Off The Pages
Chapter Ten

An early march day in nineteen eighty-five, Manfred Voren was born to an Irish mother and a German father. Both parents had immigrant parents. His early life had been on the move, from Millstadt, Illinois to Granite City, and finally, to Alton. Robert Voren had gone to technical school and become a welder, and the family had traveled from city to city because the industry had shifted over the years. Anna, his wife, had gotten her practical nursing license and had supplemented their meager existence.

One Christmas, there hadn’t been any presents.

“Aw, Manny,” Anna said, clutching her crying son, “we wanted so bad to get it for you, but dad’s had to take jobs where he could get them and all the bills had to come first.” Her son’s tears soaked into her corduroy pants, as his stubby fingers gripped her tight.

“Next Christmas,” Robert swore, “we’ll get you an awesome present.”

“It’s not fair!” The seven-year old boy shouted, his words slurring through his storm of emotions. “I didn’t do nothing wrong!”

“I know, sweetie,” the mother said. “You deserve a present. But we can’t afford it right now.” The boy wiped his eyes and walked to his room, the sounds of his wailing still audible. “The nursing home isn’t giving me anything but part-time hours.”

Robert nodded. “Yeah, it’s a bitch,” he uttered. He sat in the loveseat and rubbed his chin. A man of modest height and build, his curly hair and clean-shaven face gave a deceptive feel to those who didn’t know him. Given the chance, he enjoyed proving people’s expectations wrong. Lately, however, reality had kicked him in the nuts. “If the copper plant wouldn’t have gone kaput, I wouldn’t have to go from place to place doing gig welding.”

She sat on the couch next to his loveseat. “That’s what I don’t understand,” Anna inquired. “How is it that the company kept some of its welders around for the plant change, but not you?”

“I think there’s funny business afoot,” Robert admitted. “Who knows.” He did some breathing exercises to clear his mind. “I heard they’re doing renovations on the water park in Grafton, starting in February, so they can open on time in May. If that’s the case, I can get two months and maybe some change in full-time work.”

She nodded. “I’m going to bitch at my supervisors to get more time,” she told him. “It’s insane that I can’t get more hours.”

Manny hung out in the hallway and heard all of this. He retreated to his room drying his eyes. It upset him, not getting a thing, but at the same time, he couldn’t blame his parents for trying. The mystery that is a child’s mind raged on. At once he desperately wanted a gift, and also, didn’t. The childish part of him argued that he needed it. However, the maturity that only poverty instilled in children this young, shouted back that he should try to stick it out and not think only of what he wanted. One thing that separated him from his peers was his understanding. His friends would not be given gifts for one reason or another, and they would accuse their parents of not wanting to give them. Manny knew better.

Robert had quit drinking. He hadn’t been an alcoholic, but even still, a five-dollar case of beer every week was an expense he could give up. Anna hadn’t bought wine in almost a year. Their son had noticed. At some point, they had stopped warning him not to drink this or that. It had stopped being a part of their lives, and he paid attention to that much, at least. So, he decided to stick it out and hide his sorrow; if they could sacrifice, so could he.

A few days later, Manny went to school, wearing the worn-out shoes and old jeans that often got him picked on. “Hey dipshit!” one boy cried, walking past him into the building. “Did ya get those pants off a homeless man?”

The chubby boy ignored his schoolmates. He carried his backpack into the school and sat down at his first period class. It was history. The teacher gave a lecture on the lead-up to the election of Abraham Lincoln as the sixteenth president. He listened moderately well, but ultimately his thoughts wandered. History didn’t excite him at this point in his life. The thing he really loved was fantasy and science fiction stories. English class bored him with its constant barrage of ‘proper literature,’ which couldn’t have been less interesting. At least they could have given him some different material.

“Miss Jasperson?” the classroom intercom announced.

Miss Jasperson got up and pressed the talk button on the wall. “Yes?”

“Manfred Voren is to report to the office,” the voice commanded. “His mother is here.”

“Manny?” the teacher announced to the classroom. “Go on.”

“Uh, ok,” he said, surprised. What was this? His mother never showed up at school. Still, he did as instructed.

Inside the office, his mother finished sighing a document. “Yes, just for today,” she said. “No problem.”

“Mom?” Manny asked. “What’s going on?”

“Let’s go,” she said. “I’ll tell you in the car.”

They walked to the car in silence. Once he sat in the back seat, placing his pack next to him, and fastening his safety belt, his mother turned around before starting the car. “Now sweetie,” she told him, “we’re going to get you some new shoes and pants, and then, if we have enough left over, you’ll get to pick out a present.”

