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Morty was supposed to be the cure to all of the family’s problems. Jerry was supposed to be a good stay at home father, and Beth was supposed to feel better after having a child that would make her sadness go away. All Beth had wanted was a child of her own volition, something that for once, she could have control over. She didn’t mean that she wanted to control her child, but that she wanted control over her life.
Beth had been sick after giving birth to Summer. Not physically, but she had never been more depressed. Despite her depression, she put herself through veterinary school, while Jerry went to night school to try to get a degree to make some extra money for the family.
Beth had always wanted to be more. She wanted to be like her mother, an experienced medicinal scientist, always working on trials for new cures to new ailments and viruses. Or like her father, a scientist who was paid by private organizations to make weapons and tools to protect or provide for humanity. Instead, Beth was stuck with a man she never meant to marry, and a daughter she never meant to have.
When she finished school, there was a period between her graduation and getting a job. A period where she wouldn’t leave her bed, where toddler Summer would come up to her side and ask, “are you okay, mommy?” Beth would nod and take a sip of wine, waiting for Jerry to deal with Summer’s dirty diaper or rumbling tummy.
Eventually, Beth started working at the nearby animal hospital. Her most often case was pregnancy, and she would watch mother horses look proudly at their newly born foals, already standing even though they were covered with fluids and blood. These jobs always made her crack a smile, one that meant she would drink one less glass of wine that night and watch one extra Barbie movie with Summer.
When she started feeling sick in the morning, and was three weeks late for her period, she was beyond ecstatic. The plus sign on the pregnancy test was hope for the future, a future with a happy and normal family, one where wine was absent from the dinner table, bickering between husband and wife was nonexistent, and there was a happy toddler cooing at her younger brother. Morty would be the cure to the family’s dysfunction.
When their new baby boy was born, Beth cradled him in her arms, his wailing music to her ears, and the quieting of his cries as she rocked him made her think that maybe she could be a good mother, that maybe she could have a stable life. They named him Mortimer after Jerry’s grandfather, and Chauncey after Beth’s. The doctors had given Beth a strange look, but her glare, as it usually did, shut down any concerns over the newborn’s name. Beth wondered what her father would think of the precious bundle of joy, who already had a few tufts of brown hair on his head. His eyes were a dark green with speckles of brown, just like her mother’s. Beth looked into her son’s eyes and saw a perfect life for herself. Everything would be fixed, everything would be normal, even if Beth’s life was nothing but normal.
Jerry held his baby boy in his arms apprehensively. He knew that Beth needed this, and he loved her and he loved his daughter, but part of him also knew he wasn’t cut out to be a father, and while he would never say it to his wife, he wasn’t sure if either of them would be good parents.
—————
Morty remembers hearing other kids in his first grade class talking about their families. His desk mate Joe’s mom was a nurse who helped babies, he said. And his dad was a teacher at a big fancy school for grown ups. Morty wasn’t quite sure what his mom did, but when asked, he shared his family’s professions with his class.
”My Mommy helps horses live! My daddy helps her when she cries.”
The teacher had pulled him into the office, sitting him down with the principal. Morty didn’t understand why they were asking him so many questions, or why they were so worried about how his mommy acted. Wasn’t that how all mommys acted?
Morty soon learned that not all mommys were sad all the time, and not all daddys took care of their kids and wife.
Morty also learned that he had to take care of mommy, too. Sometimes dad would take Summer out to the playground since she was a big kid, a whole three grades ahead of him. Morty would be at home with mommy, who usually sat on the couch and watched tv with a blank, empty stare. Sometimes her eyes would flicker over to Morty, and she’d ask him to do the dishes, and with an angry huff he would pull out the step stool to reach the sink, and begin cleaning.
Those were mommy’s good days. On her bad days she sat on the step stool in the corner of the kitchen, leaning against the counter with a bottle of wine in her hand and streaks of makeup running down her face. Morty wondered why his mommy wore makeup, she was already so pretty. Morty hoped that one day he would grow up to be just as pretty as his mommy. On these days, though, Morty would sit next to her on the floor, chin resting on his knees.
