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(had to make a cover photo... heee)
“So, Mrs. McGarrett, can I ask you a question?”
Doris flicks her eyes to Danny and then back to Clara. “Please. Doris. And of course.”
Clara nods, and pops a cocoa puff into her mouth. “As a mom, can you explain to me how you abandon your son at such a young age only to turn up over twenty years later to abandon him again?”
Steve coughs on his own bite of cocoa puffs, half of it landing on the table and bouncing into Danny’s lap. “Ma,” Danny chokes.
Clara shrugs. “Just a question.”
“No it’s fine,” Doris says, smiling easily at Clara. Steve catches Danny’s eye and Danny nods. He recognizes it as Doris’ I will Kill You With Bare Hands smile. “Fair question.”
“I thought so,” Clara says, smile widening. What Steve doesn’t know is that Clara’s smile has a name too. Danny will explain later that this was Clara’s I Will Make You Feel Two Inches Tall And Cause Massive Amounts of Guilt That Will Cripple You For Years smile.
“I’m not sure what your son, Danno, has told you--”
“Don’t call him that in that tone of voice,” Clara says, folding her hands on the table. “Danny, Daniel, Dan, that’s fine. But not that. Don’t corrupt my baby girls adorable nickname with your tone.”
Danny snorts. “Ma, seriously.”
“Don’t interrupt Daniel, I’m having a conversation with Doris.”
Doris laughs, easy and light. The only sign of any amount of stress is in the way her hands clench just ever so slightly as they lay folded together on the table. “Steven calls him Danno. I thought it was his nickname.”
“Steven,” Clara says pointedly, inclining her head in the direction of Steve but her eyes never leaving Doris, “says it with love.”
“As I was saying, I’m not sure what Daniel has told you, but I was a government intelligence agent--”
Clara giggles. “Fancy way of saying spy.”
Doris nods. “A spy, and it was dangerous to those around me, as my past was catching up to me so I left in order to protect them.”
Clara nods. “Okay. I understand that.”
“Good,” Danny says, interrupting and spreading his hands wide. “Now that that’s over with, why don’t we talk about the weather, jeez it’s balmy out here, maybe we should go surfing--”
“Except that only works for the first year or so,” Clara continues, and Danny shuts his mouth immediately. “Because, and this is just me, ya know, speaking as a mother, but for me? I mean, I may leave my kids to protect them for a little while but being that you’re so good at disappearing I don’t imagine it would be that hard to disappear with your entire family. So I’m not too clear on why it took twenty years and Steve’s father dying for you to come back… And then leave again.”
Doris licks her lips. “They had a life, Clara. Steven and Mary were in school. John had a job to do.”
“You’re right,” Clara says, nodding. “Of course, you’re right. I’m sure Steve’s lasting abandonment issues and sense of unloveworthiness are real thankful for your concern for his education.”
Steve blinks. “Uh.”
“Ma, I’m begging you.”
“You seriously told her I have a sense of unloveworthiness and abandonment issues,” Steve hisses across the table to Danny.
“I might’ve said you were damaged to some degree--”
“Damaged!”
“-- But I didn’t go into--”
“He didn’t have to sweetie,” Clara says, reaching across the table and taking Steve’s hand in hers. “I can feel it in the way you hug me and the look in your eyes.”
Steve looks away, but squeezes Clara’s hand and doesn’t let go.
Doris studies their hands for a moment and then smiles brightly. “Well perhaps you can give me a few lessons. Tell me. What Betty Crocker talents do you have that made your son afraid of his own shadow, as neurotic as Woody Allen, and so prone to hysterics that he’s probably going to stroke out any minute here.”
“I’m not afraid of my own shadow!”
Clara shrugs. “You kind of are.” Off of Danny’s look she pats his arm with her free hand. “It’s just because you love so much, and you wear your heart on your sleeve.”
“Ma!”
“So I guess my main crime is loving him too much,” Clara says, shrugging. “And yours is not loving enough. So maybe between the two of us we can have two well rounded sons, hm?”
“I love my son,” Doris says, and it’s said in the same kind of way one might say I’ll kill you where you sleep, and the first time Doris’ tone has belied any nonchalance she’s been portraying this entire time.
“But, Mom, see.” Steve falters, and lets go of Clara’s hand to drum on the table a bit. “The difference is, I’ve only met Danny’s mom like five times and she’s told me she loves me more than you have in my entire life.”
“That’s not true,” Doris says, glaring at him. “I tell you I love you.”
