Authors Note: I own nothing. No ownership rights to Beverly Hills 90210.
Chapter Forty-Three:
My gentle knock on the door frame pulls my sisters eyes from the textbook in her hand. She is engulfed in the big leather wingback chair looking small. Dylan and I know we are the rare people she trusts to see her like this, the rare people that she will drop her walls to show her vulnerability.
"Heard you have had a rough few day's."
Her weak lip raising into a smile is her attempt to present an ease that isn't reflected in her body language.
"Every time I think I have got over the hurdle, the dramas, that I can finally just take a little breath and be happy, another thing hits me here. Life in Beverly Hills is like one of those bad soap operas that Sheila used to watch."
"Just Sheila? From memory sis you have always loved a good weekly drama."
She closes the text, "yeah, I guess watching them you don't realise how exhausting they are to live." I move to lean against the back of the desk while she places her feet back on the ground uncurling herself, inclining her body closer to mine. "I don't know who to trust anymore… well besides everyone in this house. How have all my relationships become so disloyal, so questionable? I thought we had built friendships here that would last a lifetime. I thought after everything we had all gone through together that it meant something."
"They do mean something, and they are lifelong, but my dear other half you are projecting your perfectionism on to people that haven't been raised like we have. All our friends here have had to hide things, lie, or manipulate to get by here. That instinct doesn't just go away because two Minnesota sixteen-year-olds enter their life two years ago. You have to give them time to learn the world we have had eighteen years to understand."
"And Mum and Dad? What's their excuse?"
"Fear. Plain and simple fear. Fear for being judged for your actions, fear for not being the perfect parents they have always wanted to appear like, fear of losing control." I put up my hand as she goes to interrupt. "You falling in love is not wrong, but you and my newly minted brother-in-law know that marriage at this age is judged, if you didn't think it would be you would have gone about it in the usual public way not eloped in a foreign country. And I understand why it was necessary, how irrational our parents were being are being… but it's public it's known now and for better or worse you getting judged today at that planning session is how both mum and dad are getting treated now by everyone in their life. How could they have not known their daughter eloped months ago? What did they do for her to do that?"
"So, it's tit-for-tat? I just have to suck it up, be looked at like I'm morally reprehensible? Accept that it's okay for my best friend to attempt to take my husband? Be judged by adults that are calling me out for behaviour they have committed; acting like they are superior just because of their age?"
"No, you just have to understand that it says a lot more about them, their insecurities than it does about you. Bren every single one of them would trade places with you in a heartbeat. Anyone who sees the way you and Dylan look at each other, can see that together you both are going to have an extraordinary life. That you are already living beyond most of their wildest fantasies. People want the life you have, the love you have. They are jealous and they are taking that out on you."
"Great, so that's the price for this? The price to be this happy."
"I think your mother-in-law would talk about… what is it the Yang and Yang? The other side of the coin. I think you just have to accept that this is it." Her sad eye's, her lips being pressed together scream that she isn't happy with my words but that she understands that they are true. "Though know that everyone in this house, especially me, has your back, loves you and wants you to have every bit of happiness this world will present you, that you can take. We aren't jealous of you here."
She lifts her brow in mock challenge then, "okay I'm a bit jealous of some of the rooms in the house but nothing else. Definitely not jealous of the marriage, I'm way to young to settle down permanently. Way too many babes to spend some time with."
The roll of the eyes and the disgust on her face as she stands up tells me that she isn't jealous at all about my plans to enjoy my freedom for a while longer. "God you are disgusting at times, Steve has truly brought out your-"
As we move out of the room, I knock her shoulder to cut her off, "now no judgment. I mean you married a man that had a similar mindset at one stage, that never met a woman he didn't li-"
"Jones! You are here to help not to throw me under the bus with my wife."
Of course he was waiting in the hallway, hovering close to her. As I shake my head, she smiles at him and moves straight to his arms, the arms that automatically wrap around her. "Relax, I know who I married, and I know that the moment you met me that that life stopped being appealing to you."
His kiss on her forehead as he tucks her close to his chest reflects that crazy intimacy that has always made me feel a little uncomfortable around them, they don't know how their connection looks on the outside to others. I don't agree with Kelly's behaviour but I kind of get the desire to find that, to feel that. Even if my word's say otherwise.
"You know it Mrs McKay. You will always be the only one for me. We were made for each other or made from each other according to Mum's legends."
"And on that gross sentimental note I'm going to go and see if Iris and Jack need a hand putting everything on the table." As I get to the stairs I look over at my sibling's and see they have lost themselves in each other's eyes, "dinner is supposed to be in two minutes. Like two regular minutes not two Brenda minutes."
My sister breaks eye contact with her husband to turn and glare at me, "Brandon you are just as bad as me don't pretend you aren't. I mean how many times did I have to wait for you to get your hair just right so we could leave for school?"
