James Halperin - The First Immortal

“I’m over it. I’ll be okay. Look around you, so you’ll know it’s true.”

Ben had once smoked cigarettes, as many as three packs a day, and upon quitting cold turkey in 1964, had felt almost the way he did right now: uncomfortable, restless, mentally and physically blunted. He felt an urge to leave, to get out of that room, but knew he must force himself to continue.

“Yesterday I figured out why I treated you that way.”

Gary winced. “You don’t have to do this, Dad.”

Ben sensed Gary was curious in spite of their mutual discomfort. He latched onto that curiosity as if it were a stairway railing. “Yes I do. I need you to understand, to know where it all came from.”

“Okay.”

“When we took you home from the hospital to our tiny apartment, I discovered I couldn’t tolerate a baby who screamed and cried and soiled his diapers and smelled like all infants do. Babies’ emotions and pain and hunger know no reason, and your reactions to that suffering seemed completely beyond my control.

“And then there was the uncertainty; that was the worst thing about the POW ship. And about you . I never had any brothers or sisters, and you were our first child. So I had no idea what to expect, no inkling of what was waiting for me. By the time your sisters came, I knew what parenthood was like, but you arrived first. When I close my eyes, I can practically relive it. All three of us living in that tiny room, and the anxiety of first-time parenthood, pulling me back to that cramped hellhole of a ship.”

Ben clenched his teeth, continuing, undaunted in the face of his son’s silence. “When your sisters were born, we kept moving to bigger places. Until now, I never realized the moves were another way of fleeing memories. Each new home offered more breathing space, you see. I avoided confined surroundings because they took me back to that ship .”

He gazed at his son, hoping for a spark of understanding. But those blue eyes looked back at him with shock and, perhaps worse, embarrassment.

“All these years you and I were at war, at least in my mind,” he continued. “Every time I saw you, I felt trapped, almost as if enemy soldiers were trying to recapture me… to bring me back to their ship, that floating death coop I was so determined never to remember again.”

Gary’s expression remained unchanged, so Ben made one more attempt. “It took me until now to realize what it was between us, and that none of it ever had anything to do with you. You were just unlucky to be my first child is all. Son, I’m so sorry. I only wish there was some way I could make it up to you.

Gary didn’t seem angry, nor did he appear to take satisfaction in Ben’s predicament. “Okay, Dad,” he said, nodding slowly. “I believe you, or at least I believe you believe it. But what should we do?” Gary’s face was calm, noncommittal, like a parent listening to his child’s I-lost-my-math-homework story.

“I want to be the kind of father I always should’ve been. I want to understand and be understood. That’s all. I don’t expect you ever to forgive me.” That was Ben’s only lie; forgiveness was exactly what he wanted.

Gary hesitated. Ben stared at him, and waited. Finally the son opened his arms to the father, shuffled toward him. “I’ll try to understand, Dad, and I do forgive you.”

They hugged, their first embrace in the three years since Marge’s funeral. But when Ben stepped back, he saw nothing but pity on Gary’s face. Of course! His son would never understand and didn’t forgive him at all; he was just thinking, How can it hurt to be nice to the old man?

Ben deplored this moment as nothing more than a momentary amity between two well-meaning strangers. Like Longfellow’s ships that pass in the night, he thought, reciting the verse in his mind: “…we pass and speak to one another, Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence.”

Which might be all they could ever have between them. His revelation, he decided, had come far too late. Still, even as the gloom of his failure plagued his heart, Ben Smith’s nature would not permit him to give up.

Later that day, Ben started to feel an odd weakness, confirming his fears. He dialed Boston Cardiology Associates and asked for Toby.

There was no better cardiologist in Boston, but even if there were, Ben would have found it difficult to betray their friendship by seeing another doctor. They’d stayed the closest of friends and confidants ever since second grade; Toby had no family; Ben was the only permanent relationship in his life. Over these past twenty years, Ben had served as best man at all three of his friend’s marriages, the most recent of which had ended six years ago, in typical Tobias Fiske fashion. Of course Ben was there to console him through all three bitter, and expensive, divorces. And after Marge died, Toby had canceled his appointments and closed his practice a full week to remain at Ben’s side.

“I think you should come as soon as poss—” Toby paused. “Ben,” he restarted, “haul your ass over here right-the-hell now!”

When Toby stepped into the examination room, Ben marveled at the man Toby had become. Always solid and dark-complexioned, his friend had filled out and matured into almost magazine-cover appearance. He looked like the hero of a Latin American romance novel. Yet for all his physical attributes and apparent robust health, Toby’s relationships were only rarely stable. Ben sighed and awaited his friend’s verdict.

Toby advised him to check into Massachusetts General Hospital. “You’ve had a mild heart attack,” he explained, very businesslike, though Ben recognized the apparent dispassion as forced. “Too bad you stayed on that airplane. If you’d sought help right away, you might’ve avoided permanent damage to the heart muscle. As it is, the lesions are small, but dangerous. You’ll have to be far more careful from now on.”

Then he put both hands on Ben’s shoulders and gazed at his face. “Ben, this is serious stuff.”

Ben realized then that Toby was terrified. Suddenly he was, too. “You better believe I won’t wait next time.”

That night, as Jan Smith sat home nursing four-month-old Sarah while her husband Noah tried to determine which bills to pay first and which ones could wait, the telephone rang.

“Hello.”

“Jan, it’s your old dad.”

“Hey, Dad,” she answered, delighted as always to hear his voice. “How are you?”

“Not too good. Apparently I had a mild heart attack yesterday.”

“My God. No!”

Noah came into the room. “What’s the matter?”

Jan shook her head, scowled at him, then focused all attention on the telephone.

“Now Jan, don’t worry,” Ben said. “I’m fine, sweetheart. Just staying here overnight…”

“You’re in the hospital ?”

“For observation. I’ll be back home tomorrow.”

“Can I come visit?”

“No, really, honey, that’s not why I called. Just wanted to… Look, Jan, I promise I’m not dying, it’s just…”

“What is it, Dad? Tell me.”

“Well, this whole thing made me think that maybe I should start planning my estate. For when it happens, you know. Not that it’ll be soon; not likely anyway. But y’know, the two page will you wrote up for me, that must’ve been five, six years ago… Now don’t cry, honey. I’m really okay.”

“I just don’t know… if I can do it. Write up your will, I mean,” she managed. “Oh, Dad, I’m sorry. Maybe you should find another lawyer…”

“Yeah, I know, honey. I try to imagine what it might be like for you. And I can’t, because the only way I can do it is to reverse this in my head… and it’s too awful. Besides, my finances are complex. I’ll try to find a specialist. That’ll be better for both of us.”