Author: Daydreamer
Date: 16 March 2003

We Cannot Change the Past

I've been sitting here for a while now, and really, none of it makes any sense. Blair seems to blame me for bad things that happened to him, and Jim seems to want to hold me responsible, too. I just don't understand it. Well, Jim maybe. I mean, he's a cop, and blame is their whole bag.

But Blair ....

He knows better. I've told him over and over again, you cannot change the past. He should be more understanding. He should know how hard it was for me, being a young mother, on my own, having to raise a child. He should know I didn't have it easy. I used to tell him all the time; you'd think if he were as smart as everyone says, it would have sunk in.

I just don't understand why everyone always wants me to be responsible when bad things happen. Every time I break up with someone, they tell me it's because I have problems. But honestly, look at me. How can someone like me be the one with the problems?

I mean, I'm in touch with my inner self. I keep my aura clean. My karma is good. I work for just causes and am always willing to take off for a good cause on the spur of the moment. I give and give and give of myself, and yet, I'm the one sitting here on the sofa, while Jim is outside worrying over my son.

I do not understand it.

The door opens and I hop up immediately. I'm not going to lose control of this conversation again. Before we're finished tonight, my son is going to know how badly his actions have hurt me.

"Blair, sweetie ...." I say, rushing to embrace him.

He holds up a hand and I stop.

"Just slow down a minute, Naomi," he commands, "and let's all sit down."

I am insulted, but I flop back down on the couch, waiting as directed. Jim says something to Blair, then he glares at me and motions toward the chair. I stay where I am, stubbornly refusing to move, until I see that Blair is not going to move until I do. Then I rise and sit in the chair, while my son and Jim take the couch.

They're not touching, but there is something territorial about the way Jim sits with Blair, the way he holds his body and the way he stares at me. I wait for Blair to speak, and, for once, he is silent.

Finally, because it is becoming obvious that if I don't say something, we'll be sitting here all night, and I have one objective now: get past Jim and out the door. I simply do not need this stress.

I point to the old cardboard box on the table and ask, "What is that?"

Blair's eyes dart to me, then he snatches up the box and hugs it to his chest. "They're mine," he says fiercely, as if I would want to take them away. Old pieces of tissue and toilet paper, stained with lipstick. I've never understood the way this child's mind works. But I look at Jim, see the steel in his eyes, and I say, "I always loved you, baby. You never lacked for kisses and cuddles."

He mutters something under his breath, and I look up quickly. "What did you say?" I ask.

But he's being coy now, and he won't repeat himself. His cop will though. "He said, 'except when you weren't there,'" Jim says, with just a little too much pleasure at my discomfort to have really been trying to help. Why do they both want to make me so miserable?

I get up and wander over to the kitchen, taking some cleansing breaths in the process. "Blair," I say, calling him to make sure he is listening to me. When he looks up, I remind him, "You were a child, and I'm sure your memory is tainted by that child's emotions." I give him a smile, the one that lets him know I know has done something very wrong, but I will still love him. "I really wasn't gone that much, or that often."

He simply stares at me, then says, "This is what you always do, Naomi. You invalidate my feelings in order to make yourself feel better."

"I do not!" I cannot believe he said that to me! I understand feelings. I know feelings. I'm the one who taught him about feelings, for goodness sakes.

Feelings aren't right or wrong, they just are. And my feelings are feeling pretty well dented at this point. What a cruel and callous thing for my son to say.

"Yeah, Mom, you do." He passes that disgusting little box over to his lover, then stands. "You always have. When we lived with Don, I tried to tell you what he was doing to me -- I tried over and over again. And you never listened to me."

Oh, God! Are we going to talk about Don again? He's as tenacious as a dog with a bone. I sigh and say, "You were a little boy, hardly more than a baby. You'd never been disciplined in your life." I am really starting to get angry at all this. You can't change the past! "How was I supposed to know he was being too harsh?"

Blair just looks at me like I have two heads. "Hello? How about -- because I told you?"

