

Faith

By Thomas D. Demus

(a novella by Will Searcy)

Copyright © 2014 by Will Searcy

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Smashwords Edition

For the lost.
Table of Contents

Forward

1. Beginning in the Middle

2. A Life Ago

3. Fighting Quicksand

4. The Rest of My Life

5. Darkness

6. Burned Bridge

7. The Here and After

Author's Note
**FORWARD**

Faith is an illusion.

I used to have it – the illusion. I believed, or thought I did, in God. In Karma. In justice. In lots of things. None of those are reality. Reality is what we see. What we breathe. What we touch. Anything beyond our sensory understanding of the world is as real as unicorns imagined by high-minded people with their dreams in the clouds. You may think me a cynic, but to most people reality is cold, like a slab of marble in a winter mountain quarry. Cold and immovable.

I wish I could tell you this is a happy story. I hope it is by the end.
**1. BEGINNING IN THE MIDDLE**

"Where are you going?" I asked, swallowing my frustration to attempt civility, if not love.

My wife was flustered. She slung her purse over her shoulder and smacked her keys off the counter.

"I need some fresh air to think," she said, slamming the paneled wooden door behind her. The screen door screeched a snicker at me as it retreated and clattered against the frame in a mocking giggle.

Our small house felt smaller. It should have felt the opposite with less people inside it, but that was not the case. Without the distraction of human interaction, I noticed that the wallpapered walls crowded the small kitchen and served as a reminder that the 1980s had horrible taste for fashion. Our IKEA furniture in the shag-carpeted living room clashed with the relics that were the brass overhead light and rickety wooden fan embedded in the popcorn ceiling. At some time it had worked. Now, it failed.

The lone quality piece of furniture we owned was a leather reclining chair almost always occupied by my Pop then. He was over there, watching his game. No one believed in his team like my father. No matter how many losses piled up, he would sit in front of that tube television and live and die with every moment. That was what he was doing then - living and dying with his Alma Mater's football team.

I walked over and slumped onto our cloth couch. Pop was so enraptured with the game that he did not notice I was in the room, not to mention my wife and I's fight a moment ago. His eyes shone with hope, and his mouth hung open in that stupid look. That look of belief.

"Go," he whispered.

He clenched the arms of the chair as the tension built.

"Go," he willed.

He slowly began to rise from the chair.

"Go. GO!" he prayed.

Sure enough, an exhausted player on the television screen dived past the goal line just before a defender could stop him. Pop shrieked and hopped around like a goon.

"We did it, son!" Pop yelled.

I remained pasted to the back of the couch. Pop did not detect my lack of enthusiasm, or he ignored it in his celebratory jig. He settled back into his chair and prepared for another bout of life and death with his team.

"I think things may be different this go 'round," Pop proclaimed.

I sneered at him as he watched and waited, and then I redirected my gaze to his stupid game. Nothing would be different. This game had started but was over before kickoff. Everything was.
**2. A LIFE AGO**

Six months ago, life was different. It was also very much the same. My wife still worked longer hours than me. She still made more money than me. I still resented her for it but did not let it show.

My wife and I loved each other. It was not the crass imitations of love shown on silver screens across America. We did not ache for one another when separated. We saw little enough of each other since I started working the nightshifts that maybe we should have. Our passionate, clothes-tearing bouts of romance were few and far between, if they ever existed. But, we loved each other. We were happy.

I worked as a bridge operator. The hours were eleven at night to seven in the morning. It was simple enough work and did not interfere with the rest of my life, which I liked. My sleep schedule was sporadic, and I would be lying if I claimed to have never dozed off at work. Mostly, though, I read. I read everything. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, plays, screenplays if I could get my hands on them. I read. I spent time in thought. I gained knowledge. As conceited as it sounds, I was the smartest person I knew, and I was smart because I _knew_. Doctors, lawyers, and bankers were not as smart as me. Sure, if they dedicated a third of the time I did to reading and thinking, they would surpass my intellect, but their lives were too focused for that. They never thought, unless it was about work. They never took the time to know anything outside of their field of practice. That was why they were not as smart as me, as conceited as that concept may be.

My favorite part of my job was that I was invisible. I was not invisible like the man in Ralph Ellison's _Invisble Man_ where people saw me and looked right through me as if I did not exist. I mean I was invisible as in no one saw me. My blue steel and reflective glass cage was no more noticeable to the passerby than the sky on a clear day. No one ever had a conscious thought that a man was perched above them looking down as they crossed the bridge on their way to work or to a friend's house or to a night out with their spouse. They would pass by in their cars and boats and bicycles, happily cruising along in their own universes, oblivious to the notion. Sometimes, between readings, I would watch. I saw the meaningless clichés like people picking their noses while they drove. I saw edgier things, too. A young couple making love, or a desperate man ducking behind the half-wall of the bridge to shoot up heroine in the dark. There was life all around me, and I got to be the world's invisible observer.

My job ended in time for me to return home and take my son to Day Care. The scene was always the same. My wife would hurry through her morning routine, juggling thirty-three things at once. She would be clipping on an earring while slipping on a heel while talking on the phone and serving Sam Cheerios with chocolate milk, just the way he liked it. Sam would follow her with his eyes like a puppy seeking affection, and without fail, the final act my wife would perform before barreling out of the house would be to kiss Sam on the top of his silky blonde head. Then, he would smile. I always loved his smile.

When my wife left, things calmed down for my son and me. We would eat breakfast and chat for an hour or so before I took him to Day Care so I could sleep through the day. He would ask profound questions like, "Why do Cheerios have a hole in the middle?" or "Do ducks like it more to fly or swim?" In that precious hour or so, Sam would learn, and I would learn right alongside him. Sam learned that passing gas could not always be trusted as gas alone, and I learned that beets turned feces red. My son learned that butterflies came from caterpillars, and I learned that the response "when a Mommy and Daddy love each other very much, they make a baby" is as unfulfilling for a four-year-old to hear as it is for an adult to say. Sam was sharp, though, and he would always ask, "How?" or "From what?"

When I found I had no answers, I defaulted to God. God covered all sorts of mysteries and sins of omission. I did not have to explain God to my son, because God could not be explained. He could not be seen or heard or touched. Smart people, not in the way I am smart but in the dedication-of-time-and-effort-to-one-discipline kind of smart, say that children do not grasp abstract thought until around eight or nine years old. That may be, but I can tell you that Sam understood the concept of God, he just needed to express Him as a physical being in a physical setting of Heaven. Somewhere, that physical place existed. Sam knew it. It was a mystery how we got there after death, but Sam believed we would. So did I. In that sense, maybe I did not grasp abstract thought either, if God was abstract.

Sam and I went to church every Sunday to attach an Earthly, physical presence to our belief. I was raised Catholic, so that was the type of church we attended. Sam believed in the transubstantiation whereby bread and wine were transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. I thought of it as a good metaphor, even though Catholics should believe. Still, I encouraged our church attendance. God had always been good to me. I did not live a luxurious life, but neither did I deserve one. God gave me a good wife, a beautiful son, and a secure home. He was just.

One day, as ordinary as any other, I had to delay my sleep to take Sam to the doctor. He had a cough and tummy ache that had persisted for a few days. My wife and I tried the over-the-counter remedies, but the cough's intensity grew. Finally, we buckled and decided to take him to the doctor. We hated making the copay, but peace of mind was worth a hundred dollars when it came to our son.

The doctor's office was dim and dingy. The waiting room was designed with four-year-olds in mind, so all the chairs were constructed of hard plastic and positioned too low to the ground to be comfortable. There were communal toys where coffee tables should have been, and they looked like a meeting place for chicken pox, measles, and the common cold.

Sam did not seem to mind. He played with a block set alongside a little girl with a runny nose. I caught him attempting to put the block in his mouth and snatched it away from him. It was silly parental paranoia considering Sam was already sick, but that did not stop me from dousing both our hands with sanitizer.

After a considerable wait, Doctor Alighieri called us into the back rooms. He had a large, hooked nose and permanent scowl affixed to his face. Doctor Alighieri scared Sam, and I have to admit, me as well. He guided us through the frigid hallway into Exam Room 1. Then, Doctor Alighieri left and promised to be right back. Sam shivered and said he wanted to go home. I told him to be patient. We waited.

Finally, Doctor Alighieri returned and examined Sam. He felt his forehead and looked into his throat; it was a little swollen. Doctor Alighieri looked into Sam's ears and touched his cold stethoscope to Sam's bare back; Sam flinched at its temperature. It was precious, so I giggled as fawning parents do. The stethoscope moved to Sam's stomach and the slightest touch to his abdomen sent Sam jerking away in pain. Doctor Alighieri looked at me through a bushy eyebrow.

"Is this new?" he asked.

I was stunned. Sam had never lunged in pain like that in all his life. I was a good father. I took care of my son. I paid attention to him. I loved him more than anything in the world. I would do anything to save him from harm. I watched him every day, and he had never done that before.

After the exam, Doctor Alighieri said, "Part of his breathing sounds labored and that pain in his stomach concerns me. I'm going to send him for blood work and a chest X-ray."

"Great," I thought, "More copays."

The Diagnostic Center starkly contrasted the pediatrician's office. It was clean and modern, well lit with countless yellow bulbs in wall sconces. There was technology and science here that could conquer any infirmity. It had X-rays and MRIs. There were laboratories and medicines. Smart people had spent lifetimes of work to create a place like this. Its intelligence overwhelmed me with comfort. It was not that I was nervous. I knew doctors had to be cautious because of lawsuits, especially with children. I also knew that they received kickbacks from Diagnostic Centers such as this one. A little extra testing never hurt a doctor's wallet, only mine. I did not dwell on that thought, though. In fact, I was tired. Normally, I would have been asleep for two hours by then. It was catching up to me.

Sam was scared of the X-Ray machine and the various _clicks_ and _clunks_ it made. I assured him that this machine would make him feel better. He was dubious. When it came time to draw blood, I had to bribe Sam with the promise of ice cream to get the needle within a foot of his arm. Tears bubbled in his eyes as the nurse cleaned the injection area with her wet wipe. He stared right at me as the needle went in as if I was an omnipotent power choosing to torture him instead of granting mercy. After we left, his promised reward did not make him forget. It is a an adorable sight to see a child alternate between whimpering and licking an ice cream cone, but Sam saw the treat for what it was – blood ice cream – and he would not afford me the courtesy of seeing him enjoy it. I could not help but chuckle to myself. He was such a smart boy.

The next morning, I was looking forward to catching up on my sleep when the phone rang. My wife had left, and it was customary for her to call five minutes after her departure to complain about something she had forgotten or to remind me of a chore I had to do. I answered the phone.

"What'd you forget?" I asked.

"Pardon me?" a husky voice responded.

"Sorry, I thought you were my... someone else," I replied.

"Is this Thomas D. Demus?" the voice asked.

"May I ask who's calling?"

"This is Doctor Abaddon. I was wondering if you might bring Sam by to see me."

I paused. Doctor Alighieri had not mentioned visiting another doctor, especially so immediately.

"Why?" I asked.

"I have a spot open at 8:30 if that works," he said.

"What's this concerning?"

"My office is in the same building as Doctor Alighieri. I'll see you soon."

He hung up on his end, and I listened to the dial tone. Something was wrong. I looked over at Sam munching on his Cheerios. He seemed better. Happier. He told me his tummy was better so frequently I suspected he was trying to convince himself more than me.

When I checked the directory in Doctor Alighieri's office building, my worst suspicions came true – Doctor John Abaddon, Pediatric Oncology, suite 316. Cold sweat attacked my neck and back. I looked down at Sam smiling up at me. He was oblivious. Innocent. My job was to protect that purity, to protect him, but my subconscious warned me I would soon fail. I squeezed his hand to feel he was still with me. Then, I hit the "up" button for the elevator.

"I don't like it here," Sam said after sitting in the exam room a moment.

"I don't either, buddy," I replied.

All I remember about the room was white. Everything seemed to be that color. The paper on the exam table. The walls. The floor. The cabinets. The door. White everywhere. Blinding me. Distracting me. I was a man who liked to think, but in that room, I could think of nothing. Nothing but time. How it dragged. How it tickled the hairs on the back of my neck. How it reminded me that it was the only barrier between that moment and when the door opened. How it agonized me and how I wished it would not stop.

I could not think, but I thought I should pray. It seemed the time for that. Since I was a believer, I believed it would make a difference. If I asked God, who was just, and genuinely prayed to Him, not like a wish to hit the lottery or my team to win the Super Bowl, but a _real_ prayer, then He would answer. If I prayed about something important, He would serve. He would grant. That was what He did. That was why He was there. That was why I believed. That was why I prayed.

My prayer did not comfort me, but my mind told me to continue, so I did. I prayed until the moment time yielded and that white door opened with the cold wind of fate preceding Doctor Abaddon's entry into the room. The doctor's hair was dark, skin was gray, and eyes deeper than a well on a cold dry mountain. His expression told a story his lips would never do justice. My soul was crushed before he even said a word. I looked down at Sam, and his doe eyes peered into mine. I tried to smile, but it did not fool him. He shifted his gaze down to the floor and waited. This time, he did not shiver.

"Should we step outside?" I asked.

Doctor Abaddon hesitated, looking at Sam, and then said in the husky voice I had heard on the phone, "I'm not sure he'll follow."

My heart sank into my gut like a punch. I was wounded and vulnerable, and Doctor Abaddon smiled with as much grace as anyone could muster under the circumstances.

"We suspect your son has an undifferentiated embryonal sarcoma of the liver that's metastasized to the lung," Doctor Abaddon said as cold as the marble in a winter mountain quarry.

Sam looked up at me. I could almost hear the questions forming in his brain, so I ignored him and stared at the doctor. Sam waited.

"What's that mean?" I asked, not caring if he thought I was stupid.

"It means your son has the fight of his life ahead of him," Doctor Abaddon replied.

My heart sunk still lower. Doctor Abaddon walked over to the desk, pulled out the rolling stool, and sat. He rested a hand on his knee in an attempt at normalcy, as if this casual seating arrangement would turn our conversation into a chat amongst friends instead of an explanation of my son's impending doom. I felt a lump in my throat.

"We have a great center in town with great surgeons," Doctor Abaddon assured. "I'll be the primary on this as we proceed. We can get him in as early as Friday, and I'm afraid time is our enemy."

I snorted at the irony. Moments ago, time had been my ally. It had kept that door shut and this reality nothing more than a distant fear. It had kept my dreams afloat on a cloud in the sky. Then, time sided with reality and sent my dreams crashing down to Earth. The cloud dissipated, and the sky closed. All I could see was my broken dream at my feet.

"I'm afraid it appears this has been ongoing for some time," Doctor Abaddon continued. "There's nothing you could have done. These things always present themselves in different ways. I just wish he had started showing symptoms before –"

Doctor Abaddon caught himself. He swallowed his words and attempted to smile at me. I exhaled and dropped my face into my hands. I felt Sam's gentle tug on my arm.

"Daddy?" he cooed.

I had to bite my lip to withstand the tears. I was tired. I had not slept all night. I was in no shape for this. I could not be strong. I could not. I needed to get out of there.

"What now?" I asked. "I mean, so surgery Friday? Fine. What do we need to do ahead of time?"

Sam tried to peer up into my eyes. He searched for hope. He wanted confidence and assurance. He wanted the comforting look and gentle embrace of a father, but I would not let him see me. If I got one square look from that innocent little face, I would cave.

"Well," Doctor Abaddon said, easing his way back into things. "I have some prescriptions for you. We'll go over the instructions. The surgery will remove as much of the tumors as possible and allow us to biopsy. Based on that, we'll develop a treatment plan to combat this thing. But... really the best thing that you can do now... is to be there for him." I choked on the lump in my throat. "Maybe not try to make him understand as much as support him through it. Make sure he's eating well, getting good sleep. And ... try to keep some joy in his life. This battle will be hard enough, try to keep things light whenever possible."

I nodded. I wanted to curse, cry, and scream, but I nodded. All I could think about was the sanctity of my car. That driver's seat where I was in charge, in my own universe, and invisible again, like the drivers passing over the bridge.

"Do you have any questions?" Doctor Abaddon asked.

I shook my head "no".

He nodded and rose, opening the door for Sam and me. I guess he knew I would perform my own Internet due diligence on the subject and would not arrive at significant questions, or conclusions, until then. Maybe he detected my anguish. Or, he had worked long enough to know that the anguish was there no matter to which degree it was "presenting" in the subject, as a cancer doctor would say.

