short fic Resurgam: post 'Everybody Dies'
Title: Resurgam
Author: Waylandsmithy
Characters: Wilson, Blythe, guest appearance by House
Rating PG
Words: 900+
Spoilers for the finale
“He was a good son.” The lie fell, as did all her lies, easily enough from her lips, but on this occasion the very molecules of the cool but curiously stuffy air of the memorial chapel seemed disinclined to absorb the words. They hung like a curl of smoke which no-one was so obvious as to waft away from themself but she sensed a stiffening of the posture of the mourner beside her, heard more than one sharply indrawn breath.
Let them think she was a deluded old woman, to be pitied, not just for the loss of her only, brilliant but troubled son but for her ignorance of his true nature. They had all, colleagues and fellows, uttered the conventional pieties. She approved. Hypocrisy papered over the cracks in the social fabric and enabled life to run smoothly. As long as you didn’t actually believe what you heard or said, where was the harm? Something she’d never been able to convince Greg of; it’d have spared him a good few blows, both as child and man.
She’d done a poor job of defending him in his boyhood, she accepted, but then character will out. How would he be treated by the Afterlife, she wondered, always assuming there was one. Would he stand at the Gates of Paradise and denounce them all as morons, until St Peter lost patience and sent him down to be with John?
And still the tributes were given; to a man she scarcely recognised as her son. Blythe stared at the shiny black urn. Her eyes misted. In that ugly container was all that remained of her many mistakes. It did not seem possible.
Finally, here was James now, his words of appreciation following the expected path: a friend, check, saved lives, check, and then suddenly, as if possessed of her son’s spirit, words of criticism, of hurt, of truth. What else he might have been driven to say, if he’d not been careless enough to leave his cell phone available for one of his patients to interrupt his chain of thought, she couldn’t begin to guess.
He came up to her and apologised afterwards. “Funerals are probably the only time in your life you need to apologise” she’d told him. “They bring out the worst in you.”
“Or the best, House, er, Greg, would say.”
He looked pale, from mourning or the cancer or both but there was something, almost an air of suppressed excitement, about him.
“I’m sorry you have lost a friend, James. You were a better friend to him than he knew, or acknowledged anyway. He should have been here, during your illness. He let you down.”
“He didn’t mean to.”
“No”, sighed Blythe. “He never did.”
……..
Three weeks later she called James. She knew that he had left the hospital, left the state, on an extended vacation before he became too ill to want to travel. She had imagined him relaxing by a pool somewhere, using his brown eyes and reassuring manner to entice some poor girl into looking after him in his last days. She knew his reputation as a most unthreatening Lothario and now he had Greg’s money -not that she begrudged him it one bit-as well as his own, if inducement were needed. His twenty-year custody of her son’s best interests was worth every cent.
“Are you in Florida?” She could hear the hum of voices, quiet laughter; imagined a beachside bar, a long, cool drink with a fancy paper parasol.
“No, but I’m feeling good, and enjoying myself” said James. His voice confirmed his words.
“I’m so glad” said Blythe. “You deserve it. I don’t want to bother you but I wondered if, when you get rid of Greg’s apartment, you might consider letting me have his piano. I’d expect to pay you for it of course."
There was a slight pause. “Actually, “said James; “I am going to move into Greg’s apartment when I.., when I get back. It’s more convenient for the hospital, before I end up there finally and I’ve always liked it, spent more time there it seems, than at my own over the years. It would seem odd without the piano but if you don’t mind waiting a little while, I’ll gladly let you have it.”
“Oh James, of course. I know you don’t play but I know how much you must miss him. I just didn’t want it to go to a stranger, not while I’m alive anyway. Thomas thinks I’m a sentimental old fool.”
“How is his ankle?” Thomas’ untimely accident in the back yard meant that he had spent his stepson’s memorial service at home with a cooler box of beers and his left leg partially encased in plaster.
“Mending. Just as well, he’s little patience with infirmity.”
“Runs in the family,” said James, without thinking.
“Let me know how things go, James, won’t you?” She ended the call.
“It’s not as if there’s any question,” he said into the phone.
“What ‘runs in the family’”, asked his companion.
“Piano playing” said James, not missing a beat. “You really must find a way to tell her.”
Some days after Blythe’s call to James, she received a letter postmarked Amarillo, Texas. Inside was a small, rather dog-eared picture of Portland harbour, where she had once lived, showing the city’s seal and the single word “Resurgam.”
She had not known how great was the grief she felt until it was lifted from her. Worry then descended but worry she’d lived with all her life. That and secrets. No, he had not been a ‘good ‘son but she, God knows, had not been a good mother. She was, however, very good at keeping secrets.
