LOYALTY AND SEDITION by TM
Part 23

Rating: PG

Summary: Mom and Sis...the dysfunctional model.

Spoilers: Nope.
 

Oh God. It's my mother. And my sister.

Two people in the world I'd least like to see.

I haven't seen my mom in years, and the last time I did, she was totally pissed off at me.

She probably still is. She'll probably yell at my ass for getting sick and dragging her down here.

Not that I had anything to do with it.

I look at her. She looks old. She's a lot more grey than I remember. She used to have real dark hair, but now it's mostly grey.

I think she was good-looking once. She probably still could be, but her face is always in such a puss that she just looks mad all the time.

What is she doing here, anyway? She threw me out. She hates me.

She looks at me. "Michael. How are you?"

How do you answer that?

How am I after seven years, Mom? Seven years of being on my own when I couldn't take care of myself.

And I know what a liar you are now.

You told me my dad didn't want to see me. And all that time, it was you who didn't let me see him.

I hate you. Go away.

I want to scream this at her.

I just tell her I'm okay.

"Your father says you've been living down here for over a year now."

"You knew that," Leslie tells her. "I told you. The little shit was scamming from my checking account."

"Hey, I paid you back!" I tell her.

"Leslie, enough," my dad warns her.

"And who do you think you are?" She turns to my dad, and she's pissed. "You spend a few months with Michael, and all of a sudden you're father of the year? Is this the deal? I'm supposed to -"

"Leslie, your brother's sick. I assume you came down because you were concerned about him."

Who is Dad kidding?

I can't stand them here. "Just go home," I tell them.

My mom isn't having that. "Excuse me, Michael, but I just drove four and a half hours down here and all you can tell me is to go home?"

"Hey, you're the one that tossed my ass in the street!" I keep my voice low, I don't want it to break.

I am so close to crying it's not funny.

"I put you out so that you'd straighten up. I didn't tell you to get out of my life for seven years! You don't call, you don't tell me what's going on-"

"Why should I?"

"Janet, please, he's still sick-" my dad's trying to keep things cool, which is probably not going to work with these guys.

"Mel, you have no idea what I went through with that kid! I had to do something!"

"I would have helped you," he says.

"Oh, right! You'd be a great influence on them, wouldn't you?"

God, all these years, and she's still pissed at my dad.

How come he's not pissed at her?

"You could've thought about that when you decided to go off on your little whistle-blowing scheme, Mel! You could've thought about your own kids!"

"I did think of them."

"Sure you did. You could've kept quiet and things would've been fine!"

"I couldn't do that," Dad says, very softly. "I'm sorry. I couldn't."

"So you leave me to deal with the kids, and I have to work myself to the bone to do it, and I don't know what's even happened to my own son-"

"Your son is here," Dad tells her.

"I can see he's here! Once again, off doing whatever he needs to do to get attention-"

"Janet." My dad says her name, real quiet like. "I don't think this is helping. Could we go somewhere else and talk about this?"

"There is nothing to talk about. Believe me, Mel, there hasn't been anything to talk about for years." Her voice is real hard and cold. Sounds like Mom like I remember her.

"I think there is."

"What do we have to say to each other? We haven't had anything for years together! It's ancient history."

"We've got these two kids." My dad gestures at Leslie and me. Leslie's standing next to my mom. Mom always did like Leslie better.

I'm dying. I thought I'd been humiliated already.

That was before my mom and sister got here.

Kelly's seen the whole thing.

She's still there, just looking at her hands.

Mom didn't even say hi to her or ask who she was.

I can't do anything about all the pain that's between Mom and Dad. That's for them.

But that my mom wouldn't even see I have somebody there. That maybe somebody in the world doesn't think I totally suck.

That hurts.
 

Mom and Dad go out in the hall and shut the door. Leslie tries to follow, but Dad tells her to stay put, this is between him and Mom.

"And who is this?" Leslie waves a hand at Kelly. She doesn't sound real friendly, but Leslie never does.

