Letter from a Desperate Father

by Maron Anrow

direction.

  "You stupid beast!" he cried. He smacked her rump with his fist, and she ran off noisily.

  That was not my son. Granted, boys can show an undisciplined streak as they age, but tenderness toward animals had always been a distinctive part of his temperament.

  Was it grief? Aging? Influence from other children? Or was it something more pernicious?

  I'd heard of possession and exorcism, and it shamed me to wonder if my son's spirit was under another's control. I'm a religious man, but also a practical one. I tried dismissing the thought, but I couldn't. I tested my boy by mentioning events he and I had experienced with no one else present. His memory of them was poor, but children are known to have poor memory. The true test would be how well he remembered events when his mother had been present-events from the same period as those he'd apparently forgotten.

  He remembered those events just fine.

  The most troubling of these tests concerned our lame goat, Elizabeth. His recent harshness with the temperamental goat affected me deeply, so I was eager to see what he'd say about Elizabeth.

  "Do you remember Elizabeth?" I asked casually while he peeled potatoes and I chopped carrots.

  "Elizabeth? Was she a friend of mine?"

  "She was a goat."

  "Oh, yes." He continued peeling. The topic didn't interest him.

  "Do you remember what happened to her?"

  He wrinkled his nose and took a breath before responding, as if he were schooling his impatience. Indeed, he seemed tired of my frequent memory games.

  "We sold her, didn't we?"

  "No."

  "She was sick, then?"

  "Injured. You found her."

  "Oh. Well, I don't remember."

  It could still just be the sieve of childhood memory, but I became more and more convinced that my boy was no longer my boy. Who was he, then? Incredible and horrifying as it seemed, I thought he was my wife. As I said, I was embarrassed to have these suspicions. I tried dispelling them with cold logic, but in my gut, I was sure it was so.

  On my next trip to town, I visited the same priest who married me to my wife. Clutching my hat in my hands, I explained my suspicion and the evidence for it. I beseeched him for an exorcism.

  "Has your son behaved violently?" he asked.

  "No, not aside from smacking the goat."

  "So it is merely a change in his demeanor?"

  "Yes."

  "Remind me, how old is he?"

  "Nine."

  The priest sighed. "Boys grow, and the transformation is not limited to their bodies. It's hard for parents to accept the changes of adolescence, but it's a natural part of life."

  My face burned. Yes, I felt some doubt and shame, but I knew I wasn't mistaken. There was more to my boy's behavior than simple aging.

  One night, I crept into his room while he slept. I spoke my wife's name as if I were trying to catch her attention. He snapped awake, his eyes immediately finding mine. There was an awareness in them, an awareness we both shared.

  "It's you, isn't it?" I asked, my voice trembling.

  He-she-hesitated, as if deciding whether to maintain the ruse. In that moment, my entire existence felt suspended, like the Catholic idea of limbo.

  "Yes."

  My heart skipped a beat. It took a few moments to recover my speech.

  "Where is my son?"

  Silence.

  My energy abruptly returned in the form of anger. "Where is my son?" I shouted.

  "He is with me."

  I fell to my knees. "What do you mean?" I cried, clenching my fists. "Can he hear us now?"

  "No, but he is not gone."

  Dizziness threatened my ability to stand. For all my earlier suspicion, I couldn't believe it was true.

  "Why did you take him?" I asked, my voice choked with pain.

  "I wasn't ready to go," she answered simply.

  I rose my hands to my face and wept. Who was my wife, that she would take our son? I had grieved for her-I loved her-but this was far worse than her dying.

  Eventually I composed myself. "Can I speak to him?"

  She shook our son's head. "No. It is best for him to stay asleep."

  My son was gone! She'd taken his body for herself. He would never live to enjoy adolescence or adulthood. My sweet, gentle boy who had never harmed anyone in his short life-he was lost to me!

  "Let him go," I demanded. She tensed. "Let him go!" I repeated, yelling this time.

  She sensed my anger and scooted toward the wall. I sprang to my feet, and she kicked away the blanket to escape the bed.

  I was faster. I grabbed my son's calf, yanking his body back to me. She fought, but I overpowered her. With my son's body thrashing in my grip, I left our cottage and hurried down the lane toward town.

  It was the dead of night, and she shrieked and kicked violently the whole twenty minutes into town. I would find the priest. I would have him exorcise my wife. I would get my son back.