Manny’s mind lit up with a half a million questions at once, all of them related to money. “Wow!” he shouted, not able to contain himself. “Really?”

“My aunt Georgia sent us some money,” she said. “I figured, it’s Christmas time, so what the hell. Okay?”

A thought came to Manny, and he became suspicious. “I thought daddy didn’t want to ask people for help,” he reminded.

“He wasn’t going to keep a full-time job after the plant closed,” she explained, “and so, we needed to get through this winter with no trouble. He couldn’t complain after I told him we needed the bills paid for two months until the welding jobs started opening up.” She started the car. “So, what we’re going to do is pay the bills, and with the leftovers, get you your present.”

That hadn’t been the last time that his parents and he had to accept help from others. At the age of sixteen, he’d wanted to get a job, and the local Wal-Mart was hiring, but his mother had insisted he take a different job instead.

“I know you want to work around here,” Anna told her son, “but Shawn’s offering you five dollars an hour more to work and you’ll only have to be on a bus for a half hour a day.”

“Mom!” Manny protested. “That’s going to cost me so much time during the week!”

“I know honey,” she explained, ’but this way you won’t have to deal with customers.”

“This is crazy!” he protested. “You just want me to have more money in case you need it!”

She gasped. “Manny! You don’t know what you’re talking about!” She shook her head. “Right now, your father and I are both working more often. We’re lucky, because so many people we know don’t have jobs. The fact that someone we know is willing to give you a job paying this while so many of your friends are flipping burgers for minimum wage? That’s something you need to appreciate.”

He folded his arms. “Alright, fine,” he said. “But the moment I turn eighteen, I’m quitting.”

“By then?” she replied. “I hope things are better.”

Three times a week after school, and on some weekends, he would get on the bus and ride it up to just south of Jerseyville, where he would help load things onto trucks and out of them for a few hours before returning home. It was hard work. What really bothered him was his lack of free time. Wal-Mart had a lot of horror stories; most of them came from his friends who worked there. Nonetheless, it wasn’t as far away, and he could’ve gotten rides home.

Each day, he came home in the evening, and his parents made a deliberate show of avoiding asking him if he spent his money. He didn’t because he didn’t want to get yelled at when they inevitably asked him for some. It bothered him on multiple fronts; he was trying to save his money for a car, but at the same time he knew he had a duty to support his family. It didn’t make sense to him, any time he thought about it. His mother was a nurse. Sure, she didn’t have the fancy RN degree, but it bewildered him how she stayed at the place that kept giving her part time work.

Sure enough, one morning, his mother came to him. “Manny, after school today, you need to stop by the Schnuck’s and pay this month’s electric bill,” she said.

“Fine,” he said.

“You know this is as hard on your dad as it is on you,” she said.

He shot her a look. “I know,” he said. The “I didn’t say anything” was implied. He didn’t want to have to say it out loud, because if he did, that might be misconstrued.

“Your dad’s trying to get a gig at the construction site in Wood River,” she explained. “If all goes well, he should be able to work for a good two months.”

“Right,” he said, heading out to the bus stop. He hadn’t asked about being paid back, and she hadn’t offered. He knew better than that.

The day at school had been relatively uneventful. That day hadn’t been a workday, so after school, he got off at the grocery chain. Inside, he stopped at the ATM and checked his balance. Three hundred and ten dollars he’d saved up. The electric bill was a hundred and sixty dollars. He sighed as he went into the store and paid it at the courtesy counter.

The front door of the house creaked open. It hadn’t been far to walk from the store. The receipt and bill plopped on the dining table. “You paid it,” Robert acknowledged.

“Yeah,” Manny replied, setting his backpack on his bed, removing his dusty jacket and his shoes and socks. He put on his house slippers and returned to the dining table.

“I didn’t get the job at the construction site,” Robert replied, “but the guys there sent me over to a chemical company in Belleville that’ll be completely redoing several huge storage tanks, so I’ll be working there for about three months.”

Manny nodded. “Great,” he said, pouring himself a glass from the generic diet cola in the center of the table. “I’m glad for ya.”

“You know we don’t like having to ask you for money,” Anna said, grasping his hand.

“I know,” he told his mother. Honestly, he was okay with not having a new game system since the Super Nintendo he got when he was seven. What bothered him was the idea that his parents kept getting the shaft and by extension, so did he.

