Chapter 37

Paving the Road to Hell…

Blythe and John House returned home five days after House's surgery. Before they left, Blythe spent a few hours with her son, who was asleep most of the time, often moaning in pain.

He woke briefly during her second visit, just after Wilson had brought her into the room and settled himself in the corner to read. If she was disconcerted by seeing Rainie asleep in the adjacent bed, she didn't let it show. But then, she seldom let anything show.

After a couple of bad moments two years earlier, Blythe House had learned not to touch her son unexpectedly, so this time she sat primly on a chair pulled up between the two beds while he oriented himself.

Cautiously, she leaned forward slightly when she saw his eyelids open drowsily. She said nothing as he tried to focus his eyes, just sat unmoving until he recognized her.

"Mom." His voice was merely a breathy whisper from lack of use and long-term damage.

"Hi, Greg."

His eyes searched the part of the room he could see.

Wilson watched her looking intently at her only child, an attempt at a smile on her face. Below the edge of the bed, outside House's field of vision, her hands were clasped so tightly that from across the room Wilson could see her white knuckles.

"Your dad's not here," said Blythe, as if answering the question he hadn't asked.

He closed his eyes for a moment, and sighed. Wilson saw relief wash over his features.

"James thought it might be better if he stayed away for now." As she spoke, she dug her manicured fingernails into the palm of her left hand, creating deep red grooves that her son couldn't see. Wilson couldn't tell if this was a reaction to seeing House so ill or a reaction to his quite obvious relief that his father wasn't there.

"Good call," said House.

Wilson took this as a commendation and smiled quietly to himself. From his corner, he observed the physical tension Blythe hid, controlling the face that House saw, making herself appear calm. This has got to be hard for her, he thought, to once again see her son so frail and delicate. Her boy had always been athletic and quick. And right now he could barely raise his head.

That House loved his mother wasn't a question. Wilson could hear it in the tone of his voice when he spoke to her. There was a softness, a deference, that Wilson never heard him use with anyone else.

But what Wilson didn't hear or see on either side was warmth, passion. Both House and his mother held back.

Even before all this, Blythe had always kept part of herself reserved from her son, touching him only for a greeting or goodbye hug, or the occasional pat on the arm. Wilson had never seen spontaneity from her; everything was cautious and pro forma.

Wilson thought about his patients, those who were suffering, those who were scared, and how their families responded to them. Images of crying, hugging, laughing, touching, embracing families drifted through his mind. Somehow, Wilson was reassured when he saw these kinds of physically and emotionally close-knit groups, feeling that patients with those families had a better chance of survival than those without that kind of support.

"I don't know much about what happened—just what was in the news and what James told us on the phone."

"Doesn't matter," he said without emphasis.

Somehow, his offhand reaction upset her carefully controlled composure. Only someone who had been through what he had could toss off a murderous attack and emergency surgery as if they were pulled muscles.

She swallowed, and Wilson saw her jaw clench as she tried to stifle her feelings.

"Of course it matters, dear," she admonished gently, after she regained control, making House look her in the eye. "Everything that happens to you matters to me."

After a quick glance, he broke eye contact with her and looked down, as if to say I don't know why it should matter, because we both know I'm not worth it.

For years, Wilson had observed House's reactions to compliments and thanks, but this was the first time he saw it clearly for what it was: a complete lack of self-value. Ages ago, Stacy had told him she believed that House didn't think he deserved to be happy, or even to live. For the first time, Wilson realized it was quite literally true. In that flash, he also saw a great number of other things. What had he done? Dear god, what had he done?

Uneasy, he focused on House's mother to distract himself from the unpleasant idea that was formulating in his mind.

How could she deal with it? How on earth could a mother—this mother—cope with the intentional, systematic destruction of her child? She always seemed so serene, thought Wilson, but surely there was something rippling beneath that placid surface.

On top of seeing her son destroyed, Blythe had to deal with his father, who, despite repeated attempts by Wilson and others, never grasped the enormity of the situation, always insisting to whomever would listen that House had deserved whatever senseless devastation had happened to him. And their son believed him. Did Blythe shut down emotionally around John House? Was she immune…? Or maybe just oblivious?

Did she cry over her son, rage at what had happened to him? Or did she just hold it all in? He suspected the latter. He'd never seen her really lose her composure, not once, not even when House was out of his mind. Did those feelings ever come out? Or did she somehow take it all as part of the package that went with having such an unusual child, finding a way to detach herself not only from the horrific trauma he'd gone through but from her son as well?

