Lance Marshall wasn’t a very good liar. He had no innate talent for it and, in truth, he had made no effort to develop one. It wasn’t that he found the idea of lying so terribly appalling morally, though he was certainly not a fan of it. It wasn’t even how much his father had emphasized that lying was wrong, though he tried as little as he could to invoke his father’s wrath.

In truth, the thing that bothered Lance Marshall most about lying was that it made him physically uncomfortable. There was something about the weaving of deceptions, the careful tracking of who had been told what, that actually made Lance Marshall slightly sick to his stomach. It was why he’d never been drafted into the plan to TP Mr. Mulligan’s house during the sixth grade, it was why he’d never been asked to participate in the senior prank and it was why, when he and Lani had thrown Mikey a surprise birthday party a few months back, he’d made certain to have as little contact as possible with Mikey for an entire week.

So it didn’t surprise Lance when his inner eight year old had started screaming at him that morning. When the ghost of whuppings past was going to be paying him a visit for lying right to his dad’s face. Lance’s mother and father had stopped by his room, all dressed and ready for church, only to find Lance still clad in a pair of sweatpants, looking barely awake.

Lance had apologized to his parents, had told them that he was feeling unwell, that would they mind terribly taking Zach to church while he stayed home. His mother had clucked and fussed over him, urging him to take care. His father had simply looked him in the eye for a few seconds before nodding briefly and telling Lance they wouldn’t be back late.

So, with a promise from Zach that he would be extra special good for Nana and Pawpaw, the Marshalls minus one had made their way towards the weekly Sunday services at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Once he was certain they were gone, Lance had changed into a pair of swim trunks and made his way down to the pool, not even bothering to shower. He had felt horrible about lying to his parents and Zach; he was sure his stomach would make him pay for it later. But between work, the GTT tournament, trying to help Zach and dealing with the recent attack on Alanna…he’d had not a moment to himself. There had always been something to do, some matter to attend to, somewhere that he had to be. That Lance Marshall had to be.

He knew plenty of people who would say that was a good thing, tell him so right to his face. That dealing with everything else going on in his life would keep him from being distracted, that it would prevent him from slipping back into old habits…slipping back into the bottle. So what if the headaches were coming back again worse than ever and he was managing two hours of sleep on a good night and he needed an aircraft carrier’s worth of coffee to function most mornings…

…at least he wasn’t drinking.

Right now, Lance wasn’t sure the trade off was worth it.

He plunged into the water with a grace one wouldn’t expect from a man his size, his massive form plowing through the water like some vast missile heading towards its target. He had thought that physical activity was the right decision. In every tough time, in every difficulty, it had been there…lifting weights, football practice, wrestling practice, boxing practice…to help him channel the pain and anger he could feel building inside him, to keep him from doing something stupid or hurtful or vicious, to keep him from being too emotional.

To let him be strong. To let him be the man that his father, his brothers, his teachers, his coaches…to be the man that they had demanded him to be. That they expected him to be. The tough, strong, stoic, solid son of a bitch because, goddamnit, that’s what the Marshalls were! He could feel all of that clawing at him as he sank into the water, pulling him under, leaving him struggling to break free as he broke the surface.

Even as he started his normal routine, executing strong, steady laps from one side of the pool to the other, his brain would not stop. Was Alanna okay? How could he help Zach? Why had this bastard decided to hurt his family? What had he done to bring this monster’s wrath upon them.
It was only when the thought crossed Lance’s mind that maybe, perhaps, he might just want to ask Alexandra Pierce if there was anything she could do to get him and this bastard alone in a room together for five minutes…and didn’t dismiss the idea immediately…that he stopped swimming, making his way out of the pool and crashing into a nearby deck chair.

Lance toweled his hair lazily, dropping the towel onto the floor beside him. “Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…”. The Stations of the Cross.

“Dear Father…I have hated you so much these past weeks. I have tried to hold onto my faith, tried to believe in your grace, tried to keep my soul from sliding into despair…and I have failed.”

