Twisted (20 page)

62

THE RIPTIDE OF TWO CRIPPLED MINDS

Having a parent die suddenly is a pain sharp and swift. Watching him submit to a slow death is even more excruciating. But when the mind goes before the body, it’s like attending a funeral every day.

Sometimes I wished my father would just die and get it over with.

At the same time, a war raged within me between anger and guilt. I’d been cheated out of what should have been a continued and loving relationship with my father, and during the moments I found strength to be truthful with myself, I hated him for it. But that only made me feel worse, because I knew he hadn’t asked for this, and that his situation was far more tragic than my own.

That I had become the victim of a victim.

The father I loved so much was becoming the complete antithesis of everything I most admired, but it wasn’t just my dad who was falling apart. I could see my mother doing the same, unplugging from the world, drifting off into some distant place. Her everything-is-fine identity was evaporating like some thin, resinous smoke, and what lingered in its wake was the grimmest of pictures: a woman broken open by tragedy, only to find out there was nothing inside, that there never had been. Now, I was caught in the riptide of two crippled minds.

My mother could hide a pink elephant behind a thumbtack, but the saddest irony of all was that my father would be the one to finally end her magical thinking. For so many years, he’d allowed her the reality of her dreams—now he was tearing down that reality. My mother could no longer dismantle the truth because the truth was dismantling her.

I began catching glimpses of who she really was. Not the passionless woman I’d always thought her to be, but instead, and much like me, nothing more than a frightened child. And like a child, instead of facing the truth, Mom simply took the path of least resistance.

With each passing day, she fell deeper into paralyzing depression. The Southern Beauty I’d always known was fading away, her face weathered by grief and rapidly advancing far beyond its years. On most days, she sat at the kitchen table, staring sightlessly out the window and chain-smoking cigarettes. It was on those days that I felt the most pity for her, because I honestly believed she loved my dad to whatever degree she was capable. My father was her everything, her only source of strength, and without him, she became nothing. She began pulling further away, avoiding Dad whenever possible, and offering little of herself to him.

One day, I came home from school and found he’d been sequestered in the guest room.

“It’s better for him this way,” she said, as if he were a puppy quarantined for pissing on the rug.

But he wasn’t a puppy, and it wasn’t better for him—it was better for her
.

Late one evening, I walked by his new living quarters and saw him mumbling incessantly to himself. My mother breezed past me carrying a laundry basket filled with clothes. She went inside, tossed some unfolded pajamas into my father’s lap, then, just as quickly, she was gone.

Dad held the pajamas up and stared at them, confused, as though having no concept of their purpose.

My heart sank.

I walked inside, reached for the pajamas, and helped my dad get ready for bed. After I finished, he looked up at me, a lone tear falling down his cheek.

“Th . . . th-th-th-th . . . thank . . . ,” my father said in a stuttering whisper. “Thank . . . you.”

I placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, and through my utter anguish, I nodded and smiled.

Walking out into the hallway, I heard an odd noise and followed it to my mother’s bedroom. The door was wide open, the light still on, so I moved closer.

She sat at the edge of her bed, holding my dad’s shirt against her face, letting it grow damp in her hands.

Breathing in his scent.

Quiet sobs escaping from her lips.

63

After dinner, I retreat into the family room and stare at the television, but all I can see is disaster playing out before me, the walls closing in as my sanity fades away.

I see my father.

But from a completely new perspective. The heartbreak he must have felt. The pain that was impossible to comprehend through my young eyes. Now, in the cruelest of ways, fate is at last letting me empathize.

Jenna’s approaching footsteps pull me from the thought. She takes a seat beside me but keeps her gaze forward, as if searching for the right thing to say. I hold silent as well, maybe because I can’t find words myself, maybe because I know that none exist.

She places a hand on my leg, leaves it there, and we sit, neither of us speaking.

“I know you’re worried about Devon,” she says a minute or so later, obviously still processing her thoughts among our windstorm of chaos.

I want to tell her about Donny Ray’s threat against Devon, about the disappearing people of Loveland, but I’m afraid it will come out all wrong and frighten her. I can’t afford to burden her load. She hasn’t even had time yet to absorb the news of my schizophrenia.

So I keep that part to myself.

“I can’t lose my son,” I say, simplifying matters that are far more complicated than she can possibly realize.

“You will not.”

I try to reply, but the words get tangled in my throat.

“You won’t lose Devon, because you love him so fiercely. You love him in ways your father never could.”

“But that won’t save him from schizophrenia. Nothing will.”

“It can.”

“How?”

