SLEEPING IS IMPOSSIBLE, what with the box, and the fact that my neighbor might know by now that he’s been robbed, and that the robbers are next door, and if he knows this, he must know that we have in our possession all sorts of clues he doesn’t want us to have. And then there’s my dry mouth, and I want a glass of water, and I curse myself again for not getting one before I went to bed, because, of course, the sink window is visible from his attic. And I don’t think I can take that. Seeing the pastor again, ever.

I turn on the flashlight app on my phone and grab my grandfather’s journal. The weathered pages crinkle as I turn them, and I try not to wake up Aisha. The notebook is a weird combination of jokes, ideas, and diary entries.

I lie down again, and I open the journal wide and place it face down on my chest. This was two years before he left. Why was my grandfather so tired of his brain? What was so wrong? And did he run away? It’s all so hard to understand. Who is this person who jokes like me and wants to escape just like I do sometimes? I pick the journal back up, flip ahead a few more pages, and he’s written a scene.

Is this, like, the funniest thing ever? No. But I can completely imagine coming up with something like this, and writing it down, and feeling that sense of pride that you get when you make yourself laugh. I don’t know if that’s universal, but I totally get it. And so does Russ.

How is it that two people who have never even met could be so much alike? Does sharing the same DNA make people do the same sorts of things, and where does that end, and, like, upbringing take over? How does heredity actually work?

These thoughts swirl through my head for a while, and then, when I get so restless on the carpet that I could scream, I creep up the stairs.

The pastor’s attic light is off, thankfully. I grab a glass and turn on the faucet and gulp down a couple glasses of water.

A slight noise comes from my dad’s room. My heart quickens. What if he’s struggling? Does my mother have some sort of baby monitor in there so she can hear him in case he needs her?

I softly step toward the hallway. The noise is muffled and strange, high-pitched almost. I approach the door. It sounds like he’s hyperventilating in his sleep.

I stand there for what feels like hours, alternately trying to psych myself up to go into his room or go back downstairs. Neither works. I just stay planted until my feet feel stuck. And when I’m as close as I can get to ready, I take a deep breath, knock on the door, and walk in.

I can see his outline faintly in the moonlight. He is on his side in his tattered blue sweatpants and white undershirt, cradling a pillow in one arm and an empty Jack Daniel’s bottle in the other.

Goddamn alcohol. He’s dying. He’s on morphine. And somehow he still has a bottle of whiskey.

He is rocking back and forth, forth and back, and he’s sobbing. The staccato sobs sound like they’re coming from his nose. Every time he makes a noise, it feels like somebody is choking the air out of me.

I approach the side of his bed. “Dad,” I say softly. “Wake up, Dad.” Looking down at his body, I can see clearly that he’s dying. He’s dying. He’s sick and frail and human. All the things your dad is not supposed to be.

“Dad,” I whisper again. He doesn’t have many nights left, according to the doctor. And the fact that he is sobbing one of those away is too much to take. “Wake up, Dad.”

He doesn’t wake at first, so I softly knee the mattress near his head. His eyes creep open. He looks at me, dazed, for quite a few seconds, and then his eyes get bigger.

“Da!” he says, his face seeming to illuminate. “Daddy!”

“No,” I say, meaning it. “No.”

“Daddy!” he repeats. He’s smiling broadly now. It’s a bit delirious, this wide smile, and I know he’s drunk.

“No,” I say, taking the bottle from his grasp and setting it on the floor. “I’m your son. Carson.”

“You came for me,” he says, his unfocused eyes boring into my upper forehead. The area feels like it’s burning. “I’ve missed you so goddamn much, Da.”

I’m frozen. There are certain scenes you’re not supposed to have to play when you’re a kid. Something inside of me is shaking, like, No, no, can’t do this, no, no, but the other part of me, the physical part that can do stuff, is tentatively sitting down on the bed, next to his head.

He nuzzles his head against my leg until I gently lift his skull up onto my lap. I stroke his hair. It feels weird, wrong. And it also feels something else, something that’s not wrong, and that part I have to choke down because this is my dad, the joke guy. Even if he’s crying right now, I’m afraid he’ll switch it up and laugh at me if I take this too seriously.

I stare at his profile. His chin is a stranger’s chin. I don’t know this chin. His nose is not one I know, not well. And yet also I do know it. Which is fucked up. He smells sour, like alcohol, and also like he hasn’t showered in a day, maybe two. The base smell is like me when I don’t shower. Families have scents, I guess. I was not aware of this. Is it in the DNA?

“I’ve been good,” my dad says as I stroke his hair. His eyes are closed and he looks peaceful. “I’m glad you came back for me. I knew you’d come back.”

“Yes,” I finally say, through gritted teeth. “I came back.”

“I missed you so much.”

My jaw relaxes a bit, and I breathe into it. “I missed you too.”

He opens his eyes and looks up at me. The look is still spacy and unfocused, and the thought comes to me that when he dies, this is the image I’ll have of him. And I don’t want it.

“I’m glad we’re a family again, Dad,” he says.

I close my eyes. “Me too,” I say.

“Do I have long?” he asks. I open my eyes, and his unfocused glance seems to be searching for connection, and it’s like neither of us can find it.

And his question. I don’t know what he means. Does he have long? With me holding him, or to live?

“No,” I say, as kindly as I can.

He doesn’t cry. He just breathes and coos like a content little baby. And then, after a few minutes of that, there is shaking, and he does cry some more.

I pet his thinning brown hair gently. I don’t say anything, because I can’t. All I can do is breathe and breathe and breathe. This is all I’m capable of doing.

WHEN I AM safely able to extricate myself from my father’s dream, I walk, numb, back down to the basement. Aisha is lightly snoring, but I figure if she can wake me at six thirty to clean, I can wake her up for this.

I sit down on the edge of the air mattress and tap her shoulder gently. “My dad,” I say, when she finally leans up, resting on her elbows.

“What about him?”

“Crying. For his dad. To me.”

I can’t say more, because if I do, I’m gonna cry, and I don’t cry, ever.

“What?”

I suck in as much air as I can, and I set my jaw tight, and I do my best to explain to her what just happened.

“Man,” she says. “Heavy shit.”

“Yeah.”

“So …”

“So,” I say. “So we have to find him. We have to find my grandfather, I mean. Before my dad … you know. We need to get my grandfather back here for him.”