I am, indeed.
[A background piece on how Arthur came to be so fond of control. Includes OFC death, and description of cancer. Otherwise PG.]
He’s just turned eleven when his mother begins dying. It’s autumn in upstate New York and the air is so hot and thick it could choke, and he comes in from playing outside to see his mother pale, eyes filled with an emotion that twists something in his gut, and his father -his father who rarely shows any sort of emotion-with his arms wrapped tight around her. He’d known, instantly, something was wrong and his baseball bat had clattered loudly on the hardwood floor. Arthur hardly noticed he’d dropped it.
They try to hide it for a while, her growing sickness. They, as per usual in his family, don’t speak of it, and because they don’t speak of it, it doesn’t exist. But Arthur has always been a smart child, and he can see how his mother is changing. He can see the dark circles that show up under her eyes. The way she gets tired after mere minutes of playing with him and his sister. And he can see the way his father is changing. He can see the way the man moves around his wife of twenty years like she’s made of glass, like if he touches too hard she’ll shatter. And they still don’t talk about it. That, most of all, makes Arthur want to scream.
The medical bed comes in month four of their strange, silent vigil and takes up an awkward residence in what was their father’s study. Suddenly, it becomes impossible to keep any of it a secret any more. He’s called in one Wednesday night in December, two weeks before Christmas when the snow has just started sticking but he hadn’t the heart to play. He comes, because Arthur always comes when he’s called, and he drags Margaret along behind him. She’s older, fifteen, and knows what’s going on better than him, but has reacted to it this far by denial and petulance. Her grades have fallen. She fights with their father. She stays in her room. Arthur thinks this is incredibly selfish of her but she’s his sister so he loves her anyway.
Arthur and Margaret are both sat down on the old leather sofa that still creaks when you shift, and his Father looks at him with somber eyes and says the word he will come to hate for the rest of his life. ‘Cancer’. It’s not something they can fight, his Father says, not something they can overcome. And looking at him, he realizes his father believes it and it infuriates him. He’s eleven and a half now, and real, honest fury is something he hasn’t experienced before, but it burns white hot in his belly and eats at his soul. He hates his father then, because to Arthur it seems the man has given up before he’s (before they’ve) even begun.
He is helpless to do anything as he watches his mother wither away. First goes her body and her strength. Her ability to stand, to walk, to bathe and run and leap. Long gone are the days of afternoon-long strolls through the park. Long gone is the playful wrestling with the dogs. Long gone, Arthur thinks in one uncharitable moment, is the woman he loved. But then she loses her laughter. Gone are the jokes, the sweet sound of her chuckle that had been Arthur’s first memory. He hates the loss of her laughter more than the loss of her strength. When she loses her mind, his father stops coming home. There are now strange nurses that take up residence with them, an Aunt that is responsible for Arthur and Maggie, and his life, it seems, is completely out of his hands. She doesn’t remember him anymore, doesn’t remember her daughter, and she looks far too young laying on the pristine white sheets to be suffering from dementia.
Eleanor Whitney dies in July, just after Arthur turns twelve. His Father, at least, returns for the funeral. Arthur doesn’t remember much of the event, and later in life he’ll wonder about that, thinking that perhaps he should remember every detail of the day he buried his mother. But, in the end, it’s not the funeral he remembers. He remembers afterward. He remembers the wake. He remembers the wash of people he didn’t know, that he wasn’t even sure his mother knew, all shaking his father’s hand and giving the man condolences while they all wore black and tittered over casseroles. They kept giving him looks of pity - he knows the word now, didn’t know what it meant then but knew it drove him crazy, the way they were looking at him - but talked to him like he didn’t realize what had happened. Like he wasn’t aware of just what losing your mother meant.
It doesn’t take long for him to take refuge outside. The grass under his favorite tree is green under his bare feet as he does his level best to leave stains on the ill fitting black suit he wore. It was polyester, didn’t breathe, and clung to him like a second skin because of the sweat pooling at the back of his neck and sliding down his spine. Arthur hated sweat and hated messing up clothes. But for this suit? For this one he was more than willing to make an exception.
The wind was stale, he remembers. It was just as hot as the sun that beat down on him, and he hated it as much as he hated his father, and his sister who didn’t seem to care. But more than both of them, more than the women who’d patted his head, more than the priest who’d spoken of how hard it must be for two young children to lose their mother, more than the smell of wilting flowers and more than fake fabric suit he was wearing, Arthur hated this past year. Arthur hated how his life wasn’t his. He hated how he’d been completely helpless to save his mother. He hated how he wasn’t given the choice. He hated everything and everyone that had completely robbed him of his liberty as he was forced to observe, to participate in this sham of a sickness and mourning.
Sitting there on the grass, shoes kicked off the slight slope of the hill, with the low murmur of voices coming from the house and the sun beating down on him fit to suffocate with its heat, Arthur makes a promise to himself. There was nothing he hated more than this past year, this reduction of humanity, and Arthur vows, behind his house an hour after his mother’s funeral, that he will do every single thing in his power to never be out of control again.
