The Truth
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At five years old he was an ugly child destined to become an ugly adult.
His mother has long been holding out hope that he would grow into the pink and chubby blue-eyed cherub she had always wanted. She had dismissed her first impression of the angry red wrinkly bundle he was at birth with the fairly accurate stereotype that all newborns are odd looking. She told people his pointed head would round as the gap closed and that his body would grown to balance out its somewhat shocking girth.
She told them when his hair finally grew in it would be thick and ringletted like his father’s. She told them children's eyes often change colour and that his dishwater grey ones would deepen to reflect the ocean blue of her own.
She had been telling people these things for quite some time.
But looking at him sitting in the back yard staring back at her through the kitchen window, she realized these miraculous changes would not come to pass and that she was looking at her son. Her funny-looking son.
He was thin and small and pale with the gait of an old arthritic. This was presumably due to the weight of his enormous egg-shaped head, mostly an expanse of forehead making his features seem cramped and undersized. His hair had never fully come in, leaving him with a sparse monk’s tonsure of dirty-blond hair which his mother had been tempted to chalk up to treatments for an illness in the face of strangers’ glances(on more than one occasion).
The realization that she didn’t love her son poured over her like ice water. The sensation was unpleasant, but only mildly so. She would get used to it. She didn’t blame herself for this lack of motherly affection, she blamed him.
It wasn’t just his looks that left her cold she told herself, though she could admit it was a major part of it. It was his attitude about it.
He wasn’t a pleaser this ugly boy. He didn’t try to do things to make her forget, to make it up to her. He didn’t fade into the carpet when people came over. He didn’t stay quite and self-conscious. He wasn’t funny and self-deprecating. He wasn’t ashamed of how he'd turned out. He wasn’t sorry.
And she felt, in the deep dark place that you pretend you don’t have, that he ought to be. And she knew that was why she hated him.
His mother has long been holding out hope that he would grow into the pink and chubby blue-eyed cherub she had always wanted. She had dismissed her first impression of the angry red wrinkly bundle he was at birth with the fairly accurate stereotype that all newborns are odd looking. She told people his pointed head would round as the gap closed and that his body would grown to balance out its somewhat shocking girth.
She told them when his hair finally grew in it would be thick and ringletted like his father’s. She told them children's eyes often change colour and that his dishwater grey ones would deepen to reflect the ocean blue of her own.
She had been telling people these things for quite some time.
But looking at him sitting in the back yard staring back at her through the kitchen window, she realized these miraculous changes would not come to pass and that she was looking at her son. Her funny-looking son.
He was thin and small and pale with the gait of an old arthritic. This was presumably due to the weight of his enormous egg-shaped head, mostly an expanse of forehead making his features seem cramped and undersized. His hair had never fully come in, leaving him with a sparse monk’s tonsure of dirty-blond hair which his mother had been tempted to chalk up to treatments for an illness in the face of strangers’ glances(on more than one occasion).
The realization that she didn’t love her son poured over her like ice water. The sensation was unpleasant, but only mildly so. She would get used to it. She didn’t blame herself for this lack of motherly affection, she blamed him.
It wasn’t just his looks that left her cold she told herself, though she could admit it was a major part of it. It was his attitude about it.
He wasn’t a pleaser this ugly boy. He didn’t try to do things to make her forget, to make it up to her. He didn’t fade into the carpet when people came over. He didn’t stay quite and self-conscious. He wasn’t funny and self-deprecating. He wasn’t ashamed of how he'd turned out. He wasn’t sorry.
And she felt, in the deep dark place that you pretend you don’t have, that he ought to be. And she knew that was why she hated him.
3 comments:
DId you write that? If so, you're going to be our country's next literary fiction star! Get writing on that iMac! AT
DId you write that? If so, you're going to be our country's next literary fiction star! Get writing on that iMac! AT
What the hell is that? Did you write that? Omigod get off yer lazy ass an write a novel! I'm serious no more next top model shit you need to write for a minimum of one hour a day!!
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