I received the prescription instructions at the office pharmacy, but grief blurred my consciousness. My head was spinning. My stomach lurched. It felt like I had the cancer myself and bore the brunt of its destruction all at once. I wished I did. Instead, it was Sam. At some point, he reached his little hand into mine. It was sweating. I had to bite my lip again.

The copay and medicine, which was not covered by insurance, were worse than I thought, but I refused to think of money at a time like that. I refused to think about it until we ran out of it. At the rate I was going, it was possible.

I finally escaped the doctor's office – down the elevator and outside to the parking lot. The onslaught at the oncologist's office left me weak and exhausted. There was no strength. No strength for a time like this. I slid into the driver's seat of my car, devoid of any noticeable muscular assistance.

It did not happen suddenly. A tidal wave did not crash down on me with overwhelming force. It started with a whimper. I wiped my eyes and took a deep breath, but another whimper came. I clenched my jaws with a chunk of cheek between my teeth. Still, the next whimper came. I could not help but notice the silence emanating from the back seat, like a dark cloud expanding and enveloping me. I lost the strength to not look. In the rearview mirror, I saw Sam staring up at my reflection. His little eyes were full of fear and misplaced hope. Hope that I could do something.

The tidal wave struck. I wept. I wept like I had never wept before. I wept so powerfully I was incapable of seeing through my tears to drive.

"I love you, buddy," I moaned into the rearview mirror.

Sam looked down. His hope deferred to fear. He saw me wailing and knew it was the cry of a hopeless man. I could do nothing for him. He was on his own, and so was I.
**3. FIGHTING QUICKSAND**

The moments spent watching Sam sleep were the most peaceful moments in my life. Something about a sleeping child reminded me of simplicity. It reminded me of absoluteness. There was clarity and comfort in a world of black-and-whites. I did not waste my heart fighting the black. I accepted it, knowing that light overcame every corner of darkness in time. Such simple thoughts. How I wished I had them then, but my world had become a world of manufactured gray. As I sat there watching my son sleep, I knew I would heal him. I knew he would live.

It was 5 o'clock, and I had not slept. Contrary to doctor's orders, as soon as I could see through my watery eyes, I had driven Sam to his favorite restaurant and gotten him the grandest breakfast feast of his life. We ate pancakes with strawberries, blueberries, chocolate chips, whipped cream, and syrup. There were scrambled eggs, whole-wheat toast, bacon, and sausages. Sam had a chocolate milkshake, and I had coffee. We ate and pretended life was immortal. We pretended we were happy. We pretended we would never have to leave that restaurant.

When we had stepped outside into the gray skies that promised rain, our meals sat heavy in our stomachs, and our hearts deflated like helium slipping through a balloon. I was not ready to take Sam home, so I drove in aimless loops through town until I could pretend to be hungry for another meal. When the time came, I followed our breakfast with a larger lunch. Sam ate pepperoni pizza and French fries, and I gave him bites of my bacon cheeseburger. We ordered an ice cream Sundae for dessert and, even though we were stuffed, we ordered still more. We ate raspberry sherbet and oatmeal raisin cookies sprinkled with brown sugar. Sam laughed, and I tried. He asked how cheese was made, and I told him I did not know. I was only a bridge operator.

By 3 p.m., Sam's weariness had defeated his will, and he succumbed to sleep. I sat and waited. I had not informed my wife. Oddly, I did not even debate myself on the matter. No part of me wanted to tell her. It was not because I wanted to save her soul from angst for a precious few hours. It was because I wanted Sam to myself. I wanted my time with him. He was _my_ son. She would have her time, but I needed mine. I would not tell her, not yet.

The door opened to us like a stone being rolled away from a tomb. My wife peeked inside like she was trespassing in an abandoned home. She spotted me in the leather recliner, watching Sam sleep on our cloth couch. My wife closed the door quietly behind her, slipped her keys on the counter, and tiptoed over to me.

"How's he doing?" she asked.

I squeaked a rebuke like a haughty socialite. The reaction was so visceral it confused my wife more than concerned her. She looked at me and waited.

Sam stirred in his sleep. Part of him must have felt his mother's presence, and she comforted him more than I could. The corners of his lips curled into a faint smile. I loved it when he smiled, but now his smile reminded me that the days of love without consequences had passed. No matter how much joy I found in the love of my son, I knew pain would soon overtake and overcome. It would stretch the borders of my heart until it tore and the pain rotted my insides like the cancer riddling my son. I stood and marched out the front door without giving my wife so much as a look.

"What the Hell, Thomas?" she shouted as the screen door clattered against the frame and snickered at me.

I could not face her. I stared out at our cramped neighborhood and felt the houses closing in on me like walls to a schizophrenic. Her footsteps behind me tapped closer. By the time she placed her hand on my shoulder, I shrieked my wounded soul through my lips and into the sky. She jumped back, and when I finally turned to face her, I could see her terror. My eyes burned hot with histamine. I rubbed them and felt the warm tears soil my hands. Somewhere between the sleep depravation and heartbreak, my capacity for understanding, or even rational thought, had escaped me.

"He has cancer!" I shouted at her as if it was her fault.

She reacted as I am sure mothers do, but I was lost. Instead of consoling my wife, I turned and screamed at the sky again. I hollered and yelled. I wailed and sobbed. Nothing made sense to me except to protest. Protest cancer. Protest fate. Protest anything that led me to that point. That was all I wanted to do.

It could have been five seconds or five minutes before I realized my wife was gone. I would have felt embarrassment if I felt anything other than heartache. I staggered back towards the house and reentered through the front door, where I found my wife sitting on the couch, stroking Sam's sweet face, his head huddled in her lap. The living room door slammed behind me, but she did not look up. It was odd to see her so singularly focused. Instead of juggling the universe, she was staring at all that mattered in it. Sweet little Sam stared into her eyes in total dependence. He was scared, but I could see his anxiety being eased away with each stroke of his mother's hand.

Finally, my wife looked up at me. Never before had I seen such emptiness in anyone's eyes. I should have thought this was a moment that I would never forget, but I was tired. I was ready to sleep. Loving acts and mending bridges sounded like too much work. Convincing her eyes to still love me was a chore. Maybe after a good night's rest I could get to it. I planned on sleeping on the job. Hopefully no one would come while I slept.

The surgery that Friday went well. Doctor Abaddon said they removed a large part of the liver, but enough remained to stave off a transplant. He said that with the amount of the lungs they removed that Sam would never be able to go free diving or run a marathon, but he could breathe. That was all I needed to hear. Doctor Abaddon tried to scare me with survival rates and outdated statistics. He tried to warn me that the chemotherapy would be taxing and may not work, or that the cancer had already spread and there was no guarantee against recurrence. All empty threats to me. The cancer was out! The doctor's job was complete, and mine was just beginning. I would nurse Sam back to health. If I did nothing else on this Earth, I would do that. I knew I would.

I had not read at work in over a month. It was my longest stretch to date, but I found sleeping too convenient. I did not even have to set an alarm. The bellowing horns of impatient ships were more than enough to wake me. Thanks to their kindness, I was able to get the most sleep I had had since Sam was born. My wife and I pulled him out of Day Care, because I would spend every waking moment with him. I would prepare him fresh organic food as part of a well-balanced diet. I would deliver his medications exactly on time. When his bones hurt, I would hold him and sing along to the Mumford and Sons' "Sigh No More" album on our stereo. I think everything helped except my tone-A.D.D. voice. Sam was doing well. He seemed encouraged. He seemed healthy and happy, considering the circumstances.

On good days, I took Sam to the park. I encouraged him to play, but he was weak and unwilling. Sometimes I could coax him onto the swing set if I promised to push him and not too high. Mostly, Sam and I would sit by the pond and feed the ducks. We had named them all. There was Daffney, the matriarch of the bunch that could be seen playing follow-the-leader with her three ducklings - Donald, Darkwing, and Scrooge McDuck. Daffney liked to honk and flap her wings at all the other adult ducks when they misbehaved. Their most egregious offenses were eating Daffney's food, getting too close to Sam or me, or being a living duck and in her general vicinity. Once, Daffney flapped and honked so aggressively after Quacktastic that she face-planted in the water. Sam actually laughed. No gift was greater in the world.

Most often, especially shortly after chemo, Sam was too tired to leave the house. He complained his tummy hurt; so I would try the natural remedies like ginger tea, rice, or applesauce. When that failed, I would concede and give him his nausea medicine, which stopped his bowel movements for about a week. It turned out he could trust gas to be only gas now.

He did not sleep much despite his suffering. His little doe eyes were always bloodshot and squinted. I encouraged him to rest, but he fought it like he fought his cancer. The pain would attack him in waves like a stormy sea crashing into a sea wall. He would curl and cringe but never cry out. Sam saw what happened when he cried. I turned to panic and shoved every bit of food or medicine at my disposal down his throat before calling the nurses and doctors and insisting I take him in for a visit. Sam feared Doctor Abaddon's office, so he gritted his teeth and bore the pain.

My wife and I had become ships passing in the night. Thanks to the medical bills, she worked overtime as often as possible, which meant she arrived home when I left for work. It was convenient we could watch Sam in shifts, but it did little to mend our marriage. She never expressed in words how I had hurt her, and I never apologized. I felt regret, but I knew an apology included a desire to change the behavior. I did not wish to change. My son had cancer, and I wanted as much of his time left on this earth as possible. It was my right. I would not apologize for that or anything, although I regretted hurting my wife.

One morning, things changed. Sam's tummy hurt, per the usual, but that morning he vomited. This had happened occasionally, so it was no cause for concern. Then, thirty-three minutes later, he vomited again. I cleaned it up, gave him some ginger ale, and grew concerned. Next, he passed gas, but it was not gas at all. His sheets were covered in bright red, and he had not eaten beets. In the center of the red-stained bed lay one hard lump of black dried blood. This was bad. It was so bad I did not panic. I could not. The overwhelming horror of the situation sucked the wind from my lungs and left me inert.

When I gathered my wits, I changed Sam into clothes suitable for leaving the house. Sam groaned and complained. He was feeling better, he said. He did not want to go, he said. The doctor made him feel bad, he said. All arbitrary complaints to the all-important task at hand. Sam would heal. We had made so much progress. He _had_ to heal. I _knew_ it. There was simply no way I could turn back now...

"The ultrasound showed another tumor on the liver."

"What do we do?" I asked Doctor Abaddon, sitting in his transcendent white office next to my boy.

Doctor Abaddon sat back in his stool, as if a casual disposition was all I needed to assuage the devastation of this news.

"Unfortunately, the tumor is of a circumference so as to obstruct proper liver function," the doctor said. "I'm afraid our only recourse would be a transplant."

"Okay, fine," I agreed. "Let's do the transplant. When can we schedule it?"

He snorted a faint snicker at me under his breath. I had not read in so long that my intelligence waned. I was a stupid bridge operator and a bad father. Still, the doctor could have served the news with less melodrama. A liver transplant was inevitable. I was almost relieved it would occur sooner rather than later.

"The issue is..." the doctor said. He sighed and adjusted himself in the stool so he was erect. Then, he looked me in the eye. "... The cancer had already metastasized to the lungs. It had already spread from outside the confines of the liver and then recurred despite aggressive chemotherapy treatment."

He stared at me in the hope I would understand. His well-deep eyes pleaded with me. They pleaded for a nod or a tear, anything that would prevent his lips from expressing what he must.

"Livers don't exactly grow on trees," Doctor Abaddon blurted, quickly correcting himself. "I mean, quite simply, they are in short supply, even shorter supply for a young child. Most liver transplants are afforded to children with curable illnesses and the best chance to survive both the illness and the procedure. In Sam's case, we just can't..."

He stopped.

I sat still. If I sat still enough, maybe I would become invisible and that was one step away from not existing. Inexistence was preferable to this.

The doctor sighed again. "I'm sorry," he said. "We'll start him on radiation. At this point... I just... I'm not sure he'll ever get a new liver."

Suddenly, I was tired again. Sleep depravation was not my issue, but I was tired. I had performed nursing care for my son for months, and the strain was endless. Sleep would be great - invisible sleep where the world and everyone in it melted away. That was what I wanted.

No tears filled my eyes when I looked over at Sam. He was calm. His little hands were folded over his lap, and his ankles were crossed and hanging from the exam table. My guess was he was too preoccupied with illness to worry about implications. He seemed sick and irritated. Sam knew that Doctor Abaddon's office prolonged his misery. He did not like it, and he told me so.

My wife never made it to Sam's radiation treatments. Radiation was expensive, and she was busy making more money than me. After every session, Sam and I would sit in the exam room, waiting to be discharged, and Sam would give me the slightest glare. He hated the radiation. He hated it even more than the chemotherapy. That did not stop me from taking him.

When I woke up on the morning of his final radiation treatment, he was missing. Missing was too drastic a term. After checking the bathroom and the kitchen, I found him hiding under his bed. When I shone my flashlight, I saw his two emerald eyes twinkling at me. I giggled.

"What are you doing under there, buddy?" I asked.

He did not answer; just scooted closer to the wall.

"Come on out. We have to get dressed."

He refused. I took a deep breath and reached an arm under the bed until I got hold of his ankle. I pulled him gently back to me, but he resisted.

"I don't want to go," Sam said.

"I know you don't like it, but this is the last one and it'll make you better," I assured.

"I don't want to be better."

It caught me off guard. I knew he wanted to get better. I knew he wanted to live. Maybe he was tired like me. Maybe he was losing will power. Maybe the radiation drained him of more than cancer.

"You have to get better," I said.

"Why?" Sam asked.

He was such a smart boy.

"You said Grandma got sick and went to live in Heaven because no one's sick there," Sam said as innocent as a lamb. "I want to go there, too."

I recognized this was one of the cute things children say. Most parents cooed or giggled when their children made such precious comments. Most parents did not have children dying of cancer.

"That's not happening," I snapped, before yanking his leg harder than I should have.

When I pulled him out from under the bed, I saw that his eyes had clouded, and I knew he had made his last protest. Somehow, even when he looked at me, it was as if I was not there. Maybe the part of me he loved had indeed gone, and all that was left was this drill sergeant barking orders, forbidding him to die. The thought almost made me sad, but I was tired again and had a long day ahead.

The Cancer Center was located in a wing attached to the hospital. It was a pleasant enough building in appearance, and its staff was fantastic. There were so many inspirational messages posted in the center. Words like "hope", "believe", and "faith" in various iterations painted the walls with encouragement. I was always uplifted. It felt like the doctors, nurses, and even cashiers all believed my son would heal. I had to believe, too.

When Sam and I arrived, the staff was cheerful. They encouraged Sam and celebrated his last treatment. They kissed his baldhead and gave him an extra lollipop. He did not eat it. The machine burned his insides and made everything taste like blood, he complained. Sam did not understand why he needed a machine to make him sicker, but I forced him to sit in that waiting room. I could only imagine what Sam must have felt, having to face the shadow of radioactive death and not understand why. It occupied my mind and sided with time, my enemy, to stab at my brain and sicken my gut with each passing second.

When the treatment was over, Sam refused to look at me in the waiting room. He did not look at me during the ride home either. Instead, Sam slouched against the rear window and fought sleep. No strength remained in his frame, no energy existed in his movement, but he fought sleep and waited. Everything he did amounted to waiting. He would eat, but only while waiting. He would sleep – no – he would not. Sleeping could cause him to miss it. Sam hated sleep now.

When we got home, I tried to feed Sam, but he refused. He felt like he would throw-up, he said. I prepared his favorite meal – chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries, blueberries, whipped cream, and maple syrup. Sam still did not want to eat, but the enticing aroma and irresistible sight of that ambrosia was too much for Sam to deny. He took a bite, and I swear I almost saw a smile on his face. I always loved his smile. After he swallowed, his face turned grim, and he ate several more hasty bites before he held his stomach and pushed the plate away.

I smiled; knowing food of any kind was vital for Sam then. I grabbed Sam's plate and walked it back towards the sink, slipping the last half a pancake into my mouth before running water over the sticky plate. Before I had even finished chewing, I heard the all-too-familiar retch.

Sam had vomited all over the table. He looked up at me as no one ever looks after vomiting. He was not ashamed. He was not apologetic. He was not even relieved. He was, actually, the exact same as before. It was as if Sam expected this to happen and knew better than to fight it or attach any emotion to it. I snorted in frustration and grabbed a towel to clean up the mess. Sam did not eat again.

That evening, Sam took a turn for the worse. He seemed to lose strength by the second. I called the doctors, and they told me to bring him in if he vomited again. I argued that there were no contents in his stomach to vomit, so the doctors told me to only bring him in if he got "a lot worse". Sam's condition had worsened, but it was so incremental that determining which increment was the tipping point into "a lot worse" proved challenging.

