Chapter 3

Glass House, Glass Heart*

There comes a time in one's life in which he has to leave the comfort of his own home, in order to get a taste of what the world outside can offer. Endless possibilities await him and he gains all kinds of experiences—both good and bad—which make him wiser and more mature. When the time comes, eventually, he grows into his own person, no longer held back by the safety cushion of what he once called home; it is at this time that he is ready to build another home—his new home. It's inevitable, a part of life; just the same as when a baby bird grows up and has to leave its nest to live on its own, until it finds another bird, and together they begin to build a new nest. But all this ever spoke about was the child growing up and leaving his home—his family—behind; it portrayed the child's home as something that would always be there, something that would never be gone; even something the grown up child could go back to visit every once in a while. It never considered the possibility of the child losing its family sooner than he'd expected, forcing him out of his comfort zone—his home—much earlier than he'd like, even before he was prepared to do anything about it.

Will was four years old when he realized he was different from the other kids. Some of his classmates were picked up from preschool by their fathers, while he had never seen anyone other than his mom pick him up. At first, he didn't find anything wrong with his family setup—he didn't have a care in the world—because as far as he was concerned, he was living happily with his mom. Even without a father, Will still loved it when his mom ordered him his favorite chunky chocolate ice cream whenever they ate at a nearby diner; he still enjoyed running in the grassy field and hiding from her whenever she took him out to the park on Sundays. Besides that, Will's mother was able to take care of him in spite of a job that required her to be in the hospital for almost an entire day. Will had never been neglected and all his needs were met—nothing was wrong with the family he had and that's what he believed, until that fateful day when his mom had been ten minutes late in picking him up from preschool.

Ten minutes.

It was all it took for Will to have his first dose of bitter reality.

He was sitting cross-legged on the matted floor, wheeling his toy truck back and forth while he waited for his mother to arrive. Will was getting nervous; his mother had never been late to pick him up after school. Every day after the class had been dismissed, Will would race with his friends to meet their parents outside—his mother would be standing at a distance, waving at him, and he'd run faster to show her a Very Good! and a smiley face stamped on the back of his hand, or maybe perhaps one of the drawings they did that day. But this day was strange; Will didn't find his mom among the crowd of parents waiting for their kids.

"Go back inside, Will, I'm sure your mother's on her way," called Will's preschool teacher. Obedient as he was, he went back to the classroom, but his heart was pounding faster.

"You're not yet leaving?" Only one of Will's classmates remained; a boy whose name he couldn't remember, the one who always remained behind, whose parents didn't come to pick him up as soon as the class was over.

Will could only nod, his anxiety increasing. What if his mother never arrived?

"C'mon, let's just play. My dad's late all the time too," said the boy, seemingly proud. He sat down beside Will on the matted floor and began building a tower of Lego blocks. The two boys were silent for a few minutes, minding their own business—the boy with his blocks and Will with his toy truck; their teacher had turned their back on them to clean up scattered crayons and stray toys around the classroom.

"Sometimes my mom picks me up too, just like you. She's never late too, but I like dad better because he buys me ice cream, so it's okay if he's late." The boy abandoned his Lego tower and picked up a toy police car not far from Will. "Is your dad late all the time too?"

Will unconsciously gripped his toy truck tightly. Without looking at his classmate, he muttered, "I don't have a dad."

"Why not? Everybody has a dad," the boy asserted matter-of-factly. "But my dad's daddy, grandpa, he died. Did your dad die?"

Where was she? Will didn't want to be where he was right now. His stomach was squirming. "I don't know."

"You can always ask your mom when she picks you up. Why is she taking so long? Maybe she died too—owwww!"

Without any second thoughts Will had whacked his classmate on the temple with his toy truck. The boy fell to the floor in loud, pained sobs, his hands covering his bleeding wound. The teacher had been too busy cleaning up that she had not witnessed the incident, and as she had not anticipated the event, she didn't keep a close watch on them.

