Caleb

I woke up to miles of darkness, dead quiet, and hollow fear. It was just me and the shadows for a while. My heart beat against the blackness, pumping blood through a body I’d run down to the bone.

Someone called out to me. Someone I’d tried to forget, someone I’d loved too much, who’d left me too soon. She was somewhere in the dark. I didn’t think I’d ever hear her again, but I knew that voice too well to deny it.

I couldn’t see her, or much of anything, but I kicked my legs off the ground and broke out running. Running like I could find her blind. I’d chase that voice across forever just to hear it again. If this was dying, God never runs out of surprises.

I ran until my blood set my heart on fire, and it burned brighter the closer I got to where she was. Something subtle and sweet slipped right past my nose out of nowhere.

Spiced honey and lily flowers.

I fell to my knees, like all the hope keeping me standing was sucked out by that smell. I only ever lost hope in anything for two reasons, I either gave up on what I was looking for, or I found it. And this time, I found it.

She was right there with me, I felt it, and I breathed her in ‘til I couldn’t anymore. I cried out like I did the day I lost her. All that misery I’d gotten so good at carrying around just up and boiled over.

I tried stopping myself, like always—to man up and hold it together. But every time I came close, my eyes filled up ‘til there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

She spoke to me. Like she was next to me this time, and said, “You’re alright, love,” and I fell apart like a toy soldier.

When I finally got around to not crying, I blinked the water out of my eyes, and there she was, cradling my head in her arms and gazing out over her bedroom window watching the sunset like she always did.

The darkness disappeared as quick as it came. Maybe I cried it away, or maybe I died, but I didn’t ask questions.

Her room and all her beautiful things still looked exactly how she’d left it. The pretty gold clock she had by her bedside, the hundred little wooden boxes me and my brothers made for her precious things, the dried flowers from her wedding day—everything was still there, and still perfect. So was she.

Not a lick of disease or despair had marred her face yet. Soft rose budded in her cheeks and her eyes still burned bright like mine. Seeing her like that made it hard to believe that she’d eventually wither away.  

I stopped thinking too much and thanked God for giving her back to me like this—like nothing had changed.

Her bed was the softest place in the world, and as I lay there, disappearing into a kind of peace I hadn’t felt in a long while, I figured I could die here with her and not think twice about it. If there was any mercy in the world I was already dead, I just didn’t know it yet.

I didn’t speak for a long time, just lost myself in the feeling of her running her porcelain fingers through my hair. I reached up and tugged on the corner of her nightgown, the silk and lace one she used to wear when she wanted to feel beautiful. I never saw her any other way.

I glanced up at my hands as I clung on to her sleeves. They’d gotten so small, as small as they used to be when I was only nine or ten. Maybe heaven for someone like me was a good memory with my Ma. I could live and die with that just fine.

She looked down at me with the kindest eyes in the world, and asked if I was hungry. Sometimes that’s all you ever need to hear.

I opened my mouth to tell her I could eat and a squeaky half-pint of a voice came stumbling out. I’d always been the runt. If I hadn’t had my brothers, I would’ve come home black and blue from school more often than I did.

Cillian must’ve been seventeen back then, and Marcus and Liam both in their twenties. Nobody looked at me the wrong way with them around. We used to be our own little the gang when things were good, or better at least.

I crawled up on all fours and sat back on my heels so my toes dug down into the blankets. Ma gave me one of her famous looks and I straightened out my feet.

      “You’ll end up with crooked toes Caleb! You’re silly enough as you are! A young man with a crooked foot won’t fare well with the ladies,” she said.

God, I missed her voice. Not a child in this world thinks they’ll miss getting scolded, but you learn to once it’s gone. She held her finger up to the tiny space between my eyes, and tapped me on the nose.

I fell backwards into her bed laughing, and she followed me with all ten fingers tickling my skinny excuse for a stomach.

        “Ma, what’re we having tonight? Can we eat before Da and others get back?” I asked, my old Dublin accent dancing on the tip of my tongue. She pulled her brown hair into a tuft or ponytail or whatever girls call it, and cocked her head sideways.

       “What kind of mother would I be to spoil my youngest?"

       “C’mon Ma! Please! Just a little something! I’ll do Liam’s chores for a week!”

Her lips perked up at the corners. She knew I was good for it. I’d only broken one promise in my life and it was years after this day.

        “Well if you’re starving there’s lamb stew on the stove but you can only have a bite or two. If your Da finds out I’ve been feeding ye’ before him, he’ll throw a fit.”

She looked distant for a minute, like she saw herself somewhere else, somewhere better than where she’d ended up. She leaned over and kissed me hard on my cheek ‘til it wrinkled up like a prune. I glared back at her, stupidly bashful, like all little boys do when their mothers embarrass them.

        “Why d’ya have to do that?” I asked.

        “’Cause you’re a growing boy, Cal, and growing boys need good love and good food. Now get on to the kitchen, before ye’ get the two of us into trouble.”

