ben When I’d asked Ella to stay, I meant for a few minutes. An hour, at most. How many days had she been here with me now, in this bedroom, trapped with my grief? Three? They were mostly a blur. I’d spent a lot of that time sleeping, I think. Or so out of it that I might as well…
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ella “Oh my God,” I whispered, my hand over my mouth as I stared down at my phone. Across its screen splashed a series of photos of Ben and Hani in a hallway of the rehabilitation center in Boston where he’d had his testing done. In one, they hugged. In the next, Hani was crying. And then the final one…
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ben “How you doing, Benny?” Mom asked. She stared down at me while two lab assistants positioned my legs on the PET scan table. “About how you’d think,” I answered. She gripped my hand and stayed there with me until they told her she needed to go stand behind the glass like everyone else. “I’ll be right over there with…
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ella Ben is getting tested today. Ben is getting tested today. Ben is getting tested today. I couldn’t think about anything else. I couldn’t do anything but worry. I sat in front of my computer, Photoshop open, with the latest draft of the month of January for my wildlife calendar series filling the screen. I hadn’t touched the mouse in…
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ben In Aroostook County, I was always aware of the remoteness of the area. It was more than the obvious lack of people and buildings. The wind that blew down from the alpine ridges carried a pervasive scent of snow and some indefinable mixture of water and pine and inhospitable wilderness. The bitter cold felt dangerous up here. I planned…
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