"I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself."
He’s just turned eleven when his mother begins dying. It’s autumn in upstate New York and the air is so hot and thick it could choke, and he comes in from playing outside to see his mother pale, eyes filled with an emotion that twists something in his gut, and his father -his father who rarely shows any sort of emotion-with his arms wrapped tight around her. He’d known, instantly, something was wrong and his baseball bat had clattered loudly on the hardwood floor. Arthur hardly noticed he’d dropped it.
They try to hide it for a while, her growing sickness. They, as per usual in his family, don’t speak of it, and because they don’t speak of it, it doesn’t exist. But Arthur has always been a smart child, and he can see how his mother is changing. He can see the dark circles that show up under her eyes. The way she gets tired after mere minutes of playing with him and his sister. And he can see the way his father is changing. He can see the way the man moves around his wife of twenty years like she’s made of glass, like if he touches too hard she’ll shatter. And they still don’t talk about it. That, most of all, makes Arthur want to scream.
The medical bed comes in month four of their strange, silent vigil and takes up an awkward residence in what was their father’s study. Suddenly, it becomes impossible to keep any of it a secret any more. He’s called in one Wednesday night in December, two weeks before Christmas when the snow has just started sticking but he hadn’t the heart to play. He comes, because Arthur always comes when he’s called, and he drags Margaret along behind him. She’s older, fifteen, and knows what’s going on better than him, but has reacted to it this far by denial and petulance. Her grades have fallen. She fights with their father. She stays in her room. Arthur thinks this is incredibly selfish of her but she’s his sister so he loves her anyway.
Arthur and Margaret are both sat down on the old leather sofa that still creaks when you shift, and his Father looks at him with somber eyes and says the word he will come to hate for the rest of his life. ‘Cancer’. It’s not something they can fight, his Father says, not something they can overcome. And looking at him, he realizes his father believes it and it infuriates him. He’s eleven and a half now, and real, honest fury is something he hasn’t experienced before, but it burns white hot in his belly and eats at his soul. He hates his father then, because to Arthur it seems the man has given up before he’s (before they’ve) even begun.
He is helpless to do anything as he watches his mother wither away. First goes her body and her strength. Her ability to stand, to walk, to bathe and run and leap. Long gone are the days of afternoon-long strolls through the park. Long gone is the playful wrestling with the dogs. Long gone, Arthur thinks in one uncharitable moment, is the woman he loved. But then she loses her laughter. Gone are the jokes, the sweet sound of her chuckle that had been Arthur’s first memory. He hates the loss of her laughter more than the loss of her strength. When she loses her mind, his father stops coming home. There are now strange nurses that take up residence with them, an Aunt that is responsible for Arthur and Maggie, and his life, it seems, is completely out of his hands. She doesn’t remember him anymore, doesn’t remember her daughter, and she looks far too young laying on the pristine white sheets to be suffering from dementia.
Eleanor Whitney dies in July, just after Arthur turns twelve. His Father, at least, returns for the funeral. Arthur doesn’t remember much of the event, and later in life he’ll wonder about that, thinking that perhaps he should remember every detail of the day he buried his mother. But, in the end, it’s not the funeral he remembers. He remembers afterward. He remembers the wake. He remembers the wash of people he didn’t know, that he wasn’t even sure his mother knew, all shaking his father’s hand and giving the man condolences while they all wore black and tittered over casseroles. They kept giving him looks of pity - he knows the word now, didn’t know what it meant then but knew it drove him crazy, the way they were looking at him - but talked to him like he didn’t realize what had happened. Like he wasn’t aware of just what losing your mother meant.
It doesn’t take long for him to take refuge outside. The grass under his favorite tree is green under his bare feet as he does his level best to leave stains on the ill fitting black suit he wore. It was polyester, didn’t breathe, and clung to him like a second skin because of the sweat pooling at the back of his neck and sliding down his spine. Arthur hated sweat and hated messing up clothes. But for this suit? For this one he was more than willing to make an exception.
The wind was stale, he remembers. It was just as hot as the sun that beat down on him, and he hated it as much as he hated his father, and his sister who didn’t seem to care. But more than both of them, more than the women who’d patted his head, more than the priest who’d spoken of how hard it must be for two young children to lose their mother, more than the smell of wilting flowers and more than fake fabric suit he was wearing, Arthur hated this past year. Arthur hated how his life wasn’t his. He hated how he’d been completely helpless to save his mother. He hated how he wasn’t given the choice. He hated everything and everyone that had completely robbed him of his liberty as he was forced to observe, to participate in this sham of a sickness and mourning.
Sitting there on the grass, shoes kicked off the slight slope of the hill, with the low murmur of voices coming from the house and the sun beating down on him fit to suffocate with its heat, Arthur makes a promise to himself. There was nothing he hated more than this past year, this reduction of humanity, and Arthur vows, behind his house an hour after his mother’s funeral, that he will do every single thing in his power to never be out of control again.
"I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself."