That night, as I lay in bed with my eyes closed, listening to Grace’s rhythmic breathing, I kept seeing my mom’s face on the inside of my eyelids. It was as though she was being projected onto a screen. The face would be calm, and then it would smile, and then her mouth would open as if she were screaming, and then it would explode, only to return to the screen, piece by piece, an explosion in reverse. It became haunting after a while, and I opened my eyes and sat up on the side of the bed. I got up and went into the bathroom, drank some water, and tiptoed back into the room. I glanced at the digital clock on the bedside table near Grace. It was two in the morning, but I knew I wasn’t going to sleep anytime soon. And even if I did, since my mom’s death, the nightmares and the thoughts of killing whoever had bombed her house had increased in frequency and intensity. I’d gotten to the point where I would rather stay awake.
I went into Grace’s den and picked up a book I’d bought from Amazon, Man’s Search for Meaning. It had been written in 1946 by an Austrian of Jewish descent named Viktor Frankl. Frankl was a trained psychologist and had been imprisoned in three different Nazi concentration camps during World War II. It was during his imprisonment that he’d also turned toward philosophy as a means of trying to survive the terrible conditions under which he was being held. His message was largely positive, but there were sections of the book that talked about the depersonalization of inmates who had been liberated and who were so numb they were initially unable to understand what freedom meant or how to emotionally respond to being free again. It was probably the first academic, intellectual approach to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, although he hadn’t used that terminology. I had gone through many of the things he described when I was released from prison, and that’s why I’d wound up in the same room with Dr. Benton. It took me a while to get my “free legs,” as I called it. I couldn’t comprehend pleasure. Everything was so surreal that I was simply unable to enjoy simple pleasures and deal with the lack of constant restriction.
Frankl wrote that a second stage began after the mind initially accepted the person was again free, and it was during that stage that a very real danger of mental illness presented itself. Many former concentration camp prisoners became obsessed with dispensing the same kind of violence that their abusers had dispensed. When I was first released from prison, I’d had some of those thoughts, but I’d been able to put them out of my mind because I had my mom and Sean and Grace. I’d had nightmares constantly, and while I’d occasionally thought about violence and murder, I hadn’t been obsessive. But after what happened to my mom, I found myself in a state of mind that I knew wasn’t normal and was definitely dangerous. All I could think about was killing the two men who Big Pappy said were responsible for her death. I knew, at some level, that what I was thinking about doing was wrong and could land me right back in jail, but I’d made up my mind that I was going to kill them. If I was caught and they tried to imprison me again, I would find a way to commit suicide.
As I turned a page in Frankl’s book, I noticed movement in the hallway. Grace appeared, wearing a sheer, black nightgown that was backless and had spaghetti straps. She looked incredible wearing it, but I hadn’t had any desire to touch her since the day my mom was killed. She sat down on the couch next to me and snuggled in. “Can’t sleep again?”
“I tried. Didn’t work out.”
“How’s the book?”
“I don’t think it’s helping much, to be honest. I mean, I’m trying to accept this guy’s message that life is about loving others, that love should be the ultimate goal of any meaningful life, and that if I’ll just open my heart and give myself to others, my life will have real meaning, and everything else will work itself out. But I’m not feeling it. I mean, the night my mom was murdered I had just offered to give myself to you for the rest of our lives. I told you I loved you, I showed you I loved you, and every bit of it was sincere. And then what happens? Mom is murdered.”
She put her hand on my arm. “You’re grieving, Darren. You’re going through a period of denial and isolation. It’s perfectly normal, and it will pass. When it does, you’ll probably become angry.”
“I’m already angry,” I said.
“Okay, then you have every right to be. You’ve been through a lot over the past few years, and this is completely over the top. But we have to be careful. We have to make sure you don’t become self-destructive. You need to go back and see Laura, and you have to be open and honest with me. I’ll help you through this, Darren. You still have me, and you still have Sean. I know it just seems like talk right now, but all we really need is time. Time and love will get you through this terrible thing.”
“Thank you, Grace,” I said. I reached over and caressed her cheek. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do.”
I wondered what she would think or do if she knew what I was planning. Would she shun me? Try to talk me out of it? Ultimately, it didn’t matter. I’d made up my mind.
“Would you like to come back to bed?” she asked. “Are you ready to make love to me?”
“I want to,” I said, and I was sincere. “I really, really, want to. But I just don’t think I can right now. I don’t think I could let myself go.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “You’ll be ready soon enough.”
“Go back to bed. I feel guilty keeping you up.”
She stood, bent over, and kissed me on the forehead. “I love you. I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I love you, too. Good night.”
As soon as she disappeared into the darkness of her bedroom, I closed Frankl’s book, leaned my head back, and closed my eyes.
The image of my mother was gone. It was replaced by a faceless man lying on the ground. He was faceless only because I didn’t yet know what Donnie Frazier looked like. I was standing over him, straddling him, with a pistol pointed at his forehead.
I pulled the trigger, and the blood sprayed.
CHAPTER 12