Death of Vows

I didn’t know what to do when I saw my twenty-eight-year-old son crying in the backyard with night rain pouring down on him.  When my boy, Johnny, was three and he fell down and came to me crying, I’d pick him up, brush off the gravel from his knees and when he felt safe again, I’d let him go with a kiss on his forehead.  In grade school when he came home with streams of tears cleaning his otherwise dirty face, I’d sit with him on the couch, listening and holding his hand.  In high school when he didn’t make the football team, I took him out to dinner and sat all the way through a James Bond movie, his favorite at the time. 

          He was staying at my house.  You see, he and his wife of two years, weren’t getting along.  The day he brought his suitcase over I was shocked but not incredibly so, for these two were known to have their squabbles.  I figured it would be just be for a night or two.

          It had been a lovely evening; soft, billowy clouds blew in slowly from the north.  John and I had been working in my backyard.  He was helping me fix my chicken coup.  It seemed by morning when I woke all my chickens were on my front porch, like a dog waiting to be fed.  This was okay except that I could never find the eggs—my sole purpose for having the chickens.  Anyway, I was thankful my son was available to help.

          It was the third night sleeping in his childhood bed. I figured he’d be gone by now. I had asked him on the first day if he’d like to talk.  All he said was, “No thanks, Mom.”   I know from experience that my son only talks when he is ready.

          The phone rang at about 10 p.m.  I was already in bed, asleep.  Although I usually don’t like to be wakened, I was glad for I knew it had to be her, the one he had promised to love and cherish.

          I couldn’t fall back to sleep after the phone stopped ringing.  I thought maybe it was because the wind had picked up, and I heard rain hitting my window.  Turning on my nightstand light, I grabbed my book and read.

          Three chapters later, I heard footsteps down the hall, then the back door open and close.  It was now midnight and though the wind had died down a bit the rain still poured.

          I wasn’t scared; I knew it had to be John.  I put my robe on to see if he was okay.  The kitchen light wasn’t on, but the back porch light was so that when I looked outside I could see.  But what I saw paralyzed me.  I had no clue what to do.  There was my son standing in the middle of the backyard crying as rain fell down on him.  I couldn’t see his actual tears, but I saw the face of a man who was suffering, a man who knew about injustices and the pain that comes from the loss of dreams.

          I wanted to run out to him, put my robe over his bare chest, hold him and tell him all would be just fine.  In the morning, everything would look differently.  But somehow I knew he didn’t want his mom then, and I knew everything wouldn’t be okay in the morning, that in the morning he would experience the pain all over again.  I took a musty dishrag and wiped my own tears.  Then, I left him there, in the cold rain.

In the hall, I stopped and looked at his picture he had taken with Ronald Reagan when he was Governor of California.  Reagan was giving seven-year-old Johnny a medal with one hand and shaking my son’s hand with his other.  John’s father and I stood in the background.  As I stood in the hall shaking from cold, looking at the old photo, I was reminded of two things.  My boy’s heart was first broken by his father leaving—I don’t think I have another picture of father and son together.  Second was a reminder of what kind of man John would be.  He was given the award for his courage, valor, selflessness—he saved a small girl, yes smaller than he, who was stuck on the railroad tracks while a train was coming.  (But that’s another story.) 

          I went back to bed, but I didn’t sleep.  At six a.m. I made a German Chocolate cake, my son’s favorite.  I then rolled and baked biscuits and had ready the blackberry jam that I had canned a month prior.  I peeled potatoes for hashbrowns.  Squeezed three oranges for juice; three was all I had--they made a half a glass.  He didn’t drink coffee.  The eggs would have to wait until I heard him coming down the hall; cold eggs aren’t worth eating.

          Two hours later, when the kitchen was oven warmed, he walked in.

          “Wow, Mom what have you been doing?”

          “Cooking—scrambled, fried, or an omelet?  I have cheese and mushrooms.”

          “Omelet, please.”

          He grabbed a glass out of the cupboard, but before he opened the fridge, I gave him his orange juice.  His eyes were puffy.  Last night’s tears along with his allergies made him more congested than normal.  He sat at the kitchen table.  The old cat came and rubbed up against his legs.  “Mom,” he said, “she’s having an affair, wants a divorce.”  His tears came again.

          I had an eggshell in my hand.  I dropped it into the hot skillet, walked over to him, and hugged him as tightly as I could.  What else was there to do?

                                                                        Kimberly Carlson