Spoilers: None
Note: The theme song for this fic is Acoustic #3 by The Goo Goo Dolls on the Dizzy Up The Girl CD:
They painted up your secrets with the lies they told to you/and the least they ever gave you was the most you ever knew/and I wonder where these dreams go when the world gets in your way/what's the point in all this screaming, no ones listening anyway/your voice is small and fading and you hide in here unknown/and your mother loves your father cause she's got no where to go/and she wonders where these dreams go 'cause the world got in her way/what's the point in ever trying, nothings changing anyway.
After she found out her mother was in the hospital, Jen Lindley made a hasty retreat back to New York. She kissed her Grams goodbye, let a couple of her close friends know, and she was on her way, on a train back home…her original home.
Jen's heart dropped when she saw her mother; black and blue, her eye-swollen shut, her lip split, and a couple of her ribs broken.
"Oh mom," Jen said through tears.
"I'm fine, Jen. Really, I'm fine."
They released her mother that day, with no pending visits from social services.
Helen Lindley had lied. Instead of admitting that it was her loving husband, wealthy and highly respected wall street legend Brice Lindley, who had done this to her, she said that she was attacked in a parking lot at knifepoint. Jen didn't have to listen to her lies to know what had really gone on.
In the limo ride home, Jen sat biting her lip hard. Her mother, astonishingly, without regard to her injuries and without regard to her daughter's presence, was feverishly applying make-up from her compact to cover her bruises.
Jen painfully watched her mother; pitiful, pathetic, weak, and trapped in a prison that perhaps only Jen could understand; without a word.
Helen Lindley did not want the help to see her this way. She didn't want anyone to see her this way, not a high society matron such as herself.
By the time the limo pulled into the circular driveway, Mrs. Lindley was completely made up. She slipped on her dark glasses, and waited for the driver to open the door.
She got out with Jen following her, and waltzed into the ornate house as if she didn't have a care in the world.
"Is that you, Helen?" A gruff masculine voice came from somewhere upstairs.
"Yes, dear." She answered dryly, slipping off her gloves.
Jen's father came down the steps, buttoning his suit jacket and smoothing his sleeves as if he were not welcoming home his adoring wife, but prepping for a business meeting or presentation.
"Jenny?" He said suddenly when he saw his daughter there. He floundered on that step for a moment, obviously speechless, but then recovered himself and went down to greet them.
"Hello, Daddy." Jen said, her voice cracking like ice.
He started to kiss her cheek but the look she gave him made him recoil. He didn't bother to kiss Helen.
"Are we feeling better after our rest?" He asked condescendingly. Helen nodded somewhat obediently, even as she avoided his gaze. Jen felt her fists clenching.
"Daddy…" She whispered. "How could you do that?"
"What?" He asked, acting completely taken aback.
"Don't fucking lie to me!" She warned, her emotions getting the best of her.
"Jennifer," He said coldly. "Do not speak to me like that."
"Is that what Mom did? Is that why you beat her?"
"Jennifer, really."
"Jennifer!" Her mother snapped, immediately silencing her. Helen glanced around at the blank expressions on some of the help. They hadn't been able to overhear, but the room was thick with obvious tension.
"Come now, Jenny…" Her mother said with a sudden softening of her voice, walking past Brice to the stairs. "Let's get your things unpacked and settled. I have a lot of catching up to do with my little girl while she's visiting."
Jen hated when her mother addressed her in the third person when she was standing right there. But what she hated more was the look of contempt on her bastard father's face as he stared after her mother.
Her mother… Her mommy.
"I swear to god," Jen whispered, tears springing into her eyes. "If you ever…" She couldn't finish her sentence. The man was just too cold. She looked away, unable to stare into his frosty eyes any longer.
"Just how long are you going to be staying, Jenny dear?"
"As long as it takes to protect her from you!" She shoved past him, and went up the stairs.
The tears were burning her eyes, and she let one slip, just one. Just enough, so that she wouldn't cry again. She wiped it away self consciously as she followed her mother's perfume through the hallway to her old bedroom.
