Rock Bottom

Information

"At the time we couldn't face it," Robert began. "But now we feel we owe you and your sister an explanation."

"Have you talked to Izzy already?" Alec asked automatically.

His father nodded. "We talked to her yesterday," Robert explained.

"And what did Izzy have to say about this explanation?" Alec asked dubiously. He couldn't help but keep his guard up emotionally around them after the way everything had fallen apart.

"You can ask her that yourself," Maryse told him.

"We are here to talk to you," Robert explained again.

"Then talk," Alec replied, even though all he wanted was to turn around go back into the house, lock the door, and drown his thoughts in television.

"First of all we know we didn't handle things well," his father began. "And we are sorry about that, but you have to understand that it hasn't been an easy few years for us."

"We tried to keep our problems, our problems rather than bring you kids into everything-"

"Didn't do a very good job of that did you?" Alec snapped, surprised by his own anger.

"That's no way to speak to your mother," Robert replied sharply.

"What are you going to do about it?" Alec counted. "You can't very well say if you live under my roof, you obey my rules. No roof remember?"

"Roof or no, it doesn't change the fact that we are your parents Alec," Robert snapped.

Alec decided he didn't have a reply to this, and chose to remain silent.

"Anyway," Maryse said, putting a hand on her husband's arm. "We didn't come here to quarrel. We just wanted to say-" But then she stopped, seemingly at a loss for words.

"Yes?" Alec asked, getting impatient. He could feel the stress of just being near them, and it was making him cranky.

"Well to start, even when a house is foreclosed on they can't take your possessions in the house," Robert began. "I've sent an appeal for them back as they were unlawfully taken."

"I have a better idea," Alec said bitterly. "Pay your mortgage before the repo men comes to take everything you own."

At this point his mother burst into tears, and Alec's twisted guts turned into guilty guts. He sighed. "Alright, I'll bite. What's been so hard for you these last few years?"

"Max." It was a single word, and though his mother spoke it with great awe, it meant nothing to Alec.

"Who's that?" Alec shrugged.

"Your baby brother," Robert replied. "Or, I suppose he would have been."

"I don't understand," Alec said, his anger fading to be replaced with confusion.

"He was born too early," Maryse managed through her tears. "Tiny little thing, all covered in tubes, but pink you know. Until he grew cold in my arms."

"How come I didn't know any of this?" Alec asked.

"Remember when your mother and I were away last year?" Robert said slowly. Alec nodded. "We didn't actually leave. We were all but living at the hospital."

"It was over so quickly," Maryse spoke softly, as if speaking only to herself. "I hardly knew his smell before he faded away. Too small. Too early."

"We decided as we hadn't yet told either you or Izzy we were expecting, we could spare you from the loss as well," Robert explained. "The plan was that we'd come home, and nothing would have changed."