Pandora's Children

Just another WordPress weblog

It was a brisk October night, the air ripe with the smells of autumn and the impending holiday season, and I was sitting on my favorite chair on my front porch, one eye on the sunset, the other on the newest Stephen King paperback, and a Coors Light in my hand.  My family had just finished dinner and my son Matthew was e-mailing his friends while Jenna, my second wife and Matt’s step mother, was exchanging gossip over the phone with her mother in Florida.  Rocky, my twelve-year-old arthritic golden lab, was curled up at my feet, vigorously going at a bacon-flavored rawhide I had brought home earlier that day.

The slow creak of the screen door opening behind me pulled my attention away from both the book and the bleeding sun.  I craned my neck just enough to watch as Matthew stepped from the house onto the porch.  He stood an inch over six feet, tall like his old man, but with a lean athletic build instead of my broad frame.  The old wooden porch groaned softly under his feet. Rocky ignored his arrival and continued to gnaw at his treat.

There was a plastic blue and white Igloo cooler next to my chair stocked with bottles of cold beer.  Matthew pulled one out and twisted off the cap.  He collapsed into a chair identical to mine on the other side of the cooler and took a long draw of his beer.  He closed his eyes and sighed.

I looked at my son, twenty-seven years old and all grown up, and allowed myself a tiny, self-satisfied smile.  Despite my limited role in his life as a weekend father for most of his childhood, he had grown into a man I was proud of.  Straight A student in high school.  Norethwestern University undergrad.  Yale Law.  Junior partner with a prominent, powerful law firm in New York that dealt with international contracts (I couldn’t even begin to explain what he actually did).  He had it all- intelligence, a wicked sense of humor, classic good looks, money.  The traits that could drive a man down the wrong path rather quickly.  But he had a good head on his shoulders, and despite his success he remained humble and down-to-earth, refusing to allow his good fortunes, both god-given and self-made, to corrupt him.

“Thanks for inviting me up here, Pop,” Matthew said, smiling.  “It’s so beautiful here in the Pacific Northwest.  It’s clean.  It’s quiet.  And the air doesn’t reek of exhaust fumes.”

“You know you’re always welcome here, Matt.  You don’t have to wait for an invitation.  If you ever need to get away from the east coast rat race and relax, you always have a room here. My home is your home.”

“I know,” Matthew said, but his smile faltered for a moment as he spoke those two words, and I knew what thoughts were running through that agile, rational mind of his.  He was thinking that this wasn’t his home, had never been his home.  He hadn’t grown up in Oregon, had never had his own bedroom in the four-thousand square foot house that sprawled behind us.  I didn’t move to Oregon until he had finished college, vowing to stay close to his mother in Chicago for as long as possible so we wouldn’t become estranged.  I wanted him to think of this home as his home, but part of me acknowledged that he would never consider Oregon home.

Matthew changed the subject, his next words catching me by surprise.  “I’m thinking of proposing to Amanda,” he said, smiling once again, that prideful shit-eating grin he learned from me blossoming on his lips.  He leaned forward in his chair, planting his elbows on his thighs.

“Good for you, Matt.  She’s quite a catch.”  And she was.  Intelligent and witty, affable and generous.  Simply beautiful.  She seemed perfect for him, sharp enough to keep him on his toes, quick enough to keep him honest, gorgeous enough to keep his eyes from straying to far.  I had met her on several different occasions, both at his home in New York as well as here, and I could see the adoration and love in their eyes when they looked at each other.  She would make him happy.  They had been dating for three years, since he graduated law school, and I was surprised he had waited so long.

“But I wanted to talk to you before I proposed.  Face-to-face.”  His expression melted back to sober as he nursed his beer.

“Hey,” I joked, “you don’t need my permission.  I think you need to talk to her father, not me.”

He offered a ghost of a smile in response.

I knew where this conversation was going.  I had been waiting almost ten years, since he became a man and left for college, for him to ask the Question.  The curiosity must have gnawed at him all these years, yet for he had chosen to wait until he was ready to marry to approach me.  To ask me.  To learn the truth.

