by Mia Archer
“You do what you need to do. I’m not going to hold it against you,” I said
“Easy for you to say future girl,” she said, looking at my mom. “Maybe where you come from everything is all nice and wonderful and people sing happy songs with their bullies, but that’s not how it works here. I’m not going to talk with her.”
“I understand,” I said.
“So…”
“So I’ll see you around,” I said, thinking about all the fun we’d had tonight and feeling a tinge of regret that all that fun might be at an end.
“Yeah, I guess I’ll see you around,” Jenny said.
I couldn’t tell if she was pissed off at me, my mom, the situation, or if she really meant that she’d see me around and this wasn’t the big deal I was making it out to be.
Jenny melted away. I almost went after her. There was a voice deep down screaming at me to go after her, but I knew that voice was telling me what I wanted to hear because Jenny looked so damn good in her crazy ‘90s clothes.
No, I knew what the real right thing to do was. I hated that the right thing to do was to ignore Jenny and comfort a girl who’d treated me like shit, but it had to be done. So I took a deep breath and prepared to go into the lion’s den.
25
Family Bonding
“Is this seat taken?” I asked.
My mom looked up at me, and the tears were pretty obvious. The waterworks must’ve really been going, and not all that long ago, if her makeup was streaked like that.
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a tissue package I always kept handy in case of emergency. I figured if ever there was an emergency then my past mom totally losing it qualified.
I just hoped she didn’t realize that the generic store brand tissues I’d handed her were from a store that didn’t even exist in this time and place. Oopsie.
“What do you want?” she asked.
I continued holding out the tissues that time forgot. Finally she grabbed them. Thankfully she didn’t so much as glance at the packaging. The last thing I wanted was to create a universe ending paradox by messing up the space time continuum with a package of travel tissues.
Then again the fact that the universe still existed despite all the changes I’d no doubt made simply by existing in the past was a pretty strong indicator that Christopher Lloyd didn’t know what he was talking about when it came to universe ending paradoxes.
“Thanks,” she muttered. “But this doesn’t mean I’m going to date you or something, so don’t get any ideas.”
I sat down next to her. I didn’t bother to ask, and from the way she scooted away from me she didn’t like that I didn’t bother to ask, but fuck that. This woman was my mother, and she needed a swift kick in the ass sooner rather than later.
Even if that swift kick was making her endure sitting next to one of the gays and showing her the world wasn’t going to end.
“I didn’t say you could sit there,” she said. “Just in case the scooting wasn’t enough to clue you in.”
“Would you shut the fuck up?” I asked. “Like I know I’m supposed to meet you halfway here or whatever, but the whole gay panic thing isn’t cool, and it makes you look like an asshole. So cool it off, because you’re like the last person in the world I’d ever be interested in fucking even if we were the last two people on earth.”
My mom went through a range of emotions as I said that. She seemed surprised at first, then pissed off. That quickly turned to staring with her mouth open. I pushed her chin up.
“You need to be careful,” I said. “You’re going to catch some flies with that thing.”
“Why are you sitting here?” she asked, her voice sullen. “I treated you like shit, so why come over here?”
“Because you looked like you could use someone to talk to,” I said. “So here I am. Someone to talk to.”
My mom continued staring, though her mouth stayed closed. I figured that was progress. Tears welled up in her eyes all over again.
Great. I’d never been good with people who were crying, and having my mom crying right in front of me really wasn’t doing wonders for me. Then she really surprised me by leaning against me. Her tears came hot and wet, and it wasn’t long before they were soaking through my T-shirt.
It was weird considering how she’d been at my throat the last time we met, but I figured she needed a shoulder to cry on and I was going to give her that shoulder. After all, there’d been plenty of times when she’d done the same for me.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said, moving my arm around her shoulder and praying she wouldn’t think I was trying to hit on her all over again. “I don’t know what’s going wrong here, but I know it’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not going to be okay,” she wailed.
It came out a little weird, of course. A little muffled considering she was pressed up against my shoulder which meant she wasn’t getting anything out without wailing into my shoulder first.
“No, really,” I said, thinking about the life she’d make for herself in the years to come. At least until she got sick. “It’s going to be okay. I know it’s hard for you to imagine that right now, but it’s going to be okay.”
She pulled . Tried to wipe some tears from her eyes, but that proved impossible since there were new tears coming as quickly as she could wipe the old ones away. Her makeup was running and it wasn’t a very good look for her, but then again I don’t know many girls who looked good when they got to ugly crying like this.
Not that I was going to point out that she was ugly crying. Something told me that would only make the situation worse.
“You have no idea what I’m going through,” she said. “You can bang whatever girl you want without worrying about the problem I have.”
