For some reason, it’s this memory I think about as I lie in my bed, still fully
clothed, unable to sleep six hours after I’ve slammed my bedroom door. Nothing about that day pertains to anything that’s happening now, but it’s the only thing I can focus on that makes sense. That flash of pain I felt that day has never slipped from my mind and even now I can remember what it felt like, blinding and cold. It let me know I was alive, that I was real. It tethered me to my father in such a way that only death could break. Maybe not even then.
I don’t know why I thought the touch on my shoulder that I knew wasn’t there was my father. I don’t know why I assumed the breath on the back of my neck that wasn’t real was his. I don’t know why I hoped it would be, even though I knew it couldn’t be real. For someone who spent a lot of time actively denying what he hoped to be true, the disappointment I feel is a surprisingly palpable thing. Some part of me had to have believed that Big Eddie still roamed this house in one way or another.
I’ve strained to listen for any movement coming from the house, but I hear none. I don’t know if Cal’s gone or if he’s still in the house. The truck hasn’t started up again, so I know at the very least he hasn’t stolen that. I immediately feel guilty for thinking such thoughts, ignoring the little voice that wants to know why I feel guilty about anything. But Little House is quiet aside from its usual creaks and groans.
For all I know, he could still be making faces at himself in the mirror , I think, squashing the smile that quirks the corner of my lips.
It’s almost five o’clock in the morning. I’ve been up since six the previous day. I should be dead to the world right now. But I’m not. I’m trapped in a memory while struggling to hear the telltale signs of a man who claims to be a guardian angel. Finally, I can’t take it anymore and walk to the door. I press my ear against it and wait. Aside from the subtle creaks of the house, nothing. No footsteps, no voices. No sounds of Cal smooshing up his face in the mirror, no light switches being flicked on and off. Images in my head of him finding the gas stove and flicking that on and off dance through my head, and I open the door to try and find him before he burns the house down.
The hallway is empty. “Hey,” I call out, my voice carrying a slight waver.
Nothing.
I move down the hall. The spare room is empty, as is the bathroom. The kitchen is not on fire, but it too is empty. As is the living room. I call out again, louder, but receive no response. I ignore the twinge that sparks in my chest, because it means nothing. It does nothing for me. It’s not pain like memory; if I focus on it too much, it could become memory, therefore making it real because I’d felt it.
He’s not in the house. He’s nowhere. He’s gone, and now I can go back to my room and climb back into bed and pull the covers up over me and lie there in the dark and drift away. I’ll sleep in for the first time in forever and wake up, already forgetting the night before. I’ll go into the station at some point in the afternoon, ignoring the way my mom or one of the Trio threatens me, telling me to leave, that I’m supposed to have a day off. I’ll shrug their concern off and take over for the rest of the day and then come back to Little House and start my life over again. I’ll start the routine of work and obsessing over my father and the suspicions about his death I can’t prove, and it’ll go on until the day I can no longer get out of bed. From there, the river will cover my head and I’ll drown. I’ll drown because that is what I’m meant to do.
Instead, I open the front door and turn on the porch light. It’s cold and I shiver. The yard seems to be empty other than the Ford and a faint flicker of light in the distance that is Big House. I open the screen door and step out onto the porch and then down the steps. The truck is still unlocked, and when I open the door, for a moment I can smell him, that deep earth smell that reminds me of walking in the forest after it rains. The feather sits on the seat where I left it, slightly bent and twisted from all it’s been through. It warms in my hand.
Fuck. He’s really gone. I can imagine him wandering around, telling people their names and when they were born and who their parents were and getting himself arrested and ridiculed. Crap, what if he gets hurt? What if I see him on the news one day as the cops are trying to identify the homeless man they found frozen to death? A dozen scenarios play through my head, each more damning and melodramatic than the last, and I curse myself for losing my temper so easily.
I’ve turned back toward the house, determined to get my keys and drive until I find the bastard when he says, “That’s such a cherry ride, Benji. You think I’ll still be able to drive it even though you’re mad at me? I really like that truck.”
I look up.
It takes a moment for me to find him, but then the moon pokes through the clouds that remain from the spring thunderstorm and I see him. Cal is sitting on the roof of Little House in my father’s coat, a big imposing figure perched near the edge above the porch like an oversized gargoyle. He’s watching me with a curious expression on his face.
“What are you doing up there?” I sigh.
“You told me to get out of the house. You didn’t say anything about being on it.”
“Of course,” I mutter. “And why would you need to be on it? Or in it, for that matter?”
He shakes his head. “Can’t leave you here.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
He looks at me like I’m stupid. “I’m a guardian angel. I’m guarding.”
“Guarding what?”
“You.”
“Why?”
“You sure ask a lot of questions for someone who doesn’t believe me.”
“I never said I don’t….” I trail off. “How’d you get up on the roof?”
“I climbed.”
“No shit, Cal. Where’d you climb up at?”
“Or maybe I flew up here.”
I snort, unable to stop myself. “Bullshit,” I tell him. “You don’t have your wings.”