Free Stars Go Blue by Laura Pritchett Page A

saying, “OH YOU, YOU . . . YOU—” His hands clench and he wants to be a boxer. “TELL YOU WHAT I’M GONNA DO SEE.”
    â€œBen!” Renny touches his arm, looks off in the distance at the faraway funeral. “What the— Who are you— Why are you—? Ben! Settle down right now! I don’t need you losing it.”
    â€œYOU MONSTER,” he yells at Ray, across the cemetery, and starts to charge forward but trips and falls and stands back up. “I miss my—I miss my—my girl. My girl!”
    â€œKnock it off , Ben. Now!” Renny stands in front of him and slaps him across the face. Even though it doesn’t hurt he falls to his knees, right there in the snow. “What’s wrong with you? They’re having a funeral over there.”
    And still his voice is yelling, and still he is tumbling through the snow. “I’m sorry! You were never sorry. I’m sorry. You were never sorry!”
    Renny is in front of him again, blocking him with her body. “Ben Cross!” She slaps him again, hard. “Stop!”
    He sinks to his knees again. His voice says things on its own. “You put up a good front . . . all those letters . . . but underneath . . . in that place . . . what place this is . . . that place? . . . in the core, in the middle in the silo in the center you are something, you are . . . something . . . sick and rotten.”
    â€œOh, Ben. You’re talking about Ray? Ben, settle down. That’s not Ray over there. They’re trying to have a funeral. Get in the truck.” She is standing over him and she reaches down and grabs him under the armpit and pulls him up. She’s so strong. She pulls him along, then she opens the door.
    He must yell it to the garden of stones. “YOU FAKE. YOU ARE NOT HUMAN. YOU LACK COURAGE! COWARD COWARD COWARD!”
    â€œBen, Ben—Stop right now!” Renny is handing him a bit of toilet paper, dusty, so dusty. She has unrolled some from the roll they keep in the back seat. He realizes there is water. Water everywhere. Water pouring from his brain, down his face. Allthe water from his brain is pouring down his face. Down and down. Into the snow. He’s losing his brain. He is leaking apart.
    He remembers when the doctor said, You have dementia, probably Alzheimer’s , and the doctor said it was important that he do two things. One was to get his will in order. The second was to make a list of all those things you “were going to do someday,” and then put a star by the ones that made sense, that he could do, the ones that really mattered, like maybe a trip, or writing a letter, or making peace with a person, and to do them one by one, now, do them now , and it makes him weep because he didn’t have too many things to put on that list—only one or two—and he realized then that his life had been too empty, he had grown too lazy, he had let life just happen to him, but there were a few things he listed:
    Heal family
    Protect ranch
    And one more thing he had put two stars next to:
    Ray
    So he screams and screams at the cemetery and he turns around the other direction so that in the far distance he sees a blotch of pink throbbing from the snow. Then Anton is there, panting from the jog, holding him, one hand on each of his shoulders and saying “Whoa there, whoa there, buddy,” as if Ben is a gone-crazy horse.
    Anton and Renny are putting him in the truck. Bending his knees, making him sit. But his body has gone wooden and rigid and it takes a long time.
    â€œI’m going to drive now,” Renny says finally. “Anton is goingto follow us home. Help me get you inside. I’ll make you some eggs and toast. Oh, god,” and then she is sobbing. “They said this would happen. That you’d start to lose your temper. Your personality would . . . change. For the worse. We just—we just . . . I thought we just had a moment that mattered