A Daughter's Love
Bonnie Plunkett was sprawled long ways across the bed in the room she and Christy generally shared in their apartment, eyes glued to the ceiling and tears running down her face as she sobbed.
The door slowly opened and Christy stuck her head in, confused and concerned, having just gotten home from law school and walking in on this scene.
"Mom?" she stepped into the room, "what's the matter?" When she received no answer she stepped closer towards the bed. "Did you and Adam have a fight?"
"No!" Bonnie cried.
"Did you throw your back out again?" Christy asked.
"No!"
The blonde woman thought, and tried again. "Did your favorite judge lose on The Voice?"
Bonnie threw her head back and let out a howling, agonizing sob.
Christy's eyes moved to the side as she thought again, and asked, her voice a couple octaves higher, "American Idol?"
Bonnie wiped her face with the face of her hand and pushed to sit up, but only managed to get halfway there.
"Christy, I am so sorry," she told her daughter.
Christy's eyes got big. "Oh no, Mom, what'd you do now?"
Bonnie sniffed hard, "Not now...a long time ago."
"Okay," Christy exhaled the word through gritted teeth as she took a step back and tried to mentally prepare herself, "let's see, you lied about my age, about Alvin, about Aunt Jeanine..." she sucked in a hard breath and stoically said, "okay, I'm ready."
"Christy," Bonnie tearfully said, "I am so sorry that I even thought about getting an abortion when I was pregnant with you."
Christy's mind flashed back to that day at the bistro.
"When I got pregnant with this one," Bonnie told Marjorie, as if she had any other 'ones' to speak of, "I had a friend who didn't think it was a good idea. I came this close to having an abortion."
"What!?" Christy exploded at that revelation.
"I told you this," Bonnie said in her usual nonchalant tone that swept everything major under the rug.
"Uh uh!" Christy replied, "Would've remembered!"
"Calm down," Bonnie responded, "I didn't do it."
"Who? Who told you to get rid of me?" Christy demanded to know.
"Well, you don't know her, because I never spoke to her again," Bonnie told her.
Christy would be lying if she said she hadn't thought about it between that day to this, but over time there had been far more pressing matters to deal with: Jill's miscarriage, her fostering Emily, her gaining over 100 pounds, then her relapsing, and having to sponsor her through numerous first day meetings again until she finally got back to a good place in her sobriety; her mom and Adam breaking up, and then getting them back together; Bonnie's mother dying and them finding out she had a son, Ray, who was a lawyer, who helped Bonnie get out of her financial trouble with the IRS, then revealed he had a massive drug problem, and his supposed beating it, only to find out he was still using, and the fights about that, and the ultimatum that spawned from it; sponsoring Natasha so she could get out of rehab and get Emily back; applying to law school, being rejected by law school, being accepted by law school, actually attending law school, falling in love with Adam's brother, Patrick, breaking up with Patrick after cheating on him with Cooper; being robbed at Christmas; joining Gambler's Anonymous, relapsing on her gambling, taking up smoking for her latest addiction; meeting Tammy, helping her get out of prison, taking her in, helping her adjust to being back in society; Marjorie's husband Victor having a stroke, then dying; her mom and Adam getting married...Christy sighed to herself as she realized she was definitely earning her sobriety. Hell, she was owning it. She was crushing it.
But it begged the question. "Mom...where's this coming from?"
"I don't know!" Bonnie sobbed as she sat up. "If Marjorie were here, she could explain it, she did at Christmas with some story about cheating on her husband at a cat show..." she looked up and moved her eyes to the side and said, "Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention when she said it." Bonnie folded her legs and sat on them and told Christy, "The point is lately I've been remembering things I did a long time ago and I'm starting to realize I am so ashamed of them, like the Christmas you were 11."
"Oh, Mom," Christy said genuinely and also dismissively, "I already told you that that doesn't bother me anymore."
"I know, but this one is something you can't forgive," Bonnie said. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me."
Christy blinked. "You really mean that?"
"Of course!" Bonnie cried. "You're the reason I got sober, the reason I wanted to get sober. I saw you turning your life around and I knew I had to do the same thing to stay in your life."
Christy's eyes got big. "Oh, Mom!" She sat on the bed and hugged Bonnie.
"Back when I suggested I move in to help you save on expenses," Bonnie said, "the truth is I just wanted to be around you and the kids...don't get me wrong, you all were a hot mess, but it was better than living alone."
"Why didn't you say anything?" Christy asked.
"Would you have believed me?"
"No," Christy shook her head, "and back then I wouldn't have wanted you around if it wasn't absolutely necessary."
"See?" Bonnie asked. "I know I was a horrible mother to you, and I'm sorry, Christy, but please believe me I did do the best that I knew how."
Christy felt a lump in her throat. "I know, Mom."
"There's something else I never told you," Bonnie said.
"Okay...I'm sitting down," Christy tried to brace herself again. "What...is it?"
"The reason I almost got an abortion...it wasn't just because my friend thought having you was a bad idea...but I seriously thought maybe you would've been better off not even being born, than having the life I knew you'd have with me. Trust me, after being abandoned at a firehouse at the age of four, I knew that living in a Winnebago with no tires was not an ideal environment to raise a child in...but I went back and forth and ultimately I decided as long as Alvin and I were together, that we could make it. And then when he abandoned us after you were born..."
Christy felt a rock in her stomach. "You thought you made the wrong choice."
"No," Bonnie shook her head, "no, once you were born I knew I'd made the right choice. The first time I saw you, I looked into those big, pure eyes, I finally knew what unconditional love meant. It's ironic, I've been with so many men...and a few women...but you were the only person who ever loved me without any demands or expectations. You loved me just for me, I'd never known what that was like before, that was the best feeling in the world."
