[Author's Note: I'm taking a break from /r/WritingPrompts. Instead, I want to expand/combine a couple of the existing posts. This will continue from from where yesterday (Field Hand Mo) left off.]
"My mother? Are you suddenly a psychologist? 'Tell me about your mother?'" said Mo.
"Please, it is nothing like that. As I said, I live with the woman and will most likely continue to do so for several months. I would like to have a better idea of with whom I'm dealing." Lisp's voice was crisp in her head. Coupled with the phrasing, it created an erudite image of Lisp. If she had not met him in person, then she would have pictured a mustachioed man in a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. Similar to how she pictured the personification of Erics.
"Fine," Mo said. She inched forward to the next head of lettuce. "I'm not sure how much good it will do you. When she and I really lived together, I was younger than you are now by several years. There was a time in my late teens when we shared a roof, but I was too wrapped up in myself to pay any attention to her."
"Did that have something to do with the death of your father?"
"Everything to do with it. What have you heard about that from Mom?"
"She does not talk about it much. She mentioned it last night as an explanation of your existence, but it was a very matter-of-fact statement: 'Maureen is my daughter. Her father is dead and she has nowhere else to go so she'll be staying at the Commune for a while. Please help her as others helped you.' That was all."
Mo sighed, sliced, tossed and shuffled forward on her knees. "Well, more than eight years have passed since the accident. She's found a new life and doesn't have much to say about the old one."
"And you? Have you also moved on?"
"I've tried, but I'm not sure that I really have. Anyway, this conversation is supposed to be about my Mom, not me."
"Apologies. Will you allow me to continue asking questions about your mother?"
"Sure."
"Would you please describe your life with her prior to your father's death? "
"Yeah. Okay." Mo paused for two heads of lettuce. She was not keen on using lettuce as a time keeping device, yet, it's what she had without a connection. "Again, I'm not sure how useful it will be. I was thirteen when the accident happened. At thirteen, your parents aren't really people to you. They are rule makers and providers and helpers and reminders, but not really people. They both tried to break through that parent-child barrier, but it's hard. One or the other of them would get in a real conversation with me, whatever that is, and we'd both feel more connected. Then I'd talk back or forget something or screw up in some way and we were back to punisher and punished. Dad was better at it than Mom. Maybe because he worked from home and she worked in an office, so I saw him more. Maybe it was his personality was just more approachable. I think of my mother then, and what comes to mind is this haughty person who would sweep into the house when she got home and inspect everything. Was the kitchen clean? What was the state of dinner? Was my homework done? That kind of thing."
"She did not help with household maintenance?"
"I'm sure that she did, I just don't remember it." Grab. Slice. Toss. Shuffle. She was beginning to find a lettuce rhythm. "I remember Dad working in the flower beds before the water restrictions killed them. I remember Dad with the vacuum, never Mom. That kind of thing."
"That is hard to reconcile with the earth mother persona that she wears around here."
"Yeah. I told you it wouldn't be that helpful." Mo stood and picked up her basket, now full of lettuce heads and took it to the cart to dump.
"What about later, when it was only the two of you? Was she different then?"
"I suppose that she would have to have been, living alone and all. I don't really know. She brought me back from the Institute to this condo that wasn't the house we had lived in. She showed me a room and said it was mine. I stepped in and shut the door. Our conversations were limited to 'Dinner's ready!' and 'I'm going out. Do you need anything?'. The only time either of us said anything with real emotion in it was that last day." Mo took a sip, then a gulp, from the cart canteen.
"What happened then?"
"She got frustrated with me barricading myself in that bedroom and told me to get over my father's death. I then told her that I wished she was in the car with us and had died too." Mo took another sip and then started trudging back to her row of lettuce heads.
"So, nothing good."
"Nothing good. I left and haven't spoken to her since. She sent me a note two years ago saying that she was moving here. That was it."
"Thank you. This is more helpful than you think."
"How so?"
"I was studying personality formation prior to being sequestered in here. As I am going through it, it seemed a relevant course of study. One of the topics was how trauma affects changes in an established personality. Your mother appears to have gone through two of them: one when your father died and another when you left. The armchair analysis of this is that the first most likely drove her into a depression. As you were not around her then, it is hard to know. The second may have broken her out of it and forced a more, for lack of a better word, 'honest' re-evaluation of her life, leading her here to Ken Caryl. Of course, this is not a professional diagnosis, but it does fit the facts." During this short lecture from Lisp, Mo had managed to slice and toss four more lettuce heads. Her back was beginning to loosen up for the afternoon.
"And exactly how does this help you live with her?"
"I doubt that it will make my day-to-day life with her any easier. What it will do is give me something to do when I am with her. I can watch and observe, see what aspects of the Inspector from your childhood still remain, what signs of depression still remain."
"So my mother becomes your amateur psych experiment?"
"If you will. I prefer to think of it as finding a way forward in a difficult situation. Will that be a problem?"
"I suppose not. Our reconciliation is too new for me to really have a say in it."
"Then it is settled. May I ask you a few more questions that go a bit farther afield?"
"Off the low crops field?"
"Quite." Mo could all but hear Lisp shaking his head at her lame joke. "I'd like to know why she sent you to this 'Institute' place."
"Because?"
"Because I am curious. It's baked into our monkey genes. If you don't want to answer, I will understand."
