Kevin's Letter

Chapter 1
Kevin's Letter

Sarah nearly spills out the contents of her overstuffed briefcase when she opens the front door to her house. She closes the door behind her with her foot and tromps into her kitchen. A loud slam and all the piles of papers, she so delicately balanced all the way from the car, hit the table.

Sarah’s tired. She hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since her boss told her she had to sell a new account to some big name clients. She’s tired but today was a success: she got the account. The thrill of victory keeps her perky. She hums while pouring herself a glass of wine.

She kicks off her two inch heel dress shoes on the way to the couch. When she sits down she unbuttons her smart red office jacket, takes a sip of wine, and drops her head back onto the oversized cushions.

All of the things she still has left to do this week run through her head. Her new secretary has to be brought up to speed on how thing work in the office. She has a trip to London to plan; she’ll have to pack tonight. The new account, while exciting, is going to take up a lot of her time. She’ll probably miss Kevin’s play tomorrow night. He’s going be upset about that. God, her life is going to be so much easier when he graduates to college next year. Why can’t she just hire a baby sitter to go to all of these endless afterschool activities?

She drinks the last of her wine and sets the glass down on the coffee table. With all of her distracting thoughts she almost doesn’t pay attention to the note left for her. She would have headed to the shower before reading it but it’s out of place and unexpected. It would nag at her to not to take care of whatever Kevin thought was so important he had to write down. Sarah looks over the torn page from her son’s three ring binder.

The letter reads:

Mom,

I’m not sure how to tell you this, and I’ve tried again and again. You’re always so busy with work it’s like you don’t care anyway. Maybe now you’ll listen.

I didn’t get into Stanford like you wanted. They said my grades were too poor. Bad grades, does that surprise you? They’re terrible, like F minus or worse. I’m just not cut out for the jet set life like you are. I don’t really want to be a star of anything. I’m not going to college. That’s right; I couldn’t get in, not just at Stanford but anywhere. I wasn’t even accepted to the state college you sent my application to. Thanks for sending so many applications out by the way it just added to my embarrassment. All my friends are going off to college and I’d be here flipping burgers or something.

It’s not just school. If it was just school, or finding a carrier, I could deal. It’s everything. You know the girl I was seeing: Amy? You probably don’t do you and you met her like five times. Well, Amy dumped me. She dumped me for a football jock, for a football jock mom. She didn’t just break up with me over the phone, no, she dumped me in front of all of her friends and in front of her new boyfriend. It was too much. I might have loved her but she didn’t even give me a chance.

So this is it. Since you didn’t care enough to ever ask me ‘what’s wrong’ you get a letter. You get a goodbye letter. That’s right Mom I’m ending my life. I have nothing to live for anyway. When you come home and find my cold, dead, body laying on the floor maybe then you’ll regret not paying me any attention at all.

I found your bottle of pills; the ones that make you twenty when you should be like fifty. You shouldn’t leave stuff like that around. Of course I know where you stash your stuff. I’m going to take the whole bottle Mom, every last pill. I added it up and if you made yourself thirty years younger I can make myself twenty years younger easy. So read this note and come upstairs. All you’re going to find is a little, bloody, dead, fetus. That’s me Mom: just a little neglected dead fetus with no future and no past and you’ll have to live with that. Ha!

Oh yeah, and I do drugs.

Love,

Kevin

End of letter.

Sarah’s knuckles are white. She’s so tense she almost punched her thumbs through the letter. She’s a speed reader. Normally she would have read an email twice a long as this and been halfway through typing her response by now. But this was so shocking she doesn’t know what to do. Sarah sits there clutching the note with tears falling. She mumbles, “Kev?” Now a little louder, “Kev?”

Now she’s up off the couch, “Kevin?” She’s almost running for the stairs. “Kevin!” She passes his shoes: dropped carelessly at the foot of the stairs and passes them. That’s not so unusual he is a messy boy. Further up the stairs she passes his discarded socks. That’s not a good sign.

Sarah runs into her bedroom, then her bathroom, then the guest bathroom. All the doors are open and he’s not there. She doesn’t pause to look too carefully but nothing seems out of place. She’s standing outside his bedroom door, his locked bedroom door. “Kevin?” She bangs on the door. “Kevin are you in there?” More banging. Oh god, his pants are lying on the hall floor just tossed aside. Next to them is her prescription bottle of ‘youth pills’. She bends over and picks up the opened bottle, hoping it’s still full, and this is all just a tasteless joke. It’s empty. “Kevin?” She’s still looking into the bottle. Oh god what did he do? What is she going to find behind his locked door?

