'Why?'
'You're s'posed to,' Jack said. 'Mrs Lewis said you have to pray to Jesus to look after your family.'
Mrs Lewis was Jack's teacher. Caleb had nothing against religion, but he was troubled by the notion of Jack taking it too seriously.
'You don't need to pray for me, son. I'm fine, really. Sleep now, okay?'
''Kay,' Jack said, closing his eyes.
Caleb woke from a fretful sleep, scraps of memory gusting through his troubled mind. Though a film of sweat coated his body, he felt cold and vulnerable. A shaft of moonlight fell through the gap in the curtains, cloaking familiar objects in odd, distorting shadows that, in his drowsy state, unsettled him. He struggled to claw back the fragments of a dissipating dream and the sounds that had slipped its borders. A minute passed before he understood that he had followed them out of sleep, that he was hearing the same muffled cries from somewhere in the house. He sprang out of bed and crossed the landing to Jack's room. His son was whimpering softly, making sounds unrecognizable as words. As Caleb approached the bed, Jack's body spasmed and an awful scream tore from his throat. Caleb hesitated, unnerved by the intensity of his son's fear. He wrapped his arms around the boy and felt the iron rigidity in the small, thin body. Downstairs, Cyril began to bark.
'It's okay, Jack,' he whispered. 'I'm here.' Jack's eyes opened, and in his disoriented state he struggled in his father's arms. Caleb made soothing noises and stroked his face. Jack tried to say something, but the tremors that seized his body made him incoherent. 'Ssshhh,' Caleb said. 'It's over.'
'Duh-duh, Dad,' Jack cried.
'I'm right here,' Caleb told him.
Jack struggled for breath. 'He-he was here. He knew you wuh-were gone.'
Caleb shuddered involuntarily at the words, and felt the lack of conviction in his voice when he said, 'Nobody's here Jack. Just you and me.'
Jack shook his head and looked beyond his father. 'He came in the house. He was on the stairs.'
Caleb held the boy in front of him and looked into his eyes. 'There's nobody here. It was a nightmare. You're awake now.' Cyril barked again, as if in contradiction.
'His face — it's gone,' Jack said, still disoriented.
It was the same nightmare, Caleb realized with disquiet. Polly had said Jack had dreamed of an unwelcome stranger in their house. How common was it for kids to have recurring dreams? He wondered if it signalled some deeper malaise. 'I'll go and check downstairs,' he told his son, in an effort to reassure Jack.
'Please Dad,' Jack said, his voice fragile and scared. 'Promise you won't go.'
A tingling frost spread over Caleb's skin, numbing his brain. His thoughts stumbled drunkenly, dangerously close to panic. He wondered if what he was feeling was, in part at least, a residue of his son's fear. He needed to be strong. 'All right, Jack. You come sleep with us tonight, okay?'
Jack nodded, his gaze still flitting nervously about the room. Caleb picked him up and carried him back across the landing. He laid him down in the middle of the bed, next to Polly. She stirred and mumbled something in her sleep. He put a finger to his lips, signalling Jack to keep quiet. Then he left the room and went downstairs to the kitchen.
Cyril was standing at the back door, sniffing. Caleb crouched beside the dog and petted him for a few moments. 'What's wrong boy? You having bad dreams too?' The dog licked Caleb's hand. He pointed to Cyril's basket, stood up and glanced through the kitchen window above the sink. Moonlight silvered the garden. Nothing was out of place. When he went back upstairs and climbed into bed, Jack turned and clung to him for a while, until fatigue loosened his hold and sleep reclaimed him.
The radio clock's LED screen pulsed redly in the darkness, as if attuned to the rhythm of Caleb's agitated mind. Vaguely disturbing thoughts had taken root there, but an unaccountable sense of guilt made him reluctant to examine them. They seemed born out of nothing. The darkness robbed him of reason, made his fears seem more real than they had any right to be.
What could he do for Jack? Explain that his nightmares were the product of his own unconscious fears? As if reason could ever outweigh terror in the mind of a child. As if it could account for what seemed to him a strange congruence between Jack's bad dreams and his own fragile memories. He felt powerless and bewildered. Though he believed he would do anything for his son, he was plagued by a small but undeniable doubt. He couldn't escape the feeling that he was in some way responsible for Jack's terror, that it was connected to some weakness in himself.
Caleb strummed his guitar listlessly, his chord changes awkward and slow, like they had been when he'd first started playing. Maybe, once you got past forty, it was too late to take it up. The fingers were too stiff and the willingness to make a fool of oneself was not so strong as it had been. Yet, he didn't feel that way about himself.
When Polly had bought the guitar for his birthday and told him it was time to stop talking and learn to play, it hadn't seemed such a crazy idea. And still now, after a year, the desire to play competently some blues and country tunes was as strong as ever. It was something else distracting him.
He leaned the guitar against the table, got up and walked to the sink. Polly glanced up from the book she was reading. 'Not there today, huh?'
Caleb shrugged and watched his son through the kitchen window. Jack was playing in the garden by the recently dug pond that still awaited its first Koi Carp. He was manoeuvring his Action Men through the shallow water as if it were a swamp.
'You okay?'
Caleb looked at her. She'd put her book down on the table and was staring intently at him. He didn't want to talk. He knew already what she'd say. 'I'm fine,' he said, turning back to the window.
'It's Jack, isn't it?'
The boy was manipulating two of his soldiers into a fight. He paused suddenly, and cocked his head to one side, as if listening. Slowly, he swept his gaze across the garden. He seemed nervous, wary of something. After a moment or two, he continued with his game, but more guarded, as if aware that he was being observed. Caleb felt uneasy. He leaned closer to the window and let his gaze wander around the garden and down to the rear wall that backed onto the lane. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.
'He's okay, Cale,' Polly was saying. 'He'd be even better if you'd stop fretting.'
'I was trying to help him,' Caleb said, still watching Jack.
'By interrogating him?'
'Talking about it will help him.' Jack was shielding his eyes from the watery sun as he gazed south towards the bay. 'Expose the irrational to the cold light of day and it loses its power. Making Jack talk about the dream will weaken its hold over him.'
'Oh sure. After all, he's eight years old.'
She didn't seem to get it. 'What do you suggest we do?'
'Ignore them. They'll pass of their own accord if you stop bringing them up. Jesus Cale, all kids have bad dreams sometime or other.'
'I never did. Not like his.'
'We all have nightmares. Why should you be different?'
He looked at her and heard himself say, 'I just never did.'
'Or you forced yourself to forget.'
Maybe she was right. He turned back to the garden. Jack had laid one Action Man face down in the water. He was draping strings of pondweed over the doll. He paused and glanced up towards the house, before turning his attention once again to his game.
Polly came up behind Caleb and slipped her arms around his waist. 'You just need to give him a little time,' she said, pressing her lips against the back of his neck.
How much time, Caleb wondered, feeling an ache of tenderness as he watched Jack rise up onto his knees. The same nightmare four times in one week. How much time before reason was exposed as a hollow lie? He would not let it happen.
As if feeling his isolation, Polly pulled away. He was about to reach for her when he saw what Jack was
