by Turner, Xyla
I think.
I walked into the living room and started watching television because, although I was putting on my big girl drawers, it did not mean I had to like it. Not one bit. I couldn’t continue to act like nothing was wrong, because it was. I should have known better.
Once Duncan finished his shower, he came into the living room and said, “I’m ready to go to bed now.”
My neck nearly turned off its axis, as I looked at him in disbelief.
“I’m not tired,” I exclaimed. “Go on without me.”
“You’re upset,” he stated. “You know I cannot sleep through the night without you.”
Sigh.
Tonight was not the night that I planned to give a damn about his sleep. I needed some space.
“I’m watching something,” I exclaimed.
He didn’t say anymore and retreated to the bedroom, only to come back ten minutes later to state, “I am unable to sleep.”
“Yeah, Duncan. Right now, I don’t care,” I told him. “I wanted to have a conversation, and you walked away from me, so we don’t always get what we want. Tough titties.”
I refused to feel guilty about my feelings. He was entitled to his; I was entitled to mine. Therefore, I planned to calm my nerves with television until I could actually lay in that bed. Period.
A presence loomed over me, and I watched as he sat down next to me on the couch. My legs were tucked underneath me, which was a barrier to him getting closer. Duncan pulled them out and placed my legs on his thighs. The action did not warrant a response from me, so I continued to watch the show until it ended forty minutes later.
Then, and only then, did I pull my body from him and walk into the bedroom, so I could get ready for bed. This included taking a shower while Duncan waited in the bathroom patiently for me, wrapping my hair, brushing my teeth, and putting moisturizer on my face.
He continued to wait.
Once, I was ready, he pulled my covers back for me, so I could get in with ease, and then he went to lie down on his side. The lights shut off and in the dark silence, I heard his voice cut through, “Are you still angry with me?”
“I am not angry, Duncan,” I told him. “I am disappointed.”
There were no other words exchanged. I drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, it was back to our normal routine.
Chapter Eighteen
Portia
The next week, a number I did not recognize called me three times. Usually, I never answered unknown numbers, but since they kept calling back, it confirmed it was not an automated call. The fourth time my phone rang with the same number, I answered, “Hello?”
“Is this Portia Lane?” a voice came over the phone.
“Yes, this is she,” I replied, because I could not place the woman’s voice.
“This is Sandra, Duncan’s mother,” she rushed out. “I am in town and need to meet with you.”
What?
Duncan’s mother? What in the hell would she want to meet with me about? The woman barely said three words to Duncan or me the first and only time I met her. On some level, that wasn’t as jarring, since my own relationship with my mother was not good. I had tried to make it better, but the woman just wasn’t at a place to let go of her own upbringing, I guess.
“What is this in regard to?” I asked, trying to stall for time to get my thoughts right.
I was on my way to a store for a site visit, but I stood to the side of the walkway, so no pedestrians would be blocked.
“Duncan, of course,” she said in an exasperated tone. “Look, I am leaving very soon and would be remiss if we did not connect at once.”
The rich and the infamous. I shook my head. She simply shows up and wants to meet right now, as if I am on her schedule. She is lucky I want to know what this is about, or I would not even consider it at all.
“I am in the North East, near the stadium,” I shared. “I have thirty minutes to spare, since I am working.”
“Yes, yes. You work, that’s right,” she all but huffed out. “I can be there in twenty minutes. Please send your location to this phone.”
The line went dead. I shook my head again. While I waited, I checked in with the store’s manager, did a walk-through, and reviewed some of the time cards. By the time this was complete, my phone was buzzing with texts that Mrs. Morgan had arrived.
A Lincoln town car was idling right outside the store, which matched the description. The entire scene felt ominous. I almost wanted to tell someone who I was leaving with, just in case I went missing. Sometimes, my imagination got the best of me.
A door swung open from the opposite side of a normal door, then the white-haired woman waved a hand toward me. The closer I approached, the more my anxiety peaked.
What in the world did this woman want to talk to me about?
“Portia, how are you?” She was smiling, which was weird, since I had not seen her do that before.
“Well, and you.” I nodded and climbed in as she moved over.
“Well. Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice,” she acknowledged, which I appreciated. “There was something weighing on my heart, and I felt as though I must tell you. Must warn you rather.”
This brought all my antennas up.
“Ma’am, if you’re about to tell me to leave your son alone, then let me stop you now.” I raised my hand to cut her off. “I won’t do that.”
She blinked and jerked her neck back, and exclaimed, “Oh no, dear. I would never. We are so happy for him because we never thought he would be with anyone. Well, I didn’t. Duncan is different, and well, he can be an acquired taste. I mean, you are beautiful, smart, ambitious, and you are not crazy. He needs someone that is strong and patient. Like you.”
She looked around as if she were thinking of something or someone else.
“Okay.” I let the word drag out. “So, this is in reference to Duncan?”
She cleared her throat and answered, “Well, yes. My son is quite smitten with you, as you are with him.” She nodded toward me. “We can start planning the wedding soon and that is simply grand, especially for our island.”
