A Killer Within Us

By Henry Morrison Jr.

Wayne Donnelly was the son of an alcoholic father. That meant remaining quiet, always agreeing with what his father said, and learning to live secretly within his own head. The golden rule was to never ever say what you were thinking

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 21, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462869022

Henry Morrison Jr.

(to follow)

Book preview

Chapter 1

Wayne Donnelly was the son of an alcoholic father. Until his late teenage years, Wayne spent much of his time figuring out how to stay safe and out of his way. That meant remaining quiet, always agreeing with what his father said, and learning to live secretly within his own head. The golden rule was to never ever say what you were thinking.

Wayne’s mother was probably trying to live her life in much the same way to preserve her own safety from a man who would display unpredictably outward signs of aggression after returning home from an evening out drinking. It was best for Wayne to avoid her secondary streaks of anger by remaining silent in her presence as well. Most of his young life was spent dreaming up scenarios, which had nothing to do with the reality of the chaos inflicted upon him.

Luckily for Wayne, his parents had no money. They were poor.

Wayne Sr. was a veteran returned home from the Vietnam War with skills of being a heavy construction machine operator. His father pulled some favors and landed him a job with the same Teamster’s union local that he had served for years. But between absences from drinking and seasonal layoffs, money at home ran thin. Wayne’s mother held several interim jobs with different companies, helping to keep the family afloat during tough times. Having little money found the Donnelly family living in a large trailer park just on the edge of a beautiful river valley town. It was a great place to get lost, as a kid, amongst all the trailer homes and the surrounding woodlands. Wayne’s mother would often kick him out of the mobile home early in the day, advising him not to return until dinner time. The almighty disclaimer came quickly to follow: You better be within calling distance in case I need you. Luckily for Wayne, the need rarely came.

Wayne was part of a large group of children who ran freely throughout the trailer park; all having stories similar to his own—each told to leave their homes for the day, not to return until the evening’s meal. It gave all those abused mothers some breathing room to plan for the eventual invasion of drunk husbands. Each kid took a turn offering their home to the others in secretly scavenging food for a quick meal, along with a stolen swig of the old man’s whiskey from his secret stash. More than likely, the infidelity would never get noticed; but to safeguard against being discovered, the consumed volume was always replaced with water. Usually, by the time the fathers made it home and began to drink from their backup supply, they were too drunk to notice the watered-down taste anyway.

That’s how the children lived their weekends during the school year and long summer days during recess. Left to their own devices to think up gangly activities, which passed the time of day. The group was important. A network of children mostly living in similar conditions, used each other during times of personal crisis at home. A substitute family unit. They did everything together—the games they played, the social order they developed to control the direction in which the group moved on a day-to-day basis. They became so organized that they were able to develop a separate community away from the trailer park, amongst the thick wooded acreage in the outlying countryside. Those kids, by stealing their father’s tools, were able to carve out a complex network of pathways and bike trails crisscrossing each other throughout the woods, each leading to predetermined hangout areas in the thickest bush.

That is where life’s lessons were learned. They taught each other. The older kids instructed the young how to assemble a bicycle, how to build a proper fort, or maybe how to make a campfire. But most importantly, how to fire a gun.

Many times their games amounted to teams running amongst the underbrush, hunting down each other to simulate a kill. Pretend play that mimicked their deep desire to hunt down then kill their fathers for what they had been doing to them all along. It was back in those woods where they had their first drinks of beer together, their first love, their first lay.

They all got good at being able to duck in and out of the tailored trails, to appear at almost any point within the borders of the trailer park, to expedite their arrival or departure from home. Some kids got too good. Many times, during hot summer nights, the young twenty-something parents would all get together at one family’s trailer for a party. The barbeque would begin early in the day and last well into darkness.

The bright light of a fire pit would emanate loudly amongst the surrounding darkened trailer lots, giving notice that the party place was there for all to enjoy. Food and drink was the only need. Eventually, it was only the drink they needed to spark a loud and crazy streak amongst them, which resulted in dancing, yelling, or falling down. And still, they wondered where all the children had gotten their behavior problems from. They were left to their own devices. Able to sneak in and out of the surrounding darkness, making trouble of one kind or another without being noticed. For a while anyway.

