"Ben" - From Julia

Sallie had come home from the hospital earlier with James, the boys'
cousin, to watch a movie and try to relax. Why they chose Fight Club
I'll never know. I watched the first few scenes with them, the main
characters making their way through cancer support groups they
shouldn't be at, just for the hell of it. I wanted to fast forward but
Sal kept the remote plastered to her lap beneath her bowl of macaroni
cheese, her eyes focused on the screen as if the relevance of it was
necessary. There were big dark circles beneath her eyes and it wasn't
from her eyeliner.

Her phone rang: Chris. It was urgent. They left immediately and they
didn't say much. I sat on the couch, stopped the movie. The day was
still and so was I. The sun through the blinds left bright stripes
across the gray carpet and my jeans. I fiddled with the remote; it had
lots of different coloured buttons on it. The sunshine was hurting my
eyes.

Sometime later. Hours. The sun stripes no longer across my legs but up
the wall. A girlfriend, Nadia, rang me, her voice loud and sharp.
Sallie's facebook status says she Wasn't Ready To Say Goodbye, she
said. Has Ben died?

No, I said, too quickly. I would have received a text. Or would I? I
don't know why I assumed Tim would message me.

Are you home alone? Nadia asked.

Yes. But it's ok.

I forget sometimes how much Chris is like Ben. He picked up a raw
drumstick at a barbeque in their backyard last week and wiggled flabby
translucent chicken skin in Lindy's face. The hooting noises he was
making and the creases around his eyes looked so familiar. Lindy waved
his arm away with that scowl she gives her boys which isn't really a
scowl because the sides of her mouth turn slightly upwards and you
know it's because she loves them so much. Chris rolled his eyes and
threw the chicken on the barbeque.

I found out Ben and Andy had tried to surprise Sallie once with a
dishwashing machine, when she still lived in Carlton with me, in that
flat with the tiny kitchen. They had found it in the hard garbage,
carried it all the way from the street through the courtyard and up
onto the third floor, only to find it didn't fit under the bench - a
pipe from under the sink was blocking the way. So they had to carry it
all the way out and put it back on someone's nature strip. Ben was so
annoyed with himself for not having bothered to measure it up, and got
all huffy whenever we brought it up afterwards. But we didn't care.
But I've since learned that boys often don't get the whole "it's the
thought that counts" thing, they just want to get it right. But we
knew. They did get it right.

And so often I wonder: what in the world was so necessary, so needed,
that Ben was taken away so that something else could fit in? What
could possibly need that exact of space and air? Nothing seems big
enough to matter. A ferris wheel? Ben was so much bigger. A
skyscraper? A jumbo jet? My mind is weighed down with the uselessness
of these objects. The insignificance of things. There's a Ben-shaped
space in my lounge room where he used to sit, sometimes grumpy and
non-talkative, snorting loudly, spitting in our basin. A space where
air collided with big brown biceps and chunky thighs and settled into
dark hair and a crooked smile. Eyes with a bit of slant. Different
from Tim's wide green ones. Hands that held my housemate's in the
dark. Hanging up curtains as a surprise for Sal because of that weird
glass wall her bedroom had. He rang me up and asked me to measure the
glass with the length of a milk bottle as I had no measuring tape – he
found some curtains about ten milk bottles wide. Hands that made
Caesar salad with lots of bacon and cheese. That bought me an adidas
jumper with Sal as a consolation present while I was going through a
break up even though my ex was his best mate. Surely there was enough
air for us to breathe already that more didn't need to be made. That
space was already bursting with use and meaning and I still can't
quite work out how it got emptied so fast.

Being home alone wasn't ok. I did get a message from Tim, and I read
it, and my vision went blurry, and I was hyperventilating and started
crying really suddenly. And everything became a little surreal. I got
confused about what I should do, I could ring Sallie but she might
need space or she could need me but I didn't know what she needed, or
I could go to Stu's house but Stu might be at the hospital and he
might need space and maybe it would be strange and I was pretty sure
he didn't need me, and Meaghan was at work, and oh God what about
Lindy, and how could Ben be gone, when young people get cancer they
get better and when Christians get sick God heals them and how did
things come to this, it wasn't real, I felt sick, I put down the phone
and remembered Simon was coming over to pick up the Mallacoota forms
and the hyperventilating and crying didn't stop even after he arrived
and got out of his car and we didn't speak we just hugged and cried
right there on the street.

A few months ago, I was standing on the oval by the caravan park in
Mallacoota. I turned around and a big red van came roaring straight at
me across the grass. It didn't veer till the last second, but I stayed
still. My heart had thumped for a moment at the wide grin behind the
wheel but when the van turned back I realised that of course it was
Chris laughing at me, and that Ben must have learned to pull similar
pranks watching his dad. I cried a lot that night. But it makes me
smile lots now.

Mulherin boys redefine the words "blank stare." Are they hiding
something? I can't tell. I can't even imagine. To lose a brother? To
lose my brother? Those words fill me with panic and a nauseating sense
of incomprehension. Besides, what could I possibly do to relieve the
space that they have now, a far more important space, a space not only
of biceps and snorting and curtains but a whole history of Argentina
and childhood and pet cats and loving and living and trusting that I
know nothing about. What does it mean to go and study medicine when
the experience was supposed to be shared? What does it mean to lead a
beach mission? To find dishwashers in the hard garbage?

And what about losing my boyfriend? It's all nuanced differently. When
Stu and I broke up I had Sal and Ben to buy me presents but I'd also
made a choice. All Sal and Ben chose was to be together and even then
it all just ended one Monday morning. And Stu. To lose my best friend?
They die with your secrets and you still have theirs. Never to be
shared. Nowhere to go but inward.

On my way to Alice's 21st birthday party I burst into tears. I arrive
in tears. I am ushered into her room and given tissues for my tears.

Sorry Alice.

Yeah. That's right. You should be sorry for being sad about your dead
friend. He's alive in heaven, I want to say. Don't say dead, I want to
say. But I don't.

Back when I was just getting to know the gang Ben found my number and
rang me from Forest Hill and said I should come over because they were
just hanging around and it would be fun. Another day he rang me after
they'd all been to the movies and were having hot chocolate at
Brunetti and said I should drop around and say hello. He was always
the first to invite new people to things and, as his friends so often
comment, has a strange charisma that meant the new people usually came
along. It was great for beach mission and great for God.

I know I will be at a barbeque in the Mulherin's backyard soon. I'll
probably hurt myself jumping with Matt on the trampoline, he's bigger
and rougher than he used to be, and he's so proud of the flips he can
do when his mum's not looking, and Lindy might scowl, but who cares,
because like their son and their brother, they are always the first to
invite people into their home and their hearts, their arms open wide
enough for everyone to fit in.

And then there's Chris. And I think, Ben is here. Ben is here. It's
such a strange and vaguely inappropriate thing to tell parents - Guess
what, you remind me of the son you lost and that comforts me. As if
they could find comfort in themselves the way I see their baby boy in
them.

But I know he's not here-here. He's with his Father and I think, it's
a good thing to see so much of a son in his father. I think it is the
way of things.