“If things go well, you should be able to save up some money,” Robert said.

“No problem,” Manny said. He hated these discussions. Sure, he understood that sacrifice was needed, but that had been the non-stop unspoken rule since he’d been a small child. A storm of conflicting emotions played out in his head.

His mother saw a hint of his inner thoughts on his face. “Don’t hide your feelings now,” she chided.

He blinked long so she couldn’t see him roll his eyes. “Alright,” he began. “Why do you stay at that nursing home, when they keep giving you part-time?”

A disbelieving laugh escaped her. “I thought we’ve covered this,” she remarked. “I’m this close to being the senior LPN on duty.” It bothered her that she had to point this out again. Sure, he hadn’t asked in almost two years, but loyalty was something that mattered. It was a lesson she wanted him to learn. “I’m making almost eighteen dollars an hour. One more person retires, and I’ll be bumped up to senior LPN, and I’ll be making twenty-two dollars an hour.”

“How does that help if you’re only working twenty hours a week?”

Robert’s fist met the table. “Manfred!” he shouted. “You do not question your mother’s work ethic!”

“I’m not…!”

Another bang on the table. “Excuse me,” Robert interrupted, “did I give you permission to talk back?”

“No,” Manny said, leaning back in his chair.

“Alright,” the father continued. “That’s what I thought. Now then, you’re upset that they’re only giving her twenty hours a week. Why are you only working twenty hours a week?”

Manny started forward like he’d been tasered. “Why?” he scoffed. “I’m going to school!”

Robert folded his arms. “And that gives you permission to do it,” he asked, “but not her?”

Manny shot a look at the two of them. He had a rebuttal, but he let it die. “No,” he said.

“Just for that,” the father said, “you’re doing dishes tonight.” The family finished their meal in peace and returned their plates to the sink. As the teen began washing dishes, Anna approached.

“Look, I know it bothers you how we keep coming up short financially,” she said, “but you have to understand that it’s much worse for us. You’re not a parent. You not suffering like we are.”

“I know,” Manny said, holding his harsher thoughts inside.

“It’s a lot worse for us,” she continued, “to know we’ve tried a thousand different things and we keep not getting ahead. It’s a lot worse for us because, your father and I, our jobs matter.”

Manny clenched his teeth inside closed lips. He swallowed his angry retort as he scrubbed dishes. This idea always pissed him off. It upset him that he didn’t count because his job didn’t ‘count’ or that his age disqualified him from complaining about being screwed over. One day he would finish growing up, and then, no one would be allowed to tell him he didn’t have a job that mattered or that he was too young to complain.

A week later, Manny was heading on the bus up to his job. The engine rumbled on as he read a comic book he’d picked up from the Hayner Library. The minutes drifted away until he arrived at his stop, pulling the cord and waiting. Once the vehicle rolled to a stop, he grabbed his bag and got off. The large building loomed ahead, and he strolled up to the employee entrance.

“Alright, guys,” the supervisor announced, “we’ve got five hundred bags of feed we have to get loaded. There are a lot of farms in the area that are in desperate need. We got to get this loaded quickly. Got it?”

“Got it,” Manny said, along with about five other guys. All three large delivery trucks sat, backs open, so he went in the building with the rest of them and began loading bags. It took teams of two to carry the seventy-pound bags into each truck. Hours rolled by as the stack of sacks dwindled very slowly.

“Is Manny here?”

He turned his head at the sound of his name. “I’m here,” he said, “what’s going on?” Instinctively, he felt cold inside; hearing his name called seldom meant anything positive, especially at work.

It was his mom’s friend Jenny from the nursing home. “There’s been an accident,” she half-shrieked. Tears were rolling down her face. “There was an explosion at the chemical plant your dad was welding at!”

The air seemed to stand still. Manny’s heart leapt just about out of him. Before he knew it, he had jumped clear off the loading platform and was racing towards Jenny’s car. He hadn’t even hesitated to talk to his boss. Damn the consequences, this would have to take precedence. The cold chill continued to race throughout him. She fired up the engine and peeled out of the lot with him struggling to clamp on his safety belt. “What the fuck happened?” he asked, voice cracking.

“I don’t know,” she said, pushing the pedal to the floor. “All I know is your mom called me and told me to get you.”

About five minutes of ninety mile per hour driving later, and several cops dodged, Manny raced into the hospital. “Excuse me!” he cried, almost crashing into the front desk. “My dad, Robert Voren…”

“I’ll buzz you in,” the receptionist said. She pointed. “Through that door.”

