Water ... water falling, flowing ...

A frothing mountain stream drops 20 feet over the rough limestone beside me. It's small, but still perilously beautiful, framed by ferny growth and mist-dampened rocks. I appraise my prospects: There isn't a path. But if I'm careful, I think I can climb it.

Maura is standing behind me, gazing with that crossed-arm smirk she gets when she's reading my mind. She looks so young: hair long and straight, slender hips barely filling jeans ...

Am I 23 again, too? Is this our honeymoon?

"I won't even try to stop you," she finally says. "Just be careful."

I stare, unmoving. Maura's voice sounds strange inside this memory — or dream, or heaven, or whatever this is —

"Well? If you're climbing, get it over with."

I kiss her like an explorer leaving for Everest, then clamber up the slick limestone beside the falls.

What was that scent when I kissed her? She called it something ... Wild Rose! Maura wore that before the kids ...

Moments later, I've reached the falls' summit. Triumph! I look down on my bride through the branches.

Then I turn to the stream. It's a quiet, burbling strand of water, dancing over rocks in patchy sunlight, scampering around leafy dams. It finally melds into the golden haze of distance, a picture of blissful longing.

But closer — almost under my feet, where the water trips and shoves to the edge of its rocky fall — peace becomes violence. I look down at the stream careening into space, and feel a touch of vertigo.

This is our honeymoon. I remember this stream, and climbing the rocks, and creeping to the very edge of the precipice ...

My actions seem strangely automatic now; I can't help but repeat history. I edge to the brink, to where the ground flings unsuspecting water over a cliff. I step cautiously to a rock in the middle of the stream, only inches away from the plunge, and peer directly down at the frothing cascade ...

Just like before, Maura will call for me to get down, and I'll step back reluctantly but still vibrating with the exhilarating conquest. Any moment her warning voice will come, as I watch the anxious waters thrown down to unforgiving rock —

Suddenly, my foot slips. I tumble headfirst over the brink.

I reach out; try to stop my fall — hands grasp water. Now it's filling my nose, dousing my body, covering my head. I didn't fall 10 years ago, I remember, in a mental scream. I'm tumbling over mud and rock, my eyes close — I'm drowning — drowning —

Arms flail frantically and legs kick to find footing. My head is splitting from striking limestone, but mostly it's the water, only the water, overwhelming my lungs and dragging me deeper. Mercifully, my head breaks the surface — I choke liquid and gulp oxygen, blink away the deluge and see Maura. She's at the edge of the pool, frantically searching for her husband in muddied water —

"Eric! Are you all right? Eric!"

I wave a waterlogged arm, can't speak for choking. I stand gingerly and feel something warm oozing down my face — blood. On unsteady legs I totter towards Maura, until my feet slide on the muck again and I splash down ...

That's when I suddenly, inexplicably, chuckle.

Perhaps it's the blow to the head. Perhaps it's the sheer joy of surviving a 20-foot fall over rocks. The tumbling waters share my jovial mood: They mist the air with bubbly laughter. At the top they joined in my vertigo and gave way to gravity only reluctantly. But once they left the ledge, they discovered the joy of frothing their way into the pool below, and their abandon is contagious, and I can't stop giggling like an excited toddler ...

Maura eyes me with real concern: "Eric, did you hit your head?"

Maybe I have a concussion, I think abstractly. Maybe I should see a doctor.

But I'm not ready to get out yet.

I lean into the water, putting my wounded head under the falls where the downpour can wash the blood away. I open my mouth, drinking deeply as red-tinted rivulets run down my shirt. The sweet freshness of the water quenches the thirst I didn't know I had ...

* * *

Thirst ...

The waterfall is slipping away. I try to picture Maura, feel the flowing balm for my bruises, imagine the falls again —

Oh, the thirst ...

A thousand fiery needles stab my wrenched knees. The cramps are coming back to my arms, the burning throbbing agony to my throat's jagged cuts. Pinched lungs lunge for oxygen. But over the clamor of competing pains and despairing thoughts, there looms one overwhelming sensation:

Oh, God, a drop ... please, just a single drop ...

I realize my parched tongue is hanging out, desperately yearning for the dream to be real. It snaps back inside the desert of my mouth.

