Through the Wooden Door

by K Carr

  You were supposed to be watching him! You were supposed to be watching him!

  Those were the words she had screamed at him in the hospital while her hands, stained with their son’s blood, beat against his chest. His shirt had been bloodied from cradling Cory right after the accident, some parts were still damp if memory served him correct. If memory served him correct? Who the fuck was he kidding? He remembered everything about that day.

  You were supposed to be watching him!

  She had collapsed into his arms, sobbing hysterically as the doctor who had just officially confirmed Cory’s death stepped back to allow them the time to assimilate the dreadful news. Connor made an attempt to clear his throat. The harsh, raspy sound seemed to dance around the darkness; mocking him.

  You were supposed to be watching him!

  As if trapped in a macabre, mental manifestation of hell; Connor tried to stop the flood of memories bombarding him, tried and failed. It was always razor sharp with its clarity. Each image burned into his retina. Each second seemingly elongated until everything felt mired in tar. An invisible tar which slowed it all down and magnified his mental torture.

  He should’ve been paying better attention instead of focusing on his phone. Why had he even brought the phone outside? It was a Saturday and he shouldn’t have been thinking about work, far less sending out angry text messages to one of their pipe suppliers. Weekends were supposed to be family time. Jen would pout if he forgot the rule but she understood…usually. And that Saturday the team were working overtime on a job which should’ve been sorted two days prior. Why hadn’t he paid attention? Why? Why? Why?

  Jen had just helped Megan jump off her bike. They were both blowing kisses to him and Cory before running up the drive to the house with Megan shouting how much she needed the toilet. Jen had yelled for him to keep an eye on their son and warned she was going to take cash out his wallet because she was sure an ice-cream truck would turn up soon. Megan had been dancing around trying to hold in her wee and yanking on Jen’s arm. They were both giddy and he made an off-hand comment about them being sun crazed. He remembered chuckling at his girls’ behaviour, telling Cory how silly his mother and big sister were.

  Connor twisted his head to the right. 2:21 am. The barely there glow from the numbers on the clock blurred as moisture flooded his eyes. He could hear him in his head: Cory’s little voice, his giggles.

  Daddy, look. Look at me, Daddy.

  He had looked, and cheered on, as Cory worked hard to propel his tricycle along the sidewalk in front the house. Why were they out front? It had been on the children’s insistence. The back yard had too much grass, they couldn’t get the speed and smoothness they wanted over the back lawn. He should’ve said no. Jen hadn’t been eager for them to ride out front, but he had told her to stop fussing like an overprotective mother hen. She had laughed, he remembered that too, she had laughed and stuck her tongue out at him before chasing after Cory and Megan to slather sunblock on their skin.

  They had helmets on, knee and elbow pads; he and Jen were good parents. They were good parents. Maybe they should’ve moved the cars from on the driveway to the road. The kids could’ve ridden their bikes on the driveway instead of the sidewalk. But it was such a quiet street…usually such a quiet street. They lived in a great neighbourhood. Kids played outside all the time, running up and down, shouting hellos to the neighbours.

  They were good parents. Jen was a good parent.

  Daddy, look. Look at me, Daddy.

  The look on Jen’s face…he would never forget the look on her face when she saw him holding Cory.

  Look at me, Daddy.

  He should’ve been watching him, even though he had only been distracted for a couple of minutes…Connor should’ve been watching him. The sounds…oh god. It was the screech of tyres which tore his attention from his phone. How had Cory ended up on the street instead of the sidewalk? In those seconds as he screamed a warning, as his limbs burst into a flash of speed that would never be enough, Connor finally understood what they meant by completely trusting in God and believing God’s grace would cover his people. In that moment his trust was absolute.

