by Trisky
"All I did was babysit," I shrug off the compliment. It wasn't that big of a deal.
"Dropping everything and running over here to save our asses was more like it," Mel showers me with praise. As if I'd just saved a whimpering puppy from a burning building because of my supersonic hearing and flying cape.
"Your babysitter's mother was rushed to the emergency room. It's not like you can plan for those things," I sort of laugh. It sounds strange coming from my mouth. I feel like I've never laughed in my life. I certainly haven't laughed once in the last week. "Gus almost wore me out. Thank God, he finally fell asleep."
"The older he gets, the more energy he seems to have. I can't believe he'll be two in a couple of days."
"Seems like it was just yesterday that I was naming him." My eyes slink all over the room and my throat swallows down the memory that threatens to invade my private pity party. "Now he's the one naming me. Did you know he's started calling me Judd totally out of the blue?"
She rubs the soles of her feet as she eases her shoes off. "I don't think he can pronounce 'Justin'. He gets frustrated and gives up. So he made up his own name for you. I think it's cute," she smiles with tired eyes. She works too hard. "Besides, he's just returning the favor."
"You still hate the name," I grin.
"I still hate the name," she nods. I let myself laugh, because she's laughing and it would be rude if I didn't. I tell myself over and over again that I don't really mean to laugh. I mean to sulk and be miserable and revel in my joyless existence. There is no joy in my world. "I'm sorry I dragged you over here. I wouldn't have, if it weren't really an emergency but Lindsay had a classroom full of parents and my jury was taking their sweet ass time."
"It's alright. I needed to get out of that apartment for a little while anyway." I wince. I can't think about that place and not physically react. It's impossible.
"How are you doing, with all that?"
"I'm wonderful. Can't you tell?" I puff my chest out with a wide yawn and stretch my arms behind my head for a spell. I'm still unbearably tired, even though I've been doing nothing but going to work and sleeping. It takes a lot out of you to keep up a constant state of misery. I don't have the energy to do much else. I'm saving it up for the big move tomorrow and the start of classes two days after that. My concentration is totally devoted to trying to figure out a new life plan. One that preferably will include a place to really call my own and not one that involves bumming a floor and a pillow off of someone. School might have to be put on hold in order to do that. I don't know, I can't seem to think that far ahead.
I can't seem to think of anything but wallowing. I like wallowing. It's comforting. It doesn't expect anything from me and I can feed it pretty easily. I just open up the wallow box and dump it all in there. It never gets full. People should wallow more often.
"Never let it be said that Brian doesn't do everything spectacularly, including being a royal fuck-up," she announces, bitterly, more for her sake than my own. Nothing stays private in this family. Ever.
I lean my head against the back of the couch "He didn't do it on purpose." Shit! I'm like a wind- up doll. Twist my knob and listen to me respond on command, without thinking. I never think. I just react.
"He's got you trained pretty well. Does he give you a treat every time you master a new trick?" The temperature in the room drops us into a near arctic freeze and the cold front threatening to form icicles on my eyelashes and seal them shut forever snaps my eyes to immediate attention.
"I didn't realize you thought so little of me." This is exactly why we would have never worked out, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, even though I don't want to. Because I want to be miserable, irrational and unforgiving. How could he take me seriously if no one else does?
"It's not you I think so little of. It's him. You deserve better. Everyone knows that. Whether you'll really let yourself get it is another matter altogether," she sighs, heavily. I feel a lecture coming on about what a piece of shit Brian is, and I'm tempted to just leave before I find myself in the one awkward position I really don't want to be in. Defending Brian.
I don't move.
"I know you're just looking out for me, but I don't think you really know what this is all about. It's complicated."
"You're right, I don't know what it's really about. I can only guess. The question is, do you?"
I feel my chest whistle out a tinny slight sound through the back of my throat. My breath gets caught back there for just a second and hiccups. I don't know how to answer that.
"What does that mean?"
"It means I can't believe I'm about to fucking defend Brian fucking Kinney and that the world will stop spinning on its axis the minute I'm finished." She rushes the words out so quickly I'm not sure I've heard her correctly. I'm not sure she's sure she said them out loud. "I'm just the only one who's honest enough and not infatuated enough to see what's really going on here. And what do I see? Once again he somehow manages to find the one way that'll keep his ass clean enough to eat off until the next time he fucks up, when he'll just find yet another way." She sounds frustrated by her vaulted honesty coming back to bite her in her own sullied posterior. Dirtied up by the scary prospect of having to take over reluctant Brian defending duties. That should be a full-time job for some poor sucker. Oh wait, that position has already been filled. By me.
