“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.