Bentley sat at the kitchen table with the blue jar in front of him.<\/p>\n
He had placed it beside the telephone, just as he had asked to do.<\/p>\n
Every so often, he moved it a little closer to himself.<\/p>\n
He never opened it.<\/p>\n
Maddie sat on the floor with her toys spread around her knees.<\/p>\n
She had forgotten about the jar almost as soon as we returned.<\/p>\n
That was one of the things about being three years old.<\/p>\n
A child could ask a question that frightened everyone in the room, then become interested in a toy a minute later.<\/p>\n
Bentley couldn't do that.<\/p>\n
He kept watching the telephone.<\/p>\n
I busied myself in the kitchen because I didn't want him to feel that I was studying him.<\/p>\n
I rinsed the glasses.<\/p>\n
I wiped a spot of syrup from the table.<\/p>\n
I put the remaining pancakes away, though there were only a few left.<\/p>\n
When I turned around, Bentley was still sitting exactly where he had been.<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you like to do something for a while?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything you enjoy.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at the jar.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWould you like to draw with Maddie?\u201d<\/p>\n
He glanced toward his sister.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe doesn't like sharing the crayons.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI can find another set.\u201d<\/p>\n
He considered that, then shook his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe later.\u201d<\/p>\n
I didn't press him.<\/p>\n
I took a book from the shelf and sat in the chair across from him.<\/p>\n
I tried to read, but I found myself looking up whenever he moved.<\/p>\n
The telephone remained silent.<\/p>\n
After a while, Bentley leaned forward.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think the hospital knows we're waiting?\u201d<\/p>\n
I closed the book.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told them what I knew.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut do they know we're here?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI explained that you're staying with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
He rubbed the edge of the jar's lid with one finger.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you tell them Mom has two kids?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid you tell them Maddie is only three?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, Bentley. I told them.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
I could see that he wanted to ask more, but he was trying to make his questions sound small.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think they forgot?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't know what has happened on their end,\u201d I said. \u201cBut I haven't forgotten, and I won't stop asking.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked at me for a long moment.<\/p>\n
Then he leaned back in his chair.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll right.\u201d<\/p>\n
I wanted to tell him that adults sometimes failed to communicate, that offices could be busy, and that getting information could take time.<\/p>\n
But none of those explanations would have helped him.<\/p>\n
He didn't need a lesson about how systems worked.<\/p>\n
He needed someone to keep working through them while he was allowed to be a child.<\/p>\n
I returned to my book.<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, Maddie came to the table carrying a toy with one wheel missing.<\/p>\n
\u201cArlene, fix it?\u201d<\/p>\n
I took the toy from her and examined it.<\/p>\n
The wheel had come loose, but it wasn't broken.<\/p>\n
I pressed it back into place.<\/p>\n
Maddie smiled and ran away with it.<\/p>\n
Bentley watched her go.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe thinks everything can be fixed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat's a good thing to think when you're little.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked down at the jar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat if it can't?\u201d<\/p>\n
I set the book aside again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen we find out what we can do next.\u201d<\/p>\n
He frowned slightly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn't fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cSometimes it doesn't.\u201d<\/p>\n
He seemed surprised that I would admit that.<\/p>\n
I had spent the morning trying to offer reassurance without pretending I knew more than I did.<\/p>\n
It wasn't easy.<\/p>\n
I was used to giving people practical answers.<\/p>\n
I was used to believing that a problem could be made smaller by finding the right words or taking the right step.<\/p>\n
But there was no sentence I could give Bentley that would make six silent days disappear.<\/p>\n
There was no simple explanation for a mother who had gone to the hospital and hadn't come home.<\/p>\n
So I sat with him.<\/p>\n
For a while, neither of us spoke.<\/p>\n
Maddie began singing to herself on the floor.<\/p>\n
She repeated the same little tune, changing the words whenever she forgot them.<\/p>\n
Bentley listened.<\/p>\n
A faint smile appeared on his face, then vanished.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe sings when she's happy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe's happy right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
He watched her push the toy across the rug.<\/p>\n
\u201cMom sings, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does she sing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnything. Sometimes she makes up songs.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looked toward the window.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe sings when she can't find her keys.\u201d<\/p>\n
I remembered him telling me that before.<\/p>\n
I pictured Amber moving around her kitchen, searching through her bag while her children laughed at her.<\/p>\n
I tried not to turn that picture into a promise.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you remember one of her songs?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n
Bentley shook his head.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot really. She changes them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat sounds like something a mother would do.\u201d<\/p>\n
He almost smiled again.<\/p>\n
Then he looked at the telephone.<\/p>\n
I let him.<\/p>\n
The afternoon moved slowly.<\/p>\n
I offered him lunch, and he ate more than he had the day before.<\/p>\n
He still glanced at Maddie's plate, but he didn't try to move food from his own to hers.<\/p>\n
When she asked for another piece of bread, he started to get up.<\/p>\n
I touched his arm gently.<\/p>\n
\u201cI'll get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He stopped.<\/p>\n
For a second, he looked as if he might argue.<\/p>\n
Then he sat down again.<\/p>\n
It was a small thing.<\/p>\n
I knew better than to expect it to change everything.<\/p>\n
But it was one small thing he no longer had to do.<\/p>\n
After lunch, I washed the dishes while Bentley sat at the table with Maddie.<\/p>\n
She had decided the blue jar was a house for one of her toys.<\/p>\n
Bentley quickly moved the toy away.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon't put that there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Maddie looked offended.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt's a house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat's not a house.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it's Mom's money.\u201d<\/p>\n
She stared at the jar.<\/p>\n
Then she looked at me.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it money?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCan I have some?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, sweetheart. We keep it safe for now.\u201d<\/p>\n
She accepted that answer more easily than I expected.<\/p>\n
She carried her toy back to the rug and began making a house out of two cushions instead.<\/p>\n
Bentley watched her.<\/p>\n
\u201cSorry,\u201d he said quietly.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cFor being mean.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou weren't trying to be mean. You were worried about the jar.\u201d<\/p>\n
He touched the lid again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don't want anything to happen to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand.\u201d<\/p>\n
I dried my hands and stood beside him.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe'll keep it safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
Then he asked whether we could leave the telephone where it was.<\/p>\n
I told him we could.<\/p>\n
The blue jar stayed beside it for the rest of the afternoon.<\/p>\n
Whenever I walked past the table, I saw them together.<\/p>\n
One was something Amber had left behind.<\/p>\n
The other was something we were still waiting to hear.<\/p>\n
Neither gave us an answer.<\/p>\n
PART 13 END<\/p>\n
Bentley sat at the kitchen table with the blue jar in front of him. He had placed it beside the telephone, just as he had asked to do. Every so … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36383,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36416,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36396\/revisions\/36416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}