A mother's love

Chapter 47

Brian woke up in the morning to an empty house. When he realized that Brenda had left while he'd been asleep he buried his head in her pillow that was still fresh with her scent and cried over the loss of the first person he had ever loved and who had ever loved him. Only when he was emotionally able to did he leave the bed, shortly after which Taren and Michaela arrived at the house to help him pack up and move in with them.

In the two and a half years that he would live with them Taren and Michaela never learned the truth about the love that had existed between him and Brenda. He never stopped missing her or thinking about her. Taren would inform him of phone calls that she had received from Brenda asking her about how he was doing, but he never spoke with her and when he asked Taren if she knew where Brenda was living or how he could get in touch with her Taren told him that Brenda had told her that she didn't want him to have that information, he was to focus only on his new life with them. Brian slept in Michaela's bedroom with her and every morning she drove him to school and every afternoon she picked him up. Over time he adjusted to living with them and, just as Brenda said he would, he came to love living with them. Taren went out of her way to make him feel at home and without being torn between two women he was able to appreciate what a wonderful girlfriend he had. They had fun together every day and it made Brian happy to see how happy it made Michaela to have him to herself all the time. He did well in school and together with Taren and Michaela began making preparations for college.

He never knew how close he came to losing it all. The cop that had been visiting their house had been looking for him. His father, after hearing from his mother during one of his bi-annual phone calls that Brian was missing, had driven to New Mexico to see if he was in fact gone and upon ascertaining that he was had called the police, whose only lead was the similar timing of Brian's disappearance and Brenda's resignation. They got their chance to speak with Brenda when they paid a visit to her mother's house to ask her if she had any information about her daughter's whereabouts and were greeted at the door by Brenda; she had only been staying with her mother for two weeks. She invited them to sit down in the living room and explained to them that she had left Seattle for San Diego to take care of her mother who had suffered a serious injury. She claimed to know nothing about Brian's disappearance, telling them only that she had visited his house once and had found his mother to be a deplorable person, adding that if Brian was missing he had most likely run away. The police said that they felt the same way about his parents and after meeting them they had also reached the conclusion that he had most likely run away. Brenda called Taren shortly after they had left to inform her of the news that nobody was going to be looking for Brian anymore, news that Taren was thrilled to hear; she loved having Brian with them and had been fearing him being discovered and taken away. Brenda also told her that she wouldn't be coming back for him. Meredith, bed-ridden from her surgery, commended her daughter for doing the right thing. Her words did nothing to uplift Brenda. Since arriving in San Diego she had been in a state of deep depression; she hadn't spent any time looking for a new teaching job and had no plans to start, letting go of Brian had destroyed her and Brenda wasn't sure how long it was going to take her to recover from it or if she could recover from it at all.