What It's Really Like: A Promise Broken
Nancy put her head into her hands and cried. She was sitting on the edge of her bed sobbing and feeling terribly guilty. An hour earlier her son Dave left her bedroom. Ten minutes earlier she heard him pull his car out of the driveway. He was headed to tech school. He had his own room but he rarely slept there. Last night was the third night Nancy and Dave had sex. Sex she initiated. Sex he was reluctant to engage in.
Her long blond hair was disheveled. She was wearing pink pajamas. Being a forty year old athletic petite blond she could have dated. Guys and lesbians would often eyeball her petite legs and her athletic behind. She was always surprised when someone would glance at her small B-cup breasts. She received many offers to date but she never once considered it. She was already in a platonic relationship. Denial is often a powerful thing.
She asks herself, "What are you doing?"
She sobbed.
"I'm his mother. You know what this feels like. You promised yourself you wouldn't do this to him."
She looked out her bedroom window. As if her backyard held an answer.
"If Brett wouldn't have had an affair and left us. This would have never happened."
She sobbed for the marriage that ended when Dave was eleven. This was the reason she allowed her son to spend the nights with her. This sleeping arrangement was purely platonic up until the night of his eighteenth birthday. This was three days ago. At the beginning this brought both of them comfort after the divorce. She knew it brought her more comfort than Dave. Often times when he tried to sleep in his own room she would ask him to sleep with her. He always listened to his mother and honored her request.
"You knew where this was going? But no you didn't stop it. You didn't want to stop it. Did you?"
She sobbed.
Nancy grabbed tissues from her nightstand.
She said, "It's different for boys."
She cried.
She blew her nose and stood up. She stepped to her dresser and looked at herself. She grabbed a tissue from a box on her dresser. She wiped the tears from her eyes.
She tried to lie to herself, "It's different with Dave and I."
She became angry at herself.
She spoke to herself, "Isn't this what Mom told you? That it was different when a Mom and a Daughter had sex?"
In vivid detail she remembered her eighteenth birthday. Her Mom prepared her a romantic dinner for two. She could easily recall on how awkward this was.
Nancy cried.
Out loud and angry at herself she looked in the mirror and screamed at herself. "Remember what she said?"
Nancy sobbed and grabbed more tissues.