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3. Visit the cabin and go on a long hike.
4. Find a new reading spot. Maybe in his bed.
5. Do other fun things in his bed.
6. I’ll teach him to play gin rummy and beat him in Monopoly.
7. I’ll get him to draw me beautiful pictures.
I asked him to draw me something, and he never did.
The painting of the red cardinal is hanging in my kitchen, and I love it, but he never drew me a picture like I’d asked.
What if he never gets the chance to?
A memory of Ben creeps into my mind.
I was studying in the library, and he came to sit with me. I thought he was studying, too, with his textbook open and a notebook beside it. My concentration was split, and I covertly watched him. He seemed distracted, his eyes drifting from the moving pencil in his hand to staring absently around the room and then returning again. The whole time, he wore a half-smile.
“What are you thinking about?”
Ben jumped in his seat. I guessed my question had brought him out of some deep thought.
“Oh. Uh, just the book we’re reading.” He grinned at me and leaned over to kiss my forehead before focusing on his textbook for the first time in twenty minutes, the happy, thoughtful expression fading from his face.
That was when I caught a glimpse of his notes, only they weren’t notes at all. On his lined paper was a detailed sketch of two men dueling with swords.
Just like a scene in the book we’d been reading, The Count of Monte Cristo.
Growing up with Marcus, I always thought drawing meant bending over a piece of paper and concentrating on every little detail.
That day, I discovered Ben almost appeared to be daydreaming when he sketched.
I want him to look like that more often. Maybe I could even make him a color-coded schedule like mine. And, like Pops did with me, I could demand Ben pick some time each week to devote to drawing.
He deserves to do something that makes him happy.
Question is, will he get the chance?
Please, let me leave here with Ben.
Panic boils up my throat, searing away the calm from making my list.
“Pops?”
“Hmm?” He glances up from his book again.
“Read to me. Please. I just … I need you to read.”
“Of course, sweetheart. Should I start at the beginning?”
“That’s okay. Wherever you are now is fine.”
My father’s deep, normally soothing voice fills the room. I try to pay attention, but the words don’t make sense to my ears. He doesn’t sound anything like Ben, and that somehow makes my anxiety worse.
A knock interrupts Pops a moment before Dr. Stevens enters. He’s not in the lab coat and business-casual attire of our first meeting. Instead, he has a full set of blue scrubs on and some funny-looking white Crocs-like shoes.
“Ben is out of surgery. He’s in recovery next door. Everything went well. You can see him now.”
