Into This River I Drown

That everything will be okay. If he believes in you, then you need to believe in him. Nothing’s written in stone.

I pull away from her hands and turn back to Cal. I fall to my knees again beside him and lean down, brushing my lips against his. The blue lights flash brightly again, and his wings are solid beneath me for seconds before they start to flicker again. I pull away only just, our lips still pressed together. “Do you believe in me?” I ask him quietly.

There’s no answer. Just the lights. Just his wings.

But it’s enough.

I reach back and hold out my hand to my mother. There’s no hesitation on her part as she steps forward. I tug her down gently until she settles beside me. There’s no fear on her face, being this close to him. There’s no trepidation. If anything, she smiles sadly as she reaches up and fixes the blanket on his chest. She lifts it up and pulls it higher, but not before I see the larger bandage covering his stomach. I remember the look on his face, then, right before he fell. Anger. Pain. Love.

So much love. And it was for me. It was mine.

My father was right. Nothing is written in stone.

I do the only thing that’s left to do. I take my mother’s hand in my own. “Will you pray with me?” I whisper.

She looks unsure as she glances from me up at St. Jude Novena and back again. Something shadows her eyes, and I wonder who she’s thinking about. Is it her grandmother? Big Eddie? Cal? Me? I don’t know. I don’t know if it matters. If she says no, that will be okay. I’ll do it on my own. I’m not leaving this place until I’ve had my say.

I wait.

She doesn’t make me wait long. She sighs and leans over, kissing my forehead. “What should we pray for?” she asks.

I can’t help but feel this is the most important question of all. I know what I think I want. I know what I should want. I know what’s right for me. I know I could pray for all different things. But I also know what my heart wants, and my heart pulls all those others together until they take their own shape. Until they make their own pattern. Their own design.

“The power of choice,” I say, looking down at Cal’s sleeping form. “We need to pray for the power to choose what we want, and the strength to make that choice. That even though the world might be dark, and we might be crawling on our hands and knees, we can always choose to come home and find it light again.”

My mother brushes her eyes as she nods. “Benji?”

“Yeah?”

“How… how did he look? Big Eddie?”

“Like the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen,” I tell her, smiling through tears.

She gives a watery bark of laughter. “He was pretty great, wasn’t he?”

“The best there was. He loved you, you know. With his whole heart.”

She weeps quietly. “I know. I know. The both of us. Benji?”

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to be okay, right? After this? After all of this? You and I?”

I understand now that she needs me. She needs me as much as I need her. We’ve been knocked down, beaten and battered, had brushes with insanity and death. I’ve pushed her away for so long, but she and I are the same. I am my mother’s son.

“One way or another,” I tell her, “we’ll be okay. After all of this, we’ll be okay. We’ll sit and watch the sunrise, and I’ll tell you everything I’ve heard. All of the things I’ve seen.”

She nods. “I’d like that.”

I take her hand again, and she squeezes my fingers tightly. I don’t let go of her as I lower my head. I close my eyes.

And pray.

I’m not going to be very good at this. I haven’t been very good at a lot of things. I’ve lied. I’ve cheated. I’ve disrespected my parents. I put my own needs before those of others. When Big Eddie left, I only worried about how it affected me. I didn’t worry about the others. I was selfish. Self-centered. I took to the river and let myself float on its waters. I didn’t care if I drowned. I didn’t care what became of me. I was hurt, I was angry, and I didn’t care what that meant for the future. I just wanted everything to stop. I was too much of a coward to commit the ultimate selfish act… but I thought about it.

A hand drops on my shoulder, squeezing once and drifting away. I keep my eyes closed.

There were times I wondered just how easy it would be to fill up my pockets with stones, oh Lord, and walk into the river and let myself drown. I wondered how hard it would be when the river closed over my head and the light became murky and I opened my mouth to inhale the water. It would have been easy, I think. It would have been hard, I know. But it would have stopped the pain. It would have taken me away from my head and heart. It would have only taken moments for it to be over, and that seemed easier than a lifetime of agony.