Growing Up Chase

By Rebel Yell

Subtitle: The Stepmother (age 17)

Part Two

"Robert? Wake up a moment."
" Dad? What do you want?"
" Good morning, Robert. You've slept in."
" It's only nine." Rob replied, sparing a glance at the clock while rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he sat up. To be honest, he was surprised he'd slept that late. At school, they were up every morning by 6 am.

" Catherine tells me you've had a disagreement."
" That's one possible description."
" I know this is difficult for you, Robert. I'd appreciate it greatly if you made every effort to be…amenable to Catherine. Your mother and I divorced a very long time ago, and while I know that my marriage came rather quickly on the heels of your mother's death-"
" You didn't even tell me. You couldn't even tell me about it. I found out from a clipping Dan sent me. This was supposed to be my home, after Mum died. You promised her…and you sent me away and now I come here and I've not even a room. She changed my whole room."
" We needed another room for guests, and she felt this one had been too personalized to serve that purpose."
" She put Mum in a box in the closet."
" Your mother is dead, Robert. It was just a photo."
" It's not just a photo -- it's…Mum! I know Mum's dead! I know that! I was there! You weren't there, you don't know. I do. But that photo is all I've left of her, it's more than just a photo. And this fight with Catherine, it wasn't my fault. I didn't do anything. She came up here and…she said I wasn't to have anything to do with her daughter, like I'm contagious. She said things about Mum. I won't let anyone say anything about her. Not anyone."
" Robert, Catherine is my wife. You can not continue to fight with her. She tells me that you called her several rather…disturbing names. That you said she was merely a replacement for your mother. That's not true. I love her. She's not your mother, nor is she a replacement for her." His dad seemed very earnest on that point, and Rob couldn't help but agree. Catherine was nothing like his mum.
" No one could ever replace Mum." Rob muttered, pulling his knees up to his chest.

" Your mother was certainly one of a kind."
" Did she tell you what she said to me? Or did she just go on about how horrid I am and how I should be sent away immediately to…wherever she decided I'd be suited for. Siberia, perhaps?"
" She mentioned, regretfully, that she was goaded into being unkind to you as well. We've discussed it, Robert, and she'll not speak of it again. I promise you that."
" Is that…is what she said, is that why you don't love me?"
" She was upset. She said things she doesn't mean, Robert. I'm sorry you've had an argument. I'd like you to give her another chance. Would you do that?"
" If I don't, what then? I can't stay here and fight with her all the time can I?"
" Johanna keeps your mother's house still. You can stay there, if necessary. There are…camps and programs for the school holidays as well. I'd prefer you remain here. Even if it is occasionally difficult."
" So if I can't get on with Catherine, you're sending me away again? Even knowing that she…what she said?" Robert asked, hoping he kept the tremor from his voice. He wanted his father to love him, to maybe see that he was interesting and worth his time, to want to be around him. He wanted to be able to earn…something from him. Love. Attention. Something. He wanted to be able to stay. He wanted to be more important than everything else, just this once.

" If you can't live with Catherine, Robert…she's my wife. She isn't going away. Her temper can be formidable, I admit, and I'm sorry you've argued so soon. Won't you give her another chance, forgive her for last night? For me?"
" I can give her another chance." He agreed, wondering if he could earn that something from his father by trying again with his stepmother. For a chance with his father, a real chance, he'd try just about anything. Mum had wanted them to be together. She hadn't wanted him to be alone in the world with her gone. So, he was doing it for both his parents really. He would try. "She has to try as well. She can't…she can't talk about Mum."
" I've already discussed that with her, Robert. She won't mention any of that again. I promise."
" It's…good to see you again." Rob tried to smile, knowing that he had a nice smile and people liked you better when you smiled anyway. Mum said that learning to smile when you really wanted to cry was an important lesson in life. He pulled his dad into a hug, knowing from past experience that if he waited for his dad to initiate physical contact he'd be waiting forever.

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" Here. Mum asked me to bring this up." Melissa set a tray down on the dresser, and Rob glanced up from the book he was reading. It was his father's latest book, the copy he'd given Rob just yesterday. It was just coming out, and although he didn't understand everything in it, it was interesting. It was almost nice to see just what was always occupying his dad's time, what was so much more important than coming to a football match or swim meet or just taking time to spend with his son. He'd been spending most of his holiday reading through the books in his father's office, sitting in the window seat in his room. He'd had a few nice chats with Nicola, but mostly he tried to stay away from Catherine and Melissa. Every time he was in a room with them he felt like they were staring at him, waiting for him to do something wrong or…start stabbing people with scissors or something. Which was still better than when they actually spoke to him.

" What's that?"
" Dinner. God, you really are thick. No wonder Rowan has to keep paying obscene amounts to that school to keep you on." He didn't care for his elder stepsister, for the obvious reasons. Melissa talked to him like he was both stupid and four years old. When she was forced to speak to him, that was. Most of the time, like her mother, Melissa opted to exclude him from conversation entirely.

