A/N: I was going to apologize for the length of time between updates on this fic, until I looked at it and realized it hasn't really been that long since my last update on this. I guess it just feels that way since in the meantime I've had like two updates on The Mirror of a Bad Dream as well as writing some other oneshots. Funny how it can feel like so much longer. Anyway, I absolutely loved your feedback on the last two chapters, and was happy to hear that you felt like it was an appropriate weaving of what we already know about Ruth and Max's past, with my own artistic liberties. Hopefully you enjoy this chapter too... it's kind of another one of those where nothing really happens, which I've realized after a certain amount of re-reading that I write an awful lot of. Maybe I'll stop doing that so much in the future... but probably not. :) Enjoy!
Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Children get older
I'm getting older too...
- Landslide, The Dixie Chicks
Later that evening John and Mike offered to drive into town for dinner, and came back with several large pizzas from a local pizzeria. By local, Brennan learned, they meant within thirty miles. They packed Lydia's house to the gills, all of them sitting or standing as they ate, talking in small groups among themselves. Brennan sat back on the couch with her legs crossed, paper plate in her lap, as she watched them.
In the kitchen Lydia, Esther, and Judy talked with Max in low voices, occasionally looking out at the living room before ducking their heads back into conversation. Booth sat at the dinette with John and Mike, the three of them swapping stories about God only knew what back and forth over the cramped table. In the far corner of the living room a card table had been set up with a few fold-out chairs, and Charlene tended to the multitude of children who sat clustered around it, baby Bethany balanced on her hip almost as a side thought. Sarah Leigh had already left for work, just barely missing the pizza like two ships passing in the night. Brennan was content to find herself in the seat of the observer, passively watching other people interact, classifying their behaviors within the cultural context.
After some time had passed, Brennan became aware of someone sitting down next to her. She turned and saw the white-haired woman she had been vaguely introduced to earlier, small wrinkled hands folded in her lap, surveying her with sharp blue eyes through thick square frames. They sat for a moment, just staring at each other, before Mema finally broke a smile.
"You look so much like Ruth," she said, eyes trailing across Brennan's features lazily, almost basking in them. "When you were a baby it was hard to tell who you'd take after, from the pictures anyway. After you were two, we didn't see you again, so no one could say…" Mema reached out and touched Brennan's arm affectionately. "But you certainly became your mother's child."
"Thank you," Brennan said, deciding to take the observation as a compliment. Mema nodded and leaned back into the lumpy couch, ankles crossed delicately, seeming just as content as Brennan was to watch the going-ons around her from a quiet distance. For a while, they did—the two of them sitting together, not bothering with trivial conversation, just watching everyone else joke, laugh, converse, and fuss with one another. It wasn't until Molly and a man who could easily rival Booth in size and stature walked through the door, trailed by a little redheaded boy with a sour look on his face, that Mema finally spoke again.
"Bless his heart," she said sadly.
"Whose?" Brennan asked.
"Brandon's," Mema said, watching the little boy trail his father who spoke to Molly in a low, angry hiss until they were intercepted by Charlene, whose presence forced the man into a polite smile. "That poor boy's folks fight night and day and he's always right in the middle of it." Brennan realized that this 'bless his heart' was meant in a positive way—there was, she had learned, also a negative double-meaning attached to the phrase if used in a certain context. How to differentiate the contexts was a skill she was still trying to acquire.
"Is that Eric?" Brennan asked, not having met Molly's infamous husband yet. Mema nodded, her lined face cool and distant.
"The devil himself," she said in an undertone as she lifted herself from the couch, crossing the living room and taking Molly's hands in hers as she pecked her on the cheek. Eric leaned down and gave Mema the obligatory cheek kiss, and Brennan watched as the elderly woman's steely expression remained constant throughout the encounter.
Eric was tall and thick, and looked like he could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Booth on a defensive line. His short auburn hair did nothing to hide the thick, square shape of his head, like a stone with human features carved from it. He had a strong jaw and a thin-lipped but handsome face, though it was presently twisted with the subdued anger that had been on display when they first entered the house. Brandon had most of his father's looks, though he was quite fair and freckled, and wore a very unhappy look on his face. Brennan watched Mema sweep the boy up into a hug and plant a kiss on him, finally eliciting a smile.
Eric made his way to the men's table and was introduced to Booth, who from a distance Brennan could see sizing the man up with his gaze. After having something explained to him by Mike, Eric turned and looked directly at Brennan on the couch, appearing somewhat surprised. She assumed he had just learned the nature of her identity, and gave him a half wave from where she sat. He ambled over to her and stuck his hand out.