Christy's eyes got big and her mouth was largely a straight line with just the corners turned up in the slightest smile as she processed this.
Bonnie continued, "I didn't regret having you, I just regretted not being able to provide for you better than I did. And I know if I'd had a regular job we would've had a more stable life, and trust me, I wanted that for you...but," she shook her head, "when you've been in 12 foster homes and have a history of drinking, drug use, running away, and larceny...not a lot of people are too willing to take a chance on you and give you a job, especially anybody who actually knows you, and every place I could've gotten a job had at least one guy who I'd sold somebody's microwave to for a fix. So yeah...I sold drugs...I ran a whorehouse...I did some weapon smuggling...anything to make sure you'd have food and clothes, that was the original idea anyway...but I'd already been using myself and I was just so angry at the world and everything and everybody for the mess we were in, the drugs started taking over, and I just got lost in myself...I forgot the rules of dealing coke, don't get high off your own supply."
"Yep," Christy said in an exhale, "that's my mom, learning from Tony Montana's mistakes."
"Christy," Bonnie's voice was softer now, "I kept running us in and out of the country because I was terrified if we stayed in any one place for too long, that they'd take you away from me, and I would've done anything to make sure you didn't wind up in foster care, because I knew how bad it was, and I didn't want that for you."
Christy felt her eyes sting with tears and her face scrunched up as she got ready to start bawling too.
"Oh Mom," she replied with an expression on her face that at any other time would look funny, "I never knew you thought about that."
Bonnie was out and out sobbing again as she answered, "I didn't want you to know, I didn't want you to worry about it."
"Well...you certainly gave me plenty of other things to worry about," Christy said.
"I know, and I'm sorry, everything I try to do just turns out wrong," Bonnie told her.
Christy swallowed hard and forced her voice to be strong as she told her mother, "That's not entirely true...I mean yes, there were a lot of times I wish I had been born to anybody else, that I lived anywhere else than I did...but you must've done something right...how many alcoholic strippers can say they're coming up on eight years sobriety, went from high school dropout to college student, and are now in law school, and actually working at a law firm? That's the person you raised me to be...granted, most of it was by serving as an example of what not to do..."
Bonnie gave a small smile, "Happy to be of service."
"But the main thing is you raised me to be strong and independent," Christy told her. "You raised me to be able to survive even if you weren't around...which came in very handy when you were in prison."
Bonnie choked on a small combination sob/laugh.
"I'll tell you something," she said in response, "I know we take shots at each other a lot, but there's not a single day I regret having you."
"Seriously?"
"Oh yeah...even at my worst, you meant more to me than all the cocaine in Los Angeles."
Christy's face scrunched up again as she got all weepy. "Oh, Mom!"
The two of them cried and hugged each other again.
Bonnie pulled back, wiped her face and said, "It just finally hit me...being a foster kid, you had to be tough to survive, any weaknesses you had made you a target...when I was little I tried being the good kid at school, it got the crap beat out of me by the older kids, the bigger kids, the bad kids...so I learned not to be vulnerable, to have no weaknesses so nothing could hurt me anymore. It was just easier to let you grow up thinking I was a bitch, than to let you know how worried I was about our situation...and once you've been doing it your whole life it's so hard to turn it off...and I finally realized...I'm safe enough with you that I can finally be vulnerable now."
Christy's eyes just about scrunched clear shut as she exclaimed in a sobbing voice, "I love you, Mom!"
"I love you too!" Bonnie replied in a high pitched weeping voice as they hugged again.
When they pulled away, Bonnie added in a stronger tone, "When I think how close I came to getting rid of you, and how much worse my life would've been without you, it terrifies me. You're the reason I got sober, you're the reason I got sober again when I relapsed, you're the reason I reconciled with Alvin before he died, and you're the reason I started dating Adam, and the reason we got back together. Everything good that's happened in my life has been because of you."
Christy's bottom lip was quivering as she tearfully replied, "Me too!"
Bonnie looked to the side for a second and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth, then turned to Christy again and told her, "If it wasn't for you, I would've probably been dead so many years ago...so...thank you for giving me a reason to live, and a reason to get sober."
Christy sniffed and gave a small salute and echoed her mother's previous words, "Happy to be of service."
"Listen," Bonnie said in a softer tone, "you remember when Violet got pregnant and you were talking about that being the do-over baby to get right all the things you got wrong with she and Roscoe?"
"Yeah?" Christy replied.
"That's what I thought when Violet was born, that I could do a much better job with her than you," Bonnie told her.
"Well, you were better with her," Christy said.
"I was, but most of it was just she was too young to see all my faults," Bonnie said. "I know she's your daughter, and I love Violet to death, but she wasn't as bright of a child as you were."
Christy laughed.
"I could never get anything by you," Bonnie said.
"Oh, there were a few things," Christy replied. "You and Aunt Jeanine..." she smirked fondly as she added, "you telling me eating carrots would make my hair grow."
Bonnie grinned as she recalled fondly, "Never saw a child so happy to get carrots for dinner."
"And by the way, I'm still waiting for that pony," Christy added lightly.
Bonnie chuckled. "I'm working on it."
"So," Christy said, "you feeling better?"
"Uh, yeah, I am," Bonnie replied, "I really am." She was beaming as she looked at Christy. "I'm so glad you're my daughter."
"I am too," she said in return, "we've actually had a lot of good times together."
"And hopefully more to come," Bonnie said.
A/N: This was originally going to be a oneshot but I'm leaving it open for the time being while I contemplate adding an epilogue.