It was the next Friday evening that Sam decided to approach Sy about something that had been bothering him over the last week. He watched Sammy over the week, his worry for the boy increasing. He had tried to talk to him on numerous occasions over the last several days, but the boy wouldn’t hear of it. 

He knew Sy noticed the boy’s behavior and had now grown tired of waiting for him to soothe the boy like he so desperately needed. When Sammy’s bedroom door was completely shut, Sam looked over at Sy and he could see that Sy was nowhere in the present. He sighed. He’d talked to Shelly about this already, gathering her opinion on how to bring it up to him, afraid that it would cause an argument. She advised that sometimes Sy needed to be pushed with a jolt of reality. 

“Sy.” Sam moved into the chair closest to Sy at the kitchen table where they sat. They’d just finished dinner and Shelly wasn’t home. Knowing that Sam was going to talk to him tonight, she decided to come home a bit later than she normally would. Sy looked up at him, his blank stare leaving his hands and focusing on Sam’s face. “You need to talk to your son. You’ve neglected how he's been feeling for long enough. He needs his father.”

Sy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I can’t talk to him while I’m like this,” he said, his voice ragged.

“You need to find a way. Sy…” Sam paused debating on if he should tell him this. “Damn it, Sy, Sammy thinks that you hate him.” Sam took a breath and lowered his voice so that the boy wouldn’t hear this conversation. “He thinks that you don’t love him anymore. He thinks that whatever happened that made your father hate you is what is making you hate him.”

Sy let out a shaky breath as his emotions swelled. The pain in his chest at Sam’s words cut off his airways and he doubled over as the stress of everything over the last week finally became too much to take. Sam rubbed up and down Sy’s back with a gentle hand as Sy’s frame shook with his despair. 

“My sweet love, I understand that you’re hurting. And that you’re trying to sort through a lot of things and a lot of feelings, but you can’t forget that Sammy still needs  you. He still needs his father and he shouldn’t be left thinking that you hate him while you figure things out.” He leaned forward, his knees coming to brace him on the floor. He kissed the side of Sy’s head, resting his forehead along his temple, his lips every close to Sy’s ear. “I love you. And I’m here for you. You need to be there for your son. I’ve tried over the last week, but every time I do, it makes him more upset because it isn’t you. He won’t talk to me. He won’t talk to Shelly. He needs you.” With this he kissed Sy’s cheekbone. “I know that your intention isn’t to hurt that little boy in there, but that’s exactly what you’re doing. Don’t make him feel like your father made you feel when you were his age. You didn’t deserve that. And neither does he.”

At the end of this, Sam stood, his emotional response to the situation greater than he had anticipated. He didn’t want this to become an argument and he knew that if he kept on, it very well might. Sam went into the room that he’d been sharing with Sy and sat down on the bed, taking long, deep breaths to settle himself. This must be what it’s like to be a parent, he thought. Your child is hurting and there’s nothing you can do to make them feel better and all you want to do is move the heavens for them to smile again. He smiled at the thought. 

Sy sat there for a few, short minutes as he gathered his calm and his wits about him. With a deep sigh and a final swipe of shaking hands down his face, he stood and made his way to his son’s room. 

When he entered, he found Sammy sitting in the center of his bed, staring down at folded hands. Sammy looked up upon hearing the door, his eyes immediately beginning to cry as he saw his father walking toward him. His big, round, blue eyes watched in utter despair, crocodile tears pouring unhindered down his face. 

“Sammy, baby. What’s going on, huh?” Sy was trying already to keep himself under control, having just lost it in the dining room. Sammy bit his lower lip, sniffled and whimpered, shaking his head. Sy closed his eyes and tried again, his voice shaking as he looked at Sammy’s brokenhearted expression. “Sammy,” Sy reached for him, something he’d done a million times in the last nearly seven years, but stopped short, feeling as though he’d been shot, as Sammy flinched and moved away from him.

Never in his life had Sammy ever had this reaction to him or anyone else reaching for him, and the fact that he did it now, and to him, crushed him completely. “Baby, Daddy isn’t going to hurt you. You know that…don’t you?”

Sammy cried harder at the look on his father’s face. “N-n-no, Daddy. N-n-n-not anymore. I don’t know anything.”

“What do you mean? Sammy, I would never hit you.” As he said these words, they clogged his throat, his own eyes watering at the distress his son was in. 

