The Best Thing About Bennett

ONE

Bennett Hall’s sudden departure one Friday went unnoticed. This did not surprise her. She had become more and more invisible as the years went by. To be honest, she was relieved that it was lunchtime and her cubicle neighbors weren’t at their desks, sparing her the humiliation of whispered comments as she was escorted out by a security guard.

There had been a time, earlier in her twenty-seven years with Bancroft, Chandler and Co., when the future had looked bright. In recognition of her Superior Performance Review, she was moved to a windowed cubicle. Her confidence surged. Seeing people outside walking briskly, often arm in arm with a companion, inspired her to find ways to reach out to her colleagues. She filled a bowl on her desk with candy, but only the young receptionist stopped to take one when she delivered office mail. So Bennett brought a dozen donuts and placed them next to the coffee machine. They were gone in an hour with no-one the wiser as to who had left them. After that, Bennett waited until she saw people going in for coffee.

How nice of you, they said, though the women often smiled and added I really shouldn’t.

Bennett was pleased, though she wasn’t sure how to expand on these bits of conversation. Then one day her store-bought offerings were upstaged by homemade pastries brought in by the young receptionist, who placed them temptingly on her desk and seemed to have a lot to say.

Despite her social setback, Bennett felt professionally encouraged when she was asked to participate in an important new effort—the only woman so chosen. In the end, her conclusions were set aside as not being in the interest of the Company. The injustice of this assessment, combined with recognition that she might never have personal adventures to share or jokes to tell, almost defeated her, but for the sake of the Company and its goals, she pulled herself together. She continued to do what was asked of her until the very day she was deemed redundant.

With little expectation of happiness, Bennett was  saved from desperation by the very restraints she put upon herself, somewhat like cattle soothed into acceptance of their path to slaughter by the narrowing of their confines.

Bennett looked up at the security guard tasked with accompanying her downstairs, and straightened the last, unfinished report on her desk. To make sure the guard understood she wasn’t stealing it, she showed him a leather folder beautifully embossed in gold, with the words: Bennett Hall, Bancroft, Chandler and Co. before placing it in the oversized handbag she always carried.

Sounds like a grand place, the guard said.

She nodded, not bothering to tell him that Bennett Hall was her name, not a place. She’d had enough of that.

As she passed through the marble-floored lobby a voice called out.

See you Monday, Miss Hall!

Not this time, Frank, Bennett replied, wondering whether she should explain. She’d bought her morning newspaper from Frank all these years. Although they’d grown old together without knowing a thing about each other, Bennett would miss him. Frank had been the only one who’d always greeted her when she arrived and wished her well when she left. So perhaps she should explain after all. But if she did, Frank would have to say he was sorry even if he wasn’t, and their relationship would end in awkwardness. It was best to let things be.

TWO 

Bennett stepped off the bus and walked the half-block to the large mansard-roofed house with a columned porch to one side in what used to be the better side of Wilmington.

Stumbling over a broken step, she reached inside the mailbox hanging crookedly on the wall and retrieved her key. Inside, the house was dark and smelled of life long gone stale.

Bennett had no memories of life before this house. She and her parents had moved in with Aunt Mary when she was a baby. When her father died, she and her mother had stayed on. One evening, when Walter Cronkite announced on the news that it was the ninetieth day of the Iran Hostage Crisis, Bennett had whispered, Mommy, are we Aunt Mary’s hostages?

Her mother had grabbed Bennett’s hand and shuffled her upstairs. That was a terrible thing to say! Aunt Mary can be difficult but she took us in when we had nothing. Never forget that!

It was only a few years later that her mother died as well, leaving Bennett with a woman willing yet ill-equipped to fill a mother’s shoes.

Without turning on the light, Bennett passed the library where Aunt Mary’s bed still filled the space a sofa and chairs should have occupied, and walked upstairs to her narrow room, where nothing but the clothes in her closet and the sheets on her bed had changed in years.

