by Will Searcy
and shake my head. “No …” I say. “Not him. I wasn’t trying to help him, only me.”
The boy nods. He does not look at me. He does not need to.
“So,” he says. “Is this the part where you tell me not to do it. How you’d give anything to get your son back and you’re sure I have a mother and father that loves me?”
I sniffle and must have a dumb look on my face. I am only a bridge operator.
“I don’t know. I just didn’t know what to say.”
The boy looks at me and tries to get a read. He is not in a place to deal with deceit. This boy has seen the darkness, and he does not need it to play another trick. Fortunately, I am incapable of tricks.
He lets go of the rail and I reach for him, but he is only scratching his thigh over his gray sweatpants. After the itch is gone, he returns his hand to the rail. A moment passes. He thinks, and my mind is blank.
“Do you even care why I’m here?” the boy asks.
I think of a response. The truth is “no”, but I do not know the truth. I do care. I am not sure I care about the boy, but I care about something. No illusions trick me into thinking this will make my old friend leave. This will not change me at all. But, I do care. I must fight for this boy. I do not know why.
The boy snorts and shakes his head. “How could you? You don’t even know me.”
“I’m Thomas,” I blurt.
The boy looks at me a moment. After the moment has passed, he smiles. “Peter,” he says.
“Do you want to tell me why you’re here, Peter?”
Peter takes a long moment and considers my question. Then, he shakes his head. “No…. I’m tired. I think I’m gonna go home.”
With that, Peter lifts a white shoe over the railing. Then, the other. He stands on my side of the bridge by the burn mark and looks into my eyes.
“Thanks,” he says with a tempered smile.
“I hope I don’t see you again,” I say, and he understands.
We watch each other a moment, and then he walks towards a bright white bicycle that rests next to my car where I always park. He gets on his bike and pedals towards the streetlights of a nearby neighborhood. I watch his figure grow smaller in the distance and I hope his parents are awake when he returns home. I hope his mother kisses him and his father embraces him like a son he had lost and then found. I hope he receives the welcome that drives out darkness. Then, he will not return to the bridge where it is burned.
I turn and look at my glass and steel cage. It is a new perspective for me. When I drive to work, I rarely look up. Now that I look at it, I see an empty box. There are many things in there. I can put still more. Now, for the first time, I do not want to be one of the things I put in there. I do not want to hide anymore.
When I arrive home, I am exhausted. I fought the night with everything I had, and it drained me. Sleep is tempting, but I do not wish to sleep. Instead, I offer to take my wife and Pop to the park. Pop readily agrees. My wife hesitates. Then, she accepts.
The three of us sit on the bench, and we watch the three sons swimming in the pond. We do not speak much, but I feel more a part of the park than ever before. I no longer feel like a distant observer, although all we do is watch. I guess the “we” is the difference.
“Sam liked this?” my wife asks.
I nod. She smiles.
“Good,” she says. “I’m glad.”
Scrooge McDuck plucks the tail feathers of Darkwing, and my wife snickers. Her eyes are bright as she watches. She laughs at the silly ducks, and I think of Sam. The lump returns to my throat, but I do not hurry my old friend away this time. He deserves a moment.
I look over to Daffney’s hiding place and know she is not there, but to my surprise, I see Donald waddle to Daffney’s spot behind the bush in the shadow of the tree and I fear he will try to be invisible like his mother. Instead, Donald stops and honks where the shadow meets the light. It is as if he asks the darkness to move aside so he can proceed. He is a clever duck. Instead of the shadow moving, I hear the sound of chirping, and four little ducklings, hardly a week old, come teetering out of the darkness of the bush to Donald in the light.
It strikes me. Donald is a happy father. Or mother. Or uncle. Or aunt. He waddles towards the pond, and the four little ducklings follow. They splash into the water and swim in a straight line. No ducklings stray to the left or to the right. Scrooge McDuck and Darkwing meet them, and they swim after each other. It is a wonderful sight.
My father likes the pond. He tells me he wishes he had come here sooner. I tell him it reminds me of him watching his game.