"This is Kelly. Kelly Martin, my sister Leslie."

"Hi." That's all Kelly says. She looks sort of nervous right now.

She's probably gonna run out of here any moment.

And it pisses me off I can't follow her.

"So you're living with Dad now," Leslie's pacing around. "Nice of him to finally decide he's got responsibilities."

"Hey, it was Mom who decided he shouldn't see us."

"That is such a lie, Michael. He'd probably tell you anything to get him on his side."

"All he did was show me the court papers. It's in there, Les. You can look it up."

"You're a liar."

"Les, I'm tired. I don't wanna argue with you. I don't feel that great. Why did you guys come, anyway?"

"Mom made me."

"You could've said no."

"I was curious how you were doing. Seems like you're doing okay here. Dad says you got a 4.0 last semester."

"Yeah. I did." Leslie was always the one with the good grades. She probably doesn't like being upstaged.

"And he's a great tutor," Kelly tells her.

"Really." Leslie's not buying this readily.

"Yeah, I was having problems in calc, but Michael's really good with math, and I ended up acing my exams."

"Well, I'm impressed." Her voice sounds like she's not. "What's your major, Michael?"

"Undeclared right now. I'm not sure what I wanna do."

"So what else is new. How about you?" She's giving Kelly the third degree.

"Premed." Kelly's always proud of what she does and what she wants.

I like that about her.

"I'm still doing my dissertation," Leslie tells us. "It's taking forever."

"What's your major?" Kelly asks her.

"Psychology."

I always figured Leslie went into psych because she's such a mess herself.

Poor Les. I'm not a thing of beauty, but at least I'm a guy.

Les has some of my mom's looks, which isn't bad, but she's short and chunky like my mom. And she has some of Dad's looks.

Dad's looks don't work on a girl. Sorry.

She probably hates Kelly because Kelly's pretty.

"So are you hoping to do clinical work or research or what?" Kelly's asking Leslie this.

"I'm going to do family therapy."

Good, she can start with her own.
 

Mom and Dad are back.

It's weird to see them together.

It's like there's this huge wall of pain between them and they can't get over it, can't get under it, can't get around it, can't get through it.

Why is she here? Why did she even bother?

She tells me that I can come and stay with her in NJ if I want. Seeing as I've straightened myself up and all.

I don't think so. I tell her I'd rather stay here with Dad.

This pisses her off.

I ask her if it's okay if I come visit her sometime. I just don't want her screaming at me. I'll probably never go, but I don't want to hear what an ungrateful bastard I am right now.

I'll say anything.

She says I can come anytime.

She and Les pack it up and take off. Mom says to call her.

The hell I will.

Why did Dad ask her here?

I am so goddammned tired.

What's really amazing, though, is that Kelly's still here. I figured, she meets my crazy family, that's it, she's gone.

But she's not. She's still sitting there. My dad's gone to walk Mom and Leslie down.

She's quiet.

I look over at her. She doesn't say anything.

"They're kind of weird."

"So're mine." She shrugs.

I'm so tired. I just want to sleep.

Much as I want Kelly, I want sleep more.

I tell her I'm really tired. She pulls the blankets up to my shoulders, arranges my IV line so it's out of the way, and says she'll call me.

Sure she will.

I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't.

But I hope she will.

I'm just so tired...
 

December 11, 2000

Dad must've stayed all night. He's snoring in the chair when I wake up.

Of course, I don't get to wake up when I want to wake up. Somebody wants to suck my blood, which they seem to help themselves to a lot here.

Give me the fucking alarm clock any day of the week.

Dad sleeps through this, which is cool. I'm still totally pissed at him for dragging my mom and my sister down here. All it did was make me feel real depressed.

I just want to get out of here.

And I want an explanation. Why the fuck he did what he did.

I mean, it's not like my mom was real happy to see me or anything. I mean, I suppose she's happy I'm not dead.

Maybe not. I think she just quit caring about me a long time ago.

My arm stings from another needle stick. Shit.