I slid off the edge of the bed, flew across the room in my socks, and darted out the door before she could tell me to slow down. I couldn’t remember this day. Maybe it really was a blessing, or beautiful illusion, ‘cause I couldn’t remember being happy in that house.

Maybe this was some version of what could’ve been, the life I could’ve had if my dad wasn’t around, ‘cause things felt close to perfect. I was ten again and flying, with nothing broken or bruised slowing me down. I was free, and stuffing my face with meat and potatoes.

Ma came in to the kitchen wearing that pale blue dress dad bought for her back before they were married. I hated that dress. She used to put it on when he’d come home, hoping he’d notice her in it. The old bastard never said a damn thing.

She’d set herself up time and time again only for him to ignore her. So I’d always told her she looked nice whenever she’d come rushing into the kitchen hurrying to set the table before the old man came home.

Ma shooed me away from the stove and I ran to the sink, dirty bowl in hand, and threw it to the bottom. I was too small to reach the faucet handles so I left it there for later and helped Ma put out the plates and silverware for dad and my brothers.

The daylight faded in the kitchen. 'Seemed too early for the sun to turn in for the night, but I didn’t have time to worry about the dark with dad coming home.

Once we’d finished setting up, the dining table looked perfect. Ma even put out candles. I wanted dad to notice the work she’d done, and how much love she’d put into this dinner for him and his boys.

Chances were he wouldn’t, but I hoped things would be different this time. Ma and I were happy for now, and I wanted more than anything else for us to stay that way.

Dad’s headlights peered over the first hill of the driveway, and I scrambled over to the window, tugging Ma by her skirt to follow me. She picked me up so I could see over the sill.

I was hardly four foot then, so I needed a chair or a bigger person with me everywhere I went. I saw Liam, Marcus, and Cillian all sitting next to each other, talking up a storm, while Dad screeched his old truck to a stop in front of the house.

Liam came waltzing in the door, dressed to the nines in one of dad’s suits. Clean-shaven, scrawny, stinking of Old Spice. He must’ve come back from a job interview in town. Ma teared up at the sight of him when he kissed her hello.

She always cried when she saw any of the four of us growing into young men too fast. Liam looked as smug as any other twenty something would be, thinking the world was his oyster.

He called me to him and I went running across the room and into his arms. He picked me clean up off the ground and spun me around ‘til I got dizzy.

I used to love Liam more than anyone else in the world. Back then, if you’d told me that one day I’d be running from him, I would’ve spat in your eye. Funny, how life complicates things.

Marcus and Cillian kissed Ma and took turns ruffling my hair into a disaster. She was the first to scold them both for doing it before sending them and Liam off to wash up for dinner.

Dad came in last, sooty and tired from work. The second I laid eyes on that leathery face, I knew I hadn’t ended up in heaven. Instead, I’d landed somewhere between hell and an ugly memory. Dad didn’t look at any of us, just stomped over to the table quiet and angry, like always.

I thought his job in the mines made him crazy, ‘cause every day he’d come home angrier than the last, complaining about there not being enough money and all that. He was the only one of us who didn’t kiss Ma. He grunted at her to get him his bottle of Jameson from the cabinet, and threw his things on the floor for her to pick up.

I ran into the kitchen and pulled up a chair so I could reach his whiskey. I hated watching Ma on her hands and knees without any help, so I figured if I got him his whiskey he’d be happier with the both of us.

The bottle was so big in my hands—too big. I wasn’t old enough to carry it much less to be serving it to my own father, but that’s just the way things were. His eyes fell on me and I got shaky all of a sudden, scared to death of doing anything wrong.

Ma turned around in time to see me struggling and came to pick me up off the counter. She took the bottle out of my hands and gave it to Dad. She had this look in her eyes like she knew something was wrong, but she knew not to ask questions.

We all did.

        “Caleb, go wash up with your brothers and leave this to me, “ she said, with a kind of urgency behind her trembling baby-blues that kicked up a familiar fear in the heart of my stomach.

But I wanted to help, so I reached out to grab one of dad’s whiskey glasses as she carried me away. It was too smooth for me to hold on to and I watched it tumble out of my grip and down towards the tile floor.

I closed my eyes and prayed to God that by some miracle dad wouldn’t hear it shatter, but the second he did, all the rage he’d been harboring since he came home exploded like a gas main.

        “Deirdre! You bring him to me. You bring him here now, or I’ll come after the both of you.”

I dug my nails into the back of Ma’s dress and clung to her ‘til my hands turned white. She turned me away from him, and straightened up even though she was shaking. God, she was brave, braver than I was.

I loved her for that. Marcus, Cillian, and Liam came running into the kitchen from the back of the house. All three of them looked at me wide-eyed like they knew what was coming. Ma and my brothers always protected me in the ways they could, but when it came to dad, no one was safe.

        “Don’t you speak to either of us like that, Jack. You’ve no right to be threatening anybody in my house,” she said.

        “Bring him here, Deirdre. I won’t ask you again.”

I don’t remember ever being as scared of my dad as I was then. I kept waiting for Ma to let me go and send me over to him, but she didn’t. She only held on to me tighter, shushed my crying, and said everything was going to be alright.