“I didn’t think you would yell at me like you did, either, but you did. You did and I just wanted to tell you that I loved you and make you feel better ‘cause I know that seeing your mommy made you really sad and I just wanted to make you feel better and you yelled at me.” The boy’s sentences were running together just like the tears and snot combined on his face. “And you’ve ignored me all week since then. You haven’t tucked me in. You haven’t read to me before bedtime, or woke me up in the morning and made me breakfast…y-you haven’t picked me up from school. Nothing, Daddy, nothing. And I don’t understand why you don’t love me anymore. I don’t know what I did. You said that nothing would ever make you stop loving me. You said and now you don’t love me anymore and I don’t know why. I don’t know why seeing your mommy made you stop loving me, Daddy.”

Sy could no longer keep his tears at bay upon hearing the heartbreak pouring from his son’s mouth. He’d been so far in his own head that he hadn’t realized exactly how deep Sammy’s pain extended from this. “God, Sammy…” Sy covered his eyes and took a deep breath before looking back to his son. “Sammy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t hate you, baby boy. I haven’t stopped loving you at all. Jesus, Sammy, I’m sorry.” Sy let out a shaky breath, trying to keep himself from at least melting down entirely. 

In all of his son’s life, Sy had never felt like a bad father, striving to be everything that his own father never was; until now. Within Sammy’s words and upon the boy’s face, Sy saw his own reflection. Looking back at him Sy said, “Baby, Daddy loves you so much. Seeing my mother did a lot of things to me, and none of them good, but Sammy, making me stop loving you is not one of those things.” He looked at his son, his wet eyes pleading with the boy to believe him. “Fuck,” he said as he closed his eyes and looked away from Sammy’s face. Sy looked back at him, his voice breaking as he begged. 

“Believe me, Sammy. There’s nothing in this world that could make me not love you. I’m sorry that I’ve gotten to this point. But it’s me, baby, it isn’t you. Please, Sammy. Please believe that. I’d never stop loving you and I would never hit you. I love you so much. You’re the only thing that keeps me going, Sammy. Whenever I’ve wanted to give up all I’ve ever had to do is look at you and know that all of this pain inside of me was worth it.” Sy reached for the boy again, slower this time, unsure. 

Sammy looked at his hand, his arm, his face, tears still freely falling and shook his head. “No, Daddy.”

Sy dropped his head in defeat, feeling more like a failure than he ever had in his life. “I love you, Sammy.” Without another word Sy stood and exited the room. As he made his way into the living room, he nearly ran into Shelly, who had just returned home. 

“Sy?” He did not reply as he moved around her, needing to get out of the house. As he scurried passed, she looked over at Sam, who had just exited the bedroom.

“Maybe you should follow him. I’ll stay here with Sammy,” Sam suggested. “You have a way of getting him to talk when I can’t.”

She nodded and turned to hurry after him. Sam stood where he was for a moment simply trying to breathe before he battled this next fight. He made his way into Sammy’s room. He found the boy face down on his pillow, his tiny shoulders shaking, his little body curled into a ball. Sammy opened his eyes when he felt a hand upon his side. He sniffled and sat up, reaching for Sam, his tiny fingers stretched out as wide as they would go. 

Sam scooped the boy up, bringing him close. Neither said anything, each holding on tightly. After a moment, Sam walked with the boy still in his arms into the living room, and began to pace.

Shelly followed Sy outside and to the car calling his name. She knew he wasn’t planning on leaving, as he had no keys with him, having left them inside. Sy entered the backseat of the car, leaving the door open for her to follow. She shut the door as she climbed inside and settled herself next to him, her body angled to see him better. He looked at her with an expression she’d never before seen on his face. It was beyond devastation. 

“My son thinks I hate him.” His face crumpled as he said this, a choking wail leaving his throat. “God, Shelly, he thinks I don’t love him anymore.” He looked at her then. “I’m a failure as a father.” His breathing started to become erratic as he began to hyperventilate. “He…thinks…I…hate him. My son thinks I hate him.”

Shelly wrapped her arms around him as he collapsed sideways into her. He cried loud, harsh howls of pain. “You need to breathe, Sy. Easy, baby, easy.” She shushed and rocked him until he finally began to calm. “Sy, you’re not a bad father. You’re a wonderful father. One bad week out of his lifetime doesn’t equal failure. You’re not your father, Sy.” 

With these words so gently spoken in his ear, Sy’s tears began to rain down again as she spoke one of his greatest fears when it came to being a father. “Sammy knows you love him, no matter what he’s feeling right now. He’s upset, but he knows you love him.”

“He wouldn’t let me touch him.” Sy sat up and looked at Shelly, his eyes red and tear-stained. “He flinched away from me like I beat him, Shelly. There’s no words to describe how much that hurt. How much it hurts that he feels that way.” 

