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.”