[Angela Darmody was dead, her blood still congealing into the floorboards in a black stain, the heady odor of it mingling with ocean salt and sweet taffy in the stale air. Yes, it's a terrible, terrible thing to have happened to her son, to her grandson, even with the bitter revelation that the late Mrs. Darmody had had the gall to cheat on her loving husband. She understands grieving is a natural process, but really, now—it's beginning to feel a touch overdone. Exactly because this is such a vulnerable time, it is of utmost importance that he remain strong.
All her son needs, she insists, is the love of his mother. She handles the bumbling police officer, smooths over any probing questions they have, and comes to visit her darling Jimmy one day, when the clouds are gathering in a gray storm, sure to break out in downpour that evening. She brings him imported cigars to lift his spirits, and a basket of flowers, to bring a feminine touch to the place which it so sorely needs. She leaves the basket of daisies on the kitchen counter, smiling thinly at her son, his eyes rimmed with red.]
I really don't mean to sound cold, but—I think you've carried on like this for long enough, dear.
[He barely looks up when Gillian comes into the house, barely acknowledges her presence, which he's sure irritates the hell out of her, barely seems to process the fact that she's delivered a basket of something, something he undoubtedly won't find particularly useful, and then his mother'll be upset about that, too. She'll see it as a rejection. He knows her.
Her words reach him, though. Enough so that he breaks his staring contest with the table long enough to glance up at her, eyes narrowed, voice unusually quiet.]
How the fuck d'you want me to carry on?
[He doesn't have any idea how he should be carrying on. How can he carry on, when Angela's dead and it's his fault? People had told him he'd move past it, he'd recover, he'd start to forget things, but he knows better. People don't move past things, not really. They just find ways to hide them.
And Jimmy's never been good at hiding much of anything.]
[Her lips tighten imperceptibly, irritation rising like the stifling pressure of summer heat, but just as quickly smothered with another maternal gesture, her hand laying delicately on his shoulder. There is an understated firmness there, when she leans into him with the sway of her skirt, her weight resting against his solid build.]
I think, [A light stress on the word, her head dipping slightly, curls of red hair splayed across the white of his shirt.] you should think about the future. Tommy needs his father to set a good example, and you have friends that are looking to you.
It'll be just you and me, again. [Beloved son and caring mother, a whole, happy family. As it should be, as it should have always been. There is no one who knows him as well as she, who dotes after him with as much tender care, and who nurses him back to his full glory when he is laid so low.]
[A simple enough statement, but he doesn't have the energy to say anything else for a moment. He's tired. He's been tired for a long time. Maybe he's reached something beyond tiredness, now. Maybe it's just numbness. Even the rage that's so normally easy to stir up in him isn't as near to the surface as it usually is.
All he knows is that he shifts away from the hand on his shoulder a little -- he doesn't wrench away from her entirely, though there are times he'd like to, but he's too exhausted now, too fed up with fighting -- distrusting the way she leans into him, disliking the way she seems to want to gloss over all of this.]
Wouldn't be so bad? When my goddamned wife's dead? When my son doesn't have his mother? You really got an explanation for how that could be not so bad?
[His voice is still quiet, but his tone is caustic, and he knows it. And he knows Gillian won't like it.]
[She still speaks in honeyed tones, squeezing a little tighter on his arm, her nails pressing raw crescents into his skin. Grief makes people do awful things, say things they don't mean, and lash out in vicious ways, she knows full well. If he had only been thinking a little clearer, he would have hesitated twice before speaking. His muscles tense and strain beneath the gentle curl of her fingers, muttering bitterly, wrecked and ravaged by the death of his—well, truthfully, very unfaithful wife. For all they know, she could have been a tart, her body found splayed on top on another woman like that.]
But in time, you'll have other things to think about. Other people. [His one-man pity party was beginning to feel less respectful towards the dead, and more cumbersome for the living. She is here to support him, and no matter how he may protest, she is rightfully going to give him the firm push required to get him back on his feet.
If he won't meet her gaze willingly, she will have to meet his. Sinking to her knees, her heels scrape against the floorboards as she bends low, now meeting his eyes directly.]
The people who care about you most are right here.
[Any other time, talking to anybody else, it might have sounded like a revelation, but he knows full well what his mother wants. He knows she finds this tiresome, an irritation, a burden. He knows she can't -- or maybe just doesn't want to -- understand why the way she's squeezing his arm and the way she's speaking to him in that voice makes him so very uneasy, so very filled with something like anger... except it's quieter, tamer, so much more tired than it's ever been before.]
