"While back, I too fell into an insufferable pit I deemed to see no hope from. This was before I sought God, or had an inkling in religion, so in that time I could rely solely on the humans around me." Bentley rubbed the creases to his eyes then choked on a breath, sparkles dancing not long off. "They weren't good people, neither was I.
Just a bunch of lost wanderers wandering villa to inn. Without a soul to care for my absence I joined up as a wanderer living a dream. Must've been several years before I woke up, but when I did, I found myself in the grasp of a woman. Your mother." Kage was caught by the seed but refused to move further. Still the link had been set tying the conversation so that he would listen. A sign Bentley was all too engrossed in his story to understand. "My head apparently bled and so did my twisted ankle. In the hospital your mother told me a fabulous concoction of a tale in which I saved her life from an oncoming bus."
A coughing fit mixed with laughter croaked from the man's throat as he wheezed the occurrence back into its restraints. "Me? I did such a thing? Your mother stayed adamant no matter the prying I tried. Dressed in tattered and stained rags with smells unbecoming of any human, I couldn't and still can't fathom how I came to be placed at that moment to save her. Rotted by liquor and drugs I doubt I could even tell what was an inch in my face, yet I had pushed this woman out of the way of a bus? Hmm…"
As Bentley ruminated in the thought, a glare sprung into his eye half blinding the man. Tracing the glare to its origin, the man saw an irregular leather strapped watch with a cracked face on Kage's wrist. Although broken, Bentley swore he saw it tick a second forward at double the speed.
A hand suddenly covered the watch, shifting his sleeve down hiding it away. "You were saying?" Bentley, drawn away from the watch, refocused.
"Sorry, must've… thought… never mind." Bringing a finger to either temple, Bentley smoothly massaged them to ease a growing pain in his head. "Hospital visits cost a lot, even back then they were a terrible price as the devastation of Europe had nearly completed. Despite that matter, she still brought me in and saved my life. She even paid for the service, never asking for anything in return. I questioned her on why she did it, and all she would tell me was that it was part of the broader plan. A plan instituted by God for some reason or another to bring about an end goal near none of us will ever truly experience in our lifetime.
So, in that same vein, her part must be to save my life after saving hers. Personally, I just believe she didn't want me to bug her so much after the fact. HA!" Bentley barked out a rough laugh.
"Didn't work so much." A softly constructed perk lifted his frown. "From there I studied to find what this plan might be that God wishes for, but most importantly I wanted to show your mother that I too had a purpose other than being a leach.
A plan strategized then made real by hard work alone. Alas after five years suffering constant setbacks, I stood victorious. In that period, we remained in contact. After my discharge from the hospital, I had barged in on her job as a waitress demanding she tell me her email address. She didn't even try to dissuade me; I would like to believe she got what I meant." Bentley straightened his back staring now at the ceiling as those blotch marks on the tiles formed her face before him. How glistening it was and the miraculous delicacy to her porcelain features. She was a living doll, but one that packed some bite to her bark.
"Well, we disconnected but stayed in touch all the way. I let her know my new path in life." Bentley emphasized the statement by picking at his white collar, "All the way until her birth with you. Just the day before, she invited me. Of course, without your father's knowledge. Always the jealous sort, that one." The frown returned with a vengeance that sunk it ever lower.
"That day I came with a whole mess of photos with me as well as my colleagues, those that taught me, along with those I helped. Her smile stood steady through it all." The priest bowed his head for some time, making a vow, promise, perhaps prayer? Kage could not discern the motion other than a moment's reprieve from the tale. "When done she asked something from me." Bentley swallowed his spit. "Her hands were so frail trembling as words left her thin lips. It was then I believe I understood she wasn't all that well. Since her own birth she suffered from a considerable number of difficulties, must've been in later years it all got worse."
Bentley no longer saw Kage or the burnt form of Lisa beside him, he was lifted away to the family room transformed into a miniature hospital wing. Natural light blocked by curtains so that her skin wouldn't be turned to crisps, her skin was always highly sensitive to sunlight. Its milky texture clasped around the remote as she flipped through the stations, silent swears passing about. Despite the sickness taking what was left of the feeling in her feet, crawling its way up her thighs and eventually to the heart, stilling all it met, Alanna could never lose the habit of binging her ghost shows:
Zacharias Galfin and his crew of top experts in the paranormal, equipped with the latest technology to document such phenomena; they had encountered some of the most harrowing of experiences with spirits and demons alike.
Even in his time of study, Bentley never provoked himself to take belief in the like of spirits. A soul shouldn't have to despair further in a purgatory like setting on this mortal coil. Most times such stories were peddled by greedsters as well as nefarious types looking to profit further from religion. Yet, he never displayed such critiques to the dying woman.
