Reaper's Lullaby

Lucas: The Last Hope

"There is a sacredness in tears... They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love."
-Washington Irving

For the first few weeks it was like clockwork every evening at nine o'clock. In California it was six p.m., the time allotted for personal phone calls at the rehab.

"Hey, Dad," Lucas said excitedly as he answered his cellphone without even looking at the number.

Nora and everyone else he knew texted him, so if his phone rang there were only three possibilities: Grandma, Dad, or spam. And if it was nine p.m., he didn't even have to look.

"Hey, dude, how's it going?" said the voice on the other end.

"Good. Same shit as usual. How are you?" Lucas asked hurriedly.

He knew he would be able to hear it in his father's voice if things weren't working out. After three years of near-constant worrying about the man's mental and physical state, he had memorized all the subtle inconsistencies capable of being imbedded in the words, "I'm fine."

"Well I'm totally through detox. That's the hardest part," Eric said in a voice that didn't raise any red flags.

Lucas had heard his father describe what it was like coming off heroin, but he had only seen it in movies. It looked horrific. Knowing he had passed that awful stage gave Lucas hope that, from here, quitting drugs would be easy. Now it was only a matter of choosing not to get high, and how hard could that be?

"When will you get out?" Lucas asked, thinking it wouldn't be much longer. The worst part was over after all.

"It's only been a couple of weeks. I'm here for 90 days, Lucas."

"I know. I just figured they'd let you out early for good behavior or something."

Eric laughed. "This isn't prison, buddy."

They chatted for a few more minutes about how things were going with school, Nora and rehab. Lucas avoided the subject of Brian as usual. Then his father said,

"Hey I'll talk to you again in a few days. Someone else is waiting for the phone."

"Okay," Lucas said, trying not to sound disappointed.

"I love you."

"Love you too, Dad."

After the conversation Lucas felt peace for the first time in a long time. He knew where his father was and that he was safe. Those two assurances had been hard to come by for the past few years. He felt a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He was free to be a teenager again, to be himself.

"Lucas, I don't want you to get too excited and get hurt," Nora told him gently when he hung out with her at lunch in the school courtyard the next morning.

"I'm not! I really think this is it. I mean, he's at a rehab now. They'll help him," Lucas said defensively.

"He detoxed in jail too, but then he relapsed as soon as he was out," she reminded him.

Lucas didn't answer. He didn't want to give her the satisfaction of seeing that he had doubts too. His dad needed him to believe in him, and he was determined to stay positive.

After all, what did he have left if he didn't stay positive?

If things didn't work out this time, the alternative was unthinkable.

To stay alive Lucas simply had to cling to the dream that soon, even within the year, his father would be back home and kicking Brian out of the house, out of their lives forever. Soon everything would be the way it was.

————————

The regular phone calls continued for the next few weeks before abruptly stopping one day. It was a Monday or a Tuesday, as ordinary as they come, no holiday or anniversary or reason to go on a binge and throw it all away.

Lucas refused to believe the worst.

He just had to wait. Something was wrong with the phone. There had to be some reason his father couldn't make contact with him. Maybe he had broken some rule and gotten his phone privileges taken away. Maybe...

One week.

Two weeks.

Three weeks.

A month.

Then, one evening, his mother walked into his bedroom with a look on her face that Lucas had never seen before. He held his breath as if he was about to dive into some deep, dark ocean.

"Lucas, we need to talk," she said gently, sitting down beside him on the bed.

"He fucking relapsed!" Lucas exclaimed, balling his hands into fists. He felt his fingernails digging into his palms as disappointment flooded him.

How could he have been so stupid? How could he have hoped? He had bet everything on things getting better this time. It had been his one and only lifeline.

That was when he realized the look on his mother's face had dissolved into tears like a chalk painting in the rain. And now he was not disappointed. He was afraid.

"Baby, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry..." she said softly.

"What?" Lucas asked. "It's worse?"

His mother shook her head and looked away from him and out the window. In a small voice she whispered,

"He's dead. Overdosed. Ran out on the rehab a month ago. I'm sorry, Lucas."

Lucas didn't react. He just stared at his hands as if they were fascinating. His father's words rang in his head, "I'm doing this for you."

For him. For him.

And he had not been enough.

His body throbbed with a guilt and a pain unlike any he had ever felt. It threatened to break him open like a crystal ball, sending glass shards of his past, present and future everywhere. There was no word for a pain like this. Armageddon, he thought, but even that word wasn't quite big enough to contain it. He felt tears coming but didn't want to cry in front of his mother so he swallowed them whole like a jawbreaker.

"He left the rehab a few weeks ago, and they found him last night. Are you okay?" she asked gently after several silent minutes had passed.

"You knew he left," Lucas whispered.

His mother's silence confirmed the truth.

Lucas cleared his throat. "I'm okay," he said. "He made his choice. I don't fucking care anymore."

"Oh sweetheart, I wish that was true... but I know you," his mother whispered, gently kissing his head.

Lucas squeezed his eyes shut as tightly as his fists. "I'm okay."

Then he repeated it like a line in a song. "I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay."

It was the fourth Okay that did him in, and he couldn't hold the tears back anymore. The Armageddon pain had broken all the levees in his heart. His mother saw this and pulled him closer, holding his head against her chest as he wept, warm tears seeping through her shirt, his body shaking with sobs. He felt himself just sort of collapse in her arms, his muscles done holding him up, like he was dead too.

The Armageddon carried everything inside of him away in a mud slide, deep roots ripping free, things he had always believed, always counted on, always hoped for, stripped to their foundations and obliterated before his eyes. The mud slide became a roaring river inside his head, wide as an ocean, sweeping away his childhood, extinguishing the sun, swallowing the earth. He had to escape it. He had to...