We Own the Sky(74)

What seemed to captivate Jack were the moments of melancholy: the boredom and impatience that Christmas has not yet arrived; the urgency to get outside in the snow; and then, at the end, the singularly childish sense of loss that comes with the melting of the snow and that first heartbreaking sight of green grass.

It was our seventh and last Christmas. We prepared weeks in advance: the

Christmas table, the gifts for Jack’s stocking, the presents under the tree. Anna had her lists, sending me out to buy napkins, the crackers, the orange juice for the Buck’s Fizz. The details weren’t accidental: the sliced brown supermarket loaf, the cheap bingo set from the toy shop, the giant tin of chocolates. She was trying to re-create, for the very last time, the Romford Christmas my dad used to do at home.

I watched Jack closely at the end of  The Snowman, when the snow had melted and all that was left was the snowman’s hat and scarf on the ground. He didn’t move a muscle, lost in the blizzard of white, as the camera panned away from the little boy crouched on the ground.

“Where did the snowman go, Daddy?” Jack said later that evening when Anna and I were tucking him into bed.

I didn’t know what to say, because this was it, and I didn’t want to fluff my lines. I thought of the little pile of snow, the scarf and hat lying on the ground.

“He’s gone back to the Arctic, Jack,” I said, “to see the other snowmen.”

Jack thought about what I said and turned his head to the side.

“Is he having a party with the other snowmen?” he said, and I thought about the scene where the snowmen were dancing around the fire.

“Exactly, Jack. They’ll be having so much fun,” Anna said, dimming the light next to his head.

Jack seemed content. He stretched out and started to touch his pictures one by one: the Eiffel Tower, the Empire State Building, Taipei 101.

“Are you and Mommy sleeping in the house tonight?”

“Of course, beautiful. We sleep here every night,” I said.

Jack paused. “Why are you sleeping downstairs, Daddy? Why aren’t you

sleeping in Mommy’s bed?”

Anna and I exchanged a guilty glance. “Oh, Daddy’s not sleeping so well and I don’t want to disturb Mommy,” I said, and it was only half the truth.

Jack thought about what I had said. “Even when I’m asleep, will you both be here in the house?”

“Of course we will,” Anna said. “We’ll always be here, so if you need

anything, you just shout and we’ll come, okay?”

“And if I go out of the house, will you come with me?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “We’ll always be with you.”

“Even if I go to the North Pole to see Father Christmas.”

“Yes,” I said, tucking the cover under his body, making sure his legs weren’t exposed. “It would be fun going to the North Pole. Although we’d have to wrap up warm.”

“Snug as a bug in a rug,” Jack said, almost to himself.

“Snug as a bug in a rug,” I repeated.

Jack smiled and snuggled into his pillows. I thought he was dropping off to sleep, but he spoke again, his little voice clear and precise. “When we die, where do we go?”

He said it in a very matter-of-fact way, and I didn’t know if he was talking generally or if he was asking about his own fate.

Anna and I looked at each other in the dim half-light. Did Jack know that he was going to die? It was a question I asked myself a thousand times a day. Did he twig when Spider-Man came to visit or when he received the batch of handmade cards from his classmates in room 1A?

We had read the fact sheets about how to talk to your dying child. We had spoken to Dr. Flanagan and a counselor attached to the Harley Street clinic. Jack was at a difficult age, they said, on a cusp. While he would hold certain notions about death, his conceptual understanding would be primitive and undeveloped.

So do what feels right, they said, as if we were deciding whether or not to co-sleep.

We just didn’t know. How could we possibly know?

“Well,” Anna said brightly, and I realized then she had prepared for the

question, that she knew exactly what to say. “When we die we go to heaven.”

“What’s heaven like?” Jack said.

“Heaven,” Anna said, “is the happiest place in the world where you have all your friends and family and you can play and do whatever you want.”

Jack smiled. “Will they have PlayStation?”

“Of course,” she said cheerily. “They’ll have PlayStation and all your favorite toys and all your favorite food.”

“Will they have McDonald’s?”

Anna laughed. “They’ll definitely have McDonald’s.”

Jack grinned, but then his face turned serious. “And will you and Daddy be there, as well?”

“Of course we will,” I said, trying to follow Anna’s upbeat lead. I reached across the bed and held Anna’s hand, our bodies creating a little cocoon. “We’ll always be with you, so you’ll never be alone.”

Jack nodded solemnly.

“But remember, trouble, we’ll be watching you,” I added, softly flicking his ear and tucking the cover under him. “Making sure you do your homework, that you’re not eating too many hamburgers.”