“Hey kid, I’m home,” Sandra called, listening for some sign of life expectantly. A hand slowly appeared from the front of an armchair she couldn’t see from the doorway and she smiled; her son, Chris, was lounging dolefully in its lap. She shut the door behind her and shrugged out of her apron, placing it on the ground near the front door along with her purse and shoes. With a few long strides from her short legs, Sandra was in front of the armchair and she kneeled down, smiling at her son excitedly. He gazed openly back at her, orange eyes he’d inherited from his father blinking back at her, completely empty.

She didn’t wait for him to talk. “I’ve thought up a new recipe for my cookbook. I’m wicked excited. Should I make it for dinner tonight?”

Careful to avoid hitting her Chris straightened up and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, expression not changing at all. “If you want to. I’ll write it down.”

She took his head gently and brought it to her lips, kissing his forehead and then quickly standing up to go change. Chris slumped back down in the arm chair, his eyes rolling lazily back onto the television. He sighed in a frustrated fashion, damning the fact that his mother had hidden all the noxious chemicals after the last time he’d tried to poison himself. Another day, then; there were so goddamn many of them.

Sandra reentered the room and went to the TV to grab the clicker and while she was over there Chris reached up to wipe a stray line of black mascara she had missed rinsing off. She didn’t allow mirrors in the house and scarcely ever wore makeup, but when she was at work, managing the local Starbucks, she did slosh on a few pounds of black mascara. Anyone who knew her strictly from work would be shocked to see her other half, the triple-XL-t-shirt-and-slippers-au-natural cancer-ridden mother that he knew. Anyone who knew her simply as such a comfortable sight would be seriously confused as to why any make-up was necessary at all, let alone that much. He had never bothered to ask her.

“I’m thinking of writing a second book, after my cookbook takes off and I have my own cooking show,” she mused as she retreated to the loveseat opposite him. She placed the clicker next to her on the arm of the couch and pressed the buttons with her index finger, a habit she had never grown out of, and rambled. “I dunno, kind of a ‘How I Deal With It’ kind of thing about having a son who can’t be left alone with sharp objects and jumper cables.”

“That wouldn’t make any sense,” he muttered apathetically, seeing where this was going. “People who compile cookbooks don’t have suicidal sons.”

“Well isn’t that a rash generalization if I ever heard one.” She got up, went to the kitchen to fill a glass of chardonnay, and sat back down in the living room. She settled on a marathon on MTV; Chris noticed, as she folded her legs beneath her, the tattoo on her ankle of his birth date in Celtic peeking out from beneath her footless leggings. This was her favorite attire: over-sized long-sleeve shirt, footless leggings, and slippers. She would always say that on her other ankle, she would get his death date tattoo’d.

She was like that, always joking about his ‘condition’, which he supposed was good for her. Then again, denial could have come into play. She had been dealing with his suicide attempts for longer than anyone could comprehend; she had either learned to ignore it, or accepted it altogether. She had learned to focus whatever frustrations she had with him into the technicalities of recipes in her goddamn cookbook.

“Don’t be narrow-minded kiddo. Give me a couple quotes, I’ll mentally note them for my psyche book. Let me hear a few pointers.”

Chris looked out the bright windows, squinting a bit, eyes moving about the small stained glass figures his mom had made. It was a hobby of hers; she owned her own little workshop in the garage for the little projects. She had one for each of his attempts. He counted them for the umpteenth time before answering her: there were 32.

“If you’re going to throw yourself in front of an oncoming big-rig, make sure there are no other pedestrians in the immediate area. Most likely they will have 911 dialed before the crash is even at a standstill, and by 21st century medical miracle, you won’t die. When you’ve failed so many times and want to try and make sure you won’t again, do not over-test your noose. In attempt to make sure and double make sure it won’t snap and leave you breathing, you will wear out the material and under the weight of the actual attempt, it will snap.”

One might say he was a pro at committing suicide and there’s no doubt he could accurately inform anybody of how to go about it and to be aware of the variables of any given situation, but more accurately, considering his failure to actually end his own existence, he’s more of an amateur. To be honest, he’s not even incredibly sure anymore why it is he wants to die so badly, nor does he think he ever really knew. Mostly it comes down to wanting to go before anyone else can, and ending his mind’s obsession with the concept of people, and the concept of loneliness.