" Actually, that's because I keep trying to get expelled, not because I'm stupid. Father Kopec nearly had a stroke when the Mother Superior of Sacred Heart Convent School rang to tell him I'd gotten a girl pregnant." He took a perverse sort of glee in the pure shock on Melissa's face -- and he wasn't lying. The Mother Superior had rung to say that (although it turned out not to be true), and Father Kopec had appeared fairly close to having either a stroke or a heart attack when Rob had been called into the dean's office.

"You are utterly disgusting. As if your perversions were something of which to be proud."
" Sex isn't disgusting -- it's just nature. Not my fault you aren't getting any -- but if you want some advice, from a lad, it might be that you've got the most unattractive personality possible combined with an entirely average appearance." He said that with the closest approximation he could manage to his mother's manager's voice whenever he was talking about a 'B' model, "I wouldn't have you with someone else's wedding tackle."
" And Rowan wonders why Mum won't have you down for dinner-- you're so crude! Your mother must've been a real wonder, raising you. Marita made this for you -- there's potential donors coming for dinner tonight, and you can't be trusted not to be horrible so you're to stay up here. Blood will out, Gran always said, no matter the education or other dressings you put on it."
" Yet, your mum trots you out every chance she gets. At least Nicki is sweet and pretty -- right clever as well. I can't figure a single charm you've got."
" It really is sad. Such a bitter little boy, who has to attack the people who are kind enough not to tell the world that he's the product of an extramarital affair by his whore of a mother--" She stopped when the book hit the wall right next to her head, having missed hitting her square in the face by mere inches. He really, in that moment, wished he'd aimed for her face. But he doubted even a broken nose would improve her temperament and teach her not to talk about people's mum -- it wasn't a healthy habit. Someone might have less restraint than him, some day.

" Robert! What's going on?" Nicki appeared at the door, her room was only a door down and she couldn't have possibly missed the sound of the book hitting the wall.

" I told you he was violent. You were so convinced we were just being too hard on him, but he's just missed smashing my face with a book!"
" I hit right where I meant!" Rob defended, both his aim and his intentions. "You deserved a good smacking at any rate!"
" Robert!" Nicki gasped, looking at him like he'd just admitted to murdering puppies in his spare time or something.

" He's just a horrible little mongrel, Nicola. Learned it from his drunk mother, no doubt."
" Melissa! His mother's dead!"
" Well that hardly gives him license to be cruel or violent does it?"
" What is going on? What was that ungodly noise, girls? What has Robert done now?" Great, just who he wanted to see. The supreme bitch herself.

" He's violent, Mum!" Melissa shouted, sounding more like she was twelve, than twenty-one. "He threw this at me, just missed my face. All I did was bring him dinner, as you asked."
" Well, if he can't appreciate that, take the tray back downstairs, Melissa, and finish getting ready for dinner. The Prentisses will be here soon." Melissa shot him a victorious glare, grabbing the tray back as if it were some sort of prize, and walking away. He almost regretted the loss of his dinner, but it felt so good to get some of his anger out that it was mostly worth it. In four days, he'd not had one nice conversation with anyone besides Nicola -- and even with her it was rare, since she spent most of her time with her mum or sister, both of whom clearly hated him for the grand sin of existing. Nicola, with a soft push from her mother, also headed back down the hall, and Rob turned to stare out the window, hoping that his stepmother would get the message that he couldn't care less what she had to say to him.

" You only hurt yourself with outbursts like this, Robert. If you can't live here, you'll be spending your holidays at school."
" Even Father Kopec would be preferable." He muttered, truly meaning it. At least Father Kopec never said a bad word about his mum, he kept the criticism strictly about Rob and his own behavior. Which was at least fair, if not always particularly pleasant.

