“Hannah, I want some macaroni and cheese,” announced my brother from his seat on the couch. His words were almost drowned out by the roar that rose from our television; Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King played for the third time that week. Unwilling to get up and do what he wanted, I pretended not to hear, right up until Kirk leaned across the couch and repeated himself loudly in my ear.

“You little twerp,” I snapped, reaching for a pillow that lay beneath my thigh and slapping him in the face with it.

“I’m hungry,” Kirk complained. “Please. Please. I’m not asking for anything fancy, just some mac-and-cheese.”

“I already ate,” I retorted, pretending to be more interested in what went on in the movie than I really was. I’d fixed myself a sandwich at ten-thirty that morning not because I was actually hungry, but because I needed to do something with myself to fill my days besides sitting around and watching movies like my brother did.

Normally, I didn’t have any problem busying myself. Back when I was in high school, I’d spent hours practicing my cello, rocking back and forth in my room with my eyes half-closed, living the music more than playing it, until my shoulder ached from working the bow. Then, my first year at college, I’d stay up all night with my friends talking and watching movies; I’d always felt like I didn’t have enough time.

When I’d initially dropped out because it seemed like the right thing to do, I’d found myself with endless hours and not quite enough to do with them. At first, it had seemed wrong to do something as mundane as read or watch TV, but after a few days, I’d turned to them rather than go crazy with boredom. Only once I’d watched enough television that I thought my head might explode and I’d read every book in the house that I really started to feel a bit insane.

My cello still sat in its case in my bedroom, untouched. Even though I felt as though I’d more or less come to terms with what had happened, I still didn’t feel like picking it up and playing again; I might not ever.

“Fine, I just won’t eat,” Kirk announced, apparently choosing to be difficult that day. “I’ll lay here all day and not move and starve to death.” Obviously well aware of how his dark humor should have affected me, Kirk stared at my sideways in the way he always did when he didn’t want to make it obvious he was watching something. I guess he was waiting for some sort of tearful reaction or something.

Well, I wasn’t going to give him anything. I’d frankly had enough of his whining. I might have felt more sorry for him about everything if he hadn’t played the “I’m-so-depressed-I-want-to-die” card so many times. Instead, I said, “Fine, go ahead. It’ll be nice not to have to listen to your voice any more.”

Kirk gaped, then blurted, “I’m telling Mom!”

“Tell her what?” I retorted, allowing a cruel edge to tinge my voice in my anger. “That you’re threatening to kill yourself just because I’m not waiting on you hand and foot. Was last time just a pathetic cry for attention too? Did you know all along that you’d be all right, and your family who loves you would have been quilted into throwing their lives away for you and your petty issues?”

To be honest, the thought that Kirk might tell Mom that he thought about dying terrified me, almost as much as the realization that he was so selfish to actually scare her that way. Did he even notice that Mom hadn’t gone into the garage since the day she’d driven home to find him hanging himself from the rafters? She never talked about it, but I’d noticed that she’d started parking in the driveway, and I always had to move the trash out to the garage since she wouldn’t.

I remembered how horrible I’d felt when Dad had called me and told me to get back to him right away. My night class hadn’t wrapped up until ten o’clock, and by the time I called Dad back, my family had already been at the hospital for about six hours. The doctors said Kirk probably hadn’t meant to die, since he’d waited until Mom was about to get home before he’d strung up the noose and kicked the chair over. Even so, the cry for help was too serious to be ignored or to be treated as anything less than an actual suicide attempt.

Dad explained all that to me on the phone, and luckily, spring break would begin the next week, so I already had plane tickets home. I assured Dad that I’d pray for them all while I was still at school, and that I’d be there for them all in just a few short days. Then, I’d shut myself into my bedroom to pray, and even though I hadn’t planned to tell anyone about our personal issues, I found myself pouring my heart out to anyone who was willing to listen.

When I got home, I expected Kirk to be weepy all the time, or to be more quiet and withdrawn than the his usual annoying personality, but he was actually just the same as always. I could have believed that nothing had really happened, except for the way that Mom never really laughed at anything, and Dad tried to make us all go to counseling, which we did because nobody would really produce a reason not to go at such a crisis time. Even I went to counseling, even though this was the first time I’d seen Kirk face-to-face in about a month and a half.

I think Kirk dealt with suicide the best, probably because he’d been coming to terms with the idea long before any of us even knew he was depressed. While Mom and Dad grieved as if he was actually dead, Kirk tended to crack jokes that weren’t really funny. Later, I’d find myself wondering if those jokes had all just been some sort of test: a way to feel out the waters so that later on he could whine about killing himself as some sort of tool.

Or maybe I was just imagining something sinister on my brother’s part because I was so annoyed with him after spending weeks at home with him, watching him refuse to get better and wondering why I couldn’t do something to make him whole again. Initially I felt guilty that I hadn’t been able to spot Kirk’s depression earlier, then, when I started to come to terms with what had happened and feel comfortable that he wouldn’t attempt anything again, I felt guilty that I was so OK. Finally, I’d grown entirely weary of feeling guilty all the time, and had taken up living day to day.

Of course, sometimes Kirk still managed to get to me, like when he turned to me and said, “Are you sure about that? You want to leave me all alone in the kitchen, with all those knives and everything? Does that sound like a good idea?”

Even then, I knew that he was trying to manipulate me. After all, if he’d really wanted to kill himself alone, he could of waited until I went to the bathroom, or after everyone else in the house had gone to sleep. Frankly, if he really wanted to off himself, he certainly wouldn’t warn me about it before hand by checking to make sure I was all right with him being alone with knives.

