A Thousand Ways To Run

Chapter 26

They say sleep is the best medicine, that rest is as good any pill you can swallow and much more pleasant than any pin prick of a needle. And after all I’d been through and all the constant voices reminding me to sleep and let myself heal, to calm my head and let it rest against a soft pillow for a few hours, I thought sleep would be easy enough. But I lay awake most of the night with a constant stream of images, sounds, and thoughts. Even wrapped in Warren’s warm embrace only ensured me a few hours.

Careful to not wake him, I rose out of bed and dressed comfortably. As much as I was exhausted, some thoughts just needed to run their course in my mind. The padding of my feet along the floor was the only sound as I slipped out, holding my breath as the door clicked into place.

The cement corridor was alarmingly cold on my feet and I hurried along to the stairwell before making a hasty climb. The last time I’d gone up that high, I was blindfolded. My heartbeat seemed to pick up to hummingbird speed just remembering the moment, feeling the metal railing under my numb fingertips.

I thought I heard someone behind me and looked back reflectively, already my body going rigid. Then I remembered that I was now allowed around the house, but the one place I wanted to be was off limits. I peered down the winding steps and saw not even the slightest flicker of movement. I hadn’t heard anything that morning except my own movements and Warren’s steady breathing. It was probably too early for much of the gears to be turning around.

The door to the roof was unlocked but stuck. When pushed open, it made a great clamoring noise but again nothing stirred behind me. It did shut more quietly.

The gravel and tar pricked at my toes, the earliest bits of morning light casting evening shadows across the roof. Not even a slice of the sun showed over the horizon, just a light dusting of pink morning glow. And it was perfect just like that. The kind of beauty that can only be enjoyed by actually seeing it through your own eyes.

I crept closer to the edge of the roof, trying to see it as it had been that night weeks ago. The dark figures that traced pipes and electrical boxes were nowhere to be seen. The woolen blanket was missing, replaced by a damp chill that settled into my bones and refreshed my dull senses more than a cold shower ever could.

I sat down right where I had, the empty space next to me more significantly empty than ever. With my knees drawn to my chest and an old sweater to warm me, things could finally come into perspective.

It sounds so corny to even admit, but I knew why I had come up there. To think, to remember, to try to sort things out in way that I could let myself live with. Every memory seemed to be fake after my dad had confessed. And I couldn’t help but feel like an idiot for never realizing something wasn’t right.

I’d been experiences terrifying flashbacks over and over again since the accident. All the same noises echoing into my empty mind. I’d heard gunshots before, but it was so much worse now. Crunching metal is normal for any action movie, but there was something so deeply awful about hearing it in real life, a certain clarity that couldn’t be recorded or reproduced. My memories had taken the same feel to them. Like they hadn’t been really real until now.

When I was either four or five or six- it didn’t even really matter anymore- my dad had taught me the biggest lesson of my life.

He had come home as far I knew, back from work and his super secret job that I was only beginning to understand. Daddy was secret- they told me- daddy helped the government, daddy saved lives. He pulled me out of school for the afternoon and we started to walk down the street back to our old brick house. Back then he tried to keep as much permanence in my life as possible. Things would change soon, though. My dad would widen the gap and grow more distant as each season came and went. I didn’t know it at the time. I was excited just to walk down the cracked sidewalk with him. He was the closest definition to my hero.