Way Down I'll Go

That Makes Calamity of So Long Life

He couldn't check out. Not when they were only walls away.

Crack!

It was the fourth strike before his mind was fully back to his dismal reality. The white hot pain took his breath away and already he could feel the trickle of blood down his back. He bit down on his lower lip as the blows continued, refusing to cry out. Soon, breathing became difficult and his vision became blurry, but still he made no sound. He couldn't let the little ones hear. But he couldn't pass out either. He couldn't...

"Breathe."

Jo sucked in a gulp of cool air. His clouded vision began to clear ever so slightly.

"Good job. Just breathe. In and out. There you go."

The spots in his eyes once again reassembled into five worried faces. He focused on them, his one link to reality.

Directly in front of him, Drew kneeled with hands out, palms open.

"It's okay. You're safe."

"Okay." He gasped out. "Okay. I'm okay."

The boys let out a small, collective breath. Tension still radiated from each, none knowing what to do now. After a few pregnant seconds, Adam tentatively crawled into Jo's lap. Flinching at first contact, Jo recovered and scooped the youngest boy into his arms, rocking him back and forth. Only then did he realize he was sitting with his back pressed into a corner wall.

One by one, the boys cuddled into him and they sat in silence as Jo rocked Adam back and forth. Back and forth. No one knew who the rocking was for. No one cared. No one spoke. 

They simply sat.

————

"You just had to. Even though I told you multiple times not to."

"I didn't know that would happen!"

"Why didn't you just trust me?

"You don't know everything!"

"I know way more than you when it comes to that!"

"I was there too, you know!"

"Oh please, you barely remember—"

Drew halted mid-sentence, looking sheepishly at Jo who stood quietly in the doorway to the bathroom.

"You boys are supposed to be brushing your teeth, not auditioning for the debate team."

Neither Drew nor Jaime seemed to find humor in Jo's quip, their faces an even mix of embarrassment and indignation. Jo sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Drew, can I talk to Jaime alone, please?"

Closing the bathroom door behind Drew's retreating figure, Jo sat on the closed toilet seat and tilted Jaime's face up to meet his eyes.

"Listen to me, Jaime. None of this morning was your fault."

Jaime's eyes skirted away.

"No, look at me. It wasn't your fault. My brain's just screwed up. Things that wouldn't bother a normal person set me off. It's not you, okay? It's me. You didn't do anything wrong."

"Drew told me not to. He told me what would happen. I just thought...maybe..."

"That I'd changed?"

"Kinda, yeah. I guess."

"I wish I had. Maybe someday I will. I wish... But anyway, it wasn't your fault. You got that?"

"I guess."

"Okay."

"Jo?"

"Yeah, kiddo?"

"I do remember."

Jo paused for a moment, studying Jaime's face. Sighing, he ran his hand through his hair and took a deep breath.

"I know kiddo. And I wish more than anything that you didn't."

Jo pulled Jaime in and hugged him tightly, kissing the top of his head. The guilt felt suffocating. If he had better hidden the abuse, if he had been stronger, maybe his boys would be free of these memories that plagued them. Jaime had been four when they left and yet remembered far too much of their life before. What more did the older boys carry?

The weight of his conscience combined with the ever present weariness, and suddenly Jo could think of nothing but sleep. He rushed the boys through bedtime, cleaned the kitchen, checked over homework, and finally crawled under the thin sheets of his bed.  As he drifted off, the words of Sammy's Shakespeare poem ran through his head.

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.