In the Swell

On the twentieth of June, my son drowned while I got my dick sucked at a cheap motel in Annandale. I faked a call from work and met my ex in the same room as always. I came home late that night to an empty house and when I turned my phone on, I had a hundred missed calls. As the clock turned and the day with it, I drove to the hospital to find my family destroyed.

Not by anything I had done. At first, I was sure of that. Sitting in my car, foot like a block of lead on the gas, my mind ran wild. Where the hell had Sheila been? Why was no one watching the pool? But then, the natural third thought follows: If I had been there, then… And then you have to stop that thought, you see? Then you have to start all over again. Because if you finish that sentence, then you only have yourself to blame.

So anyways, I get to the hospital. And I’ve been driving so fast to get there, but then I’m there and it’s like I’m paralyzed. I can see lights in the emergency bay from where I’m sitting in my car. I watch an ambulance pull in and they’re pulling a gurney down. I start craning my neck to get a look. They’re moving with no hustle, these guys, yukking about, and I’m getting angry because that’s my son on that plank, isn’t it?

But no, it’s not him, of course it’s not. They’ve been there for hours already. And then you realize it’s another one of those mean little tricks your brain’s been playing on you the whole time. Like you’ve been short circuited, that’s the only way I know to describe it. And your brain’s gonna keep doing that.

So, I’m in the hospital and the whole family’s there. All of them, red-faced and blubbering, no one more than Sheila. She’s a mess, hunched over the bed where he’s… Well, I stop at the doorway because suddenly I know that if I go in, it’s real. I’ve been hoping it’s a prank this whole time. I’ve been praying that somehow my wife found out about the ex, and this is her messed up way of paying me back. It’s like a bargain I’m making with someone who’s not listening. But really, even though my feet won’t move, I can see enough already to know that it’s done. He’s done. I stay where I am, though. If I don’t move through that door, it’s not real. It’s not real until then.

My wife sees me from the bedside and her whole face cracks open. She’s been quiet until then, but she opens her mouth and starts keening. Like a gull. Her mom rushes around and pulls me into the room, so now it’s real. She’s whispering what happened in my ear, but I can’t really hear anything except that scream. That scream is digging into my skull. And I’ve been really, really careful not to look at the form on the bed, because that’s too real.

Sheila reaches for me with hands like claws and grips me. I see the moment that she gets a good smell. I feel the moment that she realizes where I’ve been, or close enough to it. That moment draws on as I look in her bloodshot eyes. It’s like she’s short circuited too.

And you know, they say something like 80% of parents who lose a child end up getting a divorce. They can’t get over the hole in that fabric, they can’t get off the hamster wheel of guilt and anger and sadness. We probably would’ve been part of that statistic even if we’d tried. Truth is, we never gave it a shot. My marriage ended the moment she smelled another woman on my face at our son’s deathbed.

It stops her from screaming, at least. I don’t know if I could have done with any more of that. She looks around, at her family, at our… our daughter, asleep on a plastic chair in the corner. One year old. And as Sheila looks back to me, her face rippling with disgust, I can only look down. That’s when I really see him.

I’m right next to him. He’s so small. He’s only three. He’s still got tubes all over, all inside, but he’s blue and so still. You know, kids are never that still. Even my daughter in the corner, fast asleep, she’s wriggling a bit, chewing on a finger. But he’s quiet. There’s this awful clunking sound, and I realize it’s the air they’re pumping into him. His chest is rising and falling. It’s like a bellows. But it’s too slow. I’m counting those breaths, and get to three, but I’ve been holding my breath the whole time and start to feel dizzy.

“Say goodbye.” My wife looks straight at me. I didn’t know it yet, but it’s the last time she does that. Look me in the eyes. The last shreds of our love die in that gaze. And then she goes, “We waited for you.” She says it with so much venom it’s like a sting. How can you move, knowing that there’s nothing left there to say goodbye to?

“Can he hear me?” I ask her, but she doesn’t answer. She’s picking up my daughter and she’s leaving the room, shoulders shaking in the way where you know she’s crying again, and this time she might never stop. My mother in law runs after her. Sheila’s sister, Nina, stays. She’s looking between me and the door like she knows too, but she doesn’t. She just knows that something has happened that might have nothing to do with what’s lying on the bed between us. Or might have everything to do with it. She’s not sure yet.

“Can he hear me?” I ask again. I don’t know what I’m hoping she’ll say. Like, what do you say to that? There’s nothing right to say. Next thing I know, Nina’s out the door too and I’m alone with him. And oh my god, he’s so beautiful. I’d been telling anyone who’d listen that he’s gonna be a heartbreaker, what with Sheila’s big green eyes and my chin. The feeling of that starts to swell. It’s too big, it’s gonna swallow me whole, so I reach out and grab his little hand instead.

I think of the last time we were in a hospital together, when he was born. I try to count his fingers again, just like that first day, but there’s too much stuff in the way. So, I just lean my head against his belly and remember how they looked, red and wrinkled and all screwed up in the angry way newborns have. I don’t know how long I stay there, just like that. Smelling him through the hospital stink. Stroking his hand, then his downy cheeks that are never going to grow a beard, then his tangled hair, still damp with pool water against the pillow.

Maybe I say things to him. I don’t know. But also, I’m sorry, I don’t think I want to say them again. Those were just for him. I’m sure you get it.

After it’s all said and done, we leave the hospital. I feel all jerky, like someone’s pulling my strings to make me walk. My wife won’t let me hold our girl. We get out there and I’m shocked to see that it’s still dark out. The night air is cool, and so humid that for a second, just a second, I feel like I’ve sucked in a big lungful of pool water. That second lasts forever. All the seconds last forever, because the magnitude of the thing that just happened around you is so much bigger than you, so the only thing you can do is stay tight in your lane.

That’s the secret to getting through these things, that’s why I’m telling you this now, ok? Your brain’s gonna want to stick on things and you have to let it. There’s no other way out of it. You have to go through it, even when the seconds feel like they’re repeating, or the time’s going backwards. It doesn’t go backwards. That’s the problem. It keeps marching forward and you have to go with it, you have to. There will be constant waves of agony where you’ll feel like you’re going to drift away with it, like a kayak in white water. You have to find the rock. If you hit the rock, you can breathe. You can let the time flow around you until you figure out what you have to, so that you can get to the next rock. The next moment.

And just to finish, I’m gonna tell you what happens when you can’t find a rock. We’re outside the hospital in that dark night air, and Nina asks Sheila to spend the night at hers. She agrees.

“But not you,” my wife says in my direction. “You go home. I don’t even want to look at you.”

So, there’s no rock. My son is dead. My marriage is over. I’m just standing there, trying to think of what to do next. The night draws on around me but I’m not seeing it. I’m lost in the swell. Finally, dawn peeks out over the car park and I realize that they’ve left already. They’ve been gone for a while, and I’m still standing there trying to figure out what to say. I watch the sun rise at 6:29AM on the longest day of the year, on the longest day of my life. Without him.

And there’s the rock: It’s daytime and he’ll never see it. And as terrible as that rock is, as lonely and miserable and sharp as it feels, it’s enough to get me back into my car.

You understand what I’m saying, Tony? I know it’s hard to focus on anything right now. What I’m saying is find a rock. Think you can do that for me?