"There's nothing to defend," I say defensively.
"I believe that as much as I believe that you actually know what you're upset about. Because I don't think you do." She rests her aching feet on the coffee table in front of her and rubs her neck instead. She seems to always be tense about something.
"Does everyone but me know what I'm supposed to be thinking?" I raise my voice a little too loudly and she shushes me with her finger. Once Gus is out for the night, you don't want to wake him up. He can be a cranky, moody little shit. Like father, like son. I stand instead, as if the breathing required for pacing around is somehow going to lessen my tone of voice.
"How do you feel about Lindsay and Vic? Or Debbie, or maybe even your own mother?" she asks, plainly.
"Huh?" My throat tickles again. Maybe I'm coming down with something. Yeah, something otherwise known as muteidiotitis. "I love them, they're great people," with the possible exception of my mother, at the moment.
"Did you think it was wrong when Lindsay stayed home to take care of Gus while I worked to support them?"
"No, of course not. She was taking care of your son. What's your point?"
"And Vic? Do you think less of him because Debbie has to pay most of his bills?"
"He's sick," I point out to a totally deaf ear who seemingly only wants to hear the sound of her own voice.
"What about when Michael gives Debbie a little something to help out?" she presses on, oblivious to my very reasonable response. "Or when your father was supporting your mother while she took care of you? Did you think there was something wrong with that?"
I drop back down on the couch. Wallowing is easier to do with as little physical exertion and effort as possible. "That's totally different."
"Welcome to the world Justin." She takes on her mother's tone. The one she uses when she's describing some new feat Gus has managed to achieve. "You're not the first person who's ever had to rely on someone and you certainly won't be the last. There's nothing wrong with it. There's no shame in it. There's also nothing wrong with Brian wanting to be the one to take care of you, the same way I want to take care of Lindsay or Debbie wants to take care of Vic. We do it because it's something we want to do, not to punish anyone or belittle them."
"Can I get off this ride? Because it's spinning a little too quickly." She shakes her head no. I figured as much. "It's more than that, so much more. They all get a say in their own lives. I didn't even get that much." I can still feel a twinge of pain start in my chest at the mere recollection.
"That's good, now you're getting somewhere. You're not upset because he paid your way and you feel dependent on him. That's just money. I'm not even sure you're upset because he lied to you. You want to know what I think it is?"
I have a feeling I'm going to hear it regardless of whether I actually want to, but I think I might. "What?"
"Do you know how much I argued with Lindsay when she said she wanted Brian to be the father of the child she wanted to carry? The fucking asshole, tweaked out whore of Babylon? As a father? She had to be kidding me. She was totally convinced he was the only one. She wouldn't even hear about any other alternatives. It was Brian or nothing."
"I'm not following."
"It made me feel like I was being drummed out of my own future. It was bad enough that I couldn't share the experience of having a child with her. It was so much worse when she wouldn't even let me try to be as involved as I could get by letting me be a part of the decision making process. Her mind was made up and I was no part of it, no matter how much I argued. So I just caved and let her get her way. Then it was just between the two of them and I was just watching from the sidelines," she recounts as sadly as Mel is ever going to get. I feel for her. I feel her. I am her.
"Why'd you go through with it?" For the first time in a week, I feel almost human. I'd forgotten what it felt like to have an interest in something besides myself and my feelings. I forgot compassion somewhere along the way. I feel the knot in my chest subside.
"Because I wanted a baby, and a family and a life with her, as much as she did. After a while, it stopped being important how we got one, just as long as we did." I can see that, every time I see her look at Gus. He's hers in every way that matters. She's the kind of parent every child deserves. It's too bad so many of us don't get them.
"Even though you had no say?" I ask, incredulously. Brian would never tell me this kind of stuff. I would have never known any of this. Then again, I'm not sure he does either.
"Why do you think you're so upset? It's not about Brian. I'm not saying he's totally blameless, because he's not and if you never spoke to him again, I'd throw you the biggest fucking party you ever saw," she chuckles a depressed, pathetic little sound. One I recognize immediately. "You're upset at yourself. For choosing someone you're so willing to compromise for and you're so willing to share just to have a part of them. For putting yourself second and putting him first. For putting up with so much shit you never thought in a million years you'd ever have to deal with, because you would never let yourself wind up in these contorted positions that we find ourselves." The soft dim light of the room casts a looming shadow above her head. The darker it is, the easier it is to let yourself be blinded.
