"Jaime!"
Jaime felt something stir inside of her.
"Jaime!"
Was someone shaking her?
"Jaime!"
As her eyes opened lethargically, the dull lights of her bathroom crept into her gaze. Drab colors coated the dingy walls from which hung her taunting reflection. The lights flickered momentarily as the deep hum of the apartment's air conditioner filled the musty bathroom. Slowly, the reality of the scene before her began to play through her mind. The repetition of familiar events always brought a comforting horror to her. Her mind could be eased by the reassurance of consistency, while concurrently causing an incredible anxiety of the inevitable outcome of the events.
Two wide blue eyes sat only inches from her face. In an instant, Jaime felt the shock of the appearance of these eyes, yet a strange feeling that the eyes had always been there. A bloated, slightly wrinkled face with incredibly taut skin held the eyes stationary. A familiar stranger glared at her from behind these worrisome eyes. The bright red hair covering the stranger's head reminded her faintly of her own. Incomplete memories flooded her mind as she grasped blindly to find one which might tell her what she wished to know.
Suddenly, she saw a young girl clutching tightly to a woman who held the girl in comfort. The two stood in front of a strangely familiar brick house, where a mangled mess of red and white sat below them in the street. As a man nearby reached down to grab something, the woman glared defiantly at him. From underneath the woman's hooded jacket, Jaime could faintly see a wisp of bright red hair as the woman leaned forward slightly to receive the collar which the man had removed from the mess.
"Mom?" Jaime asked faintly to the woman in her memory before feeling herself pulled forward in time to stare at the same grim face, now withered and expanded with age.

The uncomfortable car ride felt longer every year. Jaime wished that just once, when they arrived, the heavy iron gates would be welded closed. If this were to occur, would she have to return the next year? Would she have to bear her mother's scornful stare as they made their way across town? Would she be required to feign attention as her mother continually berated her, repeating endlessly her demand that Jaime return to that miserable, musty psychiatrist's office? Ultimately, must she return every year to visit the final resting place of her son, who had been stolen from her those three long years ago?
The musty brown interior of her mother's car; the dismal, humid heat of mid-July; the heavy gates of the cemetery?everything about this annual pilgrimage made Jaime's stomach uneasy. As the car passed through the entrance of the heavy brick wall, she finally resigned herself to the inevitable scenario which loomed before her. They would spend twenty minutes arguing over the gravesite's location before her mother took them in the wrong direction. When they finally found the grave with the cherub resting playfully atop the headstone, a feature her mother had insisted upon, they would stand in an uncomfortable silence until her mother collapsed on the ground beside her. Then, on the wretched return to Jaime's apartment, her mother would cry and bemoan the fact that her only daughter could be so emotionally numb.
After the obligatory argument and misdirection which inevitably followed, Jaime and her mother finally approached the marble headstone that bore the name and date which had haunted Jaime these past three years: "Noah Christopher McKeever. September 5, 1997-July 24, 2002." As they stood silently, Jaime waited impatiently for the moment she knew would come. She secretly despised her mother for her eruption every time it occurred. When her mother began to weep and eventually collapsed into a heap of bright red on the ground, Jaime wished powerfully that she could feel the uncontrollable sorrow that compelled her mother to behave in this fashion. Had she only felt something, whether happiness, sadness, anger, or despair, maybe she might believe she had become something other than what her mother continually called her, an empty shell. This phrase antagonized her daily. The idea that she had become a stoic automaton incapable of emotion haunted her every thought.
When her mother finally arose, she glared disturbingly at Jaime as they proceeded back to the car. Jaime knew this look well. She knew her mother well enough to know that her disappointed gaze meant a long, angry lamentation from her mother would accompany them home. She had seen this look many times. When her mother held her comfortingly before screaming in the street with the man who had ran over her childhood pet, her mother had worn the same glare. When her mother had clutched her lovingly after her father had abandoned them, her mother had worn the same glare. Twenty years later, when Noah's father left, her mother again wore the same glare. When her mother had awoken her earlier that day on the floor of the bathroom, Jaime had been revived by the same glare.
