On My Honor
Page 6
His father held him for a long time, saying nothing, until Joel's tears came without sound and his breaths were quivering gasps. Even then, his father held him. After a while, Joel began to pattern his breathing to match the steady rising and falling of his father's chest.
"I'd like to go back to bed now," he said finally. His father, instead of simply releasing him, reached forward to strip back the covers, then stood and laid him gently in the bed. He pulled the sheet up and tucked it beneath Joel's chin.
He will leave me now, Joel thought, but his father sat down in the chair once more.
Joel turned on his side, facing his father this time. He was tired, exhausted, but tinglingly awake. He was also empty, as though he had been hollowed out with a knife. He tried to think of something to say, if only to hear his father's voice.
"Do you believe in heaven?" he asked at last. "Do you believe Tony's gone there?"
His father bent toward him. "If there is a heaven, I'm sure Tony's gone there," he replied. "I can't imagine a heaven that could be closed to charming, reckless boys."
If! Joel felt as if he were sinking through the bed. "What do you mean... if there's a heaven?"
"I don't suppose anybody knows," his father answered gently, "what happens after." He hesitated, and one hand came up, described a series of circles in the air, then settled into his lap again as though it had finished the statement for him. "I believe there's something about life that goes on. It seems too good to end in a river."
Joel let his father's words sift through him slowly. He had hoped for something firmer, more certain. Yes, there is a heaven. Certainly Tony is there now. He would have to settle, though, for what he got.
And what he got was a gentle summer night, a hollow place inside his gut that felt as though it might never be filled, and this man, his dad, who sat beside his bed.
"Will you stay?" he asked, reaching a hand out tentatively to touch his father's knee. "Will you sit with me until I fall asleep?"
"Of course," his father said.