than a couple of hours, maybe, but it was still such a weird thing for me to see that people worked all day. I mean, I knew Dad worked, but I'd never seen work, so I didn't understand it. I also learned what real disabled people looked like. Old ladies who could barely stand up straight. The homeless vets who pushed themselves in broken wheelchairs. People who were honest to God sick and had no way of getting medicine except for the free clinic. And there's Mom, with all her mysterious ailments that she made up to get of doing any real work. Jesus Christ."
“I see,” the doctor said, making some notes. "And what of your relationship with your cousins at this time?"
"Ben and Margaret were great. Really great. I see now I had almost no social skills. How could I? Mom was a homebody that never got out so I didn't get out. I didn't even play outside so I didn't know the neighborhood kids. My cousins talked about school and all the things they did and learn and they told me about sports. Sports. What an alien concept that was," he said, and laughed bitterly. "Ben showed me how to play basketball and Margaret showed me how to play catch. And I sucked. God I sucked. Margaret would kill me for saying this, but I totally threw like a girl. Ben could run circles around me on the court, and it was just their driveway for God's sake. I was a total wimp. Of course I was, you know? I never went outside or did anything. They thought I was lucky because I didn't have to go to school. I told them I thought they were lucky because they did, and told them what I did all day. They thought it was great I could just read all day, but when they realized I never played games or went on field trips, I think they liked school a lot better."
"How long did you stay with your aunt and uncle?" the doctor asked.
"Just a couple of weeks. And that's where I started to learn pity. When Ben and Margaret told Uncle Chris and Aunt Amy that I didn't get to play sports or go on field trips, they sort of shook their heads. When I told them I was learning to cook to help out Dad, I got that same look. When I asked Aunt Amy once why her house didn't smell, I thought she was angry at me at first, then I realized she was angry at my parents. She did her best to explain why it was bad to leave food and dirty dishes out for days.”
"Do you know if your aunt and uncle ever spoke to your parents?"
"I'm sure they did, but it didn't do any good. It was easier for Dad to just try to do everything himself than fight with Mom long enough to make her do it. I think that's why he had the heart attacks. Lots of stress at work and no relief at home. He was trying to a 'superdad' thing and it just wasn't happening."
"After the heart attack, was your mother more helpful?"
The young man switched positions again and took several puffs before answering. "Yeah, for a little while. Maybe like a month. Then she started to go back to her old lazy-ass habits and got all sick again. I took up the slack because I wanted to help Dad. Someone had to, and I'd pretty much figured Mom was useless. A couple of years later, Dad threatened to leave. Really serious. I guess he thought it was the only thing that might get Mom to get off her ass and do something. Christ. At first he didn't mind me helping out around the house. He thought it was good for me. But when he realized I was doing everything, cooking, dishes, laundry, vacuuming, taking out the trash, putting all Mom's junk away, he got mad. I wasn't a maid, he told her one night in a loud voice. She begged, she screamed, she cried, he yelled. I listened but I don't remember crying. I remember wishing Dad would leave her. I wanted to live with Aunt Amy and Uncle Chris. How sad is that?"
"Did your mother's behavior change?"
"Hell no." He tapped down the ashes. "She started to have mysterious joint aches and couldn't walk and basically guilted him into staying with her. He let her get away with it again. Actually, though, when I was thirteen, it turned out she'd gotten type II diabetes. Yeah, there was a real shocker. She didn't move off her ass and spent the day eating junk food, even though Dad wasn't allowed to have it. But she milked the hell out of that. Now I had to do all the cooking and Dad put me on snack patrol. Can you believe it? A thirteen year old kid being told to make sure his mother didn't eat too much candy?" he said with disgust. "I was allowed to join Mom's chat groups and forums. And it totally pissed me off. She sounded like a completely different woman, talking about her responsibility to her husband and her children and how family was so damn important. She said Jesus talked to her all the time. All the damn time. And Jesus never told her to put down the damn candy bars and get off her fat ass and do something useful. Whatever."
The doctor made a few more notes. "Your mother was very religious. Was your father?"
