Heaven's Light

Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Present Day

A flash of my father’s smile and the way he grumbled my childhood nickname, Chrissy, knocked me awake in the dead of night, my arms and legs convulsing, flailing, and kicking, and my heart banging, triggering a scream from the back of my throat as if I was being attacked. The bed sheets were drenched in sweat.

I heard the panic in my husband’s voice when I woke him, the bed creaking and shifting beneath our impulsive movements.

Our dog Darth Vader yelped and jumped off the bed to the floor as my haste to free myself from my dreams disturbed him.

I felt Philip’s firm grip on my arm, rattling me out of my second nightmare this week.

“Christian,” he said, groping in the dark for the bedside lamp and filling the room in warm, yellow light.

I sat upright, the sheets knotted around my waist and ankles.

The circular motions of pressure in Philip’s stimulating massage felt soothing. The tips of his fingers kneaded the kinks in my neck and spine. I closed my eyes.

“You all right?” Philip’s deep-baritone voice eased the tension of the moment. “It sounded like you were fighting for the last slice of apple pie from dinner.” Philip handed me a glass of tepid warm tap water, and I managed a lopsided grin.

I gulped it down in one pull. “I wish that’s all it was.”

“Were you dreaming about your dad again?”

I nodded.

Silence stretched into seconds, minutes. Philip said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

I handed him the empty glass and turned to the dark canvass of night stretching beyond our bedroom window to the edge of the woods. “Regrets are toxic.”

“What do you regret?”

My mouth was dry, and I needed more water. “Not being with my father in Arizona right now. I feel like I’ve failed him.”

Philip reached for my damp hand under the sheets. “You’ve got parents who love you unconditionally, and without judgment. They don’t see you as a failure.”

“I want to do more for them.”

Philip moved and turned to me, our knees knocking against each other’s. “You’ve been the most devoted and thoughtful son anyone could ask for. Your parents know this is a difficult time for everybody, especially you. They’re trying to keep as many burdens out of your life as they can during this difficult period.”

“I have so many things to say to my father,” I said. “Things I know I’ll never be able to tell him before he dies.”

Philip ran his fingers through my messy hair. I laid my head across the warmth of his body, tucking my head in the folds of his arm, my cheek brushing the soft white curls of his chest hair.

We were gathered in each other’s arms, and Philip whispered into my ear, trying as always to lighten the mood. “Do you want to fool around?”

“Maybe later.”

Before the slit in the sky opened up and a new day broke the horizon, I told Philip I didn’t want him to leave me.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.