Maybe It's Better This Way

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Aw my darlings I am sooo sorry. I feel really bad. Honestly. I hate not updating on time for you. You were fabulous reading and reviewing the last chapter so it wasn't nice to not reward you. I will try to do several updates in quick succession over the next week or so. I really didn't expect real life to catch up with me like that!

Thanks for hanging on.

LOL how damn ironic is the title?

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Chapter 19: Deadlines

Sandy leant against the kitchen island and glanced at the book he'd just confiscated from his sons. Both boys were doing an English assignment on 'Frankenstein' and both had insisted they needed the use of this one particular book; a literary critic's biography of Mary Shelley's life. They'd been sharing the volume up until tonight, stealing it from each other's rooms and both sticking in assorted post-its and markers where there were quotes or references they wanted for their essays. Tonight however, with the deadline looming there'd been an argument as to who should have the book, who had borrowed it from the library in the first place and which of them needed it most. Seth and Ryan rarely fought; they bickered over the play-station occasionally, sure, but they didn't argue like they had been tonight. Then again things weren't normal at the moment. There was a strained atmosphere in the house, Kirsten was back to being distant, alien, nothing like herself and it was affecting everyone. Banned from work by her husband and father, she was refusing to speak to either of them. She had looked from one son to the other, sighed and walked out, unable to cope with any sort of upset at the moment and hating herself for it. Just because she'd failed as a mother for her daughter didn't mean she should give up on her sons.

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Saturday morning they had begun arguing before they knew the coast was clear, meaning their sons and respective female cohorts saw the Cohen marriage at an all time low. She wasn't sure how it had happened; yesterday she'd felt close to him again, like their love could get them through this, together. Too bad it only lasted for that dark period yesterday, lingering the previous night as they slept curled up together for the first time in a long time. Somehow the daylight had made things difficult again.

It had been a monumentally stupid idea to allow the row to continue out of their room and down the hallway but Sandy shouldn't have brought up the latest 'no work' policy. Okay, so he was right; she'd thrown herself back into work too fast; to try and numb the pain and it had backfired. However he needn't make her feel so guilty. What else was there to do but walk out? But Sandy, being Sandy, had to follow her; he nearly always did. Usually it was one of the things she loved about him; she could walk away and yet when she turned round he'd be there. This time however she was turning round to yell at him.

'Why can't you just drop it?'

'Why can't you understand I'm only trying to protect you?' he asked, following her down the steps.

'You can't Sandy,' she said, angry voice wavering. 'I already got hurt and you couldn't do a damn thing about it.'

'I've tried.'

'This isn't trying! This is keeping me from the one thing that might keep me sane.'

'Sane? Are you out of your mind?'

'I'm getting that way between you, my father and the inside of my head,' she spat over her shoulder as she continued to walk away.

'And working is gonna help? All it will do is tire and stress you out.'

'I can't just hide from my life.'

'I'm not asking you to,' he shot back. They were nearing the family room, both oblivious to the four teenagers desperately wondering if they had time to make it out of the patio doors and pretend to be blissfully unaware of the tension between what was supposed to be Newport's most bombproof couple.

'Then what are you asking?'

'That you take some more time.'

'Don't talk in riddles; just give me a time span.'

'For however long it takes for you to start acting like a person not a zombie.'

She spun round to fully face him at that, eyes blazing, mouth agape. 'How can you say that?' she whispered, 'How can you stand there and say that? Like it's funny.'

'Kirsten I…'

Sandy swallowed hard as the eyes in front of him began to swim, the shaking of her head forcing tears down her cheeks as she backed away. He didn't mean it to come out like that. Of course he didn't find it funny. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed.

Five sets of eyes watched as she stumbled backwards, her own still fixed on her husband in disbelief. A rug shifted beneath her feet and she felt herself falling, twisting round to try and break her fall and catching sight of the impromptu audience. Kirsten gasped, partly out of realisation; hating what her sons had just witnessed, and partly at the strong arms that caught her as she fell. Sandy scooping her up against his chest even as they both stared, horror-struck, at the teenagers.

Seth was obviously mid-hand gesture, plotting their escape, Marissa and Summer were pink-tinged with embarrassment; one focusing on her fingernails, the other the ends of her hair. Ryan looked pale, nervous almost; eyes flicking towards the door. Guilt immediately replaced their mortification; he'd had enough parental arguments in his lifetime without them subjecting him to more.