When my wife returned from work, she made it clear I would not play hooky that evening. She worked overtime to provide for Sam and would be damned if I did not do my part. Sam was her son, too, she said. She had sacrificed and said I should, too. It was a selfish thing to ask. It was unfair. I resented her for making me go, for even asking me to go, but I went to work.

I thought I would stay awake through the whole night. Sam's misery was so vibrant in my mind that I thought I would wrestle with that torment like an insomniac. But, when surrounded by darkness, the mind and spirit can slip. I watched the emptiness around me from my glass perch. It was a slow night. Hardly any cars passed by, let alone ships. I must not have been missing much in the previous months of sleeping on the job. Eventually, as I stared out at nothing, the darkness won and blanketed me in sleep.
**4. THE REST OF MY LIFE**

I awoke dreary to the knocking at the door of my sanctuary. It was morning already, and my replacement had arrived. We exchanged brief pleasantries, and I could not ignore the curled lip of judgment on my replacement's face when he looked into my glossy eyes, fresh from a good night's sleep. The morning air was brisk and refreshing. The sun glowed orange on the horizon, and it had all the makings of a beautiful new day. It would be the first day of the rest of my life. A tired expression, but one I would never forget.

When I arrived home, my wife was juggling the universe. She had a heel half-on as she hopped and looped an earring. As soon as I entered the door, she derided me for being late. Then, she served a side of guilt with her criticism when she informed me she had been up all night with Sam and now faced a twelve-hour day. The thought of pecking me on the cheek or saying "I love you" may have crossed her mind before she left, but she acted on neither. Instead, she paused at the door.

"Sam's still in bed. He said he was tired," she told me before slamming the door. The screen door sniggered at me and clattered against the frame.

I took a moment. The house was still. The void of sound echoed in my ears until it took on a musical life of its own. The moment was not peaceful, but it was not ominous. It was nothing more than a moment. A moment in time that was identical to every other moment until we attached our emotions and meanings to them. Was this a good moment? A bad moment?

The walk through the kitchen to the back bedrooms was another moment, except it included the soundtrack of my footsteps crunching the carpet. I walked past the small bathroom we all shared and into Sam's tiny cove of a room. He was lying in his bed, his chest slowly rising and collapsing in on itself. His eyes rolled towards me with indifference. It seemed he was having a moment similar to mine.

"How you feeling, buddy?" I asked – the stupidest question I could imagine. I had not read in some time.

He did not respond. He stayed in his moment.

"You hungry?" I asked.

No response.

"Need to go to the bathroom?"

His head nodded downward so faintly I almost did not catch it.

"Okay. Let's go," I said, but Sam did not move.

I wrinkled my brow. "Can you not get up?"

Again, Sam did not respond. His sleepy eyes watched me and waited. He had done a lot of waiting. I sighed, went to his bed, stooped down, and lifted him. His head seemed stuck to the pillow, and as soon as his body cleared the bed, his head lolled against my arm as if he were a drunk a pint away from alcohol poisoning. He was surprisingly light. The chemo and radiation must have taken ten pounds off of him, a lot for a four-year-old.

I walked slowly with him in my arms. In his weakness, I felt strong. I knew I could carry him wherever he needed to go. He did not need to depend on himself, because I was his father and I would be there to hold him when he struggled. As we rounded the hall towards the bathroom, I felt something growing warm and wet on my side.

"Crap," I whispered, before rushing him into the bathroom, tearing his pajama pants down, and sitting him on the toilet. He made a mess, squirting the toilet seat, the floor, and my chest with dark copper urine. As I toweled at the mess, Sam slumped sideways on the toilet, and I had to catch him before he cracked his skull on the sink. This was the tipping point. My hiatus had skipped me past several increments of worsening and into "a lot worse". Sam was going back to the doctor.

He glared at me from the back seat the entire car ride even though he lacked the strength to sit upright. Doctor Abaddon had said to meet him at the Cancer Center and that they would deem the appropriate steps from there. I thought about calling my wife, but she was busy and had just seen Sam's condition. This should not be news to her.

When Doctor Abaddon saw Sam, his face was grave. He told me they would admit him to the adjoining hospital and get him on IV fluids and nutrition. The difficulty with a failing liver, he said, was that it could not filter toxins or regulate the bile entering the blood stream. Without a liver, a myriad of deadly options existed. The doctors would have to monitor him closely, and with some luck, he would make it.

"What about long-term?" I asked.

Doctor Abaddon stared at me. It was a strong look, one he must have practiced since residency. The look was not cruel, but it was not kind. It was worse than both. It was honest.

"Let's see how today goes," he said.

After he left, I felt exhausted. Speaking to the doctors was like running a marathon, and their departure was like crossing the finish line and losing the adrenaline that had kept me going. I walked over to Sam, who was curled up on the exam table, and rested a hand on his head. He used to have silky blonde hair that I liked to run my fingers through, but the radiation left him bald and touching his head sent a wave of dread pulsing through my arm. None of my five senses could explain the phenomenon, but the lump in my throat choked my breathing, and my eyes burned with fresh tears. I needed comfort. I needed relief.

For some reason, an old saying entered my head. I instantly recognized it, but I did not know the words. It had been so long since I read, and I felt so stupid. The doctors, lawyers, and bankers had to be far smarter than me now.

I caved and searched for the saying on my smartphone. It took a second for me to decide which version to choose, but I opted for the older, more poetic verse:

"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me."

I paused for the words to wash over me with comfort.

My nirvana did not come.

So, I read the words again. And again. And again. If I read them more, then I would believe. I had to believe. I had to know Sam was going to be okay. Why couldn't I just _know_?

Reading did not work, so I wrote the passage in the notes application on my smartphone. I stared at the words in my own electronic writing and felt no relief. So, I prayed. I prayed that God would do something. I prayed that God would prove Himself and save my precious boy. Sam was so young; he had so much longer to live. God could not take him from me now. He _couldn't._ Not if He existed. God would not do this if He existed and stood for justice. There was nothing just in the death of a child.

The door opened, and a nurse waited with an empty wheelchair. I took a deep breath as tears escaped down my cheeks. Then, I held my boy in my arms and walked to the door. As we neared, Sam saw his fated seat. I felt his little body tense, and as I tried to lower him into the chair, he clung to me with all the strength left in his depleted body. He stared into my eyes and summoned all his might to utter a single word. It was the only word Sam had spoken to me that day, the first day of the rest of my life.

"Home," he requested.

There was not a trace of fear or doubt in his eyes, just the conviction of his decision and the resoluteness to see it through. It was as if the future strong-willed man hidden deep within his eyes had swum to the surface to greet me, but a mere glimpse of that man would not do. I wanted to meet him. I had to.

The nurse helped me wrestle Sam into the wheelchair. He did not take his eyes off me. He waited. Waited for me to deliver.

"We'll give you a call when we get him all situated in his room," the nurse said.

I nodded, and she turned the wheelchair down the hall. As soon as it moved, Sam resigned himself to his fate. He slumped in the wheelchair, devoid of any more strength, and let the nurse roll him away. I watched as they disappeared down the hall. A nagging voice in my head told me to go retrieve my son. To grant his wish. To take him home. But, instead of following him down that long narrow hall, I turned to the left and entered the waiting room.

Since I had a few minutes and had to exit the Cancer Center to enter the adjoining hospital anyway, I took a lark to get some coffee. The emotions had drained me, and I was tired. I needed something to get me through the morning.

The coffee shop was just down the road, and I felt guilty when I saw the prices. We were on such a tight budget that splurging for a coffee house latte was an argument-worthy offense for my wife. Still, I bought the drink.

As I exited, my phone rang. It was the hospital, so I answered in haste.

"Thomas?" Doctor Abaddon's too familiar husky voice asked.

"Yes?"

"I'm with Sam, you should come quick."

"Is everything okay?"

"He flat-lined. We've revived him, but we don't know how much more time we have. Get your wife here, too. I'm afraid it's time to say your goodbyes."

Panic struck along with adrenaline, grief, and fear, all of which seemed to hollow out a pit in my chest. I called my wife in a daze. It was fortunate Doctor Abaddon mentioned it, because the thought would have escaped me. She answered, and I entered the conversation with the grace of a sadist.

"He's dying! He's at the hospital and he's dying! They don't know how long! He's dying!" I cried.

She must have responded before I hung up, but the grief wrapped around my brain, sucking away my consciousness like an octopus, so I did not remember.

I drove in frenzy back towards the hospital. The phone rang again.

"Hurry. He's dropping again. I don't know how much longer he can hold on," Doctor Abaddon warned.

The hospital loomed in front of me. I turned into the parking lot with a screech of my car's tires. I zipped into the first parking spot I could find. I jerked the car into park. Turned the ignition off. Retrieved my keys. The phone rang again.

Silence.

Followed by, "I'm sorry." That was all Doctor Abaddon said.

People admitted they felt relief after a dying loved one passed, but that was not true. The first thing I felt was resignation. It was not overwhelming, soul-crushing grief. I had experienced my share of that and had plenty to come. It was cold resignation. It was admitting the battle was over, like a hiker stranded on the top of a snowy mountain with no rescue helicopters in sight, only frost and wind slipping him into unconsciousness. There was nothing left to fight for, and I felt stupid for ever thinking I had a chance at all. This was predetermined. I did everything I could in my naiveté to stop it, but I was just jousting with windmills. I was resigned not just to my son's fate, but also to my own. I knew nothing.

I thought about calling my wife but found no point. Instead, I slinked out of my car and stumbled towards the hospital entrance. I did not know what I was doing. I could not say I wanted to go into that hospital. Sam hated it, and I had already betrayed him enough by making him go there. Entering felt like another betrayal, but this one was different. It would be the first betrayal towards my _dead_ son.

Sam's room was on the third floor. I felt my lips move to form words to retrieve a visitor's pass. I felt my legs walk me to the elevator and my finger push the "up" button. I felt my body moving but did not feel my heart, mind, or soul moving with it. I was detached. I was somewhere else, floating in the middle of the ocean, not sure if I should swim to the surface for air or plunge deeper to drown.

The nurse had tears in her eyes when I saw her. I resented her for it. She hugged me fiercely in an attempt at consolation.

"I was holding his hand when he went," she gloated. "He went peacefully."

I hated the nurse. She stole my tears. She stole the hand that should have been in mine. She stole _my_ _..._ _SON!_

I should have been there. I should have taken him home.

"Do you want to see him?" the nurse asked as she pulled away.

I did not know what to say. I had not decided which direction to swim, but I felt my lips form the word "yes". So, the nurse escorted me into a room, where I waited for her to go retrieve my son. She returned shortly and left the body covered in white cloth.

"I'll be outside if you need me."

Before leaving, as if she needed to stick me one more time, the nurse added, "He was such a sweet boy."

Then, she left.

I stared down at the white cloth with its contours in the faint impression of a boy's body, and a sneaky thought entered my head... he was not dead yet, not to me. That cloth hid his death. I did not need to lift that cloth just like I did not need to accept his fate. I could pretend, like Sam and I pretended when we first heard the news. I could celebrate his birthdays. Buy him an old car on his sixteenth. Celebrate his high school graduation. College graduation. I would cry as I gave a speech at his wedding and tell him how proud I was of the man he had become. I would kiss my grandchild in the delivery room and look into my son's enlightened eyes. The enlightenment shared between two fathers. The enlightenment of a father's love. I would lie on my deathbed with him holding my hand and tell him how much I loved him. And he would understand. And he would be there to watch me go. He would be there. I could pretend, if not believe.

Without permission from my heart or soul, I felt my hand reach out towards the cloth. I felt it grasp the silky material and lift up the sheet. The hand paused a moment, one of those moments, and then it moved the cloth aside and dropped it.

Sam's face was there, but I did not recognize it. His lips were parted, and his tongue poked the corner of his mouth. His eyes were open but closed to his soul. The transformation was so startling that my first instinct was to take a picture. I thought I could better understand if I could examine a picture of it instead of the real life image. Looking at his face on my smartphone did not help, though. He was there but not there. Something was missing. Then, it struck me. My boy was gone.

My heart and soul returned to my body with a sudden jar and a persistent ache. Tears clouded my eyes, and I sniffled to keep from crying, but my soul had been absent from my body for too long and it intended to make up for lost time. I cried out. The tears would not cease. Even when I consciously thought I did not need to cry anymore, the tears poured. When I knew crying would do nothing and my minded quieted, the tears kept streaming and my heart still ached.

I could continue. I could describe what I felt a thousand ways with a thousand languages, and none of them would satisfy me. Loss was loss. Either you had it or you did not. If you had ever truly felt it. Truly. You knew it. If you thought you might have, you did not. If you were "pretty sure", you were not. If you could think of your loss and not feel the emptiness inside you sucking your ribcage in like a vacuum, if you could think about your loss without feeling the familiar lump in your throat and moistening of your eyes and not welcome them both like an old friend you wished would never leave your side, you had not lost.

The door swung open and surprised me. Tears lingered on my cheeks over dried tears as I saw my intruder. It was my wife. I had forgotten. She dropped her purse and fixated on a spot just below me. On Sam's face. She brought her hands to her lips, and her face contorted like Sam's – in a way I had never seen before. My wife took a cautious step towards my son, and then fell on top of him and wept.

I still grieved but was not lost in it. My wife had intruded. She stole my grief from me, and that loss amplified the loss of my son. I resented her for it.

After a while, my wife leered up at me. Mascara streaked down her face in black tears. Her eyes were wild like a Rottweiler standing guard over her puppies.

"Were you at least _there_?" she spat.

I was not. I was not there when Sam died. I was not there when Sam needed to be healed. I was not there when Sam needed to be held. I was not there when Sam asked to go home. I was not there. I never was. I did... _nothing_.

My coffee house latte rested behind me in its nook on the counter under the cabinets. Instead of sharing with my wife, I scooted to the right to hide my cup from view in that cavernous space.
**5. DARKNESS**

My steel and glass cage was my cave. It was my comfort, shrouded by darkness, hidden from the world. Somewhere in what remained of my heart, I knew I should fight darkness and strive for the light beyond the storm clouds overhead, but darkness was easy. It accepted my pain. It accepted me as I was. Broken. And darkness did not ask questions. Darkness let me be.

I did not sleep on the job anymore. Sleep during daylight was preferable. Many people had trouble sleeping after tragedy. My wife did. She said so in one of her numerous attempts to confide in me with the hope of reciprocity. I never had trouble sleeping. Waking hours were worse.

Since my pop moved in after the funeral, it had been hard to find privacy. He was a blustering old man who loved to offer his thoughts and emotions like a used car salesmen peddling Buicks and Chevys. My pop was the type that found beauty in bawling, joys in pain. He said it reminded him of his blessings.

He moved into Sam's room - my second betrayal to my dead son. He said it was to keep an eye on us. My wife said he was trying to provide normalcy, to make the house feel less empty. I found it presumptuous that my decaying dad believed he could replace my son. The only trait they shared in common was pissing themselves. I wished he would just leave me alone, but he refused. Everyone refused to leave me alone. That was why I loved my glass and steel cave, hidden in plain view.

I started reading again, although I did not feel smart. My son's death had made the ultimate fool of me. Either I was gullible enough to think I could save the unsalvageable or too inadequate to do what a superior man could have done. Either way, I knew I was wrong about the most important thing in my life. That truth left me feeling as dumb as a bridge operator should feel, regardless of what I read. Still, I had time and I favored basking in my ignorance to resting enough to face my father in daylight.

That night, the book was Dante's _Inferno_. I knew it was a morbid choice for a man with a deceased son, but I wanted to know what to expect. As far as I could tell, Sam did not belong. He was such a good boy! The mildest outer rings were no place for a boy like Sam. So, my reading indulged my own expectations for the afterlife, if it existed. The first four circles of Hell seemed like child's play to me. Surely, I was worse. Things heated up come the fifth circle. I could relate to anger, but I did not tend to act upon it. The sixth circle rang a bell. Since God denied me my only true prayer, I knew He did not exist. He had no proof. All he had was a book a few thousand years old. A book of supposed fact. I did not trust current non-fiction, so I refused to believe something so old and intangible. Heresy was definitely on the table for me, and I did not even mind the punishment. While flaming tombs would get old, knowing nothing of the present was like a dream. Knowing nothing was akin to invisibility, but better. It meant being unaware of existence. Unaware of loss.

Upon further thought, I realized I favored the knowledge of the future more than complete ignorance in the present. Knowing the future would allow me to prepare for it. I would never be made a fool again. I would know what to expect. I would _know_.

