Chapter 1

Ben’s turn:

I had my arms folded, watching the boatyard Travelift hoist my boat out of the water. ‘My’ boat. I need to tell you that story because it’s tinged with sadness at the end of a life well lived.

Aside from the expected boatyard people, I was accompanied by my niece Amanda. Mandy’s what I call ‘er, as do everyone else who knows her. She’s two weeks from her fourteenth birthday, and she’s my buddy.

You see, Mandy’s ‘on the spectrum’. Some doctors say Asperger’s, the same thing that some doctors said about me. Maybe that’s why Mandy and I fit so well together, despite the fact that I’m a baker’s dozen years older than her.

Me? Benjamin Comeaux. I go by ‘Ben’ and the surname is pronounced “ko-mo” in the Cajun world I come from. I’m an engineer. Been one since college ... Before college, actually, when I was doing electrical systems for a local marina’s clients. I love boats, but I love money, too, and engineering’s a good place for somebody who has occasional difficulties relating to the world at large.

The strawberry blonde girl standing beside me? She’s with me because I have better luck relating to her than her parents. My sister and her husband are good people, for sure, but being good and dedicated and loving still need a little bit of relief, and if I can haul Mandy off with me for adventures, they get a break from figuring out if their only child is angry or disappointed or just having what they call ‘an episode’.

Mandy has ‘em from time to time. Like me, she doesn’t process people and changes well at times. I struggled, but for the most part I’ve overcome. I stay out of situations that might get me in trouble. I’m good enough at it to have been on my own and relatively successful as a staff engineer.

But here we are, the boat’s fully out of the water now, her black bottom dripping. I know what I’m looking at because I’ve been around this boat for years and now I’m her owner.

The lift’s doing its thing, moving to a spot where the boat can be set ‘on the hard’ for work. We’re getting a fresh coat of bottom paint and new zincs.

And the phone rings, a number I do NOT recognize, but I answer anyway, thinking I’m getting yet another robocall.

And the world turned upside down.

“This is Ben...”

“Is this Ben Comeaux?”

“Yes it is. Can I ask who’s calling?”

“Mister Comeaux, are you in a place where you can sit down? Not driving. Safe?”

“What’s this about?”

“Mister Comeaux, please sit somewhere. I’m afraid I have bad news.”

“Mister Freeman,” I said to the boatyard manager, “can I borrow your office? Private phone call...”

“Sure,” the old guy said. “Help yourself.”

Mandy eyed me quizzically and followed.

“I’m going to an office,” I said into the phone.

“I’ll wait.”

Inside, I sat down, motioned for Mandy to sit in another chair.

“Okay, I’m sitting.”

“Mister Comeaux, your parents are John and Mary?”

“Yes,” I said cautiously.

“And your sister and brother-in-law are Dallas and Kathleen Johnson?”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“And you have your niece Amanda with you?”

“Also correct.”

“There’s been a bad accident, sir. I’m afraid it’s been fatal. Interstate 10, just inside the Texas line. SUV, semi-truck and trailer.”

“What hospital?” I gasped.

“Sir, I’m sorry. No hospital. Fatalities.”

“ALL OF THEM????”

“Sir, I’m sorry...”

“Oh, God...”

That’s how your world falls in. From a pleasant day of messing around boats to a gut-wrenching tragedy, from a pretty settled, comfortable life to ... what’s the future look like now?

We left the boatyard behind, giving them instructions to perform the work and put the boat back into the water and hang onto her for further instructions.

I told Mandy what I knew, which was only slightly more than zilch, as we headed on the two-hour drive home.

The console of my SUV kept me from putting my arm around her as she sobbed, holding my hand.

Even in the fog of the immediate news I understood that I was on good footing, on my own, little house to myself, good income.

Mandy. Only child. Her dad. Only child of deceased parents.

“Uncle Ben...”

A question. And an answer.

On the road. Phone call to the hospital, transferred to a ‘crisis counsellor’, whatever that is.

“Mister Comeaux, yes, they were brought here.”

“Can I come see them?”

“Sir, I can’t deny you, but in the gentlest terms possible, I recommend that you don’t.”

“Uhhh...”

“The remains were identified by identification artifacts extricated from the wreck. Human remains were ... sir, it was bad. Their car was basically rolled up like in a car crusher...”

“So...”

“I don’t think you’ll see anything to remember them by, Mister Comeaux. I’m so very sorry...”

“And Kathy and Dallas – the Johnsons?”

“I’m afraid...”

“I have their daughter – my niece – with me...”

“I’m so sorry, Mister Comeaux...”