For him it’s more or less a mission now to win this sort of sick game with God. They say if you escape death, then God has more for you to do, but Chris can’t comprehend why it matters when everyone is just going to die. He can’t comprehend closeness, considering no one can think and feel as you do, nor can they commiserate on a relevant level. There’s just no reason to prolong the inevitable just to suffer and watch others suffer. It's really irritating being suicidal when the powers at bay won’t let you die.

“Your dad wants to come over this weekend and stay in the spare, like he used to,” she said softly, reflecting perhaps on the obsessive apprehension she used to feel knowing he was in the house and yet never seeing him. Truthfully she was most of the time down at her store or working out the logistical politics of the business at the kitchen table and he would sneak around for the weekend, sticking to the shadows and ultimately by Chris’ side. “I don’t know, he really just wants to reconnect with you. He has an obsession with your constant inconsistencies.” Sandra glanced at him, muttered, “Basically he wants you to teach him how to cope with being as alone as he is,” and looked back at the television.

Chris stood up, furious, and smashed the ornate lamp that had sat on their side-table under the window for eleven years, never stirred except possibly an inch collectively over the years from occasional dusting. Sandra didn’t even flinch, but continued lazily to watch the Real World. She sat on the couch opposite the armchair he had been slumped in moments before, her legs folded beneath her, chin tilted upward as she twirled a piece of her hair between her fingers. “That was my mother’s,” she mused very casually. “I hate cleaning up China.”

“He is not setting foot in this house,” her son raved, shaking slightly in fury. He had plans this weekend for one last attempt, and if he showed up, the opportunity would never exist. At least with just his mom there, he would have the time to prepare. With his dad around it would have to wait another weekend. He felt like his body were ripping in two from the anxiety. Teach him how to cope with being alone? Chris couldn’t even comprehend such a concept, hence his suicidal scheme. He just understood that there was no escaping loneliness. In your mind you’re eternally alone; no one can ever completely comprehend what you do or see things as you do. This was a philosophy that haunted him; why would anyone want to share it?

He had never understood his father, not even a little bit, and he had never tried nor cared to. He had moved out of their house when Chris was around 11, not because he’d been kicked out or a fight had happened or any of that, but because he had decided, ‘hey, maybe I should give dating a try or making money or something’ and didn’t feel the need to do so around Sandra. They had been divorced for years but had decided to stay under the same roof, still occasionally acting like a couple, not sleeping in the same room, but when love’s involved, how important is sex anyway? It was easier this way: no legal binding, no expectations, no complications. Still, Chris liked it better when his dad had found a place of his own, and hated when he came around to stay for several reason, the biggest being his extreme dislike of sharing his mother.

“You have to see him sometime or I get calls about it from judges and whatnot,” Sandra responded lamely. “I tell them ‘Can I help it if all my son ever wants to do is try and kill himself?’ but they don’t take that lightly, unfortunately. So you have to see your dad. I’m sure you can wait one more week.”

Chris said nothing in response to his mother’s completely irrelevant reasoning. Inside he was seething, focusing completely on visualizing the hatred dripping over bones and veins from his heated head down his rib cage into his stomach where it settled, making him sick. He glanced at the window that presented a vista of their quiet street, and that damned woman next door who did nothing but water her flowers all day and hum long forgotten jazz tunes to herself, then looked away; the sunlight made his head pound harder. He turned slowly and headed out of the room toward the medicine cabinet in the kitchen, destination: Vicodin.

With a simple glance alerted by the busy shake of the big pill bottle Sandra muttered, “Don’t even bother taking too many again, you’re costing me a fortune in prescription drugs. My prescription drugs, come to think of it. And I’m honestly not up for an ambulance ride today.” She finished to herself, “A twelve hour shift, and all I want to do is watch idiotic people screw each other.”

