Quadragesimus Gradus

“Generally, she won’t remember them. Those she does remember we will be sure to process thoroughly. Don’t wake her up. You will only disrupt her sleep. In the short and long term, that has far more severe consequences. You both—you all—need rest.”

“I’m gonna get you!” Darian yelled with false animosity toward his screaming children. “Ahh!” He waved his arms high in the air as they scampered out of his path, ducking behind table legs and chairs, leaping onto couches. Darian cornered Merla, his middle daughter, and stomped over to her. Scooping her up, he dashed across the room while she wailed and thrashed. In a swift motion he dropped her onto a couch. “I got you!” Darian trumpeted as he began tickling her belly and under her ear. Her screaming turned to laughter.

After only a moment, Darian heard the others yelp little battlecries as they emerged from hiding, then the pitter-patter as they rushed to Merla’s rescue. Reaching Darian, Kayden began beating his father’s legs, hollering indecipherable curses. Everly, the eldest who was much taller, leapt onto Darian and grabbed hold of his shoulder, knocking him down and away from Merla. Merla joined her sister by pressing on his nape, their combined weight smooshing his face into a cushion. 

Darian shook his whole body in an attempt to wriggle free, growling like a trapped beast. “Gah! I’ll get you, I’ll get you—ALL!” He caught Merla’s leg as she was beginning to crawl down his back, pushing her over his side and twisting out of Everly’s grip in one move. He put a hand on Kayden’s forehead and held him away; he was now free, but still on his knees. His back was to the couch, which gave the kids an excellent height advantage. Recovering faster than he expected her to, Merla scrambled from the couch onto the back of his neck—again. Everly hung from the arm which held Kayden, who was flailing his arms in the air before him, pressing into Darian’s hand. Then Everly began to tug on Darian’s elbow, forcing it to bend. Darian noticed Merla’s weight, the fatigue in his back. Truly, his kids were about to beat him in a wrestling match. They’d never done—if only she could see them now.

“Wrah!” He bellowed, rearing his back and flinging his arms. “You’ll never beat me!” Merla, again, fell onto the cushions. Kayden fell on his rear, giggling. Everly, however, had maintained her grip. “Never!” She retorted, adjusting and leaping at his face. The heel of her palm landed just below Darian’s eye. She tackled him to the floor, and from there he knew it was over. Merla and Kayden crawled on top of him, struggling to pin a limb each. 

Darian let his bellows fade to begging whimpers, allowing his children to bask in their victory. When they finally let him up, they jumped and danced together, complimenting each others’ valor against the Dad-Beast.

“Alright!” He finally exclaimed, handing them each a water bottle. “Even though you bested me, that doesn’t mean bedtime is any later! Get going upstairs!” He widened his arms to playfully intimidate them, and they squealed and rushed up the steps. The springs of their beds rang as they leapt into them. Darian settled into his chair for a moment, plucking a cup of water in a light hold, and took a long draw.

He woke with a snort. He took a deep breath, inadvertently sucking in a strand of drool. He blinked. The pain in the corners of his eyes told him that sleep boogers had accumulated there. Slowly, he rotated his head, scanning the lamplit living room. Finding the clock, he sighed—four in the morning. He stood and wiped his eyes. Darian grabbed his cup of water and shuffled into the kitchen, flicking light switches as he went. After finishing off the glass at the sink, he filled it again, then performed the evening ritual of ensuring each door was locked and each light was off. Then he proceeded upstairs.

It was quiet, but the lights to Kayden’s room and the girls’ room were on. Darian exhaled, the air cutting through tight lips, seething at a pain in his knee. Continuing quietly up the steps, all was still silent—he hadn’t woken them. 

At the top of the stairs lay the entrance to Kayden’s room, which Darian entered. Kayden was asleep, face sideways and mouth open wide on the pillow. Darian shook his head with a smile as he walked over. He has his mother’s cheeks. He gently guided Kayden’s body to its side. He kissed him above the ear. “Goodnight, my son.” 

Darian flicked the light and went back into the hallway.

Murmuring.

He took careful, tense strides toward the girls’ room, listening to the voice, eager to determine its mood. As he drew closer, he realized that the voice waxed and waned in volume, almost in line with the inhale-exhale cycle. Certainly, the speaker was sound asleep.

Standing at the open door Darian could see that Merla and Everly were caught in slumber. It was Merla alone who spoke. She had a smile on her restful face. Between sentences she offered lax giggles. She said:

“Mommy! I know where you’re hiding! Come out, come out, wherever you are!” Her calls were sing-song lures intended to draw out her mother. Darian smiled—she was having a sweet dream, for once. He stepped into the room to tuck them in and kiss them goodnight.

Merla’s face contorted. Darian’s chest seized.

“Mommy! Mommy?” The call sounded surprised, the question sounded concerned.

“Mommy? Where are you?” The tone grew more worrisome. She shivered. “Momma?” 

Darian rushed to Merla’s side, kneeling by the bed, taking her head in his arms.

“Momma? Mommy where are you?” Now she was anguished. Her head snapped back and forth, closed eyes searching. “Mom?” Her projected voice turned into whines, and her questions to begging. “Mommy please come out! Mom! Please….” 