The words he could not say in public. The words he would not say in public.

“I love my son more than anything or anyone in the world. I would give my life for his, would endure any suffering you could devise if it meant he would benefit. But I struggle, Father…I struggle with the idea that a just and loving G-d would allow what has happened to my son. I struggle with the idea that the pain and anguish that Zach has gone through has been part of some greater, divine plan.”

The tears that he hides come freely now.

“My son has nothing but love for everyone he knows. He is the kindest and gentlest person I have ever known and it has been my blessing to call him my son. I look at him now…and I die inside, Father. I die knowing that he feels such pain and that I can do nothing to stop it. I die knowing that this monster has stripped him of his innocence and his light, I die knowing that I could do nothing to stop it. I struggle every day, wanting nothing more to help him and not knowing how.”

His hands stand at his side, instinctively bunching into fists and relaxing.

“He flinches from my touch, Father. There are times when he looks so fragile that I fear he will break…and there are times that he looks at me with fear in his eyes. And I die.”

A deep breath, a moment to collect his thoughts.

“And then there is my wife. My beautiful wife, the light of my heart. The woman who was forced to listen in her hospital bed, unable to resist, as the man who violated my son attacked her, whispering obscenities in her ear about what he had done to our son. The woman whose light was nearly taken from us by disease, by the cancer that preyed upon her body. The woman who looks to me for strength and guidance, for comfort…the things which I am no longer certain I can provide.”

“There is a voice inside me, Father…a voice that tells me that the answer to all of my problems can be found in the bottom of a bottle. That all I have to do to make things better is to allow myself to be carried away, to surrender myself to the tide of alcohol…that blissful oblivion is the only solution.”

A pause.

“I don’t know what I have done to anger you, Lord, but for whatever it is I have done…I offer my profound apologies. If I have not given you sufficient praise, please accept it now. I know that I do not deserve it but I ask for your forgiveness in the face of my failures. I ask for your strength, Father, not for myself but so that I may be there for those who love and need me.”

The Stations of the Cross, again. Lance picks up the towel and heads slowly back into the floor, to prepare for another day.

“Amen.”

I pray we’ll find your light
And hold it in our hearts
When stars go out each night
Remind us where you are

Alanna Marshall awoke to the feeling of dried tears on her cheeks, the pillow on which her head was resting also stained with tears. Another pillow was clutched tightly in her hands. She couldn’t remember how it had gotten there.
The previous night had been a bad one. She’d been trying to wean herself off of the hospital morphine but there had been moments where regular pain killers, even hospital strength, just weren’t cutting it. It had gotten so bad that she’d mixed the painkillers and a sleep aid provided by the nurses, just in the hope of grabbing a few blessed moments of sleep.

That had been six and one half hours ago, if the clock was to be believed. And since her memory wasn’t exactly feeling like backing her up today, she decided to take the clock’s word for it.

The doctors had told her that, barring any major complications, today would be the day she’d be allowed to return home. She couldn’t wait. Hospitals were not her favorite place in the world, never had been since even before she and Lance had entered the world of professional wrestling. But this one in particular…

Unbidden, her mind flashed back to a few nights ago, when the man who had attacked her son had paid her a visit. How he had held a scalpel to her throat, boasting about how he could kill her right then and no one would notice or even care. Whispering in her ear about the obscenities he had performed on her son, how much sexual pleasure he had derived from them, how he had dreamed of doing the same things to her. How he had injected the contents on his syringe into her IV line, flooding her system with enough drugs to….

…she wasn’t going to think about that. She wasn’t going to think about that.

She’d known that she’d have to tell the police about what happened, go into as much detail as she could remember in the hopes that the police would be able to find this bastard and put him behind bars. Still, a part of her hadn’t wanted to. As her husband overheard everything, as Lance’s expression shifted from utter heartbreak to incoherent rage and all the stops in between…she had wanted to stop, to tell the police to leave, to spare her husband the pain she was unintentionally causing him.

