In Which RTT Reveals His Paternity
Jul. 6th, 2011 09:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_camera
Why do the people I love the most always lie to me? It must be something in my personality that invites it. I’m not a liar myself, if anything I’m the angel who rushes in where the fool fears to tread – so I don’t get it.
I suppose it's because I love them, but they don’t really love me…
Dropped RTT off at camp yesterday. Came home prepared to write a laudatory paean on the subject of how RTT turned his life around… but then I noticed my iPhone charger was missing. Okay, no biggie – replacements begin at $14 at Tarjay. Thing is … he'd told me he'd left his charger at Justin's; he’d actually had me drive somewhere so he could “meet” Justin. He got out of the car to meet Justin! Mission successful! he told me, getting back into the car: he got the phone charger back.
So he lied to me.
More than lied to me – he staged an elaborate scenario so reminiscent of Ben at Ben’s absolute predatory worst that it chilled me.
On the drive back from Hidden Valley, Ben had been garrulous and chatty in a way I found deeply annoying though I couldn’t put my finger on it. These days I waft in and out of thinking, He’s wonderfully intelligent and perceptive and he’s a braying donkey’s ass. Jayne LeGro, as ever psychically attuned to the immense threat I present to her property rights, managed to have an end table fall on her head while we were dropping Robin off so she called Ben numerous times from the urgent care center where she went to have the lacerations treated. Good, thought I. Maybe the bitch will get a subdural hematoma and drop dead. But said nothing, dropped Ben off at the urgent care center with a smile.
And came home.
And found out that Robin is exactly like his father.
See, that’s the thing. Why should Ben turn over that new leaf with Jayne LeGro and not with me? Or has he turned over a new leaf? Has the tissue of his little lies, confabulations, falsehoods already become a tumor in their lives? And why should I care?
Well, I shouldn’t.
Except that again and again I keep coming back to the question: Why did he lie to me? Why doesn’t he lie to her? Is she better than me in some way?
And I think, It doesn’t matter, and it really wouldn’t matter if I had more of a life here.
On the phone, my cowgirl sister, who’s a hard core pragmatist about her flakey spirituality, tells me bluntly, “It’s a life lesson. You gotta learn it or it just keeps hitting you over the head.”
Hey! I'm not the one who got attacked by the end table. And what’s the syllabus anyway, Kenneth?
I’m turning off Robin’s phone. And I’m going to write him a letter, downplay the drama, just tell him I'm deeply disappointed in him.
Seriously though? I think RTT might be better off living with his father at this point – let Ben deal with his Frankenstein monster. This would pave the way for me to get the hell out of Dodge. I’m sick of martyring myself for a kid who views me as just another victim. I really have been a good mother under God awful circumstances. I don't deserve this.
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no subject
Date: 2011-07-06 02:12 pm (UTC)Favoriteson has provided me with many unforgettable hours of similar frustration...
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Date: 2011-07-10 01:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-11 03:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-06 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 01:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 03:16 pm (UTC)Anyway, the ideas are not mutually exclusive.
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Date: 2011-07-07 06:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 01:44 pm (UTC)I don't know, actually. I believe in redemption. Maybe she redeemed him.
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Date: 2011-07-07 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-10 01:45 pm (UTC)Damned if I know. It wasn't like I wasn't going to find out immediately