there. You jus’ leave this part to me.’
He picked up the bone saw and went to work.
It was nearly 2 a.m. by the time Ben pulled the Honda back into his driveway and set the parking brake. The rain had tapered to a thin drizzle, and the town seemed to have finally resigned itself to sleep. The interior lights of most of the houses Ben passed on the way home had been extinguished, and a fitful state of quietude had settled upon the neighborhood like a fine layer of fresh snow. Ben’s own house sat mostly in darkness, except for the exterior motion-sensor light near the front door, which snapped dutifully on as he approached the dwelling. He turned his key in the door lock, hearing the reassuring click of the dead bolt sliding back within its housing. Placing his hand upon the cold brass knob to which the evening’s precipitation still clung, he opened the door and stepped inside.
The front foyer sat mostly in shadows, and he snapped on a small lamp that rested atop a wooden cabinet to his right. The Stevensons’ massive harlequin Great Dane, Alex (‘Alexander the Great,’ as Joel lovingly referred to him with reverent, exaggerated bows), ever present at the front door to greet new arrivals, nuzzled Ben’s hand for affection, tail whipping ardently back and forth. True to his typical style, Alex stepped heavily and obliviously onto Ben’s left foot and, as the dog leaned into him, Ben was forced backward against the front door. At 180 pounds, the domesticated Goliath didn’t find it necessary to wait to be petted – he simply stood next to the closest person and leaned. The affection lavished upon him was merely an act of self-defense.
Ben ruffled the side of the big dog’s head as Alex buried his face in Ben’s leg. Ben placed his keys on the wall rack and took off his coat, listening to the subtle sounds of the house. The kitchen refrigerator hummed softly, warm air blew steadily from the wall vent to his left and the grandfather clock in the living room down the hall ticked quietly to itself, keeping its own perpetual rhythm. But it was more than these simple, mechanical sounds that he heard. On a deeper level, the house seemed to breathe of its own accord, shifting slightly as it continued to settle, growing more comfortable and more secure upon the foundation on which it rested. Both practically and figuratively, it held within it the very core of the family that lived here, providing warmth, refuge and an irrefutable sense of home. In doing so, it seemed infinitely stronger than the material from which it had been constructed. No matter what transpired during the course of the day, coming home to this place filled him with gladness, and helped to put the day’s events in better context. Alexander the Great wagged his tail contentedly from side to side in complete agreement.
Ben trod quietly down the hall and across the living room, Alex padding not so softly behind him. He crossed the family room and ascended the stairs. At the top of the staircase he paused for a moment, then turned right and walked down the short hallway leading to the bedrooms of his two sons. He stood outside their rooms in the darkness for the span of about thirty seconds, simply listening, needing to be close to them for a moment. Then he turned and headed back down the hallway in the opposite direction toward the bedroom he shared with Susan. Having successfully escorted his owner to the appropriate sleeping quarters, Alex turned and descended the stairs to his own bed beside the living room’s front-facing bay window. Ben pushed open the bedroom door and entered quietly, trying not to wake his wife.
For Susan, sleep was often restless and difficult to initiate. She’d suffered from some degree of insomnia for as long as Ben had known her, and had experimented with a multitude of unsuccessful remedies throughout those years. Contrary to the experience of many women, however, she’d managed to sleep well during both of her pregnancies. Even during her third trimester, sleep had come easily to Susan, and she was often breathing slowly and softly within ten minutes of turning out the light. Ironically, it was Ben who seemed to have difficulty initiating and maintaining sleep during that time. He would lie in bed and watch the shadows cast from the swaying branches of the oak tree in their front yard play deftly across their vaulted ceiling. He would listen to the steady respirations of his wife lying blissfully in bed next to him, and he would consider the day’s events – the slow but perpetual ascent of gasoline prices that summer, the upcoming gubernatorial election, the positive gram stain of Mr Flescher’s cerebrospinal fluid last Thursday. The hours of potential sleep would slip away from him like water over a steep ledge, leaving him befuddled and sluggish the following day, a dull heaviness clinging to his head like a massive barnacle. He would blunder through the day in this hebetudinous state until the sun finally descended once more beyond the horizon. Dinner that evening would be absently eaten and barely tasted, and although he tried to be interested in conversations with his wife, he always seemed to fall behind, finding himself at a break in the dialogue and wondering whether she had just asked him a question or whether it was simply his turn to speak. Excusing himself apologetically, he would head off to bed early in search of the nocturnal respite that had eluded him the previous night. Sometimes sleep would come, mercifully falling upon him like a summer storm. When it did, his dreams would be strange and wild, and he would often awaken in the night, sweating lightly and wondering whether he had cried out and, stupidly, whether he and Susan were alone in the room.
He’d continued in this tormented state for most of Susan’s pregnancy, watching her with growing jealousy as she slipped effortlessly into sleep every evening and awoke refreshed and good-spirited the following morning as brilliant sunlight flooded their bedroom. It was as if Ben had somehow taken upon himself all of Susan’s familiar struggles with insomnia and had shouldered them through the course of her pregnancies so that the children could develop unfettered within her. If that were the case, it was a noble yet arduous deed, and he was relieved when – oddly, but almost predictably – the balance returned to its original state within a month of the birth of each of their sons. Suddenly, Ben found himself having to set the alarm clock in order to awaken for the infant’s nightly feedings. On many of these occasions, he would find Susan’s side of the bed empty, and he would get up to investigate only to find her already tending to the baby despite the fact that it was his turn at the helm. ‘Honey, I can do that,’ he would say to her sweetly in a tired voice. ‘It’s okay,’ she’d reply. ‘I was already up.’
‘Tough day at the office, hon?’ Susan greeted him from the darkness, startling Ben as he unbuttoned his shirt.
‘Jesus, babe. You scared me.’
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘How was the autopsy?’
Ben unlaced his shoes and slipped them off, then pulled off his slacks and placed them in the closet hamper. His eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he could now make out the figure of his wife, propping herself up on one elbow as she surveyed him from their bed.
‘Pretty horrible,’ he answered. He exhaled deeply and stretched, trying to release as much of the day’s stress from his body as possible. He felt old and tired, and more than a little unnerved by the evening’s events.
‘Want to talk about it?’
‘Not really,’ he said, climbing into bed. He felt utterly exhausted, emotionally as well as physically.
Susan wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tightly, spooning his body with her own. She was warm beneath the covers, her soft breasts pressing up against his skin. ‘I love you,’ she said.
‘I love you, too,’ Ben replied in a voice that was just above a whisper in the silence of the room. And he did. After seventeen years of marriage, he realized that he loved her more now than in all the days and nights that had come before. It was a love that had grown within him steadily throughout the intimate partnership of their lives, and continued to evolve in ways that surprised and amazed him. He turned to her now and kissed her softly in the darkness. Her hand found his own, and their fingers interlaced with the familiarity of the years between them. Then she was guiding his hand to the bare skin of her left hip. Her body rose to meet him, and this time her kiss was more passionate, more insistent than before.
‘I’m glad you’re home,’ she whispered, and Ben decided that sleep could