While the Savage Sleeps (20 page)

“
Slow down, Buddy, you’re moving too fast,” he said, reaching over and tousling his son’s hair. “You’ll find out soon enough.”

Dylan reached into his pocket to make sure he still had the lunch money his mother had given him. As he did, his backpack fell between his knees and onto the floorboard, causing a few pencils to spill out and roll under the seat.

“
Uh-oh,” Dylan said, unbuckling his seatbelt and scanning the floor.

“
Over by your right foot, son,” Cameron said, pointing and splitting his attention between the boy and the road.

Dylan looked down. “I don’t see it, Dad.”

“
You’re looking at the left foot, Buddy—it’s the other one.”

“
Oh, I see now.” Dylan said, looking at the other foot, spotting the pencil, then grabbing it.

“
Got it?” asked Cameron.

Then something strange happened. Dylan looked up at his dad in the most peculiar way—a loving, thoughtful smile, one filled with a depth of emotion that seemed uncommon in a child, especially one his age.

But the impression would be quickly erased by what happened next: the sudden and loud screeching of tires, followed by an explosion of glass shooting through the air like confetti.

A truck had slammed into them.

Cameron grabbed onto the steering wheel and tried to stop the car from spinning, but as he did, it collided head-on with a telephone pole. The impact folded the vehicle down the middle, giant shards of jagged steel wrapping around them like a metal blanket.

The frightening sounds faded into silence, and everything went black.

Cameron woke up hours later in a hospital bed, his mouth dry and his vision blurred. “Dylan?” he blurted out.

“
Do you know what day it is?” The nurse’s voice was soft and calm.

He looked up and saw the young woman leaning over him with a smile. She placed a gentle hand on top of his.

“
Tuesday?” he guessed, eyes still adjusting to the light and trying to find their focus. “No, Monday … it’s Monday.” Dylan’s first day of school, he remembered. “Dylan? Where’s Dylan?”

“
Good,” said the nurse, ignoring his question, her accent thick-southern. “How about your name? Can you tell me that?”

He looked over to his side, trying to focus on the hallway outside his room, and then back up at her “Cameron … Dawson.”

“
Good. Do you know where you are, Cameron?”

He blinked twice. “I’m in a hospital. Where’s my son?”

The nurse reached over and placed her hand on his wrist to take his pulse, then wrote a few notes on the clipboard near his bed. “I need you to hold real still for a few seconds. Can you do that for me, sweetie?”

Cameron started to panic. “My son … where’s my wife?”

She pulled back and fixed her gaze on him. “She’s fine. Everything’s fine. Just relax. I need you to try and stay calm, hon, so I can help you to feel better. Do you think you can do that for me?”

Cameron nodded reluctantly.

She looked up at the machine beside his bed, down at her watch, and then wrote something else on the clipboard.

Cameron tried to move. When he did, he met up with a sharp, stinging pain in his side. He moaned.

“
Those are your ribs; several of them were broken in the accident.”

The accident. The memories were starting to come back to him now.

The nurse turned and grabbed something from the cart. “We’ll see if we can’t get you something for the pain. Broken ribs can be hell.”

He closed his eyes for a few seconds. It hurt to breathe.

The nurse reached for a small paper cup and held it up. “I’m going to give you a little something so you can sleep.”

He took the pill.

And within minutes, everything went dark again.

***

The next morning, bright sunlight bore through the window, hitting Cameron’s face and jolting him from his sleep. He squinted to protect his eyes from the harsh glare.

His wife was standing over him.

“
Sarah … ” he said, his voice rasping. “Dylan. How’s Dy—”

“
Shhh. It’s okay.” Sarah reached for his hand, interlacing her fingers with his, and squeezing gently. “It’s all okay now. I’m right here.”

She looked tired, worn down. Her eyes were puffy and red, like she’d been crying. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“
I’ve been worried about you, is all.” She nodded as she spoke, forcing a thin smile. “How are you feeling?”

“
Okay … I think.” But he felt disconnected, confused.

Time passed. A doctor came to see him, followed by a woman wearing a nametag. “Joan Shipley,” it read, “Bereavement Counselor.”

“
No,” Cameron said, slowly shaking his head while reading it, the panic steadily rising through him. “No!” He looked up at Sarah for reassurance. She was crying. Then he moved his gaze all over the room, as if searching for Dylan.

“
It can’t be,” Cameron said, begging for it not to be true, tears filling his eyes. “It can’t ... it just can’t … he was just…”

“
It’s true, Cameron.” Sarah moved closer, tears rolling down her cheeks “Our baby boy, he’s…” She embraced him and broke down, rocking him gently, pressing her face against his. He could hear her sobs, felt her warm tears turning cold on his skin.

“
I’m sorry, Cameron,” the doctor said. “We tried to save him. His injuries were just too severe.

“
WHEN?”

The doctor took a deep breath, then let the air out slowly. “About an hour after we got him here. We did our best.”

Cameron stayed still for a moment, but it didn’t last long. He grew agitated and tried to get out of the bed. The doctor rushed toward him. Two passing orderlies ran into the room to assist and to keep Cameron from hurting himself. Even with broken ribs, holding him down proved difficult.

This was a different kind of pain, and it had a strength all its own.

