Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.

Chapter Five

I had chosen their house in hopes of making Jim less defensive for losing Dylan and me as clients. I didn't want him concerned that I was looking to damage his work reputation, though if he fought my decision I wasn't ruling it out. I had never been able to be my son's champion and Jack had been so emotionally crippled, well both of us had that he couldn't do it either. I was stronger now and I was going to be every bit the woman that Jack McKay married, every bit of that strong mother who had carried her son. Jim would not threaten my child or mess with his happiness, his future. It was time he realised that Brenda was not a puppet for him to control and controlling her and threatening my teenage son did not make him a big man.

I had called Cindy two nights before and advised her that I had made a last minute trip to LA and would love to catch up with her and Jim. Jim could manage to do a late lunch, and Cindy thought it may be fun to have lunch in their cabana at the beach club. I asked for the house citing too many uncomfortable memories of Jack and I there. It had been the truth, every summer he had got us the same cabana with hope that a summer together would help us, well for the first three it had been his dwindling hope, for the last three he had past that torch to me as he had gradually shut down and morphed into a man I didn't know.

The beach club was not the place for this conversation, I didn't want to battle my ghosts while I was battling Jim. When I arrived at the house I knocked and Cindy instantly opened the door.

"Oh Iris it's so good to see you. Come on in." She gave me a gentle hug and I offered her one in return. She had been there for my son for nearly two years, and while her role in the last few months was unclear I was a strong believer in being open to forgiveness, open to people making amends- god knows I have needed it myself.

"Cindy thank you for having me over. Is Jim here?"

"Oh yes he's just upstairs finishing off a work call. He'll be down soon. Can I get you an iced tea while we wait for him?"

Over tea she asked about Hawaii and some of my retreats I had been on. By the time I could see she had worked up the courage to ask about Dylan, Jim was coming down the stairs. Once pleasantries were exchanged Cindy asked if we would like lunch now I asked if we could hold off for a few minutes I'd like to discuss something with them both first. They agreed but gave each other a clearly hesitant look.

"Brenda and Dylan I hear have been getting very close. She has supported him with his sobriety and he has supported her through the recent hold up. It sounds like they have been a very good team this last year, and are growing more in love every day. Though I believe you both have some concerns and would like the relationship to end. Could I hear them from you please?"

"So this last minute trip to LA is because Dylan rang you, did he think that we would change our minds after speaking with you?"

"Jim my son didn't call me to come here and convince you of anything, but I'd like to hear it from your perspective. I know Brenda was missing her curfew, I know you agreed for them to go to Baja and then when Brenda came in late again that night you withdrew your permission. I understand Brenda wasn't happy and still wanted to go, I understand my son felt she should stand up for herself. I don't agree with her lying and going to Baja but Dylan didn't know that she had done that until they arrived. I'm trying to understand how they went from regular almost nighty family dinners one week to a complete ban the next. I'd like to understand how you both are feeling?"

"Iris they are getting too serious. Coming in late is just the tip of the iceberg. His hands are constantly on her, and they spend too much time alone with each other. They don't have a life outside of the other, and that's how they like it. They like being over at his house playing at being married, well they thought they did. Thank god the fantasy was better than the reality. He wanted her gone immediately, Brandon said they drove each other crazy. Hopefully, they'll see now they aren't right together and that she'll come home and they'll go their separate way's. I don't think you understand that us separating them is the best for all of us, if Cindy and I hadn't intervened there would have been another pregnancy scare sooner than later, and I doubt we would be lucky to get another false alarm."

I don't respond to Jim I clearly see he is letting his fear guide him. "Cindy do you feel the same?"

"Iris it's not that we don't like Dylan, we do. It's just well the lying and the staying out late, this isn't our daughter and… look I don't think Dylan is encouraging her to do it but she feels she has to to keep up with him. He's obviously too experienced and being on his own too mature for her."

"Brenda, our Brenda not mature?"

"Iris what else do you call a girl that believes she can come and go as she pleases, lies and doesn't respect her parents?" He takes a deep breath, "look space space is what they need. They'll learn perspective and hopefully will get a life outside of the other. Hopefully, our daughter will learn in Paris that her life doesn't need to revolve around Dylan."

"So Jim that's why you decided to send Brenda to Paris in hopes that it will break them up?"

"Actually Iris it was my idea to send Brenda there. I thought we could all use some space and she could grow up some."

