"Almost" Part 11: Book 2, Part 1

BOOK TWO

Tom Prepares to Go to Germany

It is odd, thought Tom, that I have so few people to tell that I am going away for two months. He had to tell his family, of course, because he was going to be away from the end of November to the end of January, and so would miss the holidays.

The truth was that Tom was actually quite relieved to be out of England for Christmas. There was something terribly complicated and messy about his relations with his family. He had to avoid even thinking about them, since it generally made him either cry, get angry, or give up and be depressed. There was a great hole in his heart where his family portrait should have hung.

The primary problem was his mother. This was one of the great disappointments of Tom’s adult life. He had felt depressingly special with his mother. She had always called on him to ease her pain. She got very skittish on the rare occasions when Reginald came sidling into her room, and usually had to take a nap after he had left. But she grew florid and torrential when she was alone with Tom. Tom, Tom, Tom was the constant salve to her wounded heart.

Tom hated this, but he also loved it. Well, not quite ‘loved.’ It was more – more as if…

His choices had always been twofold. First, he could have a mother who shied away from him as if he were carrying a bomb, or about to burst into acid, or was a wolf in child’s clothing. He could have a mother who fought with him without words, without quarter, without end. He could have a mother who recoiled from his very presence. He could be Reginald...