"Hey, I'm Eric, Molly's husband," he said, and she found that his smile had almost all of Booth's disarming charm. Almost. There was still something there, something broiling beneath it, that she did not like, and she could not tell if she had been predisposed to dislike him or if it was something she had detected on her own.
"Temperance," she said, shaking his hand. "Nice to meet you." He nodded, and that was that. Molly took a seat next to her on the couch and Eric went back to the table, and Brennan found herself glad their brief interaction had been cut short.
"Finally got to meet Eric, huh?" Molly asked, her voice frayed. Her face was tight, as if imaginary hands forced the corners of her mouth up into a smile, and her hands toyed with the edge of her blouse anxiously. She swallowed and re-plastered the smile on her face, and Brennan nodded.
"Yeah," she said, not knowing what else to say. "He seems nice," she added weakly.
"He can be," Molly said, her false cheer undercut by a cynical bite she could not control. Having heard it in her tone, Molly stood suddenly, as if called to attention. "Excuse me," she said, letting herself out the back door. Brennan bit her lip, unsure of whether to follow her or just let her be. As poor as she was at discerning emotions and choosing the right words to say in hard situations, she felt she would probably do more harm than good if she went to speak to Molly outside.
Then Booth's words from earlier rang through her mind—When you decide to love somebody, you really love them—and she sighed and lifted herself up from the couch, following Molly's tracks out the back door. She found her sitting in a fold-out lawn chair by the fire pit, which was dark and empty, but staring at it as if it were alight. Brennan took a hesitant seat in another chair.
"I'm sorry," Molly said, blessedly breaking the silence so that Brennan wouldn't have to. Her entire body seemed to sag in the chair, tired eyes still fixed on the charcoal remains in the pit. Though she was within a year or two of Brennan's own age, she seemed older, more worn out, not unlike Charlene. They both bore the same hints of exhaustion around their tired eyes, their weak smiles, and in the soft sighs before they spoke. Life was wearing them thin.
"You don't have to apologize," Brennan said. "I understand the need to excuse yourself from a difficult social situation. I just couldn't tell if… I don't know, if you wanted to discuss your feelings, or if you genuinely just want to be left alone. I'm not very good at picking up those kinds of cues."
Molly sighed weightily, shifting in the chair so that she was leaning in on her knees with her elbows. With one hand she picked up a small stick discarded by whoever had sat there before her, and began drawing in the dirt at her feet. The floodlight hanging above the back door across the stretch partially illuminated the two of them, seated on the far fringe of its reach, but cast more details of the night into the absconding shadows than it revealed. Molly looked up at Brennan and smiled, the distant light vaguely lighting one half of her face and shadowing the other.
"I appreciate it," she finally said. "There's just not much to talk about. Eric was being an ass in the car on the way here, and got me upset. It's hard when you get all worked up about somethin', then gotta come into the house with everyone and act like it's fine. I just needed a minute, you know?" Brennan nodded.
"I understand that."
"They can be pretty overwhelming, huh?" Molly said, and Brennan knew she was referring to the family in the house. Brennan smiled almost sheepishly.
"At first," she admitted. "I think I'm getting more used to the… what's the word…"
"Chaos," Molly filled in. "It's chaos. At least you're gettin' there. I've lived in it for thirty-two years and I still have to step out sometimes just to breathe. You just don't get no space, no time to think or just sit before someone's screamin' or fussin' or pitchin' a fit about something. I'm not just talkin' about the kids, either."
"I suppose with that many people living in such close proximity, it's difficult to find alone time for introspection," Brennan said.
"It is," Molly agreed. "I feel bad puttin' Eleanor and Brandon off on mom all the time, but sometimes I'm at work ten or twelve hours a day, and I just can't come home and deal with dinner and homework and all the fussin' with each other, I can't do it. Mom only works half-time anymore, since she collects on dad's pension, so she's home by the time they get out of school. It's just better for them, and me. It's better for all of us, really. I feel like that makes me a bad mother, but…"
"It doesn't," Brennan insisted. "Modern Western culture holds women to impossible standards—today's adult female is expected to be the successful career woman of the twenty-first century, as well as the doting mother and housewife of previous eras. Women are expected to fully occupy two completely different spheres, to juggle them perfectly without missing a beat in either realm, and it's just not feasible. If women are expected to occupy both spheres, the household and the broader world, men should be held to equivalent standards." Molly let out a derisive laugh, almost like a cough.