I guess I did not wholly believe God did not exist. I was still open to a miracle, to Him proving it in some way, but I wanted to know. In that vein, perhaps I was a better fit for anger. Maybe I was angry with God. He took my son. He forced me to suffer the most unimaginable pain a father could face. I had the right to be angry at the being responsible for fate. That felt like justice. I felt vindicated just by thinking it.

A loud blast of a horn drew my attention away from my reading. It was time to lift the bridge and let a ship through. As I did, I noticed an unwelcome sight. A purple haze glowed on the horizon. The sun would soon shine. My cave would be locked away, and I would be forced to return home where I would try to sleep the day away.

My wife no longer juggled the universe. Since our son died, she worked less and cared little about her job. Losing our son was a financial boon for us. Our health insurance dropped as well as our living expenses. Long hours at work were not necessary anymore. We did not have anyone to work for now. So, when I arrived home, my wife was enjoying a cup of coffee at the table, waiting for me.

I sighed as I closed the door behind myself and walked to the kitchen.

"How was work?" my wife asked in feigned enthusiasm.

"Quiet," I said, wishing she would take it as a request.

She nodded and sipped her coffee. Then, she returned her attention to her newspaper. My pop had insisted on getting a newspaper subscription, so we could "stay tapped into the world". It was wasted effort.

"Anything interesting happen?" she asked.

"Like what?" I replied.

"I don't know. Did you see any shady characters or fancy boats or anything?"

I paused as I debated cereals. I chose Cheerios.

"No," I replied.

I poured my Cheerios in a bowl and topped them with chocolate milk. That was how Sam liked them.

"Are you reading anything interesting?" she asked.

I sat at the table and dug into my Cheerios. "No," I said with a full mouth.

She nodded and looked down at her newspaper. This inquisition was typical. My wife thought small talk would fix everything. A casual chat would soothe away the hurt and serve as a gateway to a bigger conversation. I kept that gate closed.

"Aren't you going to be late for work?" I asked.

"It's Sunday," my wife said.

I ate more Cheerios and pretended that had no significance.

"Your father suggested we could all go to church together."

I finished my Cheerios in silence and slurped the chocolate milk out of the bowl, like Sam would, and then left my bowl in the sink.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm tired," I said as I walked to the bedroom without looking back at her.

The bed was made. My wife probably thought I would appreciate the gesture. I thought it was a waste of time. I scattered the throw pillows, tore back the comforter, and crashed into bed.

In spite of my desire for sleep, I was wide-awake. I was angry. Mostly at my wife. Partly at life in general, but mostly at my wife. She acted so _normal._ She wanted a healthy marriage full of "healthy" conversations about our dead son in which we would "share" all our fears and disappointments and agony. She wanted to be like all the normal people in the world and deal with this like normal people did. I hated normal people. Normal people did not bury their sons.

I felt someone hovering in the doorway, so I held still. The body did not leave for what felt like minutes. A tickle on my nose began tormenting me. I did not dare scratch it, because that would give me away. It would make me visible.

"You asleep, Thomas?" a voice boomed.

It was my father. I could picture his stupid smiling face. The thought of rolling over and seeing it made my stomach churn, so I stayed frozen.

"Sleep's supposed to be for the weary, not the young," my father said.

He waited; probably thinking his attempt at wit would elicit a chuckle. I did not find it funny.

"Okay, I guess you're asleep," he all but shouted. "We'll just go to church this afternoon when you're awake."

Dread weighed heavy in my stomach. I rolled over and got up.

I went to church without protest despite my desire to not go. When Sam was alive, I was the one who championed our church attendance. I wanted Sam to grow up with faith and discipline. I wanted him to be a good man when he was grown. Also, I thought I believed. My pop had raised me to go to church and believe in God. He put it in my head, if not my heart, and that was what God had become to me – nothing more than an empty cliché.

The priest spoke, and like everyone else in the church, I thought his sermon was meant specifically for me. He spoke of light and darkness, how we would not be caught sleeping when death came like a thief in the night, because we were children of the day and accepted our salvation. I thought about Sam and felt the lump overtake my esophagus and my eyes mist.

When it came time to pray, I tried. I tried to speak to God, but all I wanted to do was ask for my son back. I wanted Sam to be alive, in spirit if nothing else. If that were true, I wanted to see him. I would wish for death so I could join him, but Dante informed me where I would end up, and it was not with Sam. I considered praying for forgiveness, but it would be insincere. I was not the one in the wrong.

All my prayer amounted to nothing more than an attempt at catharsis. My emotions bubbled to the surface, raw and stabbing, and I smothered them back down. As we exited the church, I expected to feel better, but I did not. Instead, the dark cloud of depression returned before we left the parking lot.

When we got home, Pop sat in my leather recliner and clicked on our tube television to watch his Alma Mater. It did not take long to discover they were taking another beating, just like last week. In spite of the predictable outcome, my pop watched the game like a cat following a laser pointer. He threw up his arms at the right moments and sat back in perplexity when his team gave up a score.

My wife was in the kitchen turning on the stove.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

I did not respond. Instead, I walked past her to the cupboard, where I retrieved the Cheerios. My wife sighed and shook her head as I grabbed the chocolate milk and poured myself a bowl.

I ate alone to the sounds of pads crunching on the television and a frying pan hissing on the stove. The noises grew until they were overwhelming, piercing through my ears and down my throat to suffocate me. I ate hurriedly between gasps for breath.

"Whatta ya say we get an early supper?" pop asked. "My treat!"

I slurped the chocolate milk in my bowl and hurried to the kitchen to leave my bowl in the sink. My wife startled when I brushed past her.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Out," I said as I slammed the door.

The park was my only reprieve away from work. Not much had changed. The ducks were the same as Sam and I had left them. Daffney still ran the show. Her ducklings were bigger now. I likened their age in duck years to Sam's before he died. Part of me wanted to see them grow up to be successful ducks that adopted their mother's assertiveness but added grace. Another part of me wanted a dog to tear them all to shreds, just like cancer tore my life to shreds. Those thoughts made me hurt worse, though, and I regretted them. I even apologized to Daffney for them.

Not long after feeding Daffney some breadcrumbs to get her through the day, my weariness got the better of me, and I fell asleep. I dreamed of a time Sam and I spent together at the park, but it was before he was too weak to do anything but watch the ducks. Sam was healthy, I could tell because he had a full head of his blonde hair and we were playing in the field by the children's play set. I was throwing him a small ball, and he would attempt to catch it. When the ball slipped through his fingers, he would toddle after it and retrieve it. Then, Sam would run the ball over to me, and just as I reached for it, he would snatch it back and run away, laughing and smiling. I basked in that smile. It infused every fiber of my being with light. It uplifted my soul. It was my heaven.

Even though I was asleep, my consciousness was aware that this heaven was only temporary. In seconds, this dream would end, and his face would blur that much more in my mind's eye. I would forget his scent. The feeling of running my fingers through his silky hair. His smile. I always loved his smile. In seconds, the joy would be snatched from my heart, and the darkness would encroach that much more to fill the void of my vacated happiness. Still, I would treasure my seconds, my time, all that was afforded me.

I chased after Sam to steal back the ball, but a tug on my sleeve jarred my dream out of sequence. Sam was suddenly standing right beside me. He looked up into my eyes and tugged my sleeve, but the tug did not come from Sam. It came from another world - the real world of sight, sound, and touch. My dream was ending. In desperation, I clung to Sam. He laughed like he would still be there when I awoke. I hugged him. Held him. Would not let him go. Another tug. Harder. I felt a tear on my eye as Sam looked up at me. Confused, he said, "Daddy. Don't cry."

A police officer was tugging on my sleeve to wake me. It was considerably darker at the park than when I had fallen asleep. I checked the horizon and saw the sun hovering just above it. I must have slept through the whole day.

"You can't sleep here," the officer said. "Move it along."

I rose from my spot on my bench and wobbled to my car.

At work, my cave was cold and welcoming. I wore my jacket as I continued my reading of _Inferno_. The inner ring of the seventh circle frightened me. I did not consider myself violent, but Dante placed the "blasphemers" with the violent in the seventh circle. My previous night's anger recoiled into fear. I did not ever speak against God and only had thoughts of anger or disbelief towards Him. It was not that I reviled Him; it was that I questioned His very existence. That could not be the same, and it could not be so bad. He should not put me in Hell for that. It was unjust. Then again, so was a child's death.

Suddenly, the doorknob jiggled and distracted me from my reading. I checked the horizon and saw no purple glow promising morning. In fact, it was only just past midnight. The sound could only mean one thing. Someone found my cave - my sanctuary where I was supposed to be invisible, to be safe. I put my book down and picked up the office Maglite.

The intruder ceased his attempt at opening the door and knocked. It surprised me, but I did not surrender my weapon. I snuck across the room, raised my foot-long metal flashlight overhead, and creaked open the door. There, in a black trench coat, stood my wife. My stomach sunk.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Can I come in?" she asked with a smirk on her face.

"No, I'm working."

She tried to peek over my shoulder and see my upturned book, but I blocked her view like a large stone, so she looked me in the eye instead.

"I'll let you raise the bridge when you need to," she assured.

"We're not supposed to have visitors; the boss drops by sometimes," I lied.

"I'll be discreet," she promised.

I snorted in contempt and stared at her. She looked up at me, her eyes stern but soft. I shook my head and started pushing the door closed.

"Go home," I said.

With a jolt of power, she shouldered the door open and sent me stumbling backwards. She turned, closed the door, and locked it.

"Get out!" I roared.

She steeled her face as she stood before me. Then, without a word, she dropped her trench coat to the floor. Underneath it, she wore black lingerie. I finally noticed that her makeup was heavier and her hair more textured than usual. My eyes groped down her body and landed on her black high heels. My heart stopped, and I looked up at her. She smiled.

In spite of everything – all my anguish, all my pain – I was still a man. My thoughts turned to Sam and how I should fight this because allowing myself to feel anything for anyone was stealing my heart away from my son. I knew I should fight this because I was angry with my wife. I resented her for trying to be normal. This was such a normal thing to do! I should not do it! But, I was a young man and red blood still flowed through my veins.

"Now," she said, taking command. "I hope you don't mind."

She tapped one heel after another towards me. I backed up into the table where my book was waiting. A faint voice in my head told me to fight, but the heat in my face and the pounding of my heart overwhelmed it. She paused right in front of me, close enough I could feel her electricity. She touched my chest, and I melted against the table, weak in the knees and unable to fight. She stepped closer and straddled around me.

I thought she might say something. How it had been too long. How she missed me. Hell, I thought she might even talk dirty to me. But, she said nothing, just slid her fingers down my abdomen to the bottom of my shirt. She pulled it over my head and off. Then, she kissed me. Something other than love took over. A hunger inside me. My body needed those lips and needed those legs around me. Maybe my soul did, too, but I did not believe that.

It did not last long. I doubt my wife received much pleasure from it, but the look on her face indicated otherwise. She kissed me on the cheek and pulled away with something akin to pride in her eyes.

"Beats reading, huh?" she quipped.

I grunted. Now that it was over, I wanted her out. I felt like a john sitting on the bed in a motel room, dirty and disgraced.

"You shouldn't have come," I told her.

My wife raised an indignant eyebrow at me, and then snorted. She pulled up her panties, shaking her head and flaring her nostrils.

"So ridiculous," she whispered, probably to herself.

She pulled on her heels and trench coat.

"I'll see you at home," my wife muttered.

She waited a moment for a response, and then gave up on it. My wife opened the door and whispered something under her breath before leaving. It may have been, "I love you," but I doubted it.

I looked at the door after it shut, and then watched through my window as my wife walked to her car parked in the restricted area, entered it, and pulled away. A ship was waiting for the bridge to be raised, so I checked the surrounding area for traffic and initiated the raising of the bridge.

I opened my book and tried to read, but my brain was still hot with anger from my wife's intrusion. Although we had seen little of each other and had not committed that act in months, she had no right to intrude. It was selfish. It was her putting herself above me. She did not care about my pain, about what I dealt with on a nightly basis, a minute-to-minute basis. All she cared about was her fix. That was all. She just wanted some instant gratification so she could go home happy and not even think about Sam.

Before I realized what I was doing, my book was smashing against my control panel. When I regained consciousness, I quickly stopped, but before I could even check the controls, I heard the noise. It was hideous – the shrill groan of iron twisting against iron like chalk squeaking down a chalkboard. I scrambled to my feet and looked out in panic to see that the two sides of the bridge were lowering and pinching the aft of the cargo ship. Frantically, I sprung to my control board, but before I could raise the bridge back up, it burst into red and orange flames like wild tongues slashing at the night. Blue smoke billowed up, past the streetlights and into the cold darkness as the burning bridge creaked open and the ship's crew hosed down the boat. As the bridge rose higher, the fire encroached on the onlookers on the bridge, and they scrambled for safety when the orange flames lunged at them like swipes from a tiger's claw. The crew finally extinguished the ship's fire, and the ship cruised through, its disgruntled crew cursing and gesturing at me. Then, I lowered the burning bridge.

Fear and adrenaline coursed through my veins. I knew I would have to call and report the incident, but terror seized my heart at the thought. What would I say – that I slept with my wife in the tower, blacked out, and smashed my book against the control panel until the bridge smashed down on the ship? I shook my head.

The fire. First, I had to put out the fire, so I searched my office and found the fire extinguisher, shattered its case, snatched the extinguisher, and tore out of my cave and into the unwelcoming night. My legs felt stiff and my feet throbbed with each pounding step on metal as I ran to the far side of the bridge. The orange flames were already burning low, but it was my duty to extinguish them. I sprayed the flames, and they died without fanfare, like a tiger succumbing to a tranquilizer dart. It was over, but the damage was done.

I turned and saw the bystanders and drivers staring at me. I looked down and jostled the fire extinguisher in my hand to avoid their judgmental eyes. I wanted to spray them and distort their senses so I could escape like a ninja to his lair, but that would not do. They saw me - stupid, broken, and fallible. Now, I could only hope they would forget.

I crossed the bridge, ascended the iron steps, and returned to my perch above traffic.

The heater hummed, and when I closed the door behind me, the office gasped like I knocked the wind out of it. Hot air blasted me and sucked the moisture from my skin. I removed my coat and realized I was sweating. I placed the empty fire extinguisher back in its case and sat at the desk in my office. My chair felt different, itchy and uncomfortable, and I wore no jacket to protect me from it.

I looked out at my bridge, and for the first time, everyone looked back. Instead of sweet invisibility, I was on display, like a lone rain cloud in an otherwise bright blue sky. There was no hiding anymore. My sanctuary had been exposed, and I felt naked. Everyone could see me for exactly what I was. A failure.

I picked up the phone to report the incident.
**6. BURNED BRIDGE**

The incident earned me a month of unpaid vacation to "rest and deal with my loss". The city did not want to fire me for fear of a lawsuit. If I was depressed like they believed, I could attribute my termination to mental illness and file suit. Worse, my dismissal could lead me to suicide, and that was the last thing the city needed. I suspected all this when my boss's warning devolved into a pitch for me to seek psychiatric help. He said, since I managed to prevent any injuries or further damage to the bridge after it "malfunctioned" (there were no other witnesses besides me, after all) that compassion was my reward. Only his idea of compassion was torture.

My hiatus from work passed like the minutes spent floating in the icy water of the Arctic Circle before going numb. Pop tried to engage me. He would mention Sam and cry. He would hug me and encourage me to "let it out". I would not. My wife was not any better. She took even more time off work so that we were as short on money as we were when Sam was sick. On top of it, she wanted to go on vacation. It was the normal thing to do.

I found solace in escaping to the park to watch my ducks. Donald, Darkwing, and Scrooge had grown into young adults. They no longer teetered after Daffney, and Daffney seemed to suffer from depression. She loafed, hardly exerting the energy to honk and flap at naughty ducks anymore. Instead, she liked to rest under the shadow of a tree where a bush blocked her completely from sight when the wind blew a palm frond in front of the bush's opening. I guessed she missed her ducklings.

It was a big day - the last day of my exile from work. I would soon have my cave - my invisibility - returned to me. In the past month, I had had nowhere to hide from the world, and in the absence of my sanctuary, the emptiness grew inside me like a tumor. I had tried to fill the void with distractions. I tried to drink. I tried cigarettes. I gambled on dog and horse races. I almost tried drugs, going so far as to drive to the wrong part of town to buy them, but I chickened out when I saw the tattooed tears on the faces of the thugs standing on the corner. But now, I would have my solitude again. I could escape to my secret hiding place where I could block out the world and be alone with my grief, with my son.

I rose early that morning and snuck out before my wife and Pop were awake. They would realize soon enough and start calling. I learned the hard way that if I ignored their calls for long enough, they would call elsewhere and a police officer would escort me home. Time worked against me just like they did, and I knew my time at the park would be short, regardless of the hours, minutes, and seconds.

