The Self

Meredith scoffs at the paper, slightly crumpled from obviously being shoved into her purse with little to no care. She stares down at the words ‘The Self’, circled in obnoxious red pen, as they glare back at her. Meredith wonders what kind of sick joke this is meant to be, if someone had been watching her life unbeknownst to her, and she has the sudden urge to search the apartment for holes when she gets home. Reading the advice typed up seemingly for her, she makes an indignant noise. ‘Focus only on self-improvement’. It sounded like something she would’ve said a year ago, back when she was a housewife with nothing to do but look pretty. Now she was a single mother, working day and night to make ends meet.

Meredith opens the door to the apartment and slips her shoes off at the door, immediately making her way to the bedroom, only to find that Timothy isn’t sleeping, but rather situated on the floor, an array of crayons scattered around him. He’s hunched over a piece of paper with his eyebrows knit together. Meredith quietly crouches over the boy, rubbing his back to break him out of his focus. When he looks up, Meredith gets a proper view of the paper.

“What’s this?” She asks.

“Me ‘n’ you.” He answers, tracing over the drawing. Drawn meticulously in crayon is Meredith and Timothy holding hands, two stick figures with brown, mousy hair. In the background is a rainbow that stretches across the paper, messy and definitely not in the correct color order. Her first thought is how strange it is to see herself, even if it’s only in a stick figure drawing done by a seven-year-old. She thinks this nondescript Meredith is quite pretty, nothing like the one she sees in car window reflections, “You can have it, I made it for you.”

She smiles, “Thanks, buddy.” She says as she takes the drawing. Making her way to the kitchen, she grabs a strip of tape before entering the bathroom, all the while stepping cautiously around the messy floor. She faces the mirror, staring into the blue of the blanket. Carefully, she untapes the blanket from the wall, replacing it with Timothy’s drawing. She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. Then, she looks.