Winter Season

What’s in a name?

Oscar was sitting on her front porch. A storm was rolling in. The wind was blowing hot as heat lightning streaked across the sky.

She handed him a cold glass of water. “Thanks sweetheart.”

“A penny for your thoughts,” she asked sitting with him.

“I really wasn’t thinking about anything.”

“You know, I have been told that. When men stare out into space, there really isn’t anything on their minds.”

He smiled, “you are so beautiful.” She blushed. “Are you blushing Miss Morrison?”

“Y, yes Mr. Patterson, I am. I would like to ask you something. Don’t answer me now. I want you to think about it and give me an answer later.”

“Okay.” He asked confused.

“I want you to assume that we do get married. Is it super important that I take your last name?”

He raised an eyebrow, “it’s traditional.”

“I know that.”

“Are you saying you don’t want to take my last name?”

“It has nothing to do with you. It’s not a sign of disrespect. I have lived with my last name for fifty years. The good things and the bad things are all associated with me. I don’t want to assume an alias, which is what I would be doing if I changed my name.” He watched her. He kinda felt uncomfortable but said nothing. Then she added, “how would you feel if I asked you to change your last name?”

He raised an eyebrow again, “I’ve never really thought about it.”

“Women are asked to become a whole new person. Assume a whole new identity. Why can’t the man change?”

He took a drink of his water. “We’ve kinda talked about this but how do you feel about children?”

“I’m too old at this point in my life to start popping out babies. I’m too old to chase them, and give them the attention they need. I would be 70 by the time they were 20. It’s not fair to me or the child.”

“I’m too jacked up to be a father.”

“I fail to see how you’re jacked up.”

He couldn’t believe his ears. He rolled his eyes, “right.”

“No, not right. Okay, so you have panic attacks. Who among us doesn’t have an issue that we need to work on?”

“What if I become crazy like my mother? That is a huge concern of mine. I can’t tell you the number of hours that I have spent worrying about it. My mom has a brother; the only one of her family that I claim. We have spent hours talking about her growing up.” Oscar got up and stood at the end of the porch with his back to Esther.

“And?”

“He says that we were nothing alike. He said that she was always different but he couldn’t tell me how. He had no reference to go by.”

“May I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Paranoid schizophrenia usually develops in a person before they turn thirty. How old was your mother?”

He turned looking at Esther. “Fifty-ish.”

“Did anything stressful happen in her life that would trigger it? Some doctors say that people can manage the illness to the point of not even knowing that something is wrong until a stressful occurrence happens to trigger an episode.”

Oscar came back and sat down, “she was having an affair. Ole boy decided that he didn’t want to leave his wife.”

“How did you handle that?”

“You are the only person I’ve ever told. I’m sure it’s one of the reason’s I’ve been so reluctant to start a relationship. If my mother is capable of having an affair and telling me about it, then who am I? She even asked me to buy condoms for her little fling.”

Esther looked confused, “do you know if she ever told your brother?”

“My brother doesn’t know half of what went on or half of what we went through.”

“Why was he sheltered? When did this obsession start with your brother?”

“He’s always been precious, from the day he was born; there was a difference in the way we were raised. But the obsession, as it were, started when he moved in with her.”

He took a deep breath. “Mom called me one morning asking me for help. I didn’t know how to help her. Honestly, I didn’t have a clue. She had already been in an institution twice. The only thing I knew to do was to take her to a different place. Maybe get a different opinion.  It didn’t help. The only thing I had left was to see if she would move in with my brother and his family. She, at that point, couldn’t live on her own. She wasn’t eating right. She wasn’t sleeping right. It was a mess. But she wouldn’t leave her house. They decided to move in with her. That’s been about 15 years now.” He paused for a moment. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Metal illness is a cruel thing. You know.” She whimpered. “I had never really thought about it until now. I told you it wasn’t in me to get swept away with love. I think I understand why. Dad spent two years grieving over mom. He was so into her that he couldn’t look past it to see me. I was always fed and clean. But we never left the house. He never read to me or held me. The only time I went places was when gram and pap came over.” She stopped thinking for a moment. “We spend way too much time in this country worrying about what phone we have or what comic book to make into the next big movie. We need to spend a whole lot more time on removing the stigma from mental illness. People with a mental illness can’t help it no more than a baby who is born addicted to drugs can help it.”

“Tell me about it. In this town, people look at you in one of two ways, with deep sympathy or they look at you sideways to see what crazy you’re hiding.”

She smiled really big, “I know what crazy you’re hiding.” He looked at her in shock. She giggled, “you’re crazy in love with me.”

“I’m not hiding that.” He returned her smile. At that moment, a large clap of thunder shook the house. The world was growing dark around them.

“Let’s make each other a promise.”

“Okay.”

“We will work on our issues together. That we will try to always understand, if we can’t understand, at least listen to each other.”

He smiled, “I like that plan.”

Winter Season