Chapter Thirty-Five: The Final Link in the Circle of Life
Wilson did nod at the irony of the father figure's final words to "his only son", but he hoped House wouldn't take them to heart. But it seemed like House hadn't taken anything to heart lately, not a single defying emotion was on the rough middle-aged face. The blue straight-forward eyes didn't show distantness as they usually did when House was in deep thought, his eyebrow line wasn't burrowed in worry or his jaw set in grit. He watched his friend limp forward with direct, strong masculine shoulders, and his better leg leading the bad one.
If anything, Wilson was troubled that House hadn't shown any feeling towards the news of a loved one dying. But if there was no love between them, he rationalized, than it is just another person biting the dust to him. He followed his indifferent friend inside where James saw several stiff-shouldered, straight-faced men in uniform and a cluster of about five women in a half-circle near the entrance.
House had picked a red rose off the hedge near the funeral parlor's doorway and picked off all the thorns on his way in. In a childish wave of not caring; he flicked the thorns in the direction of a few of his dad's comrades; and smirked when one of the men flinched on contact. But as he hobbled towards the bunch of women he became stone-faced again, because he knew he had to be serious. This was a funeral for a well-respected bastard after all.
"Gregory!" The youngish lady at the mouth of the half-circle cried out almost too loudly, and from the sound of her voice she was ecstatic to see him. "Mom," he alleged, limping through the crowd of the gray-haired women in black dresses. They stepped aside for him, a few whispering to themselves and pointing to his cane and limping leg.
"How are you, Mrs. House?" James arrived right behind House, a little surprised to see another member of the House family not in any sign of emotional distress. Blythe had done her hair with youthful, free-flowing golden-haired waves, and her make-up looked like it had been applied with the intentions of going to a formal, happy occasion.
The "stolen" flower that she had received from her son was put behind her ear, the blooming blossom making her look childish than her barely visible wrinkles and son's age suggested. She was wearing a slimming knee-length black skirt, and black shoes. As if to symbolize a new beginning, or maybe just to spite her deceased spouse, she also wore a tie-dye rubber bracelet around her thin wrist. When she corrected Wilson, her voice had no grief, and she waved him aside, "Please James. We've been through this. You may call me Blythe."
"Sorry. How are you, Blythe?" James asked, wishfully hoping that she would break down on him, but from the looks of things, she actually looked in high spirits. She reached out and hugged the man who felt no more part of the family than his relations with House. He was surprised at her vigor of the hug and when she pulled away, he made a mental note to why House holds on so tight some nights. He got his physical strength from his mother. Either that, or the buried need of comfort from a male from the lack of fatherly attention.
"I am doing well, within reason. It feels like I am a recovering addict." she replied with a wry smile at her son, who shrugged and popped a pill, and then she sighed and shrugged for her own record, "I am learning how to live without the thing that poisoned me for almost fifty years."
Gregory House was looking around the room, taking it all in, as if making a memory film for himself to cherish whenever the disturbing memories of his father came into his subconscious. He recognized a few of the women from the group hanging around his mother. Some of them had baby-sat him when his mother had to work, and the years hadn't done much to their lemon-sucking lips and rigid, uptight body structure. A few he also recalled going to marches with his mother, and these were the ones who smiled warmly when they saw him. He looked away before he felt obligated to smile back.
"You mean to tell me that you are not down at all that your husband is well…gone? I would be mortified, even if the man mistreated me." Wilson asked in a low voice, his thick brown eyebrow line lowered in complete disbelief. He had treated patient's wives who completely despised their husbands, but if they got the news that their husband was dying of cancer they would automatically be saddened.
Blythe's face quickly and suddenly turned serious, as if the light-switch keeping her sunny disposition on had been flicked off. Her face made her look her twice age, and more stern. She lowered her shoulders so her voice wouldn't travel to the army men near her and said under her breath in a grave, firm tone, "I think the reason I am so happy is I don't have a reason to be put down anymore. For the first time in my adult life, I can make my own decisions for me, and not set myself to the standards of anyone else. It's the beginning of the rest of my life, and I am not going to waste it worshipping some glory-chaser."
Her features lifted again when she saw her son stare off into space a affectionate smile crept across her face, the golden evening light through the window making her whole face shine with an amber glow. "Greg, would you stop sucking in the all the long-awaited happiness of this momentous occasion and do me a favor?"