And my mom's a nurse. Which makes me hate her even more.

I'm starting to feel like I'm being used for target practice.

And having all this shit go down with Kelly there. That was too much.

Of course, if it really bugged her ass, she could've bailed any time she wanted.

But she didn't.

This makes me feel a little better.

I hope I see her again soon.

Today would be good.

I want to go home, but I know once I get home, it's not gonna be as great as I think it is. My dad won't let me out of the house. I'll be bored. And have Kelly over there when he's around, which he probably will be because I'm sick and he doesn't trust me?

I don't think so.

I've had enough humiliation for the next century or so.

Just being here is humiliation. God, it's like nobody leaves you alone for a moment. I'm watched every second, and it's getting real old real fast.

How the fuck did Langly and Byers do weeks of this shit? They were in lockdown forever last winter. Especially Byers. Of course, Byers had one thing going for him. He was unconscious for a while. And Langly had Ally there most of the time, and everybody thought they were already married, so nobody bugged her about it.

And he was such an asshole to her when he was locked up. He made her cry. And it's usually pretty hard to make Ally cry.

I promise myself I won't ever make Kelly cry.

God, or whatever the fuck you happen to be out there, if you let me have Kelly, I promise I won't ever make her cry.

I know my dad made my mom cry. She did lots of things wrong, but he did do that to her.

I wonder if she ever made him cry.

I have no idea. And he'd never say. He's not the type to show that sort of stuff.

I kind of wish I was like that. It's like I have my heart on my sleeve, and everybody always knows what I think and feel. I tell people they're wrong, but I am so fucking obvious.

This bugs me.

Kelly can probably tell I'm just hungering for her, and she's avoiding it as best she can.

Dad's awake now.

I think I'll go back to sleep now.

It's either that or get into it with him, and I don't have the energy.

So I'll sleep.
 

I'm awake again later. I have no idea what time it is. I don't even know what day it is. I'll have to check that.

Helps to know where you are.

Dad's away right now. No idea where he went.

Right now I don't care.

It's weird being alone. I don't think I've been alone the whole time I've been here. I don't remember the first couple days much, but I think there's always been somebody here.

I discover I have a TV remote. That's right. I have Blue Cross. I'm in a quality joint.

Daytime TV sucks.

I snap off the TV and think about checking out some of the CDs that Langly and Ally gave me. Music would be good right now.

Wish they'd pull the fucking IV out already. It's really in my way. And it makes my hand all puffy.

I'm trying to unwrap the first CD with one hand, which isn't working so great, when I get a visitor.

If you want to call it that. It's my prize in the HMO lottery, a one Dr. Bergman.

Great. Smock-lowering time, breathe in, still got any pain?

I'm getting real good at this drill.

I don't mind the dude that much. He's really okay. I'm just sick of all this shit.

He knows it, too. Says I sound better, and he's springing me out of this place tomorrow.

Yay.

"So where's your young friend this morning?"

"Working, I think."

"I'm going to make some calls and see if I can get her some interviews. Seems like a bright kid."

"Kelly's real smart."

"And I know what it's like to be broke and go to medical school. I've got some personal experience in that arena."

"Bet you're not broke now."

"I wish." He smiles. "You're looking okay there, Michael. Just take it easy the next few weeks and you'll be fine. And I do expect to see you in my office next week. Understood?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"And tell your friend to call me." He hands me a business card. "Mind if I ask you a personal question?"

"Depends on the question."

"Your parrot. Where did you get it?"

He's talking about my tattoo on my back. It's a damn cool tattoo, if I do say so. Worth the pain to get it.

"Trenton. NJ. Why?"

He's sort of looking embarrassed. "Well...I always wanted a tattoo."

"So why didn't you get one?"

"I think it's just a Jewish boy fantasy." He's laughing at himself.

I can deal with that in a guy.

I'm still mad at my dad. I still want him to tell me why he called my mom.

I should just ask him.

But I fall asleep again.

I am truly pathetic.

END OF PART 23