By Reva Leah Stern |  An excerpt » CHAPTER ONE »  I am contemplating the perfect suicide.

High Jumping... I live in a hermetically sealed high-rise condominium…on the second floor. If I could somehow squeeze through the window’s five-inch opening, I’d most certainly land on the grassy knoll below where I would become, at best, a paraplegic.

A Sleeping Pill Cocktail... I hate drugs that do anything other than annihilate putrid infections, so I’ve never accumulated a home pharmacy… but I do have a half bottle of stale-dated Advil and a litre of Metamucil, which if combined could succeed in turning me into a runny vegetable stew.

Wrist Dissection...I don’t have any razor blades (at least none that aren’t clogged with armpit stubble). Besides, I hate the smell of blood and I couldn’t tolerate leaving behind a mess of permanent stains on my pristine ivory carpets.

Death by Stench… If only I still had my beautiful solid brick home with its airtight garage. My new condominium’s multi-level parking facility with its space age ventilation system can do nothing more than turn carbon monoxide into foul-smelling smog.

At seven a.m. my phone rings. I let Bell answer. At seven-fifteen Bell is busy at it again. Before the hour is up Bell has wait-listed nine calls for me, four of which are from my friend Andrea. I could call her back and tell her that everything is fine. Or I could admit to her that since my twenty-four-year-old baby son is getting married in six days… without me… I actually feel like shit.

I stare blankly at the ivory silk evening gown I’ve left hanging on the closet door. Once again I begin to leak streams of bitter tears. I have repeated this exhausting exercise throughout most of the night. I begin to contemplate how many gallons of the salty liquid can be stored in my body before I drown in my own personal “Dead Sea.”

The incessant ringing is wearing me down but I manage to keep myself from answering. I wait and listen to the annoyingly cheery voice of my friend Andrea resonating through her message:

“Hi, Rachel. It’s me. How ya doin’? Did you sleep all right? Call me okay?”  A match has been ignited and smoke signals are billowing across the phone lines.  My support system has been called in to squelch the fire.    I start to play back the rest of my messages, but they all seem to smack of compassionate conspiracy; all, but one. The cheerful confident request from my six-year-old grandson Gabriel sings through the earpiece: “Saftah, mommy just bought me new shoes for Uncle Aaron’s wedding. She says they’re dancing shoes and ya know what? They’re really comfortable, so I’ll be able to dance with you better than when I‘m wearing my sneakers. So, you know what? You better wear comfortable shoes too so we can both dance better, okay?”

Tears slide along my temples and puddle up in my ears as his ardent “I love you, Saftah” reverberates in my head. Then a final click and the hollow silence sets in once again.  A tissue soaks up the evidence of the pain that has continued to leak all over my pillow. I have an urgent need to fill my mind with less daunting information.

I listen hazily to my sister’s team-motivating message: “Hi, Rach. It’s me. Look, we all know the big day is coming… but we’re all trying to pretend it’s not to make it easier for you to pretend it’s not. So, why are you making this so damned difficult for us? Why can’t you just rant and swear like a drunken biker and get it out of your system?

“Just remember you have three other kids who love you and let it go at that!”  There is no point in calling back to remind her that I have four kids and that I’d like them all in my life. She will just remind me once again: “Speaking of your three ‘normal’ kids, I will never understand why in hell they agreed to march at Aaron’s faccactah (what?) wedding?”

In an attempt to avoid my single sister Rebecca’s lecture on child rearing, I opt to return Andrea’s call instead. By now her cheerfulness has clearly subsided.  “Okay, Rachel. Let’s cut the crap!” Andrea barks in her most robust, shit-kicking voice.

“We all know you’re going to have a miserable week, so what can we do to make it better, one day at a time? Do you want to go out for lunch…or do you want company at your place? Which is it going to be, huh?”     “Thanks, Andrea, but I really just want to be left alone for now.”

“Alone is a dumb idea, Rachel. This is the worst time to be alone.”

“Why? What in hell do you think I’m gonna do, off myself?”

“Oh yeah. I’m really worried. Come on. Get real. Aaron’s a selfish, spoiled brat and if that ex-husband of yours had half a brain, he wouldn’t be rewarding the little shit by throwing him a lavish wedding without the mother-of-the-groom.”

“Andrea, he’s still my son, little shit or not!”

“Yeah, and his big shit father is helping him freeze you out of the wedding …. So, Kiddo, wake up and feel the icicles!”       “Look, reminding me of what my bloody ex may or may not have done doesn’t change the fact that Aaron hasn’t spoken to me in two years and doesn’t want me at his wedding!”

“Rachel, Aaron waited until he was twenty-two and through needing you to support him before he suddenly decided to reject you. You, on the other hand, have retaliated by sending him greeting cards and food packages. How dare you abuse him with good wishes and homemade pies?”

“Come on, Andrea. What? I wasn’t supposed to try to connect? Anyway I stopped sending stuff at least five months ago… after I found out that he was dumping my unopened cards into the trash.”      “Good for you. And now it’s time to put it behind you and move on, okay?” “Move on huh? … Do you know what I did last night? I pulled my mother-of-the-bride gown from Wendy’s wedding out of the closet and tried it on. I wanted to see if it still fit… just in case Aaron has a last minute change of heart.”    “Ah-ha! So you might contemplate suicide if the gown doesn’t fit?”  “Andrea, don’t call the men in white coats, but yesterday … I called the banquet hall and asked if it was possible for me to hide in the kitchen to watch the ceremony.”

“Are you out of your mind? Why would you even think of doing such a stupid thing?”  “So that some day, I could tell him that I was there. I was a witness. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because it turns out that the only thing I’d see from the kitchen is the garbage dumpster.”

“Ya know what Rachel? I actually think you’d stand under that wedding canopy if he called and asked you today.”

“Hell, I’d stand under it if he called from a cell phone while he’s marching down the aisle!”

“Are you a Pollyanna, an idiot, or a sadist? Sometimes, I just can’t figure you out!”

“If you do, call me, then we’ll have lunch. In the meantime I’ll be right here in bed where I do my best thinking.”        I listen for the hollow buzz of the disconnected line before I press the off button. I’ve had enough conversation for now. The other messages will remain on hold until I feel ready to ward off all well-meaning offers and pseudo-therapeutic suggestions.   I slither out of bed and stagger to the bathroom with the notion that emptying my bladder might clear my head.  It doesn’t. I methodically wash my hands while gawking at my unsightly reflection as if it alone is to blame for the pale, puffy image that glares back at me.

I stare blankly into the sparse medicine cabinet once again before heading back to the asylum of my queen-sized bed. En route I take a peek out my second floor window to glimpse what lies below. I heave a sardonic sigh as I estimate the height of the fresh snow bank that seems to be rising to my windowsill.   As I settle myself under the heavy cotton quilt, I begin to chant a newly created mantra: “I will not think about the wedding, I will think of other things. I will not think about the wedding, I will think…”

I’ve done a lot of thinking since my youngest child Aaron walked out of my life, but I don’t feel any the wiser for it. I’m still baffled by this child that I thought had been given so much and who believes he received nothing at all. I, on the other hand, grew up thinking that I was born into aristocracy, only to discover that the stale white bread and gravy we dined on at our rusty chrome dinette was not the entrée of choice at the prime minister’s Duncan Fife table.

Of late my history has proven to be kinder on my heart than my present. But perhaps I can make today easier if I just concentrate on remembering the past. I’ll close my eyes, clench my teeth, and brace my mind against any fallout I might experience as I carefully recall how I got to this place. I didn’t cruise along smoothly. In fact it was a rather perplexing and often turbulent voyage.