During a particular winter, the youngest of the boys in the trailer park, shy and polite, a boy named Wayne, was given his entrance test (his initiation) into the group, having then the privilege of running equally alongside the others making decisions just as they did. Any test would be nothing compared to the yelling and screaming heard between mother and father then back at son.

The group walked him deep into the woods near the swamp. That place lent itself to endless summer days of frog hunting, then provided a winter arena for ice hockey tournaments. Toward spring, it was often that someone would fall through the ice, trying to make the usually long journey around its muddy edges easier by cutting across the deepness of its widest girth. As the temperatures rose, and the ice sagged, most gave way to caution and chose the longer safer route rather than chance falling beneath a watery, weak floor of coldness into the murky depths of an insect-infested stagnation. One individual would always push their luck and fall through. It was a horrible swim to shore. Many areas were too deep to be reached by foot. Most that were had several inches of mud, unfazed by the grip of winter, remaining soft and slippery, making it nearly impossible for desperately kicking legs to gain any measurable foothold.

The group walked their newest candidate to the still, icy water’s edge. That would be his moment of truth. In order to gain membership into his new family, he’d have to cross the ever-vanishing bog of ice at its widest point. He’d have to make it all the way—alone.

It seemed odd, at first, as he looked back at the others who stood in place, looking on with sadistic wonder that one boy kept pace alongside without hesitation. I’m here to make sure you go at least halfway, so you can’t turn around and come back, he snarled. The cracking sounds from under his feet grew louder with each step, radiating away toward the shoreline. His escort stayed the proper distance behind and to the side so as not to collapse the disintegrating floor beneath them both. He thought, as his sneakers became quickly saturated with the quarter inch or so of water, which had become trapped on the surface from the previous few days of spring like sunshine, maybe snow boots would have been the better choice. Even though heavier, they wouldn’t become waterlogged, and their broader sole might have diffused a little more of his weight across the ice’s surface.

It didn’t matter much anyway. He was nearly halfway across the open stretch of weakening ice. He emerged out into the clearest opening throughout the entire swamp, free from the debris of overgrown reeds and swamp grass. The flat uncorrupted ice made for a perfect skating surface in winter and boating channel during the summer. Most other areas of the swamp were littered with the skeletons of tall trees, once standing firm in the dry soil of a long-ago forest before the floodwaters moved in and took it all away. The low-lying land, once a region of rolling hills and valleys, full of densely growing oaks, maples, and pines, years later became metamorphosed, revealing a pale image of its former self. That section of forest seemed to have the lowest valley of sorts, lending itself to be the deepest of the swamp once the invading waters conquered all. Trees died faster. They fell over or, as the passage of time would reveal, got pushed over in their weakened state, causing them to sink below the muddy depths, contributing to their slow decay and eventual disintegration.

As the skinny boy moved farther along, it became more apparent that the motion of lifting then placing each foot on the weakened ice wasn’t working. He resorted to dragging his waterlogged shoes along the ice, keeping constant contact to reduce every bit of unneeded pressure against its surface. Then suddenly, a slight wind blew in his face. It caused him to stop immediately for fear it would shift his weight unnecessarily, ending in his demise. It may have always been blowing since his entrance onto the ice but became more apparent after being exposed out in the openness of the treeless, water-filled plain, where the protection of the wooded tree line on either shore was out of reach.

He looked across the swamp. Not far now, he thought. Much closer to the end than from the beginning. No turning back. The purpose of the escort had been fulfilled. He tried to slide his left foot to bring his body back into motion. It worked for only a second before another stronger gust of wind brought his body to a motionless pose again. He had to continue and knew it all too well that there were many sets of eyes upon him from the shore, waiting for him to give up.

Occasionally, a random shout would break the soft hum of the breeze, saying, Go! He did go. At least he tried. Fighting the wind was hard and unnerving, but the most difficult part of continuing on was the thought of not being successful in his attempt at becoming part of the group. If he had to return home, return to that hell, knowing that there would be nowhere else to turn, he absolutely would kill himself.