The door slid open and he pushed it faster, running past it at top speed. He saw his mother, standing by a window, her face beet red, soaking wet, and painted with a mixture of sheer horror and disbelief. “Manny!” she cried, clasping onto him for dear life. Her son arrived at the window.

Eyes saw the scene for the first time.

“…”

Manny’s mouth fell open; words failed him.

The man lying in the bed surrounded by a plethora of medical equipment scarcely resembled a man so much as a horror movie prop. Half of Robert Voren’s face looked like the father Manny had grown up with. The other half came seemingly out of a war documentary. Crimson meat covered in blood sat in between large sections of charcoal black crust. The terrifying reality hit Manny that those black sections used to be skin. A mess of tubes protruded from his still good left arm, and a complex breathing apparatus covered his face.

For Manny, the dam seemed to burst.

“Oh god! Dad! DAD!”

His knees seemed to give, and he leaned against the glass, his mother holding him in a death grip. As he began to cry, tears streaming, his open-mouthed wailing echoed down the hall. The man that had once been Robert Voren lay near motionless on the bed, two doctors and a nurse clustered around him. They moved back and forth in a controlled chaos of motion, administering whatever support they could.

The dying man saw his son, and tears began to flow from the single remaining eye. The left side of the mouth moved. “love…y…” Manny managed to translate the mouth movements from across the pane.

An instant later, life vanished.

“NO! DAD! DAAAAD!”

Two burly security guards had to wrestle Manny away from the door, the teen screaming at the top of his lungs. “Manny!” Anna shouted, which got lost in the cacophony.

“LET GO OF ME!” Manny shouted, pulling. “DAAAAD!”

A cart careened past and into the room, several more nurses and a new doctor attached. They administered a series of drugs, struggled furiously in vain for ten more minutes, then stopped. As he saw the finality of the situation, the time of death being recorded, he collapsed to his knees. Anna sat next to her son on the floor, holding his head against her shoulder.

A blur of days later, a new widow and a grieving son sat in an attorney’s office. The man held a printout in front of him. “Miss Voren,” the lawyer said, drumming the papers on his desk. “My name is Alfred Donovan. You were recommended to me by my partner at your local office.”

Anna nodded. “Mister Donovan,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I just buried my husband a few days ago. I hope you have good news for me.”

He slid the report over. “I have great news,” he said, then immediately course corrected. “All things considered that is.” He pointed. “The U.S. Chemical Safety Board discovered that the company had scheduled a replacement of the tank status mechanism about six months prior, but the parent corporation had cancelled it because they thought it wasn’t needed.”

Manny blinked tears away. “So,” he chimed in, “you’re saying we’ve got a case.”

Alfred Donovan nodded. “We have quite a good case,” he said. “We have a good chance of nailing them for negligence and that means you should get a substantial payout.”

The grieving son didn’t pay attention. His mother had the responsibility of being the head of household now. At some point he became aware that he was sitting on his bed in his room, staring at the blank screen of the aging television. Time blurred into oblivion as his raging torrent of sorrow had left him numb. Somewhere in a cold numb void he hovered, barely able to wrap his mind around the fact that his father was gone. Anna had always tried to teach him about God and religion. So, at the very least, she had the luxury of believing her husband had gone somewhere. Manny had no such privilege. The man he occasionally fought, the man who had often fought for him, the man who had taught him much of what he knew of the world, was gone. He cried until he fell asleep.

The company agreed to settle out of court, and the amount Manny and his mother took home paid off their house and their car and allowed them to buy a second. There had even been enough left over to allow the young man to complete an associate degree at the community college in Godfrey. Just like that he barely noticed that four and a half years had gone by since his father died.

“It’s just insane,” Manny said, talking to one of the free therapists provided by a local charity.

“I agree with you,” the woman said. “They shouldn’t have been so careless.”

Manny gave a single chuckle and shook his head. “That’s not what I mean,” he clarified. “I mean, yeah, the company should have replaced a few thousands of dollars part that killed five people, rather than pay out to five different families.” He took a sip from the glass of water in front of him. “No, what’s insane is that my father was a hard-working, intelligent man.” He blinked and opened his eyes wider a moment. “He did everything right, and yet, he was always getting screwed over, people picking people they knew were worse over him, but had connections, and not paying him enough.” He sighed. “What’s insane is that while he was here, we could never get ahead, and that killed him. Then, a company actually kills him, and that gets us ahead.”

