There’s an empty hole inside me that’s been vacant for a long, long time. And what do we do when there’s a blank space? We try to fill it.

For me, it was with weed. Then prescription sedatives. After that, it was home parties held by women who were not my friends but invited me anyway, hoping their parties would have enough sales for them to earn the bonus hostess item. Cookware, prepackaged spice mixes, diet powders, stretchy clothes in ugly patterns. When those women stopped inviting me, I switched to thrift stores and estate sales. I consoled myself by saying it’s all so cheap, but every month the bills came in, and I promised myself I’d stop buying. I told myself I’d actually flip the stuff I bought because I thought I could resell it online. I bought things I didn’t need and couldn’t afford but also could not give up, so now here I am, pinching pennies until they scream and lying to my husband every month about where the money goes. I live in a house that should be worth half a million dollars, if it wasn’t starting to fall apart all around me, and if I hadn’t taken out a loan to make the payments on a storage unit stuffed to overflowing with things I cannot bring myself to get rid of. This is not the life I’d envisioned for myself. This is a life still trying, always trying, to fill up an empty hole.

Ken, on the other hand, was a pampered son, an only child of two only children. Adored by his parents. Family dinners every night, home cooked by Mom. A game of catch in the backyard with Dad afterward. Then a cuddle-up on the couch with some popcorn for a movie. The way he talks about growing up and the expectations he’s always had for our family seem like something straight out of a dream. An ideal. Idyllic. At least until both parents died in a house fire when he was eighteen.

The thought of what my son would do if Ken and I both died right now sends a shudder all through me. The kid can barely feed himself a balanced meal, much less do his own laundry, pay a bill, find a job. He doesn’t even have his driver’s license, something I’d champed at the bit to get when I was his age, but he simply seems happy to think about “later.”

This is my fault, of course. I’m the one who coddles him. I was the epitome of the Participation Trophy Mom. Gold stars for everything. Gold stars because of my guilt.

I knock on Eli’s door. No answer. I knock again. “Eli?”

His door opens. He scowls, hair rumpled, oversized hoodie hanging nearly to his knees. “Mom, what?”

“I’m making pancakes. Do you want some?”

My son furrows his brow. His lips purse with thought. Pancakes are one of my specialties. I haven’t made them in ages. They used to be a regular Sunday morning treat to sweeten the chore of attending Hebrew school, but since he became bar mitzvah three years ago, Eli’s been more prone to sleeping in until lunchtime, and the pancake making has gone by the wayside.