Never Forgive, Only Forget
Author: iridescentZEN
Fandom: Desperate Housewives
Rated: T
Spoils: Season 2 and 3 Character: Andrew Van de Kamp
For most of Andrew Van de Kamp's life home was a place where he didn't want to be. It was a place more sanitary than a hospital, where meals were always served with three courses and nothing could ever be as simple as a can of Spaghetti-Os or macaroni and cheese. It was where the dining table stretched forever, the perfect metaphor for the estrangement of his family.
Andrew cringed when his memories decided to haunt him with the things that he has said to his mother, the things that he has done to her. Justin asked him once if he had an Oedipus Complex. It took two weeks before Andrew would to talk to him again. Justin asked, "Forgive and forget?" in a hopeful tone, finding the fact that he hadn't heard the dial tone after the initial hello as an opening, a way to sneak back into his life.
Andrew replied, "I'll forget, but I'll never forgive."
Andrew Van de Kamp did not forgive.
That was something he got from his mother. He knew deep down that she never really forgave dad for his extracurricular activities with her mortal PTA president enemy Maisy Gibbons. He knew that she was forgetting and not forgiving. Wrapping everything up and closing it in a box and never opening it again.
It was almost as though his mother wasn't a person. Which he knew wasn't true. She had feelings. He just chose not to acknowledge them. Just chose not to see what would be so clear if only he looked a little beneath the surface. It never occurred to him that she might have a drinking problem because she was hurting in a thousand different ways than he was. In his head, she deserved it. Deserved to be his doormat, deserved to sleep it off on the lawn and god only knows where else.
It doesn't really register in his brain about the danger she faced going out and getting so drunk she couldn't even make it to the front door.
She deserved to be in pain because he was in pain.
Because his father was dead and it was her fault.
Her fault for forgetting and not forgiving, and looking for payback. Her fault for inviting the pharmacist into their lives and lighting the spark of obsession in him, badly enough that his father ended up murdered because of it.
He can't blame her entirely for that.
Because he did not forgive.
That much he understood.
The next few months would seem like eons. Time at camp, time breaking mom. A time full of wine and name calling, of broken bottles and relationships. Then she dropped him off in the middle of nowhere. It was shocking for someone like Andrew. Someone who had everything he wanted from the day he was born and thus didn't realize how good he really had it. He slipped and called her mama as she left, because it didn't matter that he won. The anguish on her face, the emotion that she was showing him at that exact moment finally opened up his mind to what it was that he did to her. To the fact that she was a woman, and she was human, and she loved him so much that leaving him there hurt her as much as it did him. Maybe more.
He finally managed to get in the cracks and break her.
She left money to tide him over until he got a job, but he never actually got one. Instead, he spent foolishly and ended up becoming desperate enough to use his mouth as a means of income. Hating her more and more with every man he serviced as though each time he did it that it was a personal affront to her. Take that, Bree Van de Kamp. Your gay son gives blow jobs for a living. Rise above that kind of scandal. And at night asleep on park benches or card board boxes, he tried not to dream about her, tried not to see the pain in her eyes all over again. Tried not to see that he finally succeeded in breaking her, breaking the unbreakable, as he laid in her bed and drank in the afterglow of his revenge. His father had never been a match for him. He took things more literally than mom did. There was no subtle layers to their relationship. Andrew respected him, at times hated him, and loved him. But his mother was always his favorite opponent.
Andrew hated her so much, but he loved her even more. And God, he missed her. Missed the way she would sometimes sing when she was doing laundry, thinking no one was home. Missed his clean room, his clean clothes and his shower. He missed her three course meals. It took starving before he finally realized how luxurious a three course meal made from scratch could be. He missed the way she would sneak up on him and hug him, despite his anger and his blow offs. And the ghost of her good night kiss lingered in a phantom feeling, making him feel like he was little again, at home and tucked in safely in his bed.
Then as Andrew settled down for the night, a bad taste in his mouth and twenty dollars in his pocket, he happened to glance down at the newspaper he was planning on using as a blanket. It was an engagement announcement. Bree Van de Kamp to wed Orson Hodge. There was no picture, and he was kind of sad because of that. She included a picture of his father and sister in the bag she packed, but she had cut herself out of the family picture.
When she came looking for him, he only felt rage. Rage that she would bother after dumping him off in the first place. Rage that she would even want him back in her home after the way he treated her. Rage that she was opening herself up to hurt again by continuing to love him. Yes, he won. He was so sure that his mother would eventually hate him for being gay that it hurt just to think about it. Then he felt sadness. Especially when he heard her heartfelt, "Andrew, please" from across the street. His mother, begging him for another chance. That was genuine, and it hurt far more than he thought it would.
So when Orson bought Andrew lunch, set him up with cash, and told him that his mother loved him, he scoffed. Sure, she loved him. How would he know?
The man was a little frightening. There was something about him that told Andrew he had a few regrets and knew about rage before the man even opened his mouth. And he was painfully right when he mentioned that he was hurting himself to hurt his mother ... but mostly it was himself that Andrew hated.
Mom hadn't kicked him out when she found out he was gay. She certainly hadn't welcomed the fact with open arms, but she was a conservative Republican. What else did he expect? It took time. And honestly he never thought that she would welcome Justin back into the house with open arms, but she had. She was a step away from putting a rainbow sticker on the Chrysler's bumper.
Ah, Justin.
There was a whole 'nother story.
When Andrew knocked on his mother's door, for the first time in a long time he was afraid. The fear of rejection stung. He couldn't imagine what his mother had been going through all those years with his pointed snubs and waves she gave that were never returned. What if she decided she really didn't want him back home? What if she kicked him out again? What if she found out what he did while he was gone and she hated him for real this time?
When his mother, the always proud and always perfect Bree Van de Kamp opened the door, he felt stupefied. Her posture was all wrong. Defeated. Depressed. Maybe Orson had been right about that. It was obvious that she'd recently cried, her eyes were blood shot and were a deep green shade that only came with tears. Andrew felt his eyes well up with tears of his own.
When his pristine mother attempted to pull him into a hug, he realized how dirty he was. The filth of eight months clung to him. He didn't want to get her dirty, he didn't want to desecrate her. He pushed her away with a, "Mom - mom, I'm dirty ... I'm ..."
Andrew was shocked when she ignored him, hugging him to her harder, not caring about the dirt, not caring that he needed a shower and a shave. That was when he finally realized she loved him, that she had never stopped and never would, because she was Mom. Not when he spat on her, not when he called her a stone cold bitch. Not when he slept with her boyfriend.
He was her son, and she loved him.
For the first time, Andrew realized that home was in his mother's arms surrounded by her love.
End.