You want me to stop thinkin' about it because you don't wanna hear about it.
[She may drop to the floor before him, may seek to meet his eyes, but he'll do his best to look away from her direct gaze, no matter how childish it makes him appear. He knows that, to all appearances, he must seem pathetic, immature, irrational, but he doesn't care. If he could summon the words to tell her he just wants to be alone, he wouldn't. But he can't, so this token argument, this argument that can't possibly go well (if there's anything that could possibly go well anymore) is all he can give.]
[She corrects him: gentle but unyielding, urging him to look into her eyes, forcing him into having this conversation he wants to avoid. He needs to understand, she's not doing this to be cruel, and hurting him is the last thing she wants. But dwelling on the past never changes a thing, and now, it's time for him to stop acting like a little boy, and to be a man. He will thank her for it, one day, she knows. All of this will be put behind them. He just needs a little tough love, whether he appreciates it or not.]
Jimmy, darling. [She perches one slender hand on his knee, sympathetic, but her generosity can only stretch so far. The sparkling kingdom of Atlantic City awaits him, it needs a king to claim it. And no skinny waitress or cheating wife should be distracting him from that grand vision of his. Of theirs.]
You don't want to hear this.
[Because she can listen to him mourn his wife all day, but it's got nothing to do with not wanting to listen, it's not about wanting him to forget (really, he makes he sound so heartless). It's about taking responsibility at the right time, which he needs to do, for his family as much as himself. Surely, he can realize that?]
Well, you're right about one thing. I don't wanna hear it.
[It's not easy to hear, and he's not entirely certain he'll ever be ready to hear it. She can tell him not to dwell on the past all she wants, but she's not the one who has to live with knowing that his wife is dead, knowing that she's dead because of him...
It's all too goddamned much to think about. He meets her eyes for a moment, when she rests her hand on his knee, but looks away again almost immediately.]
Besides, how the fuck do I just move on from somethin' like this?
[It's part rhetorical question, part legitimate question. If she has answers, he'd really like to know them.]
[She has no answer to that. But if he must turn to his mother, expecting her to supply the answers to his every obstacle, then he is not the man she thought he was. Every king needs a queen, but he should not rely on her. That, especially to the keen and sharp eyes of their enemies, would be an unforgivable sign of weakness.]
You'll have to find that out on your own.
[She replies, firmly, but simply stating the end to this line of conversation. Throwing accusations around, sounding so rude to his own flesh and blood—a lesser woman would not forgive him, but she does. She understands him better than anyone else, and certainly better than himself in this state, addled by drink and drug and grief.
She straightens from her crouch, leaning just slightly over to press her lips flatly against his cheek. She is a loving mother, a patient mother, and he will see her way, soon enough.]
If you don't want to see your friends now, you can at least come stay with me for a while.
[She says, tender and sweet. Friends meaning the disgraced sheriff and irritable old men, who dare to strike her son until his face is bloody, old and ancient remnants of his father's glory days. They think that if he will not lead them, then Jimmy is nothing but a hollow idol upon their pedestal.
How very, very wrong they will learn they are.
All of the bootleggers and scum and sharp-tongued gangsters from Chicago to New York could not stop her Jimmy. Victory is in his blood, just as is leadership and cunning, and most of all, his will to survive. He will claw his way to the top, and wear the crown he is meant to have, even if it means she must dirty her hands for him.]
[It's not intentional, the way he flinches a little at the feeling of her lips on his cheek, but he knows she'll notice, and there's every chance she'll say something, and what's he supposed to tell her? That he not only doesn't want to see his friends -- his "friends," because truly, how many of them really qualify? -- but that he doesn't want to see her, either? That right now, he's having a hard time even knowing how he's going to look Tommy in the face, when all he'll see reflected back at him is Angela?]
I don't wanna stay with you.
[It comes out almost petulant, and a little slurred, and he winces at the sound of his own voice. Has it always been quite so pathetic, or is it just that way around his mother? She's always told him that he'll be a king someday, that he'll have his rightful place, and he believes that she loves him, he does, but...
But. She always acts as though she knows him, more than he knows himself, and in this state -- maybe in any state, maybe he'd just been too blind to see it before -- it makes anger rise within him, quick and hot as always.
He chokes it back with some effort. He strikes a tone that almost approaches confidence, that he hopes might do something towards reassuring her that he doesn't need to be watched after, that he doesn't need anyone to pry.]