He started again except this time, he heard a strange noise. To investigate the source from behind him, he swiveled the entire trunk of his body to reduce the amount of vibration transferred to the weakening ice below. Somehow, though, he was broadsided. Someone hit him across the shoulders, nearly knocking him off his feet. In defense, his legs slid outward into a wide stance with arms spread out in the form of a crucifix to maintain his fragile balance. What had happened was beyond his awareness. As his startled frame concentrated on maintaining its equilibrium, then figuring out how to resolve his precarious predicament, his aggressor came into view. The larger boy, who began as an escort, came at him again but as an attacker. He thought the rough-looking boy had ended his journey many paces ago. Confusion as to the motive of the unprovoked advance raced through his mind.

In fearful defense, he twirled around to face the closest shoreline, hoping to figure out a way to get there unscathed. But he couldn’t seem to move quickly enough. As fast as the aggressor surprised him in the beginning, it didn’t matter that his presence was known for the second, then third, attack. He couldn’t move out of the way. It was as if the larger, more experienced boy had done such a thing before. He knew all the right moves to stay erect on his feet. He moved lightly enough to float across the surface of the failing floor beneath the two of them. Moving out of his way was near impossible.

Two enormous manlike hands gave one furious push, and the young pledge slid furiously out of control, spinning wildly away in the opposite direction. Cheers along with laughter were the last noises he heard before breaking through the ice, plunging into the frozen silence of subzero swamp water.

It was a dark, cold stillness. Particles of floating debris stirred up from the downward force of a sinking body, rubbed against his face like sandpaper. The chill of the murky water instantly knocked the breath out of him, inducing a comalike rigidness throughout his body. The shock of frozen torture (or maybe it was residual feelings of surprise) left him hovering in awe. As the feeling drained quickly from all extremities, forcing the remainder of his body’s warmth to prompt quick action from his struggling brain, he instinctively began to fight for his survival rather than accept the watery hole as his grave. Like coming out of a restless sleep, he began kicking his legs furiously along with paddling his arms to stay afloat. Getting to shore was the only goal now. With more than five feet of water below him, standing was not an option.

Pop up your head for a breath, he thought. Just get one good lungful to give you more time. He acted in concert with the energy of his mind. Reaching up with one hand, he found that grabbing the edge of the ice where he plunged helplessly below the murk was helpful in elevating his nose and mouth above the stiff tension of the mele slush. He did that just once. He broke through the plane of wetness, lungs desperately drawing in whatever amount of air they could muster as the surrounding coldness drew away more and more of the boy’s limited energy. Along with his exposed face came with it an ear, which heard the laughter and heckling of faraway onlookers, making light of a desperate situation.

A moment of temporary relief came soon after deeply inhaling the much warmer springtime air, sending a surge of renewed energy throughout his freezing torso. The thickness of the icy water felt like stew with floating chunks of every size sticking to his body as if he were a magnet. Sludge, decomposed vegetation, leaches, and dormant swamp larvae all found a home on the surface of his soaked clothes and exposed skin. It all clung to him as if wanting to escape their wintry prison, which held them at bay for so long. A chance to feel the early spring air was an opportunity not turned away.

Realizing that swimming wasn’t an option, he instinctively began searching for some sort of solid footing toward the unseen bottom. To find out how deep a sure-footed stance lay below would surely exhaust the last of the inhaled warmth, but it could be the answer to his release from the tortures of his dark prison. Letting go of the icy ledge and allowing his body to sink freely, he descended quickly, keeping his eyes shut tightly.

He extended his toes like a ballerina posing in perfect pirouette. The soft feel of stiff mud quickly captured his pointed limbs. Luckily, his weight was enough to divide the hibernating sludge like a knife through softened butter. It gave and gave, all the while his body drifting deeper below the ice hole from where he plunged, as the last of the redeeming breath that was needed in planning his escape was due to expire.

Then it happened. His feet would sink no more. They buckled under the stress of extreme hardness as they came to rest flat on the soles under the weight of his waterlogged body. He knew that would be his opportunity for freedom. He instinctively positioned his body into a jumping stance. With feet flat on the swamp’s floor, ankles deep and surrounded by mud, knees bent, and arms brought tightly into his ribcage.

Leaning back his head as far as his neck would allow, he took a chance in opening his eyes, only for a moment, to get some idea as to where and what direction his mud-bound legs would launch him. He was not concerned about hitting his head on a nearby floating log or thick sheet of ice blocking out the world above. Being somewhat at ease, he felt little anxiety even over the idea of drowning.