'We were…uh…gonna go to pier,' Ryan choked out as his foster parents unfroze and Kirsten drew away from her husband.

There was a murmur of agreement as the others leapt to their feet.

'Kids,' Sandy began uncomfortably, running a hand through his hair. 'Uh…we're sorry…I'm sorry. You weren't meant to hear all that…it's not important, don't worry about it alright.'

'I don't think it's us you should be apologising to.'

He sighed. 'Kirsten…I…'

'Don't,' she cut him off. 'You've said enough.' She turned to the boys who were following their girlfriends out the front door. 'I-I'm…I'm sorry,' she managed before having to clasp a hand over her mouth to stifle the sobs rising in her throat, tears running down her cheeks and over her fingers as she fled from the room.

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And here she was that evening, once again not facing her sons who probably really needed some reassurance about her mental state right about now. So Sandy had intervened, taken the book, sent the boys to their respective rooms and told them to get on with other parts of the assignment until they'd calmed down. He flipped through the pages idly, his mind heavy with thoughts, none of them particularly pleasant; the boys' strange hostility towards one another, Kirsten's silence and the baby girl whose absence was somehow slowly cracking his family. One particular page caught his eye; as a rule Ryan's neat post-its and Seth's random scraps of paper were slotted into different places. They might be writing the same essay but their approaches were very different, just like the two boys themselves. But this particular page had both, although neither were written on; no notes and references, no shorthand scribbles, just two empty markers. Sandy scanned the page and immediately understood. The paragraph related a particular point in Shelley's life after the death of one of her children and included a poem written by her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley as he lamented the change in her.

My dearest Mary, wherefore art thou gone,

And left me in this dreary world alone?
Thy form is here indeed – a lovely one –

But thou art fled, gone down the dreary road,

That leads to Sorrow's most obscure abode;

Thou sittest on the hearth of pale despair,

Where

For thy own sake I cannot follow thee

Do thou return for mine.

Seth and Ryan hadn't noted this for their work but for themselves. Just like Sandy recognised the emotions in it, they had too. They knew Kirsten was slipping away from them. He wondered if they felt as guilty as he did for not falling with her, from refusing to despair although he felt that way, knowing he couldn't if they were to survive this. They all needed her to come back; the question was how were they going to do it?

Sandy wasn't sure but what he did know was that they had to stop avoiding the issue. 'Seth,' he hollered up the stairs, 'kitchen now!' and then felt bad. He sighed and trudged upstairs. Ryan's room was first on the hallway and he was sat on his bed, surrounded by books but his notepad was blank.

'Ryan?' Sandy ventured, startling the boy out of his trance.

'Sandy?'

'Sorry to interrupt. I want to talk to you and Seth about something.'

'Ok…I'll be right there.'

His other son's room was empty; Seth was in the kitchen by this time, sat at the island looking mutinous. 'What's going on?' he asked when his dad appeared downstairs again. 'I gave you the damn book and apologised to Ryan, what's with the angry summons?'

'Sorry son, I didn't mean it to come out like that.'

'Okay. I guess we're all a bit short-tempered at the moment.'

'Yeah, that's what I wanted to talk about…and here's Ryan. Sit down son.'

Ryan cast a nervous glance at Seth who shrugged, and slumped on a kitchen stool. 'Dad's not happy with the current climate of casa-Cohen.'

'In a nut-shell Seth's right but there's also something I wanted to show you.' Sandy placed the open book in front of the boys, jabbing a finger at the poem.

'Does this seem familiar to you? Shelley was writing almost two hundred years ago and yet what he's saying is still relevant.'

'OK Dad,' Seth cut in, 'you sound so much like Mr Osborne it's scaring me.'

Ryan didn't look up but spoke quietly, 'Seth, I know you've read it, I have too and I guess we're all thinking the same thing. That poem, it's Mary but it's also Kirsten.'

Their father nodded, 'That's what I'm trying to say.'

'I didn't want to admit it,' Seth mumbled. 'I don't want that to be mom.'

'Well it is Seth so you're going to have to be adult about this. It's a common thing you know, there are people who can help…'

'So you're gonna send her to a shrink

'I'm going to do whatever I can to help her Seth,' his dad shot back.

'But why can't we…'

'Because she won't listen, she can't just get over this.'

'But I thought you and her talked.'