She sighed. Which told me this was going to be the catcher.
“Duncan is on the spectrum as I am sure you know already, and kudos to you,” she said with the utmost of sincerity, which troubled me. “I’ll just say it, dear. He is going to want to reproduce, and from one mother of a special needs child, I am warning you not to let him put you through that unnecessary grief.”
My organs struggled to function as I stared, mouth wide open in shock at her words. Sweat seemed to manifest on my forehead, back, and underarms. A scorching heat filled the car, which made me realize in the forty-degree weather, I was growing mad as shit.
“Are you kidding me?” I exclaimed.
She huffed, but shook her head. “I assure you, I am not.”
Then she turned her nose up. “You are young and in love but having a child like Duncan was my breaking. He required so much more than I could give him. We had to send him away because nothing was good enough. It was not until Duncan returned, and we hired Yesenia that everything changed for us. I let her deal with him because I just did not know how to relate. He was so different and…”
The woman trailed off with her words and looked as if she was in another place.
“He would throw himself against the wall, and there would be bruises no one could explain. He would bang his head against the house just to relieve pressure.” A lone tear rolled down her face, almost as if it were invisible. “He would not sleep on any mattresses and would rip them apart. He fought, bit, scratched, and tried to claw my eyes out.”
Mrs. Morgan sighed heavily and cleared her throat, ending her trip down memory lane. Then she continued, “Just take heed to my advice. Spare yourself some heartache.”
Wow.
My thoughts were all over the place as I thought about what this woman was sharing with me. Recounting her time as a mother to
a child that was special needs, and, I am sure, all the ways she probably felt she had failed him. I couldn’t imagine birthing a child and not knowing how to provide for them.
“Well, Mrs. Morgan, here is my dilemma. Your son, to me, is perfect. He is attentive, caring, loving, very stubborn, smart, passionate, and does it for me. Now, I am sure he is the man he is today, a United States Senator and an honorable and honest citizen, because of your toiling, heartache, and grief, as you put it. However, from my end, you are also reaping the rewards for your hard work.”
“You seemed to have already made up your mind,” she replied.
“No, actually. Duncan has,” I told her. “He does not want to have children. At all. Thanks to you. After hearing that you wished he was never born and things of that nature, you convinced him from an early age not to risk having his own children.” I did not hide my anger or disappointment.
She began to cry.
“I must seem like an awful mother,” she hiccupped out. “I made some horrible choices and decisions. Including an addiction, just to cope. I…I…. don’t regret. I know we were lucky. We had money, and he was on the high end of the spectrum.” She waved her hand in the air. “What if he had not been on the high end of the spectrum? I have talked with mothers who were in worse situations—”
I cut her off, because I’d had about enough.
“Having a child that has special needs shouldn’t be comparable. Every kid is different,” I told her.
“Yes, but, but…” she continued to struggle with speaking. “I said some wretched things that I cannot even begin to ask for forgiveness. It honestly seems like just yesterday that he was trying to jump out of the window.”
The woman was full out sobbing, like she had never really addressed these thoughts about her son.
“W-when your child, your only child, wants to jump out of a window, it doesn’t…does not make sense. I could not help him.” Her eyes pleaded with me to understand, and in all fairness, I was out of my depth, so I simply listened. “I love him, the best way I know how. I just struggle with him…you know, how he acts and the way he blurts things out. He is much better, and I am…I swear that I am so proud of him. I did not know what type of life he was going to have. Everyone is upset about Donna, but she helped him. It’s unorthodox, but it helped. It really helped.”
The woman was still pleading with me to understand her perspective. I felt like her priest, though I couldn’t absolve her from whatever sins she committed, so when she finished, I said, “You might want to have a conversation with Duncan about all of this. He is under the impression that you regretted having him and did not want him.”
Her eyes shifted to the floor bed of the sterile Town Car, which smelled of new car and leather.
“Could he ever forgive me?” She asked no one in particular. “I was heavily medicated as I tried to soothe my angst with prescription drugs. I have been clean for decades now, thanks to Robert. He was my saving grace.”
“I think you should talk to your son,” I repeated. “He might not give you the response you want, but it will help him come to a different rationale about what his mother thinks and thought about him.”
Her eyes, pink with emotion, met mine and she nodded. “I see why he’s so smitten with you. You are much kinder and patient than I.”
She grabbed a handkerchief from her grey purse and dabbed at her face, before she returned the wet cloth and lifted her chin with a dignified nod.
“Welcome to the family, Portia Lane.” She smiled. “I look forward to having you as a daughter-in-law. I always wanted one.”
That almost made me shed a tear, but I smiled, gave the woman a hug and I left her vehicle with much more to think about than I could imagine. I am not sure I was an expert on the matter, but I am sure I did not like how Duncan was talking about himself, about not wanting children, and I did not like how his mother was referring to herself. All of this bothered my soul.
