Last year there hadn’t even been a card.
He picked the knife up, staring at the blade. He wondered where his father was right then, and what he was doing.
Did he even remember that he had a son named Josh? Or did he have another son now, another boy, whom he played baseball with, and took camping, and did all the things that fathers do with their boys?
The things that Josh had never done with his father at all, since he couldn’t even remember his dad all that well.
A thought flitted through his mind, but he quickly discarded it, putting the knife down and continuing with the task of storing his things away.
But as he worked, the thought kept cropping up in his mind. When he had put the last of his dirty clothes in the hamper, and hung the last of the not-dirty-enough-to-need-washing shirts in the closet, he sat down on the bed and looked around the room.
Now that it was straightened up, it was surprising how little there was in it.
Even the bookshelves seemed to have a lot more of Melinda’s stuff on them than his own.
And in a little while, when she got too big for her crib, she would need a bed.
The room wasn’t really big enough for two beds.
And the closet, and the dresser, were already full.
His eyes went once more to the hunting knife that still lay on the table next to his bed.
He picked it up, turning it so that the blade glinted in the sunlight that poured in through the window.
His finger touched the edge. He’d spent hours honing the steel to the point where it would shave the fine hair right off his arm without leaving so much as a scratch.
He moved the blade over the skin of his wrist now, watching the hair fall away. If he twisted the knife just a little, then jerked hard on it—
An image of blood filled his mind, blood spurting from his opened arteries.
Why not?
He asked himself the question silently, letting his thoughts drift over the answer.
Who would care if he was gone?
Not Melinda — she hardly knew him.
And his father sure wouldn’t — his father had forgotten about him a long time ago.
Nor were there any friends who would miss him.
His mother?
He thought about his mother for a long time. Finally he decided that she might miss him at first, but the more he considered it, the more certain he was that if he weren’t there, her life would be a lot easier. She wouldn’t have to worry about him screwing up anymore, and not “living up to his potential,” whatever that was supposed to mean.
It was a phrase he’d heard all his life, from the first time he got a report card in first grade, and read the teacher’s comments on the back. Even now the words were still burned into his memory: “Josh doesn’t seem motivated to work up to his potential.”
He hadn’t known exactly what it meant until he’d looked up the word when he got home that day. When he’d finally puzzled it out, he wondered what the teacher had meant. He could read and write better than anyone else in the class! In fact, when they’d started, he’d been the only one who could read and write at all. He’d already known his multiplication tables, when all the rest of them were just learning to add and subtract. Why hadn’t his perfect grades been good enough?
His mother had told him it was all right; the teacher had only meant that Josh was a lot smarter than the rest of the kids. From then on he’d always had the feeling that no matter what he did, it wasn’t going to be quite good enough. Not for the teachers, not for his mom. Not even for himself. Anger burned inside him. What was he supposed to do? Was it his fault he liked to read and already knew all the stuff they were teaching in school? And every year it was the same.
“Josh isn’t working up to his potential.”
And he was always in trouble, too, and his mom was always getting called into Mr. Hodgkins’s office to talk about him.
When that happened, it meant she couldn’t be at work, and Max wouldn’t pay her.
The blade of the knife shimmered in the sunlight. The thought grew in Josh’s mind.
If he were dead—
If he were dead, he wouldn’t have to worry about anything anymore. Not about his mom, or about getting in trouble, or the other kids picking on him.
He wouldn’t have to worry about not living up to what everyone expected of him.
And his mom wouldn’t have to worry about him, either.
She could just go to work, and come home and take care of Melinda, and stop worrying about him. And when Melinda got bigger, she could have this room all to herself.
He held the knife in his right hand, his eyes fixing on the shining blade. He wondered if it would hurt.
But even if it did, it wouldn’t hurt for very long.
And it wouldn’t hurt nearly as bad as he’d been hurting most of his life.
His hand tightening on the knife’s handle, his eyes wide open, he slashed the blade across his left wrist.
Instantly, a geyser of blood spurted from his wrist, and he quickly transferred the knife to his left hand.
A second later another red geyser spouted from the artery of his right wrist.
Oddly, it didn’t hurt at all.
But there was a lot more blood than he’d thought there’d be.
Brenda’s eyes came back into focus as the soap opera ended and the commercials began. She glanced up at the clock over the television set, realizing that she must have dozed off. The half hour she’d allotted for herself after Mabel Hardwick had finally left was almost gone.
Melinda was sleeping peacefully in her arms. Brenda slowly got to her feet. If she was careful, she could get the baby into her crib without waking her up, and by now Josh should be calmed down enough so she could apologize to him.
She moved silently to the kids’ bedroom door, quietly opened it, then froze in shock at what she saw.
Josh, his face pale, was standing in the middle of the room.
There was blood everywhere — his clothes were covered with it, as was the bed, and the carpet on which he stood was no longer avocado green, but a dark, muddy maroon.
The moment in which her eyes took in the scene seemed to stretch on forever as a series of snapshots were etched into her memory forever.
The hunting knife, its blade covered with blood, lying on Josh’s pillow.
The sunlight, glowing redly through a smear of blood that had somehow gotten onto the window.
The look of puzzlement in Josh’s eyes; the dazed expression on his face.
For a long moment mother and son stared at each other in silent horror. It was Josh who finally spoke, his voice quavering.
“Mom? I–I’m scared.”
The words galvanized Brenda. She rushed to the crib, snatching up the blankets with one hand as she laid the startled Melinda, now wide awake again and screaming with outrage, on the mattress. Ignoring the cries of the baby, Brenda flung herself on Josh, grabbing first one wrist, then the other, and wrapping them tightly in the blanket.
“Help!” she screamed. “Someone help me!”
Josh flinched away from her shout, but she hung onto him, fumbling with the blanket. His right wrist slipped free, and a shower of blood sprayed across her pink uniform. Ignoring it, she half carried, half dragged Josh into the bathroom, threw the blanket aside and began wrapping his wrists with the small hand towels that hung next to the sink. Even as she worked, she heard the front door open and Mabel Hardwick’s voice calling out.
“Brenda? What’s wrong? Was that you yelling?”
“Call 911, Mabel,” Brenda shouted. “It’s Josh! He’s cut himself.”
A split second later Mabel had appeared in the doorway and elbowed Brenda aside. “From the blood, it looks
