Oscar was sitting alone on a bench outside a vast department store on Michigan Avenue, pleased to be savoring a moment apart from his mother as she continued some apparently long-overdue shopping. As much as he loved the woman, he was growing a bit weary of her constant questions about his life and his friends, his work and his play. He no longer desired to discuss his art with her; he hated everything he'd been coming up with lately and was embarrassed to claim any credit for it. He was sick of her suggesting possible girlfriends for him, and he desperately wanted to go out and forget his problems, but he couldn't while his mother was staying with him. He was a fiercely dedicated son, and he knew he'd feel empty when his mother left him, but there were barriers between them now that couldn't be crumbled and were better left alone and less visible by putting distance in the middle of him and his mother.

He'd received no calls from anyone during the several days his mother had been with him, which should have been a relief—he was saved the necessity of explaining the conversations to his mother. Nevertheless, rather than feeling grateful about the lack of outside contact, Oscar instead felt utterly dejected. He realized how actually friendless he was, and although this depressed him, he simultaneously found a self-pitying, melancholy solace in the fact; when one was alone, one had only to worry about oneself.

There were too many people out on the streets. Oscar absent-mindedly watched them, wishing he was one of them instead of himself, wondering if they felt as purposeless as he did. Weren't college graduates supposed to feel just the opposite of what he felt at present? Weren't they inclined to be hopeful about life's numerous possibilities? Well, graduation had come and gone, and without classes or a day job to keep him occupied, Oscar felt pretty much doomed. The thing was, he didn't need a job; he'd been making more than enough money to support himself just off of the work Kate Chilton found for him. He knew it was smart to keep up with the commissions. He kept thinking that it would only be a little longer before his name was really known and he could break away from her altogether. That was the best and only thing he could hope for, at present. He liked Kate, for the most part. He was strongly attracted to her, physically, and she was overall pleasant to talk to. Of course, she didn't charm him; she didn't have the power to make him feel as if his chest cavity was full of warm butter. She didn't make him light-headed or anxious—oh she had at first, but that had been because he was afraid of himself. Now that he knew her, though he didn't dislike her company, he kept up their meetings only in the hope that it was somehow benefiting his path toward greatness. He could cut her off at any moment, but he'd be an idiot to do so before he furthered his career. As much as he detested the work he was doing, she'd convinced him of the fact that to be creating ugly things for money was better than creating beautiful things for nothing, and once he didn't have to worry about money, he would create all the real masterpieces he wanted. That day would come. It would have to. He'd given up one of the only things that had ever made him happy for it.

"Oscar?"

He looked up into the bright sunlight to see a trio of women, the one having spoken an attractive black woman. She was familiar to him.

"Yes?"

"I'm Selene. We had a class together this past semester. We just graduated."

He did his best to smile in recognition.

She glanced back at her two friends as if a little embarrassed in front of them. He stood up, feeling it the polite thing to do. "Yes, I remember you."

She appeared relieved. "I—I'm just down here doing some shopping."

Oscar noted her bags. "I can see that."

"So . . . what have you been doing since graduating?"

"Not much, really. Just some commissions here and there."

She laughed nervously. "I always thought your work was amazing," she added.

The conversation felt awkward, and Oscar didn't know why. The girl was clearly anxious but had no need to be; she was very pretty. However, he decided to make a definitive move in the hope that she'd be gone before his mother came out. "I never did get to know you well enough. Why don't I take your number, and perhaps we can get together sometime, you know—talk about our work. We obviously have a common interest in that."

The girl's smile relieved him. There was no doubt in his mind that an exchange of phone numbers was exactly what she had hoped for. At least he could give someone else momentary satisfaction, even if it had been eluding him for some time.

As soon as they'd programmed the other's number into their phones and said goodbye, Oscar sat back down on the bench, but within seconds his mother was practically on top of him.

"Who was that woman?" she gushed, her ebullience nauseating Oscar a tad. "She was so pretty! That's the sort of girl I want for you, darling. So tall, like a model! And not dressed inappropriately like so many of those girls you see around. I mean, it's eighty degrees and she's wearing a pretty sundress. No showing off her butt or letting her boobs hang all over."

