I Can Barely Take Care of Myself by Jen Kirkman Read Free Book Online Page B

didn’t have the heart to just turn the light out and ignore him. I wouldn’t have to wait until I had my own kids. This was my moment to make an impact on the youth of America by doing the exact opposite thing that my parents did. I would not tell him that there is a God waiting to take him in his sleep.
    While I racked my brain for the bestway to answer his question without really answering his question, Eli, in the manner of children everywhere with too much time on their hands, came up with more questions. Such as, “When am I gonna die?”
    I knew I had to protect him and let him remain a kid. Kids need myths, like the tooth fairy, and when they’re older they can handle the truth: that your parents flush your teeth down the toiletlike they’re getting rid of forensic evidence and leave you only twenty-five cents, not accounting for the inflation that’s occurred since they were kids. You’ll have to borrow a dollar from them later anyway in order to afford a Charleston Chew candy bar and they’ll guilt you and say, “That will pull your teeth out.” By the time Eli knew the truth about anything I’d be in college and wouldn’thave to worry about helping him process it. For tonight, in order to protect him and get myself out of his room and on to the bag of Oreos waiting for me in the Reinhardts’ kitchen, I would lie my ass off.
    “Oh, Eli,” I said. “You will live to be two hundred years old before you die and that is a very, very long time from now.”
    I was proud of myself until Eli said, “So, I am going to die?”
    I said, “No. No. I mean, if you die, you will die at two hundred, but . . . not everybody dies.”
    Eli said, “So, some people die and some don’t?”
    Um. Yes.
    Eli said, “Why did God make my grandpa die?”
    Um . . .
    Eli asked, “Can I die before I turn two hundred if I’m murdered in my bed?”
    I’m glad that I didn’t think to raid the Reinhardts’ medicine cabinet to see whether the missus had any “mother’slittle helper,” because I seriously would have considered crushing some into the orange juice on Eli’s nightstand to help him take his mind off bed-murder.
    Fuuuck. How did this kid know about murder? He’s right. Murder is scary. And it’s real, even in seemingly safe havens like Needham, Massachusetts. Some guy in our town had chopped his wife into tiny pieces in their bathtub just streets awayfrom where little Eli Reinhardt lived. I was terrified of murder myself and to be honest I didn’t like the idea of the Reinhardts’ glass sliding doors in their living room. Sure, they had locks, but I could just picture the murderer tossing his ax through the thin glass, shattering it, and then walking purposefully toward me with a bloodthirsty gleam in his eye. “But I don’t even really live here!”I’d scream. As if that would be a good reason why he shouldn’t introduce me to the pointy end of his ax.
    I still had a chance to be a good substitute parent. I told Eli that there was no such thing as murder. I told him it was just a thing he saw on TV but not actually something that was physically possible. People couldn’t kill other people, so he had nothing to worry about.
    As a special treat,I decided to lie on the floor next to Eli’s bed. I told him that I’d lie there until he fell asleep so that if he had any more scary thoughts, I’d be right there. Once Eli was asleep and dreaming of a vengeful God, I snuck out, whipped the blinds shut in the living room, and stuffed my face with Oreos.
    I had no idea that kids under the age of five had the capacity to remember things from weekto week. I thought Eli would have forgotten all about murder and dying at age two hundred by the time I saw him seven days later. Nope. Eli wanted me to sleep on his flooragain, and as I lay there he worried out loud that his parents would get murdered. He asked, “If my parents were murdered, would you live here and take care of me?”
    How did I go from