Page 109 of To Save Him

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“MAKE IT STOP. Make it stop!”  Brandon was yelling at the top of his lungs, yanking me out of a deep sleep.  I’d had a couple of drinks at the book signing’s “after party,” and—combined with the vigorous sex before bed—it had acted much like a sleeping pill.

But Brandon’s cries put an end to my slumber.

I felt around for the button on the end table that would turn the bedside lamp on.  In seconds, a soft light cast itself across the top half of the bed where I saw Brandon lying, tense, his eyes squeezed shut.

He hadn’t had a nightmare in months.  But that didn’t change the fact that I knew from experience that waking him from them was a delicate matter.  I didn’t want to be injured myself.  So I started by speaking his name softly and, when he didn’t respond, I said it louder.

Still no response.

So I was ready to try a trick I’d read about a few months earlier but hadn’t had the need to use, because he hadn’t had a single nightmare since we’d left the veterans’ hospital last fall.  I got out of bed and walked to the foot of it.  The hotel bedding was thick—a comforter and a thin blanket underneath—but I wasn’t going to peel it off yet.  I grabbed Brandon’s feet by the ankles through the bedding and said his name firmly.

He stopped moaning and gasped.

I did it again and then he opened his eyes, sitting up in a panic.  He was disoriented, looking around, his fight instinct awakened with his consciousness.  “What’s going on?”

I let go of his feet and started walking back to the head of the bed.  “You seemed to be having a nightmare.”

He frowned.  “Shit.  I thought those were behind me.”

“I did, too.”

As I sat in bed next to him, he pulled me close.  “What if they never go away completely?”

I looked at him.  “I’ll still be here.”

His expression softened then.  He looked like he had more he wanted to say, but he didn’t.  Instead, we lay in bed with the light on for a while in silence.  I was certain he was grappling with the emotional aftermath of the dream and I knew my presence was a comfort.

I hoped I could always be that for him.

 

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IT WAS THE last Saturday in May.  It was too warm and I’d knew I’d probably have a sunburn on my neck and chest, but I hadn’t thought about it.  I’d only had one child graduate high school before, and his ceremony had been moved to the gymnasium due to inclement weather.  Annabel’s was outdoors under the beaming sun—with not a cloud in sight.

By the end of the ceremony, everyone was ready to get the hell out of there, but it was most certainly worth the time spent to watch my daughter walk across that stage under the sun and accept her diploma.  Her white smile stood out on my phone camera, even though I would have liked a bigger picture.  JR sat with us, bored but behaving, thanks in part to a game he was playing on his phone, but he looked up at appropriate times when we prompted him.

And I was thrilled when I saw her dad had bothered to make it.

I was equally relieved when he made excuses for not being able to come to the party afterward, but maybe he was at last trying to be a good dad.  He handed our daughter a card before kissing her and telling her how proud he was.

“Hold on, Mel,” I said, feeling forgiveness in my heart after all these years.  “Let me get a picture of you with the kids.”

I saw a half smile on his face.  “Yeah?”

“Yes.  She’ll only ever graduate high school once.  We need to commemorate the moment.”

JR was reluctant but he didn’t say a word.  Liam and Brandon flanked me while I held up my phone and took several shots of my ex with his kids and, by the end, even JR was smiling…JR and his now chin-length hair—and I was once more surprised that his father hadn’t said a word about it.  In fact, as they were breaking up their posed coziness, Mel said, “Maybe the two of us could go to a Rockies game this summer.  You like baseball?”

JR grinned.  “Yeah, that’d be fun.”

“Um, Annabel, you could come along too if you’d like.”

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