Night of the Dripping Tap, Chapter 11

Blythe had agreed very quickly to make the drive back to Princeton. She had only ever been able to take so much of Bob and Sarah's company. The day John's sister had married that man had been one of the low points in the House family story, starting with the shot-gun wedding -like mother like daughter it turned out - and ending with the all out brawl between Houses and Buntins – and God, what a surname she'd landed herself with.

House hadn't actually dared to ask for a ride but couldn't believe his luck when his mom had set off straight from the hospital for Princeton- complete with loaded trunk and sat-nav. She'd offered no explanation but he knew as good as anyone, she had no time for his uncle either. House and his mom were more alike than appearance would have you believe.

Fields of wheat and tobacco whipped past the periphery of his vision blurring green and yellow, smudging like a painting. With the window wound half way down, he felt the overpowering smell of the pastoral blast through the funk of sterility wedged in his nostrils.

The wind felt good on his skin and he closed his eyes allowing himself to be blown along with the ether.

'You know Greg, you should really…' Blythe didn't really want to get into this conversation so soon into their journey. Yet, she couldn't help herself.

House forced himself to reply despite the overwhelming need he had to fall asleep, 'What Mom? What should I really?'

'It doesn't matter honey,' she backed off thinking better of it, 'I'm sticking my nose where it doesn't belong.'

He was happy with her excuse. From experience he knew conversations that began that way rarely ended well for him. He turned his head back to lean against the cool glass of the car door. The anaesthetic was still playing havoc with his body clock and he could barely keep his eyes open. As he dropped off, he could feel his forehead slipping down and his mouth opening involuntarily; he must look a real tool to the thousands of drivers speeding past them on the freeway. Like he'd been hurled at the window and stuck like a stale piece of gum.

Blythe drove her usual ten under the limit and kept her hands fixed in the ten-to-two position. Every few seconds, she checked her rear-view mirror and committed to memory the make and colour of the car behind her as though prepping for a test that would never come.

She could hear Greg snoring gently in the passenger seat and let herself sneak a glance at him. He looked a little thinner, a little greyer and much hairier but otherwise, he looked okay. She couldn't count the times she had driven him home from the hospital. As a child he'd been so accident prone. There'd been that time he'd spilt his head open on the hearth when he was three, the broken arm after his sixth birthday party, the tonsillectomy… she forgot the rest.

This whole thing had been strange though. John wasn't around anymore, Greg had gone to the wedding, actually turned up – that was weird enough. That everything had ended up with Greg having his belly cut open really shouldn't have surprised her. Expect the unexpected had been her mantra through life with her boy.

Blythe couldn't get her head around the grown man next to her. In some ways, she knew him inside and out. She'd changed his diaper, she agonised over his weight-gain as a baby, pored over the height charts as he'd shot up during his adolescence. Worried, God had she worried.

When she looked at him, all she saw was the blond haired cherub he'd been as a boy, those massive blue eyes he would turn up at her sorrowfully. Odd then that this grizzly man folded up in her compact should be anything to do with her.

She hadn't meant to put that crease in his jeans. She was just so used to ironing John's clothes that she hadn't given it a second thought. Unless he'd worn the wedding suit home, he'd had no choice. That the weather had turned cooler also meant of course, that she had found someone to wear the lovely sweater she had made. He never had been fond of wearing her endeavours of the knitted kind. Strangely though, it did give her a bizarre sense of satisfaction that he had no other option. It had taken her forty years to get him back into one of her creations.

The miles ticked by on her odometer and the scenery grew more verdant the further north they drove. House slumbered on in the passenger seat and Blythe distracted herself from the monotony by humming through a cello piece by Elgar.

She left him snoring as she pulled in at a rest stop to visit the ladies' room. She bought a coffee for herself, another for Greg and couldn't help buying a sneaky bar of chocolate; she did have a slightly obsessive tendency to overindulge in her passion for the dark-stuff.

Walking back to the car, she thumbed the key-fob and heard the locks release. The noise woke House from his dreams and he muttered something unintelligible while she waited for his brain to engage. She gave him the time it took her to finish off the last of her coffee, and manoeuvre the little Ford back out onto the freeway.

'You know son, I never can tell whether you're being clever or dumb.'

'What?' he waited for an explanation, and didn't get one. 'You're going to leave it hanging in the air like that? Okay, I'll bite. Clever or dumb?'

'Yes. Clever or dumb.'

'Right, Mom.'

He shut his mouth against every single last fibre of will in his body. He had learned the hard way over his fifty years on Earth that some things were better left to resolve on their own.

When he'd figured that one out though, he hadn't counted on his Mom having made it there already. He counted to ten in the hope she would elaborate, and could stand it no longer.

'Mom?'

'You, Gregory, are a doctor.'

'Yes…'

'And you, Gregory have just suffered through a round of surgery for Diverticulitis.'

'Again, yes…'

'You know, things have got to change? Right?'

'I think you mentioned that before, Mom.'

'You see, that's where I have the upper hand. I know you better than you know yourself. You think you are above the ordinary, mortal folk that walk freely on this earth.'

'Well, my status as Lord of all the Universe does afford me some hyper-inflated idea of my own self-worth.'

Blythe went on, ignoring him as she went, 'Well, this time, there are no short measures, no short cuts. You have to pay this some heed. You can't ignore this.'

'You know what, I was wondering what that strange little itch all the way up my abdomen was. You're saying there was some kind of surgery? And like, surgery is some how… what's the phrase… bad?'

'Gregory.'

'Mom.'

'You have to listen to that doctor. You have to adjust your diet, listen to your body and take care of yourself-'

'-I-'

'You can't rely on your brain here, Greg. This is more than your sum parts. This is a warning shot. Since your leg…' she let her words settle into the atmosphere and sink into his mind.

'Can we not do this, Mom, please?'

'It needs to be said honey. At least… just give it some thought huh? Devote some of that expensive brain we invested so heavily in to it… if only because my retirement plan kind of depends on my rich doctor son being around for a while.' She patted him on the leg and smiled – never letting her eyes stray from the road.

House turned his head back to lean against the window. He had to hand it to her; she knew how to work him.