Trouble

The first time things got hard

It’s early December, 1972. It’s storming outside. The snow quietly piles high. Inside though, we are warm and dry. It’s loud. A party. Or maybe just a potluck. I don’t remember clearly. My best recollection is of me with my older brother, Derek. He and I are giggling as we run ruckus through the house, wild with late-night energy. It feels like we’re the stars of some performance. But my father has had enough.

“Boys!” Dad’s voice cuts sharply through the laughter, like lightning and thunder all at once. “If you’re not in your bed in five minutes, there will be trouble.”

Trouble. The word hangs in the air. But after the initial shock wears off, we barely remember it happened. To us, it’s a yellow light. A signal that the night might be over soon, but not quite yet. We still have more time. And what is time for a three year old? I’m lost in the glee of it all. I just don’t want the fun to end.

It’s then that we hear it. Snap. It sounds like leather. It’s Dad’s belt. The familiar floorboards groan under his footsteps. Each one measured and deliberate. Derek and I lock eyes. I’m off. Running. Right, then up the stairs and right again. I dive to the cool side of the pillow. But Derek? Poor Derek. He runs the wrong way. Straight into Dad. I snicker under the covers as I listen. My giggles, muffled. Wait… Is Derek getting it? I think he is. But I’m safe. I made it.

It’s morning now. Out the window there are drifts for days. So much white. When I look out the window, the barn seems to have disappeared, swallowed by the snow. We live on a rural farm just outside Ottawa, Canada’s capital city. But we might as well be in the middle of nowhere. Derek and my other brother, David, have to go to school. I’m too young to go. The big yellow bus waits at the bottom of the driveway. Dad’s already gone. Work gets him up early. My mind’s on sledding. Maybe we can go later, when everyone comes home.

Quiet settles in. The snow suffocates all the noises from the farm. Inside, there’s the low drone of Sesame Street on our black-and-white television. Mom is on the phone. She’s talking like she’s wanting something but doesn’t know how to ask for it. With the receiver tucked between her shoulder and ear, she’s stirring something violently. She’s making fruitcake for the holidays. She’s anxious. Irritated.

Then… a crash. Not glass, but something like it. A ripping sound. A wail? No. Deeper. Desperate. Mom. She’s crying. Not little cries. Big ones. Loud ones. Everything is wrong now. I’m scared. I just want her to stop crying.

A while later, I’m standing at the end of the driveway, bundled in my snowsuit and boots. The yellow bus turns the corner. But it’s too soon in the day for my brothers to come home. I climb on to greet them. I’ve never been on the bus before. I feel like a big boy. But the bus is mostly empty. Just the driver, some lady, and my brothers. The lady is cleaning up something near David. She tells him, “It’s going to be ok,” but her voice doesn’t sound okay. It smells wrong, too. Sour. Did David throw up?

Everyone is crying now. Grown-up cries. I don’t understand. I don’t want to understand. I want to go sledding. But we can’t go sledding if dad’s not coming home. The idea that Dad is never coming home is too much for me to take in.

Later, I’ll hear about black ice. About how another car hit my dad’s car head on. About how the steering wheel had new technology. It was supposed to collapse on itself on impact. Instead, it plowed through my dad, pinning his chest to his seat. I’ll hear how he was conscious, talking to the rescue workers as they tried to free his body. But he was bleeding inside. By the time he got to the hospital, he was gone.

Years later, as an adult in therapy, I will try to make sense of all this. A three-year-old’s logic is a blurry thing. Feelings mixed with dreams and half-truths, formed into stories. In time, a darker, unmistakable pattern will come into focus. When my dad was three, his dad died too. A strange and haunting symmetry. Neither of us had dads growing up. The implications start to set when my wife Tami and I start having our own kids. One of the core questions of my life starts to come into focus… How does a dad, who didn’t have a dad, who’s dad didn’t have a dad, figure out how to be a good dad?

But right now, just now, I’m a three year old. My dad isn’t coming back. My mom won’t be making fruitcake anymore. And some part of me actually feels responsible. That my dad dying was my fault somehow. Trouble. I didn’t go to bed on time. And then, he goes away forever. In my little mind, those things connect. Cause and effect all mixed up. Dad is never coming home because I didn’t fall in line. I went too far. I decide something in this moment. Something small and firm: I will be a good boy from now on. I will play inside the lines. I’ll be whatever the people I need want me to be. I’ll be so good that I’ll make everyone happy. So happy that they will never leave. I’ll do whatever it takes to not feel this alone ever again.

This is my first mistake.

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