William Bernhardt - Primary Justice

“Mother, I don’t want to go into this.”

“I want you to know,” she insisted, “that your father did not dislike you. If he was hard on you … it was for a reason.”

The two of them sat for a moment without saying anything, neither looking directly at the other. Ben’s mother took another sip of tea.

“I guess you know I was … upset when you stopped calling,” she said, maintaining an even tone. “You’re the only son I have. It seems as if you haven’t been the same boy since Toronto and Ellen—”

“Mother—”

“I worry about you, Benjamin.”

Ben stared at the ceiling. “Mother, I’ve had a lot to deal with.”

“Such as?” she said. A slight edge crept into her voice. “Switching jobs and cities and making a mad scramble for whatever you imagined might make your father happy?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

She leaned back against the sofa, obviously unconvinced. “Tell me what happened, Benjamin, that last day you saw him.”

Ben shook his head. “I don’t think I can. It’s too hard to remember. …”

Ben stepped into the hospital, room. The walls were a bleak green, made worse by the low lighting. The television tilting from the ceiling flickered with a rapid spattering of black-and-white images, but no sound emerged. The serving table next to the bed held a cold luncheon plate, barely touched. Ben wondered if there was a thermostat somewhere in the room. It seemed very cold.

Ben’s father lay on the hospital bed beneath two crisp white sheets. One plastic tube was patched into his right nostril, another was feeding his arm. His cheeks sagged with age and exhaustion, ending in jowls that rounded the underside of his chin. His eyes were closed. Ben had seen his father in the hospital before—this was his fifth visit—but he had never looked like this.

“Dad?” he said quietly.

His eyes opened. They blinked aimlessly for a moment, then lighted on Ben.

“You came,” he said, in a raspy whisper. Obviously, it was difficult for him to talk.

“Of course I came,” Ben said, leaning over the guardrail on the bed.

“I know you’re busy at school.” He tried to push himself up by the palms of his hands.

“That’s all right, Dad. Stay where you are.”

He relaxed. His voice seemed to regain some of its strength. “You learning anything up there?” The strong, slow drawl was a constant reminder of his farmhouse roots. “They taught you how to sue doctors for their life savings yet?”

“Dad, please.” Ben gripped the guardrail tightly. “It isn’t like that. In law school, we learn legal concepts . It’s an intellectual pursuit.”

Ben’s father chuckled softly, as much as the tube in his nose would allow. “Then you should be good at it.” He sighed. “In med school, we had to work .”

“I know, Dad. I’ve heard.”

“I don’t know why you couldn’t just go to med school and be respectable.”

“I don’t know, either, Dad. I guess I just didn’t want to spend my entire life sticking my fingers in people’s bodily orifices.”

The older man’s voice became stronger. “Make fun if you like, but you’ll never make the kind of money working for the district attorney you could make as a doctor.”

“No doubt.”

“So what else goes on at school, besides learning legal concepts?” His eyelids fluttered up and down. “Getting any?”

“ What ?”

“You heard me. I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase. I’m asking you about girls.”

Ben cast his eyes skyward. “I’m not dating anyone at present.”

“That’s not exactly what I asked. I bet you get laid all the time. God knows your sister does.”

“ Dad! Come on—”

“It wasn’t like that when I was in college. Students didn’t act like that. Well, I didn’t. Hell, people were probably banging each other right and left. I wouldn’t know.” He inhaled raspily. “Your mother was the only one for me.”

He seemed to rest for a moment, then suddenly his eyebrows knitted. “You didn’t do it with Jenny Jacobson, did you?”

“ Who ?”

“Jenny Jacobson. That skinny girl you dated in high school.”

“In high school? Of course not.”

He exhaled. “Well, thank God for that. She was a nice girl. Her father and I have been in the Rotary Club together for twenty-five years.”

Ben rested his chin on the guardrail. The two of them remained silent for several moments.

“So give me a report card, son,” he said. He reached under the sheets and scratched himself. “Tell me how I’ve done as a father. Tell me what I’ve done right and what I’ve done wrong.”

“Dad … I don’t know what you mean.”

“No, of course not.” A smile came over his face. “Whatever you lacked in drive, whatever your other undesirable qualities, you were always nice .” He paused. “Assuming niceness is a desirable quality.”

He looked up at his son. “It’s kind of hard to tell your father he’s been a son of a bitch when he’s about to die, huh?” And then he laughed, a loud, abrasive laugh that turned into harsh coughing and sputtering. Ben reached out to him, but he waved Ben away.

After a few moments, he regained control of himself. His eyelids seemed very heavy.

“Mother said you wanted to talk to me about something,” Ben said.

“Yes, I did. There’s a package waiting for you at home. Something I had Jim Gregory’s firm prepare. A portfolio.”

“A portfolio?”

“That’s right. Detailed information on all my various holdings and investments. I’ll be kind and just say that you’ve never expressed much interest in the family business. But you’re going to have to now.”

“You shouldn’t talk like that. You’ll be fine.”

“Don’t be a pansy, Ben. I’m dying. This is it. Like it or not, you’re going to have to take over the family finances. I’ve made a pile of money, and I want you to see that your mother and sister are taken care of.”

“Dad, wouldn’t it be better to hire someone to do this?”

“That’s so like you, Ben. Get someone else to do it.” He pushed himself up in the bed. “Look, it’s not like I’m asking you to actually make some money. All I’m asking you to do is take care of what I’ve made for you. You’re going to be the head of the Kincaid family, and I expect you to act accordingly.”

“So that was it?” Ben said. “You asked me to come here so we could talk about money?”

Ben’s father made a choking, snorting noise. “Yeah, what’s wrong with that? I guess you were expecting some profound philosophical deathbed advice.” He lowered himself back into his sleeping position. “Fine, I’ll give you some advice. Don’t get old. It isn’t worth it, it isn’t fun, and it isn’t fair. You spend your whole life going from one moment to the next. A happy moment here, a sad one there. Working hard, living clean, starting a family, hoping you can stack two or three, maybe even four of the happy moments together. Trying to freeze time. Trying to fix the moment. But it can’t be done.”

His pace slowed and his eyelids drooped lower over his eyes. “And then you’re old, and your life is like a book you read too quickly. All you can remember are a few scattered images and random thoughts. No sense of the whole.”

He exhaled deeply. “I think I’m going to sleep for a while now, Ben.”

“I’ll go.”

“No, stay. If you leave, your mother will insist on coming in, and she needs rest, too.”

“All right. I’ll stay.”

He smiled slightly, and his eyes closed. His hand raised and almost touched Ben on the cheek, then fell back to the bed. After a moment, he was asleep, and deep within the dream from which he would never awaken.