He burst into
tears. He could hear his father answering questions on the phone. Yes,
the boy had taken it hard. No, his sister seemed to be OK. Two years
younger than Electron, she was too young to understand.
Electron had never been particularly close to his sister. He viewed
her as an unfeeling, shallow person--someone who simply skimmed along
the surface of life. But after their mother's death, their father
began to favour Electron's sister, perhaps because of her resemblance
to his late wife. This drove a deeper, more subtle wedge between
brother and sister.
Electron's father, a painter who taught art at a local high school,
was profoundly affected by his wife's death. Despite some barriers of
social class and money, theirs had been a marriage of great affection
and love and they made a happy home. Electron's father's paintings
hung on almost every wall in the house, but after his wife's death he
put down his brushes and never took them up again. He didn't talk
about it. Once, Electron asked him why he didn't paint any more. He
looked away and told Electron that he had `lost the motivation'.
Electron's grandmother moved into the home to help her son care for
his two children, but she developed Alzheimer's disease.
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