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Some Lies Blythe Told and One She Didn't
by Wayland
Some lies Blythe told and one she didn't
The woman's head jerked up from the magazine she had clearly not been reading, anxiety
etched in every line of her face and reflected in the rather striking blue eyes. She
inhabited that ill defined area beyond middle age. Clearly rather more than that; she was
not yet old. In the hospital bed which was the focus of her concerns lay her son. Even
allowing for the fact that a patient in ICU is unlikely to be looking their best, it was
apparent that only a short span of years separated them. Blythe had been barely seventeen
when she gave birth to her only child.
She lied when she assured her mother that her friendship with the burningly ambitious
young Marine stationed in their home town was not "getting too serious for a young lady
of sixteen". She lied when she told her best friend at high school that they had not got
beyond second base. She lied when her Home Ec. teacher found her crouched over the
toilet in the washroom after she had run out of class for the third time that week, and
asked her, in shocked tones, if it was just possible she might be pregnant.
Smalltown U.S.A. in the late fifties was not the time or place to be an unwed sixteen year
old. If you were an exceptionally bright sixteen year old, who carried the hopes of the
whole family to be the first one to go away, not just to college, but to an outstandingly
good one, well that was just too bad. Your neighbours would pretend ignorance of the
situation but you knew what they were thinking; that cleverness in a daughter was all
very well, but chastity, even a measure of ignorance, was far better than bringing shame
on one's parents.
She had wanted to scream out her frustration and fear. The loss of the prized scholarship,
the end of all her hopes of a career and life outside the safe but dull environment of her
home town; in exchange, the necessary marriage to satisfy convention to the young man
who both thrilled and alarmed her, for she sensed in him an iron resolve to do things his
way. She was certain that the acquisition of a wife and child before he reached twenty-
one had not been in his head. A split condom had spoiled his plans, too.
A year later saw them in a base far from her home. There were other newly-weds and
teenage moms. Marriage while in your teens was more common then, especially for those
couples destined to remain in the lower ranks but John had already been singled out as
one to watch as a potential high flyer. Most young men of his ability steered clear of
domestic entanglements which might hamper their progress until they had established
themselves.
Blythe knew, felt it herself, as she tried to make friends with the other young wives on
the base, that they did not really fit in, she least of all. Her interests, in astronomy and
classical music, in the little time she had free after caring for husband and child, drew
only stares when she was unguarded enough to mention them .
Her husband said little but she sensed his resentment. She resolved to support him as
fully as she could in his career, to learn as much about the life he had chosen as possible,
to negate the damage she and the baby had done. She followed current affairs and had
political opinions and views of her own; had been encouraged at school and at home to
express them.
That was why, when she made a witty and well informed comment to a group of his
officers at a social gathering, and Blythe noticed a hardening of her husband's features,
she thought no more of it. He only hit her that one time, when they got home, and he
scarcely left a mark.
Later, sobbing on the phone to her mother, she met with much less sympathy than she
had expected. "Most men don't want a woman with a smart mouth", she said, matter -of-
factly. "The sooner you accept that, the easier it will be for you". Such a comment made
her wonder about her parents' relationship, something that had never crossed her mind
before.
So she concentrated on the origin and salvation of her woes, her baby son. With his
restlessness and often fretful crying and his apparently insatiable hunger, he wasn't the
easiest baby in the world but he was absolutely hers and when she looked into the bright
blue eyes, almost comically large in the little face, she saw the future of which she had
been cheated, staring back at her.
John, beyond masculine pride in having produced a son, took relatively little interest in
the day to day concerns of bringing up a child. Neither his temperament nor the norms of
the time demanded it, and his eyes were set firmly on progression up the ladder. A
lengthy posting abroad which could make or break him career-wise, took him away from
his infant son and returned him to find his quarters occupied not just by his wife but
another, distinct personality, small in stature, certainly, but large in impact. He
determined to reassert control in his own sphere.
