Comparisons

“Mom, I wish you’d stop comparing my son to his father. I know you don’t particularly like John and I don’t blame you.  But James isn’t him.” 

“I didn’t say he was,” Jane said, looking at her daughter. 

Sara sighed, and shifted in her seat. It was morning and they were eating breakfast on the front porch. It was screened in so a cool breeze blew in off the lake. This was an ongoing argument and too early in the day for it. She looked at her mother, a thin woman with gray short hair and thick bifocals. Jane was terribly nearsighted. Sara had been too, but had gotten Lasix surgery. She wondered if she was wearing her hearing aids right now. Not that she would necessarily listen one way or another. She pushed her thick, bushy hair away from her face. 

“You said he needs counseling.” For about the hundredth time. One of these days you might get the idea that I’m not sure you’re right about that. 

“He does.” Jane was looking straight at her. “He has no friends and he doesn’t talk about his feelings.” 

“He does have friends and he’s not going to like counseling. Or do you recall the last time I tried that?” Sara had signed him up, after she divorced John, for an after-school program. It had been for children of divorced parents. He was eight years old then and she knew he never liked the group. What she hadn’t known until he admitted years later that he hid in the bathroom to avoid the meetings. 

 So, if the boy wasn't going to participate at 14 or 15 years old, she told herself, I’m not going to spend 85 dollars a session to force it. Now whether I’m right or wrong I don’t know. She picked up the stupid Wall Street Journal and looked at some article about what the president was doing. Or she thought that's what it said. It could have been in Spanish for all she could comprehend it.  

She had tried to talk to James herself as he was growing up. “Why don’t you invite people home,” she had asked him when he was about 16 years old. He used to invite his friends over. But in high school he had stopped. 

“I see my friends at school” he had said. “That’s enough. I want to relax at home.” So, he talked to his friends online and played online video games with them. She just knew their names from social media. Even his girlfriend, Susan, had been a long-distance relationship. What was the distance that used to separate them? Something like 200 miles. Now that he was in a college near her the distance was 30 miles. That at least was doable by car. 

Another time he had said “i don’t like to talk about my father’s death. That was my problem with Susan. She always pushed the issue.” Eventually they had broken up for that and other reasons. Now, a year and a half later they were back together and apparently, happy. 

Sara had said, “You don’t have to talk about your father’s death. I don’t think you should keep that inside though. But neither will I force you to discuss what you don’t want to. I’m here though if you need me.” She hadn't been sure if that was a good idea or if she was ostriching, as she had come to call it. Trying not to see what was there.  

Jane was putting cream cheese on her slice of banana bread. She said, “He must have been upset. The man walked out and never came home. I don’t know why you’re fighting me on this.” The man had suffered a massive heart attack while out walking late at night, alone, as was apparently his habit. And neither son had called the police when he didn’t come back. They found out when their uncle had told them the next morning. Why hadn’t they called anyone? Sara assumed they were ostriching, themselves. She couldn’t blame them. They had just been scared kids. 

Sara flipped through the newspaper. It gave her an excuse to not look up. “Mom. I can’t make him talk to me about it,” she told Jane. “But you not advocating counseling just for this or I wouldn’t fight you. You always wanted James to go. You thought John needed counseling so now you probably think James does.” Her mother had denied hating her ex-husband. Well if that wasn't hatred Sara didn't know what was. One terrible Christmas John and Jane had a stupid argument over a stupid comment he'd said about Sara. Your daughter is stubborn. And her mother had told him a thing or two about how she felt about him and the way he treated her daughter. John had sulked to the point of refusing to stay in Jane’s house. Neither had apologized and to his dying day neither spoke to each other again. It was a long time to not speak. James was 17 when his dad died and the argument had happened when he was what? Six or seven years old maybe? 

“John did need counseling. But now I’m talking about James. He’s critical, like his father. He keeps putting down his brother for not getting good grades.” 