  "You leave my son!" I roared, struggling to maintain my hold on her.

  "This is my body now," she screamed back. I told her I'd have her exorcised, and she laughed. "Go ahead and try. Your God didn't put me here, and he can't remove me."

  When we arrived, my wife stopped kicking and yelling. I went straight to the church and yelled for the priest from outside. I didn't know where he lived, but surely he must be nearby.

  Lights turned on in homes across the square.

  "I told you, he can do nothing," she said, speaking so only I could hear. She was limp in my arms now. I wished she wasn't, because I feared the priest wouldn't believe me again. That must have been her intention.

  "What will make you leave, then?" I wanted to growl, to intimidate her, but my desperation was obvious.

  She smiled horribly. "Nothing. Bodies are but vehicles for the spirit, and I have made this mine."

  I never felt as cold as I did at that moment.

  "You're a demon," I whispered.

  "No," she said sharply. She tensed under my grip. "I am human, but I can transcend the flesh."

  I wanted to wail, but I didn't have the energy. How could this be happening? The loss of my son, the betrayal of my wife-it felt worse than a gash through my abdomen.

  Through my tears, I said, "Why did you pick my son? Why not me instead?"

  "He is young, with a full life ahead of him. It is also difficult without shared blood."

  "And when his body dies?" I asked. A plan began forming in my mind.

  "I will not," she spat, as if affronted by the idea of herself dying.

  I hated the direction of my thoughts, but the solution seemed clear. If she considered his body uninhabitable, she might flee it. Invigorated with purpose, I flung her to the ground-not too forcefully-and took my son's tender throat in my fists.

  "Leave!" I ordered her, squeezing down.

  Her gasp became a sputter, and she jerked and thrashed beneath me.

  I had some awareness of approaching lights and a woman's shriek. I pressed down harder. It was the worst thing I have ever done, and it hurts to recall it now.

  Someone ordered me to stop. I couldn't waste any time. I fixed my gaze on my son's eyes, the window to his soul. When they rolled backward, I waited half a second more and then released him. At the same moment, someone seized me by the shoulders and yanked me backward. I fell to the ground, too weary to struggle.

  "Check on the boy!" a man shouted. I saw only my son, lying still on the ground.

  I panted, delirious with fear and hope and exhaustion. Someone approached my son and examined him while another person grabbed my arms and pulled them behind me. I didn't resist.

  "He's alive!" a woman shouted. "He's just fainted."

  Those were the most beautiful words I've ever heard. I thanked God and prayed my act was enough to drive my wife from my son. I didn't care when a man roared, "You villain!" and struck me in the face. Once, twice, three times, and then I was unconscious.

  I assume you know where
I am now. My story must sound incredible. If you speak with the priest, he can at least confirm that I sought him for exorcism.

  My fate is uncertain. Last year two men were hanged for attempted murder, and I've been told the witnesses are demanding the same for me. Whatever the outcome, I implore you to intervene on my behalf for a single request. Please let me see my son-I must know what happened. If I can just look into his eyes, I'll know. Please. Nothing else matters to me but that.

  Yours Sincerely,

  Martin Hardy, a desperate father.

  About the Author

  Maron Anrow grew up in California, came of age in the Midwest, and is now passing time in New Jersey. She lives with her husband, stepdaughter, and three awesome cats.

  Other work by Maron Anrow

  Laika in Lisan

  A novel

  "I wish I could say this is a story of how I saved everyone and set the world to right. But it isn't. This is a story of my failure."

  Laika Roen has always been strangely attracted to Lisan, a mysterious and isolated country where the citizens worship their despotic leader. When Laika is invited to travel to Lisan as a visiting scholar, she jumps at the chance to experience Lisan's unusual culture firsthand.

  But Laika gets more than she bargained for when her trip is disrupted by violence and she's forced to set out on her own. As she journeys through forbidden sections of the foreign country, Laika discovers horrible truths about the relationship between Lisan's leader and his people.

  Can a simple scholar change the course of an entire country? And even if she can, should she? The distinction between right and wrong blurs as Laika explores not only Lisan, but her own conscience.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Steve Young, Jennifer Brown, Elizabeth Bell, and Jay Hill for their feedback on Letter from a Desperate Father. The photo on the cover is