It was a real joy to her, the seemingly effortless way in which her small son absorbed the
world around him. Unlike many mothers, tired perhaps or bored by the ceaseless
questions of their offspring, Blythe never palmed her son off with the easy answer or
sought to deflect him from his questioning with a toy or candy. She took the educative
aspect of her parenthood as seriously as the physical care she expended on her child.
All her frustrated intellectual ambition was poured into her day to day life with him and
he rewarded her efforts beyond her wildest hopes.
She had always been blessed with a good memory, was known as a `quick study'. Little
Greg showed every evidence of being the same. It was hard to disguise from other moms
the fact that her child could read and ask awkward questions of quite complex subjects
before his contemporaries were out of diapers, but so it was.
Her husband had more ambiguous feelings about his son's obvious giftedmess. He was
himself a smart man but this owed more to pure hard work than innate brilliance. He was
suspicious of things that came too easily. He would rather his son was known for his
diligence than for sheer exceptional cleverness. Effort was everything.
When it was borne in upon him that the boy expended virtually no effort on things in
which he took little interest but still managed to achieve creditable grades, that in fact his
son, as he grew, began apparently to disdain those things which he held most dear-
teamwork, playing the game, following orders (from him at least) without question, he
did not know who he was most disappointed in, his son or the boy's mother for warping
his character away from being the true son of a true Marine.
At first the father- son relationship seemed normal enough; a little stiff, perhaps but that
was the personality of the man. Not he the father who would come whooping through the
gate at the end of duty and scoop the child up in his arms to swing him above his head or
tickle him, as Greg had seen other fathers do, but he did teach him how to hold a
baseball bat and ride his bike, something his mother seemed hopeless at. It was not until
around the beginning of third grade, and another of Blythe's lies, this time on her son's
behalf, that things really went sour.
John was insistent on routines around the house, routines in which Gregory had his share.
From the day John had come home to see his wife putting the boy's things away in the
toybox when he was old enough, he considered, to do it himself, he could see the kid
would be spoiled when he was away. He drew up a list of chores which grew longer as
the seasons passed, ignoring his efficient wife's protestations that it wasn't really
necessary when she scarcely had enough to do herself now Greg was no longer a
baby.(He had refused point blank to let her do a part-time course at the local college.) He
questioned his son closely every evening when he was home about the status of those
chores.
Greg was no more eager than the average small boy to spend his evenings polishing
shoes or his father's sports trophies or one of the other seemingly pointless tasks which
none of his contemporaries seemed to be required to do in such quantity, but there was
always a faint undercurrent of anxiety he didn't understand about his mother when she
asked him if he had done them. The time that he forgot to sweep the yard and instead
went to his room to read and heard his father's voice raised in anger; that time when he
heard his mother lie to cover up the fact that he had forgotten, that was a revelation. He
suddenly understood-his mother was afraid, not for herself, surely, for she was a
grownup, but for him.
His ever eager curiosity was roused more than the realisation that his father did not seem
to love him like his Mom surprised him. He observed them carefully, like he watched the
family of birds in the big date palm in the yard . He saw for the first time that his mother
did not always speak her mind as plainly before his father as in front of her friends, that
she was sparing in the details of her day, that her otherwise acute observations and joking
manner were turned right down in volume. Who she was seemed to haemorrhage (he had
just discovered this word) away in his presence.
It was inevitable that as Gregory grew, his understanding of the dynamics of his parents'
relationship became more profound. What a very bright eight year old could recognise
was as nothing to the scalpel sharp mind scarified by teenage angst and fuelled by
hormones. His mother's seeming obliviousness to his father's occasional but terrifying
punishment of him for some misdemeanour hurt him far more than what he would later
learn to think of as the `abuse' itself. While he dimly understood that she felt it would
only make matters worse if she intervened, even that to some extent she went along with
the `only discipline will keep that boy out of trouble' line of argument, he wanted some
acknowledgement from her of what had taken place. Instead, there was only silence.