It was still dark when I arrived. The familiar purple haze warmed the horizon to the east. It would be an unwelcome sight in twenty-four hours when it signaled the end of my shift. The pond was flat and still. A few joggers paced through the park, but no one other than me sat and kept his distance. The ducks were hidden away, sleeping in the darkness. I felt almost at peace.

The bushes rustled near me, and the three sons scurried out of them. Donald, Darkwing, and Scrooge McDuck looked chipper. They greeted the morning sunrise with melodious quacks as they waddled down to the pond for a swim. Daffney had not emerged. I knew she was hidden in her bush, although I could not see her. She had to know she could not hide anymore, even if she thought she was concealed.

Finally, a honk that sounded more like a squawk echoed from the bush, and Daffney waddled out of it. Her eyes looked as dreary as a duck's eyes could look, and she moved with the urgency of a sloth. She spotted me and waddled over. I fed her to give her strength for another day.

The morning passed as fast as promised. Nothing eventful happened. Daffney spent most of her time hiding in her bush. I watched the three sons swimming and thought of Sam. Sam would want to swim with the ducks. He would smile when they dipped their heads under water and shook their tail feathers. I missed his smile. It seemed more distant to me than ever before. Even the grief was less constant and overbearing. Worst of all, I no longer dreamed of Sam. Somewhere deep in my mind, a truth was taking hold that I would not let myself accept. I was forgetting him.

I drove home, and an ominous pit in my stomach steadily grew. Dread welcomed me at my front door. I paused a moment and tried to wrap my head around it. I wanted to understand why I felt this dread whenever I returned home. But, it was just a moment, like any other.

I opened the door to the _screeches_ of whistles echoing from the family room, and I knew Pop was already watching a game. It seemed early for it, but Pop was always in my leather recliner watching some game. I spotted my wife cooking eggs in the kitchen. The hissing of the pan and sweet aroma sent hunger pangs from my brain to my stomach. I had not eaten yet. I would need food to give me the strength to face another day. I turned left after I closed the door and entered the kitchen to my right.

"Where have you been?" my wife asked in a cheery tone.

I grunted and walked past her to sit at the kitchen table.

"Do you want some eggs? I'm making omelets."

I nodded and snapped open a newspaper. A boy had drowned down the street. The picture of his grieving parents was on the front page of the local section. I envied them.

"I've been so hungry lately," my wife said.

Instead of responding, I read about the boy who drowned. He was younger than Sam, only two. The pool fence had caved in, and he fell into the pool. He was entangled in the fence and did not know how to swim. An adult could have saved him if one was present, but he had no savior. The boy sunk to the bottom and drowned. It struck me as the saddest news I had ever read. Then, I felt guilty for not thinking of Sam.

My wife delivered the plate, butting through the newspaper and casting aside the tragedy written in black and white. I looked down and saw she had outdone herself. The omelet was loaded with cheddar cheese, cherry tomatoes, onions, and spinach. My wife rarely cooked. This was a surprisingly successful attempt. She smiled proudly at her creation and took a bite.

"Go ahead. I want to see how you like it," she said.

I took a bite. The mixture was hot and soft. The egg and cheese melted on my tongue, and the tomatoes, onions, and spinach delivered flavors like bursts of life. It was satisfying.

"What do you think?" my wife asked.

I shrugged and took another bite. She forced a smile and continued eating. I was surprised she did not react to my indifference, but something in her countenance seemed to fight negativity today. She closed her eyes as she chewed, and the corners of her mouth curled upward. She looked happy.

For some reason, I was not angry with her. I still resented my wife's attempt at normalcy, but my resolve had waned with time. Time was a brutal enemy, merciless and unyielding. It had riddled me with agony, and then spent months wearing me down, stripping away each memory that had made me feel love towards my son or anguish at his passing, stripping away my humanity.

"So. Where'd you go? The park?" my wife asked.

I chewed and gave my head a nod. She smirked and looked at me. Then, she took another bite of eggs.

"I wish you would've woken me up," she said, eggs in her mouth. "I would've liked to go with you."

I took another large bite. My omelet was almost gone. When it was finished, maybe I could go back to the bedroom and sleep.

"I don't know what you do there for so long," she said.

Silence followed. I chewed with haste. Her fork and knife clinked and scraped her plate. Whistles screeched and pads crunched on the television behind me. Pop exhaled an _ahhhhh_ after his Alma Mater gave up another first down.

"Are you excited about going back to work?" my wife asked.

I shrugged.

Her nostrils flared and lips pursed. "Can you not talk?"

"No," I said before taking my last bite of omelet.

She shook her head and cut herself another bite, but before she ate it, she dropped her fork on the plate and her head onto her hand. I chewed as fast as I could so I could leave the table. She pivoted her forehead on the heel of her palm. I stood and took my plate to the kitchen sink.

As I dropped off my plate, I heard my wife's chair scrape against the carpet. Pretending to be oblivious, I continued to the bedroom. Just as I was about to turn in, just as I was about to enjoy the sweet invisibility of sleep, I felt my shoulder jerk backwards with surprising force. My wife leered at me the same way a dog that had chased an imaginary stick one too many times would leer at her tormenter.

"I've been trying to talk to you all morning," she said.

"I know."

Her eyes widened in anger. "Then why didn't you talk back?!"

I paused a moment. There was silence in the hallway. I felt it infiltrating my eardrums to play its symphony of nothingness, but it was stolen away by another groan from my pop watching his game. My wife shook her head.

"Do you even care why?" My wife asked. "Do you care about anything?"

I grew angry. She had no right to say that to me. I had a son who I loved more than my own life, and he died.

"I miss him, too," she said. "Do you ever think about that?"

I jerked my shoulder away and sneered at her.

"But we have to move on," she pleaded. "It's been—"

"—Five months, one week, and four days," I interrupted.

My wife was silent. Her nostrils flared again but not in anger. Instead, she fought her emotions, breathing them in through her nose and attempting to eradicate them through her mouth. She did not realize that I did not want that. I wanted to keep the emotions. I wanted to feel them. I wanted them to sit heavy in my gut like an anchor. I wanted to be anchored to the void inside of me. It was all I had left of him.

I turned into the bedroom. I was tired and needed sleep. The anchor in my gut was dragging me down, down to my bed, down to the deepest depths of my broken dreams. But, my wife would not let me go. She darted past me into the bedroom and cut me off.

"He's... gone," my wife said, clenching my arm, her eyes wet and wild. "He's gone, Thomas. There's only us now."

She _would_ say that. Just cast him into the abyss like a pebble skipping across a lake and plunging down. I tried to jerk away again, but she seized me with both hands.

"He's gone and all that's left is us and our baby," my wife said.

I froze. A truth I had known my whole life seemed to flicker to light in my mind. I had not realized it yet, but it had always been there. Toying with me.

"What baby?" I asked, playing my part in the charade towards this truth.

My wife sighed and sat on the bed. I stood by the door and waited. It was a moment.

"That's what I've been wanting to talk to you about," my wife said. "I know it's been hard for you..." _Know_. She knew nothing. "... but I've known for a few weeks now and ..."

She looked up at me, and then down at the ground when I had no reaction. Her words had gone into my ears and my brain had interpreted them, but I did not feel their implications. My body was present and acted as it always did, but what made me human was missing. It was back in the cave, hiding, like Daffney in the shadow of the tree behind her bush.

"I'm pregnant," she said.

Something about those words swelled my heart with rage like a balloon being filled by a geyser. I shrieked like I did when I told my wife Sam had cancer. I glared at her.

"Is it mine?" I asked, hoping it was not.

The words hit my wife like spit in her face. Her mouth twisted into a scowl, and her shoulders tensed until she ripped the pillows off the bed and heaved them at me. When she ran out of pillows, she threw the lamp. It shattered in the hallway.

"I hate you," she whispered in admitted defeat.

I nodded. I knew it was true.

She panted on the bed, her ribcage expanding to the point of breaking with each breath, her tiny nostrils working overtime like the exhaust pipes of a Mac truck.

"You don't care!" she cried. "You just don't care! I don't know what else to do, you just don't care!"

"I can tell you what not to do," I hissed. "Get pregnant!"

"Like I'd want another child with you!" she screamed. "I almost wanna pray for a miscarriage!"

"So you could avoid another problem like you did with Sam."

"Avoid? What do you mean _avoid?!..._ I was working! Working so we could pay for all the crazy medicines and surgeries and radiations that you wanted because you couldn't face the truth."

" _Truth?_ He was our boy! He was supposed to live and you did nothing!"

"I did everything! You were the one refusing to take extra shifts. You were the one sleeping on the job and almost getting fired!"

"Is this 'cause of the fire? 'Cause I didn't ask for you to take time off. I wish you hadn't, it's just made my life Hell."

"Your _life_?..." She stared at me, wide-eyed and searching. "What life?! Is that what you call this? Going to the park to watch ducks. Sleeping all day. Refusing to say more than one damn word at a time. Moping around like a damn child. Is that life to you?"

"At least I didn't trick you into making a baby."

"WHAT?"

"Yeah. Don't think I forgot what you did. And don't complain to me about almost getting fired when you put on a damned strip show in my office like a horny damn teenager."

My wife's eyes gaped, and she held her breath, too stunned to speak.

"And it turned into a baby, which probably suits you just fine. Now you can go on with your normal life and your normal family. And everything will be just so damned normal. You even got a replacement kid. We can pretend Sam never existed."

She blinked the disbelief away and dropped her head to face the floor.

"You're a heartless bastard," she said.

"Not a bastard, my pop's in the other room. Which I'm sure you didn't consider when you sprung this on me."

"We're having a baby!" she protested. "You're going to be a father again."

"I am a father."

I leered at her. I was outside myself, in a control room pulling levers and pushing buttons to make responses. My body was an avatar. My brain was in control. My spirit was disconnected.

"I'm a father that lost his son. I'm a father that failed."

"Failed?" Tenderness flashed across her eyes. "You didn't fail."

I shook my head and turned away. She approached me and tried to put a hand on my shoulder, but I slapped it away.

"Don't touch me," I growled.

She paused. Then, she swallowed her hurt like she was forcing down a lump of vomit.

"I haven't for over a month," she whispered.

I snorted and shook my head. She was being a woman. She was trying to be the victim and trying to win sympathy. That was what she always did. When she was wrong, she would always twist it around so it was my fault. I would not let her.

"Poor you," I mocked.

Her lip quivered, and she bit down to subdue it, but that only caused the hurt to curdle into anger, and the rage erupted out of her mouth in a volcanic diatribe.

"Damn right, poor me!" she yelled, her body quaking and trembling. "Poor me for losing my child. Poor me for losing my boy. He was _my_ boy! For nine months he was in _my_ stomach!..." Such a cop out. She knew Sam loved me more, so she made excuses. "...Poor me for being stuck with you, for lying down next to you every night. Poor me for screwing you to get this baby, or for ever sleeping with you. Poor me for having ever loved you! Poor me for having ever had Sam!"

It was cold. But, so was the truth. I could not retort. She wished Sam never existed. She hated him. That was my only conclusion.

My wife had tears streaming down her face. It surprised me. Not that she was crying. That I was not. She shook her head and stormed past me down the hall. I followed her into the kitchen.

"Where are you going?" I asked, swallowing my frustration to attempt civility, if not love.

My wife was flustered. She slung her purse over her shoulder and smacked her keys off the counter.

"I need some fresh air to think," she said, slamming the paneled wooden door behind her. The screen door screeched a snicker at me as it retreated and clattered against the frame in a mocking giggle.

Our small house felt smaller. It should have felt the opposite without my wife or son inside it, but that was not the case. Without the distraction of family, I noticed how the wallpapered walls crowded the small kitchen and served as a reminder that things fall apart without care and attention. Our IKEA furniture in the shag-carpeted living room clashed with the relics that were the brass overhead light and rickety wooden fan embedded in the popcorn ceiling. At some time I had made it all work. Now, I failed.

The lone quality piece of furniture we owned was a leather reclining chair almost always occupied by my Pop then. He was over there, watching his game. No one believed in his team like my father. No matter how many losses piled up, he would sit in front of that tube television and live and die with every moment. That was what he was doing then - living and dying with his Alma Mater's football team.

I walked over and slumped onto our cloth couch. Pop was so enraptured with the game that he did not notice I was in the room, not to mention my wife and I's fight a moment ago. His eyes shone with hope, and his mouth hung open in that stupid look. That look of belief.

"Go," he whispered.

He clenched the arms of the chair as the tension built.

"Go," he willed.

He slowly began to rise from the chair.

"Go. GO!" he prayed.

Sure enough, an exhausted player on the television screen dived past the goal line just before a defender could stop him. Pop shrieked and hopped around like a goon.

"We did it, son!" Pop yelled.

I remained pasted to the back of the couch. Pop did not detect my lack of enthusiasm, or he ignored it in his celebratory jig. He settled back into his chair and prepared for another bout of life and death with his team.

"I think things may be different this go 'round," Pop proclaimed.

I sneered at him as he watched and waited, and then I redirected my gaze to his stupid game. Nothing would be different. This game started but was over before kickoff. Everything was.
**7. THE HERE AND AFTER**

Now, you are caught up.

As I said in the beginning, I do not know if this is a happy story. I hope it is, but in the deepest darkness light is imaginary. I am in darkness. I would say it is the deepest of my life, but I am finding ways to slip still deeper. The funny thing, I realize as I sit on this miserable couch and watch my father, is that I envy him. Part of me still wants that. I just do not think I will ever have it again since Sam is gone.

"You should go after her," Pop says.

I look at him. He shifts in his chair and keeps his eyes on the game.

"If you're mother were here, I'd sure go after her."

I snort and look at the tube television. It is all too familiar. Pop's Alma Mater is kicking off and will probably yield a return for a touchdown. Any hope is false hope. I wish it were different.

"You said some awful things, son," my father says.

I shake my head and watch the game. To my surprise, the opponent has a crease. The return man breaks through the seam and heads up the sideline like I have seen a thousand times before. He cuts in at the fifty-yard line to beat the kicker. The return man traverses field with a defender on his hip. He outruns him. The return man scores. It is exactly as I had predicted. I look at Pop in disbelief, but he is not watching the game. He is watching me.

"Did you hear me?" Pop asks.

"They just scored!" I protest.

Pop throws a dismissive hand at the television. "We'll be back," he says.

I am dumbfounded. My father is not living and dying with his team. My mind throbs with dissonance. I realize it is not the weekend. It is Wednesday. Morning. There is no way this game is live. I check the VCR. It is playing. This is a tape. It has always been a tape.

"Your team always loses," I whisper.

"This one. Yeah," Pop agrees. "But it's a beautiful game. We come all the way back and almost win it."

"But you lose," I say. "Why do you keep reliving a loss?"

"Why don't you tell me?"

I take a moment. I do not feel heartwarming epiphany. This moment is like many others. Like any other. It is a moment.

"We don't get to choose the outcome of our games," my father tells me, "but we get to choose how we'll participate. Will we turn off the T.V., ignore it, act like we don't care, pretend none of it matters? Or. Will we watch the game? Will we pick a side? Will we root for a team? Will we hope? Even against all odds, even when we're outmatched and overwhelmed, even when we know it all ends in a certain loss, will we still hope?"

He turns back to the television. His Alma Mater returns the ensuing kickoff. The return man sprints down the sideline. He looks like he will score, too. But. At the ten-yard line, he is run down and tackled.

"So close," Pop says with a smile.

I sit back on the couch and stare at the television. My mind is clear but crowded. I have so many thoughts I cannot think them before I am onto the next one. They are all good thoughts. They are all what I need. I need to change. I need hope. Hope is the light. Hope is the buoy around my waste that can pull me up to the surface. Hope is the adult standing over the toddler drowning in the pool. Hope is everything.

After my moment, I realize I should not be on the couch. I do not know where I should be, but I need to move. I stand, walk to the door, and exit.

I am not going after my wife. Maybe Pop is right and I should, but I am not going after my wife. I get in my car and turn over the engine. As I begin to pull out of the driveway, I notice her car is missing.

The road is familiar as I drive. My car squeezes through my congested residential street like the remnants of toothpaste out of the tube. I emerge to a wider road. My car stays straight. It does not turn to the left or to the right. I pull forward into the park and park my car. There are several people here. Couples stroll around the pond. Children play in the open field and on the play set. Mothers smile and watch. I feel at home.

My usual spot on the bench is open, so I walk to it. My feet have spring in them as I walk. For the first time in a long time, I do not feel tired. I sit. The bench is cool like an ice pack on my back. It will not snow this winter, but it is cool enough.

