Margaret Reynolds had never been a quitter. She'd been talented academically and athletically in school, and a very popular person. But somehow, when Allison had started being difficult, she just couldn't be bothered to try. It was silly, really, because she really hadn't ever been a quitter, and at the first sign of trouble from Allison she'd given up. It wasn't that she didn't love her daughter, it was just that she didn't like her.
It was a ridiculous feeling. She loved Allison with all of her heart because she was her daughter, and a person that was part of both her and Jonathon, but she didn't like her. She didn't like her own daughter enough to care enough about her to help her through her teenage years, and though Margaret knew that was wrong, she couldn't help herself. Margaret almost wished that Allison had died as a small child, before Jonathon had a chance to love her. Because Jonathon loved her both because she was his flesh and blood and because of the person she had become.
What Margaret didn't understand was how he could love her when she was so without a personality. Allison said little to them, sometimes even going weeks on end without saying a word, and she often ignored them completely. In turn, Margaret ignored her, but it only served to let Jonathon love her more just for being her.
"How can you love someone who isn't anything?" Margaret had screamed at him through hysterical tears one day, after a particularly long bout of silence from their daughter.
"She is something," Jonathon had responded fiercely, looking as if he was resisting the urge to slap her. "I can see it in her eyes and the pictures she leaves around the house. She's trying to get you to see her, Margaret, really see her, but you won't even look."
Margaret knew that she was a bad mother. She knew that you could be a heroin addict or be the neighbourhood whore and it wouldn't hurt your children as much as just giving up did. But there was no point, she reasoned, trying now. There was no point in attempting to make a connection for the next three years, because they would just be getting to know each other again when Allison would leave. And she would leave, without a doubt, no matter how things turned out between them.
Margaret was a woman of memories. She had lived her life to its fullest until such a time when she felt she was ready to settle down, and then she had done so. She and Jonathon had made the conscious decision to have a child, but only one, and not spoil that only child. And while Allison had been growing up Margaret had been trying to mould her, subtly, but at the same time Jonathon was doing the same. By the time Allison began her silent faze Margaret had given up moulding and had decided to just give up. She didn't like Allison and there wasn't a lot she could do to change that, and somehow she thought that Jonathon would feel the same, just because she did. And then he didn't, and it had all deteriorated from there.
Margaret ignored her daughter completely, no matter whether Allison was in a silent faze or looked like she might be ready to say something of relevance to them. Jonathon went through long periods of time where he would just be furious, with both Margaret and Allison, and would be just as quiet as his daughter. It was times like those when she retreated into her own little word, trying to break the silence by singing too-cheery songs or playing at the piano, but not willing to break it by trying to connect, heaven forbid.
Margaret padded down the stairs and crossed the living room to her piano, elegantly nestled in a corner. On the keys was an inked drawing. At first Margaret was taken aback, but she remembered Jonathon's words and tried to see the picture. It was a detailed sketch of Margaret sitting at the piano, playing, and looking blissfully serene.
Michelle Standish stood by the doorway to her bedroom in her favourite robe. Her husband was at work and her daughter was in detention for something silly, and she was staring at the man who she'd been sleeping with and trying not to cry. He was a wonderful man, single, and a doctor. He was young enough to be a match for Claire, really, once she got out of high school, but currently he was just another weapon.
Matthew probably knew, she reflected, gazing at the blissfully unaware doctor. Matthew was an intelligent human being, and if he hadn't already worked it out, he would. Claire didn't know, but Michelle was going to let Claire catch them sometime soon, see what it did to the house, see how Claire handled it.
It wasn't that Michelle was a particularly vicious human being. It was more that, when she'd started this life with Matthew she'd been so ready for at least a close-to-perfect life. But now, fifteen years later, she found herself grasping at straws. She was bored, for one thing. She'd had her first child, a son, and he'd been a beautiful little boy who had turned into a dashing young man, and when Claire had become a teenager she was bored of the art of raising a child.
She loved her daughter dearly, and she had always wanted a daughter, but it was as if, once she'd mastered that art, she'd wanted something new, something different. And she found ways of doing that, only it was an inconvenience to her daughter and to her husband.