As his eyes opened, the salvation to his freedom appeared as a glowing halo above. A little more than three feet straight over his head sat the open hole in the ice from which he entered his frozen hell, being lit by the sun floating high above in a southern sky. The pain within his lungs set the plan into motion as the boy gave one purposeful push with his bent legs and arms simultaneously reaching toward the surface. The frigid waters had denied his nerves any feeling. His ungloved hands broke the upper plane; he felt reborn as the steady wind blew across their wetness, reviving the nerves and allowing a pain so intense to travel the length of his body.

Rising up from the watery grave would be just the beginning of his fight. Now he’d have to struggle with the elements as well. His muscles seized from the exertion of his escape attempt. It was as if they were good for a one-time effort only. Now that his hands, up to the middle forearm, had made it clear off the water, he had little fight left; and the weight of his body, along with the drag of waterlogged clothes, began to draw him under once more.

That halo of life turned quickly into a life preserver, providing a ledge to be used as a rescue handle. He grabbed it daintily like he might not have known if he’d actually gotten his target due to extreme numbness. He held on tightly enough to save himself from sinking again.

With one hand holding steady, the other followed, grabbing on to the icy ledge and beginning to lift himself up out of the water. Somewhere in the back of his mind though, he hoped someone, even the big-handed fellow who got him into that mess, would reach down into the murky depths to help him out to the safety of dry land. That wouldn’t happen.

As he performed what appeared to be a chin-up to begin the excavation of his body, his head poked out of the amber-colored water up to the top of his neck. With his hands positioned closely together, separated only by centimeters, he leaned his forehead against them to rest before he’d have to take the next big step of trying to get out. Resting would prove to be a horrible idea. The laughter continued from the shore behind but sounded more mute due to him focusing on the task at hand.

The ice cracked again. A piece broke off in his hands, enlarging the original hole, letting him loose to be submerged again. Will I have to relive it all again? he thought. Even before he could process the answer in his mind, the movement of his body had already begun the solution.

His stiffened trunk with legs bent and arms tucked to ribs were already waiting for the rest of him to sink down below the level of stirred-up mud to hit solid ground. He would then do the same as before, pushing himself to the surface to grab at the ice, hoping it would support the weight of his drenched body.

He must be a machine. The springing action would need to become automatic until he figured another way out of the water. It was the only way to keep a head above such depths. He did it again, then again. Each grab at the ice shelf found another piece remaining in hand.

He found his answer. The salvation, like Moses parting the Red Sea. He would part the ice of the amber swamp. It really was lucky that it was so warm that day, or else it might have meant an endless time of bobbing up and down inside an ice hole with no one there willing to help. As he jumped up again, he slowly realized that his body propelled itself about waist high into the air with each new push. His stomach became bruised with abrasions from rubbing against the jagged sheet of ice. He progressed almost to his desired location, the shoreline opposite those who laughed at him, calling for his failure.

Standing wasn’t the problem any longer. He could finally use his sure-footedness in helping to move forward the last few yards until he reached dry ground once more. He lifted his weighted feet one at a time slowly on top of the ice, then pushed down with all of his weight to break through the disintegrating layer. Thankfully, his weight was enough.

There was no strength left to help him forward. By the time he made it out alive, he’d have to deal with new scrapes extending from forehead to toes, leaving proof of his extreme encounter with the springtime frozen water. As he pushed down and broke the last bit of ice in his way, he shakily planted one foot ashore.

There’s no bother in looking back. There was only silence. They left him for dead. How could he have ever been wanted if treated so inhumanely? He only had energy enough to walk the slight incline of the leaf-covered bank leading away from the water’s edge. His focus was on the mighty oak standing before him with a broad trunk just waiting as a resting spot. He stumbled across the rugged, snow-littered landscape. Nearing the oak, he heard to his left a familiar hum. A noise in crescendo coming his way, which sounded to be a mixture of talking and laughing. He barely had enough energy to turn in that direction to scan the heavily forested landscape.

Then they all appeared. Along the open shoreline of the swamp, rounding the corner from the far end, was the group of savages who left him for dead, all making their way toward his position. They traveled the long way around. The safe way. He no longer had the interest nor the energy to worry about what would happen to himself next under their direction. He only wanted to sit and recover from the trauma that befell him. The coldness that raced through his body the moment his wet clothes were exposed to the early springtime air was completely blocked out of his mind. Only rest was important.

