Second Half of the Truth
Today’s discovery notwithstanding, it had seemed like a splendid idea: spend a month with her son in Long Beach, California, while icicles weighted down her adobe in Huntington, on Long Island. Statistically, in the third week of January temperatures dipped into the lowest of the year. She couldn’t have picked a better week to be in warm Southern California.
But with what she found that morning while putting away her twenty-three year old son’s laundry in his closet, only four days into her stay, maybe this visit wasn’t exactly a blessing.
When Simon returned from the construction gig in Ventura, she managed to keep quiet about it for a whopping three minutes. Looking at her through the reflection in the window over the kitchen sink, as he finished rinsing a glass, Simon asked what was wrong.
“I found your collection,” she replied head down, noticing bread crumbs on the light-gray kitchen tile, and doing nothing about it. Eye contact while discussing such dirty matter discomforted her.
Just as Simon was putting the glass away onto the drainer, he pulled both elbows close to his torso, turned the tap on again, and re-rinsed the glass. In the brief silence that ensued, only the refrigerator and the water running could be heard.
“And today I signed off on a shipment from FedEx… From a company called—” But she couldn’t bring her lips to speak such name. She squeezed her left fingers with the right hand, then switched, as if occuping the fingers would keep her anxiety down, make her happy.
Now facing her, Simon blew air off, rolled his eyes. He rested the glass down on the drainer, in a calculated descend, almost as if stating that everything felt comfortable with this exchange. “We’ve been through this—”
“I’m not talking about the, you know... your sexual preference, or whatever you call it,” she replied with resignation. Though it shocked her when Simon told her he was gay three years before, she eventually came to accept it was better for him to live in honesty. No, it wasn’t the gayness, but the risk of the deadly infection that troubled her the most.
Yet, she never mustered the courage to confront him on the issue, and that troubled her. How could a mother sit back quietly while her son might spiral into disease? Now, she figured, her son’s addiction could toss him into risky sex.
“Five hundred?” She asked and declared, in one stroke.
“You counted?”
“Oh for chrisesake Simon, I wouldn’t touch them.” To her the VHS tapes and DVDs were already diseased. She raised her voice. “What do you do with so many dirty movies?”
Simon’s matter-of-fact response might have amused her if the matter hadn’t been about her own son, “Same as the next guy. Watch them!”
There was half a truth in that response, and she wasn’t going to pursue the other half. “It’s a hobby”, he continued unwittingly, “everyone should have a hobby.”
"Spectator hobby? Find a hobby to make you happy, something to keep your hands busy,” she said, herself immediately regretting the choice of words.
Indeed, that second half of the truth was now in the open. Perhaps she begun to accept it. While fiddling more with her fingers, a cultural voice at the back of her head reminded her: Busy hands are happy hands.
But with what she found that morning while putting away her twenty-three year old son’s laundry in his closet, only four days into her stay, maybe this visit wasn’t exactly a blessing.
When Simon returned from the construction gig in Ventura, she managed to keep quiet about it for a whopping three minutes. Looking at her through the reflection in the window over the kitchen sink, as he finished rinsing a glass, Simon asked what was wrong.
“I found your collection,” she replied head down, noticing bread crumbs on the light-gray kitchen tile, and doing nothing about it. Eye contact while discussing such dirty matter discomforted her.
Just as Simon was putting the glass away onto the drainer, he pulled both elbows close to his torso, turned the tap on again, and re-rinsed the glass. In the brief silence that ensued, only the refrigerator and the water running could be heard.
“And today I signed off on a shipment from FedEx… From a company called—” But she couldn’t bring her lips to speak such name. She squeezed her left fingers with the right hand, then switched, as if occuping the fingers would keep her anxiety down, make her happy.
Now facing her, Simon blew air off, rolled his eyes. He rested the glass down on the drainer, in a calculated descend, almost as if stating that everything felt comfortable with this exchange. “We’ve been through this—”
“I’m not talking about the, you know... your sexual preference, or whatever you call it,” she replied with resignation. Though it shocked her when Simon told her he was gay three years before, she eventually came to accept it was better for him to live in honesty. No, it wasn’t the gayness, but the risk of the deadly infection that troubled her the most.
Yet, she never mustered the courage to confront him on the issue, and that troubled her. How could a mother sit back quietly while her son might spiral into disease? Now, she figured, her son’s addiction could toss him into risky sex.
“Five hundred?” She asked and declared, in one stroke.
“You counted?”
“Oh for chrisesake Simon, I wouldn’t touch them.” To her the VHS tapes and DVDs were already diseased. She raised her voice. “What do you do with so many dirty movies?”
Simon’s matter-of-fact response might have amused her if the matter hadn’t been about her own son, “Same as the next guy. Watch them!”
There was half a truth in that response, and she wasn’t going to pursue the other half. “It’s a hobby”, he continued unwittingly, “everyone should have a hobby.”
"Spectator hobby? Find a hobby to make you happy, something to keep your hands busy,” she said, herself immediately regretting the choice of words.
Indeed, that second half of the truth was now in the open. Perhaps she begun to accept it. While fiddling more with her fingers, a cultural voice at the back of her head reminded her: Busy hands are happy hands.
posted by Astrapo | 10:00 AM
5 Comments:
This story grew out of a funny conversation some friends and I had during a car trip. I changed names and situations and kept the humor in the original conversation.
If you have comments on the ending, that would be great, because I struggled to come up with an ending that had some sort of emotional "change" for the main character (the mother).
For prose, I was wondering if the last paragraph might better have skipped the first two sentences, and instead read "While fiddling more with her fingers, a cultural voice at the back of her head reminded her: Busy hands are happy hands."
"cultural voice" is an interesting, but unused term. Not sure if people would give it the thought it deserves if it's just packed in the middle of a sentence.
Liked the concepts in the story. Where on Earth did you get the idea?
forgot to sign my name.
Shane
I think the story lacks weight. I don't think it's your writing. It's just that the stakes seem low in the situation. Even in something this short, you can build a story arc and increase the stakes for at least one character. Here, it seems like we just glimpse a conversation that really has no effect on either of the characters' subsequent lives.
And, by the way, it's "began". The verb is conjugated as follows:
begin,
began,
begun
I am not a fiction book reader so I do not know what my comments are worth.
Even though I REALLY enjoyed all your previous stories, (I would buy YOUR fiction book) there was something about this one that didn't click. It doesn't flow naturally. Something not right but I have no idea what.
Bye
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