You're right. [She'll like to hear that, won't she? She always does.] I've gotta figure it out on my own.
[She exhales sharply at that, a small, silent noise of frustration at how headstrong he is being. She catches the little flinch he makes, the bizarre aversion to touch, from his own mother! As if she would ever do a thing to harm him or deliberately make him uncomfortable. She smoothes her hand over his hair, affectionately petting him, but the sugary sweetness in her voice hides an bitter strength. Stubbornness, after all, runs in the blood.]
It's not about what you want, dear. It's about what's best for you.
[She touches him with more intimacy than a parent should touch her child. But doesn't that just show how much love she holds in her heart for him? Her world is nothing without him, and in this state of wrecked despair, he needs her more than ever, even if she must make the decision for him.
She pulls away, at last, still leaning over him but perhaps not so close. Having already closed the conversation in her mind, she reaches down to give his hand a pleased little squeeze, her warm fingers pressing over where it rests on his thigh.]
You're coming to stay with me.
[After all, there is no option for defiance in her perfect world, with her perfect son.]
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All her son needs, she insists, is the love of his mother. She handles the bumbling police officer, smooths over any probing questions they have, and comes to visit her darling Jimmy one day, when the clouds are gathering in a gray storm, sure to break out in downpour that evening. She brings him imported cigars to lift his spirits, and a basket of flowers, to bring a feminine touch to the place which it so sorely needs. She leaves the basket of daisies on the kitchen counter, smiling thinly at her son, his eyes rimmed with red.]
I really don't mean to sound cold, but—I think you've carried on like this for long enough, dear.
no subject
Her words reach him, though. Enough so that he breaks his staring contest with the table long enough to glance up at her, eyes narrowed, voice unusually quiet.]
How the fuck d'you want me to carry on?
[He doesn't have any idea how he should be carrying on. How can he carry on, when Angela's dead and it's his fault? People had told him he'd move past it, he'd recover, he'd start to forget things, but he knows better. People don't move past things, not really. They just find ways to hide them.
And Jimmy's never been good at hiding much of anything.]
no subject
I think, [A light stress on the word, her head dipping slightly, curls of red hair splayed across the white of his shirt.] you should think about the future. Tommy needs his father to set a good example, and you have friends that are looking to you.
It'll be just you and me, again. [Beloved son and caring mother, a whole, happy family. As it should be, as it should have always been. There is no one who knows him as well as she, who dotes after him with as much tender care, and who nurses him back to his full glory when he is laid so low.]
That wouldn't be so bad, would it?
no subject
[A simple enough statement, but he doesn't have the energy to say anything else for a moment. He's tired. He's been tired for a long time. Maybe he's reached something beyond tiredness, now. Maybe it's just numbness. Even the rage that's so normally easy to stir up in him isn't as near to the surface as it usually is.
All he knows is that he shifts away from the hand on his shoulder a little -- he doesn't wrench away from her entirely, though there are times he'd like to, but he's too exhausted now, too fed up with fighting -- distrusting the way she leans into him, disliking the way she seems to want to gloss over all of this.]
Wouldn't be so bad? When my goddamned wife's dead? When my son doesn't have his mother? You really got an explanation for how that could be not so bad?
[His voice is still quiet, but his tone is caustic, and he knows it. And he knows Gillian won't like it.]
no subject
[She still speaks in honeyed tones, squeezing a little tighter on his arm, her nails pressing raw crescents into his skin. Grief makes people do awful things, say things they don't mean, and lash out in vicious ways, she knows full well. If he had only been thinking a little clearer, he would have hesitated twice before speaking. His muscles tense and strain beneath the gentle curl of her fingers, muttering bitterly, wrecked and ravaged by the death of his—well, truthfully, very unfaithful wife. For all they know, she could have been a tart, her body found splayed on top on another woman like that.]
But in time, you'll have other things to think about. Other people. [His one-man pity party was beginning to feel less respectful towards the dead, and more cumbersome for the living. She is here to support him, and no matter how he may protest, she is rightfully going to give him the firm push required to get him back on his feet.
If he won't meet her gaze willingly, she will have to meet his. Sinking to her knees, her heels scrape against the floorboards as she bends low, now meeting his eyes directly.]
The people who care about you most are right here.
no subject
[Any other time, talking to anybody else, it might have sounded like a revelation, but he knows full well what his mother wants. He knows she finds this tiresome, an irritation, a burden. He knows she can't -- or maybe just doesn't want to -- understand why the way she's squeezing his arm and the way she's speaking to him in that voice makes him so very uneasy, so very filled with something like anger... except it's quieter, tamer, so much more tired than it's ever been before.]
