Chapter Text
Lucy is watching a rerun of Murphy Brown when Michael sits down gingerly on the couch cushion next to her. Sam is laying on his stomach on the rug, a teetering pile of comics by his side. He’s reading one about the X-Men, Lucy’s pretty sure. Something not vampire related, at least, which pleases her. Sam’s shoulders tense and relax in time with Michael’s footsteps, then freeze when Michael sits.
Things have been . . . tense, since Michael and Lucy’s argument. He’s still gone more often than not, but there’s something pointed about his absence now. See, it says to Lucy, Michael is an adult now. He doesn’t need you. He’s got a steady job and a boyfriend he could move in with. He’s on the verge of independence; Lucy is on the verge of losing him.
Sam’s shoulders relax when Lucy and Michael don’t . . . start shouting? Arguing? She’s not really sure what Sam was expecting them to do. She’s not really sure what to expect, either. Michael hasn’t approached, much less spoken to her, in a week. Lucy doesn’t know whether or not she should say something first. Should she act like nothing happened? Let Michael initiate?
She looks at him, his sweet curls and tired eyes, and finds him already looking at her. Michael’s feet are planted on the floor and his back is straight – ready to get up and leave at a moment's notice. She remembers him sitting like that in Phoenix, the way his posture would shift when his dad picked up a bottle. Ready to get between his fists and Sam, if it was that kind of night.
“Do you think,” Michael says, quietly enough for Lucy to understand that the question is just for her, “we could have dinner sometime?”
Lucy doesn’t know what to say to that. Michael is the one who has been avoiding family dinners, not her. Not the time for that, Lucy thinks. No point in escalating the situation. “Uh, sure,” she replies. “Any – any particular reason?”
“I want to invite David. So you can get to know him.”
Well – hm. Lucy doesn’t think a meal will necessarily change her opinion of David. There’s no doubt in her mind that Michael has told him what Lucy thinks of him, and David will be on his best behavior if his aim is to show Michael that his mother is a crackpot who can’t be trusted. Or he’ll be unbearably obnoxious, which won’t improve his standing with Lucy, either. She’s not going to tell Michael no, though. This is the first time the two of them have had an actual conversation since she caught him and David on the porch. It’s an olive branch, and Lucy is wise enough to know that, for the tree to blossom, it has to be planted in the first place.
So Lucy takes the branch from Michael and plants it. “Okay, sure. Wednesday?”
“That works.”
Michael leans back against the couch and turns to the T.V. He’s still not totally relaxed, but he hasn’t left, either. Conversation over, then, Lucy thinks. But it’s a starting point. She settles back against the cushions, too, and tries not to think about how badly Wednesday’s dinner will probably go.
On the rug, Sam starts flipping the pages of his comic again.
Dinner is usually at six, so Lucy is a little surprised when she hears knocking on the door at 5:30. Michael isn’t generally tardy, but he’s also never been early to anything in his life, ever (despite Lucy’s best efforts). Sam is up in the boys’ room and the Frogs aren’t coming over as far as she knows – which, admittedly, doesn’t mean much. They tend to show up when it suits them, and, more often than not, just let themselves in. Lucy really ought to do something about that.
She eyes the noodles she has boiling on the stove and decides that they can be left alone for a few minutes, and goes to answer the door. On the one hand, she’d love to invite Alan and Edgar to stay for dinner, because they’ll be a nuisance to David. She can see it now: spray guns full of holy water, ropes of garlic, and enough crucifixes to put Notre Dame to shame. (She’s pretty sure she had a dream like that once.)
But Lucy has no idea how David would react, and Michael would definitely be pissed off. Plus, they’d completely wreck Lucy’s dining room. Best to save their antics for another time, when there’s less at stake.
“Star!” Lucy exclaims, very pleasantly surprised, when she sees her standing on the porch. She has a bottle of wine in each hand, which is odd, but not the oddest thing Lucy has seen since moving to Santa Carla – not even close. “Come in.”
“Hi, Mrs. Emerson. Michael told me he and David were coming over for dinner tonight, so I thought I’d offer my services as a buffer.” Star bows shallowly, grinning as Lucy ushers her inside. “I didn’t know what you’d be making, so I brought a red and a white,” she says, holding out one of the bottles for Lucy to examine.