Who was he to intrude on her past time? There was only one fact he made sure of, and it dangled from her neck on a chain of gold each day and never left it.
The time in the hospital had grayed her hair as well as producing an array of scratchy wrinkles to her skin. Arms beholden to the biceps of a toned middle-aged wife too used to the difficulty of carrying immense groceries and outfitted with physical ingenuity were a thing of the past. Shriveled she became, struck by sickness that enabled light coughs mixed in with a hidden wheeze. Then, there was the only sign of the man's presence on her. A symbol of ruination that Bentley had no way of obstructing.
Her gut-hump had grown to an eclipsing point, nearly crescent, ready for delivery. A matter of hours he predicted. Hours were left of this face. In the end this presence would disappear forever.
Bentley's hands shook uncontrollably as they held onto her arm. Feeble he was, like a child sobbing at the loss of some toy. Near nothing was left to say that had not already been conveyed, except…
"Please…" Bentley bowed his head, too ashamed to make eye contact. "Please save yourself… What could you give this child whom you will never hold?"
Alanna would not steal time for an answer. She simply placed her hand on Bentley's head, caressing it with the gentleness of a seraphim. "D. I've made my choice. My fate is up to God and what He wills of it. If I am to never hold this boy, then that is that."
Through gritted teeth the man replied, "How do you know it's God's will? How do you not know if it's your own? Decide yourself! Please, I beg you… Don't do this." Her hand made swift motions threatening to ease the man to sleep.
"I have hope that I am not misled. In the event that I have, then I have no regrets because this is also my decision. You're not the first to try and dissuade me D. First were my friends, then came Charles, lastly was you. I've feared that there would be no one that truly cared for me when I arrived on this bed, but…" A sniffle rang across the room. "But I am blessed. Truly blessed…"
Bentley finally looked at her, tears streaking down his cheeks. Her smile subtly pronounced itself as if it held back the doubts caked by pain she felt. Perhaps she was close to changing her mind, maybe Bentley could save her. "What can you give a child you will never speak to?"
"I'll give him my everlasting love."
"One you'll never hold?" Bentley barked.
"My memories." A glow shone in her eyes as the room exploded with color.
Choking on his spit, Bentley grew pale at the sight. No matter what occasion befell the minute or person, Alanna could brighten the day. "A child you can never see?"
"Everything."
Taken aback, Bentley fled from her touch in shock. "How could you have so much hope for a child? There's no way."
Alanna reached out to grip Bentley's sleeve pulling him ever so slightly, with whatever strength she could muster, toward her. Days of unrest were highlighted beneath her once sparkling eyes. "In my dreams, I can see my son."
Bentley leaned forward inches from her face, staring deeply in search of the lie. Inside he begged to find one but alas, there was none.
She held out a hand outlining her child's body then cupped it to her bosom. "He'll be so cute, but so strong. Not unlike me he'll experience pain, suffering, possibly more than what I can imagine. Yet, I can feel the beat of his heart in those times, it is the same beat that I feel at this moment in my womb." Taking his hand and placing it to her hump she left Bentley to feel the warmth of her son. A second passed before he heard the thumping of the child's heart.
A single word came to mind.
*Vigorous*
A heart just as strong as its mother's.
"I don't doubt he will lose his way straying from known paths, but I know that he will help others and always return to doing such things. So, I will leave him to you, D."
Mouth agape, Bentley knew not how to respond.
How could this great responsibility be placed on him? He never cared for a child in his life and was never attached to them in the first place, barely getting along with those at the orphanages he often visited.
"Don't worry about nurturing him, he won't need that. No, no… just look out for him. When he's in a tight spot, give him some help. If he's made a bad turn, go searching to push him back on the right one. C-c-can you d-do that for me, Darles?" Darles' hand never left her stomach. Inside he felt the kicking of a life ready to be let out. A life prepared for the journey of the world as well as the curse that comes with it.
In all the ways that Alanna was here, this child was hers and exhibited it with a steadfast assurance.
Once gone, Alanna would still remain on this planet, for a while longer at least. Every time his gaze fell on the child Darles would be able to remember the very warmth that had saved his life.
In a clear inflection portrayed by his booming voice, Darles promised Alanna, "Yes, I will be there for your son. Just as you were there for me. Don't you dare regret giving me this responsibility! That's not fair."
Touching his hand, she lifted it to her thinned lips pecking the tissue for a moment. Alanna closed her eyes yet the eyeballs beneath darted from each and every corner until they relaxed back in their place. "No, I won't regret my decision." A strained smile complimented her statement. In the end, she still held.
"Now, lemme finish my show. You've interrupted enough already."
Bentley laughed as did Alanna. The final he could remember taking beside her.