Previous installment: The Wheel: Part 7, Thad and Marcia
Start at the beginning: The Wheel: Part 1, Jack Colby
Where we left off: Jack’s in-laws arrived. Jack tried to distract Justin so they could make funeral plans, but Justin refused. The day of the funeral arrived, and Jack woke Justin in the morning.
Voiceover narration: Andrew Thomas
Art: Jenelle Thomas https://alovelygiraffe.com
Heros are Heros
The two days after the funeral passed slowly. Sheila’s siblings and various other out-of-town family members left one group at a time, leaving Thad and Maria as the final barrier between the Colbys and reality. On Sunday, that barrier was broken. Thad and Marcia stopped by the house one last time on their way out of town, and now, as Jack stared down at the woman he called “Mom”, he was struck again by just how much Sheila had looked like her mother. In the lines around Marcia’s eyes and the way her cheeks drooped ever so slightly, he saw at least part of a story that would otherwise go untold. Tears came suddenly to his eyes.
“I mean it, Jack,” she was saying. “If you need us, we can be back in a heartbeat. I could fly up for a weekend myself, whatever you need.”
Jack nodded. “Thanks, I really appreciate it. I’ll be good, though. I’ve got Justin to take care of me, after all.” Justin turned from hugging his Grandpa, Jack winked a very wet wink at him, and wiped away the tear that had been pushed out onto his cheek.
On Monday morning, Jack really began to feel the absence of company. That, paired with the fact that he no longer had the funeral to work towards, left him feeling aimless and at a loss for what to do with his time. He felt he had been lazy enough for the last week and a half and briefly considered stopping by work to check in on things.
As he stood mulling this over, Justin called from the couch. “Dad?”
“I’m in the kitchen, bud.”
There was no response. Justin didn’t bother half the time; he was just pinging the Dad-dar.
Jack continued to stand there, staring down the hallway to the bedrooms; one of which he had been mostly avoiding, and the other he hadn’t even stepped foot in since the accident. Following much internal deliberation, he decided it was time to begin washing the girls’ clothes so they could be boxed up and donated.
At first, it was hard. There were tears when he ran across specific outfits like Megan’s unicorn shirt that she had lived in for an entire month after she got it last Christmas, or the dress that Sheila had worn on their first date (he couldn’t believe she still had it). As he fell into more of a routine, though, he found he could focus on the steps, the progress he was making, and the end goal.
This is what you needed, isn’t it, Cheeso? Always have to have some sort of deadline to work towards.
Jack smiled grimly. Sheila could still reprimand him from beyond the grave, it seemed.
After two runs to the Women’s Resource Center, he couldn’t bear to be inside a house deprived of the items that were once necessities to his wife and daughter’s existence. So instead of relaxing, he and Justin took an inexcusably large load of returnable cans to the grocery store and did some yard work when they got home. Jack mowed the lawn and Justin watched, relocating to a new, closer perch each time Jack switched to another part of the yard. When he finished, he was covered in sweat, dust, and grass clippings. Unable to avoid the house any longer, Jack went in to take a shower. Justin waited on Jack’s bed outside the bathroom while he showered and followed him into the living area afterward.
Jack grabbed a beer from the fridge as Justin returned to the TV in the other room. Beer in hand, Jack stared blankly at the now-closed refrigerator. Three years of Megan’s school pictures stared back at him. Crying no longer felt possible. He simply sighed and headed down the hallway to his room, the one he still felt he shared with his wife. The bed was just as unmade as the last time they slept in it. Jack sat on the edge of the mattress, beer dangling between his knees, and stared at the wall. When he could find no new blemishes in the paint, he drank half the beer, set it on the nightstand, lay back, and listened to the dull ramble of the TV across the house. Soon, he slept.
And dreamed.
Voices of children. It reminded Jack of the Midway. The voices undulated and surrounded him in swirling patterns. After a time, they seemed to coalesce into one. They—or was it ‘it’?—oscillated from joy and laughter to pleading and begging. The voice (voices?) began to morph slowly into a sort of rhythmic thumping. Jack opened his eyes and saw the wheel towering in front of him. The limp bodies of his wife and daughter swung and tossed like chips in a Bingo tumbler, continually slamming into its cross sections as it spun entirely too fast. He tried to scream, but the sound that he heard seemed like a forlorn wail that emanated from a distant, hollow passageway. He belted out with renewed effort, and while the scream was closer, he still could not claim it as his own. His chest heaved, and his throat felt as if it was ejecting glass shards into the stratosphere. Closer and closer the scream rushed as if drawn inward by some terrible gravitational force. “Dad!”
