You guys were so awesome last chapter and I just wanted to say thank you to all the people who reviewed with another chapter. There are waaaaayyyyy too many for me to answer in the A/N so I chose a couple of my favorites. 13teen: Yeah. It was definitely the person who said 2020 slut update thissss. I am a sucker for people calling me a slut. What can I say? Swishlya: You were the first to review and you honestly made me cry. I thought for sure that no one would care that I had updated. ClosetCase: Thank you for noticing the chapter title! Totally did that more for myself than anything else. Like a war call, ya know? And I've always had a little bit of a soft spot for Red. heytheeitsty: I feel weird too.
For those who didn't get a shout out - believe me when I say that your comments were just as important to me as these ones mentioned. I read every single word MULTIPLE times and get all gushy every time. Thank you and I adore you all.
Chapter Nineteen: Bernice Forman
Bernice Forman was a singularly difficult person.
And that was exactly how she liked it.
Since Red's birth, she had suffered from not only the loss of her husband but also, in a more emotional sense, the loss of all three of her sons. While she would never speak of it for the duration of her life, Bernice had grown rather fond of the three sons that she had given birth to. She knew what they liked, when their first tears had been, and the first people that had broken their hearts. Bernice knew them by heart since it had been her business to know up until their subsequent departure from underneath her wing.
Jerry, her eldest had been the quietest of the three. His birth was easy and he was as silent as a dove, cooing in her arms until his tummy began to rumble. He was a silent boy and utter a word until he was sure that he could complete a full sentence. As the firstborn, Bernice had looked to him with a singular sort of affection. He was the one that she allowed to sleep curled against her side until he was twelve and her husband insisted that he go to his own bed. Sometimes Bernice still woke to the chill that came from not having him snuggled into her side.
Now Jerry was a dentist and barely managed to call her for the holidays.
Marty was the youngest and as such, was the most obnoxious. He cried from the moment of his birth up until the moment of his graduation. Every love he had was a burden, something Bernice bore with him since his shoulders had always seemed so frail. Marty was her flower. She kept him close like something meant to be cherished and guarded. The other two were too manly - they bulked at her gentle coddling and insistent nagging.
When he left immediately after his graduation, she cried for days. Her house was empty, cold and foreign in the way that can only be when there's still an echo of the little feet that her hall had carried and the screams of three boys under the same roof.
Then there was Reginald, her little Red. Her middle child but the first to leave out of the three.
He was the middle child and didn't speak at all, even when he knew his ABC's and could write in full sentences. She barely knew when he was hungry, he was so silent. It was Jerry, her oldest that spoke for him, shadowing him like another set of clothes. Yes, Red was quiet in a different way than the others. Not in the calm way that Jerry was but in a cloudy, stormy way that was all his own. He glared constantly and on more than one occasion, got into fights at school because children were mean and didn't like things that they didn't understand. And Reginald was exactly that.
Bernice forgot about him on more than one occasion - not in the mean way that comes from missing after school events or taping up their grades on the fridge. More in the way of affection. Jerry had always been so...overpowering. It was easy to dole out praise in the general direction of her two eldest - especially when Marty had been so needy.
But then something had changed. One day he was her scowling little boy and then the next he was lanky, oddly muscular and his glare had turned into more of an attraction to the neighboring girls than a deterrent. It stunned her. Completely incapacitated her. Suddenly, he was speaking about wanting to get out of the house, go into the army, go to war.
Perhaps that was the start. Perhaps that was why she was so utterly gutted by the notion of him marrying anyone. Because he had been gone from her so quickly - the baby that she had coddled and cooed over and prayed to God that he would just say one word to her. One moment she was spoon-feeding them and rocking them to sleep and the next they were stepping out of her front door, barely able to call her on the weekends.
Was this what getting old meant? Wasting away - the world taking your youth first, your good looks and charm, and then your children and finally your soul mate - until you were left in a house all alone with the memories of your family echoing all around you. How cruel, Bernice thought as she stared across the dining room table at her son and his lovely, annoyingly positive wife. Her grandchildren were still young, their faces barely marred by the passing of time. But her son, her silent baby boy, was already going bald, his face wrinkled. When had that happened? Should she warn him that there was more cruelty than the loss of smooth, clear skin for this life to dish out?
"Eric, you should get your coat before it gets too dark," Red grumbled, his smile strained as he eyed the way that Kitty was repeatedly stabbing at her dinner.
Tina's eyes drifted to the clock just above the kitchen table. It was barely past seven - the earliest that her dad had ever politely shoved their grandmother out the door. Not really surprising considering the fact that her mother looked like she was ten seconds away from throwing holy water on Bernice in a desperate attempt to expel whatever demons had decided to reside in their grandmother this evening. Already she had made several comments about how grainy the mashed potatoes were and a variety of other subtle digs about the meal.
"I'm honestly surprised that I've stayed this late," Bernice said, her chin raising a fraction as Kitty hurried to clear the dishes from the table. Warily, Tina followed her mother's lead, already bracing for the next verbal spanking that her grandmother was going to unleash. "When I was raising Red, they went to sleep early on Sundays. But then again, I suppose I cared more about their grades."
