Page 2 of The Boy Who Loved Wicked
The days Mom picked me up went more like: take your shoes off at the door, wash your hands, and do your homework. “Yes, Mom,” I’d grumble, leaving my sneakers on the mat then stomping up the stairs to my bedroom. Working as a nurse made Mom paranoid about transporting germs from your shoes into the house.
Why couldn’t she be more like Dad?
But then she’d charge through the school doors, marching to the principal’s office to give him a talking-to whenever she believed me to be treated unfairly or bullied. Everyone in the front office would grab hold of the papers on their desks to keep them from flying away as she blew in like a budding storm. Then I would think, my mom’s a badass.Embarrassing, but still a badass.
Dad rented a lake house farther upstate the summer I turned eight. We camped in the backyard, ate s’mores by the campfire at night, and went fishing everyday for a whole week. He would sing Mom out-of-tune love songs, and she’d blush and give him googly eyes, and I’d make barfing noises. I’d realize later how rare it was to still blush and swoon at your lover’s attempts at romance after so many years of being together. But that was Mom and Dad. The good shepherd and the ball-breaker. And as long as I had my good shepherd to charge me up and sustain me with the light of his love, Mom could break as many balls as she wanted.
The following summer, for my ninth birthday, Dad rented the same lake house, except this time, it was just us fellas. “Mom’s gonna sit this one out, bud.” He’d bent down in front of me. “So you know what that means, right?”
I was older and cooler now, so I’d answered with an unimpressed air, “Pizza, ice-cream, and scary movies.” I fought back a smile when he rolled his eyes at my feigned nonchalance. Hey, I was at the beginning of a phase.
For the first couple of days everything went well. We fished, we camped, we hiked, and played our little “who’s the philosopher” game. But with each day that passed, Caleb, Dad slept in later than the day before. And with each night that passed, Dad went to bed earlier than the night before. By the fifth day, Dad needed naps in the afternoon.
“I’m sorry, bud. Your old man needs a quick cat-nap.”
“But you’re not old, so why are you sleeping so much? We’re supposed to be having fun.” I heard the pout in my voice.
Something I couldn’t name at the tender age of nine, passed over his eyes. He sighed. “Will you lay with me for a little while? Let me hold you. I think my battery needs charging up today.”
“That’s because Mom doesn’t hug you enough. We need to talk to her about that,” I grumbled but got onto the bed and lay next to him, secretly loving that it was my job to make him all better. Dad had created a love monster.
“Your mom shows her love differently, but what I get from you makes up for it.” Within minutes of wrapping his arms around me, he was fast asleep. I didn’t know to be worried, Caleb.
Then it was the end of the week, and we only had one day left. I sat by the lake, sulking, tossing in rocks. “What’s the matter, bud?” he asked from behind me. “You’ve been throwing those poor rocks for an hour now.”
“We’ve only got one day left, but you’ve been sleeping most of the day. You said we’d go for a swim.” I dusted my hands off on my shorts and walked past him, heading back to the house. He followed behind me.
I sat in one of the Adirondack chairs on the wrap-around porch, and he sat adjacent to me in silence as we watched the sun make its initial descent beyond the horizon. Its rays sent a streak of fire-orange across the lake and made the tree leaves appear red. Everything was still, even though all around us nature was alive and in chorus.
“I’ve got to tell you something, Pheeny,” he said, using his other nickname for me. “Something important, and you’re not going to like it.”
Pancreatic cancer, stage 4. I sat and listened in a childish state of denial with my eyes fixed forward and my short legs swinging as he explained his grim diagnosis in words so small and careful it felt like learning the importance of brushing your teeth from an episode ofSesame Street. I wanted to keep my cool, and I wanted to cry. So many sensations churned in my small body, and I didn’t understand many of them. I felt agitated and angry, but I wasn’t sure who I should be angry with. I hadn’t fully grasped that death was on its way for him. For all of us. In my mind, he was sick and would be too tired to play, but Mom was a nurse, educated in all the best medicines and healthy foods. She had doctor friends. They would help Dad. When I eventually spoke up and told him this, he covered his mouth and looked away. Even at nine, I understood what that meant. I’d seen him do it a few years back when my sickness wouldn’t leave me alone and I had to stay at the hospital. Seeing my Dad cry stirred a sort of panic in my young body. I didn’t get why I suddenly couldn’t breathe and why my belly was doing cartwheels. “I don’t want...to...talk about this anymore,” I’d said between gasps.