  But his faith had been misplaced. There was no miraculous, divine intervention. There were no unexplainable occurrences where the car somehow avoided his son. There was nothing except that horrible bang, that grinding sound of metal and asphalt and his screams all intermixed into one. It was an out of body experience, all happening right before his eyes and there was nothing – not one fucking thing – he could do about it. Helmet. Elbow pads. Knee pads. Cory wore them all, but he never stood a chance when the car hit him. That form of protective gear catered for falls, it couldn’t protect against the impact of a car slamming into Cory and his tricycle. There had been a weird moment of silence, or maybe it was just the roaring in his ears which blocked out all other sound. Then he was racing towards Cory who had been flung a few metres off his tricycle. The neighbours were running out their houses, hearing the commotion.

  Jen and Meg. He had already picked up Cory in his arms when Jen came tearing out their house with Meg. Connor remembered Mrs Parker, their next door neighbour but one, grabbing Meg before she could see the thing which had her mother frozen to the spot. He would never forget the look on Jen’s face, or that one terrible scream of anguish which fell from her lips as the realization set in.

  Daddy, look.

  Catastrophic head and internal injuries. Those were the words the doctors had used.

  Look at me, Daddy.

  There had been so much blood, more blood than he would’ve ever thought could fit into a body that was only three and a half years old.

  You were supposed to be watching him. Those words were forever seared into his brain. He should’ve been watching him. His beautiful son. His perfect little Cory. The fourth and final piece to their family puzzle. And he was gone forever now.

  Connor took in a ragged breath of air. His chest felt constricted and his head felt as if it would explode. Shit. All he wanted was to go back to sleep and not dream. He jumped off the bed and stumbled blindly in the dark to the en-suite, pushed the door open and slapped his hand against the light switch. The bright light had him blinking ferociously as he hurried over to the cabinet and quickly rummaged around until his fingers closed around the bottle of pills. Popping the lid, he shook two out in the palm of his hand before tossing them into his mouth. Ignoring the need for water, he swallowed them down dry. It hurt, but he wanted it to hurt. He wanted to feel a jolt of physical pain to remind himself that he wasn’t trapped in the memories, he was here. But was here any better?

  He closed the bottle of prescription pills and stared at it in his hand. It had been months since he last needed to take them. Prescribed by his doctor to help him sleep, that was all. So what if it also helped with anxiety? That wasn’t the reason he took it. He just wanted to sleep. Connor put the pills back in the cabinet and closed the door. He splashed some water on his face then peered at his reflection. He didn’t recognize himself anymore. He had the same face, slightly gaunter than before, but it was the same. It was more than his features. Connor didn’t know who he was anymore. He had proudly worn the titles husband and father with a deep sense of pride. Husband. Father. Those were the two words he identified himself by. A husband. A father. Yet, it felt as if he was neither. Who was he if not Jen’s husband? How did he identify if not as Megan’s father? Cory’s father...

  Connor glared at his reflection. For as long as he had known, from simply watching his own father and the men in his family; father was synonymous with provider…protector. Unable to look at himself in the mirror, he stalked out the en-suite and got back into bed. The light shone into the bedroom, pooling around the bed and creating shadows. Knowing the pills took a little while before they worked, Connor reached for his phone on the bedside table. He unlocked the screen then hesitated. Should he call? A minute passed before he made the call.

  She answered on the fourth ring. �
�Hey,”

  “Hi,” he croaked out. “Is this a bad time?”

  She chuckled softly. “It’s half two in the morning,”

  “Sorry,” he muttered. “Sorry for calling,”

  “Don’t be,” she rushed to say. “I’m glad you did. It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed then fell silent.

  “How have you been?” she asked. He grunted in response and she chuckled again. “That bad huh?”

  “Yeah,”

  “How’s your Megan doing? Is she ok?”

  Connor sighed softly. “I don’t know, Riley. She’s seeing the psychiatrist again.”

  “That’s a good thing.” she said with conviction. “It really is, Connor.”

  “She had a massive meltdown,” he confided. “It was,” He sighed again, unable to verbalize how bad it was and remembering how distraught his daughter had been at his birthday party. “I don’t know. I’m hoping the sessions with her doctor helps. She’s so, I don’t know, she doesn’t talk about it much,” He let out a frustrated huff and rubbed his bare chest. “Just like her mom.”