“Because,” she says, fighting to smile, “your past is exactly what
will
save him. Chris, you knew this could happen, and you’ve worked hard to build a strong foundation for Devon in the event that it did. The intensity of your love for him comes from that fear. Because of it, you’ve strived to enjoy every moment with him and to make sure he did the same. No matter what happens, those memories will never go away—they will always be. They’re unshakable, and they will keep him safe. That’s so much more powerful than anything your father was able to do, because he never saw his schizophrenia coming. He never had all the time that you’ve had to prepare for this.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way.

Jenna moves her hand into mine, its soft warmth something I very much crave during this moment, something I very much need.

“Go see Devon,” she says. “Go see him right now. Don’t be afraid. Don’t deny him or yourself the one thing you know will see you both through this. And keep doing it, Chris. Keep doing the only thing you can right now. Keep loving him.”

I look into her eyes and find in their certainty the truth I’m always searching for.

Truth that saves me each time.

64

Standing in Devon’s doorway, I find him getting ready for bed. He pulls the PJ top over his head, then glances down and lets out a helpless sigh: it’s inside out and facing backwards. I smile through my sadness because the look on his face is so precious.

“Daddy,” he says, “I did it wrong.”

“It’s okay,
kiddo. It happens.”

“Can you help me?”

“Of course.” I move toward him. He raises his arms, and I pull off the top.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” he replies, arms still held high, and together we fix the PJ crisis.

Devon thanks me with a big hug, but after pulling back, he reads my expression, and his own starts to drop.

“What, Daddy?”

I shake my head, but I’m fighting back tears.

He gives me an inquisitive look, then scurries into bed. Jake is nowhere to be found, but by now I’m used to his need to appear nearly invisible. I sit beside my son, trying to gather my nervousness and thoughts.

“Daddy, what’s wrong?” he tries again.

I look down at the blanket, run my hand over it. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“Did I do a bad thing?”

“No, it’s nothing like that at all. It’s just . . .” I sidle a bit closer to him. “It’s just that sometimes there are things I need to tell you.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Well, for one, how much I love you.”

“I already know that,” he says, as if I should, too. “You tell me all the time.”

“Because I want you to understand that my love will always be here for you.”

My offer of assurance feels so heavy coming out. An echo from so long ago, the same thing my own father would tell me, only this time with a much more tragic spin. “Even . . . even if someday I’m not able to tell you that myself.”

“You mean like if we’re not together anymore?”

“Yeah, like that or . . . or there could be times when it may seem like I don’t love you.”

“It will never seem that way, Daddy,” he says.

“But it could.”

“How?”

“Like if I accidentally hurt your feelings without realizing it. I’d want you to know that it’s not your fault. It will never be your fault.”

“But why would you do that?”

I reach for a blanket corner, roll it between my fingers, and try to figure out how I can explain this complexity to a six-year-old boy. “I haven’t been feeling so well lately and because of that, I’ve done some of those things already.”

“Like at dinner that one time?”

“Yeah, like that. Did it frighten you?”

He shrugs. “A little, but not anymore.”

My smile is sad. “I’m so sorry I made you feel that way, buddy.”

“It’s okay, Daddy. It was just an accident.”

“It was. But I don’t want you to ever be afraid to talk about it when something like that happens, so if it does again, will you do me a favor?”

He nods.

“I’d like for you to tell me, and if you feel funny doing that, be sure to tell Mommy instead, so you don’t have to—” I stop, because my chest feels heavy just thinking about what his bleak future will hold. A future no child should ever have to endure.

Devon chews his bottom lip, a reflection of worry that makes this conversation so much harder.

“Anyway . . . the thing is, I’ve been trying to get better, but I may not be able to, kiddo. I may not win this one . . .” My voice weakens, and tears fill my eyes, because I know what I’m actually doing is telling my six-year-old son good-bye. That he will soon lose his father.

“Are you going to leave me, Daddy?” Devon asks, his tiny voice so soft that I can barely hear it.

And that’s all it takes to finally rip me apart. To break me. Because telling him this is excruciating enough, but hearing him understand it is infinitely worse. I can’t look at my son. If I do, I’ll never get through this. I turn away and the tears start.

I feel Devon’s soft little hand slide into my palm, his tiny fingers between mine. I hear his weak and troubled breaths.

“Daddy, I love you,” he says very quietly.

I find the courage to look back at him, his pink cheeks dampened by tears.

For a long time, neither of us speaks, and I know that this moment, painful as it is, will be one of the few that are left, that it’s so very precious.

Then, as if reading those very thoughts, he says, “We’ll stay like this forever, Daddy, okay? Just like this.”

