“But panic is what brought you flying out here bearing gifts,” Ben surmised.
“Can’t a guy go visit his brother without getting cross-examined about ulterior motives?”
“Sure, but since you haven’t been here in weeks, you’ll have to excuse me for being a little suspicious.”
Mack frowned at him. “We could talk about your social life.”
Ben’s expression immediately shut down. “No, we couldn’t,” he said tightly.
Mack instantly felt guilty for turning the tables on Ben. “I’m sorry. I was only teasing, but I should know better. The wound’s still too raw, isn’t it?”
“Drop it,” Ben said, his tone angry, his eyes dull.
Mack regarded his brother helplessly. “Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe it would help if we all made you talk about it.”
“Graciela’s dead, dammit! What’s to talk about?” Ben all but shouted in a fierce tone rarely used by Mack’s soft-spoken brother. “Why the hell doesn’t anyone get that?”
Mack barely resisted the urge to go to his brother, but Ben wouldn’t appreciate any gesture of sympathy. Ben still blamed himself for Graciela’s death and was convinced he wasn’t deserving of sympathy. He only resented anyone’s attempt to assuage his grief or his guilt.
“I’m sorry,” Mack said again quietly. “I didn’t mean to stir up the pain. That was the very last thing I wanted when I came out here.”
Ben gave him a haunted look. “You didn’t stir up anything,” he told him. “It never goes away.”
Telling Ben that Graciela wasn’t worthy of the kind of guilt or misery Ben heaped on himself wouldn’t help. Mack knew that much by now. He wasn’t sure what it would take to finally shake Ben out of the dark, brooding mood which kept him isolated out here at his farm, but he prayed it would happen soon. Ben’s ongoing despondency worried the whole family. Once in a while they caught glimmers of the old, easygoing Ben, but those reminders were all too rare.
Mack studied his brother. “Anything I can do?”
“Nah,” Ben said, obviously fighting to shake off his mood before Mack could make too much more of it. “Just keep coming around despite my general crankiness.”
“That’s a promise,” Mack assured him.
Ben glanced across the table and his expression brightened. “You gonna finish that sandwich?”
Mack chuckled. “I thought the big, hulking football player in the family was supposed to be the one with the insatiable appetite,” he grumbled even as he shoved the other half of his sandwich toward his brother. “Take the chips, too. I have to hit the road.”
“Big date tonight?”
“No.”
“Damn. You know I live vicariously through what I read about you in the papers.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m living life in the slow lane right now.”
“There has to be a story there,” Ben guessed.
“None I intend to share.”
“But it does have to do with that woman Destiny picked out for you, right?” Ben prodded.
“I came out here because you never pry,” Mack grumbled.
“But this news is too good to pass up,” Ben told him.
Mack frowned at him. “Get back to your canvas. Right now it looks a lot like a squashed pumpkin. Is that what you were going for?”
Ben groaned. “Heathen!”
“Hey, I have a good eye.”
“For women, maybe.”
Mack deliberately squinted intently at the half-finished painting. “The very large rear of a woman in an orange two-piece bathing suit?”
Ben laughed. “You were closer with the pumpkin.”
“Well, what the hell is it?”
“Since you’re having so much fun guessing, I think I’ll let you wait till it’s finished. Then you can try again.”
“I’m usually better at this,” Mack said. “Then again, you usually paint recognizable fields and trees and streams.”
“This was an experiment,” Ben reminded him.
Mack regarded him seriously. “A word of advice?”
Ben nodded, his expression wary.
“Stick to what you know,” Mack said, then dodged when Ben tossed his empty soda bottle straight at his head. For an artsy kind of a guy, his brother had dead-accurate aim.
Better yet, for most of an entire hour, Ben had kept Mack’s mind off one very disconcerting lady doctor.
“I’m not happy with Tony Vitale’s blood count,” the hematologist sitting across from Beth said. “He’s not responding the way I’d hoped. I think we ought to consider a transfusion before he gets any weaker.”