“I’m the only person here who can drink,” Lucy says pointedly, eyebrow arched.
Star shrugs. “You’ll be needing both after spending time with David. And Michael.”
Lucy doesn’t ask where Star got it, or how. She’s an adult, and one Lucy’s not responsible for. She just takes the bottles and motions for Star to follow her into the kitchen, where she takes out two wine glasses and pours them both a small measure. They clink their glasses together and take a sip. Lucy smiles, and for the first time in a while, she feels okay. Star reminds her that she’s got a life outside of motherhood. The world isn’t ending, even though it feels like it might if tonight doesn’t go well. If things go sideways with Michael – again – there’s still tomorrow. They’ll try again, and neither of them will be alone.
“I hitchhiked to Santa Carla,” Star says conversationally. “Things weren’t great at home and I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I figured it didn’t matter where I ended up. Some guy picked me up about an hour north of here and let me spend the night at his place. I knew it was a bad idea, but I just – didn’t care. About anything.”
Star pauses her story to take another sip of wine. Lucy wonders if she’s a lightweight, if that’s why she’s suddenly telling her this, but somehow she doesn’t think so. This is something Star thinks Lucy needs to hear. Something she wants Lucy to understand.
“I went to the boardwalk the next night. I saw David and the guys performing. I liked their music, but it was the way they performed it that really drew me to them. It was like it didn’t cost them anything. They had nothing to lose, but not because they’d already lost everything – because they didn’t want anything but the music, and each other.
“I couldn’t imagine feeling like that, but I wanted to. And that was the first thing I had wanted in a really long time. I stayed after everyone else left and helped them pack up their gear. I was like their groupie.” Star wrinkles her nose, embarrassed and fond. “By the time we were done, that feeling I got when they were performing – that desperation for release or something – was gone. So I left and just wandered the boardwalk. I didn’t want to go back to my ride’s place and I didn’t have any reason to stay in Santa Carla, so I started looking for my next ride.
“David pulled up on his motorcycle and I thought, ‘Yeah, I’d fuck him,’ so I hopped on and we went back to his place. Marko, Paul, and Dwayne were all in the living room when we got there, just talking. David and I sat on the couch and joined their conversation. I was thinking, ‘Okay, we’re going to socialize a little and then go to his bedroom. Fine. Whatever.’
“The guys didn’t treat me differently – didn’t try to get me drunk, or grope me or touch me at all – or, no, they touched me, but it was the same way they touched each other. A hand on my shoulder, a shove, stuff like that. I felt so much like I was a part of their group that I forgot why I had come over in the first place.
“Eventually, I fell asleep on the couch, on David’s shoulder. When I woke up, I was alone, and someone had brought me a pillow and a blanket. That was it. They hadn’t touched me, they weren’t creepy or jerks, they were just . . . friendly. Their love for each other was so obvious and I had felt included in it for a few hours. I’d felt better – felt more – during that one night than I had in the two years before.
“I didn’t leave until we all went to find lunch. They acted like me coming with them was a given. We got cheap corndogs and made fun of tourists while we ate, as if I hadn’t shown up two days ago. Then we went to a thrift store – Paul bought an atrocious shirt, a shiny tiger print button up, and I found this belt –” Star plucks at the one she’s wearing, a silver chain with charms of various lengths hanging from it. “– but I didn’t have any money, so I left it. When we got back to the factory, David pulled it out of his pocket and handed it to me. I hadn’t mentioned it, but he must’ve seen me looking at it or something. He gave it to me like it was no big deal, but it was, and I knew he knew it was. I could see it in his eyes. He wears his heart on his sleeve, Mrs. Emerson. It’s kind of rough, but it’s there.
“David saw something in me that he understood. I won’t say I understood him in that moment, but I knew that his life hadn’t always been this way. That whatever he had now was built on the ashes of what came before. He could’ve burned it himself for all I knew. What mattered was that he had made something good, and he’d shared it. With Paul, Marko, and Dwayne; with me; and with Michael.
“David showed me that I could live. He made me want to. He let me into his family and let me make it mine. He’s not a saint, but he’s not the devil, either, Mrs. Emerson.”
Lucy’s finished her wine by the time Star wraps up her story. Her fingers itch to refill her glass.