“I’m impressed with how you’re getting on,” she replied. “I wonder, you just got your associate’s degree, and you’re still working at the warehouses.”

He shrugged. “Ah, well,” he said, “The rest of them get assigned one spot or another. I got a specific task to do, and I’m close to getting promoted. It’s not much, but hell, it’s stable.”

She wrote something down. “Aren’t you worried about the future?” she asked. “What about marriage?”

“Ha!” Manny scoffed. “Look at me. I mean, look at me.” He gestured to his considerable weight. “I’m not getting married. What do I have to offer?”

“So,” she fought back, “you aren’t worried about your situation? What about aspirations?”

“Aspirations get people killed,” Manny said. “Dreams get people caught in a loop of disappointment.” He crossed his legs. “We’re born to be wage slaves. Why do they celebrate the success stories? Because those people fly in out of nowhere, they win the lottery, so to speak, and they zoom away, to leave us stranded here, desperately reaching out to them, knowing we’re going to stumble and fall and spend the rest of our lives behind a Wal-Mart cash register pissed off that we got left behind. We drink ourselves to death crying over the fact that we never got to show the world that amazing idea that would’ve made us a billion dollars.”

“That’s a pretty fatalistic way of looking at it,” she said. “So, what about those that do get to do what they love?”

“More power to ’em,” Manny argued. “I’m just saying, there’d be more of them if we didn’t live in a world where most people get thrown away.” He stretched. “My future is somewhat ok. I’ve got a paid-off house that I’ll inherit when my mother dies, I’ve got a car that’s paid off, and I’ve got a job that’ll end up paying me enough to coast on the money until I fucking just die.” He laughed and shook his head. “I’m going to get life insurance money when my mother dies. Why am I so well-off?” He reconsidered. “Well, not well-off, but maybe…I dunno, ‘okay-off?’ Yeah, that’s it.” He coughed. “Why am I okay-off? Because my father, who tried his hardest, I mean really tried, got killed and we got lawsuit money and life insurance money.”

“I don’t want to belittle you,” she told him, “but it seems to me like you’re afraid to try because you don’t want to risk failure. And you’re boiling life down too simplistically.”

A half-shrug later, and he replied, “Yeah, maybe. I just don’t think I was born one of the lucky ones.” He let out a nasal breath. “And there absolutely are people born lucky. I just wasn’t one of them.”

She wrote something down. “I’m going to hit you with a question,” she said. “I’m not trying to be offensive, but I think your answer will tell me something.” She centered herself in her seat. “Why get a two-year degree if you’re not going to use it?”

“If I ever get lucky,” he argued, “I might need it.” He looked around. “Maybe I wanted to prove I wasn’t just some fat idiot. Who knows? My mother said I should. What excuse should I pick?”

She gave him a stern look. “I understand your concern,” she explained, “and your worry. Growing up poor has done a number on you, and you don’t want to take risks. I’m just worried you’re going to reach the age of fifty and you’ll wonder why you didn’t take a chance when you were younger.”

He switched crossed legs. “I’ll be feeling that feeling from inside a paid-off house,” he said. “Kids from moderately-up-the-chain parents get to have dreams. Kids who barely ended up making ends meet like me? We get to go to work and answer ‘yes sir’ until we die.”

“Well, I’m sorry to hear you say that, Manny,” she said. “See you next week?”

He sighed. “Hope so,” he said.

On the way home, he picked up some sandwiches from Subway and some diet soda. His mother had been pressuring him to try and lose weight, and he’d tried. In the last six months, he’d dropped twenty pounds to two-eighty. She’d been losing weight as well, and it honestly impressed him. She attributed it to finally making full-time at the nursing home and getting good benefits and being on her feet more, and he didn’t know one way from another.

“I’m back, mom,” Manny said, walking in the door. “I got the sandwich you wanted.”

They sat in the dining room and he handed her the sandwich. They ate in silence for a few minutes before she set the half she’d been eating down. “I just wanted to apologize,” she said.

His head jerked up. “What?”

She looked down a moment. “I used to tell you that you didn’t suffer like I did,” she replied to his question. “I was wrong. It was wrong of me to say.”

“No,” he countered. “It’s okay. It’s not a contest.”

She reached out and grabbed his free hand. “Manny,” she said, eyes locking with his, deadly seriousness present. “I saw it when you showed up at the hospital.” A single tear came down. “I lost my husband, I lost the man I loved, but you, I saw you lose the only father you ever knew.”

