Good Luck Charm (Completed)

Better Days and Shorter Stays

       Vincent awoke incredibly embarrassed. Though Lucas had turned away from him the prior evening, he woke up to find the boy snuggled against him, arms wrapped around his waist. Lucas' head sat at his chest, and he wondered if the boy could feel his breathing and his heart beating. He was confused. He was embarrassed. Clearly Lucas wasn't ready for something like that. They'd had such an awful long day, and there he was letting his desires rule him like some sort of depraved heathen. 

      Sitting in the dark of the room, Vincent was certain that his face must have matched his hair in fiery redness. It wasn't fair; Lucas seemed to have no qualms. He lay with a peaceful tranquility sketched beautifully across his strong face. In his sleep he was free from anxiety and all other ailments that hurt his mental health. Vincent was jealous he could sleep. How could Vincent possibly have expected him to be capable of anything so soon after his body going through such panic, Lucas was probably exhausted. 

       Vincent lay for an hour, not daring to disturb Lucas. After that time he decided he needed to get up, move around, and free his mind from the duress of going through his actions a thousand times over again. The boy was careful not to disturb Lucas as he slipped from the boys inviting arms. Usually Lucas would be awakened by the loss of Vincent's warmth, but a panic attack is very strenuous on the body, and he remained in a deep slumber. 

      The boy tip-toed from the room in silence, careful to open the door as silently as possible. Lucas had stirred not a moment by the time Vincent reached the hallway, and he sighed in relief once the door was shut. 

      "Good morning." A quiet voice whispered, and Vincent looked up to see Jennifer Marshall sat on the couch. She was dressed in sweats, as Vincent had never seen her before, covered in a blanket, a clutching a mug likely full of coffee. She looked precisely like a mother, an icon Vincent had never seen in her. 

      "You're awake?"

      "Couldn't sleep." She whispered with a pained smile. "I don't think I'll sleep for a while."

     "I'm sorry." 

     "It's not your fault... It's mine." She shrugged in somber indifference. "I can't stop reliving the moment his face changed... the look of desolation the clouded his eyes, it haunts me. I see it every time I tried to sleep."

    Vincent wanted to say it wasn't her fault, longed to tell the formerly proud woman that the wasn't the direct cause of it; but she was, and they both knew it. How was one to lie and suggest that it was out of her control? The circumstances of her unhappiness were entirely at her own beckoning, which probably made it all the worse. Vincent instead elected to stay silent. 

     "He said.." She began, stopping only to catch her fragile voice. "He said not to be gone today, and so I'm not, but I booked a flight home this evening. I'll be gone by then, I- I hope you will watch over him while I'm not here, though I know it isn't right of me to ask you any favors."

     "I'll watch over him." Vincent said with finality, and there was something of relief in Jennifer's eyes. She sipped her coffee, which Vincent suspected had gone cold. "Ms. Marshall?"

     "Jennifer." She stated. 

     "Jennifer, for what my parental advice can be worth, which I'm sure is very little, I will say sometimes I suppose parents get so caught up in being the authority or someone their children can look up to that they feel as though it's a weakness to apologize. I mean to say... what I should say is that I never looked up to my mother any less for having the strength, the courage, to apologize. In fact it grew my admiration tenfold. To admit wrongdoing shows nothing short of integrity. There is no weakness in apologizing, only the strength of being a woman humble enough to admit that she was wrong."

     "Thank you... and I'm sorry to you Vincent. I'm very dearly sorry to you, more so than I can express at this time, more than I think I will know for a long while, but I am. I'll... before I go, I'll try... I mean I will apologize to Lucas." She looked down at her mug. 

      "Good."

      "It'll take me a while to get used to." Jennifer frowned. "This... you and Lucas... everything but... I know now that I've got to, that is of the very most important thing that I do... Provided I want to be in my son's life at all... there were times when I wasn't sure, and I'm embarrassed of my futility now. I do want to be in his life... I'd give anything to find a new place." She explained. 

      "He's a wonderful man, the best of all kinds. That is in no small part thanks to you.. you did raise him."

     "Raise him?" Jennifer chuckled bitterly. "Lucas did more to raise me than I ever did to raise him. He.. he never would have acted like this... he isn't a child grown to my tastes and morals like I wanted, he's a great deal better in spite of me."

     "No.. not in spite of you. Children never grow in spite of their parents." Vincent explained. "Only sometimes they learn through what's omitted, failed, or lost." 

      "Lost... that sums up everything with our family very well. Lost."

      "What's lost can always be found." Vincent smiled slightly. "So long as we keep looking." 

      "I'll keep looking until the end of my life."

      A great silence fell over the pair. Jennifer took Vincent's hand in her own, much like her son might do, and held it tight. She anchored herself to the spot on the couch, weary she might drift and float away into the abyss if she didn't grasp. 

      "Mom?" Lucas asked. He stepped into the room dressed still in his pajamas, but no air of sleep remained in his shimmering green eyes. His voice suggested his slight surprise she hadn't gone in the night brought by years of bitter disappointment. What was more to a broken but loving heart, was that she was sitting speaking to Vincent and not stewing in stubbornness casting everyone else the villain. "I think it's time we spoke."

       Lucas' voice was firm in tone and definite and meaning. Such a conversation was inescapable and the groundwork for it was laid over the entirety of his life. Vincent stood up and passed Lucas into the room, unwilling to intervene in any other intimate family matters. He squeezed Lucas' shoulder as he passed and Lucas shot him a look begging the boy not to leave. But he did. The discourse that would ensue was between mother, son, and no other. 

      Vincent sat alone in the quiet bedroom. There came from outside no sound of struggle, and Vincent contented himself with the fact that Jennifer must have already accepted her fate, as well as had her resolve destroyed by the prior day.

      Lucas and his mother had never been close. Lucas and his family had never been close. It wasn't a surprise that a lifetime of ignorance culminated in one act of neglect to end all other neglect. One act of carelessness to make all missed holidays, recitals, and sports games seem soft and warm in comparison. 

       At first Vincent wondered if such a difficult conversation could have been avoided, but the longer it stretched on, the more Vincent was convinced of it's perpetual necessity, and the fact that it would have come about in some eruption of character one way or another. No voices made their way through the door, but that only served to say that no great anger as to shake the residence was necessary. Vincent was certain that great sadness must have been shared by both parties regardless. 

      When supposing enough time had passed, Vincent exited from the room slowly, ready to dart back inside at a single shout of surprise. Instead he found Lucas sitting alone on his leather couch, watching the sun rise above the city scape out his large glass windows. Vincent ran to him, wrapping his arms around his neck and snuggling into him with deep embrace. 

      "She's gone." he said with a breathlessness that suggested he could hardly believe the fact himself. "She's really gone."

      "Forever?"

      "No." Lucas frowned again. "Not forever. Never forever."