The S-word, 2009

CJ WAS STANDING at the bathroom mirror, staring at himself. Molly was at the dining room table, sitting before piles of folders and documents, helping him make arrangements not only for the funeral and burial but for the various financial obligations that Helen, not CJ, had handled each month.

CJ looked to himself as bad as he felt. Two days after his wife's death, he still felt as if he were dreaming, as if all the activity around him was not real. He looked like he hadn't slept in days. Maybe he hadn't. He couldn't remember.

Helen's bottle of sleeping pills was on the counter under the mirror. Nearly a full bottle, strong pills requiring a prescription, pills to help her rest in the final difficult days of her cancer. It occurred to CJ that he could take the entire bottle right now and be done with it. This was a remarkable thought for a man who had never contemplated suicide before, despite his dark view of politics and the world at large. As much as he bitched about the lies and betrayals he found around him, he was content to live through them in order to expose them. He considered this his responsibility.

But how easy now to throw in the towel. He already was beginning to realize how much he had depended on Helen and how difficult the ordinary routines of life would be without her. And for what? They had no children. He no longer had the academic pressure of publish or perish. The world wouldn't come to an end if he didn't finish the book he was struggling with. How easy to throw in the towel. For the first time he understood why his father had given up.

“Are you okay in there?” Molly called from across the house.

“I'm coming,” CJ replied, and the pills stayed on the counter.

From Sodom, Gomorrah & Jones