by Trisky
How do I explain that he's the man who broke my teenage son's heart? I can just hear the watercooler conversation now, "Oh you mean Brian, my son Justin's 30 year old lover. You mean Justin, little Justin? Yes little Justin, he's a man now, in every possible way, Brian saw to that."
Against my better judgment I make my way towards him, every pair of eyes following my every move.
"Brian? Is there something I can help you with?" I'm a WASP, we are always polite, always.
"Can we get a cup of coffee. I need to speak with you."
His tone is brisk, as if I'm the one interrupting him and not the other way around.
"I'm awfully busy Brian and frankly if this is about Justin, I really don't feel comfortable speaking with you about him." He looks at me, with those eyes blazing right through me. How many times has he used that look on my baby?
"Actually I came to talk about the stock market, I was wondering what your perspective on investing is?" He is such a rude, narcissistic shit. As long as I don't say that out loud, I can still qualify as an upstanding member of the elitist class, it's in the rule book. "Of course I'm here to talk to you about him, and if you don't want to do it away from this office, that's fine, I'll be happy to discuss it in front of everyone else."
He motions as if he's going to make his way back to my desk and settle in for a comfy chat. He certainly makes it difficult to escape him, doesn't he?
"Meet me downstairs in the coffee shop on the corner in five minutes, and Brian, this had better be worth it."
I watch him leave, my neck becoming stiff at the onset of one of my migraines. Whatever it is he wants, it can't be good, it never is when it involves speaking to me one on one. I finally have my son back and there is nothing he is going to say or do, to take him away again. I don't care how upset Justin is, how much he thinks the world is ending because his heart is breaking, or how miserable he is about the fact that he has to live at home with me, again, there is nothing, absolutely nothing Brian Kinney is going to do to further ruin my child's life. I know I shouldn't hate him, shouldn't hold him responsible for things he couldn't control, but I do and I wish nothing more than to erase him from Justin's memory, as a bad figment of his imagination. But I am a mother, and I cannot stand to see my child look as hurt and hopeless as Justin has, in the week he's been home. More than anything, I hate Brian Kinney for putting that look on his face.
And yet I know, no matter what my protestations, my concerns or my desires, he is the only one who is capable of taking that look away, even if he is the cause of it. For that reason alone, I owe him the time it takes to hear whatever he has to say. I don't have to like Brian to understand his place and importance in Justin's life, but I cannot let him do this to Justin again. I will not.
I think of all the things I want to say, need to say, as I stare at him, in the corner booth head bowed over a cup of coffee, stirring it quietly, looking all of 12, and I know because I'm a mother and I know these things, and I know my son, I know what it is he clings to in his mind, the Brian he sees, that the rest of us do not. I would like to simply hate him, but he makes it impossible.
I slide into the booth, without fanfare and return his cold, hard stare, hazel eyes that remind me of a cat for some reason. Unlike my Justin, we are two adults and there will be no playing games. "What is it you want Brian?"
He lights a cigarette and drags slowly, waiting for me to fold first. "How's he doing?"
His eyes flash a look of genuine concern, and that alarms me, whatever it is he wants, he will not be easily dissuaded. "I understand you feel that you have some kind of right to an explanation, but understand, I won't discuss him with you. Tell me what you want Brian."
He looks at me with disdain, the iris of his eye turning into a beady swirl, lip upturned in disgust. "Who are you, to judge me?" He snarls the words out, as if they leave a bad aftertaste in his mouth.
"I'm his mother," I hiss. He may own the cat eye's, but I have the claws.
"You're the woman who dumped him on my doorstep when he was too much for you to handle. You wanted your son back, I gave him to you."
He has this way of stinging you, not with acidity, but with truth, and that hurts the most, but I'm not above using his own tricks to turn the tables. "I gave him what he wanted. I gave you what you wanted, what you both needed. Maybe now you can understand the difference. Maybe you understand why people do things they don't necessarily want to do, because it's not about them and what they need. Sometimes another person's needs take precedence."
He leans back, contemplating my point with puffs of smoke. "Then I'm sure you'll agree with me that what Justin needs, isn't to live at home with you."
I choke on a gasp, maybe a nervous laugh, I cannot believe his utter gall. "If you think I'm bringing him back to that loft..."
He silences me with a disbelieving stare. He is easily the most unsettling person I have ever met. "I know Justin, despite what you might think, I probably know him better than you do. And I know he's fucking miserable, having to crawl back home to mommy. It doesn't matter how old you are, once you've been out of the nest, you don't want to go back. Surely you understand that much."
I don't have to answer him, I am a lady, and polite silence is totally acceptable.
He continues undaunted, ignoring my niceties, and the vicious urge in my eye to kick him in the shins. "I want you to give him his father back. I want you to give him his life back."
"Excuse me?" I am totally out of my element. I have a newfound respect for Justin, that he managed to put up with this complicated, strange man for so long.
"I'm going to give you some money, and you're going to let Justin find a place of his own and you're going to tell him, that his shithead father decided to help him out. You let him pay whatever he can afford and tell him that daddy dearest will make up the difference, and every month I'll give you a check to cover whatever that amounts to." He leans over his coffee, his hands crossed, smiling angelically.
I am sure my that my face looks frozen in a state of incredulity or disgust, take your pick. I open my mouth to speak, several times, every thought sounding idiotic before it reaches my mouth. I simply have no words. I stare at his hazel eyes, wide open and expressive, and I want to tear them out, sew them shut, I want them to look anywhere but at me. He is serious, there's not a trace of a joke on his face. "You actually expect me to go along with this," I say, after what seems like hours. "Why would I go along with something like this, Mr. Kinney, I just got my son back." I can't call him Brian, not when I'm negotiating for my son.
"Because it's what Justin needs. He needs to be a man, to feel like he has some power over something. He will never do that if all you do is coddle him and let him be dependent on you. He'll find some way to trip himself up and fall on his face. He needs his fucking father, for reasons I have yet to understand, but he needs to know that somewhere in that cold dead carcass of a heart, his father still feels something for him. Put his needs first, isn't that what you said? If you want him back, you need to let him go."
There is clarity in his big saucer eyes, specks of something that Justin must lap up, truth, trust, possessiveness, I don't know, but I see it for the first time.
I see his hazel eyes stripping away the foundation for every argument I might make, before I even begin and I know, in this very moment, that Justin is no longer mine.