x Tx - Normally Special

I decide the risk is too great and I go.

When I check on him, an hour later, the food still sits, cold, like me.

I take the food buildings away. They crumble into the sink.

***

He is tucked in and I leave with my one guarantee still warm on my lips. It has been eight or more days since he stopped sleeping next to me. The space is cold again, wide again. Even when he was there, it was not much smaller, his frame so flimsy inside the most burdensome of gaps — a dead father’s side of a bed.

During the first days he’d crawl in from my side and roll over the top of me until his body rested perpendicular next to mine, two lines in a broken barcode. He’d stay that way through the night, as if by leaving the gap vacant, it might be filled again.

It made me regret the tales we’d tell him of fairies coming in the night, taking and leaving things in our beds while we slept.

The last one that visited only took.

***

He’s never really been a big eater so this struggle is not new, but the circumstances are so dire and life-changing, and therein lies my worry. I need to know what to do. His care is my concern. Mine alone.

I ask myself what I did before and the answer is — nothing. It was his father.

“Race you to the bottom of the bowl, champ!”

And so would go the stew.

“Two more bites and you get an extra half — hour of Xbox tonight!”

And so would go the spaghetti.

“Twelve more peas and I believe we will be the World Pea Eating Champions. We can do this!”

And so would go the peas.

I would make a certificate on the computer with both of their names and present it to them after the meal. It would hang on the fridge with the rest of them — Pork Chop Eating Champions, Baked Potato Eating Champions, Asparagus Eating Champions, and so on.

They are still there, overlapping and white, feathering our refrigerator.

I am not sure what I should do with them.

I am not sure of many things now.

I think there should be a “t” at the end of the word “loss.”

***

At the dinner table with the emptiest chair, I continue my contrivance: Darth Vader head meatloaf, hot dog pirate ship, macaroni and cheese man.

A hot fudge sundae volcano.

I try to lead by example, eating the mast off the pirate ship, the right leg off the mac and cheese man, and spooning a forkful of Darth Vader helmet into my mouth. I chew enthusiastically and force myself to swallow.

“Mmmm… it’s good, baby. Try some. At least eat the sail or those two arms.”

He picks at it all, trying, but not really trying, to appear as if he’s eating.

“If you eat three forkfuls, I’ll kiss Chester,” I tell him. Chester is our goldfish.

“Can I go play XBox, please?”

Defeated, I clear the table. Dishes and food amass in the sink with a smell that taunts of failure. Chester swims, stupid.

I go to my bathroom and vomit my hard work into the toilet.

I lie down on our bed. My bed.

Across the house, the sound of chainsaws.

***

My son’s PE teacher leaves a message about his lack of class participation and asks me to phone her. I call her back and we make an appointment to discuss things.

When the day comes I drive to the school, park, and start walking. It’s only after many minutes of turns into long hallways and wandering down concrete corridors I realize I am lost. For a moment I feel invisible. For a moment I want to stay there.

The PE teacher’s name is Ms. Boyce. She looks like she is better than me. I sit across from her while she eases me politely into the matter at hand. I try to make my face look normal. It seems like it should be able to do that on its own, but still, I feel as if I need to force it somehow.

I don’t want her to know.

When her monologue breaks I ask her if she is a mother and if she knows any recipes that nine-year-old boys really like. I tell her I’ve been trying things with cheese and bacon.

She tilts her head and looks at me with her brow furrowed and then changes the subject back to my son’s withdrawing from the class, his lack of attention, and, of course, his weight.

I make sounds of agreement and understanding, nodding with my normal face and then, when she pauses, I ask her, “What about quesadillas? Don’t they like quesadillas? I thought I could use a cookie cutter and make them into…”

“Mrs. Stevens!” she interrupts, and then, softer, “Please, I need you to take this seriously.”

I tell her, “It’s ‘Ms. Stevens’ now.”

She mutters something in apology and our meeting fumbles to a polite close.

I walk back to my car, questioning my response. Does becoming a widow change your status to Ms. or am I still Mrs.?

I’m not sure.

I feel like I should know this sort of thing, or that I’m supposed to know.

But I don’t.

I don’t know much of anything lately.

***

It’s his father’s birthday, but he doesn’t know this. I know because I wake up alone again.

It’s a Sunday. My husband died on a Sunday. Or it could’ve been Saturday. When someone dies during the night there is no official time stamp. The day of his death was a best guess made by officials who needed to turn in paperwork. I have decided he died on a Sunday because that is when I woke up to him, unresponsive, unmoving, un…John.

Even though my touch knew better, I decided he died five minutes before I woke. I want to believe he stayed warm and sleeping next to me through the night, letting go at the last second. The thought of an entire night of him lifeless next to me, in a place where so much life was spent, was too much. The thought that the last hours we had were wasted on sleeping when we could’ve spent our night doing anything but was too horrible to bear. We could have made love, we could have tangled ourselves sweetly, we could have held each other hard and read our lives back to each other until it was time for him to go.

He could have prepared his son.

Or me.

Or something.

In honor of the occasion he knows nothing about I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich cake.

He takes four bites. It feels like a gift.

***

I pick him up from school and the first thing he says is, “Brian Welsh’s mom overfed their hamster and it died.”

His tone is tinged with accusation.

“I think you overfed.”

I don’t know what to say. I know one cause of heart attacks is being overweight. I know his dad was the champion of many meals; the evidence hangs heavy in our kitchen. It weighs down our fridge.

Our lives.

The sight of the part of one of the things I have tried not to look at blackens my insides. A torrent of blame washes over me and I begin to drown.

Tears I have tried so hard to hide from him take over. I put them on display: flashing neon arrows, air horns, yellow highlighter strokes.

It takes him a minute, but eventually he reaches over and holds my hand.

I am the Champion of Failure.

***

I keep him home from school and make him nest with me in a fort made of blankets. Pillow walls pile around us; soft, protective.

My T-shirt rides up during fitful sleep. He pushes my ribs with his thumbs, counting me awake. He asks if he can make me a pizza sandwich. I do my best not to cry when I decline his offer.

“I bet I can eat it faster than you,” he challenges, his voice, sing-song and steadfast.

“Mommy’s not hungry anymore, baby. How ‘bout we play some XBox?”

He looks at me the way I normally look at him. It’s disjointing seeing my worry on such a young face.

His sunken eyes should have all the power to sway me, to make me care, but I am spent. I am empty. I am the air inside the blanket fort. We are out of supplies and the enemy never leaves our gates. We continue our standoff.