“Mommy, what’s wrong?” She never answered, only cried in response.
Morty would stand up and pet his mother’s hair, like his daddy used to do when Morty cried. Morty didn’t cry much anymore, it was a learned lesson that the only one in the house that was allowed to cry was Beth. Eventually, she would get tired of her son being there beside her, and she would snap drunkenly, demanding he stay in his room until his father got home.
When Morty was in fourth grade, he asked his dad, “what’s wrong with Mommy?”
Jerry had paused, hand on his son’s head while Morty diverted his attention from a space themed coloring book to his dad’s brown eyes. This wasn’t a question a fourth grader should be asking.
”Mommy is sad a lot,” is all Jerry can manage to say.
”Why?”
Morty was such a curious kid, such an empathic kid, too, especially for his age. Jerry blamed himself, though, for the kid’s declining behavior and grades in school. Teachers would call and ask Jerry to pick up his crying little boy, asking him if his home life was okay, saying they needed to put Morty in ‘special’ classes that would adhere to his learning ‘difficulties’. Jerry knew fully well that his son’s brain was taken up with too much worry, curiosity, and desire to help for there to be any room left for numbers and letters. Jerry would never admit it out loud, and he would never admit that it was their fault, so he kept Morty in the classes he was in, and he told the school that everything was fine, Morty was just a sensitive kid.
”Mommy had a hard time growing up, Mort.”
The young boy nodded, as if he understood already. Morty picks up a red crayon, and he draws a small shape on the coloring page, ignoring the lines entirely.
”Daddy, why does mommy drink this?”
Jerry stays silent, pretending he didn’t hear his eight year old son asking about why his mother drank wine. Instead, he turned on the tv and watched a movie with his son.
—————
Morty was jealous of his sister.
He loved Summer, he promised he did. But she never got yelled at, she was never forgotten at school, she was never locked in her room for being bad.
Morty swears he tried to be a good kid, he did the dishes and he made his bed and cleaned his mother’s clothes. He tried as hard as he could in school, but for some reason, he never measured up to the other kids. He didn’t really mind, because to him, there was more to worry about than school.
More than anything, Morty loved his family. He didn’t really have any dreams or aspirations that were achievable, according to the adults in his life.
His sixth grade teacher asked him what he wanted to do with his life, and Morty said he wanted to be an astronaut. He always loved space. His father used to read him space themed books and color space themed pictures with him, and Morty’s favorite thing to watch was a documentary about how the Solar System worked.
In seventh grade science, Morty had heard about the theory that there were multiple universes.
That night, he and Summer sat outside, waiting for a meteor shower. On one of the shooting stars (that Summer said weren’t going to grant him magic wishes), he wished there was a universe where his mom was happy.
Beth’s crying in the kitchen corner had stopped, but her emotions were channeled into something else.
After a hard day at work, she would come home and drink her wine, and yell at Morty for not completing his chores, or something along the lines.
”Mo-Morty! Why the fuck is the sink full?” Beth would yell, loud enough that it would bounce off the walls of the house, up the stairs, and all the way to Morty’s room.
He would hurry down the stairs, if he delayed he might get in trouble. It was never good to test his mother’s patience when she was angry.
”I-I’m s-sorry! I-I was doing homework-“ Morty defends himself, frustration laced in his voice: his first mistake.
”Just- Fucking do the damn dishes.” Beth yells, dropping her glass into the sink with finality. “And don’t you ever, and I mean ever, talk back to me again. I’m taking your phone.”
Morty sighs, and gives in. The best thing he can do is not react, even though sometimes that has its consequences, too.
The next day, Morty is holding his mother, who is crying in his arms, apologizing for yesterday, but still just as angry, and just as sad. When his mother falls asleep, he cleans up the tissues and the wine glasses and he dries her face. He returns to his room, as drained as ever.