Her mother's ability to simultaneously portray love and rage had always perplexed Jaime, and on the return car ride to her apartment, Jaime wondered exactly how her mother could scream and tell her how disappointing a daughter she had become, while still claiming to love her. As their annual custom dictated, her mother moaned loudly to no on in particular about her terrible misfortune at having a daughter so lifeless. This continual melodramatic diatribe always left both mother and daughter exhausted, as her mother had wasted as much energy crying as if Jaime were absent as Jaime spent wishing she was.
Just as Jaime felt she could tolerate no more of her mother's grievances, a familiar sight rose from the distant curb to meet her eyes. A short, bearded man with trim gray hair sat on the yellow bus stop bench in front of her apartment building. Jaime suspected the man had served in the military, judging by the drab green Army jacket the man the man always wore over the red shirt he tucked neatly into his shabby blue jeans. Even during the summer, when the heat was almost unbearable, the man would sit all day on the bench in the same attire. She knew very little about the man; he never accepted her offers to feed him, and he always disappeared after the sun went down, so she assumed he was not homeless, but she could never be fully certain. The name on his jacket read "Sullivan," and she had always called him by this name.
Jaime could not remember when the man began sitting on the bench, but she first began sitting with him shortly after Noah died. A few weeks had passed since his death, and Jaime's performance at her work had become progressively worse. As an executive assistant, she would take calls and never write down messages. She would forget to remind her boss of his meetings. In fact, some days she would just not show up, spending the day instead inside her bathroom with a package of razor blades, attempting to summon the courage to take her own life. Eventually, the sympathy her boss initially displayed faded, and Jaime was unsurprised when she arrived at the office one day to find another woman sitting in her desk.
Apparently, since Jaime seldom answered the phone anymore, her office had called her mother?s house in an attempt to notify her of her termination, for when she arrived back at her apartment the day she was fired, her mother stood waiting inside. After a barrage of questions for which she wanted no answers, her mother declared an ultimatum, whereby Jaime could either move back into her mother's home or begin seeing a therapist.
On her first visit to the psychiatrist, Jaime was prescribed several forms of anti-depressants, which she dutifully retrieved from the pharmacy. On her way home from the pharmacy, she noticed the man sitting on the bench. She felt as if she had seen the man sitting in this exact location previously, yet she could not remember when. The air of familiarity surrounding the man perplexed her, prompting her to sit on the bench with him. She wanted to introduce herself or say something to him, yet could find no words. What did she want to say to him? In fact, why had she sat beside him? These questions raced through her mind as she tried to find something to say to the man, who had not seemed even to notice her presence. As she continued to decide whether to talk to the man or completely ignore him, thereby dismissing the inane notion of his familiarity, she scoured her purse in pursuit of her cigarettes. As she swore whisperingly at herself for not buying more while she was at the drug store, a wrinkled hand extended a small, silver case. Jaime stared hesitantly at the man before taking the case. As she removed a cigarette from the case, she could not help but to wonder how a man in such shabby clothes could procure such a magnificent cigarette case. When she returned the case to the man's outstretched hand, he raised his other hand to light her cigarette.
As they sat smoking together, a million questions raced through Jaime's mind, but she could not find the words to express them. Somehow, none of them seemed to quite matter, just as losing her job had not really seemed to matter. In fact, nothing seemed to carry any importance since Noah?s death. Some days, she would find herself walking past his old babysitter's house and imagine that he was still playing inside, waiting for her to arrive and take him home. Once, she had even knocked on the door, only to stare blankly at his former babysitter as she realized he could not be within. When the woman to whom she used to entrust her child had invited her inside, she had simply turned and walked away.
When Jaime had finished smoking her cigarette, she flicked the remains into the street. She gathered her purse and bag from the pharmacy and prepared to return to her apartment. As she began to stand, the man sitting beside her reached over to touch her arm.
"It's tough, isn't it?" he asked. Jaime nodded slightly before running upstairs.