Jack lurched awake with frame-wrenching staccato as Justin flew into the room.
“Justin, what the fuck is wrong?” Jack spluttered.
“I didn’t know where you were.”
“Where the hell did you think I would be?”
“I couldn’t find you.”
“Well, maybe try not screaming so hard next time, jeez.” Jack rubbed his forehead where a headache seemed to be forming like a sudden summer storm.
“I didn’t scream.”
“Come on. I heard you.”
“I was just looking for you.”
“You were screaming!”
“I was not! I was just saying ‘Dad!’”
Exasperated, Jack continued to massage his brows with the thumb and forefinger of one hand. “Get out of here.”
“Why?”
“I said, get out of here!”
“Where do I go?”
“I don’t know! Go to your room, leave me alone, I can’t turn around without running into you! I can’t even take a ten-minute nap, goddammit.”
Justin stomped out of the room, each footfall heavier than the last and laden with indignity. His bedroom door slammed shortly after.
Jack’s face descended into his upraised hands, and he let out a guttural expulsion of fury. He massaged his brow some more, trying to shake off the post-nap delirium, and turned to look at the bedside clock.
“Ah, son of a bitch.” Jack took a swig of his now-warm beer and headed to Justin’s room. He opened the door gently and poked his head in.
“Hey, bud, can I come in?”
‘Yeah.” Justin was on the floor next to his bed playing with a Batman action figure. He didn’t look up.
Jack sat on the bed nearby. “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
“Ok.”
“I mean it, bud. We are both sad and stressed, and we show that in our own ways, but I still shouldn’t yell at you.”
“Ok.” Justin still didn’t look up.
Jack pressed on. “And you know what? You are doing better than me.”
“What?” Justin turned to face him now.
“Well, I looked at my clock after you left. I thought I had only been asleep for about ten minutes, but it was closer to forty. That’s pretty impressive.”
“Why?”
“Well, you haven’t been letting me out of your sight for more than a couple of minutes lately, and when you do, you end up calling for me not long after.”
“I guess I just forgot.” Justin looked back down at Batman, The Dark Knight, the World’s Greatest Detective.
“That’s good! And it’s ok that you wondered where I was, I was just in the middle of a really bad dream, and you scared me.”
“What was your dream?”
Jack paused; the wheel looming in his mind’s eye.
“I don’t remember now,” he heard himself say. “Anyways, I love you, pal. Want to get out of the house and do something fun?”
“Sure!” Justin brightened. “Like what?”
“I don’t know, we will figure something out.”
That night, as Jack lay in bed next to Justin with a chocolate ice cream cone roiling in his gut, he came to the conclusion that it was time to return to some semblance of a routine—the events of the day had proved that. He resolved to call Laura Iverson in the morning. The Iversons lived on the other side of the subdivision, and their son, Trevor, was in Justin’s class. While the boys were friends, they never formed enough of a bond to spend much time together, even though they lived so close. Laura had left a card in their mailbox sometime during the week, and in it was more than your usual condolences or vague offer to provide ‘help’; she had explicitly offered to take Justin for the day anytime Jack needed. At the time, Jack hadn’t understood how that could be necessary. Now, though, as he lay staring at the Batman figure in the shadows on the floor, he realized that he might need her more than he thought and wondered if she was ready for what he was going to ask. He wasn’t sure if he deserved the help, but he knew he needed it.
Then, Jack began to fall asleep, trying to remember if Commissioner Gordon said Gotham deserved Batman or if it needed him. He wasn’t sure, but in his last moments of wakefulness, he determined it probably didn’t matter. Help was help, heroes were heroes.
As Jack nervously dialed Laura Iverson’s number the next morning, he felt embarrassed and apprehensive. Surely this wasn’t what she had in mind when she slipped a card in his mailbox on a hot July afternoon.
“Hello?”
“Hi, this is Jack Colby. Is this Laura?”
“Yes! Hey, Jack. How are you guys doing?”
“We’re doing ok. Sheila’s family left over the weekend, so it’s just us now, which is…taking some getting used to.”
“I imagine so. How can I help?”
Jack exhaled with relief. Of course, he would only call if he needed help, but the fact that she offered it again instead of waiting for him to ask went a long way toward making him feel better.
“Well, um, Justin’s been a bit inseparable from me, and it seems like a change of scenery usually helps. I was wondering if he could play with Trevor for a while?”
“Of course! Trev’s been asking about it ever since I mentioned it was a possibility. When are you thinking?”
“I wondered if maybe we could try it this afternoon?”
“We will be around, so that should work.”
“Ok, I haven’t talked to him about this yet, so let me see what he thinks and I’ll text you back to confirm. I’m sure he will be excited about it too.”