I see the three sons playing in the water. They cruise in a sort of circle. Then, Scrooge pokes Donald with his beak and swims off. Darkwing swims away, too. Donald chases after them like a game of tag. I think of Sam smiling and feel the lump in my throat. It is my old friend, and I welcome it.

After a moment, I realize Daffney is nowhere to be found. I scan the pond, and then look to her familiar hiding place. She lies in the shadow of the tree, behind the bush, but the palm frond has blown away, so I can see into her cave. I snort at her.

"Daffney, come out here; don't you see your children playing?" I ask.

The duck does not move. She must think she is invisible. It angers me. There is no reason to try to be invisible. Her children are grown and do not need her anymore. Sulking will not change that fact. It will not bring back the past.

I rise from the bench and move towards Daffney. When she sees me, she scoots in towards the bush. She is a silly duck who thinks people do not have eyes and cannot see. I take another step, and she pushes in closer to the bush.

"Daffney," I say with a laugh, "it's a beautiful day! Don't you know you can do anything?"

The truth in my words blindsides me. Daffney can do anything. She can fly well beyond this small pond inside this small park. Daffney can swim the rivers of the world, cross through valleys and climb mountains. She can confront the marble quarries and pick them apart a pebble at a time until she mines the water buried deep within that dry mountain's well.

Suddenly, I realize I am breathing heavy. I look down and see one foot pacing in front of the other and my arms swinging at my sides. I have never been an athlete and cannot recall the last time I ran. My body is rejecting the effort. Pain stabs the soles of my feet through my boots, and my jeans restrict my movement, making my thighs tighten and cramp. It strikes me that I must look ridiculous – running in jeans and boots. The runners at the park always wear the proper attire. They must think me silly to be running like this. But, it is important that I run, so I will.

As I round the pond and my bench comes into view, I realize I do not wish to be here. The world has sunshine for the first time in too long, and there is work to be done outside of this park. Instead of returning to my bench, I run to the parking lot, get into my car, and drive away.

As I drive, I realize the mountains and rivers are too far and I do not yet have the strength to reach them. I do have the strength to feast, though. I am hungrier than I have been in a long time, but I am torn between eating breakfast and lunch. I could have pancakes with strawberries, blueberries, chocolate chips, whipped cream, and syrup. There would be scrambled eggs, whole-wheat toast, bacon, and sausages. Or, I could have pepperoni pizza and French fries with a bacon cheeseburger and then an ice cream Sundae for dessert. If I were still hungry, there would be raspberry sherbet and oatmeal raisin cookies sprinkled with brown sugar. Before long, I find I am driving in aimless circles through town, no closer to my decision, and it strikes me that I am searching in the wrong place. My memory had tricked me into thinking my past had answers, that those times were easier, happier, better in some way, but hope is about the future. Hope is about change. I must move forward into that uncertainty.

When I pull into my driveway, I see my wife's car there. It is time to make a decision. I must decide if I will fight.

The noisy door gives away my entry. Pop does not watch his recording. He must be taking a nap. My wife is nowhere to be seen, and the house is quiet. I have a moment. I sense I have had a similar moment in the silence of my house before, as if my entire universe hangs in the balance just down the hall. I walk to the bedroom and find my wife lying in bed. Her face looks like mine has for five months.

"Donald if he's a boy. Daffney if she's a girl, but let's hope it's a boy, because Daffney is a sad duck," I say.

My wife is confused and also still angry. "Okay," she snorts.

"Are you hungry? Do you need me to go get anything? I think we're out of pickles," I say, because when she was pregnant with Sam, she craved pickles.

She shakes her head. I nod and walk towards the kitchen.

It has been an emotional morning, and I find I am still hungry. Not sleeping requires more energy than I typically use. I need to replenish. I want my feast.

Our cupboards are mostly bare. We have three boxes of Cheerios and little else. I do not want Cheerios right now. They seem bland and stale, like I have eaten them too much. Instead, I reach past it for the pancake mix and chocolate chips.

I open the refrigerator and am relieved my wife has kept up with the shopping. There are strawberries and blueberries. I find whipped cream, maple syrup, and chocolate milk. I grab them all, close the refrigerator, and open the cabinet to retrieve our skillet.

After a few minutes of work, I have chosen breakfast. I sit at the table with my pancakes and tall glass of chocolate milk and feel thankful to have this feast before me.

When I finish my meal, I think of Sam. I remember our breakfast together the morning we learned his diagnosis. I remember our laughter and ignorance. I remember wishing that moment could last forever.

Suddenly, I feel the inspiration slipping like sand through the fingers of my mind. My dark depression looms in the shadows, so I jump out of my seat and rush to the bedroom before it catches me.

"Wanna go to the movies?" I ask my wife.

She does not say anything. Instead, she shakes her head and rolls over with the covers. The sight is depressing, and I know I cannot handle it. So, I leave.

A movie will reinvigorate me, I tell myself. Pop's game was a recording, and combined with his commentary, it was like a movie of sorts. That was why movies existed – to give inspiration. I would pick out the perfect movie to give me everlasting hope.

To my chagrin, most of the movies at the theater have too much ugliness in them. There are action movies that glorify violence and the dog-eat-dog world in which we live. There are dramas that dwell on human hatred, on darkness, and refuse to recognize the light in humanity. Even the comedies seem to be nothing more than a competition to see which one can display the most human debauchery. None of these movies will do. I am sure they are all good in their own respects, but they are not what I need. All I want is to get lost in a movie, to escape. I want to be transported to another world that is devoid of the problems I see every day, devoid of the anger, the pain, the death. I want to see the hope for a brighter future.

I think of what Sam would want, and so I choose an animated children's movie. It is uncomfortable for a single man to walk into a children's movie in the middle of the day. Mothers cast a suspicious eye and gather their children closer to them, but I try to disregard their judgment. When the movie begins, I will float away to a land of unicorns and rainbows.

Two-thirds of the way through the movie, the boy's magic unicorn dies. The boy prostrates himself over the unicorn's lifeless body and sobs. My old friend returns to me, and I force myself not to cry out. It is too much to bear, so I leave the movie theater.

As I walk out and wipe at the tears in my eyes, I hear a voice. "He comes back to life, you know."

I turn to see an elderly janitor sweeping up garbage in the hallway. "There's always someone that leaves when the unicorn dies, but he comes back."

I freeze, embarrassed and unable to talk.

"Usually it's a mom with her kid, spoutin' off how it's not appropriate," the elderly janitor says. "But I guess yours is doin' just fine."

I swallow the lump in my throat and respond. "Uh, yeah," I lie, "They're still in there. I just... I gotta work tonight."

The elderly janitor observes me, and then shrugs and returns his attention to his task.

As I walk to my car, I cast my embarrassment out of my mind and reflect on the movie. It makes me happy to know that the boy and the unicorn end up together, but another part of me refuses that ending because it knows happiness is a lie. It is not a lie in the fantasy world of unicorns and rainbows, but here on Earth, people do not come back from death. We can wish for it all we want, but all it does is prolong our suffering. I wish I had chosen a different movie.

When I arrive to work, I anticipate a grand welcoming. Visions of cakes and candles, cards and decorations, smiling coworkers and bosses fill my head. I receive no such reception. Chuck does not realize I had been gone. He exchanges his gruff pleasantries typical of every shift change before escaping to his Harley to roar down the road.

When I finally am alone again, I feel empty. The reception for which I had hoped, the reception that could have changed me, never happened, and as a result, I return to the same place as before. I return to the same cold, empty cave where I had taken refuge only a month ago. I go to the thermostat and increase the heat in the hopes it will change this place. I sit at my desk and hope to feel relief. I do not. I look out my window and see the green and copper burn mark like a giant weathered penny on the bridge. A pedestrian sees me, and I remember.

I slouch in the back of my chair and stare at nothing. It is dark outside, and my office is not well lit. The yellow bulb is burning out its fake light. It flickers and buzzes. I do not like it. I do not want to be here. I want to go somewhere that will heal me. I want to go somewhere that will help me to move on. I want to go somewhere without so many memories. But, we spend our lives creating our own worlds, whittling away options and opportunities, thinking we are liberating ourselves from the strain of the infinite choice we face every day, when in reality, we are creating caves in which we lock ourselves and shackle our spirits. I am in my cave, the one I made for myself, and I have no way out.

I pull out my phone, because it has been too long. The more recent photos are too painful to view. He has no hair and he looks so sick in those. I scroll through the pictures on my phone to the older ones. To older times. Sam is happy, smiling. I miss his smile. I feel my old friend in the form of a lump in my throat return accompanied by the misting in my eyes. It has been a while since I cried. I feel the streak coming to an end.

The tears stream warm down my face, leaving streaks of cold as they dry. I wish Sam were alive. I wish I could see him. I wish I could hold his sweet little hand and look into his smiling eyes. I want to run my fingers through his silky blonde hair just one more time. One time so I know he is alive. That is all I want – to know. But, death is a mystery life leaves unsolved. Sam knows. He knows too well.

I wake up to the purple glow on the horizon and realize the exertion of my crying must have put me to sleep. It is fine. I do not like being alone in the dark. I find it haunting and endless, like the loneliness of outer space. I am ready for my relief to come.

At home, my wife still does not speak to me. I check on her in the morning, but she moves slowly through her routine. She goes back to work today, so she can attribute her cold shoulder to being preoccupied. I hear the door close but do not see her leave.

Pop wakes up late, around 9:30 a.m. He looks as he always does. Hopeful. His eyes are warm, and his mouth hangs open in a smile.

After we exchange greetings, my pop asks, "What do you have on tap for today?"

I shrug. "Nothing, I guess. Except I have to be at work tonight."

"You're not going to sleep?"

"I slept a little last night. I could probably get by on a nap."

My father smiles in surprise. I am willing to forsake sleep to spend time with someone. I am trying.

"Well," Pop says, "I was going to watch the game..."

"The tape?"

Pop does not respond.

"Don't you get a little sick of watching the same thing over and over?" I ask.

He hangs his head. I can tell I hurt his feelings. I sigh. "Fine. Put it on. Maybe I can sleep during it."

My father smiles. It takes little to restore his spirit.

The game starts as poorly for Pop's Alma Mater as possible. His team fumbles the opening kickoff. Three plays later the opponent scores a touchdown. Seven-nothing before a minute is off the clock. Pop reacts to the game as if he watches it for the first time. He groans when his team fails and celebrates when it succeeds. It is as if my father does not already know what will happen. That is not accurate. He _hopes_ the result will be different, even when he knows it will not be.

After his Alma Mater gains its only first down of the first quarter, Pop asks, "Did you apologize?"

"Huh?"

"To your wife, for how you talked to her."

I remain silent. My father shakes his head. "You gotta make amends."

"But it's not my fault."

"So."

He watches the game and groans as his Alma Mater gives up a sack. The game really is boring. It loses all interest when you know the outcome. My father finds a way to enjoy it, though.

"Did it take you a while?" I ask. "When mom ... passed?"

"It's still taking a while," Pop replies.

"So you're not over it?"

Pop chuckles. It is warm and not offensive. "Thomas," he says, "I'm not over my puppy dying in the third grade."

"Oh," I say, disappointed. "You just seem so... happy."

"We choose our happiness. It's in us if we want it."

I say nothing. After a moment, Pop smacks his thigh and hisses an _ahhh_ as his team fails again.

"How about you?" Pop asks. "How are you holding up?"

I swallow to try to subdue the lump in my throat, but it is difficult. "Better," I say. "I..." I try to think what to say. I could perform soliloquy upon soliloquy all on different topics. "I guess I'm doing better."

Pop nods. He watches his game and claps his hands at a missed opportunity. I slink back into the couch and watch. The moment passes slowly. Time has twisted it. Pop talks to break the boredom.

"And your wife? Is she doing better?"

I snort. "Worse. Ever since ... well, since yesterday things have seemed worse." I consider leaving it at that but cannot help myself. "She says she wished Sam was never born."

My father's lip trembles, and his eyes moisten. "That poor woman."

Anger simmers in my gut. My father should be beside himself. He should be appalled and agree that she is nowhere near the parent that I am. I should be vindicated.

"You really should apologize," Pop says.

"What?" I spit back.

"She's hurting. She could really use you."

I scoff and shake my head. My patience for my father is wearing thin.

"You're supposed to be there for her."

The words linger in the air. I was supposed to be there for Sam. I choke on the lump in my throat until I cannot bear anymore and I stand to leave.

"Where you going?" Pop asks.

"Out. I have to.... I have to do some things."

I go to the park. Oddly, it is the last place I want to be, but I have nowhere else to go. I cannot go to work yet, and the movies at the theater are no help. Outside of that, I do not know where I could go. The park is my only option. It is getting old.

The scene is the same as always. I feel like Pop watching the same football game over and over. The three sons are playing and happy. Daffney is hiding in her bushy cave. I wish she would stop. That is no way for a duck to live. Ducks are supposed to play in the pond and swim after each other. Daffney is supposed to flap and honk at the other ducks and be a loveable nuisance. She is not supposed to hide. She is not supposed to be in the shadow of that tree, hidden by the bush.

The more I think about it, the more anger engulfs my mind, heart, and soul. I look at my feet and see several large pebbles. Before I even think to do it, my hand reaches down and clasps a stone. My body preempts my mind and throws the stone at the bush. The stone misses Daffney. My mind catches up to my body but agrees with it, so I throw another stone. An irritated honk resounds from the bush. I throw another stone. _Harder_. A pained honk. I throw another stone, and it scares her out. Daffney spreads her wings and hisses at me. I raise my hand with another stone, and she loses her resolve. She flaps towards the pond, and then she flies. To my astonishment, she flies. She flies, not to the pond, but away. Her three sons do not notice. Daffney is flying away.

"Daffney, come back!" I sputter into the sky, but I know it is too late.

Part of me is happy. Happy that Daffney is flying instead of hiding. Another part of me is sad. I know the park is different now. She will not come back to her bush in the shadow of the tree. The space will be empty. Empty until something replaces her.

Work is boring. After a few hours, I have opened the bridge to let a few ships through. It is reassuring that the exchanges were uneventful, but I see the green and copper burn marks and remember.

I want to read something. Dante's _Inferno_ is still in my drawer, but his words, while beautiful, are devoid of hope, and hope is what I need. I search the computer for an appropriate book, and nothing strikes my fancy. I know no book will make me smarter. I am not even smart enough to know which book to read. Maybe I will stumble into it.

My night drags. In spite of days without much sleep, I do not doze off. My eyes are dry and itchy, like each blood vessel in the whites of my eyes is a vine of poison ivy. I want to scratch them out, but I do not want to sleep. It is an odd anxiety, but I do not wish to sleep.

When I feel I cannot take any more, I cave and decide to read _Inferno_. Maybe I can hope Dante is wrong. I open the drawer where I keep my book and freeze. There is another book in the drawer. I do not know who placed it there, but it feels like the sort of coincidence that is too convenient to be chance. The book lacks any flashy cover art. This book is solid and full, plain in color and design. The power is in the words, not the marketing. The book is stout and immovable, like the marble quarries in a far away mountain.

At first, I feel nothing. It is just a moment. Then, I feel a twinge deep inside my gut. It is so deep that my brain cannot place where it is in my body. It is farther down than my gut goes, than any part of my body goes. It is an instinct. An urge. It tells me to grab that book. It tells me to read that book.

I take its black leather in my hands and feel reverence. The book has weight. It has substance. I hope it has answers. I hope to believe it.

I consider that thought. I hope to believe. It strikes me that belief is impossible without hope. Belief is a combination of both hope and knowledge. It occurs when someone hopes for something so much that they take the things for which they hope as truth. That seems impossible to me, but I hope to believe some day.

The first chapter of my book is familiar. Many of the stories from my childhood are in it. The first man. The first murder. The flood and the ark. For such a long book, I find it covers a lot of ground in the first chapter. There are no epiphanies in it, but I find the story interesting. I can see how people believe it. It all seems very well researched and documented. Each new character is traced through his or her lineage to a previous character. The way everyone and everything fits together seems plausible. I hope I can believe it. Maybe I can try.

My first night of reading is long and uneventful, and I return home with my brain feeling languid. It is Saturday, so my wife does not have to work. When I enter, I see her eating pickles. She has gone through half a jar. A bowl of Cheerios with chocolate milk rests next to her jar of pickles on the kitchen table. She has strange cravings when she is pregnant.

"Hello," I say as I open the cupboard and grab the box of Cheerios. My wife does not respond. She takes a bite of cereal instead. "What are you up to today?" I ask.