All of us knew that was far from the truth. But sometimes you need little white lies when there isn’t a silver lining.

The legs of Dad’s chair screeched across the floor and I shut my eyes when I heard him get up. He backed Ma into the counter so hard my knees slammed against it from around her waist.

       “Who’s paying the bills, Deirdre? Who’s working to put food on the table and clothes on their backs, while you make next to nothing teaching school children non-sense? I’ll decide what goes on under this roof. Give me my son.”

Dad clamped his hands around my sides and I hollered as loud as I could to try and get him to let me go. Ma and the boys shouted at him to stop, but he slammed his fist into the dinner table so hard I thought the plates would break. Everyone went quiet.

        “The four of you sit down and wait. If I hear so much as a word, I’ll be back for anyone who wags their tongue.”

Ma broke down watching him carry me away. Marcus and Cillian didn’t dare look in his direction. But Liam was burning. I saw it behind his eyes. The same quiet rage he’d eventually lose control of. He ran up behind dad, grabbed him by the meat of his shoulder, and flipped him around.

He had nothing else tearing through his blood but an iron will to protect me.  But before he could get in a word, Dad sent the brunt of his fist flying into Liam’s face, and laid him out for the first and last time.

Liam didn’t cry. He never cried. He sat up on his elbows, swished the blood around in his mouth, and spat at our father. He stood his ground like a man, while all I could do was cry. I wanted to be brave like him, to burn bright enough to outshine the shadows, but I wasn’t. Not yet.

Dad left Liam alone, flipped me over his shoulder, and carried me down the hallway to his room. I remembered this day. I wish I hadn’t.

He had a cane in the corner of his room he’d kept from his army days. The damn thing was plain to begin with but dad carved all kinds of patterns into it over the years, and eventually used it to carve into the four of us.

He pulled down my pants and bent me over the side of his bed like a twig. I thought if I screamed enough that maybe he’d hear me—that maybe he’d stop. But the whistle and crack of his cane cut right through my crying.

The damn thing crashed so hard against my backside I stopped breathing the first time he hit me.

Somewhere in the middle of him beating me half to death I stopped being a child. By the tenth or eleventh hit, he’d split my skin open, and at twenty I went blind from the pain.

I couldn’t even see my own hands balled up in front of me anymore. He whipped the shit outta me ‘til I sunk to my knees and pissed myself right in front of him. I remember thinking there wasn’t anything worse than that—pissing your pride down your pants ‘cause of your father. I stilldon’t.

By the end of it, I didn’t have a voice left to cry with and I got sick all over his sheets from breathing in the stink of my clothes for too long. He screamed at me for it.

        “Go and wash yourself, and hurry on to dinner. You’ll be cleaning this mess on your hands and knees after, so you’d better find your appetite. Don’t keep us waiting.”

I spat out a broken “Yes, sir,” and limped down the hallway after him, clinging to the wall with my tiny fingers. I got to the bathroom, closed the door so no one would hear me, and cried ‘til I was dry in the face.

Worse than having put up with Dad’s cane was having to sit across from him at the dinner table. I couldn’t even stand up straight, how the hell was I meant to sit in a wooden chair in front of my family and pretend things were alright?

I changed out of my clothes and stuffed towels into my pants so no one could see the bleeding. I remember saying Grace, and hoping God wouldn’t tell Dad what I was praying for.

Ma and Liam sat on either side of me that night and held on to my hands for a long while after our prayers were over. I looked out the window, watched the sun die, and knew that my house would never be the same place for me once the light disappeared over the hills.

The shadows settled in, and all the people I’d loved or tried to love faded ‘til I was alone in darkness again. I went back to feeling like myself, seventeen years worn down, and searching for some kind of answer to all the questions I never asked.

So, I did the one thing I hadn’t in a while. I shut my eyes and got into a long conversation with God. I asked Him to help me find the light again, and waited for Him to answer. He didn’t say anything, but I knew He was listening, ‘cause the longer I prayed, the lighter things got.

I came to and Hailey was right by my bedside in a room too blurry to recognize. She had my big ugly hand cupped between her tiny fingers and looked like she’d been crying in her sleep. I’d seen her like this too many times today.

Looking at her there, lying across the bed with hair matted and dark from the rain, I told myself that I wouldn’t keep being the reason behind her sadness.

God knows, I had one too many behind my own. I didn’t have enough strength to talk, or tell her how good it was to have her there. So I did the one thing I was strong enough to do.

I kissed her—right in the tiny space between her eyes. She didn’t stir, or pull back away from me like I thought she would. She just kept breathing, slow and peaceful, ‘til the tears stopped.

I shifted closer to her, and tried to lose myself in her warmth instead of focusing on the pain from moving as little as I had.

My eyes came down heavy and the nagging ache of bruises, bullet holes, and broken bones pulled me out of consciousness, but I wasn’t scared to fall asleep. ‘Cause this time, I knew I’d be back. This time, someone was waiting for me, and she’d hold my hand all the way through the dark.