Abel washed his hands. He scraped the bar of soap into his still flesh and watched the dusky suds gurgle and spit down the drain. The pipes were old and always needed to be fixed. Another note, another complaint to the man down the stairs, as though his mother was not already behind rent and biding ill-favored time through half-full promises and short favors.
The boy looked vacantly out of the corner of his eye to where she stood in her black garb. Thick wool lined with gaudy lace, an inheritance of an impression previous owners left behind; his grandmother, her sister, a cousin thrice removed. All shared the coat and occasion of mourning. The service was dull, and Abel sat with his mother in the front pew listening to a priest hold his grandfather to a standard of life and reverence that any soul who knew the man on a personal level would scratch their skull in puzzlement. While alive, he had disregarded any religious and strict moral structure with the control and aim of a sharpshooter. Treaties of higher order had meant nothing to him in the scheme of the everyday; he dismissed religious doctrine. In the last few weeks of his life, he feigned temporary insanity and a variety of illnesses to escape his daughter’s attempts to lure him to what he deemed worse than any punishment. So, Abel had endured the discordant mutterings of his relatives and words in dedication to a false gentleman.
The reception was another affair to behold. Pleasantries were exchanged in faux compassion— inquiries by estranged relatives into his mother’s health, sanity, complexion, circumstance, and her son’s education. Abel was on leave, not yet withdrawn. His absence was warranted, not regretted, and he felt a certain pleasure in the shame he imparted to her. His mother had swiftly avoided the subject of his schooling with a mastery he was shocked she possessed. Any mention of his scholarly diversion was seamlessly redirected through a show of mourning and an anecdote about the deceased by a loving daughter; in return, she received heartfelt condolences and sorrow. The subject was discarded with ease, but not forgotten; it was held to a reasonable distance for the occasion. His mother was no fool; she was aware it would reoccur in the near future, and thus, when the time came about, she intended her son to rise to the occasion. A sudden death and a hasty funeral, scrounged together by a hair through his mother’s many connections, implied visitors. The next few days would summon a variety of characters, real grotesque meddling types, who would pick through his façade of placidity and immediately find all signs of his lie.
Deception is effortless for the practiced few. Abel was far from rank sufficient to entice more than a raised brow. For the better part of the morning, he shied away from conversation and wished for the stillness of rolling emerald hills and the solitude he was offered in the country, luxuries he was without in the cityscape of Andersonville. Since his return to his mother’s home, she had resumed the authority she claimed over him from the womb. His years-long absence meant little to the control she sought over him. The incident was further justification that she could not trust him in either mind or conduct. Abel’s sudden return after months of unanswered letters and phone calls had left her reeling. She had nearly
flown across the country and marched to his room herself. How could a son treat his mother with such disdain and indifference?
No word for a millennium, too long a time for any mother, thank you, and the weight of the horrifying knowledge he had picked up and left with no concern for societal discourse or her state of mind. It was too egregious to be true and taken with seriousness, so by sleight of hand, she had crafted a respectable reasoning for his studious abandonment. And so there she stood, hanging her handbag on the hook by the kitchen door and standing expectantly with the authority only a parent who wields ineffable power over their child can hold.
“You’ll write to the admissions office and request reinstatement. I’ll post it tomorrow,” she said definitively. There was no room left for question. “It’s a shame you let the incident affect your judgment and nerves. That it made you—”
“Made me what?” Abel turned from the window and greeted his mother with the same stifling air she had shown him all day, “Sick? Erratic?”
“Temporarily indisposed.” Her voice was clipped. “I understand that your generation is particularly susceptible to the pressures—”
“Please don’t.”
“I’m offering you a solution. These things happen, and they can easily be sorted.” Without waiting for his answer, she turned to the kitchen desk and, opening a bursting drawer, procured a sheaf of papers. She riffled through them for a half second before holding out a half-written letter in neat script.
“I see you’ve already written it.” He stared at the offering, making no movement to accept it. Resolutely, his mother sighed and placed it on the counter next to where he stood.
“I’ve drafted it. You’ll copy it in your own hand, of course, and add a few lines about how your extended leave has made you of a more sound judgement.”
Abel picked up the draft and read it slowly.
“Mrs. —’s cousin is on the board, you know.” She continued and moved to his side with practiced efficacy, waiting for his reply in consensus, “One letter explaining the cause of your leaving, and it will be fixed. You should be able to return by next week, I’m sure.”
He set the letter down. “And you’ve thought of everything.”
“I had to.” A sharpness entered her voice. “Do you think I enjoy this? All the questions I’ve received about your whereabouts, your activities, and dalliances. The lengths I’ve had to go to for you, to save some semblance of our reputation. I’ve had to direct it all to your grandfather’s health, which I’m sure you don’t care about in the slightest.”
“You have no right—”
“We do what we must, and you will copy this letter as I’ve told you.” She paused, “That’s final.” Then she swiftly left the room, the door clicking shut behind her, silence overtaking the space she had left behind.
He chose to write a letter of his own, addressed to his mother. With pen strokes made by the sleight of a steady hand, he wrote with deft skill and a creeping sense of relief. He wrote of the son and father she’d written into fiction. The years he spent as a child holding his breath as she scrutinized the inner workings of his life. Abel kept it brief, but the truth was there in his scrawl on the page. When he signed his name, his hand didn’t shake. He exited the apartment door with no plan in mind except a vow to return only as a box of dust. ▲