Tina winced. From the corner of her eye, she caught her mother's tight-lipped glare as she shoveled some leftovers into one of their best Tupperware containers.
"I'm actually getting all A's, grandma," Eric piped in, trying rather pathetically to fill up whatever awkward silence that that comment would have created. Their dad's eyes rolled heavenward, his mouth moving silently in what could only be described as a plea to God.
Bernice's hand reached out after she shrugged on her fur-lined coat, giving her youngest grandson an affectionate pat on the cheek. "Oh, darling. You're such a good boy. Even with the lack of sleep, you're trying so hard."
There was an awkward pause in the small kitchen in which Tina bodily threw herself in front of her mother who's fingers had curled around the Tupperware lid hard enough to create a small fissure in the plastic.
"LET'S GET YOU HOME, GRANDMA!" Tina exclaimed, smiling brightly as she all but hauled her grandmother out the door and into the crisp air. Winter was on it's dying leg, still warding off summer with a sort of ravenous resolve.
Bernice's eyes narrowed at the exit, debating for a moment whether she should make it hard on her son and his happy, little wife and declare that she was too tired to make the trip to the airport. Perhaps throw in a jibe about how she had housed three boys - one of them standing in front of her looking at her as if he was asking her to play nice. Hmph. The gaul after all those years of constant fights and near suspensions.
But then her arm gave another throb and she was suddenly more inclined to go back to the comfort of her own bed as quickly as possible. She had been feeling rather sickish all day, the cold making her skin tingle with a mixture of sweat and goosebumps. And gradually over the last hour, her fingertips had started to tingle. And then her hand. And then all the way up to her elbows. Odd… but she wasn't about to mention it in the presence of Red's perfect, primp and perky wife. All he had ever talked about was how she was so smart and she had been a nurse. Like being a full-time mom was just so easy for Kitty.
"Well, would you look at the time," Red called loudly, nearly jogging as he hurried to open the passenger side of the Vista Cruiser. After living under his mother's roof for seventeen years of his life, he was more than aware of what that look meant. It meant that she was debating completely pushing his wife to the edge of her control or if she was too tired for the day.
Red, fully aware that the ladder would lead to less of a conversation with Kitty later that night, shepherded an unwilling Bernice to the car. Begrudgingly, but with the utmost dignity, she allowed it.
"Bernice!" Tina grimaced at the resolved look that had settled across her mother's face, her fingers white around the filled Tupperware like it was a dagger that she would finally end her misery with.
"Mom, you know-" The words died on Tina's face as Kitty sped past her, hot on Bernice's tail.
Across the driveway, her twin's wide eyes caught hers. Help me, he mouthed, his chin tipping insistently towards the car.
She doesn't like me, Tina mouthed back, striding to the driver's side to yank open the door for Eric.
"What are we going to talk about?" He whispered urgently to her as he paused just beside the door.
"She thinks I'm a skank, remember?" Tina hissed, pressing down on his shoulder until she was all but shoving him into the driver's seat. "Grandma doesn't speak to skanks."
"Maybe if you weren't such a ho at the Christmas-"
Snarling, Tina dug her fingers into his ear, dragging him behind the steering wheel by force. "Have a nice ride."
BANG. Tina blinked across the car at her mother, momentarily in awe as Kitty slammed the door in Bernice's face. Tina had only seen that expression on her mother when she had found her youngest daughter sobbing in the bathroom after Laurie had slept with Todd Jackson.
Eric's eyes widened, his gaze zeroing in on Tina as if he was trying to send telepathic distress signals to her.
"That's warm enough, Eric," Red called, leaning down to flash a strained smile at his mother.
"But I thought that I was supposed to warm it up for ten-" Eric started, shifting awkwardly in the seat, his hands toying with his seat belt.
Beside him, Bernice was staring at her son, her eyes flicking between where Kitty firmly faced forward and then back to Red as if to say: See? How perfect is she now?
"Show me tail lights!" Red called over Eric's final words and Tina waggled her fingers at her clearly panicked brother.
"Let's roll, grandma," Eric said, trying to force a jingle of cheer into his voice as he put the Vista Cruiser in drive. Her twin gave her one more glare before the car rolled smoothly out of the driveway.
Kitty was the first to break the heavy silence that the fumes from the cruiser and the aftershocks of Bernice Forman's presence had left behind. "Don't you move, Tina Renee. I'll never hear the end of it if you go back in the house before her beady, little eyes clear the driveway."
Red's face pinched, his eyes flashing with uneasiness. "Kitty…"
Kitty's lips pursed. "I'm sorry. I meant bitchy eyes." Tina winced as Kitty met Red's eyes defiantly, letting out a high, loud laugh.
Tina heard the screaming from upstairs. Or more specifically the loud, high pitched wail that Kelso made when he was distressed. Like a dog that had found out that when something's red and on fire, maybe you can get burned if you put your nose to it.