“Why did you and mom get divorced?” he simply asked.  There was no bitterness in his voice, no resentment that a younger man still ignorant of the intrigues and mysteries of the adult world would vocalize.  I don’t think he wanted to know.  I think he was happy in his ignorance.  The divorce hadn’t soured him towards either his mother or I.  But he wanted to know because he needed to know.  Because he stood at the precipice, the rest of his life suddenly looming before him, the future cloaked in mystery and doubt, and he wanted so hard to avoid the quagmire that so many of us, no matter how intelligent, no matter how successful, no matter how confident, stumbled into all too often.  I could see it in his eyes.  I could read it in the wrinkles of his face.  He wanted to learn the secrets of his genes, to understand the chemistries that had created his mind.  He wanted to know me better so he could know himself better.

I owed him at least that much

“I’m surprised you waited so long to ask,” I answered.

“I never needed to know before.”

“Did you ever ask your mother?” I asked.  I assumed he had, long ago, and was surprised when he shook his head.

“I don’t think she ever knew the truth.  I don’t think she ever truly understood why.  And I didn’t want to open up old wounds and ask her.  And… and I never cared until now.  It didn’t matter.  It just was.  I wasn’t old enough to care when it happened.  My earliest memories are of having a mom and dad who lived in different houses.  And it wasn’t just me.  It was a lot of my friends’ parents also.  It’s just how it was.  Divorce was… so normal.”

“But now there’s Amanda.  And you want to make sure that divorce is not something inevitable for the two of you.  You want to make sure that at least have a fighter’s chance.”  I paused, then quietly added, “You want some insight from someone who’s been there, done that.”

Matt nodded, drummed the side of his beer with three fingers.  “How quickly the world becomes complicated.”

“You work in international law, Matt.”

“I know.  It’s not half as complex as love and infatuation.”

I laughed.  He smiled.  I sighed and collected my thoughts.  I had gone over the story in my head hundreds of times over the years so that I would be flawless in my recitation when the time came, but as the words began to spill from my mouth, I knew that they were fresh from my heart, not stale from my head.

“The year was 1980.” I began, “I was thirty years old and I had just opened my first dental practice.  It was a cold, rainy September night and just as I was about to close up for the weekend, the Devil walked into my office.”

It was six o’clock on a Thursday night and I was ready to go home for the weekend when Linda Walters, my receptionist at the time, appeared in the doorway to my operatory where I was finishing the day’s charts.   I looked up from the stack, pen cap dangling between my lips.  “Leaving?” I asked.

“That depends.  We have a walk up.  New patient.  He has a toothache.  He was hoping you would see him before you left.”

“Does he have insurance.  Or cash?”  Always the first question with a walk up that you may never see again.  I learned that lesson the hard way, by being stiffed in successive weeks by desperate people who promised they would send a check the next day.  I learned early that no good deed goes unpunished.

“He gave me three hundred dollars in cash and told me to keep the change.”

I did some quick calculations in my head and decided that three hundred would cover any work I may need to do.  I looked at my watch.  It was five after six and your mother was expecting me at home at six thirty for dinner.  The emergency would keep me in the office for at the least another forty minutes, which was fine with me.  Most nights I hated going home.

Linda hovered in the entranceway, waiting for my answer.

“Have him fill out a new patient form, both sides,” I said.  “Full medical history.  And call Mary and tell her I’ll be late.”

Linda nodded and disappeared to take care of business.  Mary would not be happy.  She was never happy when I ran late at work.  Her warped imagination had convinced her that I was having an affair, probably with my receptionist because she was younger and prettier than she was.  We hadn’t had sex in quite some time at that point, and because I wasn’t begging her for it every night, she assumed that I was getting my jollies elsewhere.  I was your typical man, after all, with carnal desires that needed to be fulfilled.  She was wrong, of course, (not about my needs, those I had, but about my ability to keep my dick in my pants) because I took my vows seriously.  Temptation swirled around me, but I resisted.

There would be lecturing when I got home, and possibly crying and heavy objects flying through the air.  But the extra hour of quiet time at work, doing what I loved, doing what made me happy, was worth it.

Linda returned several minutes later and handed me the fresh chart.

“You can leave if you want to,” I told her as opened the chart.

“I’ll wait around,” she said.  “I’ve got nothing better to do.  Besides, you know how I feel about leaving you here alone with a stranger.”

“Thanks,” I said.  At five foot four and a hundred pounds there was very little Linda could do if for some bizarre reason the encounter became violent, but common sense said that a second person present, a witness if you will, could prevent someone from becoming violent in the first place.  I didn’t have an assistant at the time, so Linda would do.  She waited next to me as I quickly reviewed the chart.