"Oh, Blair," I say softly, trying to get him to see reason, "if Don had swatted you on the butt, you'd have thought he was being too harsh. I told you, you'd never been disciplined like that before."

And of course, Blair's own personal champion has to speak up. I mean, I guess he doesn't feel like he's managed to hurt me enough tonight.

"What Don did to him was not discipline, Naomi," Jim says. His voice cracks from worry, or tension, or concern, or maybe just love, and it infuriates me.

"Oh, and thank you very much, Mr. Detective Investigator," I snap, spinning around to glare at him. "I'm sure you're the one to blame for all this, this -- unpleasantness." It would be such a cop thing to do. One little clue that there might have been a tiny bit of -- discomfort -- in his lover's past, and he just can't let it alone. Even though he's driving a wedge between me and my son. "What happened? Did Blair have one of his nightmares, and you just couldn't leave it alone? Had to go digging into the past?"

Jim starts to rise, but Blair motions for him to stay put, and he stays. Big and strong and yet, so submissive. I've played those games, too. But -- my face flushes as I redirect my thoughts....

I look at Blair. "You should know by now, the past belongs in the past. It doesn't do any good to drag it out -- you can't change what's happened." I don't know what he wants from me. "You just have to move on and try to forget."

Blair moves to stand in front of me. "I can't move on, Naomi," he says. "I'm stuck. Jim found my paper kisses -- "

"I knew it! I knew he was responsible for this!" Of course my son knows better than to dredge up the past. I should have realized sooner it was all Jim's fault. I look over at Jim, still sitting on the couch with his jaw clenched tight and his hands clutching the cushions. I can't help but smile. He looks so uncomfortable. Guess he's realized that Blair is going to see through him now, that Blair will finally understand that all this digging in the past that cops love to do is not the right thing for a son of mine.

"It was going to come up, Naomi," Blair says.

He's pulling his 'I'm so tired' act again, and it's just as old now as it was when he was ten. I'd come home from a trip and he'd act exhausted, like he hadn't been able to sleep the whole time I was gone. Like his world had crashed around him, and I had abandoned him or something. Really, it got very old.

"There was no way to avoid it. I've had nightmares ever since I moved in with Jim. He, uh, he always thought they were related to the things I saw and did on the job."

I look at Jim again, wondering what he has been doing to my child. "Is what you see, what you do, so dreadful that it gives you nightmares?" I ask.

"Sometimes ...." Blair answers with a shrug.

"You see? Blair, this is not good for your karma." I don't understand how he can go against everything I've taught him. How can he choose Jim over me, his own mother? "Just look at the pain you've already caused me. Being with Jim -- this whole situation is just full of delusion and hostility." I take another cleansing breath and close my eyes. I am determined not to let him disrupt my aura any more.

"Naomi, there's delusion here," Blair says to me, "and there's hostility, but it's not coming from me. You're the queen of delusion."

I refuse to acknowledge him. He has no business -- no right! -- trying to make me feel bad about something that happened ages ago.

"I was scared, Mom," Blair says in this little boy voice. "I was lonely and afraid. You were all the family that I had and you just kept leaving. All the time, you were leaving. You never seemed to care about what it was like for me when you were gone."

I have had enough! "I wasn't gone that much, Blair." I open my eyes to look at him and see he looks shocked at my words. That would be my son -- let someone challenge his version of reality, and he is offended that anyone would doubt him. Honestly -- I sometimes wonder if he's really mine. "You act as if you were left alone for all of your childhood." I make my own accusations and see the shock change to speculation on his face.

"Answer me this, Naomi -- tell me how many times you think you left me behind when I was growing up."

He's yelling at me again, and I do not understand how he can treat me this way.

"How many times?"

Why won't he realize you cannot change the past? Why won't he let it go? "Oh, Blair, sweetie, this is no good. You know you can't be so focused on the past -- it's not good for you."

Jim steps over and touches Blair, then orders, "Answer him, Naomi."