For the past hour, Tina had been debating whether she should call Hyde or not. Butterflies rammed up against her insides, trepidation making her motionless as she stared down at the yellow coil of her telephone cord. Would that look desperate? They had gone without seeing each other for days - even weeks - before. But… even then Tina thought that she might have missed him. She had always just tricked her mind into thinking about it in a roundabout way. The gang, she would tell herself. She missed being around everyone. Not just Hyde.
Slamming face-first into her comforter, she let out a muffled scream. Was it supposed to be this hard? She missed him. So she should call him. Right?
Now that they were dating, did she need to be more careful about how she acted? Rolling over, she let out a groan, rubbing a hand across her aching temple. She was making things too complicated. But she couldn't help that. Coming off as too clingy was the beginning of the end. She had to act normal. Cool. Aloof.
"Tina?" The auburn-haired girl blinked, sitting up as her twin entered, his eyes wide and fidgety as he slipped through her door. "I… Mom sent me up…"
His fingers moved around and around each other, pinching at the skin of his knuckles, his shoulders up and rigid like he was waiting for the blow of an especially hard object. Tina's brows furrowed.
"Is everything okay?"
Eric's adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed, sinking onto the floor in front of her. "I - I don't -"
Tina's hackles rose as she connected the dots. "You know if grandma said anything to you, she can eat my shorts."
Eric recoiled, looking vaguely horrified. "Why does automatically think she did something horrible?"
"Um, because she's always been horrible?" Tina supplied, rolling off of the bed to sit beside her brother. "I can go call her right now. She needs to learn to stop saying things about mom."
"I - I don't think you can do that," he mumbled out, his eyes staying firmly on the carpet as Tina ran a soothing hand up and down his back. Tina's eye lightened to an arctic blue, her lips tightening. Grandma had to have really said something awful to him to make him act that way.
"What do you mean, Eric?" Then she remembered. "Oh. You might be right. She's probably still on the plane home-"
"No," Eric cut in, shaking his head until his brown hair went whipping from side to side. "No. Not like… You might not be able to talk to her… because - because she's… um, she's dead."
His eyes finally met hers, wide and searching. Tina's mind stalled out, freezing. It's odd how the brain can play tricks on you in moments like that. In the few seconds between the last words that her brother spoke and the ones that she began, her mind replayed that one sentence over and over again. She's dead. She's dead. She's dead.
The words seemed to hollow. Too final.
Tina jerked back, her hands stalling out on her brother's back. "W-what?"
His lip quivered. "She's dead, Tina. She - she died before I even got to the airport."
That one word echoed back and forth across her mind, bouncing off and reverberating like a tennis ball hitting against the walls of her skull. Dead. That didn't seem real. Dead. This seemed like… like a-
"Don't fucking joke with me, dillweed," she snarled, shoving Eric away from her with disgust. Anger welled inside of her. "That's not something to joke about."
"I-I'm not joking, Tina," Eric breathed, his eyes forlorn as he stared up at her from the ground.
All of a sudden, everything seemed to be going too fast. Grandma Bernice couldn't be dead she was just-
"She's down-downstairs - in the drive if you don't believe me-"
Tina reeled back, stopping her pacing to stare down at the frighteningly bare expression on her brother's face. "You brought her back to the house? What the- You didn't go to a hospital-"
Eric flinched, paling beneath her scrutiny. "I was - I was scared. I didn't know what to do. Dad said he would handle it-"
"Dad's taking care of grandma right now?" Deep horror etched itself into her gut, her heart aching and numbing all at once.
Eric shrunk beneath her gaze. "He told me and mom to go inside-"
Tina wasn't listening. She was sprinting down the stairs, through the living room, past her mother as she fiddled blindly with a bowl of cereal in the kitchen and then out into the open air of the driveway.
There was the vista cruiser, sitting primly parked in their open garage. And then there was her dad, crouched over a lifeless - Tina flinched, resisting the urge to shrink away as she crept closer. She couldn't look at the face, only the gloved hands clasped tightly together.
"Button-" Red moved forward swiftly, getting up from where he was, his face tightening up like a purse cinching closed. His brows furrowed. "You shouldn't be out here."
But Tina had seen it. She had refused to look at her grandmother's lifeless body so she had seen it, his expression bared, raw in some way that Tina couldn't entirely describe. Like a child that had gotten lost, crying out for someone familiar. She had seen it.
Forcing her lips into a mild smile, she moved to his side, clutching his arm in one of hers.
"When will the ambulance be here?" she asked, forcing any trace of emotion out of her voice.
For a moment, Red didn't say anything, stiff beneath her touch. She could feel him deliberating. Her arm tightened around his, her gaze on the horizon, on the sliding glass door, on the basketball hoop in their driveway; anywhere but on the empty shell that lay at their feet.
She wasn't going to leave him out here alone.
Finally, she felt him soften beneath her touch, his shoulders slumping forward as he let out a ragged breath. She didn't look away from the horizon, the darkening gloom only lit by the overpowering garage light at their backs and the twinkle of stars. His breath tickled her temple as he laid a thankful kiss on her temple.
"It shouldn't be long now," Red whispered.