Death and Other Endings by Diana L. Gustafson

Again this morning, Hannah wakes up dead. She might have been surprised if she had the courage to feel anything, just as it’s been every day for the last thirteen months and twenty-six days. The claustrophobic cell is awash in blues and grimy greys. A persistent institutional hum intensifies her dense fugue. 
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Her first thought: Where is my boy? Her brain crackles with tangled memories.
Gone. Her son is gone. Metal clanging on metal punctuates the horrific reminder. Hannah cannot breathe. 

A gruff voice over the loudspeaker bellows the start of another endless day. Hannah struggles to rise against the monstrous weight that pins her rigid body to the unforgiving mattress. 

***

It happened so abruptly, although not unexpectedly if anyone had been paying attention. If anyone cared enough to notice or offer Hannah help. 

For three years, she and Jackson tried to conceive. Every bloody month was a reminder that Hannah wasn’t fit to add her genetic code to the Munroe family’s lineage. She desperately wanted to be pregnant and prove to Jackson’s mother that they could make their unlikely coupling work. Two weeks before their first appointment at the swanky fertility clinic, Hannah’s pale yellow pee produced a blue plus sign on the white plastic stick. She and Jackson spooned all night, his gentle hand on her soft belly. 

Seldom had Hannah felt healthier or more optimistic. Jackson’s mother created a short list of baby names: Mason, Marshall, Maxwell, certain Hannah was carrying another Munroe son. After nineteen hours of focused labor, Mackenzie slipped into the world weighing seven pounds, ten ounces. He was perfect. 

Perfection lasted two weeks, until Jackson vanished into the world outside their home. His thirst for fatherhood satiated, his long days left him too tired to wake for midnight feedings. 

Then the crying started. Not Mackenzie. Hannah. She cried every day. Exhausted, she couldn’t sleep. Food tasted like cardboard that she pushed down her throat because a good mother breastfeeds. Her milk dried up. Headaches corrupted her thinking. Her body ached. She shrank until only her shadow remained. 

Before her body atomized like dust in the wind, Hannah settled on the long, blue sofa with Mackenzie’s tiny, warm body nestled against her chest. She kissed his downy head and closed her eyes. He never cried. 

***

Since that awful day, Hannah remained as silent as the grave. Unable to answer the unanswerable questions hurled at her by Jackson, his mother, the police, her lawyer, her shrink. How did it happen? Why did it happen? How does she have the gall to go on living?

Hannah rolled her leaden body onto her left side. As slow-moving as a week of rain and tears, she pushed herself into a sitting position. Her bare feet recoiled from the cold cement floor, and she sucked in a sharp, deep breath. 

In that moment, a single word escaped her brain, slipped across her lips, and ruptured her months-long silence. 

“Mackenzie.” 

The sound of his name shocked Hannah’s heart, transmitting a whisper of life to her dead limbs. She looked out the barred window of her cell as if for the first time. Light scattered the mist in the gray morning sky. She crossed her arms and embraced the memory of her precious son. The monstrous weight of grief shifted and resettled on her chest.

Her grief will always be with her. Now she must learn to sit with it. Express it. Learn from it. 

​​© 2025 Diana L. Gustafson

About the author:

Diana L. Gustafson is a Canadian academic and emerging creative author with an MFA from The University of British Columbia. She received an honourable mention in an Off Topic Publishing fiction contest and has a modest record of published fiction and creative non-fiction. She has an embarrassingly large collection of eccentric corrective lenses, but none are rose-coloured, a testament to her commitment to social justice issues.