Star watches her, taking in Lucy’s reaction. Lucy isn’t exactly surprised that Star has a troubled past, or that David does, too; she isn’t shocked by how they met; but she is surprised by the rest of it. David, a caregiver? David, a family man? David, a safe place? She doesn’t know what to make of it. What Star told her is so different from what she’s seen herself. The David Lucy knows is cocky, smooth as oil, obsessive, and proprietary. Star’s David is kind. Kind enough to buy a belt for a girl he just met, to welcome her into his home, and to do all of that without expecting anything in return.
Rod always expected something in return.
“Thank you for telling me that,” Lucy says at last. She takes Star’s hand in hers and squeezes it gently. “I’ll – try to have an open mind.”
Lucy trusts Star. She’s more worldly than Michael, a little older in mind if not in body, and a little wiser, too. She wouldn’t have stayed with David all this time if better things awaited her. And Michael, Lucy lets herself admit, can be foolish and impulsive, but his heart is always in the right place. He knows, too, when to endure and when to leave.
But Lucy can’t shake her own feelings of doubt.
Lucy finishes cooking with Star’s help. She insists, and Lucy allows it because it’s more fun with another person there, especially one who actually knows their way around a kitchen. Lucy’s sons, bless them, are useless in that regard, if they have to do anything that doesn’t involve the microwave or the toaster.
She calls Sam downstairs to set the table. Like Lucy, he’s pleasantly surprised to see Star. She ruffles his hair the way Michael does and teases him about some boy from the comic shop until Sam’s face is red and he’s practically fleeing the kitchen, plates in hand.
Lucy glances at the clock and pours a tiny measure of wine into her glass. Fortification, she tells herself. Almost time. She counts the minutes as Sam lays out the silverware and cups. 5:55, 5:56, 5:57 . . . .
There’s a knock on the door at 5:58. It’s awkward, unpracticed, maybe even a little unsure. Not David, then. Michael.
Lucy hopes, as she goes to answer the door, that Michael has come to his senses and broken up with David. That he’s embarrassed, a little reticent, and that’s why he knocked on the door instead of just using his key. She knows, even before she opens the door and sees him standing shoulder to shoulder with David, that he hasn’t.
“Boys,” she says. “Come in.” She’s not sure how it comes out. She tried to be warm, for Michael’s sake, but any kind of warmth is impossible when it comes to David. For Lucy, at least. Michael seems to have it in spades.
David smiles. It looks difficult for him, like he’s trying to be polite without being duplicitous. He holds up a clear pan. “We brought dessert,” he says. It looks like brownies. Lucy can’t see anything obviously wrong with them, but she still wants to take the pan from him and fling it into the yard.
She doesn’t. Instead, she moves out of the doorway so Michael and David can come inside. Michael, his hand resting comfortably over the small of David’s back, guides David to the kitchen to put the brownies away until after dinner. She leans against the door and takes a deep breath, listening as they greet Star and Sam. “You can do this, Lucy,” she tells herself. “He’s not Rod.”
David might still be bad for Michael, but he’s not for Lucy. She can confront him and walk away unscathed. She just needs to make sure that her son can, too. And maybe — maybe he can. Something about Lucy’s conversation with Star has loosened her surety about David. She has a new perspective on him now, from someone who’s not obliged to make David look good. Someone who knows him well enough not to be dazzled by him anymore. Lucy told Star she would go into this with an open mind, and she’s a woman of her word. She won’t forget what she’s seen in David — no, what she’s seen David do — but she’s willing to give him a chance. He’s not Rod.
She just has to keep reminding herself of that.
The kids (they’ll always be kids to Lucy, even though Sam is the only one still under eighteen) are sitting at the table, passing dishes back and forth. There’s already a helping of pasta on Lucy’s plate, with the Alfredo and Mariana sauces mixed how she likes, and a piece of extra gralic-y garlic bread.
She notes the searing arrangement they’ve devised: herself at the head of the table; Michael and Sam in their usual spots on either side of her; David on Michael’s right and Star on Sam’s left. Michael is regaling them with some anecdote — about Sam, going by his red, scowling face. David is chuckling, one hand idly twirling and un-twirling pasta on his fork, the other loosely gripping the back of Michael’s chair. It doesn’t look like any of them have started eating yet.
They all go quiet when Lucy takes her seat. It’s an anticipatory silence, riddled with tension.
