CHAPTER 9 - MOTHER KNOWS BEST

One year before River’s birth...2499AD

“Big boys don’t cry Simon...” Reagan soothed as she held her five year old son in her arms, while kneeling on the floor in the very same spot, where she had found him not ten minutes ago, crying like his little heart was breaking.

Ignoring his mother resolutely, Simon sniffed loudly in defiance and wiped his nose on his sleeve, despite his mother’s hurried insistence of pushing a tissue into his hand.

“Don’t do that sweetie...” she scolded even as she pushed his hair off his forehead and kissed it, “It isn’t nice manners...”

“I hate him...”

Reagan grimaced, “You don’t mean that.”

“I do! I hate him!” Simon bounced up angrily in her arms, “He’s mean!”

Reagan shushed him and wondered with disbelief at the way her usually well-behaved son was taking the first harsh word he had ever gotten from his father. The day Reagan told her husband that they were going to have a son, was the finest day of Gabriel Tam’s life. What greater gift could a wife have given, to a husband who wore his noble lineage like a badge of honour, than to present him with a healthy son and heir, to carry on that proud family name?

Gabriel might have been called, at worst, an indulgent father. He simply adored Simon and tended not to deny him anything which was within his power. As a consequence, he allowed his son the greatest freedom in most things, but Simon’s little foray into Gabriel’s office had caused such damage to his source box that Gabriel had lost all patience and shocked Simon (who was by all accounts the most resilient of children) into actual tears.

And now, here Reagan was, cleaning up the messy aftermath of the first father-son battle.

“Your father loves you Simon...” she spoke into his hair, as he clung to her in a way which he had never done so before, “ Now,” she pulled him away from her a little and said with a cajoling grin, “How about we go get an ice planet?”

Simon pressed his hot little cheek against her cooler one and whispered gratefully into her ear, “I love you mummy.”

If Reagan had known it was the last time she would hear it from him, she might have paid more attention.

The wave came just as she was about to turn in for the evening. Reagan was sitting at her dressing table, wiping off the make up that she put on without fail every morning, since she was sixteen. It wasn’t that she was particularly uncomfortable with how she looked without it, after all, people had been telling her since she was a girl that she was good-looking. And even though time had not left her untouched, sans powder and lipstick, Reagan knew as she studied her reflection critically in the mirror, that she was still a handsome woman.

Someone less discerning (or a great deal more jealous) might have said that Reagan was a conceited and vain in her looks. But as far as she was concerned, she had every good reason in the world to be proud of how she looked. At a very young age she had understood the power she wielded – being nice to look at and charming had many advantages – and if you were smart, Reagan knew you could get anything you wanted with a careful choice of words.

Reagan liked to think that that was how she caught Gabriel. Wooed him and seduced him with witty banter and subtle workings of her eyes. But if she was honest with herself she knew it wasn’t all true. Of course, she had power over him. She made him do what any man in love might do for the woman of his dreams. But he had also cast a spell over her. Reagan had not spoken to him ten minutes before she knew she was going to fall for him. She wasn’t sure that she was going to marry him. Her mother had told her after all, that one didn’t always marry the love of one’s life. And if nothing else, Gabriel was going to be the love of her life. She had resisted at first, but their first kiss had been like the kiss of death. It had thrown her into a swoon (figuratively speaking) and she thought that she would never recover from it.

Of course, she had.

And now, here she was. all alone in the eerily quiet Tam house, staring at her crows feet with mild disdain, with only the muffled sound of Mrs Mavel watching her favourite soap opera for company, while her husband languished and wasted money with his Tall Card buddies at his club. She started with horror, upon seeing that she had developed a freckle (something apparently impossible as she was hardly ‘one for the sun’), and was wondering how she might get her beautician to remove it, when the beep of her TELEFONIX screen had pulled her out of her reverie.

She contemplated not answering it. She wasn’t really in the mood to talk to anyone tonight. But before she could decide, the shuffling footstep of Mrs Mavel coming towards her room told her that the woman had already answered it.

“Madam? It’s Master Simon...” Mrs Mavel gave the door a cursory tap as she walked in, “He’s looking for Mr Tam.”