She starts knocking her body against the door and frantically turning the doorknob. Sarah works out two nights a week, not to get strong, to keep her butt toned. She’s just not strong enough to break the lock. She needs something to break the door handle and get inside. She has to help Kevin if he’s still alive.

Sarah rushes to her bedroom and comes back with an iron lamp. With all the adrenaline she’s got in her, and the heavy lamp, she busts through quickly. She pushes through the broken door and rushes into Kevin’s room. Is he going to be a bloody fetus, like he promised in his letter, covered in blood? Did he die helpless and alone? Is he dead? Is my baby dead? The fear of what she’ll find almost knocks her to the ground.

Her momentum tries to carry her further but the state she finds her son in stops her suddenly. Her son lying on the floor in front of her stops her the same way a speeding car is stopped by the impact of a wall. It hurts. Every emotion a woman can have pours into her and drains out of her right now. She collapses to her knees exhausted. Lying right in front of her is Kevin, or what’s left of him.

Kevin can’t be more than six months old anymore. He’s lying naked and helpless on his back looking up at his loving, worried, relieved, confused, happy, Mommy. He pulls his toes from his mouth to give her the biggest toothless smile he can. He jiggles his arms, legs, and little penis with excitement and pure joy. She holds her hands up to her mouth covering her own bright smile. They stay like this until Kevin’s confusion turns his joy over into a raging cry.

Sarah lifts her naked baby boy into her hands. Amazed how she’s holding all of him, his whole body, just in her hands. It’s been so long she almost didn’t remember what this was like. She lifts him to her breasts cupping his little bottom in one hand and covering his back with her other. His wailing dies down to a whimper then a coo and finally he sucks his hand.

She makes her way across the floor on her knees and climbs up on Kevin’s bed. For a moment she lays her newly passive Kevin beside her so she can unbutton her blouse and unfasten her bra. Topless she pulls Kevin back to her breasts and lays on her back. She pets his soft black hair and enjoys the feel of his soft skin. He closes his eyes and sucks his mouth against her breast. They have a quiet moment after so much exhaustion.

Sarah is always thinking. Her mind is always racing even now. It was a good thing yesterday her boss told her he’d like her to get even younger. If he hadn’t said that she wouldn’t have taken another pill last night. Kevin would have turned himself into sperm, like he wanted, instead of her sweet little baby. She should thank her boss tomorrow for saving Kevin’s life. Maybe she’ll take him away from the office for a couple of hours.

Oh, what is she going to do with Kevin? She has to find a daycare for him in the morning. She doesn’t even have any formula. No diapers. She still needs to pack for her London trip. Tomorrow was already going to be so busy and that was before she had a baby. Kevin can’t do anything for himself anymore that’s going to keep her even more busy.

All of these things that need done force Sarah into action. She tenderly lowers Kevin onto his back. She pulls a model robot off of Kevin’s nightstand and places it in his hands. Kevin starts sucking on the toy as Sarah gets out of bed and re-buttons her blouse. She has to go to the store tonight but who can watch Kevin. She pauses for a moment to take in the site of her baby boy kicking his legs in the air, naked, without a care in the world. Connections shape in Sarah’s head. She’ll call his girlfriend. It’s not like that girl hasn’t seen him naked before. She’ll probably get a kick out of what he’s turned himself into. What was her name Anna, Ally? Sarah fishes through Kevin’s jean pockets for his cellphone and finds the girls number in his contacts. Here it is Amy. She dials the number. “Hello, Amy? This is Kevin’s Mom, Sarah, listen Kevin made a surprise for us I need you to drive over and see what it is!” Sarah looks at Kevin and smiles at their secret joke. “Oh, it’s adorable you’ll love it, come on over, I need to go to the store and I need you to sit with him. Ok then, see you in twenty, bye now.”

Sarah carries Kevin downstairs so she can make a few phone calls before Amy gets there. She’s going to miss an hour or two of work in the morning and she’s got to make up that time up somewhere. She sets Kevin on the couch right next to his farewell letter. Before she starts those calls Sarah lowers her face into Kevin’s. “So, I didn’t pay enough attention to you did I baby? Well this time will be different I promise.” With that promise Sarah picks up her phone and dials her first number.