Mortimer

Fiction, a parable

But Mortimer knew he had to do it. He had hemmed and hawed a long time. I had witnessed it. You could see it on his face or when he would walk back and forth in the kitchen like a panther in a cage.

Eventually his face began to resemble the wooden Buddha head on his window, the space his gaze moved toward every morning when he practiced for the big event.

Every day, he spent a little longer in there, becoming more depleted and insecure. It was like his prison. Willingly, he was becoming a destabilized recluse. I used to place slices of ham and cheese with bread on a plate and gently knock to say it was waiting outside the door. A grumbling thank you came through the door, but it never opened until I was far clear of the room.

I didn’t want to spy on him though I was worried. He did still leave the house daily and on these occasions, I used to enter the room to have a look around. But, nothing. Or nothing I could see anyway.

When Mortimer told me he wanted to take a year off after college and asked if he could live at home again, just for the year, of course I said yes. I imagined we would have a lot of good times together like when he was little and I was on maternity leave. Now retired and widowed, I could devote any time to him. I thought we could take day trips or walk in the local park. I knew he would want to see friends as well or do things on his own, as would I, but the prospect of all this time together was a dream.

It hasn’t been like that. He’s been here three months and I barely see him though he’s almost always at home.

Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash

Another month later, he was changing. Something a little crazed, even sinister, had creeped into that regard he carried around with him in between long sessions in the room. I hoped it was the storm before the calm, the superlative point on a trajectory of his life.

You can’t control your children but you can see them. Or at least you think you can.

I was getting close to calling a doctor, or the police…someone. Because I didn’t know this young man anymore. You see all these things about young people online and what happens to them. Then I remembered that he purposefully left the wifi router far from that room and I knew from experience that this meant it was a dead zone. His phone was always left in his bedroom or the kitchen, charging, and on sleep mode so that nothing could come through, not even a distant vibration would disturb whatever was silently occurring in that room.

⬩

We named him Mortimer after a trip to Normandy while I was a few months pregnant. Those beautiful abbey ruins of the village Mortemer entranced our souls and we wanted our son to have this nostalgic energy, to create a persona from a mystical title as if he were a poem. His father was a poet at heart even though he spent his days trading at the bank. He died before publishing anything and we - Mortimer and I - always felt like there were many pieces of him that had remained closed to us. Maybe if he had just made it to retirement, he would have created the time and space for this way of seeing.

My son’s name also means dead water or still water, thought to refer to a pond. Some days I think that kind of stillness is something to be desired and other times I worry we doomed him to a life of closing himself off from change, of silently drowning in the watery abyss.

His absence as he dwelled in that room was palpable. I felt it much more than when he was away at school. It was as if he has closed the poetry off from me, a punishment for his stagnant name or our lack of dynamic upbringing or the absence of his father. Was it? Had I done enough for him? Do I now? We never stop parenting; even in death we hold auras over our children that impact their realities.

All day long, every day, I worried until I could witness him emerge. His passing presence was not enough but it was a relief all the same. We would exchange brief words and I would reach out for his hand.

My courage was dwindling, though, and I was afraid even to call for help, afraid of pushing him away further. As the days went on and on, another month, two, I felt myself sinking into a deep hole, clinging to a tiny rope of optimism that frayed more and more in his absence. I drank varieties of herbal teas as I moved between nooks in the small house for hours, passing the time with reading or puzzles, then took tiny sips of calvados in the evening, allowing the accumulated effect to subdue me, watching television with the volume turned low, listening for his return if he were still out or awakening if he had plodded to bed.

⬩

Then one day, he emerged from the room at a strange time of morning, a time I could usually immerse myself with something in the house, knowing he would not stir.

‘I’ve finished!’

At first, I thought he was joking, stooping to a new low I didn’t know existed in that human who had grown inside me: mocking my very care and concern. He emerged during mid-morning sunlight, leaving the door ajar and unguarded, as if he were a spiritual entity visiting my secret hell.

My jaw tightened, as it had throughout the many days during this period, and a silent scream moved in threads through my spine, fraying the last of my rope, and eventually emerging through spread fingers I hid behind a cushion. The look on my face must have been bewildered, perplexed, but also feigning happiness, wanting to mirror his visage to make him feel validated. To save him.

‘I know, it’s great, isn’t I? I feel so much better.’ He laughed mildly as if I were in on the joke, ‘Sorry Mum, but I’ve got to get some fresh air. This is brilliant! I’ll tell you all about it a bit later, ok?’

A promise. But one I dared not hold onto, conditioned for disappointment. I resisted the temptation to enter the room with the assurance of the flower’s slow opening, whatever it could be.

I could not keep myself from dozing, though, and some kind of release, even an awkward and restless one, allowed me to sleep straight through the night after lunch. At dawn, I awoke as usual and peaked into his room to find him there, peacefully resting, unaware of my omnipresence.

⬩

It was nearly noon by the time he woke up that day, and I was perched where I normally was in those days, hoping and anxiously anticipating. His steps moved quickly down the stairs with a lightness I hadn’t heard for years.

A few steps from my kitchen stool, he faced me: ‘It had to be written,’ he said as he pivoted toward the baguette waiting on the counter and ripped off a large morsel, adorning it with thick butter as if it were cheese.

I wanted to understand but was afraid of pushing him away again. My desperation told me to ask: ‘What’s that, Mortimer?’

‘A book, a long prose poem. About…I’m not sure, it’s too hard to explain in words, paradoxically.’

I let a beat or two create space for his accomplishment, then hesitantly persisted: ‘Was it worth it?’

‘Yes! Of course,’ he looked at me side eyed, playfully, ‘It was all the ideas that have been brewing for these years at school, away from home, dissonance…grief…freedom…and I’ve written it now. It is alive as a separate being from me.’

He wanted my approval or pride, or perhaps just a common joy. I hugged him. I showed him these feelings all mixed together on my face. A replacement of words seemed petty and small. ‘Will it be published?’ I asked after a few moments like this.

‘Maybe, yes, I mean I’ll probably send it to a few agents then self publish if that doesn’t work, I guess.’ He looked out the window then back at me, ‘Oh, Mum, it doesn’t really matter, does it? It won’t make money. The point is just to create, to do. Because when I write is when I see clearest, when I think. It helps me to see the world around. Chaos to order - not that I’m obsessed with order, but it’s like figuring out a little puzzle of the universe, in metonymy.’

This time my pause was not theatrical for effect, but involuntarily purposeful for understanding: ‘Ok, yes, I get it. I will happily read it.’ I couldn’t resist though; there was also pain in my bones underneath that relief: ‘But you haven’t really been living much these past few months…sorry but it’s true…and I miss you…I miss you living your life…’

‘I get you, Mum. Sorry about that, really.’ He kissed my forehead and hugged me. ‘You know, it’s something I had to do. It’s made me feel really satisfied, happy even, yes. And now I can take a break from it, maybe return in shorter chunks, I don’t know yet. Where do you want to go? Let’s drive somewhere in the car and just have a long chat about nothing like we used to. Let’s look at the shapes of the trees and stuff ourselves with seafood by the shore. We can go to that place Dad always took us to.’

‘I’d love that. I’ll drive, get your coat.’