Title: Porcelain
Author: iridescentZEN
Fandom: Desperate Housewives
Rated: PG
Spoils: Season 2
Character: Bree (mentions of Bree/George and Brex)
The pattern printed on the set of fine china was very old. It belonged to Bree's grandmother, and to her own mother, who didn't have a chance to use it. The set was missing its fifth plate. George managed to get lucky on e-bay and find the exact pattern which was very rare, and made the set perfect again.
As Bree stared at it, she didn't see her grandmother's smiling face or all the meals that she served to her family on that china. Bree saw only George and his devious machinations, his lies. The plate served both as a gift and a way for George to lure Andrew into his trap. To further force his way into her life, the life he wanted so desperately to share with her.
Bree sent Andrew to boot camp when he was just trying to protect her from what she couldn't see.
Everything that ever had a connection to George Williams was gone from her home except this dish. There was an expensive antique gun used during the civil war, officer issued, that she sold and promptly donated the money to charity. She threw orchids that she oohed and ahhed over in the trash, letting the beautiful plants die with him. In the medicine cabinet Bree found numerous amounts of prescription medications that were filled by George. They were all emptied and thrown in the trash even though her hand shook a little when she clasped a bottle of Rex's heart medication in a white knuckled grip.
It was far too easy to hate herself these days, knowing that she invited George into their life and in return he killed her husband, caused an even bigger rift to form between Bree and Andrew, and manipulated her into having sex with him by issuing an unspoken ultimatum: have sex with him or he would leave her alone with no one to love her and no one to care about her.
"Uh, mom, what are you doing?" Danielle's voice startled Bree out of her thoughts.
"Um, sorry Danielle, what?" Bree met her daughter's worried eyes.
"You've been staring at grandma's china set for fifteen minutes. Are you okay?"
Bree's shoulders slumped. When one of her children asked her something like that it rarely seemed to be from genuine concern. It was usually a stepping stone between her and her purse. "I'm fine, Danielle. How much do you need?"
Danielle's bright smile was almost worth it, but was it asking too much to see it without money as its motivator? Her daughter was beautiful, and her smile lit up her whole face. "I'm going to the mall with Julie so ... forty dollars?"
"Sure honey, just get it out of my purse. And Danielle, before you leave for the mall please bring me another bottle of wine."
"Okay," was Danielle's good natured reply. She didn't even give the bottle already beside Bree a pointed stare or make a snide comment like Andrew was prone to doing.
"Here you go, Mom." Danielle placed the bottle of red wine beside the now empty one. "Please try not to stare at that empty plate all night, okay mom? Try to get some rest." There was real emotion in Danielle's voice, the sound so foreign to Bree's ears that it made her want to cry. Her daughter kissed her cheek lightly then said, "I'm leaving now. Bye."
"Bye, Sweetie."
Bree opened the bottle of wine, remembering when the sound of a cork popping usually meant a celebration or a toast at a dinner party. At a time when Rex's love for her was still pure, it usually led to a romantic evening that ended with love making, and the wonderful feeling of being desired by her husband. Now that same sound was an indicator of just how much she wanted to forget herself, how much she wanted all the responsibility that she had shouldered so well over the years to be gone.
It reminded her of how she fortified herself before a session with Rex. A sip while donning a leather corset, another for fishnets and garters, the entire glass when she reached for the riding crop. It helped keep her mind free of all those pesky questions that refused to go away when she was sober. Like why did Rex say she sounded like a whore for wanting to be touched by him, and then treated her like one when he finally did? Being desired by her husband became a wicked thing, and the sex was less about her and almost exclusively about him. But when Bree Van de Kamp made a promise, she upheld it. Anything you want. Anything. Rex wasn't the husband she knew, the husband she loved during those sessions.
Bree always wanted to ask him why he didn't want to be bossed around by his wife when it came to making decisions about the house or children, but in the bedroom it was craved, and even begged for? A popped cork told her that her life was in shambles, and the perfect facade she still projected was never more a lie than it was now.
The wine was chilled, but tasted like nothing. All food and drink ceased to have flavor the moment her husband died. While she still made dishes for the children, she rarely ate herself, and gave up completely on trying to get the kids to sit down to a meal with her. They humored her at first, but they were blatantly disrespectful when their father was alive, and now that he was no longer with them she might as well be invisible.
Bree drank from her glass, her eyes fixed on the porcelain flatware as if it were mocking her. It was still in the box that George gave it to her in, untouched since that day at Andrew's swim meet.
Bree hadn't been mortified that there wasn't a proper number of dinner plates in her set in front of George. Of course, he had no idea that she never served dinner to anyone but her family on that china, but she knew she wouldn't be judged for not matching.
With anyone else, she would have used a different set of china.
As it was, just the memories held enough power to make her want to vomit. She served dinner to her husband's murderer. Cared about him, trusted him. Let him have what he had killed for, and had no idea that the gleam in his eyes during sex hadn't been motivated by love or even lust. It was victory.
Pure triumph.
In retrospect, she wasn't sure how she could have missed it when it seemed so very clear now. Having always thought herself a good judge of character, she realized now that she had no clue. And that she was the perfect example. There was no real way of knowing that Bree Van de Kamp, faithful church member and fantastic neighbor, watched a man die, condemning his immortal soul because he was so certain that she would save him.
It didn't give Bree pleasure. It didn't even give her a feeling of justice. It weighed heavily upon her soul and sat on her shoulders with the burden of knowing that her son had hit Juanita Solis with his car and left the poor woman bleeding in the street, and had the nerve later to dismiss her as an old lady. To be upset by the fact that by hitting her with his car, it got damaged and the only thing Andrew seemed to regret was that he had to ride his bike to school.
Bree wondered if the person who killed her mother, driving an old blue Chevy truck on an icy Christmas Eve felt bad for running her over and leaving her to die or if the person was like Andrew, more upset about the vehicle damage than by the fact that he struck a person down.
The wine was cold on Bree's tongue, and she relished the feeling. Any feeling these days was a break through. Alcohol had become a magical elixir that ran freely, helping her forget that her husband was a rotting corpse six feet beneath the Earth she still walked on. It wiped the memory of her son spitting in her face when he was taken to Camp Hennessey. Of Phyllis bluntly informing her that she made Rex miserable during the last years of his life. It made Bree forget the day she said, "George, would you like to go out with me?"
Bree picked the dish up from its gift box, feeling its weight in her hand. Touching the white glazed porcelain, her fingertip traced the pattern that she loved so dearly. It was ruined now. She threw it at the wall as hard as she could. The shattering ceramic sounded like music, and Bree smiled with satisfaction.
The china set was as it was before she met George.
Flawed, but cherished.
The dish was a metaphor, a stand-in for Bree and her emotional state. It was in pieces, scattered. It would never be the same again.
And just like Bree, it was beyond repair.
End.