But it had to be done, she thought. This son of a bitch needed to pay for what he’d done. It was one of the few things she had been able to comfort herself with, knowing that there was a special place in the circles of hell reserved for this monster.

As she shifted slightly in her bed, Alanna’s thoughts turned to her husband. She worried about Lance. She knew how strong he tried to be for her and Zach, knew that he was truly every bit her knight in shining armor. But she also knew how much all of what had happened recently had hurt him, the effect all of it had had on him…

People talked about what happened to her. People talked about what happened to her son. Nobody talked about what happened to her husband.

Dear G-d, she thought to herself, please let Lance and Zach know how much she loved them. How she would always be there for them. I ask for nothing for myself…but, please, look after the two joys of my life.

A world where pain and sorrow will be ended
And every heart that’s broken will be mended
And we’ll remember we are all G-d’s children
Reaching out to touch you, reaching to the stars

Zach Marshall climbed into bed, the covers carefully bunched around him like a shield. He’d known that Daddy had been lying that morning, he hadn’t been sick. He’d been sad. Sad about what happened to Mommy, sad about what everyone said had happened to him. He’d been especially sure about it when Daddy had announced that he and Zach and Nana and Pawpaw would be having a fun day today, that they would be doing all the things Zach liked to do.

The grownups had been doing that a lot lately. Ever since the bad man had taken him, they’d been extra careful to be really nice to him. It bothered Zach some, if he was being honest. Sure, it was nice to have people do nice things for you. But, Zach thought, he wasn’t the only one who’d had something bad happen to him. Were people being this nice to all the other kids?

So, they’d gone out for the day. They’d gone to the mall and had pizza, gone to see The Princess and The Frog. He’d enjoyed it, finding Ray really funny and thinking Tiana was pretty (Daddy had smiled at that and he wasn’t sure why). Zach had made them stop by the Disney Store, so they could pick up both a Ray stuffed animal and a Ray night light.

The night light had been especially important.

Zach’s first night back had been bad. Zach remembered nothing of this, a fact that his parents would view with the utmost gratitude. It had seemed all right at first, Zach trundling into bed at the usual time with little protest. The blood curdling scream coming from Zach’s room at 2 a.m. had changed all that. Parents and grandparents had dashed to his room as fast as they could, to find Zach sitting bolt upright in bed; back pressed against the headboard, eyes staring into the distance, screaming in fear at the top of his lungs. They had stayed there until Zach had come back to them, until Zach had collapsed against his father, whimpering “I’m sorry, Daddy”. Waiting until Zach had finally fallen back asleep, leaving the lights on as they left.

The lights had stayed on every night since.

It bothered Zach that he needed the night light to sleep. Night lights were for babies, not for big kids like him! But the dark felt weird and scary now…and very, very cold. With the night light, it felt as though a little bit of warm was coming in through the cold and dark. Like Daddy and Mommy and Nana and Pawpaw and Grandma and Grampa were there with him, promising that they would protect him and not let anything bad happen to him ever again.

As he felt himself begin to yawn, Zach quickly said his prayers. God bless Mommy and Daddy. God bless Nana and Pawpaw and Grandma and Grampa. God bless all his uncles and aunts and cousins and everybody. Oh, and God bless Mister Thad for letting him Quasar, that was so nice of him!

Lance smiled as he watched his son drift off to sleep, the plush form of Ray the firefly hugged tightly against his chest. It was in moments like these that he could almost forget everything that had happened.

It was moments like these that he would need to hold onto in the days to come.

The next afternoon, when Lance went to check on the day’s mail, he found a surprise. Not a bill or a store catalog or his latest issue of Muscle and Fitness…but a business card for one Mark L. Brenner, MFT and PH.D.

On the back of the card, written simply in red ink, were two initials:
A.P.