Oklahoma (Isaac Hanson)

Chapter Fifteen

first update of 2015!

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"How do you do it?" Isaac asked gazing into space.

His argument with Perrie had been less than a day ago, yet it felt like weeks. This morning he had met Perrie on the stairs, only to be ignored. Then, again, when he came into the kitchen she promptly got up from her seat at the table and left the room. It was putting a lot of tension in the house and it was growing stressful. Come mid afternoon, Isaac had decided it was easier for him to leave and lessen the problem. Finding refuge at his parent's house for a bit made him feel like a teenager himself.

"How do I do what?" Diana asked her oldest son, taking a seat across from him at the table.

"Raise teenagers." Isaac huffed with a frown.

Diana smiled and pet his arm, reassuringly. "You do know that having children means raising teenagers?"

"Yeah, but I didn't think I'd have to do it for a while." Isaac snorted. Rubbing his hand over the back of his hair, he sighed. "It's hard to explain, I love having Perrie, but she is driving me nuts. I feel bad for feeling this way."

"She is a teenage girl, it is what they do." Diana laughed a little. "You're the parent and you have every right to enforce your rules, but you can't just dictate to a teenager."

"Mom, she wants to visit Percy." Isaac painted the picture. "I'm not comfortable with Perrie meeting him."

"And you have that right, but think of this from her point. She has always had a wonderful family, but now she has her own family and Perrie is curious. It's natural." Diana explained. The older Isaac got the more reason his mother seemed to have.

"Teenagers are hard to parent, trust me." Diana winked. "Parenting a teenager, as only one parent is even harder. When it comes to Perrie, you're essentially a single dad trying to make it out alive. Perrie wants to know where she comes from and who she is. She can't know that if she never knows Amy."

"I've told her about Amy. You and dad could tell her about Amy." Isaac knew it was useless to try and argue that, or anything else.

"We could, but then it is only one side of the story. There are always two sides and you know that. Isaac, sweetie, I'm not saying that you need to take her to see Percy Marshall right away." Diana shook her head. "But you can't keep her from him, forever. Yes, Percy Marshall is a miserable man, I get it. Perrie is still his granddaughter and they deserve to meet one another, no matter how badly it ends."

Diana was making perfect sense, of course. Isaac wanted to protect Perrie, to keep her safe from all the bad in the world. She was his daughter and he didn't want anybody or anything to harm her in any way. Taking her to Missouri would only end with him trying to comfort a shattered heart.

"If I take Perrie to see him and he shuns her, or brushes her off, then where does that leave Perrie?" Isaac was concerned for Perrie's feelings more than she cared to realize.

"As her parent, you want to protect her. As her parent, you need to help her even when you know she is going to get hurt. Percy is an old bastard, we know that, but Perrie has a right to meet him. He is her family as much as I or your father are." Diana was on a roll.

Folding his arms across his chest and huffing, Isaac scowled. "I feel like this is a mistake, I don't want him to make her feel worse than she does over all of this. My daughter is already convinced she is ruining my life. I don't want somebody giving her that impression."

"Maybe meeting Percy and seeing how he is will be beneficial. If you take her and he isn't receptive, then it proves to Perrie that you were only trying to protect her. Right now, she assumes that you and Percy Marshall have some sort of personal issue and that is why you're being so difficult."