Beneath the Weight of Sadness

by Gerald L. Dodge

  Pine Creek Gorge wasn’t crowded. We wended our way down to the river easily. Over the years, I imagined, the river had carved out this great canyon with its delicate vista of trees, the myriad of buds and their colors creating a more subtle and prettier effect than the colors of fall. Even at fifteen Truman could appreciate the beauty of the place, and I could tell as we walked along that he’d temporarily abandoned his campaign to be angry about his forced captivity.

  I have pictures of the weekend, mostly of Truman and Ethan arm in arm, but there is one on the main street of Willsboro of a large sign, TRUMAN BANK, and even though Truman was reluctant, I made him stand below the sign and I took a picture. If I took it out right now, I could close my eyes before it and describe how he looked: his slumped, disinclined shoulders; the smile that is his power with people; his full lips; the softness of his cheeks, hued a pink from the cold; his hair black (this was what he called his “black period,” and I suppose I should have expected him to be gloomy during the trip); his muscular frame in a sweater with a white T-shirt underneath; his neck long and elegant like Ethan’s; his hands raw and rough from the cold, boy’s hands even though Ethan said they were effeminate; holes in the knees of his jeans, cinched with a belt too long, the end halfway down his crotch; and old black-and-white Keds sneakers, one shoe unlaced, the laces muddied and wet from the walk from the hotel to the restaurant to the TRUMAN BANK. Sockless.

  I can’t look at it, though. I can’t look at anything that reminds me of Truman and the future. Him standing there under that sign was representative of mine and Ethan’s faith that Truman would go on, outlive us, become something that would make him happy in the future. Why else would we have made him go that weekend? If we’d known, if I’d known he’d only had so much time left, I would never have forced him to go. I didn’t want Truman to regret his actions for those few days and the fact that he would have to take that into his future. I was afraid he would experience sex with another boy, someone older. Someone who wasn’t Carly.

  But what difference would it have made? What difference if Truman had remained home and learned something about himself that probably had been plaguing him for most of his young life? Instead, the only thing I have is pictures of a desultory Truman with his father. There is not one picture of Truman and me from those four days, which is an accurate reflection of my experience: It was as if I was outside looking in at a time that I hoped would erase one possibility for Truman that I didn’t want him to know.

  But in truth, who was I to make that decision? Did he ever really know who he was as a sexual creature? He went to New York on his own, but did he experience that part of life that is so essential for all of us? I don’t know, and neither does Ethan. Nor do we know any of what the future might have held for him. He pulled into himself after those four days like a green leaf exposed to a flame. And who were these people in this vile town who defined my Truman by their own myopic standards? I remember some passage by Faulkner—is it in Big Woods? I don’t remember now—where he describes the first people to come and denude the land he loved with a Bible and whiskey in one hand and a gun in the other…something like that. I think of Persia when I’m reminded of that passage.

  They have taken my lovely son from me. They have robbed him of his future. They’ve robbed me of my future. God damn them, God damn these loathsome people. God damn all of them.

  Ethan

  Four weeks after Truman’s death

  I was not a good father. I should’ve been a better father, and the more I think about that fact the angrier I get. Here’s what I think: I think that it was only a matter of a few years and I would’ve seen how much I wasn’t in Truman’s life and I would’ve wanted to do something about that. But now I can’t and the more I think about it the more I want the person who has done this to our relationship, to the potential of our relationship, our newfound relationship—I want that person to die. Not that it was newfound yet. But it would have been. I knew that when we went to the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. Wellsboro. It was one of those moments when I connected with my son, and the more I look at the pictures from that trip, the more I know he felt the same way.

  “He’s sensitive, Ethan. He’s not as resilient as you are.”

  I hated when Amy said that kind of thing to me. She made it sound as if he were so bruised by the world he wouldn’t be able to navigate through life without our constant attention.

  “Jesus Christ, Amy. He’s gay. It doesn’t mean he’s a cripple. He is going to go into the world soon and he has to be prepared for all that’s out there.”

  “Yes, and he can’t do that without you by his side. I know he feels like you’re never there. You’re always somewhere else, with your business or reading your history books or…”

  “Don’t make me a criminal, Amy. You make me feel bad enough with your accusations that I’ve abandoned our relationship.”

  We were in bed at the time, it was a weekend morning, and it was one of those moments when I know we both felt as if the days ahead would be quiet and lovely, streaming by like great, white, puffy clouds. But because Amy had lately become convinced I wasn’t enough in Truman’s life, I also had this sense of dread as I lay in bed with her.

  “What do you want me to do, Amy?”

  “I can’t answer that for you. You have to know what to do.”

  “I’m a little confused. My relationship with Truman is headed in the wrong direction because the one you have with him is perfect. Have I framed the problem correctly?”

  “I didn’t say that. I said you need to spend more time with Truman. You wouldn’t dare suggest I have the same situation with Truman as you do.”

  “No, I wouldn’t say that. But we’re different people. Truman would think something was wrong if I suddenly spent all of my time trying to impose on his privacy.”

  “Ha!” she said. “Is that what you think I do? Wade in on his privacy?”