House's observing eyes had fallen on the casket, an unnerving chill running down his spine, but his mother's voice brought him back to the present. "What?" he asked, feeling like a kid who had been asked to do homework, but much rather finish the video game level he was currently on.
Blythe noticed her son's disturbed, uneasy body language, but tried to sound as reasonable as she possibly could, "Would you please give your father's eulogy?"
Why should I? I hardly knew the bastard, and the man I did know I hated to live with. House's mind raced, the dark cloud falling thickly over him, making him feel smothered again, just as he was in his office earlier that morning. Wilson noticed his lover clench up, and the worry wrinkles form on his forehead for the first time that day. He removed his hand from his pants pocket, and rested it on House's shoulder. He did it ever so lightly, so House wouldn't worry about being shown affection among the public. What surprised James was Greg actually leaned into the comfort, like a cat leaning into a back rub.
"It would mean the world to me if you did, Greg," Blythe murmured, finally being able to make her honey colored eyes collide with the wavering blue ones. Taking another deep nasal breath and gripping onto his cane harder, House eventually looked away to say sharply, "Fine. Don't expect me to win any awards for best script though."
House swallowed hard and stole a quick glance with his zoomed in eyes to Wilson. His lover was giving a half-smile, half supporting him through this and half sympathetic to the event, and behind those cavernous chocolate eyes was the want to comfort House. Greg took that as his strong point as he took the steps forward to the pews.
The elderly woman adjusted the rose behind her ear, and thanked her son in a soft voice. He didn't respond; he just took another half-hearted step after the other. Then she turned to Wilson, gave him a copy of the program, and breathed out thankfully as they followed, "Thank God you are here, James. He seems to really be drawn to your commitment to compassion for others. He never got it from his father as a child."
James took steps in time with Blythe, and shrugged dismissively, "He tells me sometimes that it's the thing that gets him through long sleepless nights." He wasn't worried about how Blythe would take that comment. He had known first-hand over the phone before the two doctors had become involved that she was a very accepting person.
Blythe House used to call Wilson after getting her son's answering machine for a "House Update" and he would be as honest as allowed to fill her in. Some things were to best to be hidden however. It's best not to shock her to death by saying anything too rash in one sitting. Wilson thought as he sat by a rigid House.
The handicapped man's sapphire eyes were staring ahead, right above the open casket; the soul behind the eyes feeling emotionless no longer. House felt like an empty latex balloon when he walked into the funeral parlor, ready to be filled up with air, and then released obnoxiously for comic relief. But now, seeing the pale, blank expression on the dead man's face, he felt different. Now Greg felt like that same balloon was filling up with ice-cold water and put inside a subzero, cramped freezer. Soon, he would crack.
Do my metaphors make sense? Or, do they seem to fit the mood of the story?
I am working on a "Metaphor and Mood" unit in my English class and I was wondering if my examples thus far in this story are well done or not…
While House was completely lost in his thoughts, he blocked out everything around him. Not even the soft pat on his back from Wilson brought him out of his trance. When his mother got up, dusted off her dress, and walked up to the podium next to the coffin, he didn't even bother giving her the respect of listening.
She's always loved the attention the stage gave her. Just let her act and convince these idiots that he was a good man, while you try to think. House's mind told itself, as he sat in the pew, quivering slightly. He wasn't chilly necessarily; he just wasn't a big fan of giving speeches to impress the men who were bigger than him. Or men who were trained specifically for combat. Every time he would try to talk to his father alone in civilized fashion he would get the same feeling over him.
Wilson was watching Blythe with the utmost respect and a slight smile on his face. He couldn't help it, she was telling some pretty quirky things John would do when he was alive. For one, he used to wake up at 2 A.M. and cook large, delicious breakfasts and then fall asleep at the table before even getting to eat it. Sometimes with the mug of coffee still in his hand.
And the way that Blythe explained it made it seem that Jonathan House was a decent family man, and she loved and missed him dearly. Wilson knew she was speaking the truth, but she was also over exaggerating his good times within the House household. From spending time and talking with House, James knew there was a lot she wasn't saying. But for the sake of looking on the bright side of the death, Blythe brought the light into the room.
