A mother's love

Chapter 36

Brenda called Michaela the next morning after Brian had left for school and invited her over to the house. Brenda told her when she came over that Brian had told her about their relationship and she couldn't be happier about the news, after which Michaela gave her what she had spent weeks waiting patiently for, she told her that she had once been raped and went on to explain to her why that made what she had with Brian so special.

"Brian just makes me feel so good about myself, he's so warm and loving; I've never met anyone like him and I don't think I ever will again."

Listening to Michaela speaking so effusively about her love for Brian, Brenda didn't feel the least bit like her territory was being trespassed upon, what she felt was pride. She was proud of Brian for being so helpful to Michaela and for wanting to help her so badly that he was prepared to betray her to do it. Brenda realized that the choice of whether to let go of Brian wasn't hers to make. He was perfectly capable of making mature, well-reasoned decisions all on his own, if they were ever to stop being a couple it would be because he had decided that ending things was the best thing for them, not because she had released him from his obligation to stay with her. The coming to light of his relationship with Michaela was an opportunity for him to decide who he wanted to be with and whatever his decision was Brenda would respect it; if he wanted to be with Michaela she would stay out of their way and if he wanted to be with her she would never again trouble herself with thoughts of whether being with her was the right thing for him.

Brenda's realization freed her to deepen her bond with Michaela. Spending time in the morning with her if she was free became a custom of theirs. They became girlfriends. They went shopping together, out for coffee or breakfast together. Brenda told Michaela that she'd love to hear some of her songs and Michaela happily obliged; she confided in Michaela about how her job really made her feel and Michaela confided in her about how she really felt about her mother's outings to singles bars and the men she'd had the displeasure of meeting because her mother had brought them home with her.

"Just come and stay with us," Brenda said to her.

"I can't stay with you guys every weekend."

"Of course you can, Brian and I love having you over and the more we entertain the more at home we feel."

"Okay, I'll talk to Brian about it."

Michaela talked to Brian about it and while he said that he was fine with it he wasn't as enthusiastic about it as she thought he'd be. She put his reaction down to him not being surprised that his mother had made such an offer and she left it at that. It was actually the exact opposite; Brian's muted reaction was due to him being stunned by Brenda's invitation to Michaela to spend whole weekends with them. He hadn't told Brenda about him and Michaela because he wanted her to bring the three of them closer together; he'd told her so she could help him deal with the burden of being involved with the both of them and to get her to appreciate the need to keep Michaela's involvement in their life to a minimum. There were times when Brenda overestimated Brian. He wasn't as understanding and accepting of the situation involving the three of them as she thought he was. As time went by and Brenda and Michaela kept spending increasing amounts of time together Brian started to question if Brenda was using him to grow closer to Michaela or if she was using Michaela to push him away, and he found himself once again confronting the reality that he really didn't know all that much about Brenda.

He wasn't alone in finding Brenda's forceful pulling of Michaela into their lives bizarre. Taren became an increasingly sidelined and peripheral figure. The only time she was involved in anything with the rest of them was during the week when Brian ate dinner at their house. She brought up the issue of her estrangement from the rest of them at one of the rare dinners the four of them sat down to and it gave rise to a tense exchange at the table between her and Michaela that illustrated just how marginalized she had become.