I hung up. That’s a job I wouldn’t want to have. I’ve got a hard enough task right now. There’s a sobbing girl-child sitting there.

“What’d the hospital say, Uncle Ben?”

“That it’s not a good thing to try to see ... what’s left...”

“Oh.” Single word. Wet eyes.

“What’s gonna happen? To me, I mean...”

“You got me. Just like always. ‘Cept no breaks, maybe. Or maybe Aunt Barb...”

Barbara Henkel was my sister’s best friend since elementary school (and when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I was apt to tell them.) and their lives stayed connected, right down to the birth of daughters two weeks apart. The difference was that Kathy’s husband stayed. Barb’s couldn’t stand the new-found lifestyle that came with the arrival of offspring. Barb’s daughter Sabrina was Mandy’s best friend ‘Bink’. “My normie friend.”

“You don’t want me?”

“Absolutely WRONG, Mandy. But YOU get a say in the matter.”

“Then I want to stay with you.”

“Mandy, there are legal things to be considered, and I’m sure that the first ones are going to be that I’m male and you’re female and half my age.”

“Obvious,” came her reply. “And we’re both on the spectrum, too. Two retards...”

“I hate that word.”

“And it’s not true, but you know how normies can be...”

“But Barb and Bink...”

Mandy’s mind is like marbles in a blender sometimes. “You, of all people, should know who my friends are. Okay? You. And Bink. You’re my example of ME, and Bink is my normie friend, and I don’t know why it works between me and Bink. It just does...”

“Because you ‘n’ Bink have been sharing a crib since forever,” I said.

“What it takes, maybe. But YOU have always just fit. Mom says...” Tears. “Mom said...”

Reflection time: I was thirteen when Mandy was born. I started baby-sitting her when she was a year old. By the time she was two, everybody noticed that I, ‘handicap’ and all, had better interaction with her than her own parents. By the time I was fifteen, I was babysitting both Mandy and Bink, and Mandy gravitated to Bink and me, but more to me.

Social life never sat well with me. I guess I can blame whatever genes caused me to have issues, but I just didn’t fit with people. High school was somewhat of a horror, as was college, but Mom and Dad, along with a couple of doctors, managed me, and I graduated with my degree and walked right into a good position.

But social life? I guess I was protected, and from early on I found that I was in the role of protector to Mandy. When Dallas and Kathy needed an afternoon or evening off, I was always available to babysit, sometimes getting a two-fer with Mandy and Bink, sometimes not, but Mandy at five, when I was eighteen, was my incongruous partner, as I was hers. We did parks galore, usually finding a less-active corner for her to explore, me tagging along for the sake of safety, and then later, companionship. It was just like that.

And there we were, two sudden orphans.

Rolled back into town. “I guess we’ll stay at my place, then?” I asked.

“Yes. But we need to go home so I can get things.”

More tears. I accompanied her into the house to collect things, noting that she included the MacBook Air I’d given her a year before, as well as a selection of necessary clothes and a picture of her and her parents taken earlier in the summer.

“I know we’ll be back for the rest of my things,” she announced as we left.

Yeah, that’s a question. What do you do when you suddenly have to shut down two households that were running normally a day before? How was I going to handle sorting through Mom and Dad’s belongings? I began to make mental lists. List-making is part of my response to my condition.

Home. Let Mandy in the front door. She dropped her backpack – her ‘luggage’ – off in the spare bedroom that was essentially her alternative base to the room at her parents’ house. I headed for the hall bathroom to relieve my bladder. When I turned around, I jumped. She was standing right there.

“You shocked me.”

“Shouldn’t. Get used to me. I think I live here now.” Matter-of-fact. Solemn. And not an alien effect from her. Sometimes she shifts into this gear. Spectrum, okay?

“That privacy talk again, okay?”

“Okay. But I...”

I tugged my zipper up, turned and got an armful of Mandy.

“Let’s go sit...”

I bought the same model recliner as Dad. I sat, rocked back, told Mandy “if you want...” Got her immediately in my lap, wrapped her in my arms, and we had a good cry together, her tears wetting my shirt. The sobbing stopped.

At close range I saw a serious look in those blue eyes. “It just IS!” she announced. “Feels wrong. Doesn’t feel real. But it just IS, Uncle Ben.”

“Is this one of those ‘you and me against the world’ things, Mandy?”

“Ultimately.”

I regard the unique creature who, at thirteen, tosses ‘unique’ into conversation.

“You and I. The world will regard us and will probably accept us and treat us fairly, but ultimately...”

My phone rang.

“Answer it,” she said.