Family
The boy clenches his small fist around the handle of the kitchen knife. It is too large for him, and the blade dips under its own weight. He jerks his arm to raise it, and his mother’s shadow moves back and forth on the linoleum floor. She hums, deep and far away, and does things because she has to. He looks at the knife; it’s not a knife but an instrument to unlock the emotions that are locked away inside his mother.
Months now, he has been attempting to coerce a smile from her, bringing her flowers from the yard, sketching out portraits of the family they once were, even directly asking “do you love me.” To each question she responds with nothing. Or worse, a blank stare.
His father is the first to go. In the yard, in the grey light of morning, the boy holds him, tightening the frayed rope he had found in the shed around his father’s neck. He had not intended to hold on so long, had not counted on the look of panic in his father’s eyes, the clipped breaths, the furious kicking at the ground. The terror in his father’s face is the most expression the boy has ever seen from him. After, he looks into the blank face of the man who never told him he was proud of him, who never whispered “I love you”.
Now only his mother remains.
She turns around to see the knife. “What… what are you doing?” Her voice isn’t hollow, nor is it afraid or concerned. She just doesn’t realize that the rule has changed, that his unrequited and famished love has transformed into a blade.
He lets out a sob and lunges. The knife cuts across her neck, sending a spatter of blood against his cheek. She staggers, her eyes wide and clutching at the wound. Her wailing ends in a gurgling wetness.
He releases the knife and collapses, holding her when she falls beside him. The blood spreads across his shirt. Her eyes look up at him, empty, never filled with love.
“I love you,” he breathes into her ear, his voice cracking. “I love you so much.”
She’s gone.