Reagan blinked. She had honestly expected it to be one of her friends, calling to pass one some salacious piece of gossip about someone having an affair, or someone getting ‘work done’ on some sordid part of their body.

“Mr Tam’s not in. Just tell...” Reagan grimaced, seeing the frown come to Mrs Mavel’s face and felt (much to her annoyance) slightly guilty. She had, after the fight with Gabriel, decided that she might call Simon just to check up on him. But after reconsidering, she decided since she had nothing to say, that it would be pointless to bother him. However, with that accusatory look in Mrs Mavel eye, Reagan couldn’t help but feel the pang of inadequacy: you’re his mother, why won’t you even see him? they seemed to say.

“I’ll just take it in here...” she said in a quiet dignified voice and turned dismissively from Mrs Mavel.

“Of course madam.” Mrs Mavel twaddled out, and a moment later Simon’s face appeared on the vid screen.

“Mother!” the surprise registered all over Simon’s face, “I...I was looking for dad.”

All Reagan’s feelings of guilt immediately melted away and made room for hot resentment.

“He’s at his club.” She said shortly, not smiling at him.

“Of course, I forgot it’s Sunday...” Simon’s eyes went elsewhere for a moment, before he returned and said, “Can I talk to River then?”

It was like a slap in the face. He hadn’t even taken a moment to ask ‘ni hao ma?’ to his own mother. She raised an unimpressed eyebrow and said that River also, not at home.

“She’s at a dress rehearsal. You should call tomorrow if you want to talk to her. If she gets in late, I don’t want you to keep her up talking. She needs her rest.” Sure, it was a cheap shot, using River as ammo but really, Reagan couldn’t help feeling that this was all she had against him.

“I see.” He looked at her in a way which put her in mind so much of Gabriel that she felt like slapping it right off his handsome face.

“Yes,” she agreed nodding tersely.

There was a tense silence. Neither was willing to speak. Or maybe they were both waiting for the other to attack first.

“You’re looking well.” Simon nodded after the momentary lull, “How are things?”

She snorted quietly, and gave him a look, “Do you really care?”

“Of course I do mother,” came the slick reply, with the mildest of smiles, “How would you think otherwise?”

A whispery laugh escaped Reagan, as she was quick to spot that this demure front merely hid the fangs which were liable to sink in the moment she wasn’t looking. Her poor son, Reagan thought with a smile matching his, had she really rubbed off on him that much?

It was strange, she reflected idly, that they both seemed to know each other so well. Even if he didn’t really seem too happy about the idea that he had indeed ‘spawned from her’ (spawn would probably by the right word in Simon’s view of his mother) Reagan often saw little bits of herself, the favourite bits of herself in Simon. Of course, there was more of Gabriel in him, that sense of honour, the slight discomfort at large parties, the nobility and the way he loved with all his heart but only where he knew it was worthwhile – that was vintage Gabriel. But his dark, deadpan sense of humour, the bitter sugar coated comments which stung before the victim had time to realise, and the look that accompanied them? They were pure Reagan Tam.

“Things are fine…” Reagan answered at first and then reconsidering, “Well, for the most part at least. River had her interview at the Academy last week. It went well I think…but she’s being very foolish about it all.”

Simon frowned, his archness gone, “Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s of no consequence…” Reagan said dismissively “she’ll come around to it in the end.”

Simon pursed his lips, “What does dad have to say about this?”

Reagan almost groaned outloud and wanted desperately hit her head repeatedly against the screen. There it was - the customary question whenever it came to these things.

What does dad think? Surely his opinion of these things are more reasonable!

It was enough to drive a woman insane.

Reagan sighed quietly and took a moment just to appreciate the face that was looking at her with a sort of barely tolerant patience. Maybe, Reagan thought bitterly, he had seen as much of himself in her, as she had seen herself in him and he didn’t like it.

Reagan sometimes felt like Simon wasn’t hers. He was very much his father’s son – and he didn’t love her like he loved his father. It seemed the same case with both of their children. River was marginally better than her brother. But she had never seemed at ease in her mother’s presence, and tended to treat her with a polite sort of caution. Simon on the other hand seemed almost to despise her at times. It pained her to think she had let it go that far, since she had never intended to do it in the first place.