Everyday was more draining than the last, walking on eggshells, waiting anxiously for the next shoe to drop. Morty’s anxiety worsened by the day, and he was jumpy and inattentive in school, preparing for the same anxiety at home. When the bullying started, he told no one, not even his sister. His sister was also often preoccupied with their mother’s problems, but Summer often got the whiny and moping mother, who tried to prove her love through gifts and elaborate parties and apologies. Morty got the rage, the wet anger and the loud noises. Sometimes he got the apologies, but he knew his place. He knew why he was born.
When Summer was born, his mother was depressed. Viscerally so, he had found out. His mother often dumped her problems on him, and after many breakdowns he had supervised or overshared talks he participated in, he knew almost every traumatic moment of his mother’s life. When Morty turned thirteen, and entered his freshman year, he knew definitively that he was born to be a human antidepressant.
Medicine didn’t work for his mother. Therapy didn’t work. Hospitals didn’t help, her husband didn’t help, her wine didn’t help, and her children certainly didn’t.
Morty resented his mother for making him bear her problems on top of all of his own. He resented his mother for making it impossible for him to have friends, or freedom, or good grades. Friends never lasted because Morty was always expected to be at home, and there was no certainty that he would even have access to his phone. Grades were impossible to maintain because even beyond the lack of time for homework and anxiety in class, even focusing as hard as he could, the letters just swam off the page, swirling into a twisted fantasy about a universe better than this one. For a while, especially when he was in middle school, Morty would daydream about his scientist grandfather whisking him away and taking him to space, showing Morty the galaxy, and maybe even beyond. Morty wondered what his grandfather knew about alternate universes, about his alternate selves. Morty knew from his mother that his grandfather was never coming back, and Morty was certain that with his grades and his life, he would never be an astronaut, or a scientist, or an astronomer. He would be stuck working at a gas station on this stupid planet for the rest of his life, his only aspirations being to make everything better.
Morty remembers when another student’s mom came in for career day in sixth grade, and she spoke about creating medicine that could help people with problems inside their brain. Mental Illness. Many of the words she said described his mom, and while it was already a heavy topic for a room full of eleven year olds, it hit Morty a bit harder. Until he realized he was no good at math or school in general, Morty wanted to cure depression. He wanted to climb inside his mother’s brain and make everything better. He wanted to be like his grandparents and use science to create a cure all for his mother’s problems.
If he made everything better for her, things would get better for him.
By his freshman year, however, Morty had learned that he wasn’t so different from his mother. He had learned that his brain was just as evil, and just as loud, and just was cruel. He had learned that the next best place to cry besides the kitchen was the bathroom stall during fifth period. He had learned that bleeding made him happy and that he deserved every beating he got at school. He learned to expect the yelling, and to respect it. He had learned to become a ghost, just like his mother.
The sick and twisted part is that when he was hurt, when he was sad, when he was empty, there was still a little voice that yelled, “mommy? Mommy, please help me.” And cried. His Mommy never came.
His dad had given up. His parents had stopped trying to keep it together, because what was the point when everyone already knew the family was a mess? Jerry spent his time in his ‘Jerry cave’ avoiding everything, Beth spent hers in her room, soaking her problems in wine and quiet sobs. Summer spent her time drinking and partying, out getting high and avoiding the house at all costs. Beth had stopped asking Morty for help, and Morty had stopped putting effort in.
There had been many times when Morty wished he could run away. But there was nowhere for him to go. It was better to take it. He would sit in the shower and he would whisper to himself, ‘just four more years, just four more years, just four more years.’
But, not four months later, there was a crash into their garage.
Morty saw Beth smile, a real, sober smile, for the first time in fourteen years.
And at the front door, smiling at his daughter—was Morty’s knight in shining armor. His ticket off of this planet, his ticket away from drunk yelling and horrible abandonment, his ticket to freedom and the future. Morty prayed it might even be his ticket to learn something about the universe, to understand science finally, to be able to actually engage in his passion.