“Mom,” he uttered. “I…” He had a response, but it died mid-sentence. They simply drew away from their seats and embraced each other.

A handful of weeks later, he got a call he would never forget.

His mother had cancer.

The first time he took her to her chemotherapy appointment he had to excuse himself to the bathroom to cry. Months dragged on, with the condition not seeming to budge. His mother had good enough insurance that paid for the treatment. In that sense, they lucked out yet again. Unfortunately, it meant he had to watch as she deteriorated. It ate him up inside.

“Some of the tumors have responded,” the doctor said, examining the MRI displayed on the computer screen. “Unfortunately, it seems to have metastasized faster than we expected.”

Anna squeezed her son’s hand as he sat next to her. “So, how much longer do I have?” she asked.

“Mom,” he argued. Why would she jinx it by asking?

She held a hand up. “No,” she countered, “I want to hear this.”

The doctor looked at the MRI once again and looked at her, the frown telling everything. “I’m afraid I doubt it’ll be six months.”

She lowered her head. “Doctor,” she said, “do you think you could give my son and I some alone time?”

He nodded and walked out. “Certainly,” he said.

“Mom,” Manny argued, “I don’t want to…”

“We need to talk about this,” she stated. “Because this is the only time we’re going to get to talk about it before I get a lot worse.”

A hand wiped his eyes. “A…alright,” he said.

“I’m going to die.”

There it was. She’d said out loud what he didn’t want to hear.

He nodded, accepting. “I know,” he said. It was a moment of finality he had been desperate to avoid.

“What I want you to do,” she said, “is not to have some big funeral thing, where everyone sits around and talks. I think it should be just you and me, there. Get the basic funeral, spend as little of the insurance money as possible. Okay?”

He nodded. “Okay.” Again, the acceptance creeping out of his mouth caused rivulets of tears from his eyes.

“You’re going to go somewhere you never got to go as a kid,” she said. “I don’t want you to just sit in that house and wallow in pity.”

“I got it,” he said. “Don’t you think we can still beat this?”

“We’re going to fight,” she argued. “But we both know how this is going to end.”

So, for weeks, they fought on. The doctors worked whatever magic they thought they could, and she never let it beat her down, despite everything. One day, however, the dreaded day arrived.

“We both know this is it,” she said from her hospital bed.

Almost a year had gone by and he saw her become skeletal and emaciated. It pained him just to see how her body had shrunk. “I…” he stammered. His hand covered his mouth. “I can’t,” he finally said.

“You can,” she said, gravel in her voice. “You’re going to make it. You’re going to live on.”

“I know,” he uttered, wiping his eyes on his shirt. “But I don’t know what to do.”

“You’ll be okay,” she groaned. “This is why I got more life insurance, remember?”

His eyes slammed shut, and he pounded his fist on his leg. “Damn the money!” he shouted. “I don’t want to leave you!”

To this, she merely smiled. “Manny,” she said, “think of all the times we had together. We went hiking, we went fishing, your dad taught you how to cook over a campfire, remember? All those memories are with you. You’ve got plenty of me to go around.”

“Mom, no…”

She gripped his hand tighter. “Manny.”

He opened wet eyes to look deep into her eyes. “Mom?”

She swallowed, which appeared to require a tremendous effort. “Did I do alright?”

Her question very nearly broke him. “You did great,” he said.

She gave a nod with a smile.

And having done that, she died.

He honored her wish and decided not to have a wake, just a private affair where he was the only one who saw. As the woman who gave birth to him got lowered into the ground, he found himself unable to watch the dirt go in. He simply drove home, sat in his parents’ room, and cried until he found himself woken up by the morning sun coming through the window.

That first morning without his parents, he crawled out of their bed and stumbled to the kitchen. He ran the tap until the water sent clouds of steam into the air and stuck his hand into the stream. The water burned his hand and he pulled it out and recoiled from the pain. Nope, he thought, turning the hot off and the cold on full blast to rinse his hand. Still real, still really happening.

The next part seemed even less pleasant then he expected. Days passed by, meeting with lawyers and officials of all kinds. After funeral expenses, he had a check for forty thousand dollars to deposit in his account. He sat and looked at the receipt for the deposit.

Forty-eight thousand dollars was the number.

Forty-eight thousand dollars was what his mother’s life was worth, according to society.

Sitting alone, in an empty house, he couldn’t help but laugh in between the tears. His parents had bought him a stable future by dying.

Something about it struck him as obscene.

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