‘That Red Car is in the Water’

“That red car is in the water.”

When my 3-year-old says something, it’s kind of like listening to an in-and-out AM radio station: kinda garbled, fading and you can usually make out every few words. But when my son uttered those words this evening, the clarity stopped me in my tracks.

I turned to my left and saw him pointing to a poster board that featured the cover to my memoir. I use the poster board during book signings and public speakings, but most of the time it collects dust while leaning against the basement cinderblock wall like a drunk at 3 a.m.

“That was Daddy’s car,” I said to him. He looked bewildered. Perhaps he was confused, thinking I was feeding him misinformation, as my current car is black. It was the first time I had ever spoken of the 35W bridge collapse to him at any level.

“What is THAT?” he said, shifting his index finger upward.

“That’s the bridge – or what was left of the bridge when it fell down,” I told him. “Daddy was in the car on the bridge when it fell down.” An instant later, his attention had turned to his ball and bat. I exhaled.

I haven’t processed how or what I am going to tell him about Aug. 1, 2007, or how much or when. But as I am thinking about it, it stuns me as to how much it has or will impact him secondarily, how my PTSD has the potential to color our relationship. Something that happened four years before he was born could follow him around like a ghost – the ghost that has followed me in the past, sometimes lurking behind corners and other times staring me in the face.

For most children, the only bridge falling down is in London. For mine, it hits a lot closer to home. That red car was Daddy’s.