"So let me get this right. This is all Brenda's fault she's too immature, too close to Dylan, and is no longer complying with your wishes-"

"That's-"

"Jim I wasn't finished. So your solution is too force them apart, with the hope that it's permanent, and when it didn't work here you decided to send her to Paris. Though you knew she wouldn't agree that she has too much integrity to be bought off. So Jim, you decide to freeze my son's trust, let him know you'll be freezing all the trust assets- specifically his first stable home he has ever had, and you'll do that by claiming that he has been committing statutory rape of his three week younger girlfriend of two years?"

"Jim you what?" Cindy was on her feet in an instant. "You said you were just going to send the letter so he'd come for a meeting that's it. You never mentioned that you would be threatening him with such a charge."

"Cindy, I know you are upset but just let me explain. Dylan is too stubborn to just go along with the idea, even if he claims otherwise. I knew he wouldn't agree on principle, I needed to convince him that this was the best thing for all four of us. He needed to understand that-"

"What Dad? That he was not welcome in our family? That you'd charge him with a bogus claim just because him and Brenda are in love?" I don't even know when Brandon came home but he had obviously heard the story from the kitchen. He looks at me, "Bren she knows right? This is what she meant when she said I didn't understand the full story."

"Yes Brandon. Dylan left your Dad's office came straight home to Brenda and told her everything. After discussing it they both decided to ring me. They both had the maturity to realise that they needed help, and inlight of such an accusation she felt she had no other option but to comply and go to Paris to keep Dylan safe."

"Brenda knows?"

"Of course she knows. Dylan and her don't like keeping secrets from each other it's not healthy for an addict to do so Jim. See you may believe you are just being a concerned father but you are messing with my son's health, and you are hurting your daughter in the process, all because you refuse to sit down with them and hear them out. To compromise and find a reasonable solution to your concerns." I reach into my bag and pull out an envelope, "Jim I asked you to look out for my son. I trusted that you would be honest and do right by him, by me. These actions, your manipulations are a breach of the trust I put in you. I came here today to give you these." I stand and pass the envelope over to him.

He quickly opens it up scans the front page of the document, "you're dissolving the trust. Iris you can't do that without giving me sufficient warning, twelve months to back out of deals. That money is promised to people."

"That's true unless you have misused the trust for your own personal gain. Jim you have used this trust and made it your power over my son, to get him to do what you want. Now out of respect for our history and the support you have given him prior to Baja I would like to keep this discreet and dissolve the Trust quickly and confidentially. You have ten working day's to do so."

"And if I don't?"

"Jim I don't work on threats like you have shown to recently favour, but if you need to understand how serious I am then fine. On the eleventh working day my lawyer serves your company with the same paper's and a statement of how you misused your position." His eyes go big, he can tell I'm not playing. I might be a hippie but I can still harness Jack McKay's wife, she's still there. "Cindy, I think it's best that I leave and not stay for lunch. Thank you anyway."

As I close the door I can hear the yelling of both Cindy and Brandon.

Dylan and I spend the next week expecting to hear from Cindy and Jim, but there was not a peep. Cindy's silence surprised me the most as she seemed shocked that her husband would go to such lengths. Brandon had been over and from what I could tell their house still maintained a very tense atmosphere.

As I got ready that night I smile, my son wanted to go to dinner with me. He was finally wanting to spend time with me.

That night as we sat at dinner I explained my hesitation about receiving the next letter, what I had begun fearing on the beach today. Iris had simply listened and responded with an understanding smile, "it's scary isn't it?"

"Yeah that's what I'm saying what happens if-"

"Darling not the cancer that you can't dwell on. Brenda I'm sure diligently checks, and well you'll face that battle if it comes. You can't dwell on the unknown future fearing the bad. But anyway that's not really what is frightening you. It's that you love her so much that you've let her in so far. You are fearing it, you are scared that it's a problem. It's not, it's a strength. It's a weird feeling of power when you are standing on the edge knowing you are capable of limitless love if you choose to trust it, jump and go all in. What's holding you back is that it leaves you feeling so vulnerable that you are completely exposed, that if something happened to her that you would be destroyed." I nod that about sums it up. "I'm proud of you. Your father and I have given you no foundation to know how to navigate this unique love, and the Walsh's… well I think you can see even people who seem to have their love sorted and contained, struggle, get it wrong, can be immensely flawed in their thinking and actions."

"Great your proud and I'm still anxious."

"Dylan that's how you feel about receiving the letter, writing a response, knowing one day it may not be a false alarm, knowing it will always be something to look for. That's what you feel, and now imagine what Brenda feels, checking regularly, nervous of every lump worried that it could happen. Knowing what it could do to her, knowing what it did to her Aunt. Who's more anxious of the two of you?" It's a rhetorical question she doesn't expect me to respond, "you absolutely can have your fears your emotions, but you have to understand that you have a more important job than dwelling in that. Your job is to be her rock her strength, and on other things she'll be yours. You need to decide darling that if you are serious about this, serious about not wanting to let her go, serious about building your life together, serious enough to take that leap then your emotions will need to take a back seat at times so you can share your strength when she has none and you have to trust that she'll share hers when you'll need it to. That when you share something as special as what you and Brenda share the only true power, the only time you will ever feel truly at home on this planet, is when you both are completely together being the others true balance."

We are quiet for a while as I absorb the information. She kept inferring that our love was unique, I always knew it was, but from her insight it sounded like she knew the feeling as well. "Mum you and Dad were you ever like Bren and I?"

She nods, "yes. Love at first sight, overwhelming in its intensity. We were both completely different but we worked." She gets a smile, "your Dad was not always annoyed about my way's, though they weren't too extreme back then. He used to jokingly pretend to read out my horoscope- well he never read the real one and he always had a very consistent theme to his." On impulse I squish my face, I don't think any child ever wants to hear about their parents sex life. "He met me halfway on everything and I met him halfway on the corporate life, making sure to support his dreams. You know the wonderful thing about loving someone with such intensity, loving someone so completely? It's that once you jump you feel secure in it. You know it's special, a gift, something that not everyone gets to feel. Actually very few will ever find it."

"I always thought you hated each other."

"Dylan, if unrequited love can lead to hate, imagine what squandered love can lead to? Your father got an ego and I lost myself for a time and when I started to come back I was so unsure of myself. The more money and power he got the more energy of mine he swallowed. I shrunk he got big. The funny thing is that it's what he wanted and hated the most. He wanted the perfect wife and when I became it he hated it. You know how Brenda frustrates you, challenges you, calls you out on reckless behaviour?"

"Yeah."

"Always encourage it and make sure you do the same to her. Opposites that attract are amazing as long you cherish the discourse."

"Mum is that why you never dated after the divorce?" I give her an uncertain look I guess I wouldn't really know, "well you never suggested that you have."

"That connection you feel for her well you have heard of soulmates yes?" I nod, "have you heard of twin flames?" I shake my head. "Stems from Greek mythology, but there's references of it in many religious texts. A soulmate is someone you are drawn to, who you pivot around in each lifetime. People who regularly appear maybe as a love, friend, a family member; the souls are tied in a rotation set that continue to orbit the other. A twin flame is not that, it's your literal other half your perfect opposite, the other half of your soul. They immediately feel like home because they are, they challenge you, raise all your insecurities, they completely upturn your life in the creation of making a unified one." She gives me an amused look, "sound familiar?"

I smile, "vaguely."

"Seventy two thousand bodies and souls were split, according to the myth. One hundred and forty four thousand walk the earth. It's rare, it's intense and it's amazing when they meet. Dylan I know that feeling I know where my home is, it can't be moved it can't be remade somewhere else. I would be going into anything else knowing it's never going to be that. It might be love but it won't be a love I know, it wont fulfil me in the same way."

"Mum you still love Dad?" They'd always hated each other. She wasn't around much after the divorce I now know Dad had kept her away, but dad hated her being around and she avoided him like the plague.

She tilts her head and gives an amused smile, "it's not quite that simple. I love my Jack but he lost himself as you know. When I said you don't understand how much people can change when hurt I was referencing your father- he is completely someone else. You wouldn't remember but he was such a family man when you were born. He had been an only child but growing up in Ireland he had all of his cousins around, he wanted that he wanted to create that for you just with siblings."

"Then what happened, was it just the money?"

"No they were factors the money and the power, but that wasn't all of it. I struggled after you were born I fell into a depression that was left undiagnosed and untreated for years. I lost myself in the hormones, the loss felt after birth, it made me not able to feel connections. Your father didn't understand why I no longer wanted him around. I didn't want him or anyone to touch me. He didn't understand why I let the nanny's take care of you. Going from that absolute intensity of us to nothingness, in his eyes rejecting him and his son… Dylan I locked him out and he didn't understand. He tried at first but he wasn't qualified he thought it was a fear that my body had changed a vanity issue- it wasn't that. I eventually tried to find myself again, not through traditional means but meditation, Chinese healer's, naturopath's it gradually brought me back. When I came back to myself Jack had given up on me, lost himself in the only place he now felt powerful and in control. He didn't understand, he was too hurt he didn't want to understand what had happened to me. He saw me from then on as a flake, weak, and I felt it, I felt fragile because I didn't understand it myself. I never had experienced anything like that and I had been such a force. Brenda reminds me of me in that way."