Chris slumped down against the pale green cabinets after swallowing only two, glaring up at the ceiling and in the general direction of his successor, not feeling up for the fight just then, not even caring. Somewhere above him, blank binding out, was a binder of the laminated recipes his mum had finalized for her precious cookbook and the hundreds of scraps and notes from recipes she was inventing, or wishing to invent. That damn cookbook… he just wished she would finish it. He peeked an eye open and saw her sitting there, letting out a sigh slowly, and pinched his eyes shut again. She was dying; despite how pointless he knew it was in reality he still didn’t want her to go with such an important part of her incomplete, for whatever it was worth. He drew up his knees enough to rest his elbows on them, and ran his fingers through his hair as he muttered, “I frigging hate this show, mum.”

Sandra got up, stretched, and walked toward him. Her long, strawberry blonde hair was lazily tousled and hanging like silken shades around her face. She bent down and reached one hand to rest on top of his, now supporting his neck, and gave him a small smile. “Change it, then. I’m going to go shower.” She kissed him on the forehead, told him she loved him, and walked away.

He sat on the floor for what seemed like hours, not that he would pay an incredible amount of attention, not that he had ever bothered to. He reflected on his mother in general, the coldness of her hand still stinging his own, resting on the nape of his neck, long after she had gone, and clenched his jaw in anxiety. The longer he stared at the floor the more strands of her hair he noticed, under the chair she’d always sit at to do taxes and paychecks and in a few of the corners, frail and thoughtless and so gorgeous, yet irrelevant completely. All 107 pounds of her were frail and all 107 pounds scared him unnecessarily; every bit of her, from her long thin fingers and watery green-blue eyes to the malignant tumors in her breasts and the hospital bracelet she was instructed to wear at all times made his chest tighten.

It was a tragic flaw that increased his frustration; he wanted to go before she could. Just by existing she was too much for his busy mind to comprehend, mostly because of how she was and how she thought. To her there was no God at all. In her reality there was just people, coffee, alcohol, and nicotine. Some days she would come home from work, kiss him on the top of the head with a soft smile, and dance around the kitchen, offering him her apron to strangle himself with. Other days she would be a broken mess, in tears and fury, manic over some small embarrassment due to a break in something she had done daily for the majority of her life. It could be as small as having messed up a customer’s order or having forgotten to refill the sugar at the additives station until a customer came back to the counter to ask for some. On nights like this, she would consult bottomless bottles of wine and packs of cigarettes, and he would tell God he hated him.

He stood up and, completely on auto-pilot, cleared away the glass of the shattered lamp.


To his dismay, his dad arrived with a thin suitcase several hours later with boxes of Chinese food and crooked, bashful smile. That was how he was, timid and easy and flexible, like a little, impressionable, obedient artist doll, ready to position and sketch. Sandra eyed the food boxes lightly and turned her head away to let the smoke out of her lungs, covering her lips with her free hand so he couldn’t see, an old habit she had never broken from when they were married. He nodded at her and shrugged the front door closed with a shoulder, muttering, “Your hair’s getting thinner.”

Sandra laughed and stretched again, her hipbones and rib cage evident through her thin, pale skin as her shirt went up. Chris looked away. “You’ll probably be walking all over it this weekend.”

He didn’t see the humor in this as much as she did and so didn’t respond to it directly. Sure enough, as he glanced at the carpet, he could see a few of her strands of impossibly light orange hair here and there; scattered pieces of her she had missed while vacuuming earlier. “I have food. I didn’t know what you guys would have so I figured bringing something would be a safe bet.”

“I was going to try out something new tonight, but I’m sure Chris would prefer Chinese anyway. Who knows if this one will be any good,” she said smilingly, turning her head slightly to cough delicately.

“I’m not hungry,” Chris muttered. Sandra lay her head on his shoulder for a second, closing her eyes and just barely touching his wrist and the three of them paused, neither of the men daring to move until she did. Next to her son, who was just under six feet tall with a good amount of muscle mass, Sandra looked incredibly small, and could just barely see over his shoulder on tip toes. She shook her head, as though nothing had happened, and swiftly walked away from Chris and into the kitchen, calling back, “Of course you are. You haven’t consumed a thing all day.” She put out the cigarette at the sink, took up her glass of Chardonnay, and put on a pot of coffee for later.

Without realizing that he had been holding his breath Chris released it, and his dad gave him a frightened look. Lacking the motivation or concern to explain it to him, he shrugged and followed her into the kitchen. Real World marathons were still flashing in the corner.

