The Notebook Never Sleeps

The Mother

Filip Bedrich was a simple-minded boy of irregular height and weight. At twelve years old, he stood five foot seven and was 80 pounds - his shoulder blades sharp and his spine showing through his shirt as he'd climb trees in the Bedrich estate garden. That very year, his father decided, (at his mother's uncertainty), that he quit learning through home instruction and attend the all-boy's preparatory school in the the busiest part of the city of Lyon. He loomed over the other schoolboys by many inches. After the first week, Filip walked out of his new school crying into his mother's mink about one of the older teachers mistaking Filip for a grown man. The teacher demanded that Filip go to the office and schedule a meeting if he wanted to visit his child's teacher. He yelled at the confused and embarrassed Filip furiously when Filip tried to ignore him. Luckily, Filip's philosophy teacher caught their altercation in the hallway and let the old man know that Filip was a student - just like the rest of the young men there. The teacher shrugged sheepishly, but walked on without apologizing. Tears fell from Filip's eyes for two and a half morning classes that day. Filip was a sensitive adolescent, easy to break. No one could dare breathe the wrong way in front of him or it'd cause him to spin off into a nervous breakdown. Filip's mother and his several home instructors spoke to him softly, kindly. He walked into his new school thinking that other people would be the same. Eventually, Filip got used to it. He endured the everyday name calling and occasional bruises he received from his classmates. He walked a kilometer or two to his family's estate everyday after school - (the Bedrich family was capable of paying someone to drive Filip to and from school, but Mr. Bedrich demanded that Filip build endurance and strength so he'd quit "looking like some orphan") - and returned quite frequently with a rising bruise under his brow bone or another form of maltreatment. Each and every time he came home like that, Filip paced around the front gate of the stately home and prepared a short, dishonest monologue for the explanation of his appearance. But Mrs. Bedrich was neither in denial or stupid. She knew the cruelty of other wealthy, sneering dollfaced schoolchildren of East France - for before she grew to be a widely known debonair and elegant wife of the eldest Bedrich son, she was once as awkward and lanky as Filip... a tall schoolgirl with orange, curly unkempt hair and several avant-garde features brought on by faraway Cuban descendants. She went several times to speak to school officials, but each of the men seemed to make empty promises or dismissed her observations as "motherly paranoia." She began to realize that the people, (the teachers, headmasters, and security of the prestigious prep school), did not seem to care for the wellbeing of her child although it was their job. She still was hesitant to let Mr. Bedrich know of Filip's daily after school plight. He would get the job done, but it would be in an uncivilized manner - both Filip and the school would be punished. At the end of the day, nothing could be done. She loved her son, but she was a woman who hated confrontation. She simply told Filip what she heard as a child from her own mother: I'm sorry, darling, kids will be kids. Filip came home one day with dark, sore knuckles, and part of her felt joy. This boy will fight back, she thought. She was much help when it came to Filip's comfort, though, (as any parent should be). She was always home to treat sore knuckles or to heat up soaked towels to stop an injured nose from bleeding. Although she would never admit it to any soul, she felt that even if she was constantly drowned in gifts and love by her older and faraway sons, Filip seemed to call to her for her affection and heart without saying a word or doing a thing. A world without her sweet, silent Filip was not any world at all. It was a hell: a sweet, silent hell. Despite her being able to send any of the estate's housemaids to be the one to heal Filip's body or face with careful love and hot water, Filip's mother took matters into her own hands. For years she succeeded at avoiding having Filip raised like the other sons: constantly patrolled and smothered by a young nanny in secluded areas of the Bedrich household such as the nursery and garden. When she had her first child, she was nineteen, frightened, and the new wife of a sharply handsome but intimidating son of a high ranking government official. She was grateful for such help of the nurses and nannies. She was tired. Stressed. Homesick. Her hair fell out in small clumps during the whole pregnancy. She did not think she loved the Bedrich son, but now it didn't matter. She had son after son, (exactly four until Filip came years after the fourth child), handing them over to midwives and nannies and only receiving the infants when they were hungry. Are these children mine?, she began to think after her third child, Nikolai, would throw tantrums and a give ear curdling screeches at the sight of her. The nurse would smile politely, telling her that baby Nikolai was just tired. Tired as her. Tired of it all.