Light of Day by Jamie M. Saul Page B

Jack’s editor brought books that squeaked and books that grew into buildings and trees. People showed up to sit and watch the baby do nothing but sleep. They stood and watched him wake and gurgle.
    He was a good baby. As though he’d been in on all the discussions, as though he knew the indecisions and decisions; as though he were a visitor in his parents’ home, he was determined to be the perfect little guest. He cooed when he was hungry but never cried. He slept through the night. When Jack woke in the morning, the baby slept until it was time to curl up with Anne and be fed. At night, alone, with the baby sleeping between them, Anne and Jack would marvel that anything so small could have lungs that breathed so deeply, a heart that beat so strongly, a brain that dreamed. Anne would sit in the rocking chair her father had sent from Dorset, hold the baby in her arms and feed him while Jack sat cross-legged on the floor next to them. Chopin, Brahms, played on the stereo.
    Standing over the crib, Anne would run her lean finger along thebaby’s smooth skin. “He’s so very small,” she said, in a voice that had only to do with love. When she said, “Look at him, Jack. So fragile,” she had tears in her eyes. “So helpless,” she whispered, and lifted the baby out of the crib, held him against her heart. “He’s a wonderful baby,” she said. “He’s a beautiful baby,” and, turning her eyes away quickly and just for a moment, she said, softly, “Oh, Jack. I’m so happy.” And if there were any doubt in her voice that she wasn’t happy, Jack hadn’t heard it.
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    Except for Jack’s father, Aunt Adele and Lois, none of the people who fifteen years before had brought Danny gifts and drank to his long life were there to mourn him.
    â€œMay he rest in peace,” Aunt Adele breathed against Jack’s cheek. She pressed her face against his, she hugged him. She said, “It’s so awful. It’s just so awful.” She said Danny was a very deep boy and would be greatly missed. “It’s just such a horrible loss. Terrible.” She never spoke the word suicide.
    They walked down the gravel path to the car, Jack with his father, who took small, hesitant steps, like a child, everyone else walking ahead. They passed headstones with cherubs, headstones with bouquets and names carved on them, to loving mothers, adored husbands, cherished grandfathers. Jack thought: This is no place for a boy. How far from home I’ve brought him; and he felt the living Danny slipping away from him.
    His father said, “He was an extraordinary boy.” He held on to Jack’s elbow. “I’m not saying that because he was my grandson. He was very astute—” He took several hard, forced breaths. When he spoke, his voice was painfully hoarse. “In the early days, when you and Anne used to leave him with your mother and me—he couldn’t have been more than eighteen months old—we could see he had an ability, a sensitivity for figuring people out—he knew what was going on. He understood . You don’t see that in many children, not when they’re that young. You don’t see it in a lot of adults either.”
    â€œI failed him,” was all Jack said.
    â€œEveryone failed him,” his father answered.
    â€œIt must have been there all along, and I couldn’t see it. He couldn’t have just woken up on Thursday morning—”
    â€œWe didn’t know,” his father said with sad resignation. “We didn’t know until he told us, and he told us by killing himself.” His eyes were moist, from age, from grief. “You did everything you could do. I want you to remember that.”
    They walked further along the path, the old feet sliding against the gravel. The old body trembling. Across the way, dozens of mourners were gathered three deep by a family plot