Sleep and waking are running together — only the pain sets them apart, so I resist consciousness like poison. Dreams and memories and half-heard voices are all one cesspool —

A wave of cramps shoots through my limbs. Take it away, God. Please ... please, mercy ... please, God, take it, some of it, the thirst ...

KILL ME! I'M BEGGING —

I try to scream aloud; manage a faint gurgle — the best sound the torn oozing cartilage of my throat can manage.

Until three days ago I lived. Or was that a dream? No ... I remember light. Pleasure, freedom ... Maura and Caleb and Anna ... and there was water.

Few movements are left to me. But now I jerk my head, banging it viciously back and forth against my prison walls, slamming blood-caked hair against unyielding brick to beat out the thoughts, the consciousness, the life ...

It's useless. I'm fighting dry tears and self-pity, panting from the exertion, but I can't move enough to end the torture.

Suddenly, voices. Angry and echoing between the narrow walls, they assail me — Maybe this is what hallucinations are like —

No. That's Maura — Caleb. I can tell, it's them, it's real, I think it's real, if I can listen past the pain, if ears will still obey shadowy consciousness. This is nothing like a dream. Maura and Caleb, our — how old? God, I can't remember my son — no, he's four. Five in October. God, I can't remember — now I can hear Maura and Caleb shouting ...

"MOM-MEEE!"

"Caleb, you need to wait — "

"But it's gross! Get me undies — "

"I'm feeding your sister, young man — "

"I need undies NOW." Caleb's screeching reverberates through my prison.

He must have wet the bed. He hasn't done that in — how long, maybe a year? I wonder what triggered —

"I've had enough," snaps Maura. Her bare feet slap the hardwood as she comes into Caleb's room. Now Baby Anna's wailing, her meal interrupted —

"Whose fault is it that you wet your big-boy bed last night?" she asks briskly. "Hm?"

"But I didn't wake up — "

"You're almost five years old. If you can't use the potty — "

"I can't help it, Mommy!"

Maura's voice softens: She never could stay angry long. "You were doing so good, Bubby ... What happened?"

"I don't know," he sniffles.

I hear Maura's special sigh — the one that always makes me hurt, because she's had as much as she can take, and she wants to cry, but she's trying to be strong —

"You want Daddy to come back, huh, Bubby?" I hear the catch in her voice.

"Yeah," sniffles my boy.

"Well ... I miss him too, Bubby."

Oh, God, do I have to hear — you can't leave them like this! God, it hurts ... I'm hearing everything —

"You know where the undies and the pants are. Get changed while I finish feeding your sister, OK?"

"But Mommy ..." Caleb is still sniffling.

"You're a big boy now; I know you can do it."

A moment, then Caleb's feet scamper to the dresser. Anna finally stops crying. She must be finishing breakfast.

But now there are new tears, coming softly but somehow amplified by my prison, because Maura begins to weep. She starts praying out loud between the sobs, hoping I'm safe, and asking God to forgive her if she did anything to make me go. I can't take more of this agony, and I almost start pounding my head on the bricks again ...

I want to tell her it's OK, that even if I don't make it back she'll be fine, and anyway I will, and Caleb won't wet the bed forever, and I'll hold you till it's OK, Baby ... How could I be mad at you? I'm here, I won't go anywhere ...

* * *

I'm remembering. I know it's memory: I cling to the difference between drifting thoughts and Maura's real sobs behind the wall. But memory is vivid now, more substantial than her voice sometimes, and everything runs together ...

Oh, God, I'm still thirsty ... Jesus, help me.

I'm sprawled on the couch, vegging with some hideous reality show. Caleb calls from the dining room: "Daddy, will you play Legos with me?"

"I'm watching something, Bubby," I grunt.

"Pleeease? Pretty please with sugar on top?"

"After my show, OK?" With any luck, Maura will call him for his bath by then.

Caleb scampers into the living room, carrying some contraption he built from Legos, and he's telling me the story of the little men who live inside, and something that happened at preschool.

I don't have any idea what he's saying, but I think I'm nodding in the right places.

He pushes his misshapen creation into my lap. "So when you're ready to play, Daddy, you get to make the bad guys' castle. OK?"