When Aunt Mary’s will was read, Bennett learned that Aunt Mary was not a relative at all, but as Mary had no family, the house was left to her. Bennett roamed the massive house she liked to call The Old Beast, wondering what she should do with it. It was filled with her aunt’s belongings: dark, ornately carved chests and armoires, worn brocade-covered sofas and chairs; chipped porcelain figurines, crowded together like people on a New York subway train, and even a tarnished silver menorah whose provenance Bennett had always wondered about, as Aunt Mary had been raised Catholic. Dusty gold tassels hung from cupboard keys and fraying twists of silk tied back the aging drapes. Leather-bound classics were stuffed unread into dark mahogany bookcases. There’d always been a perverseness in the pride Aunt Mary took in the house’s pomposity and arrogant pretense, since that pride had never led to repairing or preventing its decay.

Bennett, as heir, had been free to change the house, but having never practiced change, it did not come easily to her. What if she made a rash decision that could not be undone? She could have started with little things—straightening the crooked mailbox, fixing the broken front step—but even that seemed daring. And now that she’d lost her income, what difference would it make to change the little things if she couldn’t change the big ones?

There had been a time, long ago, when she’d looked forward to change, when life seemed to shine with possibilities—a time filled by Stephen. With Stephen.

She’d fallen in love with him the first time she saw him struggling to get his father’s wheel chair through the door of the neighborhood library. She’d stopped to help him and thought he was the most handsome young man she’d ever seen, with his soft blue eyes and dark brown hair curling slightly at the nape of his neck. And when he thanked her, his voice had been warm and his smile even warmer.

My dad can’t see very well, he said, so I take him to the library every Friday afternoon and we choose books I can read to him.

Bennett had brazenly passed by the library every week after that, so it didn’t take long before he invited her to walk with them and have some lemonade on the front porch.

When he read a passage he thought she would like, he’d write it down for her. For Bennie, it would say in handwriting that was like no other.

He was the only one who called her Bennie, and she probably loved him more for that than for anything else. She’d never had a name before that was hers alone. Bennett had been her mother’s maiden name, Hall had been her father’s. Together the name sounded like an orphanage in a Victorian novel. Even her middle name, Mary, was borrowed, rightfully belonging to the woman who wasn’t even her aunt.

In school, the boys had teased her by calling her Benedict or Traitor, or Eggs, all of which had made her feel discarded like the empty cans the boys kicked down the street. She thought of using her initials as A.A. Milne, C.S. Lewis and H.G. Welles had done, but when she told her classmates to call her BM, they had laughed. When she asked why, they’d made crude noises and laughed even harder. So she stuck to Bennett. No one thought to give her a nickname again until Stephen. And never again after.       

Stephen encouraged her to go to college even when Aunt Mary said she didn’t have money for that, and the stupid boy should mind his own business. So Bennett began evening classes and paid for them herself, with money she earned working part-time at the library. 

It wasn’t long before Stephen and she were making plans to marry. Then, after he earned his degree and found a good job they would look for a house. His father would move in with them because he couldn’t live alone. Bennett didn’t mind. She admired Stephen’s loyalty, and Mr. Bannister was a very kind man. She wondered for a moment if Aunt Mary would have to come too, but as Stephen didn’t mention it, neither did she.

When she told her aunt that her professor had recommended her to the Financial Reports Division of Bancroft, Chandler and Co. because she was so good with numbers, her aunt warned her not to count her chickens before they hatch. When the personnel office called to offer her a job, Aunt Mary worried about being left alone all day.     

Bennett and Stephen’s marriage plans were put on hold when Mr. Bannister’s health suddenly deteriorated. His final wish was to spend his last days near his sister, so he and Stephen moved to Baltimore.

Bennett put down a deposit on a furnished apartment so that Stephen could stay with her when he came to visit.

She’d been in her room packing when Aunt Mary flung open her bedroom door. She was wearing her ugliest orange and purple muu-muu, and her eyes were red from crying.

"You can’t leave me... I can’t breathe," she said, barely audible as she leaned her body against the doorframe. She clasped a hand to her heaving chest and waited for a response. Bennett put her arm around Aunt Mary’s shoulders and explained that she was grown up now and it was time to move out.  