Gregory was sixteen; tall, lanky, with hands and feet that appeared not to belong to him,
when he discovered the circumstances of his birth. Blythe, out of character it seemed for
such a rational woman, had always been rather vague about her age when birthdays came
round, and her son, having heard other kids say their Moms cut years off their age or said
"over 21" if asked , thought nothing of it. It was just something women did, apparently,
even his mother.
He was snooping when he came across it; a habit roundly condemned by his father but
one which no number of ice baths had seemed to cure him of, and now of course that
same father silently weighed up the height and wiry strength of his former victim. The `it'
he found was the letter Blythe had received at the age he was now, congratulating her on
her scholarship and confirming her future college place a year earlier than was usual
because of her outstanding grades.
Wherever they travelled in the world, she had never been able to part with that letter. On
more than one occasion in the intervening years she had looked on it with bitterness,
when John was particularly difficult to manage, (and she had learned to manage him,
with all the subtle flattery and manipulation learned by women over the millennia,) or
when the more problematic subject of her son was causing her heartache. She was
uncertain if John knew she kept it still. He would have seen it as vanity, she supposed but
she had done all she could over the years to conform to his idea of the military wife and if
he knew he never mentioned it.
Blythe was preparing the evening meal, moving around the kitchen with her usual
unhurried grace when she was confronted by her son, holding the letter out to her in a
hand which shook a little with suppressed excitement, or was it fear? She couldn't tell.
"You didn't go to college."
"No", she agreed.
"But, but ..there?" he breathed. She didn't answer, turning away to attend to a pan on the
stove.
He read the letter again, this time taking in the significance of its date and the oblique
reference to her age. "Mom.." he began.
"My plans changed," she said.
"It was me, wasn't it ? He had to marry you and that explains...." He broke off as Blythe
rounded on him fiercely. "You are not to speak of your father in that way. He has always
worked so hard for both of us, seen so much horror in Vietnam, it's no wonder if he is
sometimes a little.." she searched for the word she wanted "...demanding of you."
The boy scoffed openly "Next you are going to tell me that he really, really loves me and
just can't show it." Blythe opened her mouth to say just that when she connected with her
son's intense gaze, a mixture of anger, deep humiliation and hurt. The lie died on her lips.
"I'm going out", he said. The door banged behind him. She slumped on the stool beside
the stove. It was bound to come out sooner or later. She just hadn't expected it to be on
her 34th birthday.
88888888888888888888
"I'm fine. Did you think I was dead?" She spoke with a measure of her son's famed
tartness.
"Er..no" said the young woman who had gently shaken her awake, looking at her with
concern in her eyes "It's just that you have been asleep for a long time and ...and I have
a message from your husband. He wanted to tell you his flight from Paris is delayed-
there's a baggage handlers' strike."
John won't appreciate that, she thought, he's little enough time for the French anyway.
She thanked the Fates that made her choose to make her excuses from this particular
reunion for ex Marine colleagues. It was bad enough to be here and see him lying so still,
attached to every conceivable drip and monitor, but to be the other side of the Atlantic
and unable to reach him was unthinkable.
She looked again at the young woman whose gaze had momentarily left hers and was
fixed on the figure in the bed. "I've met you before. Don't you work with my son, Dr...?"
Cameron, Allison" supplied the immunologist, quietly. "Yes, I do".
Blythe looked at her watch. Much more time had passed than she thought. She had been
in a reverie, going over all the incidents of Greg's childhood, trying to reassure herself
that it would be all right again this time; then tiredness had overcome anxiety, and she
had fallen asleep. She said "I have been sitting here thinking of when Greg was a baby. I
expect you have difficulty in imagining that he was ever a child."
Real amusement replaced the serious set of the young woman's mouth for a moment.
"No, not really", she said.
The older woman revised her first impression slightly. Perhaps there was more to her
than first met the eye. She had evidently survived the rigours of medical school and more
before working for her son and she imagined that he might well be more than just the
usual demanding head of department. She wondered what Greg thought of her. She was
pretty, even beautiful, with luminous green eyes and flawless skin as well as the now
requisite thinness. Petite brunettes had always appealed to Greg, she knew. She
remembered his first serious crush, not that he had ever told her of course.
