I sat in a chair, looking out a large plate-glass window. Cars rolled in and out of the hospital parking lot, their beams dancing through the night in a kind of perfect rhythm. They had my mother in a room by then, 353. I had stood in the doorway and looked at her but could not go in. Instead, I wandered the halls until I found an out-of-the-way family lounge. And that was where the police officer eventually found me.
He stood over me as I sat leaned back with my feet spread out in front of me. When I looked up, the ceiling light shined from behind his wide Mountie hat.
“Is your name Liam Brennan?” he asked.
His voice was surprisingly high, like the music teacher’s at school. I blinked and saw the man wore glasses and had to be about the same age as the paramedic who’d brought me to the hospital. He wore the brown uniform of a county officer, but I didn’t know that then. All I knew, without a doubt, was that he was the police. I tensed.
“Yes.”
“Can I speak with you?”
I didn’t respond. Instead, I looked around, as if searching for an exit.
“Son, it’s okay. You’re not in trouble. I just want to talk about your mother.”
I tried not to say anything. I knew, even in the moment, that I shouldn’t. But the officer sat down across from me. He looked me in the eyes as he spoke. He asked questions that, maybe, I had wished people would have asked for a long time. And I spoke to him, eventually.
“How long has your mother been like this?”
“Drinking?” I asked.
He nodded. “An alcoholic.”
I looked out the window and shrugged.
“Do you live alone at home with her?”
I shook my head. I wanted to say yes. Maybe I wished I did.
“Does your father live with you?”
I nodded.
“What’s his name?”
I paused, but told him.
The police officer leaned forward. “Are things okay? Is anyone hurting you?”
“Me?”
He squinted. I had to look back out the window.
“I’m fine. We’re all fine.”
He spoke to me for a little while longer, but my guard had risen. In fact, a deep panic set in at the thought of my father learning that I spoke to a police officer about family business. I gave him nothing after that. Even before he finished and walked away, though, I started to vibrate. I sat for a moment, staring out into the night. I went through everything, repeating every word I used over and over again in my head. As I did, my cheeks grew hotter and hotter.
Suddenly, I rose from the chair so fast that it tipped behind me. I didn’t care. I moved past it to the elevator, leaving my mother in room 353. I slipped from the hospital without a real destination in mind. I just needed to get out.
Maybe I was walking home. Or maybe I was looking for some hidden escape, one that would rewrite the life I found myself living. Or both, I don’t know. But I hurried down the dark streets near the hospital, speaking out loud to myself.
“I didn’t tell him anything . . . Nothing’s going to happen . . . They don’t know anything.”
I passed a few people. They hurried around me and then stopped, staring at my passing. I grew more and more detached, like my head was one place and my body belonged to someone else. I just kept walking, turning onto whatever street appeared darker and lonelier.
Like so much back then, I really don’t know what happened. At some point, a man appeared in front of me. He might have had his hands out, trying to get me to stop. Maybe he just saw a fourteen-year-old boy in distress, a kid who needed help. It could be that something else happened. My chest felt so tight that I could barely breathe. And I kept talking to myself.
“They won’t come to the house. That won’t happen.”
The guy just wouldn’t leave me alone. He should have. I don’t know how he couldn’t see the condition I was in. He had to see the anger in my eyes. The craziness.
He touched me first. I am sure of it. His hand fell on my shoulder, and I snapped. I lashed out, swinging wildly, my arms like gears spinning faster and faster. I drove into him without grace or feeling. He may have swung at me, or not. My face ended up pretty well bruised. But maybe I did that to myself as I unleashed the unbridled rage that had been building up inside me.
At one point, the two of us fell to the sidewalk. I was panting. I felt like I was having a heart attack. He was sort of rolling away from me. Saying something like “Chill, man.” I got to my feet. Somehow, I stayed standing, even though my vision spun and I felt so dizzy.
The guy quieted down when I walked away. Before I knew it, though, I saw red and blue lights again. At first, I thought I was dreaming, or that I was back in my foyer with my half-naked mother on the cold, dead floor. I even thought that they had come to help us.
I heard them behind me. Yelling at me. But I kept walking, anyway. I just wanted it all to stop. I wanted them to stop me. To end it all, maybe.
The next thing I knew, my face slammed into the sidewalk. I felt the weight of men on my back, pulling at my arms. And I started to cry.
“Help me,” I whispered.
But I don’t think anyone heard me.