"Try telling that to Eric," she said. "The day he folds his own laundry or does a load of dishes is gonna be a cold day in hell. Women's work, that's what he calls it. He thinks I should stay home all day and clean house, let him make the money."
"That's asinine," Brennan said. Molly nodded.
"You'd think so 'specially if you saw his paycheck," she said quietly, as if he might overhear her. "We can't live on that, all four of us, and put money where we need to for the future. Whether he likes it or not, my kids are goin' to college."
"Whether he likes it or not?" Brennan repeated. Molly sighed.
"If Eric had his way," she said, "Brandon would take up after him at the dairy, and Eleanor would be someone's little housewife. He doesn't think they need to go to college, 'cause he didn't."
"That's ridiculous," Brennan said, slightly mortified by the idea of a father not encouraging his children to seek higher education. She couldn't imagine her father having done that to her as a child—for as long as she could remember, the expectation was that she and Russ would both go to college. She, at least, fully met that expectation.
"It's toxic, is what it is," Molly said. "It takes all I've got to make sure Brandon doesn't think the same way. He actually said to me the other day, 'Momma, I ain't gonna fold my laundry.' I said to him, 'Yes you are' and he says to me, 'Nut uh, that's women's work.' I was so mad, I sent him down the street to mom's 'cause I was like to beat the shit out of him if he stayed. I couldn't believe it!"
"Did he end up folding his laundry?" Brennan couldn't help but ask. She saw the lit half of Molly's face smile wickedly.
"Damn straight he folded his laundry," she said. "His, Eleanor's, mine, his father's, the towels, every damn thing that came out of that dryer for the next week and a half. He makes nice little creases now, too." Brennan couldn't help but laugh, and Molly joined in with her.
"You strike me as a very intelligent woman," Brennan finally said after the laughter had died down. Molly looked down at the ground, trying humbly to hide her smile.
"Thank you," she said. "But you're, you know, real smart. You went to school, got your Ph.D., work in a museum."
"Yes, I suppose I am," Brennan said plainly. "But if you'd had the resources, I feel confident in saying that you would have done extremely well in a higher education setting. Anyone can learn semantic, factual information, but not everyone comes by innate, natural intelligence. That kind of rationality and thought procedure can't be taught, and some are considerably more endowed than others. I think you're one of those people, college or no." Molly looked up, and Brennan could see in the weak light that her eyes were damp.
"You just don't even know how much it means to hear someone say that," she said. "Especially someone like you. A lot of people think if you don't have a degree, you must be stupid. There's an awful lot of prejudice out there, just based on that, and it ain't right." Brennan considered her words for a moment before responding.
"I used to be one of those people," she admitted. "I used to judge individuals based on their level of attained education, or their academic acclaim, or their socioeconomic status. I'm an anthropologist, I should've known better than to believe those things were the only indicators of intelligence. They are significant indicators, certainly, but not the only ones."
"What changed your mind on it?" Molly asked. Brennan shrugged.
"I don't really know," she said, but her thoughts drifted elsewhere. "I suppose through my work with the FBI, I was introduced to a broader spectrum of people, with multiple types of intelligence that spanned far beyond pure academic intellect." Molly nodded in understanding, then gave Brennan a little smile.
"Well, it takes a big person to admit they were wrong about anything," she said. "Honestly, it's somethin' I'm still not very good at. I'll hit myself in the head with a hammer for years, and still think for some reason that it don't hurt."
"Why on earth would you do that?" Brennan asked, thinking perhaps she had misread Molly's previously displayed intelligence. Molly laughed—really laughed, throwing her head back and letting the sound echo into the darkness—and stood from her seat.
"You are funny, aren't you?" she asked, giving Brennan a hand up out of her chair. "Come on, let's get back in there before they come lookin' for us. God forbid they find you taking five minutes to yourself, they'll think you're sick or depressed or gettin' into trouble."
A/N: I don't know about you, but my family is totally like that. If we're all together for whatever reason and someone steps outside or into another room to take five minutes to themselves, it won't be long before someone pokes their head in and says, "What are you doing? What's wrong? Come back in here with everyone else." I really don't know why, they're just like that... and I'm the type of person who really relishes having some moments to myself, especially if I've been with a big group of people for an extended period of time, so it feels like someone is always looking for me and wondering what I'm up to, and why. I guess I should be happy they care so much? Haha... anyway, let me know what you think of the chapter!