Callan Wink - Dog Run Moon

“If he were simply gone it would be easier for me to live with,” she said. “And that makes me a horrible person. What kind of mother am I?”

“Well,” said Merriam, handing Janelle a tissue from her purse, “if it makes you feel any better, I had a doctor friend write me a scrip for ten milligrams of Valium — that’s the highest dose — because I said I was having a hard time sleeping. I sometimes pour the whole month’s supply in my hand and sit there crying, the pills in one hand, a glass of water in the other, and I can’t make myself do it, quite, and that makes me feel worse than before.”

Surprisingly, this admission did make Janelle feel better — or, maybe, it was Merriam reaching over the table to grasp her hand and the way their hands locked on the table between them. Merriam’s strong, capable fingers and blunt-cut nails interlocked with her own, skinny and pale, her nails long and freshly painted before their meeting.

It was a month before they talked about anything other than Merriam’s sister or Terry. And then, gradually, Janelle started telling Merriam about how she had decided to put new wallpaper up in Terry’s bedroom and how Denise was refusing to help. They agreed that thirteen was a difficult age and that muted beige with a plaid-pattern trim would be a good choice in wallpaper.

“And then when he moves out,” Merriam said, “you can still use the room as a guest bedroom and it won’t be overwhelmingly masculine.”

“That’s a good idea,” Janelle said. “I’d never thought about it like that.”

—

Janelle and the kids used to attend church every Sunday. It was a Lutheran church, stolid and small, whose pastor had a lisp that always sent Denise and Terry into convulsions of suppressed laughter, especially when he said certain words like salvation or Christ-crucified. Terry’s father, Todd, never went to church. Sundays, for him, were a day spent on the lawnmower with a beer in an insulated cozy and a radio with headphones tuned to the classic rock station. When Terry was ten he asked Janelle why his dad never went to church, and she replied that mowing the lawn was how daddy prayed. The next Sunday, Terry informed her that he thought going fishing with his grandpa was the way he prayed best — and then didn’t talk to her for a whole week when Janelle made him go anyway. During the week he didn’t talk to his mother, Terry thought long and hard about God and the possibilities of hell. One night, lying in bed in the silent house, his family asleep, he clenched and unclenched his fists, raised his arms above him to fend off the lightning bolt that was sure to strike him down, and then he turned over and pressed his face into the pillow and said it so quietly that no one could possibly have heard it except for a God who could hear everything.

“Fuck you, Jesus,” he said.

With the release of words, and the firebolt that didn’t come, Terry felt himself relax, felt a lightness come over his body. He turned over and sat up in bed, shadow bars from his window blinds cast across his body. He said it louder.

“Fuck you, Jesus.”

He laughed and said it the way Pastor Lundt at church might say it, with feeling, “Jethuth, you cockthucker. Fuck you!”

When Terry informed Janelle that Jesus was make-believe and that he didn’t want to go to church anymore, she told him that until he was confirmed, he didn’t have any choice in the matter. So, until he was fourteen, Terry went to church. He sat in the pew with his mother and sister and — to Janelle’s great embarrassment — refused to stand up and sing hymns with the rest of the congregation. Pastor Lundt would say, “Pleath thtand and join in thong,” and everyone would rise and hold their hymnals, except for Terry, who sat staring straight ahead with his arms crossed over his chest. He had always enjoyed the singing before, but now it felt wrong, like singing happy birthday for someone who wasn’t even having a birthday.

During this time, Janelle came to the conclusion that Terry’s behavior was a direct result of his relationship with his grandfather, and forbade Terry from seeing him. No more fishing. No more weekend sleepovers. No more after-school bus drop-offs. Todd tried to convince Janelle that keeping the boy away from his grandfather was not going to help matters, but she was adamant.

For a month, if Janelle entered a room, Terry left it. If she asked him to do something, he did it without acknowledging that he’d heard her voice. Toward the end of the month Janelle was going out of her way to do things for him, making ribs for dinner twice a week, even letting up on harassing him about his schoolwork. Terry accepted these new developments in stride, and still refused to interact with her in any meaningful way.

The day Terry won was, fittingly, a Sunday. As usual, Terry took in the service immobile in the pew, clad in a too-small polo shirt (he was forever outgrowing his clothes) and wrinkled khaki pants, with his arms crossed over his chest. In the van on the way home, Janelle suggested they go for ice cream. Terry shrugged noncommittally. Behind the wheel of the van, in the church parking lot, Janelle broke down. At first she tried to restrain herself.

“I know you idolize him, and that’s only natural. But your grandfather was — is — not a nice man. Okay? You don’t know him, not what he’s really like. Maybe it’s time you learned some things. I have bit my tongue and bit my tongue, but I won’t any longer.”

Janelle’s voice started to rise, and when Terry turned briefly from looking out the window, he saw her knuckles go white at the wheel.

“Your father grew up in fear of your grandpa. Did you know that? When I first met your father, he wouldn’t take me to meet his family until we were engaged to be married. It was because your grandfather is a tyrant. Do you know what that means? It means a very bad man who makes other people do what he wants them to do without thinking about what they might want to do themselves. Do you understand? Your grandfather, who you idolize, wouldn’t let your grandmother leave the house without his permission. For twenty years! How would that make you feel?”

Janelle was yelling now. She was crying and wiping at her eyes. In the backseat, Denise started to whimper. Terry didn’t say anything. He just kept looking out the window. He thought about the way his grandpa could cast a Jitterbug farther, and with more accuracy, than anyone in the world. The way, with just a flick of his wrist, he could send the lure sailing in a flat arc to land precisely where he wanted — the shadow under a dock, a small gap in the lily pads, right up underneath an overhanging bush. Terry himself couldn’t do that, not even close, but if he tried his whole life maybe he could. And that’s what he wanted more than anything.

When Janelle finally wound herself down, they sat there for a while in silence and then Terry said he’d rather not get ice cream. And, that if Janelle could just drop him off at his grandpa’s house, he could ride his bike home later.

At this, Janelle exhaled through her clenched teeth and rubbed her temples.

“If you’re not careful, mister, you are going to end up just like him. I can see it in you, and I don’t like it.”

—

While Terry was away, Denise informed Janelle that she would no longer be accompanying her to church, and — although Denise was only thirteen at the time and hadn’t been confirmed — Janelle didn’t argue. In fact, Janelle herself stopped going to church for a whole month. She gradually quit going to the bereavement group. And, although they continued for a while, she allowed herself to fall out of touch with Merriam. Janelle knew she had hurt her feelings, but their conversations had begun to falter. She wasn’t sure why, but it seemed that they’d run out of ways to talk about their grief and sorrow — and, as a result, had found out they had nothing in common. During their last few meetings, neither of them had said much. Merriam would occasionally grasp Janelle’s hand and squeeze and look like she was about to speak, and then wouldn’t. Both of them drank their coffee and got refills. They spent long silent moments looking out the windows into the dark street.