Her cheeks grew wet with tears, her pillow soaked in them. Darian groaned as he coddled Merla’s head in his arms, trying to wipe the tears from under her eyes and the hair from her face. But they were too many, and his hands grew wet, and her hair sprawled in chaos. 

“Mom! Mom! Where are you?” Her voice reverberated through his ears as if through a dark, empty cavern. She was alone. She had to be. “Momma, please!”

Darian bit his lip until it popped in his mouth, washing his tongue with the taste of iron. He wanted to shake her, to shout her name, to pet her head until she woke up and realized she was safe, she was going to be okay, she wasn’t alone. But he couldn’t wake her, no matter how long she suffered, no matter how she begged him to be roused from the terror. 

“Momma? Please! Don’t leave me!” No…not even now… “Mom! Where are you?” 

So he gently attended to her tears, his hands trembling. When the blood dried on his tongue he whispered her a lullaby, the one her mother used to sing. “Mom,” Merla whimpered, “mommy….”

She fell silent. Her breathing steadied. Darian used his quaking forearms to wipe the moisture from his eyes so he could see. Her face relaxed. She was beautiful, she had her mother’s nose. How he hated to see it crumpled in pain! How he hated himself for letting her suffer!

But now she was alright, and he kissed her forehead. “Sleep well, my dear,” he managed through his constricted throat. Fatigued, he rose to stand. His leg had fallen asleep and he nearly fell to the floor, but he caught himself without too much noise. He shuffled over to Everly, kissed her above her mother’s eye; “goodnight, my daughter.”

He straightened his back and turned for the door, walking out as he had so many times before; with that fatherly gait which proclaimed its strength, its towering might, built upon a foundation of solid ancient stone hailing from deep within the Earth. Darian walked like this in case they were awake, or partially awake, and caught a glimpse of him. This way, they would feel secure in his confidence, not discouraged by his weakness. 

He flicked the light and shut the door part-way.

       There the mountain stands,
	That great wonder of stone,
	A king towering o’er the Earth.
	See how broad his shoulders?
	See how high his peaks?
	A king so stern and wise,
	Resisting storm and ruin,
	Remaining e’r the same.
	

	Behold! The mountain rests
	But in God’s hands,
	All Creation’s Potter.
	Let God take that mountain stone,
	Let Him condense it twixt His palms.
	A meager petrosphere
	Has the King Mountain become,
	Who once towered sturdy o’er Earth.

Then he began the journey to his room through the hall, where they could not see him. His nerves washed with nothingness, but he sensed himself tumbling over a ledge. He stumbled into the guardrail of the steps, resting his entire forearm on it to steady himself. His shoulders hunched, his neck collapsed into his collar. He couldn’t feel his legs, he couldn’t feel his heart beat. Darian’s head lolled over his shoulders as he shrunk within himself. 

He was focused on his throat, stopping those quaking vocal cords from tearing the air to shreds. He wanted to scream until his throat dried and decayed. To scream with outrage against the torture he had permitted, to scream as a prosecutor arguing against himself, to scream proclamation of a guilty verdict, and to scream until his throat bled as recompense for the horror which he had let Merla endure. But if he screamed they would wake up, and her suffering would be in vain, for he would ruin her night’s rest. She so deserved a good night’s rest. They deserved everything.

Darian pressed his door closed behind him. He fumbled sluggard and aimless through the dark. A dense weight thrashed within his heart, wrenching him toward the ground with each lurching step. His legs became rubber under the weight. His ribs clutched his chest the way spider legs cling to prey, squeezing tension into his abdomen. His neck and head throbbed, burning the air around them. Dizzy, what he could see of the dark room swayed like ocean waves. He groaned against his will and whined in protest against the groans, hating himself for being so ill-composed. He languished, preparing to collapse where he stood.

His knee struck the side of his bed. He fell in an instant onto the mattress. As he did, the air pressed forth from his lungs, the pressure in his gut subsided. He realized that this had created a sob. He drew a breath in through quivering lips. He held it in, eyes watering and creating two pools of tears on his sheets. He held it in, shrill groans breaking through the flesh of his neck for he refused to part his lips.

When his fingers began to tingle Darian could hold the breath no longer. He exhaled, and with the heaving breath the heat absolved from around his head, his ribs released their grasp, and the compressed mountain within his heart exploded through his skin. Tears leaked from his eyes, gasps and sobs polluted the silence in confidence. For a time his body writhed slowly, a sluggish squirming. He was acutely aware of every moment, of all the sorrow that seeped through his pores, of the remorse that racked his body.

Then he churned through his mind, unaware of the passing time, his body violently shaking and lurching, clutching the pillows and the blankets, shouting into them, crushing them and pulling them, crying out into them, suffering silently, his muscles growing tighter to restrain his rage, his screams, his destruction so as not to wake the children, who need their rest, they need their rest, she needs her rest, she needs her rest, do not wake her, she needs her rest, do not wake her, do not wake her, do not WAKE 

“…her,” he stammered through a shuddering, blood-flooded mouth.

A sunbeam caressed his cheek through the window, coaxing him into consciousness. Fatigued, he dragged himself from the bed, splashed his face with water, rinsed his mouth with water.

He could hear Everly and Merla and Kayden singing to themselves as they woke.

And he crept downstairs to start making breakfast.