His name was Thomas Morgany.  The last name rang a bell but I couldn’t place it immediately, so I moved on.  He was fifty three years, the same age as my father, and was a mechanic by trade.  He had had a heart attack five years ago but was not currently on any medications.  He had no medical conditions and he had no allergies.  Sounded like your average Joe.

“You can bring him back for me, Linda,” I said as I began collecting the items I would need to examine Mr. Morgany: a mirror and explorer, x-ray film and a film holder.

I heard her talking to the man in the waiting room, telling him that I was ready to see him, and several seconds later she re-entered my operatory followed by a very big, very rough looking character.

He was easily six and a half feet tall and so broad across the shoulders that I was surprised he fit through the doorway without turning sideways.  His face was tan and streaked with grease and dirt.  An angry, puckered scar ran down his left cheek from ear to the corner of his mouth.  He had thick, chapped lips and a wide nose that appeared to have been broken in the past of not properly set before being allowed to heal.  His eyes were dark and sunken, haunted.  He wore his dark hair clipped close to the scalp in a military fashion.  He appeared a hard man who had experienced hard times.  I could smell the swirl of tobacco and liquor clinging to him from several feet away, and the odor turned my stomach.  I made a note to get my mask up over my nose as quickly as possible after the introductions were completed.

“Good evening, Mr. Morgany,” I said, standing and extending my hand towards my hulking patient.  “I’m Dr. Jackson.”

“Thanks for seeing me tonight, doctor,” he returned, giving my hand two firm pumps and transferring a days worth of oil and grime from his palms and fingers to mine.  “I appreciate it.”  It always amazed me how some people didn’t consider the ritual of cleaning one’s hands after doing dirty work a necessity.   As a doctor, I washed my hands several times an hour whether or not I needed to.  But for some people, a little filth was no big deal.

I turned to Linda.  “I’ll let you know if I need anything,” I said, dismissing her.  She smiled and disappeared back to the haven that was her desk where should could work on the billing.

“Take a seat Mr. Morgany,” I said, gesturing towards my chair, suddenly worried that it wouldn’t accept his bulk without protest.  But Thomas, after shedding his black trench coat and hanging it from a peg on the wall, eased himself into the chair without eliciting a single groan of metal or plastic.  I washed my hands thoroughly as he made himself comfortable, the water turning a charcoal gray as it sluiced through my fingers, then clipped a yellow bib around his neck.

“So how can I help you tonight, Mr. Morgany?” I asked, taking a seat on my own chair, my eyes locked on his.

“I’ve got a toothache,” he replied in the rough voice of a man who had been smoking for decades.  “I’ve been living on aspirin for the past couple of days and it’s helped.  But now I can’t get rid of the throbbing.  I’ve got some important business tonight and I don’t want the pain distracting me.”

I nodded.  I didn’t ask what him what his business was.  If he were a regular patient of mine, I may have inquired to make conversation.  But he was a walk-up, and his business wasn’t my business.  I probably wouldn’t see him again.  Emergencies rarely translated into a cleaning and exam.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.   “Where’s the pain?”

“Upper left and upper right.  I think my wisdom teeth are shot to shit, doc.”

I nodded again.  “I’m going to lean you back and take a look.”

I reclined the chair, pulling my mask up as the chair, moved back, and oriented myself so I could see his upper teeth my mirror.  “Open wide.”  He did, and I began a cursory investigation of his dentition.  He wasn’t there for an exam, just for emergency treatment, but I had to make sure that the pain was actually coming from the wisdom teeth and not from somewhere else.

The rest of his teeth, and even his gums, looked to be in fine shape.  A couple of fillings here and there but nothing that appeared to be pathological.  No broken teeth, no draining abscess, no swollen gums.  When I finally spied the wisdom teeth, tucked comfortably against his cheeks, I knew that Mr. Morgany had made a correct diagnosis.  Both of his upper wisdom teeth contained large craters festering with black decay.  The smell that rose from them when I gently poked to test the softness would have gagged me if I weren’t wearing a mask.  There was little question in my mind that they were the source of his pain.  I sat him up.

“So what do ya’ think?” he asked.