  “No, Amy, I wasn’t saying that at all. You do see Truman as sensitive, very sensitive, and so you’re always looking for ways that he is wounded by the world.”

  “I know he’s sensitive because I spend enough time with him to notice it.”

  “That’s not fair. I spend as much time with Truman as he wants me to spend with him.”

  “Did you ever ask him how much time you should spend with him? I don’t think so, Ethan.”

  “And you have?”

  She sat up in bed, suddenly. “We’ve talked about your relationship, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Oh, and being a teenager he’s not going to take full advantage of such a forum to gripe about a parent. I bet if I got him in a corner and prompted a conversation about you, he’d complain about exactly the opposite problem. He’d complain that you smother him and fawn over him. It’s the nature of the beast. Teenage-hood, I mean.”

  I put my hand on her shoulder. “Please let’s not argue about this. Please let’s just agree that we have different parenting styles. I’ve always believed that Truman wanted a lot of wiggle room in his life.”

  She pulled her shoulder away. “There’s a difference between giving him space and shutting him out of your world.”

  “Like I do with you, you mean.”

  She gave me a mirthful look. Amy has a small freckle on her bottom lip and I wanted to lean over and kiss it. I knew that was forbidden at the moment. I got up from my side of the bed and stood and looked down at her.

  “I’m not going to have this discussion, Amy. You have decided I’m doing a disservice to our son and, I’m supposing from past conversations, to our marriage. Truman and I understand each other, I think, and whatever grievance he feeds to you isn’t necessarily legitimate.” I headed toward the bathroom to take a shower.

  “He wants more of you, Ethan,” she said as I was about to close the bathroom door. “We both do.”

  But Amy was right, as it turns out. Now that Truman is gone I realize how little time I spent with him. I wonder how many parents who
lose children wish they could go back and do their parenting over again? Do the things they considered doing with their child but never did because there were other, more important things to do. Did I? Was I a bad father with my only and lovely son? I’m haunted by that question nightly as I shuffle through our house with a whiskey in my hand. And like the functions of my left and right hands my two thoughts in my nightly peregrinations are that of my deficiencies as a father and my desire to find who has robbed me of my Truman. It has been a month now. Nothing from the FBI, nothing from Parachuk (although he does call me every other day to tell me he’s no closer to an arrest or even a suspect), nothing from anyone. And I am beginning to consider hiring a private investigator to do some investigating outside of what these “professionals” have been able to do, which is nothing.

  And now the two nightly fixations—my inadequacies as a father and discovering the murderer—have begun to bleed together, because I can’t ever rectify the one—my lack of involvement in Truman’s life—because someone has taken my son from me and, as far as I can see into the future, my wife as well.

  So it was the third week in April and I was outside after another mostly sleepless night, whiskey still diluting my brain and body. Wheelbarrow in tow, I was picking up branches from the back lawns, the wind making the still-bare branches slap each other, the sound making the wind even colder and the world around me emptier.

  I was pruning branches from a magnolia tree Truman had insisted we plant when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone walking toward me. I took my gloves off. It was Frank Rodenbaugh. I hadn’t seen him since the memorial service. We were never great friends, even though his daughter had been part of our family and the only girl Truman ever loved, and they lived less than three football fields away. But I’d always thought he was pleasant, and I knew he was a good father. Better than me—I assumed. After all, he had Carly for a daughter. He was a handsome man, tall, thin, an aristocratic nose and mouth. He had a nice smile, but Carly’s looks came mostly from her mother, who was quite beautiful.

  We shook hands. We both looked around the lawn and then he looked at me.

  “Quite a chore, and it never ends.”

  “It is,” I said. “But I enjoy it. Gives me a reason to be outside on days like today.”

  We both laughed. We were dressed similarly: jeans, sweatshirt, light jacket, work boots. His hair was thinning on top but, like me, he didn’t wear a hat. He looked back toward his own house, which was hidden behind a deep patch of woods separating the two properties.

  “I came over to see how you’re doing, Ethan. I know that might sound like a hollow question, considering, but I just wanted you to know Jennifer and I think about you and Amy a lot.”

  “I appreciate that, Frank.” I’d said those same words more than I cared to count in the past month. I didn’t know if I really did appreciate it or not, but I knew most people who gave their condolences meant it.

  “Carly is still in pretty bad shape, I must say.” I could see there was real sadness in his face. “She hasn’t been the same since…she doesn’t sleep very well.”

  His voice trailed off and he looked around my lawn once again. He stared somewhere beyond a patio Truman and I had constructed when Truman was fifteen. I now remembered Carly had come over a few times and helped to haul flagstone. Truman and I both laughed when she’d worried about making her hands rough from the sharp edges.

  “She’s more than welcome to come over if that’ll help, Frank. It might be that her visiting would help Amy.”

  “Jennifer and I have considered getting her some counseling. She goes to school and then comes home and goes to her room.” He looked at me again and the sadness in his face had deepened. “She quit the softball team. She loves softball.” His voice cracked with the last words.

  “I know she does,” I said. “Is there anything I can do, Frank?”