“Pass the peas, please,” she says. They’re by David; he picks up the dish carefully and hands it to her. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
Again, those tart manners. Like David doesn’t know how to be polite just for politeness’ sake. It’s totally unlike the way he talked to her when she burst in on his and Michael’s guitar lesson earlier that month. It makes something in the back of Lucy’s brain itch. She recognizes David’s behavior, but she can’t quite place it. He’s not being passive aggressive or insincere, just . . . stilted. His manners are a little rusty, but he’s brushing them off for her.
“So, David,” Sam says, “how do you feel about the garlic bread?”
Sam jolts. Lucy looks at Michael. He’s trying to communicate something to Sam with his eyes that looks distinctly like, I will MURDER you, twerp, to which Sam replies, also with his eyes, Mom won’t let you, egg-head.
David takes an exaggerated bite out of his garlic bread, chews it thoughtfully, and then says, “It’s delicious. I assume that means you didn’t make it.”
David’s teasing smile takes all the bite out of his words. Sam still gapes, more disappointed in David’s ability to eat garlic than his representation of Sam’s culinary talents. Michael attempts to hide his laughter behind a cough, and when that doesn’t work, he tries elbowing David, ever Sam’s loyal defender. David catches it and pulls it towards him until the point of it is resting against his ribs. His smile gentles; Michael blushes and purses his lips to hide his own grin.
His first love, Lucy thinks. David is his first love. Lucy doesn’t know how she didn’t realize it sooner. Michael, to her knowledge, has never been in a really serious relationship. No wonder he’s been so mad at Lucy. She remembers the vitriol and passion of her first love (a pothead poet named Gerald). If either of her parents had tried to interfere in her relationship, she would have fought them like a stray cat, with claws and teeth and reckless abandon.
“Gross,” Star says, flicking a piece of bread at Michael and David.
It lands beside Michael’s plate. He picks it up, eats it, then says, “Your face is gross.”
“Wow, Mikey. Nice effort. Really hit me where it hurts.”
“David has melted his brain,” Sam informs Star. “Now he only thinks with his d– ”
Michael kicks him again. Sam yelps dramatically. Star laughs so hard she doubles over, which seems to mollify Michael, until David said, “I melted your brain?”
“No,” Michael replies curtly. “Your terrible music did.”
David gasps, mock-offended. “Surely you’re talking about Marko’s guitar solos.”
“Surely I’m talking about your vocals.”
David drops his napkin on the table. “Well, this has been nice,” he says, rising halfway out of his chair. “Thank you for dinner Mrs. Emerson, but since Michael hates me now, I’ll be going.”
“Sit down, jerk,” Michael groans, tugging on David’s jacket.
“Only because I like pasta,” says David.
“When did you start playing, David?” Lucy asks.
“Ten years ago,” David replies. His expression turns aggressively neutral. “After I heard ‘Dreams.’”
“The Fleetwood Mac song?” Lucy loves Fleetwood Mac. They were her one indulgence: whenever they released a new single or album, she bought it, regardless of what else was going on. She has good memories of taking Michael and Sam to the record store in Phoenix to pick up their newest release. Michael loves them almost as much as Lucy does, even if he won’t admit it. She wonders if he and David bonded over their shared interest in Fleetwood Mac. If she gave Michael that connection to David.
“Yeah,” David says. “I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I learned how to play it on the piano. Then I started writing my own songs.”
“Piano?” That wasn’t what Lucy was expecting. It seems too tame for David.
“My dad used to play,” he says. “Some of my first memories are of him teaching me scales.”
It seems like a sweet memory, but David’s eyes go dark when he mentions his father. Lucy knows that dimness intimately. So does Michael. Something else for them to bond over, she thinks sardonically. Guilt starts stirring in her gut, but then Michael says, “I bet you were shit at that, too,” and shoves a forkfull of pasta into his mouth. Lucy can’t change the past, but she changed their present. Michael is flourishing. And David, she’s beginning to see, is part of that.
Lucy shoots Michael a Look. Sentimentality doesn’t mean she’ll let that kind of language slide at her dinner table. He swallows quickly and says, “Sorry, Mom.”
