I keep staring.
“Your teacher said you might be suicidal, but I told him that was ridiculous. You’re not suicidal, are you, Leo? Just tell me if you are. We have money. We can get you medicine. Whatever you need. You can have whatever you want. Just ask for it. But I know you’re not suicidal. I know what the real problem is.”
I fucking hate her.
“I told him you do this when you miss your mother, so I came home, Leo. I always come home when you pull one of these pranks. And it wasn’t easy this time either. I had to cancel twelve meetings with important people. Twelve! Not that you would care about that. But someday you are going to have to learn how to live without your mother and—”
“Do you remember when I was little—you used to make me banana pancakes with chocolate chips in them?” I say, because suddenly I have this idea.
Linda just looks at me like my head has spun around 360 degrees.
“You remember, right?” I say.
“What are you talking about, Leo? Pancakes? I wasn’t driven two hours to talk about pancakes.”
“You remember, Mom. We made them together once.”
Linda’s lipstick smiles when she hears me say the word Mom because she hasn’t heard me say that word in many years.
Ironically, she loves to be called Mom.
“Banana–chocolate chip pancakes?” Linda says, and then laughs.
I can tell by the look on her face that she doesn’t remember, but she’s faking like she does. Maybe she only made them once or twice—I dunno. Maybe I made up the memory in my mind. It’s possible. I don’t know why I’m thinking about this memory all of a sudden, but I am.
I remember making banana–chocolate chip pancakes when I was little—like maybe when I was four or five years old—and getting mix everywhere and Dad was softly strumming his acoustic guitar at the kitchen table and my parents were happy that morning, which was rare, and probably why I remember it. Mom and I cooked and then we all ate together as a family.
Normal for most people, but extraordinary for us.
For some reason, I must have banana–chocolate chip pancakes in order for everything to be okay. Right now. It’s the only thing that will help. I don’t know why. That’s just the way it is. I tell myself that if Linda makes me banana–chocolate chip pancakes, I can forgive her for forgetting my birthday. I concoct that deal in my head and then attempt to make her fulfill her end of the unspoken bargain.
“Can you make those for me now—banana–chocolate chip pancakes?” I ask. “That’s all I want from you. Make them, eat breakfast with me, and then you can go back to New York. Okay? Deal?”
“Do we have the ingredients?” she says, looking completely perplexed.
“Shit,” I say, because we don’t. I haven’t been shopping in weeks. “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Do you have to say shit in front of your mother?”
“If I get the ingredients, will you make me breakfast?”
“That’s why you wanted me to come home? Banana–chocolate chip pancakes? That’s why you tricked your teacher into getting so worked up?”
“You make them for me and I won’t give you any more problems all day. You can go back to New York with a clean conscience. Problem solved.”
Linda laughs in a way that lets me know she’s relieved, and then she runs her perfectly manicured nails through my newly stubbled hair, which tickles.
“You really are an odd boy, Leo.”
“Is that a yes?”
“I still don’t understand what happened yesterday. Why did your teacher call me and demand I come home? You seem fine to me.”
Herr Silverman must not have told her it was my birthday, and I don’t even care about that anymore. I just want the fucking pancakes. It’s something Linda is capable of doing. It’s a task she can complete for me. It’s what I can have, so that’s what I want.
“I’ll go get the ingredients, okay?” I say, making it even easier for her.
“Okay,” she says, and then shrugs playfully, like she’s my girlfriend instead of my mom.
I rush past her, down the steps, and out the door without even putting on a coat.
There’s a local grocery about six blocks from our house and I find everything I need there in about ten minutes.
Milk.
Eggs.
Butter.
Pancake mix.
Maple syrup.
Chocolate chips.
Bananas.
On the walk home, with the plastic handles of the grocery bag cutting into my hand, I think about how once again, I’m letting Linda off easy.
I try to concentrate on the pancakes.
I can taste the chocolate and bananas melting in my mouth.
Pancakes are good.
They will fill me.
They are what I can have.
When I arrive home, Linda’s in her office yelling at someone on the phone about the color of tulle. “No, I do not want cadmium fucking orange!” She holds up her index finger when she sees me in the doorway and then waves me away.
In the kitchen I wait five minutes before I decide to do the prep work by myself.
I slice three bananas on the cutting board. Carefully, I make paper-thin cuts. And then I stir milk and eggs into the mix—adding the chocolate chips and banana slices last. I spray the pan and heat it up.
“Linda?” I yell. “Mom?”
She doesn’t answer, so I decide to cook the pancakes, thinking that Linda eating with me can be enough.
I pour some batter onto the pan and it bubbles and sizzles while I pour out three more pancakes. I flip all four and then heat up the oven so I can keep the finished pancakes warm while I cook Mom’s.
“Linda?”
No answer.
“Mom?”
No answer.
I put the finished pancakes into the oven and pour more batter.
I realize I made way too much, but I just keep cooking pancakes, and by the time I finish, I have enough to feed a family of ten.
“Mom?”
I go to her study, and she’s yelling again.
“Jasmine can go fuck herself!” she says, and then sighs.
She’s staring out the window.
She’s oblivious again.
I sigh.
I return to the kitchen.
I eat my banana–chocolate chip pancakes.
They are delicious.
Fuck Linda.
She’s missing out.
She could have had delicious pancakes for breakfast.
I would have forgiven her.
But instead, I use the garbage disposal to grind up all the leftover pancakes.
A few mirror shards fall in.
I let the machine crunch away until it finally jams and I can once again hear Linda cursing at her employees.
She doesn’t come out of her office—not even when I take off and slam the front door behind me so that the whole house shakes.
THIRTY-EIGHT
LETTER FROM THE FUTURE NUMBER 4
Dad,
It’s S, your daughter.
I’m writing you on my eighteenth birthday—well, technically, it’s the day after; it’s past midnight. I’m manning the great light because you fell asleep in your chair again and old habits die hard. I’m going to give you this letter tomorrow when I leave Outpost 37 for the first time so you won’t ever forget what a great day we had together.