  He shook his head, but I couldn’t tell if it was in response to my question or because of some private thought he was having.

  “I miss her,” I said, and saying it made me realize how much I did miss her. I hadn’t seen her either since the funeral. I wondered why she’d stayed away, then quickly answered my own question: Who would want to come into our mausoleum and face its lifeless occupants? I didn’t blame her for avoiding us.

  “I’m sorry to lay this on you, Ethan. I’m just not sure what to do. She doesn’t socialize anymore. Her boyfriend…Tommy Beck.” He paused and looked back toward his own property again, as if he wanted to make certain no one was listening. “He calls her all the time.”

  He gave an embarrassed laugh. “I’m afraid a few times, when I knew she was in the shower, I’ve peeked at her cell phone. The kid calls or texts her at least ten times a day. She doesn’t respond as far as I can tell. He calls me and Jennifer, too. Asks if he can speak to Carly, but when we say he’s on the phone she tells us to tell him she can’t talk. It’s the same with all her friends.”

  I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. I certainly could sympathize with him, but I had my own problems to deal with. Plus I suddenly wanted a whiskey. It wasn’t quite ten in the morning and I doubted he’d be interested in joining me.

  “Do you want me to call her, Frank, see if she’d like to come over for dinner or something?”

  His face brightened with the idea. “I think she might come if you called her. She’s always loved you, Ethan, loved the family…”

  Again his voice trailed off, the word “family” dying on his tongue. Because we weren’t a family anymore, without Truman, were we? But then he went on.

  “I was surprised when Carly started dating this Tommy kid. I never thought she would ever be interested in anyone but Truman.” He laughed at the thought, and seemed to be working it out in his head as we spoke.

  “Truman loved her, Frank,” I said. “They loved each other.”

  He went on as if I’d said nothing. “And then I could tell something had changed with them—Carly and Tommy. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it happened this fall when school started. I mean, they still dated and he still was sneaking over when we weren’t home.” He stopped and looked at me with an amused look. “Kids don’t think you know what’s going on in their lives, but we do mostly.”

  He said it with such assurance that I nodded along with him, but I knew that hadn’t been true with Truman and me. Maybe it was because Truman was private and we let him be private, but maybe, also, Amy had been right. I didn’t know Truman like Frank Rodenbaugh knew Carly, because I didn’t put in the effort to know him. I wasn’t a good father, only an adequate one.

  “Like I said, I became a terrible spy. The past year has been like a game of espionage with Carly. And I don’t apologize. I never really trusted this Tommy kid.”

  He stopped and smiled at me as if I’d probably like his revealing this about invading Carly’s private life. I wondered if he knew things about Truman that Amy and I didn’t know. Or I didn’t know.

  The wind came across the lawn and blew some of the lighter branches out of the wheelbarrow. It also wrapped Frank’s pants tightly around his legs and pushed him a little toward me. I was hoping the wind would make him decide to leave. I wanted a drink and I couldn’t very well offer him one at this hour of the day.

  “I have to admit I didn’t ever talk to Carly about this kid. I knew somehow it wouldn’t last. You know how those early infatuations go.”

  I suddenly knew why I’d never become friendly with him in the past. I tried to avoid people who couldn’t read what other people were thinking. He stopped talking again and put out his hand to touch my arm but missed. He fell forward a little and righted himself. I wondered if he’d been drinking also. I wouldn’t be able to tell from his breath because my sense of smell was already compromised. I looked more carefully at his eyes. Were they red-rimmed? Maybe. I stepped back so he wouldn’t make a second attempt at my arm. I could see he was thinking about it.

  “But then it finally ended, abruptly.�
� He said this with a different tone, as if he were telling a fictional story, and this was the conclusion so it required emphasis.

  I felt compelled to ask. “How?”

  “That’s just the thing, Ethan. I know for a fact she would never talk to him again after your Truman…after Truman died.”

  We were both quiet then. The wind swept past the both of us and I felt like we were on an abandoned island together, both wondering how we’d gotten there and what our next move was to be.

  Finally he said, “I think she was always in love with Truman, and when that happened to him, I think Carly couldn’t stand being around that kid anymore. I know he calls all the time, including the landline at our house. But Carly doesn’t want anything to do with him.”

  I looked back at the house. In the past I could’ve relied on Amy to bail me out of a situation like this, if she were looking. She’d come to my rescue many times when I’d been cornered, creating a smoke screen, offering an excuse for why I had to exit the conversation. Even Truman had saved me at times. But I knew I couldn’t count on any of this now. Even if Amy were looking out at us, she wouldn’t be on my side. I was now the enemy.

  “Well, I hope Carly gets better soon,” I said, feebly, looking back at him.

  “Like I said, we’re considering some counseling for her,” he continued, as if what I’d just said made perfect sense. “I never thought there’d come a day when Carly wouldn’t want to play softball. She really doesn’t want to do much of anything anymore. Comes home and goes straight to her room.”

  I could see tears forming in the corner of his eyes and I wasn’t sure if they were caused by the wind or the fact that Carly wasn’t acting the same. This time it was his turn to look back at his own house.