Work Text:
A grief-stricken wail pierced the quiet hallway. Startled, Mr. Perry’s head snapped in the direction of the sound, and his eyes settled on a woman crumpling against the man beside her. A doctor stood across from them, looking somber as he spoke quietly. The man pressed the crying woman to his chest and said nothing, clenching his jaw and staring forward blankly. But only seconds later, his chin began to wobble, and a choked sob escaped his lips as he buried his face in his wife’s hair.
Mr. Perry recognized the couple from the previous morning. While searching for Neil’s room, he had peered into an open doorway and seen them sitting around the bed of a frail looking boy. He couldn’t have been much younger Neil, but he had appeared so small, so child-like, tucked beneath the sheets and surrounded by machines.
Now, the boy was nowhere to be seen. Mr. Perry understood what that meant. He wished he didn’t.
He knew he should have kept walking—should have bowed his head and politely ignored this private moment—but he found that his feet had suddenly turned to lead, rooting him in place. He watched the couple clutch onto one another, and a phantom pressure spread against his own arms and chest as a memory resurfaced. His mind was surely playing tricks on him; the woman’s tearful mumblings, cut off abruptly by sobs and shuddering breaths, sounded exactly like his wife’s.
A young nurse jostled his shoulder, and she let out a quiet apology as she passed by. Mr. Perry averted his eyes at once and cleared his throat before continuing to his destination. He came to a stop just outside the door, and with one last glance at the couple, he squared his shoulders and entered the room.
The room was much darker than he expected, lit only by a dim lamp on the bedside table. Mr. Perry paused in the doorway and squinted, willing his eyes to adjust from the overwhelming brightness of the hallway.
Neil was sprawled out on the bed, partially inclined, with his head lolled off to one side. The lamp cast deep shadows across his face, his high cheekbones making him appear especially gaunt. A thick knitted blanket was thrown over his body to fight off the chill that lingered in the air. Mr. Perry watched his son’s chest rise and fall steadily beneath the warm cover before realizing that it looked familiar—it had been on Neil’s bed at Welton when he visited his son three days ago.
Had it really only been three days since they stood in Neil’s dorm?
One of Neil's arms lay atop the blanket, displaying the medical bracelet that circled his wrist. His pale hand was splayed across an open book that rested on his lap.
Mr. Perry took a step into the room and closed the door as quietly as possible. Neil didn’t stir as his father approached, nor did he wake when Mr. Perry gently pulled the book from his son’s grasp. He glanced at the cover, then scanned the open pages. It was poetry—some Whitman fellow—but the words made little sense to him.
A folded paper on the floor next to the bed caught his attention. His bookmark, he assumed. It must have fallen after he drifted off. Placing the book face-down on the blanket next to Neil’s legs, he bent to retrieve the page, and once upright, unfolded it.
Mr. Perry’s chest tightened. It was the flyer for the play—the dreadful thing that started this disaster; the reason they were all here. Anger welled up inside him, and he had an urge to tear it apart and burn every last piece, as if its destruction could undo everything. But he knew it couldn’t.
Two nights ago, his son had put a gun to head and pulled the trigger. Nothing could ever undo that.
What if the gun had been loaded?
It wasn’t the first time that the question had crossed his mind, but he hadn’t let himself linger on it for too long. Now, seeing his son laying there, quiet and still, he found that he could no longer ignore it.
Mr. Perry thought of the last time he had cleaned the weapon just a few months prior. Putting the bullets in the top drawer of the desk instead of back in the gun’s barrel had been an off-handed decision—he had read something in passing that encouraged storing ammunition separately following a local report that a little boy, unaware that his father’s gun was loaded, had accidentally shot and killed a friend while playing cops and robbers.
Mr. Perry had no way of knowing at the time that it would save Neil’s life. If he had acted differently, he would be burying his son instead of watching him sleep in his hospital bed.
‘If you had acted differently,’ snapped a bitter voice in the back of his mind, ‘Neil wouldn’t have tried to shoot himself in the first place.’
He tried to stomp down the thought. This wasn’t his fault. He had been acting in Neil’s best interest—laying to rest these silly fantasies and giving him opportunities that Mr. Perry himself could have only dreamt of when he was 17. Neil would thank him when he’s older; when he’s a successful doctor. He was just being foolish.
‘This was not a rebellion, or a cry for attention. It was an act of desperation—of defeat,’ The hospital’s psychiatrist had said. ‘Suicide is a last resort. He felt trapped and saw it as his only means to escape. If he remains trapped, he will likely attempt this again.’
Mr. Perry thumbed the edge of the flyer.
In two weeks, on the last day of 1959, Neil would be shipped off to Braden Military School. Mr. Perry had purchased the train tickets at the station that afternoon. The small slips of paper were tucked away in his coat’s inner breast pocket, just below his heart. He would be escorting his son to Braden, while his wife remained at home.
Neil’s ticket was a one-way fare.
In two weeks, on the last day of 1959, Neil would be shipped off, far away from his family, friends, and everything else he’s ever known, to a school full of weapons. He would be alone. Trapped.
It struck Mr. Perry that he wouldn’t just be putting the gun in his son’s hand; he would be teaching him how to use it too. Neil had always been a fast learner.
A sudden wave of sorrow crashed down upon him, and his knees threatened to give out under the weight of it. He sunk down onto the bed near Neil’s feet as his anger slowly washed away. He felt empty in its absence, and he realized then just how much he had allowed it to grow and fester—it had poisoned his whole being.
The emptiness soon gave way to sadness. Guilt. Fear. Shame. God, how had he let this go so far? How had he put his own ego above his child? How had he not seen his son’s suffering? Worse yet, how had he seen it and chosen to ignore it?