"Mother!"

"Oh, don't get fussy. I was just saying she looked nice. How do you know her?"

He resignedly explained their class together, happy that he knew so little, because his mother really couldn't take the subject too far.

"Well, I think you should definitely call her. Looks like she comes from a good family. Now what do you think of these shoes, baby? No, no. Don't look in the bag. I'm wearing them. I've already put them on. I needed some tennis shoes for all this downtown city walking. I'm not used to living the high life like my son is, you know! Now, what do you say we go back to the Contemporary Art place? I could look at your work in there all day."

Oscar rose from the bench and they began walking, he not telling her that he was choosing to head back toward the train that would take them home to his studio.

"The only thing I don't understand, honey, is how ugly the rest of that place is. I just don't think a big, sterile warehouse-looking place could be the best choice for displaying your beautiful pieces. The rest of that museum is full of a bunch of junk. As proud as I am to think my son's got a showing, I just wish it was in the Art Institute instead. I'd still like to give that professor of yours a call and see what she's thinking, putting your works in the middle of all that trash."

Alessandra went on. Oscar hadn't the heart to tell her that he felt his pieces were right where they belonged—as she said, with "a bunch of junk." She was so pleased with him; how could he ever let her know how much he hated those pieces? How ugly they were? How he detested the thought that they had come from someplace inside of him?

He began to tune his mother out, again. He'd been doing that a lot lately and felt guilty for it. In fact, guilt had pretty much been the only emotion he'd known, lately. Guilt for what he'd done to Eve, for what he was doing with Kate, for what he was creating, for what he was not creating, and now for how he was treating his mother, whom he loved dearly. It seemed to Oscar that everything he'd done for the past several weeks was wrong, even if he was attempting to convince himself it was for his own good in the long run. The problem was, he had been fully conscious of every decision he'd made as well as the fact that it was doing him harm; he even knew right then that ignoring his mother and belittling her in his mind was wrong and was going to ultimately make him feel worse about himself. But he couldn't stop it. Stopping it took too much effort. It was far easier to continue telling himself that everything was going to work out for the best and that even if he was in a slump at the moment, he would be out of it and much better off in the end. The easiest things to convince himself of were those he wished would turn out to be true.

Still, that horrible, gnawing feeling of guilt wouldn't leave him be. It sat there like a dark syrup beneath the rest of his conscience, underscoring all his attempts at convincing going on inside his brain, always there to make the continued persuasion necessary.

If only he could get rid of it somehow.

And then, as if in direct answer to his thoughts, Oscar and his mother passed right by an enormous cathedral. He hadn't been to church in years except to satisfy his mother on Christmas and Easter, so his sudden urge to go into this one was puzzling even to him; nevertheless, he couldn't deny the desire to go into it. It would, at any rate, forcibly quiet his mother.

He told her he was going to go inside for a few minutes, just to look around. The woman's surprise and delight were so evident that he felt even worse for a minute. She insisted on going in with him, so the two approached the building's enormous brass doors and went inside.

Purposely, Oscar immediately turned away from his mother. He just wanted to be alone, even if his respite was only moments in length. He'd forgotten the profound silence of such huge, supposedly sacred buildings when they were not in the midst of services. This cathedral astounded him the moment he walked deeper into it; its vaulted ceilings were intricately laced with woodwork that went on, it seemed, for ages, forming squares and triangles, latticing up into the heavens. Oscar supposed that was the purpose—to draw peoples' eyes upward. Pillars arched down the aisle, joining in Gothic-inspired points, sun-pouring glass windows above them. He passed along the far right aisle, avoiding the middle, where his mother had wandered. There was something so purposefully magnificent in the quiet, the magnitude, the colors, the contrast of light and dark. All of it coincided in an ambience unlike anything Oscar had experienced in a long, long time. The knuckles of his right hand went up to his teeth and he bit down, to squelch a surge of near-overwhelming emotion rising up in him from some unknown place.