She realized that this constituted being a bad mother, but she felt that a lot of the blame fell on Matthew. Their marriage was rocky, and it had been ever since Christopher had left the house, and Claire had merely become a means of getting back at one another. First Michelle would tell Claire that she wasn't allowed to go to a party, and then Matthew, who was more intent on going against Michelle's word than actually spoiling his daughter, would tell her that she could go.
Michelle was getting fed up with that little game. Here, she thought, looking at the handsome young man in her husband's place, here is a new game. Here is something he isn't ready for. She silently slipped off the robe and slipped back into bed, staring at the ceiling. A long time ago she had promised herself she would be the best that she could be. She had promised she would be a good wife, a good mother, and a good person.
Now she was finding that she was a good adulteress, a good manipulator, and a despicable human being. And she wasn't sure she liked it at all.
Diane Johnson knew her husband didn't approve of the way she was raising their son. In fact, Diane knew that her husband didn't approve of much she did anymore. She was raising Brian so he was everything his father wasn't, and she was fairly certain Jerry didn't like that. She also knew that, despite his pride in his son's intelligence, Jerry disliked the kind of person Brian was becoming. He's too much like me, she thought, smiling sadly to herself. She'd made her son into someone who she wanted him to be, and Jerry didn't like it.
Her marriage to Jerry wasn't failing, but they disagreed constantly on what to do about Brian. Diane would be the first to admit that Jerry understood him better, partly because he had been a boy where Diane had only ever looked at boys, and partly because there was a part of Jerry that would always be a teenage jock in high school. Diane didn't feel that there was any part of her teenage self left, and because of that she often wondered how they had stayed together for so long.
She knew that Jerry thought she pushed Brian too hard, but there was a level of excellence that needed to be achieved. She realized that she was pushy and overbearing, and that Brian sometimes needed a break, like in the case of this flare gun incident. She'd been so upset that he'd even gotten a detention, so upset that he'd failed shop, whereas Jerry was worried about why Brian wanted to kill himself. Diane was worried about it too. She was, and she used her anger about the grade and the detention as a diversion, as if she didn't care that her teenage son was thinking about suicide. It wasn't as if it would have been such a bad thing if she had shown she cared, but showing that would mean admitting to herself that this was all her fault.
And it was. Entirely. She pushed him too hard, wanted him to be too much like her, wanted him to be perfect, and no one was perfect. Jerry tried to talk to Brian, to understand, but she couldn't do that, oh no. She was so focused on that unrealistic image of the perfect son to worry what it might to do her son to try to be that way for her. Jerry kept telling her that Brian had had her views drilled into him for so long he couldn't differentiate between them, and Diane denied it because she knew it was true.
She couldn't do anything but deny it, because as soon as she stopped doing that she'd be realizing her faults. And that would be so silly, so ironic, to have someone so intent on perfection with so many faults. Her husband knew it but didn't draw attention to it, and Brian was so caught up in that perfect image, without really even knowing it, to take a closer look at his mother and realize.
Diane knew what Jerry thought. Diane knew that she should change, that she could change, but she kept going. She kept being angry about the marks and the detention and avoiding the topic of the gun and moving, moving, moving, all the time, because if she stopped then Brian would have time to look at her, and once he did that…Diane sat in her car and cried because she couldn't be who she knew she should be.
Peggy Clark stared listlessly out her thrice-cleaned front window. When Peggy was worried or upset she cleaned. Roy had picked up on it and commented once or twice, but he'd never really understood her enough to realize why she was upset. It was silly of her, really, to marry someone who saw so little. He saw himself and he saw his ideal version of Andy, he saw Peggy as someone who he loved, though he couldn't have said why. He didn't see Sam at all anymore, both in the figurative and literal sense. Sam sometimes called, which made Peggy happy and Andy perk up just a little, if only because he could talk to Sam about Roy, but Roy was always conveniently "just on his way" to get something from somewhere where he wouldn't have to be in the house.