The group of boys came closer, led by the larger, the one who pushed him into trouble. As they came within reach, everyone fell silent so the leader could speak. Congratulations, he said in an almost disappointed voice, extending his hand out and patting the beaten upon victor on the shoulder. Wayne had passed the test, probably the hardest test of his young life.

So the entire affair was an initiation test for the boy? asked the short stocky speckled-bearded man sitting on the couch across from him. He sat upright, stiffly holding a yellow writing tablet against the plane of his upper thigh while scribbling random notes with a shiny, metallic-looking pen, which constantly caught the rays of the incoming sun as they beamed into the room through a side window, sparsely covered by a sheer white curtain meant only to obscure the view from the outside. The man didn’t look up from his pad often, only while nodding his head, as if in agreement, to what was being said by the subject sitting across from him. Yes, Doctor, Wayne answered. The entire scenario was part of the initiation. He stopped talking just to see if the doctor would look up and acknowledge him. After an extended moment, he did.

So why do you think the older children didn’t tell the young boy about the proposed test prior to them all getting to the swamp? queried the interviewer. Wayne hesitated at an answer but kept eye contact as the doctor continued his thought. I mean… It seems like the group all knew and may have even liked the younger boy. They were all from the same neighborhood, after all. So getting into the group meant completing a task, which was considered to be risky, but at the same time worthy of membership. It seems to me that if the boy had just run across that open area of icy swamp by himself, he may as well have fallen through anyway, without the malice displayed by the older boy. Wayne’s eyes fell toward the floor. I know. I can’t figure out why Kenny pushed me in like that, he muttered. He lived only a few trailers down from mine. We saw each other nearly every day, and he knew I couldn’t swim. Wayne began to sulk.

Well, persisted Dr. Stiller, "I feel we’re getting down to a key issue through the discussion of this childhood memory, Mr.

Donnelly. You’ve mentioned, before, about your complications in making, then keeping long-term relationships with friends. How do you think gaining membership into that group, through that method, describes or defines how you’ve come to view friendship? Wayne swallowed hard before answering, I could never trust my own friends." He voiced his concern out loud but as in an afterthought to some kind of revelation. He still couldn’t look up at the doctor, especially now that tears pooled under his closed eyelids.

"Well, at our next session, we’ll explore that idea some more.

Time’s up for today. I’ll see you next week." He ended abruptly as he left the room, gazing down at his wristwatch. Wayne remained in place, fighting off a torrent of impending tears. It felt like every muscle in his body was stiffened with sadness, like he was pushed back into that frigid, watery grave beneath the ice of that long-ago swamp. Raising his head slowly, Wayne began the journey out of the psychologist’s office. As he stood to gain his balance, all the tears that had gathered under the protection of tightly closed eyelids immediately rolled down his flushed cheeks. He could taste their saltiness. The only way to get up off that worn-out sofa, a place where so many people, like himself, had taken up residence once a week to spill out their problems, was to use any reserved energy that didn’t get drawn out of him during the session.

His chapped lips burned from the continuous flow of salt-laden tears spilling over them. His vision was obscured by the white brilliance of the infiltrating sun beaming heavily into the small space. Wayne stood up the best he could, wiping his face with the back of his sleeve. How many times before had he scolded his son for doing the same exact thing? Get a tissue if you need to wipe your nose, was what he’d say time and again, probably something he won’t repeat in the future. But necessity is necessity, and there’s nothing wrong when operating under duress to use the materials at hand. So Wayne thought.

Wayne wanted to gather himself together as much as possible before exiting the therapy room to leave the office. The unfortunate dilemma about being treated by a small-time psychiatrist, like Stiller, was having to leave by way of the three-chair, one-coffee table, two-lamp waiting room, not much larger than a m3edium-sized walk-in closet. But then again, the fact that the office was located in the corner unit of a strip mall would be some kind of indicator of the quality of care being offered.

