The Heaviest Weight

He sat alone on the living room sofa watching a Dr. Who marathon. He surveyed the supplies he needed to make it through the long night. A new pack of Reds, already packed. (The nubs from the last pack were still piled up in the large green ashtray.) Also sitting on the coffee table was his bottle of Jack Daniels with almost half of its contents left. There was a small Daffy Duck juice jar beside the deep amber liquid. The juice jar had been Tommy's. Tommy. His hands had been so small he needed to use both hands to lift the glass to his tiny, perfect mouth. Jack could feel his chest tightening and aching from the memory.

He reached for the bottle of J.D. and filled the child's juice jar a quarter of the way, paused, and then continued to pour until he hit the halfway mark. His large, coarse hand completely enveloped the juice jar as he threw the liquid back in one swift movement. He dropped the glass onto the coffee table with a hollow clank and reached for the cigarette still burning in the ashtray. The air possessed a pungent, acrid smell because the cigarette had burned through a filter stub in the overflowing ashtray. On T.V., Dr. Who was running desperately in a dank underground tunnel, his long multicolored scarf flying behind him.

Upstairs, Jack could hear his wife fumbling with a cardboard box. He knew she was in Tommy's room packing up all the belongings their son had accumulated during his too short life. They didn't talk about any of it. Couldn't. He blinked hard and stared at the shrinking cigarette between his thick fingers. He lifted the butt to his lips and took a deep drag, exhaled, and watched the air, now heavily laden with smoke, swirl in silvery gray clouds above his head. The only light in the room came from the pulsating television. His mind must have become dull from the smoke and drink because he never heard his wife come down the stairs. She stood at the bottom of the stairwell, leaning on the doorframe that opened to the living room. "Jack" she said. He turned his head slowly, numbly. Her voice seemed muffled by the swirling gray- blue smoke that hung between them like an impenetrable wall.

"Jack," she repeated, "I need help getting the last box of..." Oh God please don't let her say it. Don't let her say his name out loud. Laura paused, recognizing the pained look on his face. When she began to speak again, Jack realized he had closed his eyes in a bizarre attempt to shut out her voice. "..things up into the attic. It's so crowded up there I'm not even sure it will fit." Jack lowered his head in relief. Thank God she had tiptoed around the subject, not forcing him to speak directly about Tommy or the accident.

Upstairs, the air was clean and empty. His wife stood by the wooden stairs that hung from the rectangular opening in the ceiling. Jack climbed the creaking steps, awkwardly balancing the cardboard box above his head. As he ascended the stairs he began to feel slightly nauseous from the booze and smoke. Laura was right, the attic was packed to the hilt. The small space was crowded with a crib, baby swing, and several old boxes marked "Xmas decorations", "baby clothes 0-12 months" and "papers". There were a lot of new boxes up here too, all crowding the entrance and simply marked "Tommy". Jack shut his eyes and heaved the box forward, knocking the baby swing onto its side. He didn't give a damn if the box was teetering precariously, he just wanted to get back to his smoked filled room, sit and watch mindlessly as Dr. Who traveled from world to world in his telephone booth. "Jack?" his wife started, hooking her long brown hair behind her ear as she spoke. "It's fine" he said, walking away, leaving Laura to fold up the stairs and close the dark hole that hung above her.

In the den again, Jack laid down on the couch pulling a worn blue Afghan over his body to protect himself from the seeping coldness that had pervaded his entire being these last few weeks. The smoke hung in a restless gray swirl just above his shivering body. He would sleep on the couch again tonight and leave his wife to lock up the house and retreat alone to their bedroom upstairs. On T.V., Dr. Who stood in his police box as he frantically attempted to configure the correct coordinates that would bring him home again.

That night Jack dreamt for the first time in weeks. He dreamt that the upstairs ceiling of their home was groaning and sagging from the stress of an invisible yet formidable weight. As he watched in growing horror, the ceiling plaster began to crack and fall in great chunks throughout the house. As only dreams allow, Jack could see himself sleeping on the couch, unshaven, the light from the T.V. he had left on blinking like a gray hazard light against his tired face. Through the growing noise, Jack suddenly found himself in their bedroom, his wife sleeping alone in their bed, unaware of the plaster falling around her. As the wooden ceiling boards finally splintered and gave way, cardboard boxes all marked "Tommy" came pouring down from the ceiling like rain in a storm. The boxes fell all around their bedroom, crushing his still sleeping wife, filling their bedroom and swelling out into the hallway. Some of the boxes gained momentum as they hit the stairs and half slid, half somersaulted down the stairs in a great jumble of noise. "No! Laura!" he desperately tried to yell out, to run to his trapped wife, only to realize that no sound would come and his body refused to respond to his demands . Unable to scream or move he felt himself drowning in a sea of anguish. He couldn't lose his wife, not Tommy and Laura both.

No!

He woke up, sweating and shaking, still lying on the sofa, the blue Afghan in a heap on the floor beside him. The faintest glow of morning light was just beginning to creep in through the window above him. The cloud of silvery gray smoke had vanished and other than the sound of static snow coming from the T.V., the house was silent. Before going upstairs, Jack wrapped the blue blanket around his shoulders and turned off the T.V with a resolute snap.

Upstairs, the ceiling was still securely in place, only the distant chirping of a bird broke the early morning silence. He sat at the edge of their bed, careful not to wake his sleeping wife. Her breath came and went in a slow, whispering tide. He sat for a while and tried to match her slow, rhythmic breathing to his own, slowly feeling his racing heart settle to a more natural tempo. As he watched her still figure, he could feel his chest begin to ache again and a hard knot form in his throat. He desperately wished he could wake her now in these first moments of dawn, tell her these last few weeks have just been a terrible dream. "That's all Laura," he would comfort her, "just a bad dream." If only it were true. As he watched the sunlight slip into their bedroom window and begin to chase the night away, he knew he would wake her now. Not to tell her it had all just been a bad dream, he couldn't do that. But at least he could tell her she wasn't going to have to live their nightmare alone anymore.

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