The next morning had yielded a quiet, stale breakfast. The food lay uneaten, cooling and congealing in heaps upon diner flatware. The old man spoke occasionally, remarking on the scenery of the campus and the presumption he held that his hard earned dollars were being put to good use. The son sulked and sweated, expending most of his energy to hold back rage and tears.
The old man left that day, patting the son once upon the shoulder—a minor contact but the first in years—before clambering into the wood paneled station wagon for the four hour drive. The son returned to his room.
He sat on the edge of his bed, motionless. Memories ran before his eyes, finding their way out of the lines in the weave of the carpet. Her face. The eyes, smiling and wise as they teased him. Her head thrown back, laughing at his childish innocence. No more.
He knew there could be no more.
This was the knowledge that devastated him. He hadn’t loved his mother, at least not in the conditional sense. He had relied on her. Taken her for granted. She had been an ever-ready presence in his life. She was there to defend him against all attackers, to protect him and coddle him and ultimately worship him. She had seen greatness in him, and he had borrowed that sight. Now he could see nothing for himself.
In retrospect, it was likely unhealthy. It was too much to bear, too close. Her love and adoration had been like a light shone directly into his eyes, causing twinges of pain in the corners of his skull and the sweat to bead upon his forehead.
She had pressured him.
Since arriving at college, he had had numerous women, each aligned with his particular political views of the day. The publicly uptight but privately filthy when he wore his blazer, Oxford blue shirt and khakis; the loose and tie-dyed unshaven when he wore torn pants and sunglasses in the evening. They had all served the same purpose. To support him. To allow him someone to feed off of in lieu of his own identity. To comment on his brilliance and give him light in which to flourish.
He had no sense of self. None. And in the stark, cold light of the morning, he felt it in his bones. He was just that. Bones and blood and skin, wandering through life, trying on new sets of ideals as someone switches fashions. He wondered if he could ever embrace it, the nothingness within.
Fill it with something useful, perhaps.
He wasn’t sure. He stared long and hard at the corner of his roommate’s bed, across the room from his own where he now perched. The roommate, asleep and oblivious, with a pending headache from the alcohol in his veins, stirred. He sat up, turned to his cohabitant, now perched on the icy precipice of adulthood, and asked, “What’re you doing?”
“My mother. She’s dead.”
“Oh jesus. Shit. I’m… Sorry.” The words were stilted. Genuine shock mixed with a complete ignorance of how to handle such news.
“I think it’s okay.”
“Is there’s anything I can do?”
At that the boy chuckled, a harsh sound mixed with the throatiness of a sob. “No. You’re fine. Go back to sleep. I need to get out.”
“Well just let me know,” the roommate replied, already rolling over to sleep off a heavy night’s partying.
“I will.”
With that, the boy stood, standing on legs that quivered lightly beneath him. He felt as though he was floating, and before he knew it, he was out, bare toes spread amongst the stiff grass of a September afternoon. Staring up at the trees and brick corners of buildings. The sun showered his face with its light, as though smiling down warm kisses upon him.
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