Chapter Text
September 15th, 2008
Jason is settling in well at GHS. Already making friends everywhere he goes (of course he is, my sweet, caring little man). He is playing QB like his father, also not surprising; his cerebral strengths lie heavily in leadership and management and his athletics are, naturally, record-setting.
When he came home, he breathlessly told me that he auditioned for the school play on Friday. He was walking on air. He didn't want to tell me before the cast list went up this morning: they're doing Beauty And The Beast, and he'll be playing the title role.
There's more. Apparently, Thalia has been hired as a student teacher through a partnership with her university, and will be directing shows for college credit.
Obviously, I called right away to volunteer as a producer. I would have anyway, given that Jason is starring. I won't let incompetent staffing hold him back, and the easiest way to do that is to handle it myself. (They should be happy to let me, as soon as I open my checkbook.) But with his sister involved, it's especially important that I keep a close eye on things. He'll need me there when something goes wrong.
September 16th, 2008
Second rehearsal was today. Faculty advisors are a Tony-winning director and a retired Broadway producer, and the music director has won three Grammys and a Tony, all good signs.
T looked irate to see me, but maintained a clipped, cold politeness. No doubt she wanted Jason all to herself.
Jason, by the way, was utterly magnificent. His voice has been deep for longer than I'm comfortable thinking about, but as he matures it's getting richer and stronger too. More adult. He loses a little more of his innocence every day. He'll be taller than I am in a matter of months.
The girl playing Belle is Venus' daughter Piper, from that time V slept with a Hollywood action star. Stunningly pretty like her mother, whom I haven't seen since she threw punch on my dress at senior prom. P has a lovely voice. She and Jason blend wonderfully. Looks like kismet.
I mentioned to him after rehearsal how pretty she is and how well they seem to get along. He turned very red, told me she's in his homeroom, then meekly asked if he's being that obvious about his crush. I reminded him I've raised him since he was three. He admitted he really likes her and he's pretty sure she likes him back, but he doesn't want to ruin the show if things get awkward. Very mature, very considerate.
I want to rip her apart. I'm so happy for him I could scream. I cried for ten minutes in my en-suite when we got home.
I'm glad he's not gay, at least. Not that I would love him any less if he were, but it'll just be so much easier for him. Piper is a sweet girl with a lot of potential; she'll be good for his image.
September 17th, 2008
Today was set aside for solos. Jason had the last block, so that he could attend practice and have time for a quick shower in between. He still came running into the auditorium, flushed and a few minutes late, because he got dizzy from the steam. He looks a little thin, but I can't tell if it's just because he's growing vertically and he'll fill out later or if he's not eating enough.
Back in California, he had a coach make a nasty comment about his weight. He won't admit it, but his anxiety has been cropping up around food ever since. I'm worried about him. Rex tells me I'm overreacting, that it's not a bad thing for a boy to be fit and svelte. I think R isn't really looking at Jason's face and hasn't noticed that his cheekbones usually aren't that defined.
Anyway, I haven't heard him sing solo in a long time. (Yesterday was a read-through, and they played the music on CD and sang along.) In the car on the way home, he admitted to me that he only just stopped cracking, and he was too embarrassed to let anyone but his voice teachers hear him until now.
According to the music director, he's presently a Verdi baritone, but may mature into a Wagnerian high bass as he gets older. Truth be told, I don't much care about the distinction, although it matters to him, so it matters to me too. What I can speak to, though, is the way he's playing the role.
He's got his mother's coloring and her voice, but he looked so mournful and wounded I couldn't help but imagine my husband when we were that young.
R used to look at me the same way Jason looks at Piper. He used to torture himself, used to lament that he wanted to be better for me. Because he believed I deserved it, once.
"Long ago, I should have seen / all the things I could have been / careless and unthinking, I moved onward!"
I haven't seen that face in a long, long time, but I have seen it before, on his father. I suspect I'll be thinking about the act one finale for a long, long time, too.
September 18th, 2008
Today was blocking the music they rehearsed yesterday.
I thought it was striking to hear Jason at the piano. I didn't even know the meaning of the word. Can my world change in a single day?
There is no mistaking where Jason is getting his performance from. His body language, his physical outbursts, his shame and despair over losing control—"Please, I didn't mean to frighten you— there's just so little left of me!"
Sitting towards the back meant I was more likely to catch his eye as he sang to the clock on the wall above me. I didn't want it to happen, but I couldn't help it.
All I could think of, as he "trashed" his "room" by knocking over folding chairs and tossing sheets of paper, as he caught himself in the mirror and curled forward, face contorting in desperation and anguish— was my husband when he was seventeen.
I remember the way Rex looked at me. The bruises on his face, the tears in his eyes, the taste of his blood when he kissed me, how strong his hands were as he held me down. Once, it made me feel special. Important. Like I was worth something.
It's been a long time since R brought up those feelings in me himself, but I can't be too angry with him. He gave me the brightest light of my life, after all. As much as I have suffered, maybe it was in some way holy. I have to have faith that the Lord wouldn't have taken away my Jason Antonio if He hadn't meant for me to have Jason Anthony instead.
I often pray to give thanks for Jason. I don't know what I would do without him. He makes me feel special and important and worth something every time he smiles that beautiful smile, and I don't even have to pay for it with hours of arguing.
It's selfish and covetous of me. I need to show my husband more grace and charity and patience. He hasn't been a good husband to me, but I haven't been a good wife either.
Jason is the only part of our household who is simply, purely good. I will keep him pure and good if I drain every last bit of myself to do it.
Am I not his mother, more than anyone else has ever been? Is it not my purpose on this earth to raise my son as best I can, to nurture his goodness and purity, to protect his soul from damnation as surely as I protect his physical being from danger?
He's so quiet. I wish he would talk to me like he did when he was small. He was quiet then, too, but he still came to me when he felt scared. Sometimes he'd hide behind my leg around new people. I remember how his little hands used to cling to my skirt as he told himself to "be b'ave like Taya".
La Sera gave him so much comfort back then that I thought about getting another dog when we moved, but he was so broken when he lost Tempest that I just can't put him through that another time. I can't see him so sad. Not again.
His life was just starting to stabilize. I'm terrified that everything I've done for him will be for naught, that the Devil will pull him from me again as soon as he falters. Maybe I'm too overbearing as I try to keep him steady. His father is certainly much too hard on him. He carries it all as though he feels he deserves the burden.
Nobody ever prepares you for raising a teenage boy.