My eyes went wide. Sure I’d known if the timeline was going to work out then she’d have to be in a family way soon, but I guess I hadn’t expected it to happen quite so soon. I certainly hadn’t expected to be the one to comfort her when she found out she was teen pregnant with me!
“So do you maybe want to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked, even though I had a pretty good idea.
“Let’s just say I got some bad news recently,” she said. “And James really didn’t take it all that well.”
Huh. That was a lot to process. There was the slap to the face that she was referring to my conception as “bad news.” Not to mention the name she’d just dropped.
James. That took away any doubt that the asshole she’d been canoodling with all this time, the prick who’d taken a couple of shots at me, was none other than my father.
“Were the two of you in the jet fighter game?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, wiping a tear away and laughing. Maybe the thought of conceiving a child in something as ridiculous as a jet fighter arcade game was worth a laugh to her.
Hell, it was worth a laugh to me.
“We weren’t the only ones who had that idea that night,” she said.
“Oh?” I asked, feeling a chill.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m pretty sure we heard someone making out in there, but they ran out the other side while we were climbing in. It wasn’t even that good. He lasted like thirty seconds. Goes to show all that stuff about not getting knocked up if you didn’t have fun is bullshit.”
Again there was a lot there to process. There was the surprise that the night I’d been conceived might’ve been the very same night I’d been in that jet fighter arcade game having my own good time with Jenny. Then there was the ridiculous thought that a girl couldn’t get pregnant just because she didn’t have a good time.
I reminded myself that my mom came from a time when comprehensive sex education was still something that people joked about on sitcoms, and they didn’t have the Internet or regular access to porn to help them work things out on their own.
“So, um, what are you going to do?” I asked.
“You mean am I going to take care of the problem?” she asked,
hitting me with an accusatory glare. “Because that’s what James wanted me to do.”
Another chill ran through me. It hadn’t occurred to me that one of the paradoxes I might set into motion would be convincing my mother to exercise her control over her body to make sure I never existed.
I started to sweat. Could I really fuck things up that bad?
“Well I’m not going to do that,” my mom said. “If this baby is coming then this baby is coming, and fuck James for ever trying to insinuate I shouldn’t keep it.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“What’s it to you anyway?” she asked. “Why are you so interested?”
Now there was a hell of a question that I had no intention of answering. She’d think I was crazy. Jenny had a tough enough time believing me when I told her the impossible truth.
“Let’s just say I’m really glad you’re deciding to keep whatever’s growing in there,” I said. “Like words can’t begin to describe how glad I am.”
“Whatever,” she said. “Not like it’s your problem anyway.”
“Right,” I said.
I stared at my mom. I knew it probably looked weird, but I couldn’t help it. It was weird looking at this woman and thinking that I was in there.
Sure I was just a couple of cells, but I was still in there. There were two of me sitting on this bench right now, and it was a mind fuck.
“So James didn’t take it well?” I asked.
“Not at all,” she said. “The prick.”
“Yeah, he is kind of a prick, isn’t he?” I said.
“Yeah, well I’m wondering what the fuck I’m going to do if he’s not interested in being a father,” she said.
I leaned in. Put my arm around her. She stared at me like she was trying to decide whether or not to scream because the scary lesbian had put an arm around her, then she sighed and leaned against my shoulder.
“I know this is something you’re going to have trouble believing,” I said. “But I was serious when I said everything is going to be okay. Life has a funny way of working out, and you never know or appreciate how it’s going to work out until you’re in the middle of it.”
“Easy for you to say,” my mom snorted. “You’re not the one who’s going to have to explain to your parents that you got knocked up by that guy you totally weren’t supposed to be sneaking out to meet.”
“It’ll be okay,” I said, thinking about all the good times I’d had with her and my grandparents.
“You really think so?” she asked.
“Believe me,” I said. “I know so.”
We stayed like that for a little while. It was weird sitting like this with my mom after so many years of hoping for the opportunity to do just this. It felt good, for all that this wasn’t exactly the tearful reunion I’d expected when I first realized she was alive and well here, but I’d take it.
It was a hell of a lot more than most people ever got with their dearly departed parents, after all.
26
Family History
“Aunt Olivia?”
I paused at the entrance to her home office. It took a moment for her to take her headphones off. She always had those on when she was getting into the zone while working.
It was something I’d picked up from her. I couldn’t study if I didn’t have headphones on and music blasting. I honestly didn’t know how I would’ve made it in her time when the only options were cheap foam headphones and not the awesome wireless stuff available these days.
“What’s up?” she asked, turning to me with a smile.
“I had some questions,” I said.
“You’re so serious,” she said, mimicking my tone.
“I need to know about my past. My mom and my dad,” I said.
She went serious. Like I’d just sucked all the air out of the room or something.
“Y’know I kinda figured this day was coming,” she said, then sighed. “I guess I’ve been lucky that it’s taken so long for you to come to me with these questions.”