As I go to call her out on her falsehood, Dylan behind her begins to move them both towards the stairs. "Okay twins enough of this. You are both as bad as each other, believe me I have had to wait for both of you too many times to count."
On instinct we both turn on Dylan, defending each other's honour that has just been called into question. Dylan gives as good as he gets but we don't stop arguing about punctuality and about us twins being worth the wait until Iris and Jack call for a timeout on our argument as we sit down at the table.
My husband has been giddy throughout dinner, since we had to break up the three bickering teens as they approached the table. I know he always desired this, this was our dream. Sunday dinners with our kids, sitting around the table being loud, chaotic, telling stories; it reminds him of the family table he had his meals at in Ireland, growing up surrounded by loud love. When they moved to the State's that ended, but Jack always wanted a large family to recapture the feeling of a loving home he had in Ireland. I always wanted that unknown, having been orphaned young and spending most of my teen years in boarding school. I bought into the dream Jack sold, I wanted the loud table as well.
Sitting here, watching my husband tell another colourful story of his antics to get my attention when we first met, and watching them all laugh I can see that the dream he sold me wasn't a falsehood it would have been an incredible life to have had this daily. It would have been incredible if I hadn't gotten sick and missed the chance to have more children with him.
As if reading my mind and hearing the melancholy thought he lifts his eyes to mine, "my love tell them I was very suave when we met, that my swagger instantly captured your heart?" He's distracting me from the thoughts, pulling me out of my head and into this joyous moment where we are surrounded by our kids.
"Jack, you were… unforgettable I'll give you that. You were absolutely like no one I had ever met, and you definitely stood out." Each word is said with that doubtful tone that indicates that these ideas may not be actually a good thing.
"Yeah, Dad you sound like you had the type of swagger Steve does." Jack's eyes instantly get that mock outrage look. He had met Steve a few times, he had been in this house. He knew his son was harassing him. That alone lifted the melancholy I was feeling, my son was teasing a man who had betrayed him badly, treated him horribly for years. In a few short months their relationship had healed so well. Our family had healed.
"Kid I'll have you know you get your cool from me, and I was definitely cooler than you." Our daughter is trying to hold in her laugh, the laugh of a teenager amused by an adult trying to use the language of the day. In his forties nothing he said could be classified as cool to these young ones.
"Dad if you need to tell people you are cool, you aren't. It's not a known state."
At that Brenda loses her battle of holding it in and laughs, "you are such a liar. You absolutely know you are cool. Stop pretending otherwise… Mister James Dean of Beverly Hills."
My son's focus moves to his wife, he is both amused that she is calling him out and put out that she is. They love to challenge each other like true twin flames. "Have I ever said I was?"
"Well Jones there was that time you pretended to break into the BelAge, pretending you didn't live in the hotel to impress those surf guy's."
Jack rubs his hands together and smiles wickedly, he has seen Dylan's faint blush. "Brandon please tell this story. And leave no detail out, I want to know how cool my son was attempting to be."
Dylan's grown and slight shrinking into his chair is the only indication that Jack's request is unwanted. We ignore our son and instead focus on the story. A few minutes in Jack and I do notice that Dylan covers his wife's hand when a Betty is mentioned. Her wink to him in return undoes the twinge of unease in my stomach. I want to know my son but not at the cost of ruining the joy he has lived in since his wife has moved in. Even with how difficult this week has been, he is completely content just by having her close, his aura feels whole. Jack and I feel whole, that this is our family.
The kids cleared the table, but we shooed them out so that they could relax and watch a movie. Jack and I liked the idea of cleaning up after a big family meal. As I move another empty dish over to the sink for Jack to rinse and stack in the dishwasher I see a contented smile on my husband's face.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
"My thoughts used to be a lot more valuable."
"Yes, but I get the family rate."
He turns and looks at me with an even bigger smile, "the family rate? I feel you need some sort of proof, documentation for that, maybe a valid marriage license?"
"J-a-c-k!"
"I'm just suggesting that documentation would be good."
I roll my eyes and move to the island to wrap the leftovers up. "We are no where near there, I mean Jack we still haven't… we sleep in different rooms."
Like a red cape to a bull, the man hands are instantly around me his lips kissing up my neck. "I'll happily move rooms right now, happily wake up wrapped around you forever. It's… you have always… we were never meant to be apart. We were made for each other, born to be one."
"We were, but… I still need some time."
His lips stop skimming my neck with featherlight kisses, "that's not a never."
"No, it's not. It's just a little more time Jack. I spent a decade without you, I spent years before that unable to connect with you, watching that destroy you, us, our family. I just need a little more time to heal those wounds, that self-doubt that I could wake tomorrow, and it could all be gone again."
He squeezes my body, "you take as long as you need. I'll wait for as long as you need. Nothing can take me away from you now. I don't like me, my life, my soul without you. I don't feel alive without you nearby. Take the time, I'll wait. I'll wait for you forever, is this life and in our next."