Saving Ben

This was the second time that I had done it. The arm came off in my hand and Ben fell to the floor. I had to get it sewed back on before he died. The last time I did it my grandmother was able to reattach it while I paced in the living room nervous and unable to look. Now I needed her services again but she was not answering her phone. I grabbed Ben and ran upstairs to her apartment. I swung open the door without knocking and pleaded loudly for her presence. The room did not answer. I pulled Ben close to me to comfort him. “Don’t worry Ben; Nanny knows how to fix everything.” “She won’t let you die.”

I sat down in Nanny’s red easy chair and rocked Ben back and forth like a baby. “Shhh Ben, don’t cry…I am sorry.” Surely she would be home in a few minutes. I went to the kitchen and grabbed a big sugar cookie and fed some to Ben. The crumbs stuck in his mouth and a chunk of cookie fell on the linoleum. “I know, let’s see if Nanny’s car is here.” I climbed on top of an old cabinet stereo and looked out the window onto Rumson Street. The old baby blue Ford was not there. “Maybe she went to play Bingo with Aunt Becky or get some bread from Food Giant.” “She’ll be right back Ben, don’t worry.” I pulled a doily from beneath a jar of dusty ribbon candy and wrapped Ben’s severed arm in it.

I sat back down in her chair and turned the radio to WSB. I was hoping that I might catch them playing Buck Owens’s “A Monsters Holiday” but all I got was a Braves game. “Here come the pitch…the swing…STEEEERIIIIKE…this has not been a good year for Dale Murphy.” I looked at the clock and willed it to move faster. The minute hand was moving so slow that it seemed to be going backwards every other minute. “We can’t wait for Nanny anymore Ben.” “Looks like I am going to have to fix you up myself.” I cradled Ben like a baby and set out to find my grandmothers sewing kit. I looked in the living room in an old Easter basket but only found yarn balls and dusty magazines with pictures of ladies with big hats. I opened the drawers of the little table she kept her snuff can on and rifled through recipes clipped from newspapers and old dusty letters but I could not find a needle or thread. Ben and I went to every room, crawled into every cabinet and stood on our tippy-toes to see what was on the tops of high furniture. “Stop crying Ben… it is around here somewhere.” I stood in the exact center of the apartment and turned around slowly like the minute hand I had been watching. I was looking for a secret.
There was one room at the end of the hall that Ben and I had missed. It was Nanny’s ironing room. “Come on Ben, I bet it is in there.” The door was swollen and it stuck a little when I pushed on it. The room was cool and dry and sunlight streamed in from the windows from a happy day. A cedar chest brimmed full of homemade quilts and fancy dresses covered in clear plastic. An ironing board stood diagonal in the room with freshly pressed pants draping across it. An antique chest of drawers stood against one wall. There were black and white pictures of people that I did not know on top of it and a single spool of black thread. “I think we found it Ben.” I moved a pile of clothes in front of the dresser and used it as a ladder. I grabbed the spool of thread and rummaged through the drawers for a needle.

Halfway down the collection of drawers I found a photograph album hidden under an old candy box. It was made of black cardboard and covered with felt. There were words on the front written in a sweeping silver hand: “Memento Mori”. I pulled the book of pictures out and sat down on my ladder and started turning the pages. There were lots of pictures of people sleeping and babies in beds of flowers. I did not recognize anyone from this book until I got to the second to last page. There was a picture of Nanny all wrapped up in a white sheet and she was sleeping too. I turned the book to its last page and froze solid. It was a picture of my grandfather from his recent funeral. My dad had made me look into the casket and I had been having nightmares for a week. Pa was all dressed up in a black suit and wore an old fashioned white tie that looked like a scarf. I threw the book down, frightened to have touched such an ugly thing. Suddenly I came to a sickening realization…all of the people in that book were dead… including my grandmother. Clutching Ben I grabbed the door knob… but it was already turning from the other side. “What are you doing in my ironing room?” my grandmother said in a stern tone. I dropped Ben and ran screaming past her as she stood in the doorway.

“What on earth has gotten into that child” Ruby thought before settling her eyes on the photo album. She frowned and bent down to pick up the book and the teddy bear. She sighed sadly and opened the book to a place that she knew by heart. “Poor Emily” Her heart ached as she looked down on the image of her sleeping twin sister. “Got to put you somewhere else” Ruby said to the book. “Somewhere high and lonesome”