Last of the Dixie Heroes

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Roy thought he heard his son crying in the night. He got up, went down the hall, opened Rhett’s door, smelled the emptiness inside.

And woke up. Must have been asleep until that moment. How else to explain it? Roy didn’t turn on the light.

Must have been sleepwalking, or something close to it, and dreaming uneasy dreams, because first, Rhett had never done much crying in the night, not even as a baby, and now he was eleven years old; and second, his empty bedroom had been empty for more than six months-Roy could probably have calculated the exact duration if he’d had a mind to. No need to turn on the light, no need to see last year’s posters left behind, outgrown clothes in the closet, how neat everything was. No one had switched off the air conditioner in the window. Cold air followed Roy back to his room.

Roy awoke for good a few hours later, alone in a bed meant for two. There’d been a time in his life, back when he himself was a boy and even after, when he’d awakened every morning with a bubble of happiness in his chest, when he’d actually jumped out of bed. He could remember that feeling; not bring it back, just remember.

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