Pushing the episode out of the pre-existing tension, Chris’ dad brought everything to table and sat down with the other two, attempting to work off the previous conversation. “How is that cookbook of yours going anyway Sandy?” he asked, evenly distributing boxes of what was most likely the usual from years ago. “Most likely the same as ever.”

“Oh, you mean a mess?”

He laughed and opened the nearest box with a pair of chopsticks. “A mess, unfinished, most likely lethal, yeah.”
“I didn’t tell you my newest book idea, did I?” Sandra bubbled suddenly, and Chris looked up at her sternly with a ‘don’t even make that much of an ass out of yourself’ glare, but, completely disregarding it, Sandra leapt into an explanation with her ex-husband about her idea of a children psychotherapy book based on Chris. Like he was an experiment she had grown gravely attached to.

Chris picked at the box that had been pushed into his general direction while his mum and dad talked about her starting chemo and if she was donating her hair now that it was starting to affect her more. “I plan to, yeah,” she muttered, ruffling Chris’ hair with her boney fingertips. “These killer genes were a waste. Might as well give these luscious locks to someone who can use them.”

“Will you have to get a wig, for work?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been managing that store for 14 years, someone else can have a turn.”

They briefly got into why his dad had decided to come this weekend and he was very blunt in response. He leaned back in his chair and idly crossed his legs at the ankle after a wide stretch. “You guys are all I’ve got, if you think about it. Work, sleep, the end; it’s harrowing.”

“That word makes no sense there,” Sandra muttered, refilling her glass.

“Honestly I’m just so bored with what I’m doing, which is virtually nothing. I need human interaction to give me a reason.”

“You’re a very ignorant person,” Chris grumbled, arms crossed in front of his chest. “You’re trying to rely too much on the most unreliable source breathing. It’s not worth the disappointment.”

Sandra didn’t say anything; she had heard this before. She tapped a newly lit cigarette against an ashtray and muttered to the wispy whites, “It’s your decision whether you decide to enjoy or suffer. Of course we’re all going to die; you can either make the best of this or sit around waiting.”

Chris ignored her.

His dad leaned forward, his elbows on the table still, and thought for a second before saying, “I don’t understand why everything you have is worth throwing away.” He glanced at his ex-wife, who smirked at him and shook her head slightly, standing up and putting her wine glasses on the side of the sink. Chris watched her. She had done this for as long as he could remember.

“I’d just rather not waste my time suffering through consciousness until God decides I’ve played my part in this twisted game.”

Sandra laughed and walked away. “You and your silly obsession with ventriloquists.”


Another unfortunate circumstance brought Chris’ dad back into his life sooner than he had hoped. Since that weekend visit Chris and his mother had been in and out of the hospital as per usual, but these times were for her, not for him. Chemotherapy hadn’t been treating Sandra’s frail frame well and she couldn’t function on her own. After a week or so she couldn’t drive due to vision impairments from dizziness and once that started she shaved her head and donated all her hair to have a wig made, with no hesitation. After a few weeks her doctor suggested she stay in a ward for observation, and possibly take her off the chemo. She refused.

“Hey, hey!” shouted Chris’ dad, sprinting in to the emergency ward from the parking lot. He had parked by the main entrance and run all the way there. The receptionist looked up sternly.

“You really can’t shout in here, our visitors are stressed enough. What do you want?”

“Sandra Pallock,” he panted, one elbow on the desk. “What room is she in?”

Her expression instantly softened and her eyes watered slightly. “Been here a while she had. We would play Hold ‘Em on my breaks, what a lovely woman.” She paused and drew herself up, staring down the man who had just stumbled in behind him. “Room 37D, this corridor. I’m so sorry.”

Knowing Chris would be in there, mostly likely accompanied by Sandra’s doctor, his dad didn’t hurry in. Before turning in the doorway he hesitated, swallowed nonexistent saliva, and started forward.

He didn’t get very far before slumping against the nearest wall. “I.. I got a call…”

“It must have metastasized,” was all the doctor could say. “We’ll have the autopsy results to you as soon as possible.”

Chris kneeled beside her inept form, deep in prayer. In her hands, which were tied back with tubes and wires, was a black Starbucks pen she must have fished out of her purse and a latte holder with a few words written to Chris in her loopy scrawl: “Finish my books for me.”