I don't know what I'm supposed to say. "OK," I mumble.

From the other room, Maura calls, "Bubby, your water's ready."

"Five more minutes, Mommy? I just had a bath," Caleb protests.

"Yeah, a week ago. Now, Bubby."

"OK ... but I hafta play Legos with Daddy after his show."

Saved by bathtime. I turn back to the orgy of backstabbing on TV.

I'm gloating because I don't have to play with my kid. I wasted so much time on that idiot box ...

Anna starts bawling halfway through the show. I know I should see if she needs changing, but I want to see which contestant gets kicked off this week —

Then Maura appears, holding a wet towel in one hand and a screeching Anna in the other. From the expression on her face, I know I'm gonna catch it for staring at the tube.

"Eric, will you do prayers with Caleb, please? I need to feed Anna."

"Sure."

God, I'm such a loser. I vowed to serve her, and that was our last night —

"Daddy, you promised we could play Legos!"

Caleb's voice accosts me as I enter his room. He's wearing his dumptruck pajamas, his favorites, and his blonde head's still wet from the bath — God, how could I have children so perfect, so beautiful —

"Bubby, I didn't realize how late it was." Every time I lie to my kid I feel like a deadbeat dad.

"You always say that."

"Remind me Saturday, OK? Daddy's tired — "

"I'm not tired." Caleb crosses his arms and rolls away from me in bed.

"Let's say prayers."

Caleb reluctantly folds his hands; he's still not looking at me. "You pray," he says.

"This is your time with God, Bubby — "

"Fine." A huffy sigh. "NowIlaymedowntosleep, IpraytheLordmysoultokeep," Caleb mumbles.

All through "God Bless Mommy and Daddy and Grandma," I'm only half-listening, because I'm already dreading having it out with Maura. I know she'll say I should do more with the kids, and why don't I ever help her juggle things at bedtime, and I know she's right. But when I get home from work I'm so danged worn out, and I do it so she can stay home with the rugrats, and here I am making excuses before the fight even starts —

"Daddy, I'm done. Are you listening?"

"Sure, I just ... got distracted ..."

Caleb looks at me dubiously.

"'Night, Bubby. I love you," I stammer, giving him a hug.

It could be my guilty conscience, but I think he returns the embrace a little halfheartedly.

I stand in the doorway watching my little guy snuggle himself deeper under the covers, and wishing I could do better, and dreading the looming confrontation with Maura ...

* * *

Then Caleb fades; the apartment fades — No, this is the last time with my son. God, please — I want to remember. Memory evaporates and I'm back in the bricked tomb, nerves screaming and throat crying for moisture —

Suddenly, I know what startled me to consciousness: Cold drops of water.

I tilt my head back as far as I can, press it into the brick — from this position I can just see a corner of the sky. There are angry rainclouds wheeling overhead ...

Oh, Jesus, please — let it pour!

I'll catch some drops, salve cracked lips and parched tongue. My old life, the edges of rationality complain: You'll be soaked, shiver and chafe in damp clothes, start urinating on yourself again. A drink only prolongs the inevitable ... The numbers reverberate in my mind, relics of a forgotten Boy Scout survival class: 3 to 5 days without water, less in arid conditions ...

The animal craving, the stronger part of me: A drop, anything, relief for the agony — O God, please, water. I tip my head, press blood-caked hair against the back of my prison — open my mouth to catch the smallest bit of moist balm —

No ... no ...

My corner of sky, my glimpse of life — I see a patch of blue brightening and spreading. God, please ... please, bring the clouds, don't toy with me ...

Outside the world undoubtedly rejoices. A gray burden turns to sunshine, how rare in Chicago, a glorious day unfolds. Inside my prison, I watch clouds wheel away with despair. If the sun keeps shining, the masonry will be an oven ... Oh, God, I can't survive any more —

Last night in darkness I heard ... there were voices, not Maura's or Caleb's, screaming in torment and agony, phantom voices resounding and whispering like real sounds in my ears ... delusions and madness —

Are you not faithful? Is this how the great God works, promising water and turning to merciless heat? Please God — I can't do another day like ... I can't go on without hope.

CONTINUE TO PART 2