"What happened? Boys!" she ran to Will's classmate upon hearing his cries, cradling the scared boy while she examined his injury. Will began to tear up, his hand cold, still gripping his bloodstained toy truck.

"What's going on?" Cynthia Madison had just entered the room, her ponytailed curly brown hair windblown from hurrying to Will's preschool; witnessing Will's teacher helping a crying boy get to his feet and her son standing next to them, tears silently falling down his cheeks, her mouth fell open as she pieced together what could've happened before she arrived.

"We can discuss this later, but right now we need to get him to a hospital, just to make sure he's okay," said the preschool teacher. As soon as the boy heard the word hospital, he sobbed even louder. "Please just take Will home, Ms. Madison," she added. "I promise to call you later."

Cynthia Madison was both anxious and appalled at the situation she had walked in upon a while ago. She had an inkling of what may have happened but she still wanted to hear the story straight from her son and his preschool teacher. It was hard to believe what she had seen earlier—her sweet and thoughtful four-year-old, holding a bloodied toy truck and crying—since she very well knew Will didn't harm even the tiniest, most innocent insect, but before she assumed anything she had to know the truth; the truth she wanted Will to tell her first before his preschool teacher asked him about it.

Will was seated at the foot of the stairs, his face covered by his tiny hands; Cynthia could still hear his muffled sobs no matter how much he tried to silence them.

"Darling, I want you to tell me what happened at school," she began, taking a seat beside her son.

Her four-year-old shook his head, still crying.

"Will, I'm confused with what I saw. I don't know the whole story. If you tell me what really happened…," she whispered calmly, pulling her son into an embrace.

"D-do I have a d-dad?" Will whimpered, looking up at his mom. "My dad n-never shows u-up, h-he said it m-means he's dead, is h-he d-dead, M-Mommy? And when h-he s-said you weren't coming b-because maybe y-you were d-dead too, I g-got s-so m-mad I—I h-hit him, I-I'm s-so sorry, M-Mommy!" He was talking too fast, his sentences interjected by hiccups.

This was something Cynthia did not anticipate at all. She inhaled deeply, not knowing how she should tell Will about his father. It could go two ways: she could carry on with the story and agree that Ed Schuester had died of a sickness or in a fire or something else—only she'd be lying to the most precious thing she had in her life, and she hated the thought of that. But telling Will the truth, that his father had left them before he was even born, was way too painful for a child to understand and accept. She didn't want her son to feel that his own father doesn't want him in his life; she doesn't want Will to feel the rejection she had gone through, especially rejection from the one who had helped conceive him.

Cynthia Madison cleared her throat at last, deciding to tell some truths and— as much as it went against what she wanted—some lies. "You know, your dad's busy working," she said carefully, stroking Will's curly hair, which he undoubtedly got from her.

Will rubbed his eyes. "H-he's not dead?"

"He isn't, honey." Cynthia braced herself for the questions that were about to come. "I don't really know where he works, but I bet it's a place far from here, which is why he can't come home and live with us all the time."

"Why? Can't he just work somewhere nearby so that he can come home and have dinner with us and then he can pick me up from school too?" Innocent green eyes, still brimming with tears, stared expectantly at Cynthia—the curious, wondering, eyes of her son who was unaware of what he was really asking. His eyes were a perfect replica of Ed Schuester's.

"Well," Cynthia tried to smile through a pang of discomfort. "More people need him in other places, which is why… his, uhm… boss, asked him to work far away, so that he can help more people."

"What work does he do?" Will had stopped crying.

Now Cynthia knew she had to withhold this information from him. She was afraid that Will would start searching for his father once he got older, and giving him pieces of data about him would only speed up the process. It may be hard, but it wasn't impossible to track someone down. "You know what's funny, darling," she said, ruffling Will's hair, "I don't really know exactly what your father does," she lied. "But what I do know for sure is that he helps a lot of people and makes their lives better."