"It doesn't make any sense. We don't make any sense," I admit to her... to myself. "But I don't make any sense without him either. And I can't stand that." I hesitate for a moment, letting the air float into my mouth and carry the words out of me. "I'm not sure I make any sense with him. I'm not sure he'd even let me. But I know he doesn't make any without me. What am I supposed do with that? Leave him walking in circles for the rest of his life? I can't just follow him around them. I can't." I won't.
"So, don't. Do what I could never figure out how to do. Make him follow you. It's the least that asshole could do." Her voice is stern, but her face is soft somehow. She's had years of practice at convincing herself she's a hardass bitch until that one person who totally unravels her just comes along and undoes all that hard work. She can't hide. No more than I can. "I'll say this... For whatever reason," she throws her hands up at the ceiling in defeat "it's like you and Gus have become his fucking salvation. Lucky bastard that he is. The two things he doesn't actually fuck up all the time. Maybe only 95% of the time." A disgusted snort interrupts her admission. "You're the reasons everyone can forgive him and excuse him. He must have a heart somewhere if he can care about the two of you and try to do the right thing by you."
"You think he cares about me?" I sound like a stranger to my own ears. A very desperate and swiftly fading stranger whose wallow box is dissipating and emptying me of any reserves I had left.
"I think he's lucky to have you." I don't need supersonic superpowers to hear what she refuses to verbalize. 'In his own fucked up way.'
"Do you ever regret not pushing more?"
"Then I'd regret having Gus. Never in a million years. No matter who his father is." I think it's the nicest thing she'll ever come close to saying about Brian.
"You think it's wrong of me to regret pushing too much?"
"No. He deserved it! You should have pushed him out the window." She plants us both firmly back in reality. Her with the arrows, me with the armor and shield, ready to stand tall and defend at will. "Just be careful. Know what you're really fighting for and why you're fighting for it. If the war is worth it, if the outcome is something you want and it outweighs what it takes to get there, than you need to choose your battles. You can't fight them all at once, and some of them aren't worth fighting at all."
"What about the ones that are?"
"You dig your hands in and you start slinging until he surrenders," she states matter of factly with a shrug of her shoulders.
I feel my fingers dig around my mind for the discarded foundation of the architecture of my destiny that I'd tossed aside so carelessly. It's a soggy mess now, but a little time and a little sun should dry it out and strengthen it right up. "When do I know if I'm compromising too much?"
"When it's not worth it anymore? I don't know, you just do."
"Any other pearls of wisdom?" I smile. I don't even have to think about it. I just do it, because it comes naturally.
The loud clang of the bell ringing several times in a row disturbs the first bit of peace I've had in days.
"Never argue with a lawyer?" she grins, as she runs for the door.
I close my eyes and say a little prayer of thanks that I won't have to be the one to put Gus back down to bed.
"Is your finger broken, why the fuck are you ringing the bell so many times? My son is sleeping!"
"What the fuck are you doing home? Lindsay told me to get my ass over here because that moron babysitter you hired was about to leave my son to take care of himself. You were supposed to be in court."
I freeze in mid-prayer as their voices get closer. God's got a funny way of answering.
"That was three hours ago!"
"I just got the message."
How not unusual.
The voices stop abruptly upon entrance to the living room. I twist my head to stare at the wall. If I sit still long enough, maybe he'll mistake me for a statue and ignore me.
"I guess they don't get cell reception in the backroom at Babylon," Mel cracks.
"I was at a client dinner. I didn't recognize the school's number, so I didn't pick up," he defends himself. I don't have to look to know that Melanie is but a mere annoyance to him at this point. I'm the main attraction. I can feel his eyes travel the length of my neck, and rest when they reach the back of my head. "Is that Gus?"
We all hear the commotion going on above our heads. Even with his small feet, he makes some very loud noises when he stomps.
"Great, just fucking great Brian. Now he'll never go back to bed. Thanks! As usual you create the messes, and everyone else has to clean them up."
I hear her footsteps pad their way up the stairs. Still, I refuse to move. I refuse to give him the satisfaction of being the first to budge.
"What are you doing here?" Maybe I imagine the sort of breathless way he asks, like he's been kicked in the gut. Maybe not.
"Waiting for the world to tilt back on its axis," I ruminate, quietly.
"I guess you were the one who came to the rescue." My head jars enough to stare straight in front of me, enough to look out of the corner of my eye and determine his proximity. Or an escape route, whichever I need to know first.
"It was an emergency. They called and I came."
"Glad you were around," he speaks quietly as if to apologize for his rude entrance. Into this room? Into my life? I don't know anymore. "Once again you save my ass."
