Broken

Calvin was hollow, his heart and mind void of all feeling and emotion. His face without expression, pale and tired. Eyes sunken and red as a crater on mars, having not been able to sleep more than an hour or two at a time over the last few weeks. His phone was sitting by the edge of the couch with a flashing blue light, reminding him of various alerts of missed calls, voicemails, and text messages from people sending their condolences or merely checking up on him to make sure he was still alive. He had already messaged his parents earlier in the morning, to prevent anyone from making a call to the police for a wellness check. He wanted to be alone.

           The text to his parents was simple, “I’m fine. Please don’t call the police. I need more time. Love you both.” He had got the reply but didn’t read the whole message, just skimming to make sure that they had said, “Of Course”, or “I understand”, in the reply, ignoring any mention of “The Lord” or “Jesus”. He had given up on every ounce of belief he had once had. It had been four weeks since the incident.

******

           Four weeks ago, his wife, Maddie, and their 2-year-old son, Jacob, were walking back to the apartment from the park. They went every afternoon for an hour or so to feed the ducks and walk around the pond. Calvin had got off work early, racing home with the hopes of surprising Maddie with a clean house and take-out from their favorite Thai place. Maddie had been working remote from home but taking care of Jacob and trying to keep focused during her Zoom meetings had added to her stress levels. Not that Maddie couldn’t handle it, but Calvin liked to do a lot of the chores around the house whenever he could, anything to help ease any added stress to Maddie. Being stuck inside all day wasn’t as glamorous as it would seem to some, but the daily walks to the park were a great way for her and Jacob to get some fresh air.

           He had made it home about 20 minutes before he figured they would be back, quickly gathering up the dirty laundry, throwing everything into the washer with a second load thrown into a dirty clothes hamper. The kitchen wasn’t super dirty, but he was able to clean what was left of the dishes in the sink before wiping down the counters and taking the trash and recyclables out to the bins. He had cleaned off the small dining table they had, placing a couple of plates and sets of utensils down along with the various Thai dishes in the middle, spoons and forks sitting atop the still closed white boxes, hoping that the contents would still be warm by the time his wife and son came home.

           He had sent a couple of texts to Maddie, slyly asking what she was up to without trying to give away the fact that he was at home, trying his best not to ruin the surprise. After 10 minutes went by without getting a reply, Calvin started to worry before he heard a knock at the door. How strange, he thought, before getting up from the couch and walking over to the door. When he opened the door, his heart started pounding from his chest at the sight of two men in police uniforms.

           What happened next was mostly a blur of pain, disbelief, anger, and sadness. Words and sentences were exchanged, “...hit and run…. can’t find the driver… they didn’t make it… contact you with any new developments… so sorry.”

           Sorry. There it was. A word that never felt as empty as it did when it came from their mouths. What was sorry supposed to do? Sorry didn’t have any healing powers. Sorry didn’t bring any relief. Sorry didn’t bring back his wife and son. Sorry didn’t mean shit. Calvin started to snap back into reality, awaken with anger, tears running down his face as he yelled at the officers, telling them to find the people who did this and to get off his property.

           Slamming the door shut, he turned around and with his back up against the door and then slumped down, his shaky knees unable to hold him upright any longer. With his arms wrapped around his legs he pressed his forehead into his forearms, an explosion of emotions erupted out in the form of hysterical screams and tears streaming down his face, no longer able to keep it all in. He sat there for what seemed like eternity before leaning to the side and laying in a fetal position. He laid there for hours crying himself empty, feeling as though his heart had been ripped out of his chest, hoping that he would close his eyes and either wake up realizing everything was just a dream, or not wake up at all.  

******

           After the funeral, Calvin was surrounded by friends and family all crammed into his tiny apartment. His parents had thought of hosting at their house, which had ample space for Calvin to be able to distance himself if needed, but they knew that he wouldn’t want to leave his house, as he was barely able to muster up the strength to get to the funeral. His parents had tried to get Calvin to eat something, his diminished appetite, though understandable, was quite worrying. It had been less than a week and a half after the hit and run and for Calvin, though time didn’t mean anything to him anymore. He felt as though it only happened the days before, yet the he felt that the pain and emptiness he felt inside were something that had been going on for years, with no end in sight.