“Yes, he did. I don’t like it. So, I told him ‘James, grades mean little enough, when it comes to intelligence. These kids may not be dumb and your brother certainly isn’t. But they don’t have the motivation you have.’ And unlike John he seems to be listening, since he stopped and started helping Mark with his homework. He does often listen to what I say even if he doesn’t admit to it.” 

“But he’s not going to get close to anyone if he can’t open up.” 

Sara was going to kill her mother. “I can’t make him do what he doesn’t want to do.”  

Is it your mother you’re going to kill or yourself? 

I’m not going to kill myself. But she forcing an issue I’m tired of arguing.  

“I don’t think it’s right to force anyone to go to counseling unless they’re not functioning. James has said he doesn’t want it, but Mark did.” 

“He'll regret that later. He can’t hold things in. That will isolate him and he will have no real relationship with anyone.” 

“Mom, I know but he has to discover that for himself. Hopefully he will.” 

So the boy was introverted and only spoke about his feelings when he felt it truly necessary. Did any of this mean a kid needed counseling? And for what? The boy was functioning. He denied being depressed. Now Mark HAD needed it. He was withdrawn, especially at school. He hardly spoke in a social situation. He slept in class. In his case it was do it or watch him not function. The counselor had diagnosed him with anxiety issues. For him the counseling had worked although he still struggled in school. But he was open, talking more, everyone said so. He was just never going to be a Rhode’s scholar and so be it. 

 Mark was also, oddly enough, not his father's son. Oh they were biologically. But he was his grandfather's grandson. Mark had fallen from a different apple tree and that mattered, like it or not. And Sara wasn't stupid. She knew she praised Mark for being like her father because she valued those qualities. Her father was a good man, intelligent, funny, and very caring. And because they loved him, they laughed over his faults like his absented- mindedness, his temper, or being late to everything. Sara really realized he was like his grandfather the day she had invited Mark to her writing class. He had said “the story I will write will say ‘Once upon a time, the end.'" It was what her father always said when she had asked to read him a bedtime story. They’d laugh and then he’d find her a real one to read. 

Sara was also arguing not only with her mother but herself. 

Mark has caused you more problems than James has. He has Asperger’s. All those parent teacher conferences. There was more than one mother should ever have in a lifetime. 

Yes. But I can understand him. James, I don’t. Who takes up statistics as a career choice or makes fun of tragic events like school shootings? 

People who are trying to deal with a nasty reality that could happen to them, that’s who. Because maybe it’s either see the humor, black as it is, or hide under the covers at home. Besides, he’s not the only one that makes fun of tragic events. Look at all the memes out there. He doesn’t make them. He just shares them. You've laughed at them yourself, you moron.

Maybe we all need the goddamn counseling. I certainly must since I might end up with two kids that are in it. 

You wouldn’t go either. 

I would. I have been, you know. I hate counseling. Although maybe it helped me. 

“Well, hopefully he’ll realize all this for himself.” Jane pushed her plate away so she could lean forward, elbows on the table, one hand against her cheek. 

“There’s a hummingbird out there” Sara said hoping to change the subject. It was buzzing around a flower. It always seemed to be there every time she came here. She folded the newspaper and looked at her cold coffee. We can put a man on the moon in a rocket with less computing power than today’s smartphone, she thought. But no one could make damned ceramic cups that could keep coffee hot. Why was she even here anyway? Oh right. She was going to drive up to James's college later today to see him. Maybe sooner than she expected the rate this conversation was going.  

“Would you like more banana bread?” 

“No thanks.” Later her mother would also complain about Sara’s weight. Yet she always tried to feed her. The woman was caught between two forces of some kind. Nurturing with food and anxiety over health issues, Sara thought. Or she’s just insane. Hell she did the same thing herself, letting Mark have the processed food that he liked but certainly wasn’t good for him. Who was she to judge? 

“Well, I worry about him.” 

“Yes Mom I know. Sometimes I am too. I think he was lonely. But do you know what’s really amazing? I’ll tell what is. How we see our children based on whether or not we love the parent.” 

