Page 169 of Into the Dark
“Jake.” It comes out as a half-sob, half-plea.
“Baby, stand back from the door, yeah? Do you hear me? Stay away from the door.”
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The wave of anguish from him blasts over me as the door bursts open.
His eyes are wide and glittering, a dark green color I’ve never seen them before. He looks bigger than I’ve ever seen him too, as if he’s grown in size and stature since I last saw him—dangerous, dark, and deadly. Scanning my face and down my body, his fists curl. Then, very slowly, he starts to relax, his shoulders dropping, his arms loosening, his fists uncurling.
A memory, unbidden and unexpected. The night I washed his hands clean of Kevin’s blood. The way he begged me to tell him I loved him. It makes sense now. All of it. The panic. Why it was so important for him to hear me say the words out loud. Please tell me you love me, please tell me you love me, please, I think over and over to myself in those silent, torturous seconds as he stares back. Why hasn’t he moved an inch toward me? Why is he still staring? Why does he look so afraid? Please tell me you love me. Please.
“I did what I had to do,” I whisper in a haunted, inside out voice.
“I know.” He nods. “I know, baby. I know you did.” His voice is bare and broken-sounding. “I’m here now.”
He is. He’s here. I nod, biting my cheek to stop the flood of tears that threatens to fall.
“Please, Jake…please tell me…”
I can’t finish the sentence before the suffocating relief of darkness takes over, the ground rushing up to meet me as my white-knuckle grip slips from the cool white porcelain of the sink. He catches me before I fall—I feel that. Warm, strong arms wrapping around me. He’s shouting my name, an echoing, cracked panic that penetrates the onslaught of darkness. I try to get back to him, but it’s like swimming upstream against something thick and cloying. I can’t hold onto him any longer.
But he holds onto me with a grip as strong as he is. I feel it as the last remnants of consciousness slip from me: his arms circle me, his voice close but faraway as he pleads with me.
“No, no, no, don’t you fucking dare. Stay with me. I’m here now. Don’t you fucking dare leave me. Where is that fucking paramedic? Alex, look at me…please look at me…I love you…I love you…”
There’s nothing I want more than to stay with him, and from here, held in his arms, I think he’s never looked more beautiful than he does right now.
But of course, I always think that.
The darkness is stronger. The darkness is everything I’m not. Strong and powerful and unyielding—just like he is. It takes me with it like it always does, consuming me, until finally nothing hurts anymore and everything is dark. But it doesn’t matter because he’s there. He’s there and he loves me, and nothing else matters.
Eight months later…
I park the car at the bottom of the hill near the gate and climb out. In the back seat he’s fighting two plastic dinosaurs against each other: “Raaaaaaaaar, baaaaaaaaaang, deaaaaaaaaaaaaad!”
We talked about it at length and for days, but I still don’t know it was a good idea to bring him here. I kept him away from the funeral—I didn’t even want to be at the fucking thing—but he needs to say goodbye. I need him to know she’s gone. Properly gone. He’ll never know the facts of how and why, but I need him to say his goodbyes.
“All right, buddy, let’s go. Grab the flowers.”
Unbuckling his seat belt, I hook my hands under his arms and haul him out of the car, little legs swinging. “We have to walk up the hill a bit—you want your hat on?”
He shakes his head, but I grab it anyway and stuff it in the back pocket of my jeans.
The sky looks like a water balloon about ready to burst: sagging, heavy gray clouds. I crouch down to fasten up his raincoat, a bright yellow hooded number, the same color as the daffodils he’s holding. I pull up the hood, but he reaches up with his free hand and pushes back down again. When I do it again, he pushes it back down once more, and we do this until he bursts into a fit of giggles.
Good sign that he’s laughing. I smile at him and ruffle his mop of hair before taking his hand to start pulling him up the hill.
About halfway up on the left-hand side, we pass by a grave with a collection of toys on it. My heart sinks and stomach flips as I read the inscription on the white marble headstone:
Jacob James Maxwell
Our little angel. Gone to be with the rest of God’s angels.
May 8, 2010–May 1, 2016
Jesus fucking Christ. Six years old. I try to tug Caleb past before he notices, but of course, I fail. Of course he wants to stop and look at the toys. Buzz Lightyear, purple soft-toy dragon, Minion figures—he isn’t about to miss those. And given what he’s about to have to look at, I decide to let him wander over to the well-tended grave and see it up close. There’s a picture of little Jacob on it. A cute-looking kid with almost black hair, his most prominent feature being a triangular gap between his two front teeth. If he’d grown up he’d have gotten that fixed. But he’ll never grow up. He’ll have that gap in his teeth forever. I swallow hard and clutch Caleb’s hand tighter.
“How did he die?” Cale asks, soft little voice cutting through pitch-dark thoughts.