I pick the skin of my cuticle for phantom dirt. Cleanliness is next to godliness and obviously I need to be on my best behavior if I'm ever going to get another prayer answered again. "He was asking for you. Wanted to know why you weren't with me."
"I was at a meeting."
"I heard." I nod my head, distracted by the overwhelming desire to turn around and see him for myself. See him look distraught and disheveled and unable to function without me. But I don't, because I know he looks immaculate and no one would ever know there was a thing wrong, if there even was. He would never let them see it. Not even me.
"How are you feeling? You didn't look so good when I left that morning." I, on the other hand, am another story. I may as well be wearing a billboard.
"I'm fine. I was just tired."
"Of me," he lets it slip out before he can pretend he didn't even think it, much less speak it. My head follows its own course to finally glance at him. I mean to do it briefly, but my eyes are drawn to his impeccable suit, his perfect hair, his clean nails. If I walked past him on the street and I didn't know him, I'd never see a single hair out of place. But something is clearly very wrong with him. "I hear tomorrow is your moving day." Of course he'd know that. Everyone on Liberty Avenue must know it by now.
"Yeah, there's not much to take with me. Most of it's going back to my mother's house. What wasn't yours was hers anyway."
He reaches both hands in his pocket and fidgets around, debating whether or not to sit down next to me. My body moves itself over a couple of inches and he takes the invitation I didn't even realize I was offering. "Talking to her?"
"Not really."
"You should. It wasn't her fault. I practically had to force her into it. It was my fault. If you're gonna blame anyone, blame me."
"I'll talk to her eventually, just not right now. Besides how can I blame you? You have no responsibility to me. The only responsibility you have is to yourself. Right?"
"What can I say? Rules are meant to be broken," he states, casually. Too casually.
I look at him. He looks at me. I try to crane my neck away with absolutely no success.
"It'd be mass chaos without any kind of order."
"That's why the chaos theory is based on unpredictability."
"Chaos theory is based on unpredictability in ordered patterns. There has to be some structure before there can be exceptions." I'm suddenly glad I paid attention in high school. It was easy, I had fat, balding 60 year old Mrs. Turner. They don't teach this kind of stuff at PIFA.
"And I just clip your wings every time you try to disrupt the flow," he leans his chin on my shoulder, his jaw setting right on the joint. It's uncomfortable but I don't push him off me.
I rub my eyes and laugh slightly at the total randomness of this conversation. "You can't control everything."
"So chaos it is," his breath tickles my ear.
"Chaos theory. Not chaos," I correct him. His small laugh vibrates in my inner ear and shakes my brain all about.
"I'm actually kind of glad you're here. Saves me a call." I turn to face him, careful not to shrug him off my shoulder and I wait for him to follow behind my silence and fill it up with words. "Can you do me a favor?" He lifts both of his eyebrows at the same time and closes his eyes, letting out a deep exhale of breath before he backs his head away a couple of inches.
"What?"
"There's something... I need..." he rubs his brow line and searches for just the right question to keep me in place and not send me running. I must look ready to bolt at any minute. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me sometimes. "I want to show you something. Would you come with me, if I asked?"
"Are you asking?"
He licks his bottom lip and regains his composure. His body regains control of itself. That's what was wrong, he was all loose limbs and unstructured support. Brian never relaxes long enough to do that. He's always defensive, his muscles are always ready for an attack, even when he's asleep. "I'm asking."
I bow my head and consider the offer. I could say no and he'd let me go. I could say no and he'd make me go anyway. I could say yes and leave when I want. I could say yes and be stuck at his mercy until he let me leave. I could hold off and wait until I'm ready.
"Okay."
"No questions?" he asks, surprised.
I surprise myself when I come up blank. "No. I trust you. You might not trust me, but I trust you. You lead. I'll follow." It's the only way to get him to move in my direction.
"Don't..." He holds his fingertips to my chest, to prevent me from moving off the couch. "Just come with me. There's something you need to see. I'll let you go if you don't want to stay or don't want to see it when we get there. I won't like it very much, but I'll do it. It's totally up to you. Just know that." "Let's go." I rise first and walk past him. He hesitates. I know this, because I know him and I don't have to look at him to know these things. "Brian, are you coming?"
"Right behind you."
I walk to the foyer and open the front door to a warm night, not uncomfortable but not cool either. I swallow a deep breath of air and he closes the door behind us. We both stand for a minute just taking the quiet in before we embark on whatever strange destination he has planned.
I look at him and he looks at me and we descend the stairs of the porch wordlessly. Our patterns might not make all that much sense together. They have their own rhyme and reason. The only thing I know for certain is that we make even less sense apart.