In the quiet hospital room, his memories echoed louder than thunder.
“Tomorrow, you go to them, and you tell them that you're quitting,” Mr. Perry demanded.
Neil looked at him in desperation. “No, I can't!” His voice cracked as he pleaded. “I have the main part. The performance is tomorrow night.”
“I don't care if the world comes to an end tomorrow night! You are through with that play.”
Mr. Perry bowed his head. The world—his world—nearly had come to an end the following night.
Neil stood on the stage, spotlight shining down upon him. He held his twig-covered hands to his chest and began the final monologue, his gaze fixed on the scowling figure at the back of the theatre.
After several lines, Neil hesitated, his confident mask wavering for a split second. His voice softened as he stared his father in the eye.
“Gentles, do not reprehend. If you pardon, we will mend.”
At the time, he had been too blinded by anger to understand Neil’s plea: Don’t be angry, father. Forgive me.
Chest heavy, he cursed himself. Of course I forgive you, my dear son. Can you ever forgive me?
Neil stood abruptly. “I’ve got to tell you what I feel!”
“What? What? Tell me what you feel. What is it?” Mr. Perry snapped.
Neil paused, glancing at his mother, who watched him with a sad frown. He looked back at his father, but no words came out.
“Is it more of this-this acting business? Because you can forget that.” After another beat of silence, Mr. Perry prompted him again. “What?”
Neil blinked, and something in his eyes changed. It was almost imperceptible at the time, but Mr. Perry can now pinpoint it as the moment his son decided that life was not worth living.
“Nothing.”
He remembered the defeat in Neil’s voice—how he had sunk into the armchair, vacantly staring at the floor. It made Mr. Perry’s stomach lurch.
A cry cut through the night, startling Mr. Perry from his slumber. Rising from the bed, he fled the room and descended the stairs to find the source of the noise.
He breached the doorway of his study, and his eyes darted to the gun discarded on the floor. Fear shot through his heart as he stepped further into the room. Neil’s limp hand came into view, the rest of his body obscured by the desk.
Mr. Perry rushed forward and fell to his knees beside his son, who lay on the ground, eyes closed and completely despondent. Seconds later, Mrs. Perry dropped to the floor next to them and pulled Neil against her chest, letting him bury his face in her neck. He didn’t make a sound.
Mr. Perry wrapped his arms around his family, one hand pressed firmly to Neil’s back. It rose beneath his palm as his son took a shuddering breath.
Mr. Perry had thought his son was dead. That moment—those few, agonizing seconds that passed before he felt his son breathe—had been the most painful moment of his entire life.
What would he have done if that moment had not ended? How could he have gone on living after losing his son? He didn’t think he had the strength to bear it.
If he listened closely, Mr. Perry could still hear the couple weeping down the hall, and he realized that their moment would never end. Their son would never take another breath. And they would have no choice but to carry on, as if their world hadn’t come to an end. Eventually, their tears would dry, and their cries would fade to silence, but their hearts—their broken hearts would continue to ache until they ceased to beat. Such was the fate of a parent who must live after their child has died.
Mr. Perry and his wife had been spared that fate. Their son was alive and sleeping peacefully within arm’s reach. But that didn’t mean that this was over. As he watched Neil, listening to his steady breaths, Mr. Perry knew that night had been seared into his mind, and phantom pains would haunt him for years to come.
His eyes burned, and he tried to blink away the moisture that gathered. It was no use. He rushed to wipe away the tears as they landed on his cheeks, but more soon replaced them. Quicker and quicker, they came—the dam had been broken. Surrendering, he bowed his head and let himself cry for the first time since Neil’s attempt—the first time in many, many years, in fact—with a hand clamped over his mouth so he wouldn’t wake his son.
He didn’t know how long he sat there, or when he had closed his eyes, but when he reopened them, his gaze was drawn to the theatre flyer that laid, discarded, on his lap. He picked it up once more and cradled the paper gently, almost reverently, it his hands. How could he have ever wished to destroy it? It was not to blame. It was not the evil, corrupting thing he had thought it to be.
It was a piece of his son.
Pride bloomed inside his chest as he read the page. Although he had only been there for a small part of Neil’s performance, he had seen his son’s eyes light up as he embodied Puck and heard how naturally the words flowed from his lips.
He had been good—really good.
Mr. Perry had never seen Neil more alive than he was on that stage, and it had been years since he’d seen him grin so brightly. It had caught him off guard at first; he was so used to Neil’s small, polite smile. He knew that was his fault. He had never shown any interest in his son’s happiness, so who was he to expect Neil to share that part of himself?
He now found himself desperate to see it all again—to witness his son bursting with life. He needed his wife to see it, too. She had spent the last two days crying in Neil’s bedroom.
Mr. Perry folded the paper and slipped it between the pages of poetry as he stood, then placed the book on the nearby table before returning to Neil’s bedside. His hand brushed away the whisps of hair that fell across his son’s forehead. Caressing the boy’s face, he leaned down to press his lips against Neil’s brow. It was something that Mr. Perry hadn’t done in years—somewhere down the line, the tender fatherly gesture had been traded for a stiff pat on the back or a heavy hand on the shoulder. Another thing to add to his long list of regrets.
Straightening up, Mr. Perry reached over to the lamp, but stopped to gaze down at his son once more. Finally, he turned off the light and carefully made his way out of the room.
The next morning, he would return to the hospital with his wife by his side and Puck’s crown in hand, and they would discuss everything as a family. Afterward, Mr. Perry would refund the train fares and re-enroll Neil at Welton Academy. It would not fix the damage done, but it would be a step in the right direction.
They had been given a second chance, and Mr. Perry did not intend to waste it.