Side Story – My Son, Changed
I truly thought my heart would stop that day. Leon lost his footing coming down the stairs, fell the whole way from the top, and struck his head hard. I was the one who’d called him down from upstairs, so I saw the whole thing happen. The way he fell went strangely slow, the way things do in a dream, and I couldn’t reach him in time, and he hit his head and lost consciousness where he lay.
I ran to him and called his name and got nothing back at all, and I thought, he’s going to die like this, and I screamed for Jean. Jean came running, and the two of us called to him, and there was no response of any kind. I was starting to think it was hopeless, and I’d got as far as deciding to carry him to the clinic even if it did no good, when Leon opened his eyes. A miracle.
That was the most relieved I have been in my life.
And the next day he woke as usual, and I thought that was the end of it. Except that ever since he woke, Leon has been a little strange.
To begin with, he has become quiet and extremely well-behaved. Until then he was, to put it kindly, a lively child, and I used to wish he would settle a little. Now, all at once, he speaks and behaves like an adult. At first I thought he had taken the fall as a lesson, but that isn’t it. His nature seems to have changed. Could striking his head have changed the sort of person he is?
Then there is how particular he has become about cleanliness. He washes his hands before he cooks, without fail. He washes them before he eats. He washes them when he comes in from outside. He wants to be washing them constantly, and he wants us washing ours too. When I said there was no need to wash hands that weren’t the least bit dirty, he told me there’s a great deal of dirt on them you can’t see. How does Leon know there’s dirt you can’t see? I can’t make sense of it at all.
And he is so gentle with Marie now. The two of them used to squabble constantly, and lately he never answers back at all, so Marie wins every time, after all those years of scrapping over everything. Marie thought it odd at first too, and got used to it very quickly.
There are so many things I don’t understand that I could go on all day. His table manners turned refined overnight. He announces that he’s thought of a recipe and starts cooking. And those pancakes of his turned out to be a marvelous dish you can do all sorts of things with. I was certain at first that anything that gloopy couldn’t possibly taste good, and when I tried it I was genuinely astonished.
That Leon thought of that… I can hardly believe it.
I was thinking about all this when Leon came into the kitchen. What is it this time?
“Mom, I want to hang the bedding out in the courtyard…”
The bedding from the bedroom? Nobody wets the bed any more, so there should be no need to wash it. Unless… did Leon wet the bed? If he did, the kind thing would be to pretend I hadn’t noticed.
“Leon, did you take soup or something up to the bedroom and spill it? I’m always telling you to eat in the living room.”
If he nods to that, the bed-wetting stays hidden. That was the kindness I was offering him, and Leon shook his head.
“No. As if I’d do that. It’s not that, it’s that if you don’t dry them in the sun now and then they get full of tiny insects.”
Well. Not bed-wetting, then. Insects, though? If there are insects in it, catch them and put them outside.
“If there were insects you should have put them outside.”
“Not that kind. There are lots of insects in there you can’t see.”
Things you cannot see, again… Could striking his head have made him see things that aren’t there? Perhaps I really should take him to the clinic after all.
“Leon, has hitting your head made you see strange things? If it has, we’re going to the clinic.”
“It hasn’t! Um…”
Leon’s face went troubled and he fell silent. That happens often lately as well… What’s he thinking about, with a face like that? I really should take him to the clinic…
“That’s it! Don’t you think they’ve smelled a bit lately? So I’ll wash the bedding, and you help me hang it out.”
The subject changed rather suddenly. What became of the insects? Well. Children do say things out of nowhere. Leon has been so oddly settled lately that seeing him like this is a comfort, if anything.
“Then call me when you’ve finished washing. I’ll come and help.”
“Okay! Thanks, Mom!”
We only washed the bedding a few weeks ago, though, and it hadn’t begun to smell. Perhaps children have sharper noses.
After that, once he had washed the bedding within an inch of its life and hung all of it out, he went upstairs with a broom. Wasn’t he sweeping upstairs yesterday as well? He never used to clean unless he was asked…
And the next day again. Today he seemed satisfied with the cleaning at last, and asked for hot water because he wanted to get himself clean. It felt like the first ordinary request in a long while. I got the water boiling right away, before he could change his mind.
“It’s hot, so be careful. Use the washtub to get the temperature right.”