You want me to stop thinkin' about it because you don't wanna hear about it.
[She may drop to the floor before him, may seek to meet his eyes, but he'll do his best to look away from her direct gaze, no matter how childish it makes him appear. He knows that, to all appearances, he must seem pathetic, immature, irrational, but he doesn't care. If he could summon the words to tell her he just wants to be alone, he wouldn't. But he can't, so this token argument, this argument that can't possibly go well (if there's anything that could possibly go well anymore) is all he can give.]
no subject
[She corrects him: gentle but unyielding, urging him to look into her eyes, forcing him into having this conversation he wants to avoid. He needs to understand, she's not doing this to be cruel, and hurting him is the last thing she wants. But dwelling on the past never changes a thing, and now, it's time for him to stop acting like a little boy, and to be a man. He will thank her for it, one day, she knows. All of this will be put behind them. He just needs a little tough love, whether he appreciates it or not.]
Jimmy, darling. [She perches one slender hand on his knee, sympathetic, but her generosity can only stretch so far. The sparkling kingdom of Atlantic City awaits him, it needs a king to claim it. And no skinny waitress or cheating wife should be distracting him from that grand vision of his. Of theirs.]
You don't want to hear this.
[Because she can listen to him mourn his wife all day, but it's got nothing to do with not wanting to listen, it's not about wanting him to forget (really, he makes he sound so heartless). It's about taking responsibility at the right time, which he needs to do, for his family as much as himself. Surely, he can realize that?]
no subject
[It's not easy to hear, and he's not entirely certain he'll ever be ready to hear it. She can tell him not to dwell on the past all she wants, but she's not the one who has to live with knowing that his wife is dead, knowing that she's dead because of him...
It's all too goddamned much to think about. He meets her eyes for a moment, when she rests her hand on his knee, but looks away again almost immediately.]
Besides, how the fuck do I just move on from somethin' like this?
[It's part rhetorical question, part legitimate question. If she has answers, he'd really like to know them.]
no subject
You'll have to find that out on your own.
[She replies, firmly, but simply stating the end to this line of conversation. Throwing accusations around, sounding so rude to his own flesh and blood—a lesser woman would not forgive him, but she does. She understands him better than anyone else, and certainly better than himself in this state, addled by drink and drug and grief.
She straightens from her crouch, leaning just slightly over to press her lips flatly against his cheek. She is a loving mother, a patient mother, and he will see her way, soon enough.]
If you don't want to see your friends now, you can at least come stay with me for a while.
[She says, tender and sweet. Friends meaning the disgraced sheriff and irritable old men, who dare to strike her son until his face is bloody, old and ancient remnants of his father's glory days. They think that if he will not lead them, then Jimmy is nothing but a hollow idol upon their pedestal.
How very, very wrong they will learn they are.
All of the bootleggers and scum and sharp-tongued gangsters from Chicago to New York could not stop her Jimmy. Victory is in his blood, just as is leadership and cunning, and most of all, his will to survive. He will claw his way to the top, and wear the crown he is meant to have, even if it means she must dirty her hands for him.]
no subject
I don't wanna stay with you.
[It comes out almost petulant, and a little slurred, and he winces at the sound of his own voice. Has it always been quite so pathetic, or is it just that way around his mother? She's always told him that he'll be a king someday, that he'll have his rightful place, and he believes that she loves him, he does, but...
But. She always acts as though she knows him, more than he knows himself, and in this state -- maybe in any state, maybe he'd just been too blind to see it before -- it makes anger rise within him, quick and hot as always.
He chokes it back with some effort. He strikes a tone that almost approaches confidence, that he hopes might do something towards reassuring her that he doesn't need to be watched after, that he doesn't need anyone to pry.]
You're right. [She'll like to hear that, won't she? She always does.] I've gotta figure it out on my own.
no subject
It's not about what you want, dear. It's about what's best for you.
[She touches him with more intimacy than a parent should touch her child. But doesn't that just show how much love she holds in her heart for him? Her world is nothing without him, and in this state of wrecked despair, he needs her more than ever, even if she must make the decision for him.
She pulls away, at last, still leaning over him but perhaps not so close. Having already closed the conversation in her mind, she reaches down to give his hand a pleased little squeeze, her warm fingers pressing over where it rests on his thigh.]
You're coming to stay with me.
[After all, there is no option for defiance in her perfect world, with her perfect son.]