“Sara-” 

“No, no listen! Yes, James is critical, like his father. That can be good or bad. Good when it comes to the math he’s studying. It can even be good when applied to people. For example, he can read people. He’s accurate about it, like you. So he might be able to tell if he’s being lied to or not.” Sara was gesturing now. “Or if he’s going to get taken advantage of or not. And yes, he keeps it inside. But as long as he doesn’t lie to himself or to others, maybe that’s not the worst thing. Maybe all he has to do is tell people what’s really important.” 

“This isn’t what I’m talking about.” 

“Well I am! And John must have had some kind of heart since about fifty people came to his memorial service.” They had filled the room they had it in. “And many got up and spoke kindly of him. His friends and coworkers did.” 

Jane was glaring. “The man certainly didn’t treat you well.” She was tearing up a napkin. “I don’t even know why you stick up for the guy.” 

“I’m not! The point is, don’t compare James to him unfavorably! That’s it!” 

“I thought we were talking about counseling.” 

“Mom, maybe you’re right. I don’t know. I’ve told you why I didn’t send James. Now I’m talking about something else. We need to stop comparing him to John. The real question is, why is it okay to compare Mark to Dad?” 

“Because he’s like his grandfather.” 

“Who we love. So we compare him favorably even although Mark has his faults.” 

“Oh my God!” Jane slammed her hand down on the table. It was glass so that was not the best idea. The plates rattled on it. “Your father is a better man than John would ever be!” 

“That’s true but even worse. And be careful. Mark might be awake.” Sara walked to the open door into the house and went to the room where the teenager was. She came back. “He’s asleep,” she said and sat back down. 

Jane was glaring. “Worse?” 

“Yes, if you’re going to compare Mark to his grandfather and James to his father who you think was inferior.” 

“He was!” 

“Don’t you see the danger of this? I do.” Jane said nothing so Sara went on, “I don’t have a problem with comparing anyone to anyone else. Just don’t do it unfavorably. Maybe James does need counseling. It certainly wouldn’t have hurt him the way his father died and God knows I suggested it. I just don’t think he needed it before that. That’s why I said you’re comparing him unfavorably to his father.” 

“No, Sara,” Jane was saying, more gently now, “I just saw things I didn’t like about him. Things that worried me.” 

 Sara put her head in her hands. John had, in her opinion been a so-so father and at the end, a terrible husband who was probably depressed. She didn’t know. But she could remember a few good instances. Her husband taking her out to dinner and buying her a present in July because she had said she had never had a good Valentine’s Day. He had once gone out looking for her because she had taken too long while getting food one night. He had taken her out to dinner and proposed on the pier, on bended knee, ring and all. There had been a time he truly cared and loved her. She had seen that in his face on their wedding day and that night in their bed. So he hadn’t been all bad and certainly some of the complaints he had about her were justified. Back then he hadn’t been the man who walked out of her mother’s house and sulked at a hotel. What had changed in the years she didn’t know except she felt he was very unhappy. What would happen to James and Mark she didn’t know. She didn’t even know what would happen to the goddamn world given climate change for God’s sake, never mind her children. 

“Anyway,” said Jane, “We’ll have to see how he does.” 

“Yes,” said Sara thinking of a picture that James had sent her. It was a picture of him with his girlfriend. But what had struck her was his hair. He had thick brown hair and he was growing it long. It hung down to his shoulders now and because he didn’t layer it the sides stuck out. Her ex-husband would not have approved. But her brother grew his hair like that. Also, he had her brother’s dark sense of humor. Mark didn’t like the opera her father did. “The women screech,” he’d say. He kept his room a mess. His father had ended up if not a hoarder, then too close to it for comfort. At the memorial service his own brother Jack had even mentioned his anger over cleaning out the apartment. It had been no easy task. She sighed. “Let me go get Mark up and get ready,” she said. “It will take him forever.” 

Genetics play a part, she could have said. But the kids are still both themselves; not just John, me or Dad. But she didn’t. Because both she and her mother knew danger or no danger these comparisons would never end. Even now her mother was saying, smiling “Your father doesn’t like to get up in the morning either.” And Sara smiled in spite of herself. She wanted Mark to be like his grandfather, who she admired.