“I think you were right.  Your wisdom teeth are rotting out of your head.  There’s probably decay into the nerve, causing the pain.”

“Can you take them out?”

“Probably, but I’ll have to take some x-rays to make sure.”

I stood and turned on my x-ray machine, slapped the lead apron over Mr. Morgany, and quickly snapped two films of the offending areas.

I was tempted to develop the films myself but loathed the idea of leaving Mr. Morgany alone for too long.  Instead I called out to Linda.  She promptly came back and I gave her the films to develop.  She wasn’t a dental assistant by nature but I had taught her some of the basic responsibilities in case I needed her help in an emergency such as this.

I returned to my operatory and found Mr. Morgany staring at a photo I had pinned to the wall.

“That your son?” he asked.

I nodded and turned towards the picture.  I couldn’t help but to smile.

You were one of the few good things in my life and looking at that picture of you taken just a couple of hours after you were born, with your eyes barely open and your face wrinkled, reminded me why I stayed married

“How old is he?”

“He’s one,” I said as I returned to me seat.

“He’s adorable.”

“Thank you.  Do you have any children, Mr. Morgany?”

“Please, doc, call me Tom.  And to answer your question, yeah, I did.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that.  Part of me wanted to ask him to elaborate, to ask what had happened.  Another part wanted to ignore his words, pretend that I hadn’t asked the question or heard the response.  In the end I took what I considered the professional approach and simply said “I’m sorry.”

He nodded.  “It was a long time ago.”

At that moment, when things were at their most uncomfortable, Linda broke the tension by returning with the x-rays.  She handed me two small metal clips, each holding a wet film.  I turned towards my light box and held the x-rays up, examining the wisdom teeth.  As I had thought, the decay on both ran deep into the nerves.  I looked at the shape of the roots and the position of the sinus and decided that they would be come out quite easily.

I turned back to Mr. Morgany.  “You’re in luck.  This should be simple enough.  You ready to get numb?”

“Whatever you say, doc.”

I grabbed my topical anesthesia, which would numb up the gums a little bit, and loaded a syringe with the anesthesia.  I leaned Mr. Morgany back again and turned the overhead light back on.  “Open wide.”  It was the Dentist’s Mantra, and I oftentimes found myself repeating it at home during inappropriate situations.

I took several minutes to dispense the Novocaine around the two teeth.  The slower you did it, the less pain and discomfort there was.  It took three carpules to numb the areas to my satisfaction.  I rather he felt the slight discomfort of the injections rather than sharp pain when I began to work.  As I withdrew the needle from his mouth after giving the final dose, I noticed a tattoo on the right side of his neck.  It was a name spelled out in small, black cursive letters: Shawn.  The name gnawed at my mind.  Shawn Morgany.  His son.  His dead son.  I felt as if I should recognize the name.

I sat Mr. Morgany up and filled a small yellow cup with water.  “Rinse out,” I instructed.  “The stuff tastes like shit.  We’ll give it a couple of minutes to set in.  I don’t want it to hurt while we’re taking the teeth out.”

He took the cup from me and swished the water around in his mouth for several seconds then spit into the cuspidor.  He turned back to me.  “Can I ask you a question, doc?”

“Sure,” I said, expecting a question about the procedure.  Instead he asked, “Are you happily married?”

I looked at him, caught completely off-guard.  What an odd question to ask of someone you just met ten minutes ago.  I thought he was joking.  But there was no humor in his eyes, just the same haunted look he had when he walked through the door.  I meant to say that’s none of your business.  Those were the words that danced on my tongue.  Just like his business was most definitely not my business.  But those weren’t the words that came from my mouth.

“I guess so.”

Why had I said that?  I guess so was different than yes.  I guess so meant no.  Just like when someone pleaded the fifth, it was an indirect admission of guilt.  Tom Morgany looked deep into my eyes as his teeth were loosing all sensation, and I knew that he was reading past the words I spoke and was instead hearing the truth that lurked behind them.  He may have looked rough and dull, and sounded and smelled no better, but there was depth of knowledge and experience within those eyes.  For some reason I was suddenly confessing my inner most feelings to a complete stranger.  At first I didn’t understand what would compel me to make such a rash statement.  But I quickly realized that it was because he was a stranger, because he wasn’t a friend or a relative who would judge.  Because he didn’t know me and because I would probably never see him again.

