Finding an Editor Ch. 03

He paused, judging how much to tell me. "This is going to be huge, Mrs. Henson. It will be on Broadway for decades unless I miss my guess. It's pretty stark, and there are only three actors in the whole production, all past middle age. Enough has leaked out about it that I'm getting calls from every agent in the country, and even England, Australia, France, you name it. Hugh Jackman, Sally Fields, Russell Crowe, not counting the stars here on Broadway, the list keeps growing. I'm glad I'm not handling casting on this one."

So I was allowed to sit in the venue and listen. I sat there every day until they sent me home, for two weeks. It didn't take me long to figure out the play was about Benny, me, and decisions I'd recently made. One scene, where the man begged his wife to just talk to him, could have been lifted from our phone conversations. I just sat and cried. Of course, they were using unknowns, testing dialogue, building and assessing sets, setting stage marks, testing backgrounds, but they were trying their best, hoping to make good impressions for future work.

Someone reached over my shoulder and handed me a box of tissues. I didn't know anyone was behind me. I took a handful, snuffling out a "thank you."

I turned round to hand the box back, to look my husband in the eye. There was dead silence for about fifteen seconds as I looked at his face, the slight smile flitting around the edges of his mouth. My scream brought everything in the theater to a halt, everyone from the stage hands to the business people in the back rushed over to see if I was all right.

I was more than all right! I had the man I loved more than my own life in my arms, and they were going to have to pry me off him. Two of the biggest stage hands picked us up and dropped Benny on a seat, me still clinging, firmly in his lap. Derek came over grinning, and shooed everyone away. He waited patiently until I finally gave him his lips back.

"I see you found each other. Would you like an office for privacy?"

"Only if you intend to build one around us where we sit. I'm wrapped up in the arms of the man I love, and I'm not letting him turn me loose anytime soon."

He just smiled and left us, telling everyone to stay as far away from us as possible.

After the crying came the apologies, from both of us. Benny talked after I was done, and it broke my heart all over again. "It broke my heart, Bon, even before the photo, to think I was losing you. Do you not think I had to face the same demons, while I was out doing press for my books. During the times you couldn't come I would wander around alone. And the hints, the comeons, the outright groping and flashes from the women, it all made me sick. The thought that I'd betray you with any of them made me laugh. But suddenly you weren't talking to me, shutting me out of your life completely. I'd talked to a lot of other people who also would spend long stretches apart form their spouses, and heard the stories of how many had succumbed. I came to the conclusion you were moving on in your life without me. When you refused to answer your phone, refused all avenues of contact while your granddaughter was in danger, it tore my heart out. Then came the picture, and I had to get away.

"I don't know why I picked Nashville, maybe because we had never been there. I moped around for a week before I remembered the Pattersons. I called, and Moira came by in this monster Jeep and took me home with her. I stayed in their guest house for a week before I started coming back to life. Their son wanted to go fishing, and no one had the time. He asked me at breakfast, and by the afternoon Aaron, his next oldest sister and I were on the bank of their pond. We fished long enough to catch enough to feed the family the next night."

"Wiley and I sat the next night by the fire pit they'd put on the end of their patio, talking about life in general and love in particular. You didn't know it, but after the incident I had the family keep an eye on you. I knew you were frantic to find me, but the resentment was still strong, and I just couldn't come home."

"Instead, I thought about it, and read online about some guy who found out his wife of forty years had cheated on him years ago, and the pain it caused, even though it was fifteen years in the past. She blamed the isolation they lived in, saying she was starved for human contact and the mailman was available. Her house was his turnaround point, and he would eat his lunch at the end of her driveway. One day she invited him in, and they lunched together after that. Lunches turned to more and her husband became suspicious. He made it a point to come home at lunch, just in time to almost catch them. It was in Oklahoma, and a tornado came up, forcing them into the root cellar for hours. She realized then how foolish she had been, and rededicated her life to her husband. The funny thing was she had inherited the house from her grandmother, and insisted they move. He had to drive seventy-two miles each way for the only job he could find. After the repairs to the house, they put it up for sale and moved back to the city."

