Just a short ficlet from Anges Lowery's perspective. Written and posted originally on the Livejournal Comm I decided to post it here too, hoping to do one from Lloyds' fathers' pov next.
Breakout Kings and all their respective characters belong to them, I own nothing.
He tells her intelligence isn't hereditary, even cites the articles that back up his claims. Always the ingenious little prodigy, he doesn't quite seem to comprehend that the last thing she wanted to hear was him prattling off statistics that supported his claims of her idiocy. Hadn't she done enough for him? She raised him on the meager child support sum given to her each month, lost a marriage for him. Taught him all she knew until it wasn't good enough.
Hell, all she knew lasted up to age one; that was a depressing year. When other mothers were discussing the terrible two's their children were going through, Agnes had to sit in the back and nod with a plastic grin on her face after she realized no one wanted to hear about how her child at age two had learned a new language and could solve algebraic equations. It made them feel inadequate and stunted. Something no mother wanted.
But that was fine because really, who needed those women anyways? With their pointless gossip and incessant nattering? She had her son, her little star, her little genius. Her Lloyd.
She knew plenty of things, being raised by a conservative family in the early sixties, still riding off the waves of fifties idealism and the death of Kennedy. She was taught all she needed from her mother: marry young and raise a family. Be a good wife and be an amazing mother and nothing could be more satisfying.
Five years into a rocky relationship that never should have happened, Agnes Lowery kept on waiting for that electric spark to hit her. To let her know she had done well by her upbringing, but her mother never taught her how to raise a child who could comprehend The Red Book by age three. She wasn't prepared for it, who could be?
She never asked for a gifted child, hell she never asked for a child at all. Not really, but when life gives you lemons right?
Still, nothing quite prepares you for that moment when your child comes home, looks you straight in the eye and hands you a pamphlet about AA. Everything she had done for him, sacrificed for him (do you know it's impossible to find someone willing to date the mother of a genius? The issues men have are unreal when it comes to a woman with a kid, let alone one smarter than them.) and he had the nerve to tell her she had a problem.
It hurt, but it told her in a way that she had failed him. Everything she had ever done for him meant nothing, that the only person who meant anything in her life thought she was defective.
When he was finally arrested, she felt a momentary breath of peace. Though short lived and quickly followed by waves of 'where did I go wrong?' she clung to the fleeting caress of freedom.
People in the community still looked upon her with pity; after all she was the woman who bragged about her wonderfully accomplished son. It hurt, it stung, how could it not? He had thrown his entire career away on a deck of cards.
She didn't visit him, it was too embarrassing and most days she admits to herself it would have been easier if he had died. Because it would have been one thing Agnes Lowery hadn't messed up in her pathetic life.