" Rowan will be in to speak to you in a moment, I'm sure. Once I've had a word with him. Violent now too. So many sins, Robert. Only further proof that blood will out."
" Melissa said that too. It must make it so much easier for you, pretending that my mother was horrible and cheated on my Dad and that I'm not really his son or whatever it is you believe that means it's all right to be a frigid, cruel bitch to me. It explains it all so nice and neatly. He wasn't a miserable git of a husband, or a shambolic father -- it was all our fault! It makes it so much easier to think he's perfect and wonderful, that he won't do the same with you as he done with my mum. Truth is, it's him. It's his fault. He left my mother, she didn't do anything but love him! She didn't really get sick until he left her. He just walked out. She was living on gin and tonic and he left me. He's the same now as he was then! His work's still the most important thing, isn't it? How often is he home before seven or eight? Isn't it often closer to nine or ten? It's him. It was never her, or me. You can pretend all you like, but that doesn't change reality. It just makes you a horrible, evil, bitch who can't deal with the fact that your husband has a seventeen-year-old son he ignores because it's inconvenient and I'm not as clever as he'd like, or as…perfect as he'd like. So when he finds out that you aren't either, he'll ignore you or leave you too!" He snorted a hollow victory when Catherine made no reply, just shut the door heavily behind her. On her way to tell his father all about how horrible he was, no doubt, how ungrateful or whatever. Rob could've told her to not bother -- it wasn't as though his father could get much more disappointed or distant. He pulled his bag out from under the bed, and zipped it shut. He'd not bothered to unpack, not wanting to even pretend this place was anything like a home. He had half of his leave left, but he wouldn't be spending it here. He'd go to his mother's house. Johanna would probably be happy to see him at least -- despite the fact that his father paid her, and she managed, apparently, to be polite when speaking to him, Johanna was always there for a good complain about Dr. Rowan Chase, to commiserate over his ass of a father. He'd wait though, and speak to his father one more time. Maybe give him one more hug, just so he'd know Rob still…wanted that something, whatever it was. Still loved him, even though he often wished he didn't.

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" I understand, Catherine. Cleary, I intend to speak to him."
" He's an impossible child, Rowan. Crude, cruel, and violent now as well. I don't want him around my daughters, it's only a matter of time until he actually hits one of them."
" He's not impossible, Catherine. Although, I admit, he is one of those children who are more difficult to love than most. He's just got quite a bit of his mother in him. I'll be downstairs shortly." Rob sighed, hearing the conversation just outside the door. If he'd been expecting anything but another lecture from his father, he was clearly going to be disappointed. He knew he was difficult to love, he didn't need the reminder. That was why almost no one did -- just Danny and Liz, and his mum had too despite it all. He wondered, probably idly, if he asked if his father would tell him just what it was that made him so difficult. He was young, he could maybe change it, if he could just figure out what he needed to change. If he could just figure out how to be what people wanted him to be.

"Robert, I certainly did not give you this to have it thrown at your step-sisters." His dad dropped the book on the bed beside him, sounding nearly as angry as Rob had ever heard him. He never shouted, he just sounded…lower and a lot harder, as if his voice were actually more dense. Rob could so clearly hear his mum screaming, and his dad still sounding just like that.

" It was useful though." Not his best possible reply, but the first one that came to mind.

" This is unacceptable, Robert. I asked you to be amenable, and you've been nothing but difficult since you arrived. You've put everyone out of sorts--"
" Yes, it's all my fault. You're just like her! Nothing is her fault, or your fault, or Melissa's fault -- it's all me! I'm horrible and impossible and it'd be easier and better if I just never came here ever again, isn't that what she wants?"
" Robert, that's not what I-"

" I'm going back to Mum's. I should've gone with Colin after all. Sleeping on the floor of the room he shares with his brothers would've been a lot nicer than this. At least there people talk to me, and think I'm…think I'm worth something. A bit of time. You don't want me. I get that. I'll not torture you any longer. You'll not need to be bothered with me."
" Your mother's will stipulated-"
" She made you the executor of her estate and the law makes you my guardian, but neither makes you…can make you love me. As long as you pay my tuition and keep the house she left me until it's mine fully, we can consider your responsibilities met. You don't have to…pretend any more. Just settle here with Catherine and her daughters and I'll go back home."
" Robert, it's not a case of not loving you."
" You don't have time for me. You never have. I've stopped expecting it. I know where I stand in your priorities. I'm seventeen. I'll be at university soon enough. Until then, I'll stay at Mum's when I'm on leave from school. You needn't be put out of sorts again."
" You can't just walk out--" Rob couldn't help it, he started laughing. He could see the confusion on his father's face, and when he calmed enough to be coherent, he tried to explain.

" I learned from you, Dad. You can always just walk out. You walked out of my life more than two years ago, when you left me and Mum to muddle through best we could on our own. Maybe you tried this time, maybe you didn't. I can't tell. But some things never change. You're not really interested, you've not the time for me. And…I can't stay here. I'm going home. You'll always know where I am, since you've my money until I'm thirty-five, in case you ever have the time or interest." Rob didn't bother with a last hug, although he rather thought he could use a good one right now. It wasn't that late, if he left now there'd be decent bus service still across the city. He'd be home before it was late. Maybe even in time to call Danny over for a bit. He picked up the bag, and after a moment's consideration, the book as well. He found a tiny smile as he did so.

" I really do appreciate the book. Thank you." Typically, his father said nothing. Just stared at him as if trying to figure out the answer to some obscure puzzle. Rob made it halfway to the door before he had a quick second thought, and turned around. He wrapped his father in a hug, but was pulling away quickly. He thought he heard, probably just his imagination, as he walked through the door and towards the back stairs, his father's voice behind him.

" Good bye, Robert."