My wife sighs and stares at her cereal. She appears to be reading, but she has no newspaper, book, or tablet. She just stares at her bowl. I take my bowl and join her at the table. She looks worn.

"How's work been?" I ask.

She shrugs and mopes in her cereal instead of responding. I snicker.

"Who's the one not talking now?"

She frowns. Then, she stands, takes her jar of pickles, leaves her Cheerios, and walks back towards our bedroom.

I take a deep breath, and then a bite of Cheerios. I remember its flavor. It no longer seems so stale and old, but something about the flavor has changed even though the Cheerios are the same. I taste them anew and I am not sure I like it yet.

After I eat, I drop off my wife and I's bowls in the kitchen sink and walk to my bedroom. She is sprawled across the bed. I remove my shirt and pants and peel back the covers.

"I'm tired," she says.

"Me too," I reply and try to slip into bed.

"There's no room," she says.

I pause.

"You don't want me to sleep here?" I ask. She rolls over and takes the covers with her.

I stand from the bed and consider her response, but there is nothing to debate. My wife does not want me, so I retrieve athletic shorts from my drawer, put them on, and walk to the couch. I will nap before my father comes.

By Monday, things have not changed. I am still trying. I cling to hope like a toddler clings to his father's hand while crossing a busy intersection. My wife is aloof. Pop tries to cheer her up, but he finds the task difficult. He does not encourage me to apologize as much as before. Maybe he finally sees that I am right and my wife is the one at fault.

I continue reading my book at work. It takes a tedious turn in the third chapter. There are so many rules and regulations. I cannot help but think that men took something beautiful and suffocated it with rules. They used words to grapple the unbridled truth and bring it down to Earth so simple-minded people like me could wrestle it into our caves and try to understand it. I do not need to understand, though. I just need to know it is there. I hope it is.

Only once do I look up from reading. It is when I hear a noise outside my perch over the bridge. A young couple has clamored under the stairwell. They kiss in the moonlight. I watch them a moment and think of my wife. It has been a long time since she surprised me where I sit. I should have treated her better for it. I did not, though, and I should not spy on these young people in love. A bed only has so much room.

After a few more days of reading, I feel different. I do not feel better. I do not feel worse. My frontal lobe is numb and quiet. It no longer tries to be smarter than it is. My mind rests and accepts that there are questions it simply cannot answer. It is an odd feeling. Instinctively, I want to fight it, but my spirit is at peace, and my brain is processing. At least, I hope it is.

We go to church again on Sunday. It is the same. None of my reading has changed church. In fact, I still have not heard any of what I have read. There is no clarity. Only words. So, I pray. I do not ask for Sam back, although that is all I really want. Instead, I ask for perspective. I ask for clarity. I want to understand. I want to know.

As we leave the church, I subdue my old friend. He has been a nuisance of late. He bothers me more and more. My book is supposed to send my old friend packing. It has not. It has invited him back like an estranged son.

We return home from church, and before the door to our house closes, my wife retrieves her pickles and walks to the bedroom. Pop makes for the couch to watch his game. I have a moment. There are three things I can do. What I want to do – which is to sit with my father and try to hope for a hopeless outcome. There is what is easy - which is to waste the day away watching the ducks at the park. Now, I consider a third option I have not weighed in a while. What I should do.

I see that the kitchen is a mess. Fortunately, my wife has only eaten pickles and cereal all week, but the counters are dirty and the dishes are piled in the sink. She has enough on her plate without having to deal with this, so I go to the kitchen and wash dishes.

The chore is slow at first. Some of the dishes have grime stuck to them from ages ago. I must scrub thoroughly. The dishes need to be clean and ready to be used fresh. My acuity increases with time, and the dishes pile up on the drying rack. I dip the last dish under the flowing water, and my body preempts my mind. In retrospect, my mind agrees with my body as I turn on the stove and place a frying pan on it. I scramble some eggs and pour them on the pan with a loud _hissssss_.

"Eggs?" Pop calls from the family room. "Count me in."

I scramble three extra eggs for my father. Then, I pour them onto the pan with the others. The pale liquid turns gold and softens. I scoop them onto three plates in equal amounts. Then, I deliver Pop his plate.

"Thanks, son. These smell fantastic!" he says with his open-mouthed smile.

I return to the kitchen, grab the other two plates, and walk to the back bedroom where my wife eats pickles in bed. I give her a plate of eggs and a fork. She says nothing. I sit on the end of the bed with my plate. I eat and say nothing.

After a moment, I hear the scrape of my wife's fork on her plate. She is eating. That is good. A mother and child need strength.

I finish my eggs and wait for the scrape of her fork to stop. A moment after it does, I stand, retrieve her empty plate, and walk back to the kitchen where I hand wash both our plates and forks. I return to our bedroom and find my wife asleep. The pickle jar is open on the nightstand. I secure its lid and take it to the kitchen so my wife can rest.

The next morning, I wake up and find my wife juggling tasks in the kitchen. She moves quickly and with purpose. Her clothes are neat and ironed. She has done her makeup, and her shoes are on her feet.

"I made a grocery list. You mind picking it up?" she asks like she used to ask before, when she would call me on her way to work.

"Sure," I say.

She finishes drying a dish, grabs her purse and keys, pecks me on the cheek, and leaves. I stand still. It was normal. She was acting like she always had. Everything was normal. It _felt_ normal. And I am not upset.

The grocery list is written on a piece of scrap paper on the counter. The list reads:

Eggs

Meat (fish if a good price)

Spinach

Onions

Cucumbers

Avocado

Tomatoes

Olive Oil

Plain Yogurt

Strawberries

Blueberries

That is it. I stare at the list in amazement. She does not ask for pickles. I check the refrigerator and see there is only one jar left. Then, I look at the list again. It is healthy. It is what a pregnant woman should eat to make herself and her baby strong.

There is another item missing, but I cannot think of it. It nags me. I try to remember but cannot, so I give up and continue with my routine. I open the cupboard and grab my box of Cheerios, but it is light. I pour some into my bowl and return the box to the cupboard. It is the last box. Cheerios are not on the list.

I sit with my bowl of Cheerios and eat. They taste good. I will miss them when the box runs out. My old friend tries to return to me, but my brain tells him to go away. This is nothing to be upset about. It has already been decided, and I will not change it. There is no reason to cry over such things, even if I hope I can change it.

Pop walks into the kitchen, bright-eyed and smiling like always.

"Good morning, son," he says. "What do you have on tap for today?"

I swallow my last bite of Cheerios and consider the question.

"I think I'm going to run," I say.

After going to the grocery store, I dig some old running shoes out of my closet, change into a sweat suit, and drive to the park. I run through the entire park. Past the play set with toddlers taking turns on the slide. Past the field where children play football and soccer. Past the parking lot where teenagers seek the privacy of their cars to make love. Past the walking paths where lifelong friends sip their coffee and laugh. And, of course, past the pond, where the three sons swim after each other in a game of tag.

It is towards the end of my run, and I have grown tired. My legs are heavy, my feet ache, and my breaths are short and strained. I jog down the final stretch of road towards my car that will take me home when I notice a companion across the street. He, too, is tired and struggling towards his finish line. I notice he is ahead of me. I speed up and overtake him. He sees me, so he speeds up. I run faster. So does he. I point to my car in the parking lot.

"To the parking lot!" I yell.

With that, we take off. I force my deadened legs to push hard against the pavement. I gasp at air and heave it out in aching breaths. My heart pounds like a lover's reaching climax. I near the parking lot, and as my foot crosses the sidewalk and lands on the asphalt, I throw up my arms in victory. I look over at my companion and see we crossed at nearly the same time. I cannot tell who won the race, but I do not think it matters. What matters is that we ran. We tried. We fought for victory. We hoped.

I drive home and shower. My body, mind, and spirit feel refreshed from my run. After some time, though, I lose the euphoria and grow weak. I decide to take a nap since I have work to do at night.

I awaken in the afternoon to my wife slipping in bed next to me. I roll over to face her and notice her stomach has a bump now, firm and healthy. She kisses me. I am surprised. She looks into my eyes and kisses me again. Her lips are tender pressed against mine. I kiss her back. This act has not happened in some time. I think back to the last time and skip past the night in my office. That was different than this. This is not a hunger. I feel something this time. It is deep within my heart in a place so far within me that my mind cannot place it as part of my body. It is deeper than my heart goes. We feel connected.

Our time together passes in a moment, and my body is drained and satisfied. My wife almost smiles. She looks encouraged, if not happy. We still have not spoken of that awful day when I learned she was pregnant, but maybe some things are better left unsaid. I do not have words to atone. I am a simple man and do not know what to say. Maybe we can just be with each other, and our words will not have to remind us of that day. That is better.

Tonight, work is different. I find my mind is alert but restless. The discipline to read evades me, so I look out my window. The night glides by as casually as a shark cruising through clear waters. Few ships pass through my bridge. The night hides behind a mask of tranquility, but I know the darkness. I know it too well.

Come 3 a.m., I see a rare sight. I have a visitor. Not a visitor to me but to my bridge. I am perched in my glass and steel cave, and he does not know someone is looking down on him, although he walks to my burn mark. The visitor is a curious man. He wears a black hooded sweatshirt with the hood up, gray cotton sweat pants, and white running shoes that are dirty and worn. He leans against the railing and confronts the darkness of the night. I feel solidarity in watching him.

After a moment, I see him do a triceps dip on the railing, straightening his elbows on the bar and lifting his weight off the ground. He holds himself up with his elbows locked for a moment. I recognize the moment. It is like any I have had the past seven months. Then, he swings a leg over the railing. Then, the other leg.

Fear attacks me like a shark doubling back on a school of fish. I should act, but it is not my duty. I am in my cave and I am where I am supposed to be. I have no reason to leave this place. It is safe. It is comfortable. It is where I know I belong. Besides, what can I do? What if I go down there and make matters worse? What if I scare him and cause him to slip? What if he gets angry with me? What if I make another mistake? What if I fail?

I look again and see the man in the black sweatshirt standing on the wrong side of the bridge, holding himself against the rail to keep from falling. The time is now.

My body preempts my mind and hurtles me into action. The door opens heavy like a stone blocking a tomb, and the cold night air discourages me from leaving the comfort of my cave. Still, I descend the steps and cross the bridge to the spot where I had burned it. The man is there.

"Hey," I say, prompting the man's knees to buckle. "Whoa! Whoa! Take it easy."

"Who are you?" the man in the black sweatshirt asks.

My mind blurs, and I realize I have nothing to say. I have no answers. "I'm.... I'm no one, just the guy who sits up there," I say, pointing back at my glass and steel sanctuary.

The man in black looks down. He toes the air like a boy testing the temperature of a pool. I must act, but I do not know what to say. I am only a simple-minded bridge operator.

"Are you okay?" I ask because I do not know what to do.

The man snickers and shakes his head. He stares down. It is a long dark plunge. I can see in his eyes that he knows the darkness. It has been with him longer than the plunge will last.

"Do you want to talk?" I ask, because I need to ask something.

"No."

A moment passes. I watch the man. Now that I am closer, I can tell he is more of a boy than man. His face is smooth and soft with a few pit marks from recent acne. The hair on his chin comes in thin even though I can see he has not shaved for some time. He is a boy. I think of only one thing.

"My son died," I say. "He was four."

The boy looks at me curiously. He forgets about the plunge into darkness for the briefest time. "I'm sorry," he asks more than says.

"I don't talk about it much."

The boy turns back to the darkness, but I have to stop him.

"Do you want to see a picture?" I ask as I grab my smartphone out of my pocket.

I search frantically through my pictures, but in my search, I land on the most recent photos of Sam. The photos of when he was really sick. His little cheeks are sucked in, and his eyes are a dull gray. Feeble wisps of hair poke out of his head. I stop and put a hand on my chin. My old friend returns in force, and my eyes water and itch.

The boy on the burned bridge scoffs. "Great," he says, shaking his head.

I look up at him with tears in my eyes and streaming down my face. I hold up my phone so he can see the picture on its screen. The boy tries to turn away, but he does not, as if he owes it to me to look. He sees the photo of Sam and grows solemn.

"He was really sick," the boy says.

I nod. "Yeah."

"Was it... quick?"

I shake my head and choke on the lump in my throat. "I made it worse," I admit.

The boy looks back down as a cry escapes my throat.

"He asked me to go home," I say. The boy looks back at me. "He was in the hospital, on the last day, he hated going, but I made him go so much.... He was in the hospital and he grabbed me with all the strength his little arms had..."

My lips tremble and tears blind my eyes. I sniffle and fight. I must fight and continue. I take a deep breath.

"... He asked me to take him home," I say, exhaling like a burden off my shoulders. "He asked me to go home and I sent him to a hospital room to die alone."

The boy looks down, but he does not see the darkness now. He looks back up. "But you were trying to help him," he says.

I bite my lip and shake my head. "No..." I say. "Not him. I wasn't trying to help him, only me."

The boy nods. He does not look at me. He does not need to.

"So," he says. "Is this the part where you tell me not to do it. How you'd give anything to get your son back and you're sure I have a mother and father that loves me?"

I sniffle and must have a dumb look on my face. I am only a bridge operator.

"I don't know. I just didn't know what to say."

The boy looks at me and tries to get a read. He is not in a place to deal with deceit. This boy has seen the darkness, and he does not need it to play another trick. Fortunately, I am incapable of tricks.

He lets go of the rail and I reach for him, but he is only scratching his thigh over his gray sweatpants. After the itch is gone, he returns his hand to the rail. A moment passes. He thinks, and my mind is blank.

"Do you even care why I'm here?" the boy asks.

I think of a response. The truth is "no", but I do not know the truth. I do care. I am not sure I care about the boy, but I care about something. No illusions trick me into thinking this will make my old friend leave. This will not change me at all. But, I do care. I must fight for this boy. I do not know why.  
The boy snorts and shakes his head. "How could you? You don't even know me."

"I'm Thomas," I blurt.

The boy looks at me a moment. After the moment has passed, he smiles. "Peter," he says.

"Do you want to tell me why you're here, Peter?"

Peter takes a long moment and considers my question. Then, he shakes his head. "No.... I'm tired. I think I'm gonna go home."

With that, Peter lifts a white shoe over the railing. Then, the other. He stands on my side of the bridge by the burn mark and looks into my eyes.

"Thanks," he says with a tempered smile.

"I hope I don't see you again," I say, and he understands.

We watch each other a moment, and then he walks towards a bright white bicycle that rests next to my car where I always park. He gets on his bike and pedals towards the streetlights of a nearby neighborhood. I watch his figure grow smaller in the distance and I hope his parents are awake when he returns home. I hope his mother kisses him and his father embraces him like a son he had lost and then found. I hope he receives the welcome that drives out darkness. Then, he will not return to the bridge where it is burned.

I turn and look at my glass and steel cage. It is a new perspective for me. When I drive to work, I rarely look up. Now that I look at it, I see an empty box. There are many things in there. I can put still more. Now, for the first time, I do not want to be one of the things I put in there. I do not want to hide anymore.

When I arrive home, I am exhausted. I fought the night with everything I had, and it drained me. Sleep is tempting, but I do not wish to sleep. Instead, I offer to take my wife and Pop to the park. Pop readily agrees. My wife hesitates. Then, she accepts.

The three of us sit on the bench, and we watch the three sons swimming in the pond. We do not speak much, but I feel more a part of the park than ever before. I no longer feel like a distant observer, although all we do is watch. I guess the "we" is the difference.

"Sam liked this?" my wife asks.

I nod. She smiles.

"Good," she says. "I'm glad."

Scrooge McDuck plucks the tail feathers of Darkwing, and my wife snickers. Her eyes are bright as she watches. She laughs at the silly ducks, and I think of Sam. The lump returns to my throat, but I do not hurry my old friend away this time. He deserves a moment.

I look over to Daffney's hiding place and know she is not there, but to my surprise, I see Donald waddle to Daffney's spot behind the bush in the shadow of the tree and I fear he will try to be invisible like his mother. Instead, Donald stops and honks where the shadow meets the light. It is as if he asks the darkness to move aside so he can proceed. He is a clever duck. Instead of the shadow moving, I hear the sound of chirping, and four little ducklings, hardly a week old, come teetering out of the darkness of the bush to Donald in the light.

It strikes me. Donald is a happy father. Or mother. Or uncle. Or aunt. He waddles towards the pond, and the four little ducklings follow. They splash into the water and swim in a straight line. No ducklings stray to the left or to the right. Scrooge McDuck and Darkwing meet them, and they swim after each other. It is a wonderful sight.

My father likes the pond. He tells me he wishes he had come here sooner. I tell him it reminds me of him watching his game.

