time every once in a while.” Then she looks toward Elliot. “You two boys have fun.”

Elliot could feel a goofy smile on his face at the image, but the mirage vanished when the electrician called Elliot’s name.

“Mr. Graham. Your timing is perfect. I just finished up the wiring. You can have the electric company turn on the electricity any time you want. Everything is up to code now.” Elliot nodded, eyes following the man’s pointing hand as the electrician continued. “I put in extra outlets in each room and the extra light switches we talked about.”

“That’s fine,” Elliot finally responded, still somewhat depressed over the loss of the illusion. It had been nice imagining Ben alive and with his family. Even if it was pure conjecture. “I’ll go over everything tomorrow and let you know if I want anything else done. Of course, leave me your bill and I’ll take care of that immediately.”

“Thank you, Mr. Graham.” The electrician shook his hand and turned toward the small living room, presumably to gather up the rest of his equipment.

Elliot had asked everyone to call him by his first name, but no one seemed inclined to do so, and he just didn’t care enough to argue with them about it. He nodded his acknowledgment as he passed a few stray workers and strode back outside, off the porch and completely around the house to see how far the carpenters had gotten.

As it turned out, not as far as he’d like. But what they had finished was exquisite.

“I like it,” Elliot told the men putting the finishing touches on the big front window he had added. It looked out onto the wooded area where Patrick and Ben had built their fort. Elliot looked wistfully off into the woods. “When you get finished with the house itself, I have another job for you.”

“What’s that, Mr. Graham?” the foreman, Terry Simmons, asked.

Elliot noted the time, decided they had enough light for him to show the man what he wanted, and said, “Come with me.”

He led him out of the little yard and down the overgrown path in the woods.

“My men can cut all this back for you too, if you want,” Terry said helpfully from behind Elliot as the two batted at tree limbs that reached toward them longingly. Vines crept across the ground, stalking their ankles. Elliot kicked at them and stepped on them in turns. The vines didn’t seem to appreciate this and began to strike in earnest the farther they got into the woods.

Elliot had thought he’d cut it back himself, but he could virtually hear his fan club now if they knew he was wielding an ax day in and day out to take out all this brush, which included quite a number of small trees. Elliot kicked at a particularly persistent creeper and looked back at Terry. “I have a very specific image in my mind of what I want it to look like,” he said.

“If you can tell us, we can do it,” Terry said confidently, coming to a halt just behind him. When he saw Elliot was losing his struggle with the plant, he knelt down and disentangled Elliot’s foot.

“I can probably come out and rope it off.” Elliot finally decided when his ankle wasn’t in imminent danger of strangulation. He led them farther down the path with no further entanglement with vicious undergrowth. When they got to the ancient oak tree, he pointed up. “What I really want done, though, is for that to be restored.”

“What? That old tree house?” Terry squinted, probably trying to see what Elliot saw and to understand why it was worth saving. “I didn’t know you had kids.” Terry was still looking up, so he wouldn’t have seen Elliot shake his head, but he didn’t stop talking long enough to acknowledge it anyway. “But wouldn’t it be easier to tear the whole thing down and start over?”

“Well, as rotten as the wood is, that is probably what we will have to do,” Elliot agreed with him, looking up into the leaves. “But I want you to take detailed measurements and pictures and put it back up exactly the way it is.”