“Great, is there anything else you need? How are you on food?”
Jack took a breath. “Yeah, actually, um…I need to get back to work, pretty soon probably, and I don’t know what I’m going to do with Justin just yet.” He hesitated, but Laura didn’t say anything, so he plunged ahead. “If today goes alright, would you be able to watch him for the next few days while I start looking for other options?”
There was silence on the other end of the line, and Jack couldn’t bear it, however short it might be.
“If it’s too much—”
“No, no, we can help but…you’re going back to work already?”
“Well, yeah, I think it will help. I could use the distraction.”
“Ok,” Laura said. She sounded skeptical. “We can help as long as you need, just let me know.”
“This is such a relief, thank you so much.” Jack ignored her concern about his returning to work. He didn’t need to explain himself. “I’ll start talking to some of his other friends’ parents and see if we can come up with some sort of rotation to get us through until school starts. I can’t imagine I could find a daycare at this point.”
Laura agreed with him there and reiterated her offer to help as long as needed. Jack thanked her again and hung up.
“Hey, Justin!” he called.
“Yeah?”
Jack turned with a jump. “Oh gosh, you’re right there.” Of course, he was. “Do you want to go to Trevor’s house a little later?”
“Yeah!” Justin yelled.
Jack was surprised. “Oh wow, you sound pretty excited.”
“Yeah!” Justin said again with a crazy look on his face and ran off to his room.
Jack laughed. “I know you know more words than ‘yeah’, you goof!”
A few hours later, he stood offering an unreciprocated wave to Justin as he ran across the Iverson’s yard after Trevor and into the trees behind. He thanked Laura profusely and turned to walk home feeling a familiar sense of anxiety, this time with some guilt mixed in.
He used this gift of free time to take care of some boring but necessary odds and ends like cancelling Sheila’s cell phone contract and gathering up toys like Barbies and unicorns, which Justin was unlikely to play with. He also took a miraculously uninterrupted nap (his first in he didn’t know how long) and a long shower. He only texted Laura once, and she said that other than Justin asking when Jack would be back to pick him up, things were fine.
Feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, Jack cracked a beer and took a seat on his back porch. He needed to pick Justin up within the hour, but he had one more task to complete first. He pulled out his phone, clicked on Ryan’s contact, and sent a message.
Hey Ryan wanted to let you know I’ll be back
in the office tomorrow morning. Probably a
little later than normal since I have to drop
off Justin at a friend’s but I’ll be there
He didn’t put the phone away. He knew he would need it again shortly, and before he could even take another swig of beer, the phone was ringing and Ryan’s name was displayed again. Jack sighed—he had been hoping for nothing more than a text reply—and answered the call.
Ryan did his best to keep Jack away from work; he really did. He tried to insist that Jack wait until next week and, when that failed, resorted to insisting that Jack only work half days for now. Jack swore that he needed the routine and promised Ryan that it was what was best for both him and Justin. The last part didn’t feel quite right coming out, though. He wasn’t really sure what was best for Justin; all he knew was that he couldn’t do five more days of aimless waiting and being pestered by a seven-year-old. In the end, it must have been hard to argue with a guy who lost half his family because Ryan caved not much later.
When he got off the phone, a text message from Laura was waiting.
You might want to come a little sooner.
Everything is fine but Justin has been
asking about you.
Jack responded, left his half-drank beer in the fridge, and made the short trek across the sub. When he arrived, Justin came running through the yard to hug him. Laura walked out the front door a moment later. Jack noticed that Trevor was still in the backyard, and that gave him an idea.
“Hey pal, can you run and say goodbye to Trevor? I’ll be right here.”
Justin took off with another quick “Yeah!”
Jack smiled and looked at Laura. “Sorry about this.”
“Oh, he was totally fine. I was just being cautious.”
“Alright, well, I’ll talk to him on the way home and hopefully he’ll be good for the day tomorrow.”
“You’re going back for sure then?”
“I need to,” he said. “When would be the best time to bring him by?”
Laura shrugged. “Trevor is an early riser, for better or worse. Does somewhere between eight, eight thirty work?”
Justin was on his way back now, hair flying wildly as he ran.
“Yeah, I’ll shoot you a text ahead of time. Thanks again, Laura. So much.”
On the way home, Jack couldn’t stop talking about how proud he was that Justin did so good without him for so long. “And can you believe it? You beat your forty-minute record by over two hours!” Jack said as he smacked him on the back.
“I did?!” Justin said, beaming up at him.
“You did! Good job, pal. Think you can set a new record tomorrow while I’m at work?”
Justin said that he could.