  Riley cleared her throat softly. “And how is Jennifer?”

  “I don’t know,” Connor groused.

  “Connor,”

  “I had the dream again,” he blurted out. “The one about the accident.”

  “That sucks,” Riley murmured sympathetically.

  “Yeah, it does.” He stared at the dressing table across the room. The light from the en-suite enabled his eyes to make out the shape of certain things. Jen’s perfume was one. “How about you? How are you doing?”

  “As well as expected,” It was Riley scoffing now.

  “Still going to group?” he asked, curious but already having an inkling of what the answer would be.

  Riley exhaled down the line. “I haven’t been for a while.” There was a small pause before she added, “Just like you.”

  They both fell silent, not an awkward silence but one of shared misery. Connor was first to break the silence, carefully though; Riley was one of the few people he believed had a worse situation than him.

  “How are things with Vincent lately?”

  The heavy sigh from Riley was answer enough, but she did expound. “He’s travelling more with work, um, he’s in Arizona at the moment. He promised we would go away for a mini vacation when he gets back but,” her words trailed off.

  Connor understood that ‘but’. It was the cold dose of reality coming after a dash of pathetic hope. He had experienced many of those ‘but’ these past months. “Sounds great.” he said encouragingly.

  “If it actually happens. I think he prefers being away,” Riley stated glumly. She sighed softly. “Does it ever get better?”

  Connor didn’t answer. He didn’t know what the answer was.

  “I mean, when? Is there a timeline?” she chuckled bitterly. “I wish someone would just give us a timeline.”

  “I guess it depends,” Connor couldn’t stop staring at the silhouette of Jen’s perfume bottle. “All I know is we can’t change the past and from where I’m sitting, the future isn’t looking too great.”

  Riley sniffed a little before asking, “Have you been seeing Megan lately? Is Jennifer giving you access to her?”

  “It’s slightly better now,” he admitted. “Slightly. Meggie’s psychiatrist convinced Jen it was better for everyone if we spent more family time together.”

  “I bet that went over well,” she said. “And the divorce? What’s happening with that?”

  “She still wants to go forward with it,” he admitted. “I told her I’m not going to make it easy but,”

  There it was, one of those ‘but’s.

  “I’m sorry,” Riley’s voice had dropped to a despondent murmur. “Maybe she’ll change her mind? You know, after she sees how much the therapy helps,”

  “Does it?” Connor’s terse question came out harsher than he’d intended.

  Riley didn’t reply immediately, perhaps mulling over the question. “I don’t know, Connor. I thought it did…at first. Then I begun thinking, I realized there’s nothing I can do or say to – I don’t know. We can hope,”

  “Hope?” The mocking lilt to his voice wasn’t directed at Riley, but at himself. “How long are we going to sell ourselves that lie, huh?”

  “God,” Riley exclaimed. “We’re a mess, aren’t we?”

  A chuckle, a real one filled with begrudging amusement, snuck out his mouth. “A mess? I think we’re well and truly past that stage, Riley.”

  She laughed down the line then stopped abruptly to ask, “How are you feeling now?”

  “Better,” Connor admitted after a short pause. “Thank you.”

  “No,” she said. “Thank you. I always feel better after talking to you.”

  “What?” he scoffed in disbelief. “Yeah, right. I call you in the early hours of the morning like a frightened child talking about a bad dream I had,” He snorted under his breath. “Complain about the dire state of my marriage – you should be cursing me out for disturbing your sleep, not thanking me.”

  “You make me feel less alone, Connor,” she confessed. “When we talk – I can’t talk to Vince the way I talk with you. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes,” he muttered, understanding exactly where she was coming from. “It does.”