With the all-too-familiar squeal of the therapy room door opening do patients (or clients as the doctor so sensitively called them) have to bear the humiliation of incidental eye-to-eye contact with the next waiting patron. The waiting client, who, moments before, was loosely reading one of the three outdated Psychology Today magazines set out on the coffee table, instinctively looks up to see the previous appointment emerge at ten minutes to the hour, finishing what was probably an excruciating session. The two clients’ eyes meet for a second but quickly try to look in some other direction as if embarrassed about both knowing the same dirty little secret about one another.

After pulling himself together, during the short walk down a flight of stairs to ground level, Wayne emerged out amongst the ordinary people going about their daily business within the shopping plaza. He walked slowly, at almost a stroll’s pace, disguised as to be a window shopper or some lonely husband waiting outside beneath the protection of the covered walkways for an absent wife, away in some department store, missing for hours, trying on endless amounts of discount clothing. He and all the other husbands were left to walk infinite loops past storefront windows, acting as if interested in their amateur design but half-hoping to get a glimpse of their significant other in the checkout line. Wayne felt for those men that walked by him time after time in predictable patterns.

Even though not sharing their predicament that day, he well understood their plight.

He kept on, making his way to where the car was parked. Glancing back at the line of stores behind, Wayne stared as if noticing something never seen before. A few doors down and diagonally across from the ground level entrance, which displayed proudly the name J. Hamilton Stiller, PhD, Clinical Psychologist, was an entrance leading into a liquor store. He smiled for the first time that day and, for a second, thought about turning around to go inside but instead continued walking across the parking lot toward the car, thinking to himself, How convenient. At least he knew that it would be there for future use if necessary.

Wayne drove into the cul-de-sac development. He chose not to notice the usual bustling about of his neighbors completing yard work or normal weekly chores. He accelerated in a daze devoid of any notion that an instinctual wave or nod may come from someone lifting their head away from the focus of early springtime yard duties. Straight to the driveway, looking directly over the dashboard, he focused only on getting that car inside the protective concealment of a closed garage. The only distraction, which turned his attention, was negotiating the turn of the steering wheel into the driveway bounded by a sizable slate stone pillar on each side.

The course rumble of the cobblestone apron near the street’s edge offered confirmation that he had hit his mark, passing safely between the pillars, and could then progress up the hundred-foot paved path. The driveway widened near the house to allow adequate space for a turnaround, as well as navigating within close proximity of the garage. With a minivan parked just opposite the doors on the far end of the turnaround, making the maneuver to park inside the garage could be tricky, especially during leftover icy, winter conditions.

Wayne performed flawlessly though he’d done it so many times before. It came easily to him. The only delay was waiting for the automatic opener to lift the door fully. Once parked, he sat in the car a little longer than usual, hoping that he might start feeling better. He wanted the nervousness in the pit of his stomach to go away, the residual tears from his second therapy session to vanish so that his family wouldn’t know how deeply upset he had become.

They would all start to wonder where he was. Normally, the parade of welcome homes, the hugs, and the kisses all began with the sound of that garage door. It rattled the house as its tight springs were forced to raise the door by a chain driven-machine, the size of a video cassette recorder, bolted to the ceiling of the garage. Its vibration carried through the beams of the house’s structure, alerting everyone to his upcoming appearance through the door into the kitchen.

This time, the wait would be longer than usual. Wayne delayed his departure from the safety of the car. It was almost as if his body was glued to the fine leather seat, unable to bring himself to lift his lifeless hands to grasp the door latch. He felt kind of satisfied though. Of all that seemed to be torturing his mind at the moment, looking around to see that the garage was clean settled him.

During the summer months, he set out to clean and organize the two-car stall, which hadn’t accepted an automobile for over three years due to an overflow of kid’s toys, boxes of unused household items not even worthy of a yard sale, and small kitchen appliances, which no longer fit within the confines of the home’s limited space. That was the first feeling of relief he had experienced in a while, but it wouldn’t last long given that his wife was waiting for him right behind that door, and behind her would be the three children.

As the door opened into the kitchen, by the laundry, he poked in his head, Wayne didn’t get what he had expected. He looked through the kitchen into the dining room to see everyone sitting at the large table.

His wife looked on as two of his children colored with crayons on pieces of blank white construction paper. As he approached, removing his jacket, Christine looked at him for the first time since entering the house.

She could tell that he had been crying. As much as he tried to conceal it, she had known him for too long for such a detail to get by her without notice. He whispered a hello, which may have been under his breath so as not to be heard aloud. The slight nod along with it may have given away a clue. She offered a quiet nod and a smile in return.