“When we go back inside, try again. Maybe when he’s had a chance to calm down a bit, he’ll be more receptive. Give him some time. Sometimes that’s all you need, right?” 

Sy nodded and wiped his face with this sleeve. Sniffling he said, “Yeah. Sometimes.”

“Well…maybe that’s all he needs as well.”

Sam kissed Sammy’s forehead as he stopped his pacing and looked at the child in his arms. “Sammy boy,” he whispered. Taking a seat on the couch, he pushed Sammy back gently to see his face. “Sammy, look at me, sweet one.” When the boy brought his head up Sam continued. “You have to know that your daddy loves you.”

Sammy bit his lip and sniffled. “I know you love me, Daddy.”

As happy as that statement made him, at that moment it broke his heart. “I do love you. I love you very much. But I’m not talking about me.” Bouncing his knees and subsequently Sammy, Sam tried to think of what he could say to get his point across to a small, upset child. “Sammy boy, look at me.” Reluctantly, he looked up, his eyes mournful. “You know that your daddy is very sad a lot of the time, right?” The boy nodded and wiped his face with the back of his arm. 

“There’s a lot of things that you don’t know about what happened to your daddy. Hell, kiddo, there’s a lot that I don’t know. And sometimes when something catches us completely off guard, like seeing his mother did last week, it throws us into a state of mind that…is really hard to get out of. Kind of like how you’re feeling right now. Because deep down in here,” he placed his hand against Sammy’s chest, “you know that Sy loves you more than anything else in this whole wide world. And you know that he would do anything for you. Right?” Sammy nodded. “Right. And just like you, he’s been…stuck…in that painful place that keeps his really sad and painful memories and thoughts and feelings. Do you understand what I mean?”

Sammy nodded. “I understand. But it still hurts.”

Sam nodded and wiped away the boy’s pain. “I know it does, kiddo. But as you get older you’ll realize and understand something.”

“What’s that?”

“That in life, we always end up hurting the ones we love the most, the worst.”

Sammy scrunched his face. “I don’t understand. Why would you hurt someone you love?”

“It’s not on purpose. Sometimes we’re upset about something and we say things we don’t mean. Things come out harsher than we mean for them to and it hurts someone’s feelings. Have you ever accidentally hurt someone’s feelings that you care about?”

Sammy thought and nodded. “Yeah. I didn’t mean to, though.”

Sam nodded. “That’s what I mean. It doesn’t mean that we love them any less…just sometimes emotions get in the way of logic. Do you understand?”

Sammy nodded with a contemplating frown. “I think so.”

“Good. And when Sy comes back inside, you should go give him a really big hug. I promise you he really needs it. Just like I bet you really need it, huh?”

Sammy lowered his eyes. “Yes.”

Less than ten minutes later Sy proceeded Shelly into the house. She kissed Sammy on the head as she went to her bedroom to change from her work clothes. Sy came over to two of the three most important people in his life, his eyes focusing on the little boy that looked so much like him. “Sammy, I really am sorry for how I’ve been acting. Daddy is hurting very much inside and sometimes he doesn’t handle it very well. But no matter what, no matter–how upset I might become…I will always love you. I’m sorry I yelled at you the other day. I shouldn’t have. You hadn’t done anything wrong. Okay?”

Sammy looked at the man sitting before him and saw him in a different light than he did even earlier that morning. He saw, with the clarity of an adult, just how broken down his father was. And in that moment he felt sorry for him. Reaching out his little arms, he requested his father’s embrace, which Sy acquiesced to instantly. “I love you, Daddy. I’m sorry too.” Sy squeezed his eyes shut as he squeezed Sammy a bit tighter to him. 

“I love you too, Sammy. I love you so much. Please don’t ever think that I don’t love you. No matter what is happening, no matter how upset I am or stupid I might be acting at any given time,” the comment got the boy to smile, which was what Sy was going for, “my love for you will never change. It’ll never go away. That is one thing in your life, Sammy, that will never change. Please tell me you know that.”

Sammy nodded. “I know it, Daddy. I know it deep in here.” He put his hand against Sy’s chest, feeling the racing pulse beneath his hand. “I’m sorry I got scared.” His lip quivered as he tried not to start to cry again.

“Everyone gets scared, baby boy. It’s okay to be scared. But that isn’t something that you ever need to be scared over. Alright?” 

“Okay, Daddy. I love you.” Sammy leaned in to his father, wrapping his arms around Sy’s neck. 

“I love you, too, my sweet little boy. More than you’ll ever know, baby. More than you’ll ever know.”