  The things he and Riley spoke about sometimes, these were things he wouldn’t discuss with his wife for fear of pushing her away even further. Shit. She was already far away, both physically and intimately. And emotionally. He missed that part of their relationship, the talking; not the banal conversations about work or the day-to-day mechanics of family life, but the meaningful ones. The conversations were he would watch her features become animated and her words would sometimes trip over each other as she tried to get her thoughts out. Or the ones where she would silently listen to him, nodding ever so often before saying a few sentences which would give him a new and unexpected slant on whatever he was discussing. She was good at that. He missed that.

  “Sometimes I wish Vince was more like you,”

  His eyebrows shot up in the semi-dark room. Carefully, he tried to navigate this turn in their chat. “In what sense?”

  “I don’t know,” she sounded flustered. “Just more like you and less like him.”

  Connor wasn’t stupid, and the counsellor of the group where he had first met Riley had explicitly stated that grief could draw people together in unhealthy ways. The counsellor had warned that supporting each other, which was what the group was all about, shouldn’t lead to other types of relationships, especially the ones which could potentially do more harm than good.

  Basically the counsellor had warned them not to sleep with each other while trying to deal with their guilt.

  “I’m not as good a person as you might think I am,” he gently reminded her.

  “It’s ridiculous though,” she mused. “The way I can talk with you and not my own husband!”

  He cleared his throat. He wasn’t stupid, and he had to be careful with this friendship he and Riley had formed. They’d had a connection from the very first moment they met. He couldn’t explain it, he just felt it.

  “That’s because we both fucked up the most important things in our lives,” he said softly. “And a fuck up like that can make anyone closer.”

  She made a sound he couldn’t quite decipher then exhaled loudly. “Have you started back praying?”

  “No.” Connor didn’t want to think about it.

  “Your faith was a big part of who you-”

  “Riley,” he cut her off and rubbed a hand over his face. “I can’t do that anymore. I don’t – it’s not – I just can’t.”

  “Ok,” she murmured soothingly. “It’s ok. I didn’t mean to upset you,”

  “No,” Connor rushed to assure her his reaction was less to do with her question and more to do with his disillusionment. “You haven’t. I’m just really angry at God right now and,” he sighed loudly
. “I can’t. It’s like my mind won’t let me. Cory’s funeral was the last time I’ve been in a church, and honestly, if I never see the inside of a church it would be too soon.”

  “I hate churches now,” Riley agreed. “And I wasn’t even as religious as you were!” she chuckled bitterly. “Yesterday I bumped into some work colleagues – ex work colleagues – it was awful. They couldn’t wait to get away from me as if I was some sort of leper. And it pissed me off because I was trying to avoid them and they approached me.”

  Connor grunted a noise of understanding. He knew all too well what Riley was talking about. He had experienced it…was still experiencing it. Sometimes he wished there was no need to interact with people.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “I feel as if I need to vent but-”

  “Hey,” Connor stopped her mid-sentence. “You don’t ever need to apologize to me, and I am always here if you want to vent or not.”

  “Thanks,” she replied softly.

  “Right back at ya,” he tried to lighten her mood. “I called you, remember?”

  Riley chuckled. “You did. You should call more often.” she chastised. “When did we last talk? Two, maybe three months ago?”

  “Longer,” Connor said. “You know how things get.”

  “Yes,” she murmured with a tired sigh. “I do.”

  The tone of their chat had taken a glum turn once more, and they only continued talking for a further ten minutes before making half-hearted promises to meet up soon. With Riley’s directive to take care of himself ringing in his ears, Connor hung up the call and put aside his phone. Did he feel better having spoken to her? Or was their conversation nothing more than a pity party for two? Whatever it was, it was a safe space for him, for Riley too.

  “Shit,” he grumbled and rolled out of bed to go turn off the bathroom light. Stumbling back to bed, Connor pulled the sheets over his head and closed his eyes, willing the pills to do their job.

  Jen’s sobs echoed in his head. You were supposed to be watching him. This time when he drifted back to sleep, the pills ensured it was a dreamless slumber, and for that he was grateful.