She thought of Stacey, and sighed. She couldn't find it in her heart to blame her for what
she had done; she knew she too, would have done anything to keep him alive, no matter
what the stubborn boy said.
"Do you like my son?", she asked with an almost imperceptible stress on the word "like".
Cameron looked at her, startled for a moment.
"He's my boss", she said simply. She showed only a natural degree of embarrassment at
being asked such a question by his mother. It occurred to her that here was the source of
House's famous curiosity, or nosiness, if you preferred, as many did, to call it that, when
Blythe followed her question up with "Do you have a family?" She was careful not to say
`husband', one never knew these days. It was all so different now. Thank God.
"No" said Cameron. She paused. There was clearly more to come, but she changed her
mind. "No".
"Plenty of time" said Blythe, "you're still very young". Cameron looked in a considering
manner at her questioner and then transferred her attention to the man in the bed. She
made no comment but her unspoken thought bounced off the ICU's walls.
"I'm thirty four", she said.
Blythe stood, a little stiffly, from all the hours of sitting. Cameron guessed she must be
on her way to the restroom. "Why don't you go get something to eat? I'll find you if he
wakes up again", she said. Blythe nodded. "I won't be long".
"Good ol' Mom." A voice thready with disuse snapped Cameron's attention back to the
bed. "Always shows up to rally the troops." The undercurrent of sarcasm was there still,
but subdued by drugs and physical weakness.
"Your father's on his way too." No response to this except the shuttered look with which
she had become familiar.
"Thirty four", he repeated as though the previous exchange had not taken place. She
looked a question; he knew perfectly well how old she was; he had everybody's resume
off pat, even when he pretended not to.
"When Mom was thirty four I was coming up seventeen", he said.
"Well, that's not ....so unusual."
"When you had a scholarship to Vassar?"
"Oh." There did not seem to be anything else to say to this. She remembered her own
brush with destiny at much the same age, the unalloyed feeling of relief , of escape from
seemingly impossible decisions made for her by the show of blood in the toilet bowl.
"Things have changed. And I'm sure there were compensations." She looked at him with
a glint of amusement in her eyes. If there was one thing she was sure of, he must have
been a handful; still was come to that.
An expression of mingled impatience and annoyance crossed his features. "Yeah, I'm
her life's work, I'm sure she's proud." His bitterness was open. He stared at her as though
he was not the one to start this line of conversation and she was the one asking intrusive
questions. She held his gaze, not knowing what he wanted from her. Once before, when
he had failed to wriggle out of a meeting with them , he had commented to her unbidden,
about his parents. "They seem perfectly pleasant don't they? They are." Or something to
that effect, she couldn't recall precisely. Only that then he had spoken of his father's
inability to let you tell a lie, ever, and that it was "a pretty crappy quality in a dad."
There had to be more to it than that.
She moved to his side, reaching out to check the dressing on his neck, which had oozed
slightly. "I'll get the nurse to change that for you", she murmured.
"Keep him away from me". The "please" was spoken in his eyes. Cameron nodded. She
knew he wasn't referring to the nurse.
"You're in luck. The French baggage handlers are on your side." He visibly relaxed and
when Blythe returned a few moments later he was apparently asleep again.
"Did he wake?"
"No", said Cameron.
It was as well neither woman was looking at the patient at that moment, or they might
have noticed the flicker of a satisfied smile on his lips. He took that moment, as Cameron
left the room, to stir and say to his mother, "Hi Mom. Back again? How nice."
end
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Legal Disclaimer: The authors published here make no claims on the ownership of Dr. Gregory House and the other fictional residents of Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital. Like the television show House (and quite possibly Dr. Wilson's pocket protector), they are the property of NBC/Universal, David Shore and undoubtedly other individuals of whom I am only peripherally aware. The fan fiction authors published here receive no monetary benefit from their work and intend no copyright infringement nor slight to the actual owners. We love the characters and we love the show, otherwise we wouldn't be here.
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