Maddie asked about her mother again while I was clearing the table.
She was sitting on the rug with her blanket over her legs.
Bentley sat beside her, arranging the same toys she had already put away.
“Can Mom sing to me tonight?” Maddie asked.
Bentley's hands stopped.
I set the plates in the sink.
“We don't know if we can talk to her tonight, sweetheart,” I said.
Maddie looked disappointed.
“I want her song.”
Bentley immediately began humming.
It was a soft tune, no more than a few notes repeated over and over.
Maddie watched him.
“That's not Mom's song.”
“I know.”
“Sing her song.”
Bentley tried again.
He changed the tune slightly, then stopped.
“I can't remember it.”
Maddie's face crumpled.
“But Mom sings it.”
Bentley looked at her as if he had failed at something important.
“I'm sorry,” he whispered.
I came over and sat on the rug with them.
“It's all right, Maddie. You miss your mom.”
She nodded.
“Want Mommy.”
“I know.”
She reached for Bentley, and he pulled her close.
He looked at me over her head.
His expression held an apology he hadn't spoken.
I wanted to tell him that he didn't have to replace his mother.
I wanted to tell him that he could love Maddie without becoming every person she needed.
But I knew those ideas were difficult to accept when the person who normally comforted both of them was missing.
So I started with something simple.
“Would you like me to sit with you while she gets sleepy?”
Maddie nodded.
Bentley looked relieved, then guilty for feeling relieved.
I pretended not to notice the guilt.
We settled on the couch.
Maddie lay between us with her blanket tucked beneath her chin.
Bentley began humming again.
This time, he didn't try to make the tune sound exactly like Amber's.
He simply hummed until Maddie's breathing grew slower.
When she finally closed her eyes, he stopped.
He stayed very still.
I waited a little longer before lifting Maddie carefully and carrying her to the bedroom.
Bentley followed me down the hallway.
I tucked her into bed and moved the blanket away from her face.
She stirred but didn't wake.
Bentley stood near the doorway.
“She likes it when Mom stays until she falls asleep,” he said.
“I'm sure she does.”
“Sometimes she says she isn't tired because she doesn't want Mom to leave.”
He looked at Maddie's bed.
“Mom says she'll be right outside the door, and then Maddie goes to sleep.”
I could picture the routine.
I could picture Amber sitting on the edge of the bed, smoothing her daughter's hair and waiting through the last few minutes of the day.
It was an ordinary kind of love.
That was what made its absence so painful.
“Would you like to sit with her for another minute?” I asked.
He nodded.
He sat on the edge of the bed and brushed a strand of hair away from Maddie's forehead.
He didn't speak.
After a while, he stood and followed me back to the kitchen.
The blue jar was still beside the telephone.
Bentley sat at the table.
I brought him a glass of water and placed it within reach.
“Do you want to talk?” I asked.
He shrugged.
“Not really.”
“That's all right.”
I sat across from him.
He took a drink, then rested both hands around the glass.
“Sometimes I get mad at Mom.”
I waited.
“Then I feel bad.”
“You can feel angry and still love someone.”
He looked at me as though he wasn't sure that could be true.
“But she didn't mean to leave us.”
“We don't know everything that happened, Bentley.”
“I know.”
He stared into the water.
“She told us she'd come back.”
“I know she did.”
“What if she tried and couldn't?”
The question was so quiet that I almost missed it.
I thought about the promise Amber had made.
I thought about the way Bentley had repeated it, holding on to the words because they were all he had.
“That's one possibility,” I said. “But we don't know yet.”
He nodded.
“I keep thinking maybe she needs help.”
“I think it's right to keep trying to find out.”
“What if she doesn't know how to call us?”
“Then we need to keep looking for the right way to reach her.”
He looked up.
“You won't stop?”
“No.”
He studied my face.
Then he looked down again.
“I get scared when the phone rings.”
I glanced at the telephone.
“Because you're afraid it might be bad news?”
“Because it might be Mom.”
He rubbed his thumb over the rim of the glass.
“And if it's not her, then I feel stupid for hoping.”
I felt a heaviness in my chest.
“You're not stupid for hoping.”
“It feels stupid.”
“I understand that it feels that way.”
He shook his head.
“Sometimes I hear the phone in my head even when it's not ringing.”
I sat quietly for a moment.
He had been living with the sound of a telephone that might ring at any moment.
Every silence gave him another chance to hope.
Every actual ring brought the possibility of disappointment.
He was exhausted by both.
“Would it help if we moved the telephone a little farther away?” I asked. “I would still hear it, but you wouldn't have to sit beside it.”
He glanced at the blue jar.
“Can the jar stay there?”
“Yes.”
He thought about it.
“Maybe move the phone to the counter.”
“All right.”
I carried the telephone from the table to the kitchen counter.
I made sure the volume was turned up.
Then I returned to my chair.
Bentley watched me.
“You can still hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Even from there?”
“Even from there.”
He nodded slowly.
The blue jar remained on the table.
For the first time since we had brought it over, Bentley didn't pull it closer.
He left it where it was.
We sat together until the kitchen clock marked another quarter hour.
I didn't ask him to talk.
He didn't ask me another question.
Eventually, he carried his glass to the sink and returned to the chair.
He sat with his hands folded in his lap.
“I'm tired,” he said.
“Then let's get you ready for bed.”
He stood without arguing.
I walked him down the hallway and waited while he settled beneath the blanket.
The lamp was still on from the night before.
He looked toward the door.
“Can you leave it open?”
“Yes.”
“And the telephone?”
“It's on the counter. I'll hear it.”
He nodded.
I turned toward the hallway.
“Arlene?”
I looked back.
“Thank you for not getting mad at me.”
I stood still for a moment.
“There's nothing you did that makes me angry with you.”
He looked at the blanket.
“I know.”
But his voice suggested that he was still learning how to believe it.
I left the door open and returned to the kitchen.
The telephone sat on the counter.
The blue jar sat on the table.
Neither had changed.
But the house had become a place where Bentley could finally stop humming when his sister fell asleep.
He could be tired without having to pretend otherwise.
He could be angry without having to punish himself for it.
And he could hope for his mother without being ashamed.
I wished those things were enough to bring Amber home.
They weren't.
So I kept the telephone close and continued to wait for the answer we still needed.
PART 15 END
Click here to continue reading: PART 16: I Had Started to Recognize the Difference Between Keeping Bentley Safe for One Night and Finding the Help His Family Still Needed
I Thought My Neighbor’s Boy Just Needed a Bathroom, Until One Quiet Morning Revealed What He Had Been Hiding
Part 15 of 20