And because, I thought, shuddering inside, I saw something of myself within the sadness that swam in his eyes

“Let me tell you a story, doc,” Thomas Morgany said, turning from me and getting comfortable in the chair.  “I was a young man once and I was in love.  I thought I was in love.  She was my high school sweetheart.   Her name was Alice.  We dated for two years.  We went to prom together.  We talked about the future.  We knew we would get married as soon as high school was over.  What did we know?  We were teenagers”

His story mirrored my own high school experience.  I found myself listening with rapt attention.

“We graduated.  She started nursing school. I learned how to be a mechanic.  We still lived only miles apart with our parents and we continued to see each other, as we knew we would.  We decided we would get married once I had earned enough money to buy a house.  Everything was smooth sailing, doc, until I fell in love again.  Her name was Megan.  I met her at a bar one night.  Alice was studying so I decided to go out and play pool with the guys.  She was there with a friend.  She was beautiful, and I fell for her instantly.  And the way she looked at me… Alice hadn’t looked t me like that in a long time.  I went out with her a couple of times without Alice knowing- she was always so busy with school.  One day I decided that I was going to break it off with Alice, you know, give her the ‘it’s not you it’s me’ line.  After being out in the real world for a couple of months, I realized that Alice wasn’t what I wanted out of life.  I didn’t know if Megan was, either, but I knew that I needed to explore the world, and the ladies, a little more before I settled down.”

“But then you found out that she was pregnant,” I whispered without thinking, suddenly wondering if he was me from another dimension.  The names were different, certainly, as were the specific facts, but his life was my life.  But at the same time, I knew that the life he had just described was hardly unique to the two of us.  There were thousands of people out there whose lives paralleled our own.  But all that mattered at that moment was that Thomas Morgany had found me.

He smiled.  “You know,” he said, staring up at the now-off light which hung above him.

I said nothing.

“I couldn’t leave her after I learned she was pregnant with my child.  She had to drop out of school.  I couldn’t not marry her.  My own dad died in the war and it was tough.  I wasn’t about to watch my own child grow up without a father.  So I took what I thought was the honorable and noble path and married Alice.”

I checked the clock on the wall.  It had been five minutes.  I was sure he was numb enough to begin the extractions.  “Ready to go?” I asked.  I suddenly didn’t want to hear the rest of his story.  I was afraid.  Our lives ran parallel, but his was farther up the road than mine.  He had the knowledge.  He might as well have been Nostradamus at that moment, ready to tell me what shape my future would take.  I didn’t want to know.

“Another minute, doc,” Thomas Morgany told me.  “I want to finish.”

I couldn’t stop him.  I wouldn’t.  I knew that he needed to tell his story in the same way that I knew that I needed to listen to it.  It was his confession and it was his warning, the two wrapped in a single, convenient package.  Souls were at stake, and I had an uncanny feeling that his falling into my chair that night was not pure coincidence.

He rinsed his mouth out again, trying to cleanse it of the bitter aftertaste of the anesthetic, and began again.  “You see, I thought I could make it work, even if I didn’t love her anymore.  Hell, I don’t know if I ever truly loved her as adults know love.  But I would make it work for my son.  I wanted him to grow up right, with a strong father figure to guide him.  I wanted him to have what I didn’t have.  But the marriage never worked out right, doc.  We were young when we met, when we made silly promises.  When we thought we loved each other.  But she changed once we got married, and I changed, and the people we became were not right together.  Like two puzzle pieces you try to jam together, but they never quite fit right though it looks like they should.  We fought all the time about stupid things.  She blamed me for her not finishing nursing school.  She didn’t trust me and I didn’t trust her.  There was a lot of shouting and cussing and crying and flying objects over the years.  I was miserable and I’m sure she wasn’t much happier.

“I thought about asking for a divorce, doc.  Thought real hard.  But I knew what divorce could do to children.  It could mess them up real bad.  So I decided to stick it out no matter how unhappy I was.  Turns out growing up in an angry, unhappy house can mess a kid up even more than growing up with parents who didn’t live with each other.  You see, doc, what I learned too late was that happiness trickles down.  Happiness flows.  If you aren’t happy, no one around you will be, either.”  He paused momentarily, then said, “I want to show you something.”

