justprompts Good parents: There are none.

[thenightsurgeon]

[ed note: This is an old justprompts prompt that kind of inspired me last night. Based in part (since I have no canonical background save musics to go on-stuff from leftthefather. Enjoy.]


Nathan Wallace lived his life in the perpetual shadow of things that his parents hadn’t done.



The questions were always there-peppered throughout an already difficult childhood. “How are you son?” “How’s your Mom?” “How’s your dad?” He learned to despise the subtle undercurrent of pity in each questioning statement. They seemed to expect abuse and disregard-despite all evidence to the contrary.

Because his parents were fine. They were good parents and good people. While his father would occasionally be sharp with him, he was a surgeon and an intelligent individual. While his mother could raise her voice loud enough to be heard over the din of a fire engine, she never raised it to chastise him (unless she was in a really bad mood). They weren’t abusive, they weren’t alcoholic, and they weren’t particularly famous. Living in Los Angeles meant that occasionally you came across the children of the rich and famous. He spent a good portion of his school career pitying those kids. Pretty and popular, famous with mothers and fathers who showed up at every school function star-studded, their parents were never there and they didn’t give a damn.

Whenever his father took a graveyard shift at St. Mary’s he was always apologetic. Whenever his mother had an evening shift at the firehouse (this was a rarity. They’d worked it out so that one parent was always home whenever he was) She’d text him regularly, checking up on his homework and his activities.

When his father died, mother stayed strong and treated him like an adult. They separated every morning to work and school respectively and hoarded their tears and their pain to themselves. He would hear her at night buried deep in his textbook sobbing, calling out his father’s name in her sleep. He’d shake his head and turn up whatever he happened to be listening to-not for the joy of actually listening to any music but to simply tune them out.

The perpetual shadow of things that they hadn’t done. Through no fault of their own he’d never been truly introduced to who they were. When his father died it was the archetypal figure, god falling from heaven and proving that he was a man. He was upset out of duty rather then genuine affection. These were good people and good parents who raised him to be strong.

He confessed this all to Marni one night, the dinner cooling on the table, arms folded across his chest staring deep and meaningful at the pot-roast he’d tried unsuccessfully to cook.

“It’s a parent’s job to leave you with complexes.” Her fingers tapped on the table, “…There’s no such thing as a good parent. I mean, people do the best that they can.”

He raised an eyebrow at this, “Is that what you believe?”

“…My dad was never home either. Our life was lived like a presidential photo-op.” Her eyes grew distant, “All the love on the outside, but on the inside…”

His fingers found hers, “…We can find a happy medium.”

“A happy medium.” He was up on his feet in a flash, one hand on her back and the other on her belly, “…My mother and father loved each other and were never there, your parents didn’t love each other but were always around.”

Her throat constricted, “Yes.”

“…So we balance it out. Our child will have the best of both. Devoted parents who’ll always be around.”

She took his hand off her stomache, kissing his fingers before lowering her head, “…You never got angry at them did you?”

He withdrew, expression pained, “What do you mean?”

Marni had that look, a look he would envy all his life. A gaze that settled into someone and expressed all the wisdom of the world-an old soul gaze-wearied by the weight of the world, “…You accepted that they loved you even when they weren’t around. They in essence, left you on your own without any support and you learned to support yourself.”

He lowered his own gaze, “…When you put it like that…”

“What I’m asking you is, is that your definition of being a good parent? Leaving a child on their own to fend for themselves?”

“No but-“

“Darling.” She took his hand again, squeezing his fingers, “…. I’m playing devil’s advocate. The point here being that you can’t make declarative statements about how we’re going to raise our child.”

Her hand in his was the best sort of lifeline, it still made him smile, still set his heart to beating, “…why do you say that?”

“Because you don’t know what the future will bring.” She leaned back, exhausted, “…And you can’t accept that there’s no standard for human behavior.”

At her funeral he learned just how right she was sitting alone in their room trying unsuccessfully to tune out the sound of his child’s anguished wail. He didn’t need to cry, he had the baby to do it for him.
And in that moment he stood in their shadow-vivid and dark with his father always rushing off to some other emergency and his mother barking orders like a drill sergeant. “How’s your Mom Nathan?” “How’s your Dad Nate?” “How’re things at home kiddo?”

And he would always think terrible and lying there more alone then he’d ever been he studied the ceiling searching for answers.

“…I hope you’re both rotting in hell.”

His mother and father offered no response as he stood up straight and went to rock Shilo yet again.