In the end, the doctor had to administer a sedative.

Everything went black again.

***

Cameron slept into the next day. When he came to, it took him a few seconds to realize his nightmare existed not in his sleep, but in the waking world.

He soon learned the details of the accident. A truck driver, in a hurry to make a delivery, had run a stop sign and slammed into their car.

The district attorney planned to file reckless driving and manslaughter charges, but that made little difference. Even though the other man was at fault, Cameron still felt tremendous guilt over Dylan’s death. If he hadn’t taken his eyes off the road, been more attentive, he might have seen the truck coming and avoided the accident.

Sarah didn’t blame her husband for their son’s death; she knew Cameron’s theory was flawed. It was easy to look back and think of what he should have done, she told him, but in reality, you rarely get the luxury of carefully weighing things out before doing them. Life moves too fast. It’s only later that you can begin untangling the chain of events and applying any sort of logic to them. She tried to convince Cameron there was nothing he could have done to change the outcome, that nobody blamed him for Dylan’s death, but Cameron knew she was wrong: one person did blame him; that person was himself. In his eyes, he was just as responsible for his son’s death as the other driver was.

Eight months after the accident, Cameron still hadn’t been back to work. He just didn’t have any energy left. He could barely function at home; how could he possibly perform at his job?

Sarah did her best to help him, but with little success.

The threads continued to unravel. He stopped responding to Sarah, acting as if she weren’t even there. She tried her best to salvage the marriage, but she was living with someone she no longer knew.

A year later, she reached her breaking point.

“
I can’t live like this anymore, Cam,” Sarah said as they sat on the front steps of their house, both of them staring ahead into the distance. Silky strands of sun-streaked hair danced around her face as the wind blew against them. She pushed them away with her fingers “I’ve tried. You know I have.” She paused, tears glinting in her eyes, then her voice dropped to a whisper. “I miss him too, Cam.”

Cameron sat, looking straight ahead, saying nothing, face stoic, except for his eyes, which blinked rapidly as if deflecting the impact of her statement.

“
You can’t bring him back, Cameron. Nobody can. You’ve got to face that. And you’ve got to stop blaming yourself.” She placed her hand under his chin and gently turned his face toward hers. “You gave that boy life. You didn’t take it away. Can’t you see that?”

Tears welled in his eyes, the first sign of emotion she’d seem in him in a long time. He squeezed them shut, forcing the drops to roll down his cheeks. Still, he was silent.

Sarah wiped the tears from his cheek with her thumb, then she turned forward again, locking her hands around her knees. “I have to go, Cam. I need to grieve the loss of my son too. I’ve been so busy taking care of you and your needs, I’ve almost forgotten I even have any.”

“
I’m sorry.” He blurted the words out, almost as if the act were involuntary.

She turned to face him. “Stop being sorry! You did nothing but love that child from the day he came into this world, and you gave him love until the second he left it. Dylan would never have blamed you for this, so stop blaming yourself.”

Hearing his son’s name felt like a knife going into his chest. “I can’t.” He brought his face down into his hands and sobbed.

She took a deep breath, didn’t say anything for a long time. “I love you, Cam. I always will. If you know anything, please, know that. But if I don’t do this, I’ll die too, and I refuse to let that happen.” She looked down at the ground, shaking her head. “I … I have to go now.”

He knew she was right. He couldn’t blame her; in fact, he was surprised she’d stuck it out as long as she had. Love kept her there, but even love has its limits.

Sarah stood up and turned to walk away. She stopped and spoke without looking back at him. “Do yourself a favor, Cam. Free yourself. Free yourself from the guilt, the shame. It’s time.”

The woman he’d fought tirelessly to win over so many years ago, the one he’d swore he could never live without, not even for a moment, was now walking right out of his life.

He never saw her again.

***

Cameron had given up on life, and life, he figured, had given up on him.

Sarah had been gone for several months. Now, the larger city he’d once yearned for seemed even bigger. Emptier, too.

On yet another seemingly endless night, Cameron opened his nightstand drawer and pulled out his service weapon. He hadn’t turned it in yet. He was, technically, still on disability leave. He stared at the weapon for a long time.

“
I have to go now,” he finally said, repeating Sarah’s words. “Yeah, me, too, Sarah. Me, too.”

Cameron tightened his grip and raised the weapon toward his head. The weight of the gun seemed heavier than he remembered, perhaps because now he had it pointed the wrong way–toward himself.

He brought the gun closer, finger curled snugly around the trigger. His hands were trembling and palms wet with sweat as he closed his eyes.

“
I have to go now,” he said again, breath labored and a tear rolling down his cheek.

He shook his head, offered a final apology to his son, and began to squeeze the trigger.

That was when it happened.

A feeling of warmth quickly wrapped around his upper body, applying pressure to his chest, his shoulders, his neck. It was consuming, and yet, at the same time, felt remarkably comforting. It was electric. He’d never experienced anything like it before, as if the chemistry in his body were changing all at once.

A feeling of peace moved through him like a gentle wave. He watched with astonishment as his hand lowered the gun, completely independent of his will. As it touched the nightstand, his fingers began to loosen, uncurling from around the trigger. He let go of it and when he did, it was as if he were letting go of all the demons keeping him captive for so long.