I wasn’t sure what the hell that meant. She’d always been fine about me asking questions about my mom before. Maybe it was that I was asking questions about my dad as well this time.
I could understand, considering what I’d already learned, firsthand, about my dad with my little trip back to the past.
I sighed. This whole thing was complicated, and it was made more complicated by the fact that I just didn’t know all that much about what my mom had been like before I’d known her. I guess like a lot of people I’d never stopped to consider that she had a life before me that’d resulted in me being created.
“Kitchen table?” Aunt Olivia asked.
“Here in the office is fine,” I said, taking a seat on the edge of her desk.
“Fine with me,” she said with a strained smile that said having this conversation was anything but fine with hr.
“So what can you tell me about my mom and dad back in the day?” I asked.
“Well your mom loved you very much,” she said. “You never need to worry about that. You were the center of her world from the moment you were conceived.”
I thought about how sure my mom had been that she wasn’t going to take the easy way out. I guess that was another thing I’d never appreciated. That I could’ve been ended before I began. Then again this whole traveling in the past thing had given me a new appreciation for the whole butterfly effect thing and how there were lots of ways the world could’ve prevented me from happening before a lucky sperm from my asshole dad’s nutsack found the egg in my mom’s uterus creating the wonder that was me.
“That’s not what I’m talking about and I think you know it, Aunt Olivia,” I said. “I want to know more about them. What they were like when they were together? Why’d they split?”
Aunt Olivia sighed. Looked at her computer like she would’ve much rather been going over her spreadsheets, but I reached out and flipped her monitor off. A thin smile spread across her face, and that was a hell of a lot better than what I expected for being audacious enough to attack her computer like that.
“You’re really in a mood tonight, aren’t you?” she said. “What brought this on?”
She had a weird twinkle in her eye. The sort of twinkle she got whenever she was asking a question she already knew the answer to. Usually in the context of me doing something that should’ve gotten me in trouble, like going somewhere with a friend I wasn’t supposed to or staying out later than the pretty generous curfew she gave me.
There were times when I hated the way she seemed to know when I was going to step out of line before I knew I was going to do it. I wondered if I’d ever do the same thing if I had kids.
“Your dad was an interesting case,” she said. “He was the big star back when that meant a hell of a lot more than it does these days with the way the geeks have inherited the earth and everything.”
“So he was a huge sports star in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Basically an asshole,” I said. “At least if the movies and stuff I’ve seen over the years are anything to go on.”
“Yeah, well not everyone who was a big man on campus was like that,” she said. “But your dad went his whole life with everyone telling him how great he was. People fell all over him like only a small town with a sports hero can.”
“Small town?” I asked. “I thought this was the big city.”
“I mean maybe it’s the big city for around here,” Aunt Olivia said. “But it’s not like we’re a real big city. It’s small enough that there were only the two high schools back then, and he was the one who came out on top in all the big games between those two schools so everyone knew him. He was either the conquering hero at his school or they knew him because he was the one who’d done the conquering on the other side of town, and you bet your ass every girl in town knew who the hell he was and wanted to get with him whether or not he’d kicked their boyfriend’s asses on the football field. Sometimes maybe because he’d kicked their boyfriend
’s asses on the football field.”
She paused and smiled a little half smile. “You should be thankful. You got some of those good looks yourself, y’know.”
I looked down and gave myself a new assessment. I’d always had people who wanted to get with me, boys and girls alike. Honestly mostly boys, because that was the default everyone assumed even though I’d made it clear time and again that I was into the ladies.
I’d never thought that I was descended from prom king of the school material, but I guess that sort of made sense. Not that I’d ever thought of myself as hot stuff, though apparently my dad didn’t have that problem back in his time.
“So what happened if he was such a big deal?” I asked.
Aunt Olivia shrugged. “Well he was always kind of an entitled asshole, but then a few things happened around the same time and it really sent him over the edge.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“First he discovered that being a small town superstar isn’t quite the same as being good enough to be a contender at the university level. I think he expected a scholarship or something, and instead he couldn’t even make the cut for a walk on at some of the smaller schools he tried for.”
“Huh,” I said.
That was something I couldn’t really understand. A sports scholarship was the farthest thing from my mind. Sports had never interested me. Not even softball, so can all the jokes you’re thinking about making.
I guess that would kind of suck to have a dream you’ve been working towards your entire life and then find out you were never even close right when you should’ve been on the verge of fulfilling that dream.
“So you’re saying that excuses him being an asshole?” I asked.
“Excuse him?” Aunt Olivia asked with a snort. “That doesn’t excuse anything. The guy was an asshole since I knew him, and judging by the way people acted around him he’d been an asshole for a long time before I met him. I’d say that’s all you need to know about whether or not it’s a good thing he’s not in your life.”