A mother's love

Chapter 27

"Is he yours?" A voice asked Brenda from behind. She had been surreptitiously watching Brian.

"What?" Brenda answered, feeling as if she had been caught in the middle of committing a crime.

"The girl in the black is my daughter Michaela; is that your son that she's talking to?"

"Yes, he is."

"Well don't worry, I know she looks like trouble but she's not, she's a sweet girl; I'm Taren, by the way," she said, extending her hand to be shaken.

"Brenda, hi," she said, shaking it, "I wasn't thinking that she's trouble, it's just that he's not too good with girls."

"You can trust him with her, she won't hurt him."

Brenda watched Brian talking with Michaela feeling a rapidly escalating sense of alarm.

Taren walked off and signalled for Michaela to join her. Brian watched her leaving and only after she was out of sight did he walk over to Brenda.

"Already making friends, that was quick," Brenda said to him, feigning approval.

"Her name's Mickey."

"Her name is actually Michaela; that was her mother I was talking to."

"She used to be in a band but now she's teaching guitar, she said if I wanted to learn she'd teach me for free."

"You just met her and she's offering you free lessons?" Brenda asked, suspiciously, not curiously.

"They live a couple of streets from us; she offered to help me get to know the city and I said yes, so we'll be seeing quite a bit of each other."

"You told her that we're from Florida, right?"

"I remembered."

"How old is she?"

"She's 24."

"That's a little old, don't you think?"

"You're a lot older."

"Yes, I suppose I am."

Brenda felt her chest tightening, her body trembling and her breathing growing heavier. She was having an adverse reaction to Michaela's sudden entrance into their lives that she had to keep restrained; she didn't want Brian thinking that she was jealous and that he had to tailor his life to accommodate her emotional demands; if there was one thing she would never do under any circumstances it was make him relive what he'd gone through with his mother.

"Hi again," Taren returned and said to Brenda, startling her out of her thoughts.

"Michaela just told me that you guys just moved here and I thought it would be a great idea to have you over for dinner as a welcome to the neighbourhood."

"Thanks, that's very nice of you," Brenda answered. She didn't want to go to dinner at Michaela's house but not inviting too much suspicion on themselves meant accepting such invitations when they were proffered.

"Great, so when should we do it then?"

"Not tonight, we've got a house that we need to get in order."

"Tomorrow then, and don't worry about bringing anything; we'll take care of everything."

Standing behind her mother, Michaela was looking at Brian with a look that Brenda wasn't the least bit comfortable with. Her feelings couldn't have been any more unmistakable. She liked him, and from the way he had talked about her Brian liked her too. Brenda wasn't prepared for this. She had thought that she would only have to deal with this scenario after he was enrolled in school and had had enough time to make close friends, by which time they would have become settled in their new life together. Michaela was a disruptive influence that had come too soon, at a time when she could be not just disruptive but destructive.