Even though I knew all of that, and it even crossed my mind while I stared at Kirk, astonished that he could actually suggest that, even if through thinly veiled implication, but something about the way he looked at me made my stomach shiver. Something dark had crossed his face, and for a second, he wasn’t my normal, aggravating-as-all-siblings-are brother, but a troubled, scared boy who was counting on me to stay near, and depended on the constant presence of a family member to keep him from doing something irreversible to himself.

“Um, you know what?” I asked, forcing myself to look away from the disheartening sight of my brother o scared and hurt. “I think I’ll make lunch for you after all.” I rose from the seat on wobbly legs, shaken by - well, I wasn’t really sure what I’d just seen, but I found it considerably troubling nonetheless.

Thankfully, Kirk returned to his old self in a minute. With a cocky snort and a roll of the eyes, he returned his attention to the movie to announce, “Figures. Was it really worth arguing over, Hannah?”

Now, again, he obviously tried to goad me, and I almost rose to the challenge despite what I’d just seen. I guess that’s just something about brothers and sisters; it doesn’t matter how serious the situation is, we do whatever we can to aggravate the other. In that instance though, unlike any other, I managed to bite back my angry response, and put one foot in front of the other until I reached the kitchen.

There, I pulled a box of Kirk’s favorite food out of the cupboard, and checked to make sure we had plenty of milk and butter. While I boiled a pot of water, I found myself thinking about my friends at the conservatory, wondering what they were probably up to at the time. It was pretty close to the end of the semester, so they were probably preparing for finals and concerts.

I’d enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music to major in cello performance. I’d dropped out as soon as spring break was over in order to stay at home with my family. I hadn’t originally intended not to go back; I’d just first resolved to fly back to Boston a week later than originally planned. Then, a week became two, and two became a month, and then I found myself living at home for good, and just when I realized I didn’t want to be with Kirk every day of my life and throw away my education, it was too late to go back.

Then, I couldn’t even get a day job, because I’d agreed with my family that Kirk couldn’t be left alone until his therapist agreed that he was unlikely to try anything again. I hadn’t minded at first, but it had been a month already, and Kirk had yet to make the break-through we’d been waiting fro. Every day, I sat at home with Kirk while Mom and Dad were at work, and once my parents got home, I stayed with them because I couldn’t imagine that it was fair to make them deal with him all alone.

I hated myself for thinking it, but sometimes I wished that Kirk had succeeded in his attempt. I knew that was a horrible thought, and that my parents didn’t deserve to lose their son that way, but from the way everyone tip-toed around him as if they were afraid anything would send him over the edge, and the way he no longer really acted like himself, he might as well have been dead.

My life would have been immensely better had Kirk actually died. I would never have told anyone, because they would have judged me or thought me callous, but it was true. I’d have been happier, Mom and Dad would have had the closure to move on with their lives and they would have been happier, and Kirk, well, Kirk would be wherever it is that people go when they die.

As the water began to bubble, I wondered if maybe I should leave and let Kirk fend for himself. If he chose to do himself in, I would claim that I’d only stepped out for a few minutes, to run necessary errands or something, and that I’d have been unable to stop him. If he didn’t, well, I’d get into trouble, probably, for leaving, but no harm would actually have been done.

Suddenly, I found myself thinking scary thoughts as I eyed the cabinet under the sink, where Mom kept the dish-washing detergent and her drain cleaner. I couldn’t, it would be too wrong. But, then again . . .

As if an encouragement for my line of thought, from the living room Kirk called, “What’s taking so long?”

Playing a game with myself while consciously assuring myself that I’d never follow through with my silly plot, I opened the cupboard and pulled out Mom’s canister of drain cleaner. I sat it on the counter and stared for a moment, thinking of the ways he’d ruined my life, but how I couldn’t ever do something so. . . I couldn’t even think a word bad enough for what I wanted to do that wasn’t a cliché.

………………………………...

Mom and Dad arrived home in about three hours. I tried to act casual, pretending I thought he was asleep. When Mom put a hand on his shoulder to wake him up with a kiss on the cheek, she began to scream, apparently noting his cold skin. Dad ran over, and when he saw Kirk’s condition, he called 9-1-1.

I claimed to have stepped outside for just a few minutes to check the mail and stretch my legs in the front lawn. According to my story, I’d come inside to find Kirk acting strange, but I hadn’t thought he could have done anything to himself in that time, and when he’d “fallen asleep” on the couch, I’d forgotten about the earlier concerns.

I repeated my story for each of my parents, then for the paramedics when they arrived, and finally for the police when they arrived to confirm the suicide. Dad found the drain cleaner on the kitchen counter, and the coroner concluded that this was the same chemical that had killed my brother. I claimed not to have noticed the poison earlier, and the police ruled it a open-and-shut-case. Kirk had clearly committed suicide.

Once everything calmed down and all the investigators left, we each retired to our own corner of the house to morn. I assured my parents that they could find me alone in my room. I found their anguished expressions troubling, but knew that now they had closure, and they’d recover in due time.

In my room, I saw my fate beckoning to me like a coffin that sat at the foot of my bed, covered in dust from disuse. Breath deep in my throat, barely daring exhale, I opened the lid of the case, and lifted the treasure inside.

I didn’t bother to tune; I wasn’t performing for anyone but myself. Lifting the bow, I played a melody for the first time in months.