Author: Waylandsmithy
Characters: Wilson, Blythe, guest appearance by House
Rating PG
Words: 900+
Spoilers for the finale
“He was a good son.” The lie fell, as did all her lies, easily enough from her lips, but on this occasion the very molecules of the cool but curiously stuffy air of the memorial chapel seemed disinclined to absorb the words. They hung like a curl of smoke which no-one was so obvious as to waft away from themself but she sensed a stiffening of the posture of the mourner beside her, heard more than one sharply indrawn breath.
Let them think she was a deluded old woman, to be pitied, not just for the loss of her only, brilliant but troubled son but for her ignorance of his true nature. They had all, colleagues and fellows, uttered the conventional pieties. She approved. Hypocrisy papered over the cracks in the social fabric and enabled life to run smoothly. As long as you didn’t actually believe what you heard or said, where was the harm? Something she’d never been able to convince Greg of; it’d have spared him a good few blows, both as child and man.
She’d done a poor job of defending him in his boyhood, she accepted, but then character will out. How would he be treated by the Afterlife, she wondered, always assuming there was one. Would he stand at the Gates of Paradise and denounce them all as morons, until St Peter lost patience and sent him down to be with John?
And still the tributes were given; to a man she scarcely recognised as her son. Blythe stared at the shiny black urn. Her eyes misted. In that ugly container was all that remained of her many mistakes. It did not seem possible.
Finally, here was James now, his words of appreciation following the expected path: a friend, check, saved lives, check, and then suddenly, as if possessed of her son’s spirit, words of criticism, of hurt, of truth. What else he might have been driven to say, if he’d not been careless enough to leave his cell phone available for one of his patients to interrupt his chain of thought, she couldn’t begin to guess.
He came up to her and apologised afterwards. “Funerals are probably the only time in your life you need to apologise” she’d told him. “They bring out the worst in you.”
“Or the best, House, er, Greg, would say.”
He looked pale, from mourning or the cancer or both but there was something, almost an air of suppressed excitement, about him.
“I’m sorry you have lost a friend, James. You were a better friend to him than he knew, or acknowledged anyway. He should have been here, during your illness. He let you down.”
“He didn’t mean to.”
“No”, sighed Blythe. “He never did.”
……..
Three weeks later she called James. She knew that he had left the hospital, left the state, on an extended vacation before he became too ill to want to travel. She had imagined him relaxing by a pool somewhere, using his brown eyes and reassuring manner to entice some poor girl into looking after him in his last days. She knew his reputation as a most unthreatening Lothario and now he had Greg’s money -not that she begrudged him it one bit-as well as his own, if inducement were needed. His twenty-year custody of her son’s best interests was worth every cent.
“Are you in Florida?” She could hear the hum of voices, quiet laughter; imagined a beachside bar, a long, cool drink with a fancy paper parasol.
“No, but I’m feeling good, and enjoying myself” said James. His voice confirmed his words.
“I’m so glad” said Blythe. “You deserve it. I don’t want to bother you but I wondered if, when you get rid of Greg’s apartment, you might consider letting me have his piano. I’d expect to pay you for it of course."
There was a slight pause. “Actually, “said James; “I am going to move into Greg’s apartment when I.., when I get back. It’s more convenient for the hospital, before I end up there finally and I’ve always liked it, spent more time there it seems, than at my own over the years. It would seem odd without the piano but if you don’t mind waiting a little while, I’ll gladly let you have it.”
“Oh James, of course. I know you don’t play but I know how much you must miss him. I just didn’t want it to go to a stranger, not while I’m alive anyway. Thomas thinks I’m a sentimental old fool.”
“How is his ankle?” Thomas’ untimely accident in the back yard meant that he had spent his stepson’s memorial service at home with a cooler box of beers and his left leg partially encased in plaster.
“Mending. Just as well, he’s little patience with infirmity.”
“Runs in the family,” said James, without thinking.
“Let me know how things go, James, won’t you?” She ended the call.
“It’s not as if there’s any question,” he said into the phone.
“What ‘runs in the family’”, asked his companion.
“Piano playing” said James, not missing a beat. “You really must find a way to tell her.”
Some days after Blythe’s call to James, she received a letter postmarked Amarillo, Texas. Inside was a small, rather dog-eared picture of Portland harbour, where she had once lived, showing the city’s seal and the single word “Resurgam.”
She had not known how great was the grief she felt until it was lifted from her. Worry then descended but worry she’d lived with all her life. That and secrets. No, he had not been a ‘good ‘son but she, God knows, had not been a good mother. She was, however, very good at keeping secrets.