“Happy birthday to me…”
“You don’t want to come back? Fine! There’s nothing to come back to!” Toby smashed the hammer into the side of the cave. He struck it again, harder this time, and shards of rock sprayed into the air.
He bashed at the stone wall again and again, bellowing with frustration. He refused to stop. Even when his arms ached so badly that they felt like the hammer had been smashing them instead of the wall, he kept at it.
He didn’t quit until the hammer slipped out of his hands and he was physically unable to pick it back up.
Then he started kicking.
“Hello?”
“Toby?”
“Aunt Jean…?”
It didn’t surprise him how thin she was. Aunt Jean had told him on the phone that she didn’t have much of an appetite since Dad died. He’d told her that she needed to eat, and she promised him that she’d try, and she’d say something like, “Your aunt is making me a milk shake right now,” and then the next week she’d admit that she just wasn’t very hungry.
He’d offered to move to California, to stay with her, but she’d laughed away the idea. He had his own life. She loved hearing him talk about it every Sunday. A great job, a serious girlfriend, lots of friends who got into wacky misadventures…she couldn’t let him put everything on hold for her. She’d be fine. She just wasn’t very hungry these days.
It wasn’t her physical appearance that upset him when he walked into the hospital room. It was the bandages around her wrists.
“Do you want to be alone with her?” Aunt Jean asked.
“Yeah.”
Aunt Jean nodded and left the room.
Toby sat down on the edge of the bed and patted her hand. “Why did you do it, Mom?”
“I really don’t know.” He could barely hear her.
“That’s the kind of answer I’d give you when I was a kid. You wouldn’t let me get away with it, either.”
She gave him a weak smile. “I guess I just felt like your father was the only thing keeping me…sane.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was sitting there in the bathroom, on the edge of the tub, and I was crying. I didn’t feel bad about it. That’s what you do when your husband dies-you cry.”
Toby wiped his own tears from his eyes.
“And while I sat there, I suddenly thought that I didn’t want to live without your father. And I knew there was a pair of scissors in the medicine cabinet, that I’d used to cut his hair the last time. I got them out, and I opened them up, and I didn’t make a sound when I used them.”
“God, Mom…”
“I didn’t do it right, though. You shouldn’t do it across the wrist. You should do it up the arm. That’s why I’m still here today.” She sighed. “I hope I’m not here tomorrow.”
“Don’t say that. That’s horrible.”
“I miss him so much.”
“I know, but you can’t just give up.”
She looked straight at him. “I’m not giving up. I’m making a decision.”
“I’ll stay with you, Mom. I’ll take care of you.”
“No. You’ll use up all of your vacation time.”
The next morning she was gone.
Toby lay in the cave, staring at the ceiling. There were no stalagmites. Any good cave was supposed to have stalagmites. Or was it stalactites that hung from the ceiling, and stalagmites that grew from the floor?
It didn’t matter. The cave didn’t have either.
This sure was a small cave. No wonder Owen left. You couldn’t live in a tiny little cave like this for your entire life.