Aunt Mary pulled away and wheezed "I don’t want to die alone."

Then, with a choked gasp and a resounding thump, she fell to the floor and Bennett called for an ambulance.

The next morning, Aunt Mary had recovered enough for Bennett to fetch her. A few blocks from home, Bennett slowed the car to look at a gaggle of preschoolers on the other side of the street. The last two had tangled themselves in the rope meant to keep them together.

Aren’t they sweet, Aunt Mary, like two puppies sharing a leash. One day, Stephen and I will have little ones like that.

In that instant of inattention they were hit from the rear, lurching the car forward and causing Aunt Mary’s head to hit the windshield.

Within minutes she was back in the hospital with a concussion. A mild one, they said, yet even after her release she continued to be troubled by dizziness and unexplained weakness in her legs. The downstairs library room was changed into a bedroom for her. After days of careful thought, Bennett asked if she could take her aunt’s large upstairs bedroom for herself so that Stephen could stay when he came.

How can you be so selfish when it’s your fault I can’t walk? had been Mary’s answer.

It was her fault, but Bennett wondered if her aunt pretended not to walk just to punish her; then hated herself for suspecting her of such malicious deceit. Aunt Mary had taken her and her mother in when they were in need. Bennett owed her as much. She had no choice but to cancel the furnished apartment and take care of her. Stephen would understand.

Loyalty no matter how difficult was what she and Stephen had admired in each other. Even loved—although perhaps not enough, as it turned out. She thought she’d put his abandonment behind her long ago, but memories of hurts and disappointments had a habit of rising up when least expected.

Only Bancroft, Chandler and Co. had been solid ground beneath her feet, so Bennett had remained steadfast and constant even when her rise in the company had not been what she’d hoped. Yet in the end, they’d abandoned her too.

No longer bound to anyone or anything, Bennett felt unmoored, destabilized. She would have to start anew—though the thrill of the unknown no longer held a candle to the comfort of familiarity.

Still, might a new place not become familiar with time?

With that hope in mind, she decided to sell the Old Beast and find a smaller, more manageable house where she wouldn’t have the burden of costly and intrusive renovations.

It took Bennett some weeks to come to this decision.

Despite her trepidation—and with the efficient assistance of a friendly real estate agent who’d slipped a flyer under her door—she sold the Old Beast fully furnished, and bought the new, empty house in less than three months, leaving her with a tidy nest egg in the bank.

Bennett’s new home was a modest, three-bedroom, brick semidetached on a tree-lined street in a neighborhood she knew little about except that the agent said it was quiet and relatively crime-free. She might not have chosen it had she not been enchanted by the sunlight streaming through its uncurtained windows, illuminating the house’s creamy white walls. The clean simplicity of it was a relief after living so many years with heavy velvet drapes and faded olive-brown wallpaper.

She asked her realtor where she might buy some modern furniture for the new house. Something that wouldn’t cost her an arm and a leg.

I like traditional myself, but my kids seem to love Ikea, the realtor said. They find them reasonably priced and you can check their catalog online.

The next day, Bennett purchased everything she needed for her new life in less than two hours: furniture, linens, lamps, a mirror, file boxes, and a newlyweds’ set of dining essentials for four—just the right number for her not to have to wash dishes after every meal—and a plain glass pitcher that could be used for any number of things. Thrilled by such efficiency, she ordered everything to be delivered and assembled on the day she took possession of her new home.  

The day before closing, she packed her few reference books in a cardboard box, added her Waterman pen and pencil set—a gift from Stephen she still kept in its original case. In the back of her dresser drawer, she found a piece of paper with a list of names—boys on the left, girls on the right—written in that singular hand so delicate it looked as if the names had been written with a needle dipped in ink. The letters were balanced neatly on an invisible line, with only the ends of lower case h, k, and n swooping down like flycatchers’ tails.