The weekend passed without incident, and as much as here mother insisted, Jen refused to fly home Sunday evening for school. She called her Grams and let her know everything was okay, but that she was probably going to stick around for another week or so, and to please call the school and let then know.
Her grandmother, having no idea of the real tragedies that actually led to this visit, quickly obliged, offering her love to her granddaughter, and her daughter, Helen…and to her son-in-law, Brice.
"Sure Grams, I'll tell him." She said cordially. She smiled at her grandmother's loving and gentle voice. She longed to be home, in Capeside, with her, but as she heard a slight argument ensue somewhere upstairs, she remembered the urgency of her departure. "Grams, I gotta go! Please tell Jack and the others that I'll be home soon! I love you, bye."
She clicked down the phone, and rushed up the staircase. She heard the screaming and a crash as something hit a wall, and her steps quickened.
Jen bound into the study and saw her mother on her knees, tears sliding down her cheeks, as she picked up the pieces of a broken vase. Jen's eyes flew to her father who was standing across the room, his face red from his temper and a stern expression on his lips. When he saw the look on Jen's face, he held up his hands in defense.
"Your mother started it,"
"Yeah, I bet she did!" She bit back. She rushed to her mother, who shrugged her away, and her father stepped out of the room.
"Mom, let me help you…" She said, again reaching for the glass.
"I can do it myself!" Helen snapped angrily. Jen shrank back. "Honestly, Jen! Can't you just stay out of other people's business! This doesn't concern you…"
"Mom! How can you say that!"
"Jen…I mean it." Her voice was definite as she stared coldly at her daughter. Jen stood back, biting her lip to keep from crying as she let her mother finish cleaning up the mess.
Her mother threw the glass away, and went on about with the evening as if nothing had happened.
A week later, Jen looked frazzled and nervous as she sat in the waiting chair at Bloomingdale's. They were in the personal shopper's lounge, and she watched as her mother went through dress after dress after dress. Marty, her saleswoman, also looked frazzled, but she was patient. After all, she was paid to be patient.
Jen sighed.
"What about this one, Jenny dear?" Helen asked, turning around and smiling almost ferociously. Her mother was a good actress, probably the best in the biz, Jen thought. If she did movies, she'd have won over a thousand awards by now…
"Fine."
"Fine?"
"Fine."
"Fine is not a description," She bit, going back to her reflection in the mirror. "Sophisticated, feminine, pretty…you have heard of 'pretty', haven't you? Those are descriptions, not 'fine'."
"Okay, it's 'pretty'." Jen said through clenched teeth.
"I'll take this one, Marty." Helen said politely. The saleswoman nodded.
Later in the limo, Helen turned on her daughter.
"Don't you regard me that way, Jennifer! Do you understand! I do not want you treating me that way in public!"
"Public?" Jen gasped helplessly. Her mother was taking this entirely too far.
"Yes, public!" She screeched. "Especially in front of a-a saleswoman! You start treating me like this, and I wont send you back to Capeside, I'll send you off to boarding school!"
"Mom, I'm almost eighteen,"
"Shut your mouth!"
"But Mom—"
Then Helen slapped her. It was abrupt, and it wasn't hard, but Jen was stunned.
"I do everything for you, Jennifer! Everything! And this is how you treat me! You have no respect for me! You don't appreciate me!"
"I…I appreciate you, mommy-"
"I swear! Sometimes I wonder what I ever did to deserve a child like you! Sometimes I wish I'd never gotten pregnant!"
Jen sat stupefied, her hand still on her cheek. The words hurt more than anything, and she couldn't believe they had been said to her.
After a few moments, Helen looked over at Jen.
"Jen…"
Jen looked up at her with wide, saucer eyes.
"Jen…honey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. Do you forgive me?"
Jen stared at her mother, who sat, smiling fondly at her as the limo sailed down the avenue.
"Do you? Please say you do…"
"Y-yeah, mom. Of course." Jen said, confused.
"Oh, Jen." She reached over and brushed Jen's hair away from her eyes. "I love you so much."