'We did, in a fashion, but it was more about the past and what happened medically. It didn't deal with any of the issues this family is dealing with right now or how any of us feel, particularly her. That's why we need to convince her to see someone, to talk.'

'Ryan,' Seth said desperately but didn't get the response he was looking for.

'If it helps her get better it's the right thing to do. I wish…I wish Theresa had talked to me after…you know. We couldn't afford therapy but…if she'd just talked to me…instead of running off to Atlanta.'

Sandy gently kneaded Ryan's shoulder, 'Perhaps you should take some of your own advice sometimes, talk to us.'

His foster son gave a sad smile. 'This isn't about me, it's about Kirsten.'

'You always try to make things not about you,' Sandy said and Ryan knew he was thinking about that first meeting in juvie. 'Whereas Seth…'

Seth frowned, his voice bitter, 'I know, I know, I'm a self-centred, self-involved, egotistical ass.'

'Don't say ass,' the two other men said in unison and they all laughed, dissipating some of the tension in the room.

'She's trained us well,' Sandy observed, reaching for Seth and pulling him towards him. 'You Seth, are not an ass but none of us are perfect.'

'Thanks Dad. We're not, so it means we need her back,' Seth concluded. 'Perhaps you're both right, I just don't want her to think we've given up on her by wanting her see someone else.'

'Unless we can get her to open up to us we don't have a choice. We can't live like this. I can't stand to see her like this. I hate her being upset…' The boys watched, almost nervously, as their father broke off and took deep breath to steady his voice. 'However, we have the hurdle of getting her to agree there is a problem first,' his father said ruefully. 'You know how your mother feels about therapists.'

It was meant to be a rhetorical question but the boys looked blank. 'She hates them,' he expanded, 'guess it comes with being a Nichol. That family see psychologists as the devil's advocate, although why Caleb should find that unattractive is beyond me, and think it's dangerous to trust them. Kirsten's mom refused to ever admit she had an alcohol problem, Hailey snubbed all sorts of treatment when she went through her wild phase and can you really see Caleb on a couch? I guess it's almost inborn that she feels it's a sign of weakness.'

Seth looked grave for a moment before quipping light-heartedly; 'So that's why she ignores my pleas to see one in regard to my deep psychological scarring caused by the obsessive and obscene sex drive of my parents?'

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Sunday morning Sandy forwent surfing only to wake up to an empty bed. It wasn't the nicest of feelings and he couldn't help but think Kirsten had a point. He crawled out of the bed that was rapidly becoming chilly and into the shower. It was wiped down but the smell of Kirsten's shampoo lingered meaning she couldn't have been up that long. He was surprised he'd slept so late; he must have been more tired than he thought. She was stood at the sink when he came into the kitchen, staring out across the ocean with faraway eyes. She didn't turn round. There was coffee in the pot and Sandy joined her at the window, a matching cup in his hand.

'Good morning,' he offered softly, his free hand hovering indecisively beside him before settling on hers. Kirsten flinched, surprised.

'Is it?'

'Well…' he faltered, wishing he could just pull her towards him the way he used to. Grab her round the waist and feel her pressing against him, curl his arm over her shoulder or loop them around her neck, cup her face with his hands and kiss her. He wondered why he didn't just do it anyway but he was afraid of the sting of rejection that was so damn familiar these days but didn't seem to hurt any less. 'The sun's shining.'

'It's Southern California, it's always shining,' was his wife's bitter retort. Well, at least she was talking to him. After a fashion.

'O...K… I thought you liked the sunshine?'

'Not when I feel like rain.'

'You want it to rain?'

'Pathetic fallacy Sandy, that's all.'

'Um honey, I never took a literature elective in college…'

She sighed, setting her mug in the sink with a quiet clunk before walking away, out of the kitchen and towards the front door, grabbing the car keys off the table.

'Where are you going?' Sandy called after her, trying not to sound too overprotective and failing rather miserably.

'Out,' was the inauspicious reply.

'When will you be back?'

'Later.'

Great. So much for carefully broaching the subject of the elephant in the room over coffee and the crossword.

'Well…take care honey. Love you.'

The response was the slam of the front door.

Sandy chose to pretend she just hadn't heard him. One step forward, two steps back and all that. Problem is, that just meant going backwards, one step at a time.

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A.N. Fear not my pretties…I will MAKE them talk…sometime!

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I admit I am crazy. Reviews are like medication.

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