Doyou Have Any of That Chili Left, Shesavs Calmly, Almost As Soon As She's Throughthe

Bowl of Chili

"Doyou have any of that chili left," shesavs calmly, almost as soon as she's throughthe door. Then louder, almost shouting, "DO YOU HAVE ANY OF THAT CHILI LEFT?" The check-out person responds, "Yes,"addressing the woman by a name K didn't catch, "would you like a large or small?'

K didn't expect to see her enter the bagel place. His first time in this Kentucky townand he finds himself drawn from the Christmas street details to the blind woman.

He focuses on her coat –a blue, down coat, hopelessly out of style, somewhat dirty, yet somehow neat. He can tell she has no intention of removing it. The waiter bringstwo nips: soup .md water. "The chili's on your right. ma’am," he says and walks back behind the counter. She smiles and nods in his direction. It's clear to K that this womaneats here often.

The woman eats eliberately, artfully, spilling some chili on her coat, some water on the table. K thinks the only thing he can think: what courage.

“Do you have access to a gun?”

In his, K’s first visit, the questioning clinician had immediately shocked him, sobered him. Earlier, he had checked the box on the questionnaire acknowledging that he had thought of suicide “occasionally,” but he hadn’t realized until now just how deeply the yawning darkness had engulfed him. His simple, forceful answer, “no, sir” belied a troubled narrative, an inner history of terrifying images. If I kill myself in the neighborhood park, he had thought a week prior, my wife will never again be able to return there. And, in the days that followed, the most disturbing thought echoed through his consciousness: how will it feel, the hot bullet zipping through my brain?

Depression, for lack of a better word, had crept up on him like smoke. Any attempt to identify a reason” for his shaken mental state, some discrete “cause,” baffled him. Though, as his conversation with the psychologist continued, a bizarre montage of his adult life unfolded.

“I remember sitting on the beach, two weeks after my high school graduation, feeling horribly alone, though I was surrounded by my family and two best friends,” K recalled. “As I wept, I said to myself, over and over again, ‘I want my life back, I want my life back, I want my life back…’ No on ether even realized I was crying. And, again, after my college graduation, the loneliness and regret returned even more intensely. I remember thinking, ‘It’s over, and I have never, not once, been to the British Art Museum.’”

“Say more about that,” the clinician replied.

"Well, my parents sacrificed so much—more than you can imagine—tosend me tocollege. I spent many evenings my first year running to the library to look up thingsthat my classmates discussed at dinner. By my third and fourth years, I was exhausted,not by the work, but by constantly playing catch-up, and I let up a bit, maybe too much;that damn museum became an emblem of my falling short, ofmy failure to push myselfharder and farther intellectually and emotionally. And my parents gave so much. AfterI moved south, to wipe the slate clean, I still felt I had failed in life, that I had simply letlife wash over me."

"K,what keeps you from giving up, from ending your life?"

"Truthfully...the aftermath.Images of my dog waiting by the door for me, as hedoes every day, for a buddy that will never again arrive home. Images of my wifeblaming herself for my letting go, her life changed forever. My parents and brotherslooking at the casket, emotionally and spiritually bereft. I always worry that if I giveup, if I give in, a piece of each of them will die and crumble away...I can't bear to dothat, even when the pain is great."

In the psychologist's office, he asked himself time and again,Doesn't my presence heresignalmywillingness to live on, to seek help, to not give up? His wife had made the appointmentfor him—a wholly courageous and generous act—but he had kept it. Though hepictured himself a husk, a not-me helplessly adrift, flickers of hope had begun to appear.Walking with his wife and dog earlier that day, he observed a purple chrysanthemumamong the landscaping in their neighborhood.

"Look, honey, someone planted a mum here," he had said to his wife.

"Yes, K, two months ago." Her eyes watered, she smiled, and she bent and whisperedsomething to the dog.

The woman eats her chili, still; the manager empties trash cans. "When do you close?"the woman says in the manager's direction. "At four o'clock, but take your time,ma'am...." Something tells K it's time to leave.

As he exits, he spots her cane by the door. He turns one last time, catches a flash at the blue jacket, and thinks, finally, ifonly I shoutloudly enough, someone will always hear.