Just before I got pregnant with Linus, I came home to find out Jonathan was in the hospital. My mom said his mom called. He’d tried to commit suicide…I remember flying out of my father’s house, running to catch the next bus. My thoughts were all mixed up. His brother found him and was carrying him downstairs. There was some big joke about that. His family is that way about everything. I hate them for it. He’s overdosed on pills was all I knew. No one in his family knew if he was ok and no one had been to the hospital to find out. I wanted to scream at them. This is why he wants to die! You don’t care…
On the bus, I sat perfectly still, afraid to fall apart. Why did he do this? I watch as a girl from school boards the bus. Something in my brain flits around, that I haven’t seen her at school for some time. Then I see why…she’s pregnant…How can that be? Miss Goody Two Shoes Suzy Morse, pregnant. She’d been dating a guy, we called Lucy, since the sixth grade. They split up once and she went out with a really wonderful guy named Larry, who was sick in love with her. If I remember correctly, she had a girl named Gina and she eventually married Larry. But on this day, she was pregnant and I knew it.
I came close to laughing out loud…you perfect people, tormenting me for things that I’ve not done, yet you obviously have…but I’m the bad girl…the one you all look down on…She turned just then and our eyes met. Her eyes were filled with so much pain and sorrow. Maybe I looked the same way to her. The skies echoed our feelings. It opened up and cried cold, gray rain, turning the world into a cold, gray nothing….exactly how we felt inside. I smiled at her a little…your secret is safe with me…she smiled back and turned away.
The car door slams, letting me know he’s home. I put my memory book away, safe inside me and I go about making his dinner. That’s all I seem to do. The babies are playing doggies and they’re scampering all over the place, barking. I take a good look at what I’m cooking…I’m sick of making the same thing over and over again. I shouldn’t complain. I am very grateful that I had plenty to eat through the winter. Even when I eat alphabet soup for the fourth time this week, I am very grateful. A belly full of the same soup is better than a belly full of nothing and worries. I just long for something different once in a while. Does that make me bad?
I’m not a bad cook. I just haven’t had a chance to learn, to experiment and create something else. Both our mothers are cooks extraordinaire. I especially love eating at his mom’s place because she just has that way of making something out of nothing and it’s always delicious. Yet he’s so damn picky. I look at these potatoes and I resolve that I have to change things. We need to eat better. Babies are supposed to be chubby and sturdy. My babies are too thin and they look fragile. I’m too thin. Funny thing is, he’s gained a lot of weight…to the point that people comment that marriage must agree with him. It’s a stupid saying.
Where would I be this very day, right now, this very moment had he succeeded in killing himself?
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Tags: car door slams, cooks, goody two shoes, overdosed on pills, suicide