"Dad was kind of religious, I guess. I don't know. He never really had time. Mom was totally into her new-agey crap. I don't think she ever even read the Bible. I did when I was fourteen, and those people she talked to were crazy. They just made up crap and called it Christianity."
"Did she evangelize to you?"
"She tried, but I didn't buy her crap. She talked the talk, but didn't walk the walk. Hell, she didn't walk at all if she could avoid it. And she never seemed to catch on that I didn't believe a word of what she was saying. She'd just tell me her crap, and I wouldn't pay a damn bit of attention, and then she'd tell all her online friends what a wonderful student I was. I mean, what the hell?" he snapped, taking another drag.
"Speaking being a student, when you were fourteen, weren't you sent to public school?"
"Oh yeah. That," he said with venom. He tapped his cigarette ashes so forcefully they scattered around the ashtray. "So much for Mom's homeschooling. When the state test came, I failed it. Spectacularly. I was sent to public high school and put in remedial classes. So not only was I labeled as stupid, I was also that 'weird home-schooled kid.'" He blew out a long puff. "Good times. Good times."
"If you would prefer not to cover old ground, we don't have to."
"Thanks, Doc. God, high school was hell. I sometimes think getting hit by a truck would have been less painful. It totally sucked ass. My teachers didn't put up with excuses. They just failed me. And you know what Mom did? Whined to all her friends about how hard it was raising a child with such 'special needs.' She told them all how smart I was, but said that the school just didn't understand me and how she just couldn't make these evil public school teachers understand. Which you know, made her decision to home-school me the right one and all that crap. She made it all about her. Again. God, my mother may be the most selfish woman on the planet. And Dad loved her."
"Do you feel resentful towards your father because of that?"
He snubbed out his cigarette thoughtfully. "Kind of. I mean, I've met girls that really turned my head. But I can't imagine just taking that kind of crap day after day after day and thinking it's fine, it's normal, it's all worth it. Jesus Christ, Dad should have had some dignity. Some spine. Mom walked all over him and he totally let her. Sometimes I got mad at Mom when she couldn't be bothered to do a damn thing. You know Dad went so far once to tell me to go easy on Mom because she was disabled? Disabled,” he snapped. “I told Dad, 'she's not disabled, she's lazy!' He grounded me, but he never brought that up again anyway. Sometimes I think he didn't work hard just to provide for us, but worked so hard so he wouldn't have to come home and face another day of his wife sitting on her ass while his son played maid. Dad worked himself to death for that woman. When I was sixteen, he had his second heart attack. At work. So we didn't know about it until we got a phone call from the doctors. Mom freaked out again. Goddamn useless. I called Uncle Chris and I drove her to the hospital. I'm totally freaked out too, but I'm expected to be adult. Again." He lit another cigarette with a shaking hand. "Dad didn't make it."
The older man waited patiently until the young man was ready to continue.
He pulled himself together. “I guess-I guess it's hard to be mad at Dad now that he's gone. I know he enabled Mom to be the way she was. He could have left her and tried to take care of me on his own.
God knows being a single parent couldn't have been that different from how his life already was. She made excuses, and he made excuses for her. If he wanted things to change, he should have changed them. He took the path of least resistance, every single time. I know Mom's not responsible for Dad's death. I know Dad's behavior allowed Mom to be so selfish. I know that, intellectually, right? But he's gone and Mom's still here, still pulling the same old crap she always did.”
“Do you think your mother loved your father?”
“You know, I don't know. I'm not going to act like I'm an expert on emotions. That's your thing, right?”
The doctor smiled gently.
“But I thought love was caring about someone more than yourself. There's no one more important to Mom than Mom. Not Dad, and not me. When Mom was happy, it didn't matter if no one else was happy. But if Mom was unhappy, then by God Dad had better do whatever it took to make her happy again. Still, I'm sure Mom really was hurt by Dad's death. I'm sure of it. But like anything bad that ever happened to her, it became just another excuse. She couldn't get a job. She had no skills, wouldn't drive, and turned into a blubbering, hysterical idiot anytime anyone brought up