Dad has been here a couple weeks when he comes to my room one evening. Studying is hard enough when it’s just you and a textbook while the rest of the world has to wait. But when you have all the crazy thoughts that are going on in my head—well, that makes reading about biology even more difficult.
Make that impossible.
“I just spoke with your mother,” Dad tells me as he stands at the doorway. “It looks like she’s going to have to spend a little more time in the inpatient program.”
“You mean rehab?”
“Yes.”
I hate when people don’t use the term that makes more sense. Like saying someone’s an addict when they really should just say he’s a drunk. It seems to let them off the hook in some way. Or maybe it makes it better when you have to say it out loud.
“What happened?”
“She just had a few setbacks.”
I look at him, waiting for more. But more doesn’t come.
I’m not in the mood to hear whether Mom escaped and hit the road in a convertible heading west. Or if she got caught with a two-liter jug of Diet Coke mixed with something.
“So how long is she going to be?”
“They don’t know.”
Dad looks as annoyed as I am. The lines on his forehead seem extra long and deep in the dim light of my room.
“You okay?” he asks me.
I nod. No, I’m not okay, not really, but that’s been going on a year. Dad and I are on speaking terms, and things are fine so I just want to leave things like that. Just fine.
He looks around my room, at the sloped ceiling and the small desk. Then he just shakes his head.
“Chris, you need to understand something about Mom. Something about Mom and you and all of us. Something I believed back home and something I’m thoroughly convinced of now that I’m here.”
He sighs, walks into the room, and sits on the edge of my bed. Midnight is by my desk, close to my feet like she always is when I sit there.
“I think our family is under a great spiritual attack. I saw it happening all the way back in Libertyville with your mother. Some of the things she said—and even did …”
“I know what’s wrong with her,” I say.
“What?”
“She likes to drink too much.”
He looks at me, nods, then clasps his hand tight.
“There’s a battle going on. For your mother and you. For your lives. For your souls.”
I shift in my chair.
“Don’t roll your eyes,” Dad says. “I know you don’t believe in any of this. And I know I was wrong to suddenly come into your life and try to force you to believe in something. But the world is a dark place, Chris. You’ll come to understand that.”
“I believe that now.”
“We can’t do it on our own. I tried. God knows I tried for close to forty years. I tried and I failed. And I finally gave in.”
“And everything’s better?”
“Don’t. Just, please, Chris, don’t. I’m not forcing anything here. I’ve laid off. You gotta give me that. Right? I’ve let you be. Tell me if I haven’t.”
I nod, knowing he’s right.
“This darkness—I think it’s trying to destroy our family, the little bits we have left. I’ve prayed for your mother and you every day, numerous times each day. Not that you come back to me. But that you find God. That you find deliverance from this darkness. I just didn’t know—I didn’t know how bad it was down here. And I’m sorry I didn’t just ignore your mother and come down here to see for myself.”
I think of Iris talking about the dark and the light and the spaces in between. Then I think of the verses in Daniel that I read.
“There’s only one way to fight this darkness. It’s accepting Jesus. Not just a God above who is there to believe in. Because everybody—most people anyway—claim they believe in a God. I claimed this for years. But it’s God’s Son, Chris. His name. His sacrifice. His ability to take all of the bad stuff and make it go away.”
I still don’t get it. I really don’t. “So your life has worked out perfectly since you ‘accepted’ Jesus?”
“The bad stuff is my own sins. Doesn’t mean I suddenly become perfect. But it means that I don’t have to carry those mistakes and hurts to the grave. They’ve been paid for. That’s how He delivers us from the darkness.”
I don’t say anything, and there’s a long pause. One that soon becomes a bit awkward. I’m too tired to disagree. I don’t feel moved because I’ve heard this before and I just can’t accept it. Not in light of everything going on. I don’t think suddenly believing that Jesus Christ really did all the things He was supposed to have done will suddenly make my days and Solitary a lot brighter.
“I’m not trying to preach at you, Chris. If I were more eloquent, or patient, or a lot of things, maybe, you’d hear me out. But that’s—I needed to say that. To tell you those things.”
I nod.
“I love you,” Dad says as he stands and then grips my shoulder.
He’s got a strong grip.
He closes the door and I close my biology book, staring at the wall in front of me.
I sit there trying not to think of the words my father just said. But it’s impossible.