Thomas Morgany lifted his hips from the chair and pulled a brown battered wallet that had seen better days from a back pocket.  He pulled out a wallet size photograph and handed it to me.  I took it from him and found myself looking at a picture of his son.

Shawn Morgany.  I’m ashamed I hadn’t recognized the name.  It wasn’t until I saw that forced, miserable smile in that yearbook photo that I remembered him.  I went to high school with him.  I didn’t know him, but I knew of him.  Everyone did.  Every school had its black sheep, and he was one of ours.  He had been a loner and a misfit, a drug addict and a suspected arsonist.

I handed the picture back to Mr. Morgany.  “He hung himself the night before high school graduation,” I said.

I expected to see tears in Mr. Morgany’s eyes but there were none, only a sad resignation.  He accepted the photo, stuffed it back into his wallet.

“I found him in the garage, still swinging.”

I felt sick.

“I’m ready,” he said.

I reclined the chair and opened my instruments.  My thoughts were swirling, my mind a maelstrom of doubt and anger and sadness.  My concentration was shot but, like a machine, I managed to roll both decayed teeth out of their bony crypts even though my head was elsewhere.

I gently packed gauze into the sockets to staunch the bleeding, changing the dressings every two minutes until the bleeding stopped.  Mr. Morgany was quiet, his eyes clamped shut.  The silence was oppressive.   I finally sat him up, his cheeks packed with gauze pads.  As soon as he was vertical, he pulled the gauze from his mouth and placed them in the sink.

“You want to keep the teeth?” I asked Mr. Morgany, offering them to him on a piece of gauze as if they were pearls.

He reached over and took one of the two teeth, bits of bone and gum still clinging to the roots.  I had intended to clean them off with peroxide, dissolving the remaining tissue, but he didn’t seem concerned.  He stood up and placed the tooth in one of his pockets.

“What about the other one? I asked.

“I want you to keep it.”

“You mean throw it away?”

“I mean take it home with you.”

“Why?”

“Because you should, doc,” he said.  “Because you just should.  You’ll understand.”

I eyed the rotten wisdom tooth warily, as if it were an evil talisman, then placed it on the table next to the sink.  I wondered if holding onto the molar would bring me the same bad luck it had brought Mr. Morgany while still in his mouth.

“You didn’t finish the story, Tom,” I said, standing up.  “Are you still married?”   I didn’t want to know, but suddenly I needed to know.

He nodded as he shrugged his coat on.  “She was a mess.  She still is.  She’s always blamed me for what happened to Shawn.  It was because I was a bad father.  Because I wasn’t supportive enough.  Because I wasn’t a good role model.  I couldn’t blame her for thinking like that because there was some truth to it.  It’s hard to be a good father when you’re angry all of the time.  Anger’s like happiness, doc.  It flows.  I wanted to leave her after that.  Trust me.  But she wouldn’t have survived alone.  I felt responsible, so I stayed.”

“You still haven’t found happiness, have you?”

“Not yet,” he said.  “But soon, hopefully.”

“Ready to get divorced?” I asked, half in jest.

“Something like that.”

I walked him to the front door.

“Goodnight Mr. Morgany,” Linda said as we passed by the front desk.

“Goodnight miss.”

I unlocked the door then pushed it open.  “Give a call if you need anything,” I said.

He nodded then disappeared into the night.  I never heard from him again.

Matthew whistled as he grabbed his third beer.  “That’s some heavy shit, dad,” he said.

I could see from his doubtful expression that he still didn’t understand.  But that was okay.  I wasn’t finished with the story yet.

“My drive home,” I said, “was a nightmare. All forty five minutes of it.  My mind was scrambled.  Part of me thought that Thomas Morgany was the Devil come up from Hell to tempt me to sin.  Come to try and destroy my life by leading me down a dark road.  How could divorcing your mother and leaving her to raise you alone be better for you?  How bad could life possibly be just because I didn’t love her anymore?  I could make it work.  I would make it work.  Because I was different from Thomas Morgany.  Stronger.  More noble, more willing to sacrifice my own happiness for you.”

Rocky, perhaps sensing my discomfort, lifted his head and nestled it against my leg in a display of support.   I reached down and scratched him behind the ear.