"Like a superhero?" Will said in awe.

Cynthia bit her lip. She got up and carried Will even though he was getting heavier. "I guess, yeah… superhero." Making her way to the kitchen, she decided that it was time to change the subject, distract his son with other things. "Anyway," she said, "Enough of that. Aren't you hungry? Because I'm starving! What do you want to eat?"

"Can I ask one last question, please, Mommy?" begged Will.

"The last one."

"What's Daddy's name?"

"Edward Schuester. Okay, you want me to buy you an ice cream later?"

"Yes!"

Now no amount of ice cream could ever distract Will from the truth. As sure as his mother was dead, his father was not a superhero; to his patients, he may be a lifesaver, but to Will he was the villain. His mom was the real hero, the woman who had done anything and everything to make sure he grew up just as well as the other kids who had both parents. And as in every story, once the hero had died the villain would take the hero's prized possession as his own; in Will's case, he was the prized possession.

The silver sedan parked precisely into the spacious garage. Ed Schuester got out of the car, snapping his fingers at Will to follow suit as he headed quickly into the box-shaped house— a three-storey, modern-styled structure with most of its walls made up of glass. The house was magnificent; faint sunbeams brightened the place and made shiny pieces of decor sparkle; it was spotless, and not to mention that the house had expensive furniture to match. But Will hasn't had the time to explore it just yet. They had passed quickly through the hallways and proceeded to climb the stairs, to the third floor, where there were three rooms. The older Schuester walked towards the first door a few steps from the staircase and opened it. "Here's your room," he said indifferently.

Will entered after his father. The room was definitely bigger than his bedroom at home; this had a king-sized bed, a wider closet, and apparently he had his own bathroom too. He also had two bedroom windows, one which had the view of a rectangular swimming pool in the backyard; the other had a less glamorous view of the street outside their house.

"Go ahead and rest, take a shower, whatever you wish to do—"

"I want to go home," scowled Will.

"Anything but that," Ed Schuester replied sternly. "I'll call you again later when it's time for dinner. You'll be meeting my wife and son by then, so behave yourself."

"What makes you think I won't behave?"

"That bruise on your face is proof enough," Ed shot back; Will covered the bruise on his jaw with one hand, glaring at his father. "Have you eaten?" Ed Schuester was back at the door, already posing to leave.

"No," grumbled Will.

"There is food downstairs if—"

"Not hungry," Will replied dismissively, turning his back on his father. He knew he was only doing this out of pity, not out of love. The door closed; he was alone again. And although being alone reminded him of the pain he has to live with everyday, a part of him felt relieved that at least he didn't have to interact with his father or his family—at least not yet, not for a few hours.

Will had taken a bath and had changed into a decent enough sweater and sweatpants, not bothering to dress into something fancier; besides, he had no expensive clothing to match Ed Schuester's luxurious "home". The bruise on his left jaw didn't look as gruesome anymore, but it still swelled a little. Two suitcases of his belongings lay untouched by the closet, waiting to be unpacked, but all he had unpacked so far was a towel, a tooth brush and toothpaste, soap and shampoo, underwear, a few pairs of socks, and the clothes he had changed into. Making himself comfortable on the bed, he opened his backpack and took out, among his books and notebooks, a framed photograph of him and his mother taken on his mother's final birthday before she died; he placed it by his bedside table and laid in bed, closing his eyes.

One of their neighbors had taken the photo, happily obliging to take part in Will's surprise for his mother's 43rd birthday. In it, Will, lean and towering in height, was grinning from ear to ear with his long arms wrapped lovingly around his mother.

"Will, honey, you didn't have to do this," Cynthia Madison was smiling too, tears filling up her eyes. She couldn't tell her son that this may be the last birthday she ever celebrated; she had already been diagnosed with breast cancer but she chose not to be treated—it was just as painful for her to undergo chemotherapy and know that Will was suffering, just watching her and not able to do anything about it. For Cynthia, it was better that she kept it to herself instead, and pretended that she was still perfectly healthy. "This dress is beautiful by the way," she said, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief. She was wearing a silky, lilac dress that fell right down to her knees. "You really bought this?"