When he was younger, Gabriel hushed her worries. He was just a young man, spreading his wings, wanting to rebel, acting out against the one real figure of authority in his life. And so, she did what every desperate mother did. She threw money at him, buying his dedicated source boxes even when his father forbade it, let him out of the house even when his father had grounded him. She did it carelessly, like she didn’t care. In a way, she really didn’t. With Simon learning to resent her for not being ‘a mother’ he didn’t have to take the trouble of loving her. That was the way it was supposed to be, Reagan thought, it was only fair. She loved him in her own way, but she just couldn’t seem to love their children the way Gabriel did. She had seen women made slaves of love, given up wholly to the wolves of family and motherhood. Perhaps they were happier that way, but it was just not in the nature of Reagan Tam, to be a slave in any sense of the word.

Now, at twenty-one Simon hardly spoke to his mother. The kiss he put on her cheek when he came home for the holidays was cursory. His questions after her health, habitual. Very different from the warm handshake he shared with his father or the loving hug he gave his sister. It seemed now, that he was no longer living under her roof; he wanted nothing more to do with her.

Reagan wondered if she had let him go too early perhaps. His hurts might have been marginally less if she had kept him close a little longer. But she had disdained turning him into a mummy’s boy. She detested puppies like that. She saw that so much amongst her generation. Forty year old men who couldn’t close the bedroom door without asking their mother’s approval. She hated the idea of her son being attached to her like that.

So when he left for medical school she hadn’t wept overly much.

“I’m so very proud of you my sweet,” she had said touching his face like he was still a child. He didn’t like it, but he tolerated it.

She always talked down to him like that. She was able to rule his father, but there was something stronger Simon which made Gabriel dwarf beside him. A force of genius in him which made Gabriel seemed ineffectual – asserting her dominance was the only way Reagan kept from losing the tenuous hold she had over her son, - she knew he would resent her for it, for the rest of his life.

She smiled, “Do keep in touch.”

“Take care of River, mother…” Simon said pulling her hand away from his face and squeezing it so that she wouldn’t think he was throwing it away, even though she was completely aware that he was and she was sure he was too in his own way, “I don’t think father’s quite up to it…she needs to be taken care of.”

Reagan knew exactly what this cryptic sentence meant and she realised then how much of his trust and love she had lost. This dressing down of his father’s ability to keep up with his daughter she knew was not disrespectful. It was observant and the truth, and borne out of love for his sister. She knew he respected his father deeply and so she took this in the spirit it was meant – as a warning…to her to keep her claws out of River, while he was away, since his father would not be able to stop her.

“Of course Simon,” she said lightly, sharing a look with him which spoke volumes more than her words, “Don’t dawdle, you’ll miss your shuttle.” And she had practically pushed him out the door.

Reagan looked at the boy – the man now, she supposed – who was apparently her son; and wondered what it might’ve been like if she had let him love her.

“He’s very enthusiastic to have her go as well. He thinks it’ll be good for her,” she laughed at bit at his look of surprise, “Don’t be so shocked Simon! Your father and I do agree sometimes…you and me on the other hand…” she smiled in a way which might have been regretful, “We never quite saw eye to eye did we?”

“No mother...” He smirked, and cast his eyes down for a moment, raising them again a moment later, “But I still love you.”

His smile was cajoling and boyish, like he was nudging her knowingly and sharing a joke. But she sure as hell wasn’t laughing. These words may have been designed to fill a mother’s heart, but Reagan knew better, by the light in his eyes.

They were an empty consolation.

I still love you...because I have to love you...even though you’re a heartless bitch and I despise everything you stand for.

And that was that.

Reagan felt the regret rise in her throat like bile but swallowed it down promptly. Things were as they were, and they could not be changed. She had made a mistake, and now she was paying for it. This is what she deserved.

If you had looked at her now, it would be as if she were made of stone. Cold, implacable marble – lifeless and imposing. But beneath the surface turmoil reigns supreme. Apologies, love, confessions. Reagan forced down the words that threatened to spill forth like her tears. Instead, she plastered a grey, melancholy smile to her face and said quietly...

“I know you do Simon,” and she signed off.

Comments and Ratings much appreciated!! To read the preceding chapters please go to my Firefly log page by clicking on 'espritnoir' at the top of this page.