Within a week, his hopes had come crashing down.
—————
Morty sees where his mother gets it from. Her self-loathing, her arrogance, her rage, her depression, her penchant for alcohol. He sees all of it and more in the man who is doing just what Morty wanted—dragging him on adventures through the cosmos.
The first time, Morty thinks he’s found his escape. He thinks he can stop making himself bleed, stop caring for his mother and being jealous of his sister, stop getting shit grades and stop getting bullied. He comes home from that first adventure, and he knows all of his problems have doubled.
There is one bright side, Morty thinks. His mother is happy. Now she only drinks two or three glasses of wine a night, and she hasn’t yelled at Morty in a while. Not that he’s home often enough for her to yell at him.
Morty thinks back to that day when he discovered alternate universes were real. When he wished on that shooting star. Oh how wrong Summer was. His mother could be happy in this universe, and if all it cost was Morty’s life, he didn’t mind the trade so much.
And if, only if, over time he developed the same problems as his mother, he would keep it hidden. He would only drink his stolen alcohol in his room past midnight, he would only smoke on the roof, and he would only bleed in the bathroom. Morty vowed that he would never have kids, and he doubted he would make it that far in life anyway.
Morty feels like he’s watching everything from behind a cage, three doors down from where everything is happening. Where his mother is healing, where his father is becoming less of a pushover, where his grandfather is becoming sober, where his sister is becoming present. While his family seems to be healing, all five laughing around the dinner table, Morty feels miles away. He feels like each step up his family takes is another flight of stairs he is pushed down. The sense of exclusion is only widened when he realizes this has nothing to do with him. What had he done to bring the family together? What had he done to keep his promise to himself, to keep the promise of helping his mother?
What was his purpose, when his mother no longer cried on his shoulder? What was his purpose, when he was raised for medicinal value?
What was his purpose, if not to serve? To serve Rick, to serve his mother, to serve society. What was his purpose when Rick no longer needed his human shield to obey him, when his mother no longer needed her human antidepressant to heal her? What was his purpose in a world where the cycle of abuse was slowing to a grinding halt? Who was he if not a punching bag? What good is a punching bag when it gets boring, when it's punched for years and years until it’s worn down and broken, its insides spilling onto the floor? What good is a broken punching bag that misses being punched?
The only solution was to do it himself. To let himself get hit in school, to let himself get shot on adventures, to let himself hurt himself. To hide it all, because he deserved it, but unlike his family, he wouldn’t make it anyone else’s problem.
There was one exception.
Morty enters the garage three days before his fifteenth birthday.
Rick, for once, doesn’t belch. “W-What’s going on, Mort?” Morty thinks that for a moment, Rick sounds peaceful. He sounds more sober, he sounds happier, he sounds healthier. Morty feels a pang in his chest. Of envy? Of sadness? Of hopelessness? Of the empty pain of being excluded from the happiness of his family? Why not me? He thinks.
Morty swallows. He knows it’s an impossible request, but he has nothing to lose.
”U-Uhm…Ri-Rick… could-could I borrow a p-portal gun—uhm, f-for my birthday?”
Rick raises his eyebrow. Rick knows Morty’s nervous tics better than anyone; the way he scratches his forearm, the way he rolls his ankles, the way he cracks his knuckles and looks at the floor with an awkward laugh.
”For what?” Rick asks, earnestly. He knows something is up with his grandson; he has known. Rick hasn’t missed the way Morty jumps in front of bullets meant for Rick, the way Morty comes home bloody and bruised, the hour long showers, the scent of smoke lingering on his shirt. Rick has known—and he has stayed silent. Maybe he could love his grandson, but sometimes he found himself solely focused on himself and his daughter. His Beth. Beth, who he knows had problems before he came back, who had problems he knew she had Morty to solve. (But who would solve Morty’s?)
”I-I just wanna- wanna d-do a solo adventure thing…y’know?”