Dinner goes on like that: they tell stories and banter and ask questions. And they laugh. Shocked, raucous, joyful. Lucy doesn’t remember ever hearing so much mirth under her roof. After dessert, David, Michael, and Sam gather up the dishes and bring them to the sink. Michael grabs the dish soap but Lucy catches his wrist (and he doesn’t flinch – he doesn't even have to suppress it. Did David help acclimate him to touch, too?) and shakes her head. Dishes are usually Michael’s chore, but Lucy has other plans for tonight. “David will help me with the dishes,” she says.
“He will?” Michael asks. “You will?”
David looks vaguely chagrined at his compliance being taken as a given, but he nods anyway. “Of course.”
Michael looks between the two of them for a long moment and then says, “Okay. Don’t tell him any weird stories about me.”
“No promises.”
“And you don’t tell her any weird stories about me, either.”
“No promises,” David repeats. He seems more okay with being ordered around when Michael is the one issuing orders.
Michael looks between them one more time, and then joins Sam and Star in the living room.
“I’ll wash, you dry?” Lucy says.
“Sure.”
She and David stand at the counter, side by side. They work in silence for a few minutes. Lucy is trying to think of how to phrase what she wants to say – Are you hurting my son – without being too blunt when David speaks.
“You don’t like me.”
It’s not a question, but Lucy thinks carefully about it before she responds. “I don’t like you for Michael.”
Dinner was nice – enjoyable, even – but she didn’t really learn much about David. He’s clever, funny in a sly way like Star, and clearly fond of Michael. That’s all surface level, though. She doesn’t feel like she knows him any better as a person. She acknowledges, if only to herself, however, that if she had never met David before that night, she would like him. So she’s going to take one more crack at him and see what she finds. What happens after – well, she’ll cross that bridge when she gets there.
“Why?” David hasn’t looked at her once since Michael left the kitchen. That feels uncharacteristic of him. So does his carefully blank expression and even tone of voice. Lucy thinks back to his unusual, strange politeness, and a lightbulb goes off. It’s so comically normal that she almost laughs out loud. David is nervous. Almost like Michael was with him when they first moved to Santa Carla. Michael wanted David’s approval; now, David wants Lucy’s.
Rod had never cared for her parents. He thought they stifled her, and then that they wanted too much from her, drained her, and then, before she knew it, she had moved to Arizona and hadn’t seen her mom and dad for years. The fact that David wants her approval – it makes her wonder. If she hadn’t been with Rod, what would she make of David’s behaviour towards Michael?
His possessive hold on Michael during their guitar lesson – it had made Michael short circuit. Maybe that was the point. David might have been teasing Michael more than showing off his claim to Lucy. That seems plausible to her.
And the song on the boardwalk – if she had heard that on the radio, it wouldn’t have struck her as odd. It’s a rock love song. And the way David had sung it, so obviously and unabashedly to Michael, was brave. Lucy can see that now. In a crowd full of people, David had sung about wanting another man right to his face.
The amount of time Michael spends with David, the way David touches him – that’s normal, Lucy thinks, for teenagers discovering love. Especially during the summer, hot and languorous, and full of possibility.
“You reminded me of my ex-husband,” Lucy replies carefully. “Michael and Sam’s father.”
“I never – ” David starts.
“I know,” Lucy says quickly. “I know. Michael wouldn’t be with you if you hit him. He definitely wouldn’t let you near Sam.”
“How, then?” David asks. Emotion begins to color his voice: frustration, offence.
“It doesn’t matter. What I saw – it wasn’t really there.” I don’t think. “They were just little things, but –” And this is the part Lucy doesn’t really understand. Why had she been so affected? “Michael’s had enough pain in his life. I was trying to protect him.”
“Because you didn’t protect him for so long. So now you’re going into overdrive?”
Lucy bites her tongue. She takes a deep breath and puts the plate she was scrubbing back in the sink. David is already looking at her when she turns to face him. She hates that his words make sense. That is what’s happening, isn’t it? She was too busy trying to keep her boys safe at home to worry about what they were doing with their lives outside of it. Now they’re safe, but she’s still looking for threats. And she decided David was a threat because he, what, held Michael’s hand? Flirted with him? David’s not perfect, Lucy knows, but he’s not Rod. The feelings she’s been getting about him aren’t instincts, she realizes, they’re remnants of her fear and guilt.
