He puts a plastic Star Wars light sabre in my hand and steps back to regard me. His eyes are lit up with amusement.
Okay, just a minute.
Off he goes and I center myself on the floor of the garage with my blue light-up sword. It makes noise. Vooahmmm vahhhmmm. I swish it around in thin air and smile.
He returns with a jeweled felt crown and Henry's mock chestplate armor, putting the crown on my head and tucking my arms through the straps on the armor.
He steps back again. Oh! Just a minute.
I keep up the swordfighting. It is highly underrated. He's back in minutes with a small plastic medieval dagger.
Back-up weapon. He puts it in my left hand, nodding sagely.
I burst into laughter and he heads to the ipod dock. He thumbs through a list until he hits on something crazy-heavy and then he turns it up loud and he says Now go for it! Slay your demons, Bridget!
And I turn and look at him and say Are you fucking kidding me? This is how you get through the tough parts?
And he looks at me and in all seriousness says, Well, yeah. I don't drink anymore so this is the next best thing, right? And then he turns the music louder.
Something tells me if I poked around a little in Ben's brain I would find his imaginary friends, and they would give me some of their peanut butter sandwiches and tell me that they didn't think Ben was quite right. I would nod quietly and agree, a little afraid, a little amused, a little more understanding of what makes him tick after all.
Probably exactly how he feels when it comes to me.