"Yep," said Will proudly. "I got the money from my first babysitting job at the Johnsons' two weeks ago. But I had some help, though," he said, shrugging. "I didn't know what dress to get you so I asked one of the sales ladies at the store to choose the prettiest one. You like it?"

"I love it, thank you, Will…."

"Happy birthday, Mom," he said, kissing the top of his mother's head.

He didn't realize how long he had been in bed and that he had fallen into a short nap, until loud knocks on the door snapped him back to wakefulness. Ed Schuester stepped inside and took a quick look around the room, while Will stood up and straightened his sweater.

"I see you haven't unpacked all of your things," Ed Schuester said, as his eyes fell upon the framed picture on his son's bedside table; he turned away before Will saw him looking at it, reminding himself not to look at the photo again. His son only shrugged in response and didn't even look at him.

"Dinner's ready, let's go."

As they neared the dining area, Will heard male and female voices conversing, laughing; it was his father's wife and son, both of whom he was going to meet. What would they look like, and how would they behave? He wanted to know what kind of people his father left him and his mother for. Will walked behind his father, who was striding confidently ahead of him. They had finally reached the dining area which looked just as modern as the rest of the house, with a dining table made of glass and could seat at least eight people.

A tall, slender woman with blonde hair and blue eyes looked up upon hearing the two Schuesters arrive; she had just set a bowl of freshly-cooked potatoes on the table. She had smiled at Ed upon seeing him, but her lips tightened when she had noticed Will just behind her husband. Already seated by the table and ready to eat, a boy, about a year younger than Will had almost the same reaction as his mother's; upon seeing his father he had greeted him, but he seemed to have frozen once he set his eyes upon Will. The boy took on a lot from his mother, having the same blond hair and blue eyes. Mother and son fell silent, and the tension in the room heightened in a matter of seconds.

Ed Schuester pulled Will from behind him and clasped him on the shoulder; if at some point he felt uncomfortable in this situation—his family meeting his teenage illegitimate son— he sure wasn't showing any signs of it. Instead Ed was, as how some would call it, professional, in handling the situation. He cleared his throat and spoke without hesitation. "This is my son, William." Ed's wife, forcing a smile, made her way to her seat at the table, next to her son.

The older Schuester continued. "William, this is my wife, Susan—" he paused, "—and my son, Henry." He then pointed at a seat across from his family, and Will understood that it was where he was to be seated. Awkwardly and without looking at Susan and Henry Schuester's faces, he took a seat next to his father.

Eerie silence consumed the room, neither one of them wanting to be the first to break it, until Ed Schuester spoke authoritatively once again. "The food's getting cold. Let's eat."

Glass House, Glass Heart is the title because glass (for me) represents fragility and vulnerability, which I wanted to focus on in this chapter. Glass House is clearly pertaining to Ed Schuester's home, which is where we also get a first look at his wife and son—Susan and Henry; these two will return in later chapters so don't worry that they haven't said anything at all in chapter 3. Not only did I use a modern "glass" house to depict how Ed Schuester really is a well-off man, but most of all I wanted his house to be something Will would have a hard time attaching himself to, because as he says, it is not his "home", and it shows that a structurally beautiful house doesn't necessarily mean "home". Glass Heart pretty much covers the two flashback scenes in this chapter, where we get glimpses of Will's relationship with his mom, Cynthia Madison. I hope that with these flashbacks, you get to see why Will loves his mother so much, and how in turn, his mother loves him just as much. Besides, having these flashbacks are important because Will's mother is dead, so the only way I could bring her back was through these. Glass Heart also represents how Will, after his mother's death, has become fragile and heartbroken.

*Unlike the first two chapters, the title did not come from a song.