Something that in a million years I never imagined I would do. I want you to know that I deeply, deeply regret ever having done it. It was a shameful, cowardly act and I would never want you to think it had anything to do with you, that you were in any way responsible. But sometimes... sometimes it's hard to hold on to hope. Sometimes, when things happen the way they did between your mother and me, you can fall into a hole so deep and so dark you can't imagine that you're ever going to see the light again. All you can see is your own sadness. Does that make any sense?"
It did - sort of. Christian had certainly experienced more than his share of sadness, especially these last few weeks. But he still wasn't sure what his father was talking about. Did Dad hurt someone? Mom, perhaps? Did he hit her? The thought of this mild, even-keeled man hitting his wife was patently absurd. But it was the only thing Christian could imagine that would cause his father this sort of soul-wrenching remorse.
"Son," father said, voice leaden with shame. "What I'm trying to tell you, is that while you were out, I attempted suicide."
All the sound seemed to drop out of the room, leaving the two of them in an airless vacuum. The thought of his father actually trying to kill himself was difficult for Christian to process, much less imagine. The practicalities were the biggest question. Did he try to hang himself from a ceiling fixture? Was there a gun around somewhere that Christian didn't know about? Were there sleeping pills stashed in a drawer, to be downed with a bottle of vodka hidden in the freezer, tucked behind a box of Bird's Eye peas and a package of frozen cube steaks?
"So what," Christian asked, anger rising within him. "I was supposed to come home and just find you dead somewhere?!"
Dad's face filled with shame. "I wasn't thinking straight, son. When you get to this sort of place, it's hard to see the big picture. All you can see is your own pain and the pain you think you are causing your loved ones. You figure if you can just end the pain, everything will be better for everyone. It sounds crazy, but that's what runs through the mind of someone who is willing to take their own life. It doesn't make a whole lot of rational sense."
That didn't make Christian feel any better, but he held his tongue, and his anger, in check. He wasn't sure if it was out of sympathy for his dad, respect, or just a sick curiosity to know where this was going. Maybe it was all of the above.
"But the even crazier part," Dad continued, "is what happened when?I tried to do it." He glanced absently to the garage door, then back to his son. It was a dead give-away. As he went on, Christian imagined his father dead in the driver's seat of his old Plymouth, the garage air thick with carbon monoxide fumes. "There I was?uh, waiting, and suddenly I hear this voice. I turn to look, and I swear to god, it was your grandmother Millie sitting right there next to me. Just sitting there in the passenger seat like it's no big deal, like we're going out for an afternoon drive or something.
"I realize how this must sound. But I swear Chris, she was right there, as real as you or I. And she looked?she looked well. Young. As if the hard years had all been washed away."
As far back as Christian could remember, his grandmother, while spirited, had all the vitality of a dried apricot. It didn't help matters that when drunk, which was pretty much all the time, her wig would fall crooked on her head, like a doll that had been assembled wrong. Mom always laughed when this happened, but Christian didn't laugh. It just made him feel sad.
"Dad, are you telling me Gram visited you as a ghost?"
"I don't know what she was. And I know it sounds crazy, but I wasn't afraid." It sounded crazy all right - if Christian found his dead grandmother sitting next to him, nice as she was, he would have ran off screaming and never came back. "I asked her what she was doing here. She smiled and explained that if I were to go through with what I was planning I would regret it for all eternity. I said that I didn't believe in heaven or hell, and she said that it wasn't like that - that the afterlife wasn't the way religion tells us it is. But she warned me that there was something beyond the world we knew, another reality, and that when we arrived there, things we left unfinished in life had to be dealt with. And this place - heaven or whatever you want to call it - wasn't all it was cracked up to be." Doug Marks chucked dryly. "She actually said, 'not all it's cracked up to be'. Isn't that just like Millie?"
Christian had no trouble picturing Gram being dissatisfied with the afterlife. Sarcasm ran as thick in his family as male pattern baldness and high cholesterol. "So what did she say it was like?" he asked. "Being dead, I mean."
