Nathaniel Mordue
April 10, 2021 7:18 PM
Aesthetic Distances by Nathaniel Mordue
It was widely assumed that Nathaniel had no sense of humor, but he thought that even the people who held that opinion would forgive him for seeing the joke in how his day was going so far. For almost four years, he had wanted something – longed for it more than anything, from time to time kept himself going with the thought of it and it alone – and now that he was about to get it at last, all he wanted to do was run away from it. He would have laughed, if he’d had the breath to spare, and if he didn’t worry that any expression of emotion would erode all traces of self-control and leave him crying hysterically in a bookshop bathroom –Except that wouldn’t happen, he reminded himself. He was better now – however little his appearance at the moment, white-faced and clutching the two sides of a sink as though the gods of institutional porcelain might save him – suggested it. His appearance was a minor detail, not a thing of any consequence….
Another joke. Even less funny than the first one, but still, a joke – appearances were the only things that were supposed to matter, and yet, they also weren’t supposed to matter at all (when a person was of sufficient quality, of course, a person of sufficient quality wouldn’t need to put up a front…). Perhaps, he thought as he forced himself to stand up straight and step back from the sink, he should try for a career as a comic.
Destination, determination, deliberation - thought somehow, deliberation always felt like it should be first. One should deliberate on what to do before doing it. To move deliberately, that was another thing, but it didn’t fit the mnemonic as well, he supposed – he turned on the spot, feeling his way into the momentary, almost comforting, embrace of the darkness that lurked between place and time.
Four years and an instant later, he was home.
The air feels different here.
The thought hardly felt like his own observation – or, perhaps, felt exactly like his own observation, only somehow completely severed from his body. He couldn’t actually see himself from an outside perspective, but it was if he opened his eyes to find himself a passive passenger in someone else’s brain, simply watching as someone else looked around the familiar white boudoir, as someone else’s mother rushed across the carpets, as someone else reached out to catch her and struggled to remember not to squeeze her too tightly, as if it was someone else who she was kissing and babbling endearments at. It was someone else living through the scene; he was still ninety percent in the dark, so isolated from the players that he felt…nothing.
Destination, determination... He tried to force it, to go through memories, to reason his way into feeling what he ought to, what he wanted to - anything he could think of. And yet, after all that effort, he still felt...nothing.
This wasn't how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to be happy now. Everything was supposed to be better, because he now could at least touch all the shards of the broken thing which had once been a family - could take care of what was left, even if they did cut his hands, could do his duty finally, after all these years of being forced to choose and thus, by default, let someone down. This was the day he had been living for, dragging himself through another day when another minute had felt like too much, when everything had been going wrong and he had felt completely powerless to stop it - all for this. And now that it was happening, he didn't even feel like he was really part of the event. He felt almost nothing.
He held his mother at arm’s length to really look at her. Slowly, he reached up to wipe a tear off her cheek with his thumb.
“You didn’t have those the last time I saw you,” he remarked. To a degree, he knew this was unfair. She had been visibly on the brink of tears in their last several interviews, including that one in Professor Xavier’s fireplace. Since when, though, did it matter what was or wasn’t fair? “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
She was still half-smiling, but was clearly confused. She didn’t see the point yet. “Of course,” she said, reaching up to wipe her own eyes, then. “So happy – I’m not sure I’ve ever been happier, darling – “
“Are you sure?” With an effort – a massive effort; his face felt curiously numb – he forced his features into an approximation of concern, doing his best to suppress any suggestion of a sneer as he took both of her hands in his. “I wouldn’t want to do anything to make you unhappy, Mama. You know I wouldn’t. I understand, there’s nothing more important than how happy you are – “
The smile faded, but she still had her eyebrows quizzically furrowed and half-raised – still giving him one last chance to rein himself in, to play in his part in the masque, to recite the lines of the Good Son correctly, complete with proper inflection and perfectly timed pauses. “I don’t – what do you mean?” she asked.
“Exactly what I said,” said Nathaniel as the bitterness finally broke through. “I know I was never as quick with the tutors as Sylvia was, Mama, but really, you can’t think that you and Father both couldn’t get it through my head!" His tone was all sarcastic joviality, but the volume was creeping upward, betraying the anger underneath it. "Nothing matters as much as the two of you being happy. Not our reputations – not your families – certainly not Jeremy or me." His grip on her hands tightened, her rings cutting into his palms. "We’re nothing compared to you two being happy. So don’t think you need to put on a show now – if me being here is inconvenient to you in any way – “
“Nathaniel!” she exclaimed, wrenching her hands free.
“What?!”
She had clearly not expected that response; she had to fumble for a response. He felt a rush of a bitter sort of enjoyment, tripping her up like that. “You – you know that isn’t true – “
“No, I don’t.”
She made no reply then, just stood there, staring at him in mute disbelief, her hands coming up to cover her mouth. Well, why should she believe what she had just witnessed? He was the Good Son. Those were his brother’s lines at best, not his. He wasn’t supposed to say those things, wasn’t even supposed to have the ability to think them. It wasn’t his role, and what sort of actor broke character on stage, right at the emotional climax of the story?
Suddenly, Nathaniel couldn’t stand to look at her any longer. Unthinking, he walked abruptly over to the old etagere, standing exactly where it always had, and did his best not to see any of the pictures (the same old ones of him and Jeremy and sometimes Sylvia or Simon, mostly Sylvia, he noticed; she had purged all images of his father and uncle and aunt, but she had kept the pictures of all those children, who somehow felt as though they had very little to do with him) as he looked at her collection of art glass, all the reassuringly familiar pieces…and then at new ones, pieces he was sure had not been here the last time he had.
He picked up a shimmering model of a box turtle, which drew its head back into its translucent shell; he could see it looking up at him, dimly. He weighed it in his palm and thought about dashing it to the floor – or, better yet, of throwing down the whole etagere and smashing the entire collection. Why not, after all? One wave of a wand and then the whole thing would be put right…
Wearily, he put the opalescent turtle back onto its shelf, where it and the others could all shimmer together in the light.
“I’m sorry,” he said, looking at the turtle as it snapped at the tail of a mermaid instead of at his mother. “I shouldn’t have said any of that. I didn’t mean it,” he lied. “I haven’t – it’s been so long, I suppose I should have known it would be a shock to my nerves, to be home again – “
And he felt something, then, as he used the same kind of excuse she had used to justify nearly leaving him and Jeremy to raise themselves, and as he hugged her again, and as he stepped back into the part of the Good Son, saying only exactly what he knew she needed to hear so she wouldn’t have to worry about him, so she’d know that Jeremy was doing much better, yes, that Nathaniel had taken care of him just like he’d promised, that Nathaniel hadn’t let her down and never would. It was the most acute set of waves of self-loathing he’d ever known.
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Nathaniel Mordue
Aesthetic Distances
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