I want to ignore him, but there is something in his eyes that compels me to reply. "I don't know. Ten, maybe twelve times." It makes me furious. How dare he force me to talk about this? Jim is not even involved! Just Blair. Blair who was always stirring things up, making it impossible for anything to ever work out. So you want to talk about the past, do you, Blair? Well, how about what it was like for me? I look over at him and say, "It seemed to me that you were always there."

He pales and I think -- good. Maybe he's finally beginning to see how painful all this is for me.

"One hundred and seventeen," Jim says, but he's looking at Blair, worrying about Blair, totally focused on Blair. No one seems the slightest bit concerned that I am in pain here. "You left him one hundred and seventeen times."

I can't believe my son would imply such a thing! How could he? It's like he was a child all over again, always whining and crying about me leaving as if I could ever really get away from him. "Don't be ridiculous," I snap at the two of them. "Of course I didn't. If that were the case, I'd have been gone more than I was there."

"That about sums it up, Mom," Blair says, and he sounds as if he were the aggrieved party here. That would be my son -- always thinking of himself. "You not only weren't there when I was four and Don was beating me with his belt, his fist, his feet -- you weren't there when I was seven and Terry used to smack me for 'being smart.'

I don't know what he wants me to say. I've already told Jim that as soon as I realized how violent Don could be, that he could really hurt me -- or Blair -- I'd gotten us out of there. And as for Terry, well, I had to suppress a frown. I'd really liked Terry and I'd tried so hard to make things work with him. But Blair just irritated him all the time. I'd tell him to stay in his room, spent a fortune on books for him, and still he was just always there, talking about something he'd read, telling us about something he'd seen on TV or done at school. It drove Terry nuts to be upstaged by a kid. I used to tell Blair that if he'd just be quiet, Terry wouldn't get so upset. But could my child listen? No. And now he wants me to believe it was my fault that he was such an irritating child? Honestly!

"Or when I was eleven and Vince used to knock me around for getting in the way."

Vince was different. There was something -- dangerous -- about him. He hit me, too, and believe me, that was it. I took my kid and we were history. Blair should be thanking me, not trying to blame me for that one.

"And you weren't there when I was eight -- you fucking lost me for six months when I was eight! I was passed from person to person and place to place and each time I was less wanted and more of a nuisance, and the last time, Naomi, the last place was -- awful."

Well, of course, leave it to Blair to bring that up. Like I knew Starlight would get in an accident, and her cousin would get married. I mean, none of that was exactly planned, was it? He moved into the kitchen and began to fill the kettle. I did feel bad about him getting shuffled around like that, really I did, but why couldn't he see that it wasn't my fault?

"Do you remember?" he asks me. "You left me with Rainbow or Sunlight or something like that."

"Starlight," I correct him absently. This whole scene is bothering my aura. I've started shaking. That can't be good for me. I am going to have to leave. I will not have him upsetting my positive energy like this.

"And then Starlight was in that accident. So her cousin took me in. What was her name?"

"Freedom," I say as I take a step toward the room under the stairs and my things.

"Yeah, Freedom."

"I visited them when I was looking for you," I remind him. I mean, it wasn't like I just went off and left him forever. I came back. I found him. I took him with me. What else did he want? "They seemed like nice enough people, even if they were a little square." I took another step.

"They pretty much ignored me, which was okay. I'd have been okay there, but then Freedom decided to be Janie again, and she got married. And you don't take a kid on the honeymoon. So she left me with her neighbor -- Beverly."

Jim looks sick. His face is positively green, and you'd think someone had just kicked him in the belly. All this worry over Blair, and something that happened nearly twenty years ago. Why isn't anyone concerned with what this stress is doing to me? "I know all this, Blair," I say, interrupting him. Maybe he's forgotten how inconvenient it all was for me. "It took me over a week to track you down, and then I had to drive all the way to Texas to get you."

He just nods. Not a thank you for my efforts, not a bit of acknowledgement that I had a hard time of it, too. Just a nod, and he's talking again.

"Yeah, Beverly's husband got transferred and they took me with them. You ever wonder why that was, Mom? Didn't it seem a little weird? I mean, I was just some strange kid -- not theirs, I didn't even belong to someone they knew. Nobody was paying them to keep me. But they sure as hell didn't want to let me go."