Dad folded his hands calmly on the table. "We didn't get it to that, son. Honestly, I didn't ask because I sensed that it wasn't my place to know. All I knew was that it wasn't my time, and if I had gone through with what I had been planning to do, there would be severe consequences. What those consequences were, your grandmother wouldn't say."
So? this was all a lecture about how suicide was wrong. Thanks Dad, but I didn't need a ghost story to tell me that. Still, Christian held his tongue, allowing his father to finish with the story. It was clear from the troubled look in his eyes there was more to tell, and Christian knew he wasn't going to like it.
"Now Chris, I don't want to upset you any more than I already have. But I wasn't the only one Gram was worried about. She said that you were in danger as well."
Christian swallowed what felt like a small stone. "Danger? From what?"
"She didn't know. She said that it wasn't clear, that it was something the rational world wouldn't understand. But she hoped that by coming to me, you would understand and be able to recognize the danger when you saw it."
Now the stone of worry grew boulder-sized in Christian's gut. "If it was so important that I know, why didn't she come to me and tell me herself?"
Dad leaned forward. "Because you have to be open to the possibility for her to come to you. By attempting suicide, I was stepping towards the world beyond. Opening myself up to it."
Christian nearly let out a laugh. The thought of his buttoned-down, school teacher dad, so unerringly logical in matters of the heart and spirit - the thought of this rational man being open to ghosts and talk of the afterlife was downright comical. The only possible explanation he could fathom was that Dad was going through some bizarre mid-life crisis; while other dads got sports cars and young girlfriends, his dad got visited by the spirit of his dead mother-in-law. The split with Mom had cracked the fa?ade of reason that defined his father until now - now there would be s?ances, tarot readings, maybe even a good old fashioned exorcism. Dad could even open up his own shop, The Marks Mystical Emporium. And Christian could work there after school and on weekends, to the ridicule of his peers.
"I know what you're thinking," Dad said, and for a horrible moment Christian worried that psychic powers had been added to his father's newfound sensitivities. "You think that I've lost it. Well maybe I have son, but I still want you to promise me that if something happens, something that you can't explain with your rational mind, that you'll be open to it."
Wanting nothing more than to be done with this unnerving interaction, Christian said, "OK Dad. I will. I promise."
The braying of Barney's beagle-lungs snapped Christian out of his troubled mental wanderings. Looking around he realized that the rocky path had led him far from any woods he recognized, and even worse, he had lost track of his pet. A momentary panic gripped him as he searched the surrounding green, and then a rush of relief when he caught the dog's tail darting back and forth down a trail that was so overgrown it barely registered as a trail at all.
"Barney!" he called out. Parting from the main trail was possibly not the brightest move, but Christian didn't want to lose track of his dog this early in the afternoon. And besides, the worst that could happen is that he'd lead himself in circles for a few hours. It wasn't like he was in a rush to get home.
He followed Barney down the negligible trail, noting the tell-tale sign of bike treads, dissecting the grass into three uneven sections. These were the tracks of m
ountain bikes - he had spent long hours trying to convince Dad that his Schwinn ten speed was hopelessly out of fashion and a new black mountain bike with jumbo treads would maintain his standing with the other kids. Dad was not sold on the idea at the time, but Christian hoped to revisit the subject around Christmas. If they even bothered to celebrate Christmas this year.
Moments later, his suspicions were confirmed. A few yards down the trail, Barney was sniffing at a tire that spun lazily in the air. The bike was planted on its side in the path. Its rider had taken a nasty spill, and as Christian approached he expected to find them lying nearby, shaken and bruised. But there was no cyclist anywhere on the path. Christian stood over the bike - a very pricey, upscale model - and scanned the trees and bushes for any sign of its owner.
"Hello?" he called to the forest. "Is someone out there?"
The forest did not answer, aside from the chirping of birds and humming of cicadas. Christian bent down to leash Barney but the dog darted off from underfoot, scampering further down the path, to where a second bike lay on its side. This was really not a good sign. No serious mountain bikers would leave their expensive bikes lying in the woods unattended. Something happened out here that was more
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