A Complication of Family Devotion
Summary: Is it so hard to believe (that) I am more than just a pretty face?
Note: Just a oneshot – or maybe a drabble. But what's the difference?
Age S e v e n
"Hey, Daddy?" young Robert Fischer asks his too-important-to-be-a-father.
"Do not use 'Daddy', Robert. Are you a commoner?"
"Oh, relax," chides his mother – the carefree one, "let the boy do as he pleases. He is, after all," she winks towards him, "not a commoner." The man lets out a huff, and scowls.
Robert merely laughs. "Come check out my sandcastle!" But Morice does not move – so, as always, it is the mother who plays hero and saves the day.
Age E l e v e n
The death. The viewing. The burial. The after "party". Just motions. He is in another body – and only two people (one in heaven, one on Earth) could have called him back.
And get called back, he does.
"There's really nothing to be sad about," the man says. He might have had one too many a beer, but who knows? (Who's counting? {who cares?}) Robert just wanted a comfort. (His father never usually gave him things he wanted; but Mother did.)
Mother isn't there to comfort him.
Mother wasn't there at all.
(In the end, it is Uncle Peter who comforts him when his mother cannot.)
Age F i f t e e n
"Look," his father says, "I'm not happy about doing this either, alright? But I need to teach you how to defend yourself in a way no one else will find out . . ."
"Train me in what?" Robert scoffs. "Self-defense?"
"In a way . . .," the many only murmurs. "I'm talking about dreams . . ."
And so sets a new relationship between father and son.
(A relationship no one seems to notice.)