"Her husband only found out when the mailman died, and left her some things in his will, including a letter he'd written but never sent, detailing the love he felt for her and asking her to leave her husband. When they moved, he put the letter in the box until he passed."

I was curious. "Did the couple stay together?"

"I don't know. The article never said."

"Well, I hope he forgave her."

"We'll never know. One thing that stood out in the article was her analogy between their relationship and the house."

"She said their life was like the house. It had stood the test of the storm, coming out intact, just weathered."

He sighed. "I worked on the rough draft sixteen hours a day for four weeks. Then I stopped and helped Wiley with his little book. He had already written the story, I just tweaked it into something readable. Somehow I'd picked up an acoustic bass he had lying around, and he taught me the basics."

"Then I went on the show, knowing someone in the family would be watching. I didn't know exactly where I stood with you, so I set it up. If you still wanted me, you needed to come looking. And here we are."

I sat, open mouthed. Then I grabbed him, pressing our faces together until our noses touched. "Now you listen to me, Benny Henson! I may have lost my way for a little, but I never, not once, stopped loving you! You have no idea of the hell I was in, wondering if I'd ever see you again, wondering if I could even still exist without you. I will make you some promises now, this minute, and you better take them to heart. I will never let go of you again. You hear me, NEVER. I'm done with writing. I'm done with being apart. From now on, if your head is on a pillow, mine will be on the one beside it, unless, of course, I'm sleeping in your arms."

I let go and pulled back, panting with emotion. Did he still want me? He just grinned.

"Well then. Whenever you're ready, I'll show the apartment I leased for us while we get this thing off the ground."

We set a land speed record for two people in their late fifties navigating the streets of New York. We showered together, for some reason making both of us cry. You would think that having been without sex for over four months we'd be on each other like animals, but we mated slowly, softly, at least at first, trying to pour love into every movement. The next two were a lot firmer, but still sensual. We didn't wake up until after noon the next day.

I'd like to say everything went back to the way it was, but it was almost a year before we were back to normal. We went through some pretty intense therapy for a couple of months, and the trials of Bob, Tom, and Miriam were pretty upsetting.

They all got convicted of second degree sexual assault, despite Miriam claiming she had no part in it. The video plainly showed her lifting Bonnie's legs, and the judge ruled she was just as involved as the rest. They all got three years, and did about six months. Bob was, of course, disbarred, and Miriam and Tom lost their jobs, because they were registered sex offenders now, and there was an elementary school on the block behind the bank, close enough that it violated proximity laws.

Bob left town, to work for his uncle two states over as a paralegal, lucky to get the job.

Tom's father helped them sell their house, and gave them some money, while they found new jobs. It got a little sticky in our blended family, because they were under a permanent restraining order to stay a thousand feet away from me, Benny, our home, and the studio. Four times a year they took the family and tried to spend a week with them. The kids footed the bills wherever they stayed, the loving couple were barely making even. They one day Tom disappeared.

The boys felt bad for their mother, even though they hated what she'd done and turned into, but they were all pretty well off by now, so they leased a nice apartment for her, bought her a car every few years, and gave her money regularly.

I secretly enjoyed it, knowing as she did the money came indirectly from Benny.

A Weathered House won four Tony's the first year it was in production. The book was a monster, and the movie did almost as well as Union Of Souls.

We took a trip up to New York six months after it was in print, and had a small meeting with Beth and Saul, announcing Benny's retirement. Saul smiled, and retired himself. Beth was shocked and begged him to reconsider, but he hugged her and told her if he ever decided to write something else, she would the first person he would call.

Will still handled our money, having expanded to a full office firm, with us and the studio as his major client. Grace remained our lawyer of record, just in case.

...