           He didn’t say much, and nobody pushed him to talk either. He just sat there on his couch with the same expressionless face that he wore all day for everyone to see. He thought of Maddie, with her short brunette hair, remembering how she was upset that the salon cut it so short the last time she went to get it cut, even though he told her how much he loved it. It looked so good on her, he thought. He thought of the mole on her forehead that she hated, or the birthmark she had on the inside of her right elbow. She was always so hard on herself, never able to appreciate how beautiful she was in the same way that Calvin saw her. Her sense of humor was her best quality though, combined with a laugh that made Calvin smile every time he heard it. The pain left an empty hole in his chest, as he not only lost his best friend, but his Jacob as well.

           They weren’t planning on having him at their age, but some of the best things in life are unexpected. Jacob had just learned how to walk a year ago, becoming a joyful handful with each passing day. He had Calvin’s blue eyes, but took on his Maddie’s intelligence, which made him quite determined and stubborn. He had been such a quiet baby, receiving praises on how well behaved he was from family and strangers alike. Calvin gripped on to his son’s favorite blanket, a Manchester United blanket he had gotten him when he was only 6 months old. He remembered watching early morning games on the TV, turning the volume almost all the way down while slowly rocking Jacob back and forth, trying to get him to fall back asleep. The memories hurt, they hurt more than anything. But nothing hurt more than trying to understand why.

           Calvin was raised in a Christian household, as was Maddie. Both sets of their parents were devout followers of Christ, their religion being as much of their identity as anything else. Although as a youngster, Calvin never believed in quite the same way as his parents did, and when him and Maddie met, they had started going to church together. Maddie also never took to church in the same way that her parents had, but the community they had found at church as a newly married couple and soon to be new parents, was a community they had grown to love and depend on. The sermons every Sunday began to provide more guidance to them and their own personal journey. They started to draw parallels to what the pastor had talked about to their own relationship and personal lives, though that was the whole point of the sermon to begin with. They had taken Jacob to church almost every single Sunday since he had been born, excluding one Sunday when he had a nasty ear infection, causing them to go the ER.

           They had grown to be devout followers, something neither of them had ever expected. It was comforting to both Calvin and Maddie, something that each of them moved higher up in their list of personal values. For Calvin, that belief, that faith in God, had disappeared the night Maddie and Jacob were taken from him.

           His parents, with the best intentions in trying to be there for their son, tried to tell him that Maddie and Jacob were in a better place. That they would be waiting for him one day. That they were smiling down on him from above. No matter how many times his Parents, and even Maddie’s parents, told him that, he felt the sudden urge to wake up from his grief and say “Bullshit”.

           At the reception, he heard those same phrases over and over again. “They are in a better place now”, someone would say to him, grabbing his shoulder, staring into his broken eyes. “They are with The Lord now, watching over you Calvin”, another would say while pulling him in for an unwanted embrace. Those words, those phrases, felt as empty as the apologies the officers had told him the night they knocked on his door, leaving him empty and broken in the fetal position, while cold Thai food lay on the table, sitting there to rot.

           After everyone had left, Calvin stormed into his room with a trash bag, grabbing both his and Maddie’s copies of The Bible, and tossed them in the trash. He then took the crosses that were hanging in their bedroom, and the one in Jacob’s bedroom above his crib, and tossed them in the bag as well. He grabbed any other religious item he could find, the little nativity set they pulled out for Christmas, as well as the jewelry that Maddie had in her jewelry box and tossed them in as well. After he gathered up any reminder he had of that life, of that lie, he took the bag outside and chucked it into the dumpster. Tossing it all in the trash wasn’t going to bring them back, that he knew, but he refused to believe in a God that would take away his wife and child, a God that still hadn’t found the driver of the car that killed them, a God that he no longer found any reason to believe in.

******

           As Calvin sat there on his couch, struggling to find meaning into why this would happen, wondering what he would do next, his phone went off again. It was a text. He reached over to pick it up, noticing it was from their pastor at church. Skimming through the text, he saw the words, “...The Lord works in mysterious ways”, before deleting the message and setting down the phone. Looking outside the window, he noticed there was a slight breeze, the tree branches swaying around gently. He stood up, grabbed his keys off the hook by the door, and stepped outside before locking the door. A nice walk right now would be a perfect way to attempt to clear my mind, he thought. Calvin walked, placing one foot in front of the other, hoping to make sense out of a future that he felt was no longer destined to be filled with joy.