He gathered himself. “Okay. It’s okay, we don’t have to.”
I don’t know what made me bolt into the woods. Looking back, I believed it was the weariness in his eyes. How tired he seemed after having just woken up from a nap. He ran after me, yelling my name. My body felt light and alive but also leadened and dead at the same time. I stopped when I could no longer hear him giving chase, and when I spun around he was leaning against the bark of a tree, and his skin had turned green. “Dad!” I raced back.
That was our first trip to the emergency room. There would be many more after.
Taking over the role of caretaker was hard on Mom. She wasn’t a coddler by nature; her language of love had always been the act of service. She made sure we ate balanced meals, she made sure Dad’s clothes made it to and from the dry cleaners, and she’d run her car over anyone that dared to raise a voice or a hand at either of us. There was nothing for her to do now, Caleb, except come to terms with the truth. We were losing him, and she needed to make the time he had left as comfortable as possible.
There were days when he was weaker than others, and she’d sometimes get upset with him on those days. She was really upset with God to be honest, because Dad’s weaker moments were reminders that he wasn’t getting better, no matter how much she wanted him to. Doors would slam, things would break, and her silent cries would slip underneath the wooden barrier of whatever room she hid in. Afterward, Dad would hold her in his arms and nurse her back to life. A never-ending cycle.
As for me, I kept Dad company as much as possible after school. Usually, by then, he’d have had so many doctor’s appointments and needles and medications, that he’d only want to sleep. Mom cared less and less about what consisted of dinner on the table. They were both exhausted. We all were.
A boy shouldn’t have to watch his father wither and die. It forced a shift in my trajectory toward manhood. I no longer saw the world as good. It didn’t treat others how it wanted to be treated. It birthed and it took away. It cleansed itself at the expense of my ignorant bliss, leaving behind a permanent misery, no matter how temporary outsiders claimed it would be. I’d always had my father’s temperament, but that year, I’d learned that with good reason, I could be as cutting as a blade. I hated the world, and it was about to feel my wrath.
I acted out in school. Refused to obey the simplest of orders and lost recess privileges on a regular basis. My teachers were aware of my situation; they understood, but I’d become an unbearable child.
My mother couldn’t handle me and my dad, so she chose to focus on him, and we kept him in the dark about my spiral. As the months passed, he’d ask for me more and more, and I’d surface from my room less and less. No one pushed me, but at the end of that school year and a few weeks before my tenth birthday, Mom had a talk with me. We were at the bitter end, she’d said plainly. And that I might not see it now, but that later, I would never forgive myself for not being there for him during that time.
I spent weeks reading to him. Shakespeare, Melville, Jane Austen. Books I didn’t understand at the time, containing words I often tripped over. He loved them, and he would lay on the back porch on what he called his sunbed—but sunbeds didn’t come with metal side railings—wrapped in blankets with his eyes closed and his gaunt face pointed to the sky and listen, helping me from memory when needed. If he had enough energy, he would egg me into debates using the Socratic Method. Purposely asking questions he had the answers to but were meant to bait and stimulate my critical thinking.
He’d end our time together, before drifting off, with our favorite game. “‘To find yourself, think for yourself,’” he struggled to push out.
“Socrates,” I said right away, not playing coy as we no longer had time for delays. He’d fall asleep in the sunlight wearing a wistful smile, and I’d crawl in next to him, so carefully, soaking his shirt with my sadness, holding him tight, recharging his battery as well as my own.
July 14th arrived with great weather and great plans for festivities. It was my birthday.
