Work Text:
What does it mean to be wrong, to be broken, to be bad? Was Mary any of those things? Sure, she hurt people, but did she ever really to pretend to be anything she wasn’t? Dry and jagged and hurt, lonely and overwhelmed. When Joseph hid it and smiled and was charming, why did they all gag to hear that he just wanted to run away with them?
She knew why, she knew that they felt special, trusted and important. She felt that too. But now she was what he wanted to escape from. Mary wants to run too, to run from herself and from the kids and from the idiots who take one look at her husband and pity him, and fall over themselves.
She tries in her own way to run, but she can’t really get away can she? The nights out with Rob and the shelter with Dames, they are escapes,tangible escapes , not some kind of boat shaped fantasy about sailing into the sunset. They are both hiding from the truth, it can’t go on like this, playing games, making themselves and each other look bad.
Does she love him? He was, is, her best friend. They were a team and they got away. Away from the world that was bringing them down. They had kids and made their team bigger. They had kids because Joseph convinced her it would change things. They did everything to step away from the things that were bringing them down and now where were they? Standing in the middle of it waiting for the next step. It is clear now that Joseph’s next step is away from her.
She can't keep waiting for him to pull his head out of his ass can she? Somebody has to be themselves, to face that life's a bitch and then you die and you can't always get what you want and all those other things that tell you being an adult sucks.
She has a support system now, people who love her without her having to be perfect. Dames has a room he wants to rent out and Robert is hanging out with his nerd friend more which means more whittling and less whisky.
The kids. She loves those little shits, but she’s just like her mom and Joseph has a hundred people who would call her an unfit mother on his side. She’s not ready to do that, to let him go to the yacht and give up having any semblance of a life apart from those four beautiful soul sucking loves of her life. Besides, he has that stable of old ladies ready to make casseroles and babysit and who would watch Mary’s kids while she waitresses and tries to find a second job?
She should call Damien, see if she can rent that room, ask for his therapist’s number and figure out if she can get a paid position at the animal shelter. Living in ‘The Mansion’ as the kids call it would mean she could, if Joseph is willing, still parent her kids. This doesn’t mean leaving them, it means finding who she is again. Figuring out how she is gonna deal with this shit life without losing everyone.