“When, when you’re in Japan? Tokyo? Columbia? Cambodia? Sitting alone in a hotel room ten miles down the road for a year without ever letting Steve know that you’re alive, and out there, still, ya know, existing in the land of the living,” Danny says, anger flashing in his eyes. “When do you have time to say I love you in the middle of all that?”
“Do you know how often I tell my son I love him,” Clara says, leaning closer. “Daily. We may not talk on the phone daily, but I text it when I don’t talk to him.” She waves a hand at Steve. “And then I text it to him.”
Danny blinks. “You do?” He turns to look at Steve. “She does?”
Steve nods. “For a while now, yeah.”
Danny frowns. “And you didn’t tell me?”
Steve shrugs. “I didn’t know I was supposed to?”
Clara shakes her head. “Nurturing is a very necessary part of mothering, Doris, but I guess they don’t teach you that in spy school.”
“Ma,” Danny says, miserably looking over at Steve for forgiveness. “Please, for the love of all that’s holy, please stop.”
“No, Daniel, I won’t,” Clara says, no longer smiling. “I come up here and meet this woman and I look at her and all the things she doesn’t say, and I look at Steve and all the things he doesn’t say, and I think, well. Doesn’t that explain so much.”
Steve laughs quietly to himself. “How do you guys do that?”
Danny shakes his head at him. “Do what? Say entirely inappropriate and untimely things in a totally unsuitable manner? Well now you see where I got that from,” he says, motioning to his mom.
She takes it as a compliment and grins and nods.
“See through people so completely,” Steve says, shaking his head. “I don’t know any two people who can read people so thoroughly with so little given.”
“You should see me play poker, Steve,” Clara says, eyes back on Doris. “I’ll wipe your bank account out.”
“No you won’t, you’ll wipe out mine because Steven is physically incapable of taking his wallet out of his pocket,” Danny counters.
“I love my God damned son,” Doris yells suddenly, slamming her hands on the table. “I did what I had to do to protect him and Mary and yes, John, but John couldn’t leave well enough alone, and I didn’t know he was going to ship them off like he did, okay? It killed me to leave them. If I’d’ve stayed it would have potentially gotten them killed, and I’d rather Steven have abandonment issues and feel unloveworthy then be dead, so sue me!”
Steve stares open mouthed and wide eyed at her.
Clara smiles, small and tired. “Was that so hard?"
Doris blinks. “What?”
“To admit that,” Clara says, sitting back in her chair. “This whole time I’ve been watching you you’ve been walking around like a zombie, so careful of what you say and how you say it, making Steve walk around on pins and needles and like he’s afraid to spook you away again because I don’t know if you know this but when you leave a kid, they think it’s their fault.” She reaches out and grabs Doris’ hand before Doris can slam it against the able again. “And I don’t say that to be cruel, I say that because I honestly think you just don’t know that. Your son bleeds for you on a daily basis, and I don’t think you know that either.”
Steve looks down and away, but not before Danny sees a tear fall.
“I can’t make up for twenty years,” Doris says quietly.
“No you can’t,” Clara says just as quiet. “But you can stop running away and holding him away from you a continent at a time.”
Doris gets up and walks out, leaving Steve and Danny to stare at Clara with nothing to say.
“That went well, actually,” she says with a small laugh.
Danny laughs, sharp and loud. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
“Daniel!”
“No, that sentence deserved a fuck,” Danny says with a nod.
Clara sighs. “Look, I’m sorry,” she says, smacking Steve on the arm until he meets her eyes. “I am. But sometimes a Mom just needs to call a Mom out.”
“I’m not angry,” Steve says, smiling softly. “That’s the first time she’s said she loved me that I didn’t hear the inherent but behind it.”
Clara grins. “Love you, Steven.”
He grins back. “Love you too.”
Danny slaps his hands on the table. “Okay, seriously? Since when do you tell Steve you love him?”
Clara looks at him. “Since he stood there with his hand on your shoulder when you told us Matty was gone forever,” she says. “I love anyone that loves my son like that.”
“Ma,” Danny says, blinking up at her as she stands.
“Come on,” she says, swatting Danny upside the head. “Gracie gets out of school soon and you said we were going to go visit Charlie today.” She looks at Steve. “You coming?”
Steve nods blankly, like he just can’t formulate any more words at this point.
“Wow,” Danny says as she walks out of the room. “She’s like a hurricane, just wreakes havoc and moves on.”
“Like mother like son,” Steve says, grinning at him. “Can we move her here?”