“When I got home both you and your mother were asleep in your own rooms.  Dinner was a cold, a half empty container of Lo mien and an egg roll from the Chinese take-out up the street.  I changed and shower before eating.  I needed to feel clean, needed to wash the weariness from my bones.  Besides, dinner wasn’t going to get any colder than it already was.  I put on a pair of sweats and a t-shirt and heated up the food in the microwave.  I sat down in front of the television just in time to catch the beginning of the news.

“The top story was the murder of a woman who lived a couple of miles from the office a half an hour earlier.  She had been shot twelve times in her own living room.  Five times in the face and head, seven in her chest.  A neighbor heard the shots, but by the time the police arrived, the gunman was gone.

“On top of the dead woman’s bleeding chest they found a single, recently extracted tooth.”

“You’re fucking with me, dad,” Matthew said.

Ready to get divorced

Something like that

I shook my head.  “I didn’t eat.  As soon as the story ended, I went up to your room.  I needed to see you.  There was a small night light in your room, and even in the dim light, I could see you fidgeting in your crib.  But that’s not all I saw.”  I stopped and swallowed and collected my voice.  I looked at he ground, my voice a whisper.  “I saw you, Matthew, as I imagined you would look when you were eighteen.  I saw you slowly swinging from a noose from the ceiling.”

Matthew swallowed hard but said nothing.  His face was slack.

“It was the most difficult decision I ever had to make.  I thought long and hard about it.  And in retrospect, I know I made the right decision.  Happiness flows, Matthew.   If you’re not happy, truly happy, no one around you will be, either.  You have to look deep within yourself and know if what you have really makes you happy.  Or if it’s something else masquerading as happiness.  Easier to make the tough decisions before kids get involved.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Matthew said after several silent moments.

“Not what you were expecting, was it?” I asked, offering a wan smile.

“No,” he admitted.

“Thomas Morgany taught me a very valuable lesson, Matthew.  You have to be selfish in this world.  You have to do what is right for you.  You have to do what makes you happy.  It may seem noble to sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of another, but it never works out as you expect.”

“Because bitterness flows, too,” Matthew said sagely.

“Everything flows, Matthew, from top to bottom.  Flows and spreads and infects.  For better or for worse.  You can’t be afraid to make difficult decisions, regardless of who you may be hurting in the process, because the damage only gets worse the longer you wait.”

Matthew nodded.  “Did they ever catch him?” he asked after a moment.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“Did you call the police after you saw the story?”

“No.  They knew who was responsible.  They said as much in the news report.”

Matthew studied my face in the dim light.  “And if they hadn’t, you wouldn’t have called them, would you?”  It was not a question.

I slowly shook my head.  I didn’t know what I saw in his eyes.  Sadness, maybe.  Disappointment.   Sympathy.   Any and all of the above.  “I hope you’ll never be in a situation to understand why,” I said.

Matthew finished his beer then looked at his watch.  “It’s getting late,” he said.  “I’ve got an early flight tomorrow.  I should get to bed.”  He stood up and stepped towards me.  I rose from my seat and met him at the cooler.  He gave me a big hug.  “Goodnight, dad.”  And then he was gone, back into the house.

I didn’t follow.  Instead, I stood outside for a couple of minutes, watching as the sun melted into the horizon and the shadows gathered.  My right hand went to my throat where a cheap metal chain hung, the type soldiers wore to hold their dog tags.  But there were no tags dangling from the end of mine.  My hand snaked beneath my shirt, pulled out the bauble I always kept close to my heart.

I rolled the wisdom tooth between my fingers.

Mine, unlike the one Mr. Morgany had taken, had been treated with hydrogen peroxide to strip the remaining blood and tissue.  It was bone white now and seemed to shine with the opalescence of a pearl.  A morbid talisman it was, one more befitting a psychopath than a sane man, but it had given me much strength and fortitude over the years when doubt threatened to overwhelm me.

As I turned the tooth in my hand, as I watched the last of the sun flicker and disappear, I once again wondered what my life would have been like if I had never met Thomas Morgany that night.  What kind of man Matthew would have grown into.  Whether Matthew would have grown up at all.

As I turned the tooth in my hand, I wondered, not for the first time, what had happened to Thomas Morgany, the haunted giant with a voice like the grave who had asked me to take away his pain and hear his confession.

Wherever he was, I hoped he had found a measure of joy in his life because I knew that without him, I never would have found happiness in my own.