“Okaaay! Thanks!”
Leon laughed like an innocent child for the first time in a while. So it was the fall down the stairs that made him strange for a while after all. Well, whatever it was, I am glad he is back to himself.
I was settling into that relief when Leon came straight back, and asked for more boiling water.
“Mom, could I have one more pot of hot water…?”
Cut the first lot with cold and there would be far more than enough to wipe himself down with a cloth. It made no sense to me, but I made him another pot and handed it over.
“What are you doing with that much hot water?”
“Soaking in it!”
Leon said it beaming and went off to the courtyard. Soaking in it? Puzzled, I went out after him as soon as the work gave me a pause.
And there was Leon, sitting in the washtub of hot water, naked, curled up into as small a shape as he could manage. Well… what is Leon doing, exactly?
“Leon, what is that you’re doing?”
“It’s a bath.”
A bath? Whatever is that? I have never heard of such a thing in my life. This sort of thing happens now and then lately… Where does Leon get these ideas?
“What’s a bath?”
“A bath is when you soak in a lot of hot water with no clothes on.”
“Why would you do that?”
“Why… because it feels good?”
“Does it?”
“Well, really it feels good when you soak in a big one with plenty of hot water in it… but this is better than nothing.”
He talks as though he has soaked in a big one with plenty of hot water. And the expression on his face is a grown man’s. An old man’s, even. My child is only eight years old…
“Oh, do you want to get in too, Mom?”
“No, thank you.”
I have no wish to do anything so ridiculous, and it looks neither enjoyable nor pleasant.
“Well, the tub is too small for you, Mom. Shall we buy a bigger one?”
The size of the tub is not the issue! Since he went strange Leon has been so grown up, and at the same time he is further off the mark than he ever was.
“Wiping myself down with a cloth is quite enough for Mom.”
I said it, and left Leon sitting there in the washtub with his face going soft and satisfied, and went back to the kitchen. For now, let’s say I didn’t see any of that. That’ll be best.
Then the winter ended and spring came on, and Leon is as odd as ever. If anything he is getting worse rather than better…
Jean must think the same. Somehow I have never managed to raise it with him, but surely it’s time. Marie and Leon are both out at the moment… I can’t go on carrying it by myself.
I stopped in the middle of the evening prep and turned to face him.
“Jean, about Leon… you’ve noticed it too, haven’t you?”
At that, Jean glanced over at me, then went back to the prep as he spoke.
“I’ve noticed. Since he hit his head, Leon’s gone serious and settled, like a different person.”
“So you have. It was after he struck his head. I keep wondering whether that injury is still doing him harm.”
“Hmm. Did it, though?”
Jean answered as if it hardly signified, and went on working.
“This is our son! Take it seriously!”
“Sorry, sorry. But Leon has changed, and it isn’t harm. If anything he’s settled down and got clever and grown up, hasn’t he?”
“That’s true, but… he says and does more and more things that are outside anything ordinary. And there are times when Leon doesn’t feel like Leon to me.”
The look that crosses his face when he isn’t thinking about it is strangely lonely—the look of a man who has given something up. It isn’t a face a child makes. And he learned a noble’s bearing and a noble’s formal speech out of nowhere, and built his own connections, and went into the central district, and in the end brought a princess home. None of that is anything like the Leon I know.
“I feel that sometimes too. But Leon is Leon. I can see he loves this family, and he protects Marie the way a brother should. He’s a bit off the mark here and there, but he never does anything that troubles anybody.”
“I know, but…”
“Taking the Leon he is now, all of him—that’s what a parent’s for. Isn’t it?”
That brought me up short. So somewhere inside me I have been refusing the Leon he is now. Setting conditions on loving my own child.
“I’ve failed as a mother…”
“You haven’t. You just worry about him too much, that’s all. There’s no parent alive who doesn’t worry about their child. But believing in them matters too, doesn’t it.”
Jean, you good man. I chose well when I married him.
“Jean, I’m glad I married you.”
At that, Jean gave me a gentle smile and said,
“And I’m glad I married you, Loana. You hold this family so dear.”
What a good man he is. I threw my arms around him for a moment, and then went back to the prep. I’ve got to work, for this family’s sake.
“Jean, let’s put our backs into it today as well!”
“That we will. Let’s get to it.”