Stephen had written the list one day as they sat on his porch and planned the children they would have. Four at least, she’d said, so they’d never feel lonely. And a girl first—hopefully—as she’d be more likely to help with the littler ones.

He’d made lists of everything—books he’d read, movies he’d seen, museums he wanted to visit—and kept most of them in neat little notebooks. Bennett wondered if he still had them, and if he’d had children and used any of the names on their list.

It was a melancholy memory now, but one she couldn’t bear to lose, so she folded the paper and slipped it into the notebook of lists she kept herself and carried in her handbag. Back then, his habits had quickly become hers, although she no longer added to the list of places to visit, as she had never traveled anywhere, except once on business. Why keep dreaming the improbable?

The next morning, Bennett piled her belongings into her car and drove to the realtor’s office to complete the final paperwork and take official possession of her new home.

She arrived at 123 Spring Street moments before the arrival of the Ikea truck.

By evening, everything had been assembled and put into place.

For the living room she had ordered an easy chair with a foot stool, a sofa, a floor lamp, a simple television console, and a coffee table big enough to hold feet and a newspaper; for the kitchen, a plain table and four chairs. Tomorrow she’d go out and buy a flat screen TV. Maybe even a big one. Meanwhile, she had a radio.

Upstairs, she’d chosen the largest of the three bedrooms for her office and the middle-sized one for her bedroom. Unable to think of any purpose for the smallest yet, she’d simply closed the door.

She admired the smooth, sleek surfaces of her new furniture, confident that she would never tire of their clean simplicity.

In the office, she’d had the deliverymen place the long part of the L-shaped desk under the window so she could look out into the garden. The short part would be perfect for the new large-screen iMac she was going to buy, along with a scanner-printer-copier, and a small three-drawer organizer where she would keep ink cartridges and paper.

If her sensible investments remained reliable, she would not have to look for other employment. Some of her coworkers who’d retired had moved to Florida or to where their children lived. Bennett wondered how those who stayed filled their time once their routine was gone.  When the early evening news on the radio interviewed a genealogist, she thought doing research might be just the thing for her, so she placed a row of Ikea file boxes on the horizontal bookcase behind her chair in anticipation of the reports she’d write.

She would start work every morning at nine o’clock to give her day structure. It would feel like going to the office again—only there’d be no boss or co-workers to ignore or be ignored by.

She unpacked her reference books, lined them up alphabetically by category in the bookcase next to the window—Almanacs, Biographical dictionary, Dictionaries, Statistics, Thesaurus. The Atlas had to be placed out of order at one end because of its size.

She withdrew all her documents from her handbag and placed them in the fireproof box she’d bought for their safekeeping. She’d reorganize the rest of its contents tomorrow.

Then she moved on to the bedroom to unpack her clothes. She flicked a piece of lint off her dark blue suit, and smoothed the jacket with her hands. She loved the suit, the way it made her feel professional and respected. It was her favorite of the three suits she owned. She had few other clothes, other than the jeans and two dresses that had belonged to her mother.

When she attached a full-length mirror to the back of her bedroom door, she was surprised to see a face no longer defined by deep creases between her brows and dark circles under her eyes. Was it happiness or merely a trick of the light? 

Pleased with the arrangement of the upstairs rooms, Bennett went downstairs and walked out onto the front stoop to gaze with satisfaction at her new, quiet street. As she glanced to the left, she noticed her neighbor’s curtain move. Before she could go back in, the door opened and an old woman came out and leaned against the railing separating their front door landings.

Hi there, welcome to the neighborhood, the woman said. My name is Carmen-Aida McElroy. My mother wanted me to be an opera singer but I didn’t have any talent.

Bennett thought it an odd comment but smiled politely. Mine is Bennett Hall.

Sounds like a place Jane Austen would go to, she chuckled.

Yes. I’ve been told.

I mean, because of Elizabeth Be—

I really must finish unpacking, Bennett said, and turned to go back in.