It literally did not sit right with me, though I knew they both had their reasons. However, my future life was not impacted by what his mom thought. It was Duncan that I needed to speak with.
On the calendar, it showed that Duncan and I had a red carpet affair. I think it was the same one that Bernie came running from that night when one of her old clients approached her and Trent punched the snot out of him.
They didn’t go last year but planned to go this time and even convinced Duncan to go. This was my type of event, one that required me to go shopping, get pampered, and show up cute. This was also our first official event outside of dinner and meeting his parents.
As we dressed and began to go over some talking points for him, I brought up the issue again.
“Duncan, I would like to have children someday,” I told him.
He stopped tying the knot in his tie and looked up at me before he replied, “Okay.”
“So you will reconsider?” I smiled, as I tried to hold on to the glimmer of hope.
“Reconsider?” he was asking me.
“This stance you have taken on not having children,” I explained.
He shook his head, emphatically.
“No, I’m not having children.”
“Duncan,” I yelled. “This is asinine. You can’t make a decision based on the words of your mother. Okay. You were a difficult child, but children can be challenging. You are an amazing adult, so the struggle was worth it.”
He eyed me for a bit, then shook his head.
“Duncan, listen,” I urged him. “You are perfect, just as you are. You should not rob the world of what you could help create.”
He processed what I said, then answered, “You are alone with these thoughts. Your affection for me blinds you, and you are unable to see the reality.”
“What is the reality?” I snapped. “You sleep with no covers. Like things to go a certain way. Don’t like changes to plans.”
“Yes, I do not like the texture of cottage cheese, shower curtains, wet surfaces, fuzzy fruit, and soft touches. I can have obsessive compulsions: trains, statistics, times, and you.”
“Well, fine then,” I acknowledged his words. “I want to have babies.”
“I want to make you happy, always,” Duncan stated. “I do not want you to throw me away after having a difficult child. I do not want you to replace me. That is why I do not want to have children.”
Wait, what?
His statement confused me. Why would he think I would throw him away?
“Duncan, explain what you mean.” I said, as I put down my eyeliner pencil and turned to face him, so we weren’t having this conversation through the mirror.
He sighed, as If I was annoying him, but said, “Mother had me and after two years divorced my birth father and remarried Robert Morgan. My father was the one that carried the gene. I resemble him more than I do my mother, but she got rid of him because he was the reason, she was sentenced to a lifetime of me.”
Goodness.
I was completely off-base with my assessment of the dynamics of the complicated family. So, Robert was not his birth father, and Mrs. Morgan was once married to Duncan’s father. Well, I thought it was interesting that she never mentioned this tidbit that would have helped me put the pieces together.
“She gave me his last name, so I am an official Morgan. He is my father,” Duncan explained.
“Where is your birth father?” I asked him, thinking about how I would like to meet him.
Duncan continued to tie the knot for his necktie before replying, to the point, that I thought he might not say anything else about it. He had been known to shut down on me from time to time.
“He is dead,” he finally replied.
I knew my man, so I asked a question that would not make a lot of sense to someone else.
“Physically?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied.
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “How did he die?”
“He grew ill with pneumonia and died,” he murmured, his
chin bent down as he completed tying the knot.
“I see,” I said as I walked into his space and straightened the crooked necktie out. “Well, Duncan, I need you to understand several things, and then I will let this go. I am not afraid of having children with you. I actually would like a little Duncan or Dunketta crawling around. I understand it is a risk but bringing a life into this world and helping them grow into productive citizens of the world is also a gift.” I waved at him. “Plus, no matter the disability, no child should be treated like my mother treated me growing up. A child deserves to have a supportive parent that will lead and guide them, teach them. The same way I saw you teaching Junior. Even if it was about a stupid ass wall that we don’t need. I know you would be a great, attentive, and awesome father. Whether Robert is your step-father or not, he is a great example, and I know he would love grandchildren. Okay.”
“The wall is to keep out the unwanted and undocumented people who are not contributing to our society,” he replied.
“Duncan, out of everything I said, this is what you comment about?” I asked, with one eyebrow up.
“Robert would like grandchildren,” he replied, and I kissed him quick on the lips, but like he always did, he bit my bottom lip.
“Let’s get out of here.” I patted his chest. “The wall is stupid and is a ploy. There are no terrorists crossing anywhere. The terrorists that did hit this ground entered the legal way, so that is bullshit,” I pointed out, as I grabbed my purse and headed for the door, since Peter was downstairs waiting to transport us.
During the entire car ride, Duncan and I went back and forth about the stupid ass wall, his President, and his logical reasoning for his stance. Oddly enough, though I had little tolerance for Trump supporters, and my father would turn over in his grave, Duncan’s saving grace was that he approached things from a different aspect. While I did not agree, it wasn’t this fanatical, blindly running behind the Commander in Chief’s point of view. It was, I am a Republican because they are thinking more realistically about the nation. Again, I did not agree, but he had little appreciation for the softer side of the Democrats.
