▸ Column · Modern Midgard — a mortal caregiver writing to Thor Odinson, who walks among them
THOR replies.
The letter
Odinson — my mother had a stroke some months ago. She can no longer drive nor keep her own medicines straight, so she lives in my spare room now and I carry all of it: the physicians, the pill-boxes, the calls that come at the blackest hour. My brother Darren lives but forty minutes off and has darkened my door twice, all the while telling me how "good I am at this." I asked him once to take every other Saturday so my husband and I could steal a single night away; he agreed, then cried off the day before because old friends had come to town. I do not resent caring for our mother — I love her. But I have begun to dread my brother's very voice, and the last time he swept in with a bottle of wine playing the returning hero, I had to hide in the washroom to weep. My husband says give Darren an ultimatum. I fear that if I press, he vanishes altogether, and Mother senses the strain and feels herself a burden. How do I make him carry his share without shattering the family or becoming the bitter sibling everyone steps around at the feast?
Thor replies
Good soul, you ask how to make Darren carry his share without breaking the family — but beneath your courtesy lies the truer question, and I will name it. There are two people here in need of shielding, not one. Your mother, whom you have guarded faithfully — and you, weeping in the washroom while your brother plays the returning prince with a bottle of wine.
I know that posture intimately. Before my banishment I was magnificent at arriving for the glory and absent for the labor. Honor is not kept in the grand visit, friend. It is kept in the dull morning no one applauds.
So do not hurl an ultimatum as a blade. Speak the plain truth, and ask for one named, carriable thing — "Tuesday, you take her to the physician" — not "be better." A duty he can lift, not a verdict. If he fails it, that is his to answer.
But leave the door open. I nearly wrote off my own brother and the grief of it haunts me still; I will not counsel you to it.
And tell him this: I lost my mother, Frigga. I would trade much for one more of the dull mornings you now resent. So will he, one day, too late.
— Thor
Loki weighs in
My brother prescribes an open door and a named Tuesday. He always does. Touching. But you missed the trick, Thor — you usually do.
Darling, Darren is not failing at this. He is exquisite at it. "You're so good at this stuff" is not praise — it is a contract he signed in your name, and the wine is the receipt. The con only works because you are terrified of becoming the bitter sibling everyone edges around at the feast.
I am that sibling. I chose the role. So permit me: stop financing his holiday with your fear of being disliked. Let him be the uncomfortable one for once. It is, by my count, rather overdue.
— Loki
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