Shocked at his own childishness, Oscar slid into the pew nearest him and sat down, forcing both hands into his lap, telling himself to swallow whatever emotion he'd just felt. Everything he'd been hating himself for was sitting like a hard lump of stone in his gut; he wanted it out, but he knew getting rid of it wouldn't be accomplished by something as easy as sitting in a church. He'd denied God for years; the man in the clouds wasn't going to help him out now just because.

Still, Oscar felt a greater peace here than he'd felt in weeks. He held his face in his hands, shutting his eyes to the beauty around him, fleetingly thinking he would like to have created a useful art like this cathedral. Before he understood what was happening, he realized tears were dropping softly into his palms.

What did it all mean? No God. There was no God. Oscar knew this, in spite of his mother's attempts to get him to attend church. Why, she herself hadn't believed all of it, just found it a community event where she could gossip with the other divorced church mothers while her son trotted off to Sunday school. It was as if church had just become a habit for his mother, and she wanted to pass on that habit to her son, but he hadn't been enchanted enough with the whole business to carry on the tradition. Perhaps his laxity in going to church made her a bit more afraid that maybe it wasn't all for real.

No, there was no God. And yet, if that was so, what did this all mean? Oscar was undeniably being eaten up with emotion he had never known. Why feel guilt if there was no purpose for it? And why the outpouring, now? Oh, what did it all mean?

More importantly, how could he fix it? What must he do, now?

He wished he was dead. It would be much easier to stop hating himself if he was dead.

He couldn't let his mother see him red-eyed, like this, in such a juvenile state. She'd go off on some nonsense about God or try to help him and ask him what was wrong. He couldn't bear her questions or especially her concern right then.

Rising, he strode quickly into the aisle, again, wandering amongst the shadows between the pillars, wiping at his face like an upset toddler, his cheeks puffed and wet, chiding himself inwardly for behaving so ridiculously. Eventually, his mother would find him, he knew. He'd have to put on his expressionless face again before then. It struck Oscar in those moments of shamefaced feeling that he had absolutely no one to talk to about such a thing. He wouldn't worry his mother; he certainly couldn't talk to any of his friends about what he'd just felt. Even had he had Eve, he wasn't sure he could have explained everything in his heart in those moments. Nobody would ever know or be able to feel what was so paining him. In this most awkward moment—the most human he'd felt in some while—he was utterly alone. Mustn't there be something deeper, something truer in all of it, then? Wasn't there someone capable of comprehending his penitent distress and self-loathing? Here, in this place of cool stone and brilliant colored glass Oscar felt as if anything was possible.

This wouldn't do, he understood in the very roots of his judgment. He couldn't keep doing what he was doing. His problems were not just with his art and his professor—those were merely scabs over sores more painful to own up to. Oscar hated life. It was ugly to him, all of it, and it always had been. This was a flaw in himself, he knew. The discrepancy between the sublime, unadulterated reality he knew in his core and the marred reality his physical senses took in had been a constant affliction to him. So desperately did he want to author works that were a testament to this pure place he knew—hoped—existed! But the ugly things in life—the dirty dishes in the sink, the pathetic pleas of another human being, the disconnect between humans' hearts and capabilities, the broken zipper on a new jacket, the inadequacies and embarrassments of a body, the waiting in lines for bureaucratic follies, the cruelty of a snub, the callousness of the evening news, a paper-cut, a cold, the mechanized workings of electronics—all of it was too much to bear. None of it held purpose save, it seemed, to remind him how deficient everything actually was, how wholly impossible true joy and satisfaction could be. What Oscar knew in his very soul to be true was far different from what he saw and heard and experienced every moment of his life. And he had sought for so long to escape it, first through engendering the loveliness he wished to see, and then by deceiving his mental faculties, and now by manipulating himself into believing he could ever actually reach the heights he strove for.

He never would. In this world, his visions were impossible. This had never been so clear to him as it was now . . . yet, he peculiarly felt more relief than sorrow. A battle impossible to win was no longer worth fighting.

"Are you ready, honey?" came his mother's whisper from behind.

By the time he turned to face her and smile in affirmation, he appeared identical to his self before entering the cathedral. No one would ever know how personal the visit had really been.