Mo leaned back and stretched her back out. "Well, she sent me to the Colorado Institute for Troubled Youth in Evergreen because I didn't give her much choice. I insisted that I had also died in the crash."
"My mother? Are you suddenly a psychologist? 'Tell me about your mother?'" said Mo.
"Please, it is nothing like that. As I said, I live with the woman and will most likely continue to do so for several months. I would like to have a better idea of with whom I'm dealing." Lisp's voice was crisp in her head. Coupled with the phrasing, it created an erudite image of Lisp. If she had not met him in person, then she would have pictured a mustachioed man in a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches. Similar to how she pictured the personification of Erics.
"Fine," Mo said. She inched forward to the next head of lettuce. "I'm not sure how much good it will do you. When she and I really lived together, I was younger than you are now by several years. There was a time in my late teens when we shared a roof, but I was too wrapped up in myself to pay any attention to her."
"Did that have something to do with the death of your father?"
"Everything to do with it. What have you heard about that from Mom?"
"She does not talk about it much. She mentioned it last night as an explanation of your existence, but it was a very matter-of-fact statement: 'Maureen is my daughter. Her father is dead and she has nowhere else to go so she'll be staying at the Commune for a while. Please help her as others helped you.' That was all."
Mo sighed, sliced, tossed and shuffled forward on her knees. "Well, more than eight years have passed since the accident. She's found a new life and doesn't have much to say about the old one."
"And you? Have you also moved on?"
"I've tried, but I'm not sure that I really have. Anyway, this conversation is supposed to be about my Mom, not me."
"Apologies. Will you allow me to continue asking questions about your mother?"
"Sure."
"Would you please describe your life with her prior to your father's death? "
"Yeah. Okay." Mo paused for two heads of lettuce. She was not keen on using lettuce as a time keeping device, yet, it's what she had without a connection. "Again, I'm not sure how useful it will be. I was thirteen when the accident happened. At thirteen, your parents aren't really people to you. They are rule makers and providers and helpers and reminders, but not really people. They both tried to break through that parent-child barrier, but it's hard. One or the other of them would get in a real conversation with me, whatever that is, and we'd both feel more connected. Then I'd talk back or forget something or screw up in some way and we were back to punisher and punished. Dad was better at it than Mom. Maybe because he worked from home and she worked in an office, so I saw him more. Maybe it was his personality was just more approachable. I think of my mother then, and what comes to mind is this haughty person who would sweep into the house when she got home and inspect everything. Was the kitchen clean? What was the state of dinner? Was my homework done? That kind of thing."
"She did not help with household maintenance?"
"I'm sure that she did, I just don't remember it." Grab. Slice. Toss. Shuffle. She was beginning to find a lettuce rhythm. "I remember Dad working in the flower beds before the water restrictions killed them. I remember Dad with the vacuum, never Mom. That kind of thing."
"That is hard to reconcile with the earth mother persona that she wears around here."
"Yeah. I told you it wouldn't be that helpful." Mo stood and picked up her basket, now full of lettuce heads and took it to the cart to dump.
"What about later, when it was only the two of you? Was she different then?"
"I suppose that she would have to have been, living alone and all. I don't really know. She brought me back from the Institute to this condo that wasn't the house we had lived in. She showed me a room and said it was mine. I stepped in and shut the door. Our conversations were limited to 'Dinner's ready!' and 'I'm going out. Do you need anything?'. The only time either of us said anything with real emotion in it was that last day." Mo took a sip, then a gulp, from the cart canteen.
"What happened then?"
"She got frustrated with me barricading myself in that bedroom and told me to get over my father's death. I then told her that I wished she was in the car with us and had died too." Mo took another sip and then started trudging back to her row of lettuce heads.
"So, nothing good."
"Nothing good. I left and haven't spoken to her since. She sent me a note two years ago saying that she was moving here. That was it."
"Thank you. This is more helpful than you think."
"How so?"
"I was studying personality formation prior to being sequestered in here. As I am going through it, it seemed a relevant course of study. One of the topics was how trauma affects changes in an established personality. Your mother appears to have gone through two of them: one when your father died and another when you left. The armchair analysis of this is that the first most likely drove her into a depression. As you were not around her then, it is hard to know. The second may have broken her out of it and forced a more, for lack of a better word, 'honest' re-evaluation of her life, leading her here to Ken Caryl. Of course, this is not a professional diagnosis, but it does fit the facts." During this short lecture from Lisp, Mo had managed to slice and toss four more lettuce heads. Her back was beginning to loosen up for the afternoon.
"And exactly how does this help you live with her?"
"I doubt that it will make my day-to-day life with her any easier. What it will do is give me something to do when I am with her. I can watch and observe, see what aspects of the Inspector from your childhood still remain, what signs of depression still remain."
"So my mother becomes your amateur psych experiment?"
"If you will. I prefer to think of it as finding a way forward in a difficult situation. Will that be a problem?"
"I suppose not. Our reconciliation is too new for me to really have a say in it."
"Then it is settled. May I ask you a few more questions that go a bit farther afield?"
"Off the low crops field?"
"Quite." Mo could all but hear Lisp shaking his head at her lame joke. "I'd like to know why she sent you to this 'Institute' place."
"Because?"
"Because I am curious. It's baked into our monkey genes. If you don't want to answer, I will understand."
Mo leaned back and stretched her back out. "Well, she sent me to the Colorado Institute for Troubled Youth in Evergreen because I didn't give her much choice. I insisted that I had also died in the crash."