She can’t appease those feelings by separating Michael and David. She’d just find something else to worry herself over. She has to let them go.
“Sorry,” David mutters. He looks somewhere over her shoulder. “Michael would kill me if he knew I said that to you.”
“But you think it’s true. That’s why you don’t like me.” He didn’t bother trying to win her over before now. She didn’t make him nervous because he didn’t want her approval before now. Somehow, because of her and Michael’s fight, he’s realized how much she means to Michael.
“Yes.”
“David –” How can she explain it to him? How could she possibly explain what being Rod’s wife was like? She doesn’t know if she could explain it to anyone right now. Rod is a wound that’s barely closed: just starting to scab over, still easily re-opened.
“Michael said you did everything you could for him.”
“Not enough,” Lucy admits. David looks surprised by her honesty. She lets herself enjoy it. “It could never have been enough. For him, for Sam, for me. Enough would have been leaving Rod as soon as I found out I was pregnant. But I was young and still in love. I made mistakes. Michael and Sam –” and I “– suffered the consequences. I’ll never be able to clean that stain off of my soul. But what I can do now – what I’m trying to do – is help them heal. I didn’t get Michael away from one abuser,” Lucy says lowly, “just for him to throw himself into the arms of the next worst man he can find.”
Outwardly, David looks calm, but he’s gripping the edge of the counter so hard that his knuckles are white. “And I’m that man?”
“No. But I thought you were.”
“What changed?”
“I did.” Lucy isn’t going to tell David about her soul searching and epiphanies; that’s not any of his business. In her mind, though, she plucks a branch from her and Michael’s olive tree and holds it out to David. “I don’t know you, but I trust Michael, and that’s enough.”
David’s face softens. His brows pull together a little and he eyes Lucy consideringly. His fingers twitch like he can see Lucy’s imaginary olive branch. “Is it?”
“Yes. Here,” she hands him the plate. David looks at her for a second longer, and then he takes it from her gently, with care.
The plate, Lucy notes idly, is olive green.
David and Star don’t stay long after he and Lucy finish the dishes. They’re both a little emotionally frayed, Lucy thinks, and it’s probably for the best that they leave things where they are for now.
Michael follows them out onto the porch after Lucy and Sam bid their guests goodnight. Sam runs upstairs as soon as the door shuts behind them. Lucy hears him chattering excitedly into the hallway phone, probably to Alan and Edgar.
Lucy goes back to the kitchen and makes a pot of decaf coffee. She pulls out two mugs and the creamer. By the time Michael comes back in, she’s got their coffee ready. They take it the same way. Lucy hands Michael his mug and, by silent agreement, they move to the living room.
“I’m – I’m sorry,” Michael says almost immediately after they settle into the couch. “For what I said last week. It was unfair.”
Lucy smiles. She reaches out and squeezes Michael’s ankle. “Yes, it was. I’m sorry, too. I should have trusted you more.”
Michael takes a sip of his coffee. It reminds Lucy of the way she drank her wine before dinner. For fortification. “So, you think David’s alright, then?” Michael asks. He sounds so unbearably hopeful. Lucy feels a wave of regret at how she’s handled this. She turned Michael’s first serious relationship into a point of contention between them. She knows why, how they got here, and she thinks, how they can get back, but doesn’t change the fact that their relationship took a completely unnecessary detour.
“Mm, yeah,” Lucy replies. “Everyone’s entitled to a teenage dirtbag boyfriend.”
“Mom!” Michael exclaims, laughing.
“It’s true.” Lucy sets her coffee down on the end table and pulls Michael into her arms. He goes easily. A piece of Lucy slides back into place as Michael leans his head on her shoulder, his curls tickling her neck and chin. She’s always loved that feeling, ever since he was born. “If you’re happy, I’m happy.”
“Just like that? I thought you hated David this morning.”
“Well, a lot can change in a day.” More seriously, she says, “I was able to put some things in perspective. David’s not your father. He’s just –” Lucy tries to find the right words. “He’s figuring himself out, too. You’re both young. Who you are now isn’t who you’ll always be. But I think he’s got good foundations.”
Michael hums contentedly. “I’m glad you think so. Are we – are we okay now?”
Lucy kisses the top of Michael’s head. “Of course we are.”
From upstairs, they hear Sam say, “And he ate garlic bread, no problem!”