Happiness lost.

“If you walk out that door, it won't be you comin’ back.”

The words made him pause, some would even say stop. Tears had already softened his skin, leaving trails of loss down his now wet face as he stared at the ground. The dirt of the gravel road facing him, an endless stretch of Americana lost in the memories of the media that ignored it. The long, black car sped along the road, swerving to miss the animals that scrambled across it. The car stopped in front of Cell’s home, enveloping itself in the dust cloud it created. The dust flew into Cell’s face, sticking to the tears upon its surface. Squinting his already inflamed eyes, Cell wiped the mud from his face as he shoulder the bags he had placed on the ground. He was young…he was naïve…and there was nothing left to say. He walked to the car, stretching and snapping the bonds his mothers had raised him under. Every laugh they shared, every warm hug on a cold night…gone. Pain brought him from his mother into this world, and now painfully he leaves her in it. Alone, wondering if it was her that was not enough to keep him. Wondering if she was…the reason…the subconscious voice behind his decision to risk all that he had. All that made him himself.

She was a proud woman, able to take care of herself even in the hardest of times. Keeping her son close as her rock to carry on through this life. Never shedding a tear in front of him, her smile ever feigned for his sake. This…this was the destruction of her rock. Everything she had ripped from her as he walked towards the black gates of steel and rubber. She stood, dishes still wet in the sink, staring almost breathless at the doorway as her entire life with him rushed to the forefront of her mind. It was his birthday, and no one knew but her. She had a surprise for him: His favorite cookies sitting organized on a plate in the kitchen, with a gift for him beside it on the table. They had fought before he could see her put them out. The oven timer went off as he was packing, and with a heavy heart she put them onto the plate, knowing it was pointless. His day was wasted, as she cried on the inside over ruining it for him. The present, a book of his entire life. She had spent months trying to make it for him, gluing every picture at just the right angle. Picking out the borders and driving an hour in traffic to get the pictures from the relatives in the city. She poured her heart and soul into a gift he would never see.

The memories he rode away from on the dusty gravel road.

Finding the ability to move, she walked over to the long table, sitting at one end of it in front of the cookies. Staring at them in the utter silence of the house, she felt as though the world was slower drifting away from her, leaving her alone in a room with a bright little bow, and a Hercules plate of cookies. Growing as cold as the air around her as they lay bared in the room. The smiles they would have brought forever taken from their grasp. The birds stopped chirping, the sun stopped being warm. She pulled from her apron his last gift, a simple card she had picked out at the store. Bought with the last few cents she had in her purse, she had to go to the library just to write in it.

‘I love you forever and always, Love Mama.’

There was nothing more to be said, or at least nothing more that could be said through words written on a piece of paper. She read the message to herself, tears finally bursting from her eyes as she folded the card closed again. Sliding it under the plate of cookies as she began to weep.

“Happy Birthday.” She said to through broken pieces and shallow breathes. Bringing her hands into her lap, she clutched tightly her apron as she wept, the sound of her sorrow the only that could be heard in the emptiness that was her house.