Respecting Your Tragic End

Kelly had a favorite mantra: "Release the savior complex, and honor the path of others." It was a line she practiced most religiously on me. That day, I’d just stepped through the door after a grueling graveyard shift when my neighbor began pounding on the door like a maniac. She screamed that my son, Toby, had been dangling from the balcony railing for nearly an hour. He’d cried himself hoarse, she said, and she’d been banging on the door for twenty minutes with no answer. I lunged into the living room and saw my world ending. Toby was hanging over the edge, his small fingers white-knuckled on the iron bars, his face a terrifying shade of purple. He couldn’t even scream anymore; he was just gasping, a silent, rhythmic wheeze of pure terror. And Kelly? She was stretched out on a lounge chair on the balcony, soaking up the sun with her eyes closed.