Oh, well, good night, then, the woman said. If you want to know anything about the neighborhood, let me know. I’ve been here fifty-six years, ever since my husband and I got married. He died three years ago of a heart attack. It was a terrible shock to—

Before she had a chance to continue, Bennett closed the door. She couldn’t bear to have to deal with another lonely old woman.

THREE

When Bennett opened her front door again the next morning, Mrs. McElroy was sweeping her front stoop.

Good morning, Miss Hall. It’s almost Christmas. You must be off to do last minute shopping.

Bennett froze, not sure she wanted to be pulled into conversation, but then nodded and held up the list she was holding.

My, you must have a lot of people to buy for, Mrs. McElroy replied, leaning with both hands on her broom as if she were settling in for a long chat. Aren’t you lucky? I don’t have anyone now that my husband’s gone.

At a loss as to what to answer, Bennett mumbled sympathetically before rushing down the steps. When she turned to look back Mrs. McElroy was smiling and waving to her. To Bennett’s surprise, she felt a rush of unfamiliar warmth toward the old woman and raised her hand, if not quite in a wave at least in response. Alarmed that she’d taken a risk she shouldn’t have, her fingers moved down the narrow scar along her temple. The result of a childhood accident, it was barely visible, though Aunt Mary had always made a point of saying what a shame it was for a young girl’s beauty to be scarred like that—ignoring the fact that it had been her fault. 

Bennett got in her car and drove down to the Apple Store where she found a parking space in a lot around the corner. The brightly lit store was packed with customers. Young men and women in blue Apple T-shirts and jeans wove in and out of aisles answering questions as customers sat at counters trying out the newest devices, while others, like Bennett, stood patiently waiting their turn.

Good morning, may I help you? a young man finally asked over the din.

Bennett handed him her list of requirements.

All this?

Bennett nodded and watched the young man key the information into his hand-held device. How wonderful to have a list and not have to explain. She knew what she wanted, there was no need to discuss it.

Very good, and may I see your credit card?

Don’t I have to go to a cashier?

No, I can do it right here. And your email address, please, so I can email your receipt. And do you have a car? If you drive to our back door, we can load you right up.

Yes, and yes, Bennett said, delighted at this unexpected efficiency. Minutes later, another Apple-shirted employee met her at the loading dock with a cart neatly laden with an assortment of white boxes.

Bennett found herself humming as she drove off. When she stopped at a red light a girl appeared at the window, smiling and holding up bouquets of roses.  

Why not? In fact, make it two, she said, feeling quite reckless. Without bothering to ask the price, she rolled down her window and exchanged a crisp twenty dollar bill for the two bouquets.

A good day all around, Bennett thought, when she arrived home and found the parking spot directly in front of her house still vacant. She unloaded her purchases and carried them carefully into the house. One bouquet of roses she unwrapped and placed in the plain glass pitcher she’d bought at Ikea. The other she placed still wrapped in a glass of water by the sink.

In her office, she unpacked the new iMac and admired how sleek and clean it looked on the blond desk. She stacked the other packages neatly at the other end to be opened and dealt with later and returned to the kitchen. Wavering for a moment, she dried off the bottom of the still wrapped bouquet, opened her front door, and ran down her steps and up Mrs. McElroy’s.

Merry Christmas! she said, as the door opened, her hands trembling as she handed her the roses.

Why Miss Hall, how very kind of you. They’ll look lovely on my table. Won’t you come in for a cup of coffee.

No, no, thank you. Bennett responded, I have to get back to work.

Running down her steps and back up hers, she looked over their shared railing and thought she saw a tear slipping down Mrs McElroy’s cheek. She hurried to shut the door, embarrassed at having viewed something so private.

Private moments were not something she’d shared or even witnessed with Aunt Mary.

Bennett wondered if Mrs. McElroy had children, then remembered that she said she had no one since her husband died. She had no one either, of course, but at this point it seemed better. No one to hurt, no one to be hurt by.

She lay awake in her new bed that night, enjoying the crisp freshness of new sheets, and listened to the silence. No brakes squeaking as nighttime buses rumbled over potholes. No one shouting for her over the intercom.