No matter how much Blythe cared for her son, it was clear that neither of House's parents had ever come close to understanding the extraordinary child they had raised. Mentally and intuitively he sprinted around them both. Spectacularly gifted in language, music, medicine, even mind games, he'd also shown a strength of character in the last six years that was almost beyond comprehension.

And yet, what had he gotten from his parents in the last couple of years? From his father, he got less than nothing: rejection and assault while still in prison, and the assurance that he deserved his fate once he was out. From his mother, he got a mother-hen clucking and a there-there pat on the arm, as if he'd stubbed his toe at school. Where was the understanding, sympathy, acceptance, support and most of all, warmth?

Out of nowhere, Wilson had another moment of insight that caught him unprepared. He had always accepted House's version of his relationship with his parents. Loved his mother; hated his father. Therefore, his mother was good; his father was bad. It was that simple.

But was it that simple? The truth was—and Wilson had trouble acknowledging this idea, even to himself—that despite her obvious feelings for him, House's mother had allowed her brilliant, talented to son to be abused, both emotionally and physically, for his entire life. She let it happen. Well, to be fair, maybe she wasn't aware of the physical abuse, but Wilson had been there on more than one occasion when John House had verbally skewered his son as Blythe sat by, never intervening. After the fact, she justified the behavior by saying, "Oh, Greg. Don't be so hard on your dad. You know he loves you."

In other words, laying the responsibility for the abuse at the feet of the victim.

What if House loved her, not because she was inherently good, but because, unlike his father, she never hurt him actively or intentionally—she only hurt him passively? And because at least she gave him something positive, even if what she doled out was reserved and distant.

They may have raised a brilliant child, but John and Blythe also raised a seriously damaged one. That kind of damage has to start early and needs complicity from both parents. Because Blythe House always seemed so pleasant, and because House loved her, Wilson had chosen not to see her participation in his damaged personality, mentally placing the blame for House's misanthropy on House himself.

In other words, laying the responsibility on the victim.

How many times had his parents, instead of giving him the strong foundation a gifted child needs, purposely done things that stifled his creativity and squashed his spirit—left him feeling that he had no value as a person—and done it "for his own good"?

As this idea stormed through Wilson's mind, he circled back in on the idea he'd been trying to avoid, replaying a vision of himself reflected in the thoughts he was having about John and Blythe. It wasn't an attractive portrait. In fact, it was ugly, and worse than that, he knew it was true.

How many times had he himself judged his friend and tried to manipulate House "for his own good," usually in ways that further damaged his friend's already precarious sense of self-worth, and then rationalized his own behavior as an attempt to curb House's ego or bring him down to earth?

And how many times had those good intentions paved the road to hell as they careened out of control? Every single time. The horrible week of detox. The "clip his wings" fiasco. The refusal, as House's doctor, to deal with his patient's increasing pain and to treat it properly, forcing him into a downward spiral that actually ended with House in jail.

And then, the worst—the months before Cameron's death when he constantly criticized House for his self-destructive behavior, behavior that was in fact a mask to hide Thompson's abuse as House tried desperately to save the people he cared about by offering himself up as a sacrifice.

Wilson had the good grace to be ashamed of himself. Very ashamed.

As he sat there in the corner, his face began to flush with embarrassment over his presumption. Who the hell did I think I was? What gave me the right?

It was suddenly clear to Wilson that everyone in House's life, from childhood forward, had been trying to "fix" him. Well, what if he hadn't actually been broken? What if, instead, he was just different from most people—which he clearly was—and all this "fixing" was what had damaged him? If everyone who loved him felt there was something so wrong with him that he needed fixing, how could he possibly believe he was worth anything?

Feeling a burning behind his eyelids, Wilson glanced up from the floor to see that House, exhausted and ready for his mother to leave, was trying to signal him subtly from across the room.

Snapping out of it, Wilson stood, explained that House needed to rest, and escorted Blythe back out to the reception area.

When Blythe visited again, her son was asleep.

Wilson never knew how she convinced John House to stay at the hotel, how she gave him the news that he wasn't welcome, that he would not be allowed to see his son. He suspected that she blamed it on his angry fit in the lobby. Which was, of course, only part of the story.