When her father had abandoned her mother, Jaime would lie in bed at night as a child and imagine that her father sat outside her window watching her. The idea that her father still cared for her and would always be outside to protect her always gave her a sense of ease. When she graduated college, she imagined him in the audience, beaming with pride. When she married Noah?s father, she imagined her father watching from the back of the chapel, amazed at her beauty. However, since Noah's death, she had never again felt his presence. She felt that no one could be protecting her anymore if they would let such a wonderful child die. She never felt that same sense of security again until she met Sullivan.
Jaime had grown to regard Sullivan as a confidant. After her first encounter with him, she started spending as much time as she could with him. She felt she could tell him anything she was experiencing, and he would quietly nod and understand without judging her. She had stopped visiting the therapist and had yet to take any of her prescribed medication, for she knew Sullivan could help her get through this agony. She had told him how she would stand in front of the mirror, trying to convince herself to commit suicide, but she never would because she knew it would break his heart. He was the only person with whom she had shared the secret of her morning routine, but she knew he would never take this as a sign of imbalance as others would.
On the third anniversary of her son's death, after visiting Noah's grave with her mother, Jaime took her normal seat beside Sullivan on the bench. As she lit a cigarette, she thought of the first words he had ever said to her and chuckled disdainfully.
"It is hard," she said, looking up into his soft gray eyes. "Really goddamn hard."
Sullivan nodded slightly as Jaime began to tell him of her morning suicide attempt, how her mother had found her, and of their subsequent visit to Noah's grave. Sullivan listened intently as Jaime told him how she wished she could feel the pain her mother felt, if only to serve as a reminder that she was still alive. As she said this last sentence aloud, the solution to her emotional conundrum eased into her mind. Perhaps if she started taking her medication as prescribed rather than attempting to shove them all down her throat at once, she would be able to feel again. If a doctor had prescribed them, maybe this way why! As she told this to Sullivan, he simply smiled and said simply, "That might be a good idea."
That night, as Jaime prepared for bed, she stood staring at her reflection once again. Four capsules lay on the counter between her hands?one red, one green, one blue, one yellow. She gathered them slowly with one hand, fighting to steady her other hand as she reached for the glass of water that rested beside the sink. As the pills slid slowly down the back of her throat, she felt a great disappointment. She did not know what she had expected, but no change had occurred. She knew no pill could miraculously cure her, but she had expected as least a slight change in her consciousness. As she got into bed and switched off her bedside lamp, she told her self that everything would be different in the morning.

When Jaime awoke the next morning, she felt like a relic from another era in her life. For the first time in three years, she felt revived and well rested. She jumped out of bed, grabbing the closest clothes she could find. She could hardly wait to get fully dressed as she ran out the door to tell Sullivan. He would be so happy for her, as she had not felt this well in as long as she could remember.
However, as she threw open the door to her building, Sullivan's bench was empty. She took a seat dutifully, certain he would be along soon. In almost three years, she had never seen the bench empty during the day, but surely he had to leave sometime to go to the bathroom, eat lunch, or at least buy more cigarettes. She knew if she just waited a few minutes, he would return. She waited patiently, but Sullivan never came. As the hours crept by, she first worried greatly about where he could be, yet eventually a great rage overcame her. He had abandoned her just as everyone who really loved her had.
As the sun crept slowly behind the buildings across town, Jaime's patience could bear no more waiting. She ran up the stairs to her apartment, threw the door open, and rushed straight to the bathroom. She ripped the cap off of the orange and white bottles on her counter, spilling reds, greens, blues, and yellows across the countertop. She was far too distracted to count how many pills she had taken, but she knew it had been more than enough. She again felt no different and wondered how much pain such a death would bring. As she faded into unconsciousness, she quietly told herself that no one would ever leave her again.
She awoke briefly when the paramedics arrived. She could vaguely make out someone with bright red hair standing beside her weeping. As the paramedics took her down the stairs, the hallway glowed in a strange yellow light she had never noticed before. The doorway glowed a dull blue as it opened to reveal the flashing red lights of the ambulance. As she was loaded into the ambulance, she could have sworn she saw a green and blue figure slowly materialize on the bright yellow bench in front of her building.