What he said at the lake on that beautiful day, now with deeper and more tragic significance.

Devon throws his arms around my shoulders and hangs on tight like he never wants to let go, and I hold my son against me just as hard.

Several minutes later, after we pull apart, he says, “Is it okay if we don’t do liftoff tonight?”

“Are you sure?

“I’m sure.”

“How come?”

“Because I don’t want to save the world, Daddy. I just want to save you.”

65

To deceive is like striking a match. It can be dangerous and destructive, deadly even, and the people closest to you are most at risk. The flame burns slowly at first, and then before you know it, erupts into a ferocious explosion, consuming everything that matters. In the aftermath, you’re standing in a cloud of smoke, staring at the charred and smoldering ruins of what once was.

On this morning, I sit at the kitchen table and stare out the window, but I don’t see much, other than a world losing hold. A world rapidly shrinking and falling apart.

I think about Devon and what this illness will do to him, what it did to me as a boy. And about Jenna. How every step of the way, she’s been here for me, offered her support, and above all, her unfailing love.

How I’ve betrayed her trust.

Instead of keeping my family from falling apart, I’ve only accelerated the process. Not on purpose. Not by any stretch of the imagination with intent to cause harm, but just the opposite. Still, none of this negates that instead of being truthful with Jenna last night, I kept her in the dark. Now the guilt rests squarely on my shoulders, and that one act is snowballing. I’ll have to keep lying in order to delay getting diagnosed, to buy more time so I can save Devon from Donny Ray.

My gaze shifts blindly across the yard as I try to work through the clutter of racking emotions. If I could reverse time and take it back, I would, but life only moves in one direction, and what lies over your shoulder cannot be fixed. Straight ahead of me now is a trap: anything I do to try and repair this situation will only drive me deeper into trouble.

So I just keep staring out the window.

Sudden movement brings my vision into focus, and I barely glimpse Jake as he emerges from a clump of bushes and exits the yard. I narrow my view, notice the pile of dirt he just left, then something else catches my interest, green, and barely visible beneath the loose and disturbed soil. Keeping my eyes fixed there, I slowly rise from the chair, then move toward the door.

Outside, I edge closer toward the green object, each step like crossing unsettled ground.

I reach the spot and realize I’m staring down at a swath of cloth buried in dirt. I drop to my knees, start digging, hesitantly at first, but with each handful of earth I draw, my speed gradually and steadily increases. I uncover the green thing, yank it out, and hold it up.

A pair of Devon’s shorts.

I claw frantically at the soil, dirt and mud flying all around me, fingers turning bruised and raw from the stony granules digging beneath my nails.

I pluck out one of Devon’s T-shirts. His shoe. A baseball cap.

I keep digging.

When it’s all done, I stand upright, body stiff from soreness and uncertainty; clothes, hands, and face coated in grime. I stare at the ground covered with the items, all of them belonging to Devon. At least fifteen pairs of socks. His ten missing baseball hats. Five pairs of shorts. Six T-shirts. Two pairs of sneakers. It just goes on and on. All my son’s clothing that started to go missing the night I collided with that tree. Clothing that Jake has been diligently and meticulously stealing away, transporting to this special place.

Burying them like valued treasures.

Mystery finally solved.

Because I at last know why Jake has been speaking to me mind-to-mind, what he’s been trying to tell me all along—something that’s now coming to fruition.

My son is in danger.

The dog knows.

“But
how
did he know?”

I look over my shoulder and find Jake sitting by the corner of the house and watching me.

“You don’t have to worry anymore, boy,” I tell him. “I hear you now. He’ll be safe. I’ll make sure of that, if it’s the last thing I ever do.”

“Chris?”

Jenna’s voice throws me into a jolt. I turn and find her watching me, expression one of profound disquiet. Her attention wanders between the piles of dirt, my son’s belongings scattered between them.

“What are you doing?” she asks. “What is all this?”

“Devon’s stuff that’s been going missing.” I nod at the items. “I found them. It’s been Jake all along. He’s been burying them out here.”

Jenna looks back at me, eyes broadened by worry. I don’t want to scare her, but she already looks deeply troubled, and Jake has just raised the stakes. I can no longer keep my lies going. It’s time to at last come clean, correct my mistake, and let her know that our son is in danger.

“There’s something I have to tell you, honey. I know why Jake’s been burying Devon’s—”

“Chris,” she interrupts, and it’s not just worry I see now. It’s . . .

“What’s wrong?”

She steps closer toward the piles, looks them over, then turns back to me.

“Baby . . . ,” she says, shaking her head, eyes filling with tears, “there’s nothing here.”