"And now, my, I mean, our son Gregory would like to say a few words on behalf of his father." The happy-faced, tearful-eyed woman said as she stepped away from the podium. She lingered there for a while, watching the audience, and wiping away artificial tears. Her son rose shakily to his feet, his eyes scanning the room as if checking for someone to jump out and yell, "Greg has a cane? What the hell did he do? That boy's always been careless towards anyone but himself." But no one did. And after a quick hug from his mom; House allowed himself to stride right behind the platform.
As he looked up at the smallish crowd he suddenly felt everyone's judgmental eyes on him. Greg felt like he was back in elementary school during "Career Day" and he had to give a speech all about an absentee father. The memories of his father also seemed to swarm around him, constricting his airway like a large and heavy anaconda snake. But then his diverting eyes fell on Wilson and his mother, and the weight slowly faded as if the snake around him was getting eaten my something bigger. They were both looking up at him, with silent You can do this shining in both their eye contact and curling lips. Courage is a smile from someone you love and a mental pat on the back the way through. House thought before he took a deep, long breath and began.
"My father was a complicated man who enjoyed, well, different things on different days. One day, he would tell me to plant the biggest tree we could afford in the back yard below his bedroom. The next he would have me dig it up and move it, because he claimed he needed more privacy. He was a private man, who didn't like to communicate unless it was something to be improved upon. I don't recall getting any praise from him, unless it had come from my mother's mouth first.
"I do remember once, I hadn't done the dishes correctly. He got mad and broke the one with the most food left on it. I had to fix the bowl, and then eat hot soup from it while it was sitting on my lap. Everything he taught me had a lesson behind it, and some unique way of me learning it.
I can't say I didn't look up to my father for his intelligence, but I didn't respect him. Despite the fact he always wanted me to. I find it hard to respect a man who didn't even respect his wife, or people as humans who make mistakes.
I never had a positive relationship with him, so I think that the flowers he's being buried under will show him the power of deeply rooted growth. I grew up the way I did because he never took the moment's care to notice of what was unique to me. Now that he's dead, I can continue to grow to make myself and my mom happy.
However, just like the coffin lid that is about to cover him, there has always been an unbreakable wall between the two of us. I wanted for us to get along and to tear down whatever he found unfitting about me, but he keep adding more layers of broken trust in front of himself. He was blind to the fact I cared about him, just like his dead ears can't even hear me know. In that way I am grateful. But you can call what he did was defensive mechanism, I call it selfish greed.
So, thanks for coming here today and shedding tears for this man. In the battles he fought I know he deserved your sympathy. But in the lives he left behind he has given more freedom than you'll ever know."
House took another deep breath, hoping that the words he said came out right, and he said them clearly enough that everyone would understand how he felt. As he hobbled to the casket, and got one last look at the man inside, he noticed the several facial expressions in response to his eulogy.
The comrades of his dad's army regime remained serious in facial expression, but their eyes reflected the truth of House's words, as if they felt they went through the same thing with their commander. Family members, on John's side that were still alive, gave their crippled non-family member an icy stare as if the truth was too much to bear, or not the truth at all.
But those people didn't matter. None of them did. All that mattered to Greg was when he turned around and started on his way back to the pews was the look on his "Only True Family's" faces. Blythe's face showed real tears this time, the years of silently being pushed around by John and being uplifted by her son melting away.
Wilson's reflected the final beams of sunset, a whole spectrum of oranges, yellows, and some reds, and the biggest beam of pride his lips and cheeks could naturally muster. House had just saved himself, and his mother for that matter, from all the ghosts of memories that Jonathan could've left behind. And Wilson was proud of him.
Author's Note:
And so. The funeral. I hate death, I really do, but I know it is a natural part of life. I just also do not support abuse in any way shape or form, and the fact that House was "abused early in life" was hard for me to cover up cleverly in this chapter. (Especially since I have no idea what John actually did to House, nor do I EVER intend on finding out.)
Nonetheless, that was hard to write, especially in character, but I still get joy out writing it. Speaking of "Joy" what did all you Americans think that saw the episode last night? Is Cuddy a friend or an enemy to the House/Wilson fandom? I personally got very upset, but hey, I am not a script-writer so I couldn't complain. But I did have a few things to scream about to the TV screen.
Have a great Halloween everyone who celebrates! I can't believe one year ago today I was saying the same thing on this same story. As always, those who leave me the "treat" of leaving a review will get a comment "treat" back. No" tricks" please, I am clumsy enough as it is. Thanks!