Left Drowning(99)

But tonight we aren’t going anywhere. So I watch Chris sleep, and I wait for the fear to hit him. I’m scared to get up for a glass of water because I don’t want him to be alone when the dreams crash over him. He sleeps on his stomach, his hands up by his head, his breathing deep and even. For now.

Every night, there is a point when Chris reaches for me in his sleep. But he doesn’t reach for me just out of affection. He reaches for me for protection and for comfort. Over the past few weeks he’s had nightmares, although he never confirms them for me in the morning. He sleeps through the dreams, even when his body flinches, sometimes thrashes, and he panics and sweats. But he always reaches for me. I whisper to him that he’s safe, that my sweet boy is safe, and I wrap my whole body over him and will him to feel the intensity of my love and my belief in him.

Why is he having these nightmares so vividly now? I don’t know for sure, but I believe it’s being back in Maine, the place that he never wanted to come back to. Then there’s our proximity to the water. The way Chris looks out at the Atlantic haunts me. I see his deep love for the ocean, but I also see his conflicted feelings and the fragility that he hides so well. The justification he gives for never swimming is that the water is too cold. But I know that’s not the whole story, since physically, Chris could tolerate the cold. It relates to what he told me about having a love/hate relationship with water. It’s the hate part that terrifies me. I have the same thing because of my association between the house fire and the ocean, but I have been using the ocean to help me heal.

Here’s the other thing about his nightmares: I think they are unleashed by being with me. I know it. Our connection elicits the past and the truth from each of us. He thinks that’s crazy, but I don’t. It defies my lack of belief in God and fate, but I know this to be an absolute and unexplainable truth.

I admire Chris for how his strength never falters, but I also look for the times when he is vulnerable because I like taking care of him. So far these moments have come when he is asleep or during certain moments when we are making love. Otherwise, he tries to shield me from what he sees as weaknesses, the things he thinks I don’t want to see. What he doesn’t understand is that seeing him with his guard down is what I am ultimately after, however afraid of it I am. It will show me that he has let me into his heart in a consequential, profound way, and it means that we have a chance at longevity. Of course, as much as I want his walls to come down, I don’t know what it will look like when they crash.

But I can feel it coming. Chris hasn’t said anything to me yet, but I know without a doubt that we won’t be able to hide from what is tormenting him. I haven’t wanted to think too much about what exactly his childhood was made of—what it was like for Sabin, Estelle, and Eric, too—and his insistence on looking solely at the present and the future has distracted me from looking at his past. But as much respect as I have for his privacy, it’s getting harder for me to ignore that he will not be able to run from his own memories forever. I can recognize trauma in another person because I have experienced my own, and to see it in Chris is slowly torturing me.

I feel it brewing furiously beneath the surface of our love: the looming promise of an inevitable, destructive storm.

I hope he will reach for me then.

I am going to fight with everything that I am to save him and to save us, but I won’t be able to do it alone.

The room is dark, and I hear a light rain start outside. I lie on my side and press my body against him with some faint hope that I can shield him from the haunting internal terror. My arm gravitates to his back, and I rest my scar between his two, forming the solid line. I want more than anything for the power of us together to be stronger than the power of the damage.

If I still believed in God, in anything, I would be praying.





JULY

TWENTY-FIRST



Chris takes the hit to the back of his head with as little defiance as a teenage boy can. Defending himself, talking back, usually doesn’t go over well. Not that anything goes over well when his father is like this, but shielding his body or mouthing off can easily lead his father to turn on one of the younger kids instead. It has been three days since the latest episode began, and if history repeats itself, this should be the last day. It hasn’t been this bad in a long time.

Months sometimes go by with nothing. A quiet house, a semblance of normalcy—albeit a cold, intimidating household—and then, as if out of nowhere, it starts. Sometimes a clear bad mood triggers it, sometimes his father’s manic elation over whatever art piece he is working on ends in an abrupt downward spiral. The unpredictability is the worst part. Not knowing when it’s coming, when the rage and need for control will start, is perhaps worse than when the fire finally ignites. The waiting, the fear that an explosion can happen at any time, that’s what is most terrifying.

Well, maybe not the most terrifying. But there is a certain ironic release of tension when his father finally lashes out, because at least then the anticipation is over and there is something clear to deal with. To endure.

All Chris has to do is get through the day. Unfortunately, it is only late morning, so he has a number of hours ahead of him. As long as he keeps his brothers and sister from witnessing whatever happens, he’ll consider today a victory. That’s one of the things that he occupies his mind with during these times, strategizing how to keep them from getting hurt and from seeing as little as possible. And he thinks about the future and how this present hell is not forever.