She reaches out and covers my hand, "it had effected not only your father and I but also you and me. You didn't know me the way you should as the Nanny's had mainly taken care of you; even at three you were such a loner you had had to be. I was lost and your Dad had disappeared into his work, you had been raised with limited affection. Your Dad and you were close but you were used to him not being a daily consistency. As I healed I tried to reconnect with the both of you, you liked me reading to you it became our thing but you didn't like much more than that. You got frustrated with too much interaction used to being supervised from a far but not engaged with. Your father he couldn't get past my rejection and I think he feared it would happen again that I would turn off again. He never opened up to me properly, and he even stopped sharing our room when I told him I didn't want to have more children. I hadn't been diagnosed but I just knew something from that time had triggered the depression and I didn't want to lose what I had left, after fighting so long to get back to it. I didn't want to risk losing you."

I knew very little about postpartum but I had heard of it, I knew that it was an illness and needed medical attention. My mother had never got that, my father obviously was too focused on his own feelings of rejection to see that he needed to be my mother's rock. "Once he moved out of our room he no longer even tried to pretend he wasn't having affairs. He became like ice to me, blocked me in every way. When I had enough, when I saw that it wasn't healthy for any of us and it couldn't be fixed I asked for a divorce. I assumed you and I might move to Santa Barbara or Malibu and Jack could see you on weekends or when he wasn't travelling but Jack… well you know he refused that. He wrote a cheque allowed me to visit occasionally and said if I ever attempted more than that he'd take me to court, he would use the years I was so obsessed in finding myself when I had abandoned you and him against me. He told me he had a house full of help that would testify about it all. How I didn't want to touch my son, take care of him."

She lifts her hand and picks up her glass and takes a sip of water, I can see from the slight tremble that it's difficult for her. It's difficult for me as well, my birth destroyed them and while I know it's not my fault it makes sense of so much of my childhood it makes sense of both my relationship with my Mum and Dad. I always thought I wasn't wanted but it wasn't that. I give her a moment to calm and find her equilibrium.

Her hippie shit always annoyed me but I look at it now and see it in new eye's. It gradually brought her back to herself and it's been her salvation ever since. When she came back to LA with me from Hawaii I got so angry that she'd flake out and hide in the desert at retreats or spend hours at the mind gym, I get it now it's her version of AA. If it's getting too tough she needs the respite the salvation the reassurance that it offers her. "Mum did you ever get formally diagnosed?"

"Yes not all my healer's are alternatively qualified some have medical qualifications as well. When I referenced that time they asked for more details. I ended up going through it all and well they named it. They sent me to a psychologist after that and they confirmed the diagnosis, explained to me what happened how it was completely out of my control. They don't know exactly what causes it but the sudden decrease in hormones following the birth, the emotions of that time, it's common but it can look different for everyone. Some women have symptoms for only a few weeks others like me it can be a paralysing depression."

"Did you ever tell Dad?"

"No, by the time I knew you were in junior high. I actually put it altogether and eventually got the diagnosis just after our trip to New York. Knowing has been both a comfort and a curse, I'm aware of what happened to me now, why I was suddenly a different person. We were so happy when I got pregnant I loved every second of carrying you. I was so excited to meet you to be your mother, and then… it took me years to come back to something close to me again and by that stage my life, my family, my marriage, the man I loved all of it had been destroyed and you my sweet boy had been abandoned throughout the process. When I got the diagnosis I realised if I had got help it could have been treated you wouldn't have known that pain, you could have had the family Jack and I dreamed of giving you. All three of us lost our chance to be a proper family, all three of us are scared from it…"

She stops and takes a moment to breath, I can understand the curse. If Dad had realised that something was medically wrong, if she had told her doctor, if it had been more commonly discussed in the seventies then what would our lives be like now. I couldn't imagine Brenda and I being cut off emotionally from each other well not for long periods of time. Last summer was hard enough. The weeks before she left for Paris were challenging when we weren't communicating, it was especially difficult for me. Before I met her I spent so long in the dark, hating myself thinking I had never been good enough, never wanted. My addictions, books and surfing giving me my only respite from the hatred. The former leaving me the worse, whether because of the occasional comedown, the hangover or the emptiness of being next to someone I had no emotions for once the pleasure has been released.