Peggy was upset that her son was so unhappy, but she was also upset because Andy was in detention for bullying. For beating another student, for humiliating him. That wasn't right. She'd had a long talk with Andy, and she felt that he understood why she was upset, but she couldn't tell whether or not he was sorry or even why he'd done it. Roy seemed to think that it was as simple as Andy wanting power and Andy getting power through the only means available in high school, but Peggy wasn't so sure. She didn't think that her son was that heartless and shallow. She didn't think that her son was as heartless and shallow as her husband had become.
There had been a time when he'd been a wonderful husband, but then his attempts at making Sam just like him had failed, and Peggy had become simply someone who was often in the way when he attempted to train Andy. He was so set on modeling Andy as a younger, more adept version of himself that he'd pretty much forgotten everything else. Peggy didn't even know if her husband was happy. She knew that he wasn't unhappy, because his ultimate goal was to make Andy as good a wrestler as he could be, but she didn't know whether he was actually happy. She wasn't even sure that Roy knew if he was happy or not anymore.
She wasn't. She'd known since Andy had started to have that look on his face, that weary, exhausted look, all the time. Andy meant the world to her, and so did Sam. She loved her children with every ounce of her being, especially because so little of her truly loved Roy anymore. Andy wasn't supposed to be exhausted, he wasn't supposed to be down-trodden. He was a teenager. He was meant to be carefree and happy, able to break a leg from something silly without it ruining his chances in the future.
He should have been able to sleep in as well, Peggy thought stubbornly as she polished the dining room table. He was a teenager. They slept late, and then had to be woken up by their mothers at all hours of the morning, not making coffee for their mothers after they got back from running laps at the field down the street.
Peggy wanted for Andy what she felt was the ideal teenage lifestyle, not because she'd really had it –she'd always been an early riser – but because she knew that it would make him happier than he was now. She heard the car pull into the driveway and continued polishing, wondering if Roy would take the hint. As he walked into the room, one look was all it took for Peggy to know that he wouldn't.
Dorothy Bender was a small woman with a big heart and a quiet beauty. She had never thought she was pretty and she didn't think she ever would, but there had been a time when she'd gotten constant reassurance from her husband that she was beautiful, and she'd felt it then, even if she didn't think it. Now all she heard from her husband were orders for another beer or a sandwich and complaints. The only time she felt special anymore was when her son told her loved her.
It had surprised her, the first time he'd said it. He'd just come home from school and Ed was passed out in front of the television. Dorothy had red eyes, one puffy from crying and the other puffy from crying and a whack about the head. John had walked in the door, looked at her carefully and then at his father, and pulled her into a hug. Then he'd told he loved her and walked off. It had surprised her because her son had been playing the part of a tough guy since he was old enough to talk back, and the kind words and the entirely appropriate moment had made her remember why she continued living like she did.
She was worried that he was in detention again, but she'd given up trying to keep him out of detention a long time ago, and just tried to do the best she could in the circumstances. John was a good boy, and no matter how bad he was he was devoted. He devoted himself to loving the things he truly loved, but when he hated someone…Dorothy, despite her husband and her son's reputation, was always shocked when Bender talked to his father. She was disbelieving that the same mouth that told her John loved could be filled with so much venom and hate.
She was often worried about Bender, about how he was going to end up, and whether he'd get stuck in a life like this one. She wanted nothing more than for him to make something of himself, show someone else the good in him and get himself away from this dismal life.
Ed stirred on his chair, and Dorothy peered into the TV room. There had been a time when she'd loved Ed, but he hadn't been able to accept that they had a son who Dorothy loved just as much. Slowly, Ed had stopped having anything to do with John and she'd stopped having anything to do with Ed. Somehow it had deteriorated down to a point where John's life didn't seem to be heading anywhere, Ed's had come to a stop, and Dorothy didn't feel like she had one at all.
A/N: So this was meant to be a two-shot but I'm considering continuing writing it, and sort of doing a Monday fic but from the parent's point of view. Does anyone think I should continue? And am I painting a relatively realistic picture of what the Breakfast Clubber's parents could be like?