We brought in all our kids, even the ones who didn't work for us, for a meeting. We turned the studio over to four of them, and kept the two who did our charity work on their jobs. The rest kept the jobs they loved, but we made damn sure they were taken care of also.

Hilda, Sarah, and their husbands were brought in as full partners in the real estate business, and seven years later they were done, and the county voted unanimously to let them incorporate as a village, named Hensonville. We made the trip up for the ceremonies. Benny was given a brass plaque naming him founder. He tried to get them to change the name, but to a voter, they refused.

Benny had one ironclad rule imposed on our family. Once a year, in the summer, every business we owned shut down for a month. All the workers received full salary for their vacations. Turnover was the lowest of any company in the state. The extended Henson family, including Beth and her current girlfriend, Etta and her second husband (the first finally succumbed to his illness) Will, Grace, Hilda, Sarah, their husbands and extended family were all required to spend the month on their private compound on the Pacific island so long ago. If Wiley, Moira and their brood could make it, they came too. Mike Hogue was a constant visitor, with his three wives, including the tiny transsexual who had broken his heart all those years ago, and all their children.

We had one big party there every year. Benny hired some natives and taught them how to make Southern style cookers out of oil drums, and how to cook his way. There would be upwards of five hundred people attending, including the King and his court.

Our grandkids, especially the ones in their teens, got a lot of mileage out of pictures of them hanging out and dancing with royalty. One of the princes, the third by the King's second wife, and one of my grandchildren hit it off to the point she begged to attend the recently incorporated national university. Looks like she would be a real princess if things went right.

When we're at home, we often take the small motor home we bought, hook the little SUV behind it, and take off. If it's summer or a holiday, there's usually three or four kids with us. I think we've seen every natural wonder and been to every amusement park in the country. I'll sit in a chair, and listen to Benny playing with the kids in the pool, and sometimes I cry from happiness. In the nine years since we've retired, Benny only had the urge to write three times, each after hearing some wild tale while sitting with adults at a campground, sharing alcohol.

He writes it up as a steamy short story, and publishes it online, under a new name. I won't tell you which one. He gets four or five stars every time.

...

When we were sixty we had a death in the family. I stood, naked, in front of our bathroom mirror, looking at the sags and wrinkles. I heard a faint whisper. Listening closer, I knew it was Plum.

"We had a pretty good run, didn't we, old girl?"

I found the thought of losing her disturbing. "Nonsense. We just conserve our energy better now."

My alter ego sighed in my head. "No Bonnie, I'm done. You guys don't need me anymore, and nothing is more irritating than an old slut that doesn't know when to leave. Think of me when you're farther along, and remember the good times. We had plenty of those. I just wished we'd found Benny earlier. Think of the fun we could have had."

I could see her in my eyes, laughing through the mirror. "Despite starting late, we did all right, don't you think?"

She never answered, the light in my eyes fading. It upset me a great deal. I sobbed on his shoulder later, explaining what I felt. Benny, bless his heart, knew what to do. He lit the fire pit, piling the logs high. He went into the closet, pulling out the trunk we'd almost forgotten about. It contained all the toys we'd accumulated for Plum. Slowly, one by one, we tossed them into the fire, a memory triggered by every one. I stopped him just before he threw the last vibrator in.

"Keep it, honey. Let's take it with us to bed tonight, and send her off in style."

After an interesting and exhausting session, we drifted off to sleep, the ghost of Plum smiling over us. The next morning, I cleaned the fire pit, and inspiration struck. I had started collecting pottery, and had just acquired a very old bean pot. I ran and got it, and carefully brushed some ashes into it.

That weekend, I took it to a man who restored pottery, and had him refire it with fresh clay, fusing the lid and putting an image of a large purple plum on both sides. It sits on our mantle now, and all the kids know it is never to be touched.

*****

Well, there it is. I hope it met your expectations. Look for a couple of Brother Love's next. As always, thank you for your time. Comment or vote if you like.

Q