Last summer taking that girl to Baja showed me I didn't want to be him again, nothing had happened more than a few kisses but I didn't want that darkness. The last few weeks before she left, sneaking around being berated by her father, feeling not good enough, that darkness had come close to me I had felt it that day in Jim's office brush against me. I felt it guide me to that freeway, if I hadn't found the will to turn and go home to Brenda to tell her everything would I have turned into Jack? The shame the constant reminder that I wasn't good enough that I was damaged too much, the pain of not seeing a way out, to leave before she was forced to give me up or worse when they finally convinced her that she could do better, would I have abandoned her like Jack did my Mum?

Actually that's not right she left him, he gave her no other option but he held it against her anyway. Would I be capable of doing that to Bren? Letting my pain my fear of rejection lead me to betrayal? Would Bren then become like Iris unable to move on because she was still in love with the other half of her soul that may no longer exist anymore, one that has turned into stone?

I knew the answer, Bren may wander but she'd go as far as our gate then stop, she'd never cross the line physically or emotionally with anyone else. My girl could entertain the idea like play acting but she couldn't turn off her emotions, she felt them all the time. Like my father I was capable of ignoring them, I had been raised void of them and I knew I was capable of living in the void. I could be Jack, and if I was there then like my mum Bren would stay trapped in that garden.

"Have you ever told him?"

"No. He was a different person by then, more different than the cold man I divorced, he was cruel by the time I was diagnosed."

"Would you tell him now?"

She gives me a curious look, "Dylan I don't think he would-"

"He would, he would like to know."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because Dad and I are very similar aren't we? I can be cold like him-"

"Not when you are with Brenda, your eyes light up and you act like your father used to with me. You've never known that side of him but he is capable of loving someone completely, when you told me Brenda and your relationship was off limits it was like you were channeling your father. He used to feel our love was sacred."

"Because it is." She looks at me and waits for me to elaborate, "if it was like Brenda and I then it is sacred. Mum he lost you, it wasn't anyones fault but he lost you. He thinks you didn't want him or his son. I know with his family once they moved to the US my grandparents didn't have the easiest time, I know they struggled for a long time and I know my alcoholism comes from his father- he yelled it at me once when I had come home drunk again, the night he kicked me out."

"Yes he didn't have the easiest teenage years being in a new country, his parents away from their family supports- well it wasn't the best time for any of them."

"Mum he has the right to know he has the right to know that it was never you not wanting him. You know Brenda broke up with me last year, Mum I had never felt so broken in my whole life we had only been together for seven months, I can't imagine what he felt after years together."

"Dylan Darling I don't know if I could say it to him, I don't know if I could watch him not care."

"You don't know he would do that, he's changed well the parole thing seems like he hasn't but he is. He's always encouraging me to go back to Brenda anytime I visit him, like he… well he does understand doesn't he? How happy I am next to her, that it's uncomfortable being away from her." She gives a sad smile but nods. "Look if you can't tell him to his face write to him. It doesn't matter where in my life I am, if Brenda and I had been pushed apart and there was a chance of being us again I'd want to hear it. I may not trust it as real at first but I'd want to hear it anyway. I'd want to know that I hadn't imagined this between us, I'd want to know that it had been real, I'd want the option of-"

"Dylan I don't think that is possible, I don't think that if he knows that all is forgiven. There is too much, we are different people-"

"Who according to you share a soul. Who are supposed to be polar opposite's… well I think that's clear he became materialistic and you have got rid of all your material items living as naturally and sustainably as possible. He searched for money loved the power it gave him, you quietly sat on millions and millions of dollars not spending a dime selling t-shirts on the beach instead. I think it's safe to say you are still polar opposites, I think it's safe to say that if I am to believe in the two flam-"

"Twin flame."

"Twin flame thing and that it's a shared soul, then I assume it's always shared. If you can change and heal I assume so can he."

It took a while longer but eventually she agreed one letter and one letter only, if she got no response then I couldn't push her again. I knew she was only doing it for me I knew she wouldn't risk more of his cruelty and coldness for anyone but me. I just hoped I wasn't leading her to more pain.

When we got home from dinner I immediately rang Bren. I told her everything. Iris had laughed when I asked if I could, she said darling you are one in the same of course. She then got serious and said our connection should never have secrets, twin flames need to share everything even the painful stuff. Opposites clash but we shouldn't fear that we should embrace it, it makes for a stronger fire a flame that burns brighter even in the heaviest winds.