The three children, with little notice of his presence, continued on with their afternoon activities. Christine believed in keeping them engaged with constructive activities throughout any given day, along with a lot of praise and love for their accomplishments. She was the do-everything mom. Strong-willed, determined, and very educated. She mostly ran the household the way she saw fit, given Wayne usually had obligations away from the home—at work. It was like all the household rules and daily routines were developed with no regard to his presence, since his constantly rotating shifts and changing days off kept him away at odd hours. Sometimes, it would be several days in a row that the kids wouldn’t get to see him. That made Wayne feel even more like a stranger in his own home. But Christine bridged the gap of his absence, taking up the role as super mother and, at often times, father as well.

As Wayne walked through the kitchen, his daughter Fiona looked up from the coloring she had been doing. She looked him deep in the eyes; then an expression of recognition and delayed exhilaration came over her. Daddy, Daddy! she shouted while raising her arms high up into the air, signaling for him to pick her up. Wayne too, with a smile and a sigh of acceptance, opened his arms, reached down to raise her up to him, and held her body close to his. As he gripped and lifted her from the dining room chair, Christine whispered to Brennan, "Daddy’s here, Bren.

Daddy’s here." The carrot-topped boy moved his eyes from the deep concentrated stare of his crayon drawing up to see his father holding

Fiona. He too smiled, saying in a most serious tone, Hi, Daddy. I missed you today.

With one arm holding Fiona, Wayne reached with the other to rub the top of his boy’s head to show his love. "I missed you too, buddy.

What are you drawing?" Brennan’s smile turned right back to his usual serious stare, indicating that he would be, again, concentrating on the task of coloring. Brennan was the sweetest little boy in the world, never raised a voice or fist to any other person. Suffering from Asperger’s syndrome, he made it challenging for Wayne and Christine. His obsessive-compulsive nature kept him much too focused on objects instead of people.

Brennan, Wayne asked again. What are you drawing there?

I’m drawing the planets, he answered without looking away from his work. You draw with me, Daddy? Wayne smiled at his son, shaking his head in agreement. I’d love to draw planets with you. Just let me change out of my work clothes first. He set Fiona back onto her chair then gave her a kiss on top of the head.

He walked over to his baby girl Tesse who sat patiently, waiting for her turn to say hello. The smile on her face said it all. The moment she realized her father was walking over to pick her up, her arms began to wave with excitement as if trying to fly away. The smile crossing from cheek to cheek enlarged so that her nose crinkled up to her eyes as they narrowed into the shape of tightly closed slits. He leaned over, grabbing her under the arms, lifting her up against his chest. Her soft giggles and baby talk made him smile as he pressed his lips against her forehead. His loving gesture ended with a slight tremor, which ran through his entire body. Christine silently acknowledged him as it seemed the tears would spontaneously begin once more. He couldn’t stop the flow of emotion that had been released earlier that day, even amongst the protection of the people he held most dear to his heart.

He thought coming home, kissing his wife, and hugging his children would help to smooth over any of the rough spots left on the surface of his emotional state. It usually worked so well when he needed to escape the stressful feelings remaining from a torturous day at work. Even if being amongst everyone didn’t do the trick, it always would help when holding Tesse right by his side. She always lowered the high emotion of anxiety built up from a rough day. She was his special sweetheart, his solemn angel sent by God to watch over him as he walked the steps of his life.

Most parents could never admit to themselves that one child of theirs was a favorite. It’s often displayed through actions or words. Not Wayne. Even though he adored all three of his children, he’d say every time that Tesse was what made the world go around. It was amazing that she was even present as a Donnelly family member. From just moments after her birth, she was left to struggle for survival over the first six weeks of her life. Minutes after Christine had given her final labor pushes, Tesse was born as a calm and pleasant little redheaded child. The midwife let Wayne cut the umbilical cord, then laid the newborn on her mother’s chest. The two Donnelly women bonded instantly. Tesse let out her little baby whimpers then quickly drifted off to sleep in Christine’s arms as Wayne cried joyfully over the heart wrenching view. That sight of seeing the birth of his children never ceased in choking him up.

Soon after her arrival, Tesse’s nurses became concerned over her very