The kettle overflows, and Jim moves to stand behind Blair. He turns the water off, then sets the kettle on the stove. I can tell he wants to say something, or do something, but he just stands there, like he's standing guard over Blair.

As if my son would ever need a guard to protect him from me.

"Why do you suppose that was?" Blair asks curiously, looking at me.

Why does he insist on doing this? My aura is positively brown and it makes me frown. "There's no point in bringing this up, Blair. The past is past. Nothing can be done to change it."

"Maybe I need to talk about it," he says petulantly. "Maybe I need to get it out so that I can process it."

This is so like my son -- always thinking about what he; wants, what he needs with no thought of what I might want or need.

"Maybe I just want my mother to hear me and tell me it wasn't my fault."

He's truly deluded himself, hasn't he? If it wasn't his fault, whose fault was it?

"You remember Frank, Mom? Beverly's husband."

I remember. It was terribly -- unpleasant. "I don't want to talk about this, Blair."

"He liked to play with me."

"That's enough. It's over, it's done. Nothing can change it." But he's not listening to me -- he just keeps talking and talking and talking. He never listens!

"I liked it at first. It was just a little roughhousing, you know -- guy stuff. Or what I imagined was guy stuff. I wouldn't really know. Most of the guys you hung around with didn't want to have anything to do with me."

I've had enough. I glance over at Jim and see he is focused totally on Blair. He'll have to let me go now. "I'm leaving now, Blair," I tell him as I move swiftly to pick up my bags. Blair acts like he hasn't heard me -- he's still talking. I simply will not listen to this.

"I didn't realize how nice that was until after Frank. After Frank, I was glad when your friends ignored me. Hell, I was glad when all Vince wanted to do was knock me around."

I've got everything now, and I'm ready to go. I look at my son and remind myself of how much I love him -- how much he needs me. This visit hasn't gone well, but that's okay. It'll be different next time. He's just -- unsettled -- by this new relationship with Jim. When he's had a chance to calm down, it'll be okay. I can afford to be the bigger person here, so I tell him, "I'll call you when I'm settled somewhere. We both need time to let some of this negative energy fade."

"After a while, Frank didn't just roughhouse. He touched me."

I let the words flow over me, refusing them admission. I do not need to hear this. I will not hear this. "I love you, sweetie," I call cheerfully as I head for the door, but, suddenly, Jim is there blocking my way, and I am forced to listen.

"Then he used to come in my room at night, Mom. He'd get in the bed with me. I told Beverly, Mommy, I did. I told her it hurt and I didn't like it and to please, please make him stop, and you know what she told me? You know what she said, Mom?"

I can't stand this -- I don't want to hear this. I shake my head and silently plead with Jim to let me go.

"'Better you than me, kid,' that's what she said. 'Better you than me.'"

I can't deal with this. My hand comes up to my mouth, and I wonder what it will take to make Jim move.

"I begged her to call you, Mommy. I used to cry at night for you to come and get me. I was with them for four months -- four months! And he was always, always there. There was nowhere to go to get away. I couldn't hide."

"I'm sorry, Blair," I whisper, hoping it will be enough. Hoping those are the words that will win me my freedom. "I'm sorry. I have to go."

It works. Jim steps aside, and I immediately move forward, but he grabs my arm.

"Get a hotel and call me tomorrow, tell me where you are. Do not leave Cascade." The orders are hissed into my ear through clenched teeth.

"I'm leaving," I insist. "You can't make me stay."

"If you make me, I will track you down," Jim says, gripping my arm. "I tracked down Don and he's dead now."

I can't believe he would threaten me like that. I'm scared and it shows. How could he do this to me?

"Do us all a favor, Naomi -- don't make me have to look for you."

I can hear Blair crying behind me as I stare up into Jim's ice-cold eyes. Deciding discretion is the better part of valor, I resign myself to getting a room at the Airport Hilton and nod.

He lets me go, and I am free at last.