An Incomplete Work of Fiction (3 of 3): Climax

We shift back to the present.

The mother is dead. Again, it’s not unexpected, but neither is it easy. Hardy is suddenly bereft of his core reason for getting up in the morning. Felix is feeling the guilt of not having done enough, and anger at how she died. Flashback briefly to that night, where the mother dies, and Electra can’t be reached. Someone calls the police, and an ambulance comes. Although the mother has expressed her desire not to be resuscitated to each of her children, it has never been written down. Without such an order in writing, the paramedics are obligated to try. This frustrates and angers Felix, and this anger will alter manifest against Electra.

But for now, we cut to one brief shining moment, as in the face of 9/11, the disparate factions of the family come together at the mother’s funeral. It is an amazing event, and inspiring in a real sense. But in the back of his mind, Felix can’t help but hear his mothers stated (and somewhat selfish) wish not to have a funeral.

And so that brief shining moment is extinguished as, the day after the funeral, Felix demands of Elecktra that she show him the will. Electra moves from stand-offish to belligerent, and delays revealing the will for almost a year. In that interim, there are scenes of anger, and terror, and screaming, and tears as Felix seems, at times, to go out of control. There is raw emotion on all sides, the likes of which can only be explored in fiction. There is one particular scene where Felix, now sole owner of the house, screams at Electra and calls her unpardonable names. His sanity comes into question at this point, as to whether he is merely manic depressive, or truly delusional. But what is unquestionable is that the dissolution has begun.

The conflict escalates. Felix throws Hardy out of the house, his home for the past decade, and isolates himself from the rest of the family. Not that this is hard to do, as the family appears to revel in a dysfunctional disjointedness that seems to increase daily.

The next inciting incident is the filing of the will, nearly a year after the mother’s death, which is followed almost immediately by Felix’s challenge to it, and to Electra’s serving as executrix. The scene is set in a courtroom, as Felix stands on one side and Electra on the other, before a Probate and Family Court judge who clearly could not give two shits about any of the back story, and can’t even clearly hear what issues are being laid before him. It’s an indictment of the system in a sense, and a cautionary tale, but also a family drama beginning to spin out of control. Here we juxtapose the cold, dry, and almost sterile environment of the courtroom proceedings with the tensions roiling just beneath the surface, frustration, and as slow seething that, if not yet hatred, is well along the path toward it.

Maybe we add poignance to this scene by juxtaposing it in time with a family barbecue of decades earlier; a series of snapshots from a family album, committed to memory, and colored by it. Both the father and the mother are alive, and the siblings talk happily and heartily, enjoying good music and laughing conversation and the closeness of strong familial bonds.

Cut to present, as Electra and Hardy are on one side of the courtroom. Felix sits two rows before them, having entered and not even glanced at them. The judge goes through other cases of dysfunctional families, divorce, custody, and angry, bitter opponents.

Cut to the past, as the father slips his hand around the mothers shoulder, both beaming for an impromptu snapshot, showing a tender closeness that is the core of the family unity. But which will not last.

Cut to the present, where Ovid sits on the opposite side, also alone, trying to make sense of how this has all come to this. This scene is somewhat surreal, and somewhat unclean, and leaves the reader with a sense that this entire world and every surface in the courtroom is in desperate need of a shower.

Cut to the past, as the siblings all group, standing, hands on paper plates heaped with comfort food as they lean back in laughter and bask in the warmth of a summer day that will pass in time, and never come again.

The scene ends with the judge giving Felix 30 days to outline his objections to the will, thereby moving the plot forward.

A week later, Ovid is playing phone tag, trying to get Felix to drop the challenge, or, failing that, to at least put into words what his goal is in this action, besides a futile attempt to punish Electra and Oscar. Felix can’t give one, and this fact is not lost in the circular logic Felix expounds to justify his actions. And Electra is no better. In a late night phone conversation, decades of anger spill over from Electra onto Ovid. She calls him self centered, tells him that he always removes himself from taking action, that he is so damned detached as to be almost uninvolved, But at this point, Ovid is no longer in a conciliatory mood, and is willing to strike back.

The situation turns confrontational through a series of phone calls. It becomes increasingly clear to Ovid that none of this is about the stated goals. This is about who is the boss, who the best arbiter and interpreter of the Mother’s last wishes, in spirit or in action. This becomes clear by how often Ovid has to ask the same simple questions: what would it take to resolve this? What is the simple thing you want? Accountability requested on one side, autonomy demanded on the other. The goals are incompatible, and create suspicion and mistrust.

So here is the crux of the climax; what does Ovid do?