The Verdict
The hospital room door opened suddenly, snapping Ben’s head up. He’d dozed somehow between the bouts of pain in his skull.
“Evening, I’m Dr. Richard,” the man announced walking in. Even with his jovial expression, he had bad news written on his weathered face. For some reason, Ben’s body decided fear wasn’t necessary even with his wife strangling his hand more than ever. She probably saw it too. He glanced at her as the doctor cleared his throat and stood at the foot of the bed, preparing to tell them something really bad judging by his hesitancy.
“We’ve run many tests as you know and have concluded that you have Gorham’s disease concentrated at the base of your skull. It… seems to be a rare form of it. And the rate that it has eaten the bone tells us it’s aggressive. The good news is, we have several treatments that can slow it down.”
“Is it curable?” his wife asked, sounding weak.
Ben squeezed her hand harder.
“Not currently, but the treatments have been known to slow it down a great deal and we’ll be trying them immediately. That means Ben will have to remain in the hospital while we run those treatments and find the one that works, if we can.”
Cheryl nodded and Ben stroked the top of her hand with his thumb, just wanting to hold her. They’d been so distant from each other for years and ever since he’d collapsed in their kitchen, worst possible scenarios made him hunger to connect with her harder than he ever had. “How long do you think it will take?” Ben asked.
“Anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. The first option may prove to work. If not, we move to the next and so forth. We’ll keep you informed of every step and the particulars. If you have any questions, write them down, and I’ll answer them as quickly as I can.”
When the doctor left, his wife stared at him. He saw it in her eyes, the need to break down and the need to be strong for him. He opened his arms and reached for her. She regarded what he offered even as her tears poured then finally fell onto him, sobbing.
Ben closed his eyes, holding her and petting her head. “Shhhhh,” he whispered. “Don’t cry.” God how he missed feeling her. “We can beat this. Right? You and me, we can beat anything we put our mind to.”
She answered with wails and more sobs and Ben’s chest burned with unspent love. So much unspent love he needed to lavish on his wife.
No, he’d beat this. He had to.
Six Weeks Later
"Mom?”
Cheryl quickly wiped her eyes at hearing Charlie’s scared voice. Sitting at the foot of her bed, she turned with a weak smile, arm out to him. “Hey,” she said on a shaky whisper. “Come here.”
She swallowed the choking fear as her sixteen-year-old made his way over, steps slow. He sat next to her and she put an arm around his ever-growing shoulders. “How are you holding up?” she asked.
She waited as the unspeakable dread seeped through the cracks in the silence, holding them hostage. “Is... dad coming home?” he finally asked, keeping his head lowered.
Cheryl's guts twisted. He'd overheard her phone conversation with the doctor. His dad was coming home, but she couldn’t tell him why. Not yet. “He’s coming home honey, yes.” She knew it was wrong to put promise in the words. But Charlie prayed day and night. The doctors were out of treatment ideas—they’d all failed. And they were long out of money.
Ben just wanted to come home and be with his family to face whatever was coming together. Cheryl wanted him home too but was terrified at what was coming. They weren’t sure how it would end for him. How painful it would get or what brain disorders he could develop in the deterioration process.
Charlie looked toward her but kept his head down. “And…the treatments?”
She took his hand and held it, patting and stroking it as she nodded and nodded, willing something half-way honest into her brain. “The doctor explained all the remaining options, but…I need to get on the computer and look up the words,” she said with a light laugh. “As soon as I know, you’ll know.”
He raised his clear blue eyes to her with a small smile as if to encourage her. “I’ll keep praying.”
She quickly nodded, her tears spilling over. “Yes,” she half gasped, stroking his hand again. “That would be very helpful. Go finish up your homework. I’ll come and tuck you in soon, and we’ll say our prayers.”
He suddenly wrapped his arms around her, hugging tight. At feeling the tremble in his muscled frame, she matched his hold, wanting more than anything to protect him. All of them. After ten seconds, she forced herself to disengage, remembering his grown-up status. He was so much like his father. Ben wanted to come home because in his mind, he was still the hero, the protector of his family. He was in no way taking any of this dying bullshit lying down, it went against everything he was, everything he stood for.
Cheryl got on her knees next to the bed and clasped her hands tightly together. “I’m scared,” she half choked out to God. What was going to happen to him? How bad would he suffer?
Her sweet Ben. They didn’t have the fairy tale marriage she’d dreamed of when she was a young girl, but he was so good to her. She’d learned to be good back to him. He was nothing like the man she’d dreamed of marrying, but he was amazing in ways she’d never known about. His type of manhood had never been talked about or written into fairy tales. And now that she might lose him, she was bitterly sure it should have been.
He was different. So very different. She realized there was nobody else like him. But you only knew it by his actions. He wasn’t a toucher or a hugger. Or even a kisser. He wasn’t a man of mushy words even if he was a man of many words and expressions. He wasn’t even into sex, unless she was, and when she was... he gave it without question.
A sob gushed out and she held her breath to keep more from escaping. So many years she’d resented his lack of initiation in sex. Felt just like rejection to her. Like he didn’t want her and crave her like she did him. So…she’d quit initiating sex. They went from once a month, then once every few months, then never. And now… she wouldn't be able to initiate anything. Her chances to connect with him in that precious way were gone. He’d be there needing it and needing her, and she’d be helpless. The thought of it hurt so terribly, more than the rejection ever had. Deep down she knew, she'd always known that he loved her. He loved her differently, in that special Ben way.
“Oh God,” she wailed, pressing her face into the bed. "I’m sorry, I'm sorry. Ben, I’m so sorry.”
****
Cheryl’s eyes snapped back open at the computer. She blinked until the blurred words on the screen cleared, sucking in a deep wake-up breath. Her eyes lowered to the time in the corner of the screen. Two-thirty AM. She raised her gaze back to the bottomless pit of information she’d been digging through before dozing off. She had one night before Ben came back. Mere hours to save her family, it felt like.
‘Rare head disease cures’ stared back at her. She’d fallen asleep at the desperate curve of searching for something outside the normal.