“This?” he says. “No. This is life. It’s happening, it’s not over yet.”
I think he is half right. It is not over, but it is the same as always. Maybe there is more hope at the pond than watching the game that already happened. Maybe I can more than hope this. Maybe I can believe here. It is an abstract notion, and I am not there yet, but maybe is close. Maybe is good.
I decide to nap in the afternoon, although I do not wish to sleep. On occasion, I have dreams. Or, I think I do, because I never remember them. I hope I dream of Sam again, and that one day I will remember the dream. But, I know I do not dream of Sam anymore.
For some reason, right before falling asleep, I think of the boy on the bridge. I wonder how he is doing, if he got the welcome he deserved when he returned home. If he told his parents or anyone else about the darkness he had to face. I am happy I was there and could stop him before it was too late. I am surprised I was able. Something tells me that had it happened a few months ago, around the time I burned the bridge, that I would not have helped the boy, and he would have fallen into the darkness.
In the evening, I awaken on the couch to the smell of lamb roasting. My wife is focused in the kitchen. She does not know I am awake yet, so I watch her. One of her eyebrows wrinkles and the other stays straight, like half of her is unsure, but the other half has the steady hand that guides her. A little strand of hair falls over her face, and I know she is beautiful. In a rush, memories flood my consciousness. Her eyes, long ago, when I first saw them. Her smile. Looking up at her from a knee. Her laugh. Her tender hand on my cheek. A whispered promise of love. My wife is beautiful. I am lucky.
She sees me and almost smiles before returning to her work. I rise from the couch and walk into the kitchen to wrap my arms around her and kiss her on the neck.
“You were asleep so your father went to get some bread,” my wife says.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“Seven-thirty, but don’t worry, your work called and said they gave your shift to a new hire tonight. Chuck’s retiring and they want to move you to the day shift.”
I nod and look down at the potatoes she is chopping. She slices them into triangles. I blink the sleep out of my eyes because I do not want to sleep.
“Anything I can do to help?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I guess you can set the table, but it won’t be ready for a while.”
I hold her a moment longer. Our bodies melt together as one, as we used to be and will be again. Then, I walk to the antique cedar and gold chest where we keep the fine china. I take three plates, three bread plates, three glasses, and three sets of silverware and pile them on the table. Then, I take each piece, one by one, and set it in its proper place.
After three hours, my father has returned, the table is set, the lamb is roasted, the potatoes are cooked, the salad is made, the wine is poured, and the bread is broken. We sit around the table. Waiting.
“Why don’t we pray?” my father suggests.
A moment.
Since I have been reading, I have been praying in the confidence of my mind, but I have not spoken a prayer aloud in some time. If ever. I clear my throat and hold a hand from my wife and Pop.
“Dear God,” I pray. “Thank you for this food.”
I pa
use. There are more words to say, but I cannot think of them.
“Thank you for my wife and Pop,” I say. “Thank you for having them put up with me. I know it’s not easy.”
Silence fills the room and infiltrates my thoughts. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. My first instinct is to think through the silence, but then I tell myself to stop. To rest. After a moment, I open my mouth.
“Thank you for Sam,” I say.
My wife’s hand goes cold, but I squeeze the warmth back into it.
“Thank you for four of the best years of my life. Thank you for the moments I had with him. The times when it was just me and him. Thank you for the duck pond and for Daffney and Darkwing and Donald and Scrooge McDuck and all the others. Thank you for Sam’s smile and for the way he made me feel like…” My brain tries to force me into self-awareness, but I must fight it. Something else is speaking, and it is far smarter. “… The way he made me feel like a good father … a good person … even when I wasn’t.”
My old friend returns to support me through my prayer. I welcome him.
“Thank you for our new baby…” I feel my wife jolt in surprise. “Please watch over her and her mother always.”
A moment comes and goes as my lip trembles and my face strains. I want to wish for Sam back. I want to say how much I love and miss him. I want to do so much and say so much, but a body and a voice and a mind are limited.
“I wish I could see him again. Amen.”
I look up from my prayer and