"This?" he says. "No. This is life. It's happening, it's not over yet."

I think he is half right. It is not over, but it is the same as always. Maybe there is more hope at the pond than watching the game that already happened. Maybe I can more than hope this. Maybe I can believe here. It is an abstract notion, and I am not there yet, but maybe is close. Maybe is good.

I decide to nap in the afternoon, although I do not wish to sleep. On occasion, I have dreams. Or, I think I do, because I never remember them. I hope I dream of Sam again, and that one day I will remember the dream. But, I know I do not dream of Sam anymore.

For some reason, right before falling asleep, I think of the boy on the bridge. I wonder how he is doing, if he got the welcome he deserved when he returned home. If he told his parents or anyone else about the darkness he had to face. I am happy I was there and could stop him before it was too late. I am surprised I was able. Something tells me that had it happened a few months ago, around the time I burned the bridge, that I would not have helped the boy, and he would have fallen into the darkness.

In the evening, I awaken on the couch to the smell of lamb roasting. My wife is focused in the kitchen. She does not know I am awake yet, so I watch her. One of her eyebrows wrinkles and the other stays straight, like half of her is unsure, but the other half has the steady hand that guides her. A little strand of hair falls over her face, and I know she is beautiful. In a rush, memories flood my consciousness. Her eyes, long ago, when I first saw them. Her smile. Looking up at her from a knee. Her laugh. Her tender hand on my cheek. A whispered promise of love. My wife is beautiful. I am lucky.

She sees me and almost smiles before returning to her work. I rise from the couch and walk into the kitchen to wrap my arms around her and kiss her on the neck.

"You were asleep so your father went to get some bread," my wife says.

"What time is it?" I ask.

"Seven-thirty, but don't worry, your work called and said they gave your shift to a new hire tonight. Chuck's retiring and they want to move you to the day shift."

I nod and look down at the potatoes she is chopping. She slices them into triangles. I blink the sleep out of my eyes because I do not want to sleep.

"Anything I can do to help?" I ask.

She shrugs. "I guess you can set the table, but it won't be ready for a while."

I hold her a moment longer. Our bodies melt together as one, as we used to be and will be again. Then, I walk to the antique cedar and gold chest where we keep the fine china. I take three plates, three bread plates, three glasses, and three sets of silverware and pile them on the table. Then, I take each piece, one by one, and set it in its proper place.

After three hours, my father has returned, the table is set, the lamb is roasted, the potatoes are cooked, the salad is made, the wine is poured, and the bread is broken. We sit around the table. Waiting.

"Why don't we pray?" my father suggests.

A moment.

Since I have been reading, I have been praying in the confidence of my mind, but I have not spoken a prayer aloud in some time. If ever. I clear my throat and hold a hand from my wife and Pop.

"Dear God," I pray. "Thank you for this food."

I pause. There are more words to say, but I cannot think of them.

"Thank you for my wife and Pop," I say. "Thank you for having them put up with me. I know it's not easy."

Silence fills the room and infiltrates my thoughts. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. My first instinct is to think through the silence, but then I tell myself to stop. To rest. After a moment, I open my mouth.

"Thank you for Sam," I say.

My wife's hand goes cold, but I squeeze the warmth back into it.

"Thank you for four of the best years of my life. Thank you for the moments I had with him. The times when it was just me and him. Thank you for the duck pond and for Daffney and Darkwing and Donald and Scrooge McDuck and all the others. Thank you for Sam's smile and for the way he made me feel like..." My brain tries to force me into self-awareness, but I must fight it. Something else is speaking, and it is far smarter. "... The way he made me feel like a good father... a good _person_... even when I wasn't."

My old friend returns to support me through my prayer. I welcome him.

"Thank you for our new baby..." I feel my wife jolt in surprise. "Please watch over her and her mother always."

A moment comes and goes as my lip trembles and my face strains. I want to wish for Sam back. I want to say how much I love and miss him. I want to do so much and say so much, but a body and a voice and a mind are limited.

"I wish I could see him again. Amen."

I look up from my prayer and see tears in my father's eyes and solemnity in my wife's. I do not know if my words will drift in the air to a needle that pops them like a balloon, never to be heard or answered. I do not know if anyone heard me other than Pop and my wife. I do not know, but I hope. I hope even if I cannot believe.

I carve the lamb and give a slice to my wife, my Pop, and myself. We eat, and it is good.

"You were a good father," my wife says.

My heart fills, and my old friend grows in my throat. I look into my wife's eyes, and she looks into mine in earnest. Then, I eat a potato triangle. It fills me with nourishment.

"I have a checkup next week for the baby," my wife says. "If you want to come."

"Yes," I say even though I wonder if I will be around to make it.

My wife nods and smirks into her plate. She eats a potato triangle and smiles. My father has the dumb, open-mouthed look on his face. He believes it will be better. I hope he is right.

Our dinner passes in peace and quiet. I long to say things, but I do not. My pop smiles throughout dinner, and I see that tears linger behind his eyelids. I want to tell him how much he means to me, but I do not want him to cry. When I look into my wife's eyes, I can see she is somewhere else. Maybe she is at a pond, sitting with Sam and the baby in her stomach, and they are watching the ducks and laughing.

After dinner, my wife and I do the dishes side by side. Pop watches his game and hopes his Alma Mater will win even though he knows it will not. My wife and I scrub and dry. We do not talk. We do not want words to ruin our time. So, we wash and dry until the fine china is clean and ready.

She is tired and takes the last jar of pickles to the bedroom. Pop is living and dying with his team. I put the last piece of fine china back in its proper place in the antique cedar and gold chest, and then I go to the bedroom.

My wife lies in bed and stares at the pickles being distorted by the yellow light of the lamp beside them on the nightstand. The scene disheartens me. I wish it were not night and that my wife did not stare at the pickles in the fake light.

"I love you," I say to shock her more than anything.

She looks up at me and gives me a tender smile, but the pickles are on her mind and tongue, so she keeps to herself. I walk over to the bed and sit down. I know better than to say any more.

"Do you really think that?" she asks.

"That I love you?" I respond.

"No. That you'll see Sam again."

I think about it. I wish I could transmit my thoughts to my wife like an email or text message without words. Words confuse things. They destroy meaning.

"I hope so," I say.

"No. That's not what I asked. Do you think so?"

"I think it's possible."

"But do you think it is."

I consider it a moment. I do not want to lie to my wife. She can detect lies, like the yellow light shining next to her.

"How can I?..." I say. She frowns and looks back at her pickles. "... But, I hope."

She nods, but does not look at me. All she sees are the pickles. She takes another bite.

"It's..." I stammer. "It's what matters."

She does not look up.

"Hope is what matters," I explain. My old friend returns and tries to choke my coming words. "It's what gets us through. We hope that this isn't it, but we'll never know. We hope that there's something else out there, but we'll never have proof...."

My wife only eats her pickles and looks at the jar.

"That's enough," I say. "Everything is okay if our hopes come true. Then, all this meant something. Everything's okay. Everyone's okay and it doesn't matter when we die."

I stare at her and find I am panting. My heart pounds, and my eyes fill.

"It's all too fast," I say. "Our whole lives, they just go by too fast. The only way we can get through the day without panicking about every minute that slips by, every precious second that brings us that much closer to death... is to hope for something more. To hope it doesn't end. To hope it all meant something."

My wife looks up at me, and I can see tears in her eyes. She tilts her head and caresses my face. Her hand eases away my anxiety like it did for Sam when he was lying on the couch the day we learned about his cancer. She says nothing, but I think she understands.

"We don't have to worry," I say. "We just have to hope."

She smiles at me. "You're really going through it, aren't you?"

Her response surprises me. My philosophy is rational. It has saved me from darkness. I follow it every day and read my book and build strength to face the night. Somehow, my wife interprets that as "going through it".

"I'm fine," I say. "I'll see Sam again."

I stare into her eyes and hope she cannot see through the doubt in mine. My statement is a hope; it is not a belief even though I tried to pass it off as one. I hope to see Sam again and I am fine. My hope will get me through.

She smiles in pity and holds her hand on my face for a moment. Then, she puts the lid on her jar of pickles and stands.

"I'm going to get ready for bed," she says. "It's been a long day."

She rises and walks across the room. My eyes follow her until she is gone. I sit for a moment, and my mind clears. I had thought so hard of the right words to say to my wife, and they all came up empty. Now, my mind rests. I do not think, so peace returns to me.

I stand and walk out of our bedroom and into the bathroom, where I see my wife washing her face in think sink under the natural light of the fluorescent bulb. I open my mouth before I allow my mind to think.

"I'm sorry I haven't been there for you," I say. She tries to respond, but words come out of my mouth before she can. "I'm sorry for a lot of things. I'm sorry I don't know what happened to Sam. I'm sorry I couldn't do anything to save him, but recently I've realized something." I pause a moment. "I'm just a bridge operator and I don't know very much."

My wife looks at me. She does not smile this time. After a moment, she nods. "Me either," she says, and then she rinses her hands and face with the flowing water.

I stand in the door a while longer. My mind stays clear. I think maybe there is more to be said, so I should wait. No words come, though, so I turn to leave.

"I love you, too," my wife says.

I look back at her and nod. Then, I walk to the bedroom, lie on the bed, and stare up at the ceiling. For the first time in a while, I feel good. It is not because my body feels rested or my stomach feels full. I feel good because I feel clean. Something inside of me feels like it has been washed. I close my eyes and inhale deeply to focus on this feeling. But, it is just a moment. Like any other.

My wife returns to the room and asks if I am going to sleep. She wears an oversized tee shirt and pajama shorts, so I know her plans.

"No," I say. "There's something I want to do first."

Without another word, I rise from the bed and walk to my wife. I place a hand over her womb and kiss her on the temple. She melts into my arms, and we share a moment. I feel my daughter stir beneath my hand. She is not restless or kicking, just repositioning to find comfort. She will be okay.

I kiss my wife on the cheek. "Rest well," I say.

Then, I walk out of the bedroom door and down the narrow hall towards the kitchen. Pop has fallen asleep with his game still playing. I spread a blanket over him in his leather recliner and turn off the television and VCR.

The living room sleeps in the sweet song of silence. All is right, so I open the front door and close it quietly behind me. The screen door tries to scare me with its screech, but I quiet its noisy hinge and leave it resting against the frame.

The night air is cool, and I walk unafraid. It is a long walk to get where I am going tonight, but I must walk instead of drive. The walk will not change me. It will not change my heart or my soul, but I must walk.

Our neighborhood rests. The lights in the houses are out, and they look like mountains on a distant horizon, both immutable and intangible. I do not feel cramped like I usually do, even though the road is narrow and lined with cars crowded together in front of houses with no front yards. I walk straight and endure. It is important for me to do this.

It takes time to get to the end of the street. Then, it takes more time to exit the neighborhood. Time is not the enemy even when it seems to be. Time is indifferent, and we attach our meanings to it. We make it fast or slow. We make it cruel or kind. Time is. It is nothing more.

I have walked long now, and I only have a little farther to go. The highway I must cross is like a broad river in a desolate forest. It is still, and everything is dark around me. I take a cautious step, and then another until I cross steadily.

The end of the road approaches. My journey through the night is almost over. I walk through the familiar gates and stay straight. This place is quiet and peaceful in the night. It seems there is not a living soul here, but life is all around me. I walk to my familiar bench and sit.

Tonight, the park is like Pop's game on pause. There is no moon reflecting off the pond. It is dark and unmolested, like coffee sitting still in the pot. The three sons and four ducklings rest among the banks. They slouch into balls of feathers with tiny beaks protruding from their chests, coiled and ready to spring to life for the new day to come. They are not sleeping, but waiting. Everything is waiting. Even the trees wait. They hang over the park, not a leaf rustling in the still night, waiting for the sunrise to revive them. The only one who still stirs is me, but I am growing tired.

I sit for some time. There is nothing to watch, and I do not want to think. I wish I had my book to read, but I realize I would need a light to see it, and I do not want to disturb the ducks while they wait. My eyes grow heavy, and I do not want to sleep, but sleep comes like a thief in the night.

For some reason, I feel conscious while I sleep. All I see is black, and I grow bored. I think I can use my mind to entertain me, but thinking makes me restless. I want to use my imagination, but I am simple-minded and cannot summon anything. A moment of struggle leaves me frustrated. I resign myself to not think anymore and to let the sleep overtake me.

I sleep. It could be a moment. It could be several moments. I do not know, because my mind rests and I sleep. I sleep knowing I will wake. At some point, I will wake.

After some time, I regain consciousness although I do not wake in the park. I am somewhere. My mind tells me I am dreaming, but something inside me knows this is not a dream. Some place that exists deep within my heart that my mind cannot place as being part of my body knows. It tells me this is not a dream. This is something different.

I take in the place. The ground is white, like Doctor Alighieri's office but more iridescent and vibrant than anything I have seen. The air itself is white, like I am wrapped in the soft sheets and comfort of a luxurious bed. I see no one with me, but I feel I am not alone.

In the distance, I see light. It is forever away but as bright as if it were right in front of me. Out of the distance, I see someone approaching me, but he stops short. I find it strange and notice that my prior suspicions were correct. I am not alone. A man stands beside me. For some reason, I never get a clear picture of his face. It is as if I only see him in the extremes of my peripheral vision, like I always could have seen him, but never well enough to believe he was there.

The man at my side nods, and the distant figure comes running. I walk to him. He is closer now, and I can see he is not a man. He is a boy. My breath escapes me, and I trot to reach him sooner. He runs faster. Gets closer. My heart pounds with excitement and I run until we meet and he jumps into my arms. His arms clasp around my neck and I run my fingers through his silky blonde hair. The familiar lump returns to my throat, and my eyes mist.

It does not happen suddenly. A tidal wave does not crash down on me with overwhelming force. It starts with a twinge, like a tickle in my heart. I squeeze him tighter and press his head against my chest. Another twinge, enough to make me giggle. Sam pulls away from my embrace and smiles up at me. I still love his smile.

The tidal wave crashes down on me. Joy bursts from the hidden place deep within my heart and flows through my body and spirit in an everlasting spring of happiness. It is a joy so pervasive and eternal that the thought of time's presence becomes obsolete. It is a feeling so overwhelming that the abstract notion of pain, fear, or doubt is beyond improbable and, instead, laughable. It is more than my perfect dream realized; it is my son in my arms...

I could continue. I could describe what I feel a thousand ways with a thousand languages, and none of them would satisfy me. Joy is joy. Either you have it or you do not. If you have ever truly felt it. Truly. You know it. If you think you might have, you have not. If you are "pretty sure", you are not. If you can think of your joy and not feel your heart swelling so large that you do not know if your chest can contain it, ballooning to the point you would fear your heart will explode if not for the fact you have too much joy to fear anything anymore, then you have not felt joy. And, as I cry and laugh and wonder how I came to be so lucky, I suddenly remember. I remember how my marriage was in trouble even before Sam was sick, how cold and unfeeling I was towards my wife. I remember the struggle and the devastation of Sam's death, and how it shone light on the darkness inside me. I remember my cave. I remember succumbing to the darkness and burning my bridge. I remember almost losing my wife and how my father's words made me hope again. I remember wanting to win back my wife's love, wanting the light to drive out my darkness. I remember the boy on the bridge and how he caught me at just the right time, not when I was reading, not when I was sleeping, not when I was hiding, but the exact night when I was ready for him. I remember the boy riding his bicycle towards the lights that would guide him home, towards the welcome that would change his heart, towards the salvation that would deliver his parents from the torment I had experienced through the death of my son, the death that saved their child's life. I remember how, in it all, there was a reason. How in everything, there was a purpose. In everything, a hope.

I squeeze Sam tight to my chest. I want to hold him and never let him go. But, for the first time since he died, I am not afraid of losing him. There is too much joy for that. Beyond my joy, I am unburdened. The anchor strapping me down has been cut off, and I am free to float into the sky. My boy is with me. I _feel_ his arms around my neck. I _feel_ his silky hair on my fingertips. It is real. He is real. My son was gone, and now he is here. In my arms. Alive. Sam is alive; I no longer doubt, I more than hope.

###

Author's Note

In lieu of payment, Will Searcy requests that the reader make a donation to the Ronald McDonald House. Please contribute towards his stated goal of one million dollars so that families facing similar circumstances as the characters in the book receive top-notch healthcare for their children without losing the loving support of their families by their sides. You can donate through the following site:

<https://www.crowdrise.com/FreeBookforRonaldMcDonaldHouse>

Learn more about Will Searcy's upcoming novel, _Just a Game: White Wolves in Sheep's Clothing_ , at his website:

http://www.willsearcy.com

