The Only Solution

"Wait? You said he was rude and impossible to talk to when you met him," Mr. McNeil said, shifting the mood suddenly.

"Well, Harper and I met with her and she told us about his tendencies to splurge on women and a perverse lifestyle. For God's sake, she told me about the harem he had in school! He's even been in prison and only got out because of his parents' money. Something he repaid by screwing them all over!" Mrs. McNeil explained. "I know all about your disgusting debauchery! I won't stop speaking until the world knows!"

Wow! My mother must've spun quite the tale to this woman for her to be against me like this. It makes me wonder exactly what Helen told them.

"For the record, my son has never done any of those things. Honey, we've tried being diplomatic, now I'm going to solve this my way," Mr. Azure put down his cup of coffee and clapped his hands three times. On cue, a well-dressed man brought over a manila envelope.

"What the hell is this?" Mrs. McNeil snapped.

"A document stating that if any slander of my son can be traced back to you, it won't go unpunished. It also states that you'll stop pressuring Jasper into whatever Ms. Arsenault has planned. Should I see any slander from the McNeil family or Harper Arsenault in any publication, I will take immediate legal action that I guarantee you cannot afford."

"You can't do that!" Mrs. McNeil said.

"Who's going to stop me?" Mr. Azure crossed his arms. "You've already been served."

Harper suddenly got up and lunged for me, picking up and throwing a glass in the process. The glass shattered on top of Jasper's head as he quickly moved to block me from the sudden attack.

"Jasper! I didn't mean to hit you!" Harper snapped out of rage mode immediately. Jasper touched where the glass hit and pulled his hand away, showing a red palm. Immediately I looked away so I couldn't see the blood. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, Sugar. Just let me wipe this off, don't look," Jasper said.

Luckily, the maid in the room quickly tore her apron off and pressed it to Jasper's head. I kept looking away from him as I instructed the maid to get Harper out of our sights and to arrest her should she step foot on my property again. "Can I turn around now?"

"Yup, I've got it contained," Jasper said.

Mr. and Mrs. McNeil sat there in shock at what had just happened in front of them. I guess it did all go by pretty quickly. I turned back around to try and tend to Jasper, who had the apron firmly wrapped around his head, just to be sure he was alright, but I was stopped. "Don't. You'll just faint. It's swelling out and the bleeding will stop in a bit."

"Jasper, are you—"

"This is why I said I hated her, Mom. It isn't even the first time she's done this. Are you going to tell me that was my fault as well?" Jasper cut his mom off, looking clearly annoyed. "I even gave you two a heads-up that she was just using you guys for your money! You let her break up our family over something that will never affect anyone else with that religious nonsense."

"The Bible says—"

"Oh please, we've barely even attended a mass before, let alone prayed about something. And if you want to pull the Bible card, it says not to engage in fruitless gossip, which you do consistently on a daily basis! You have tattoos! You curse God several times a day! You don't even understand the meaning of Lent," Jasper ranted. "You were never a good Catholic that was worried about my soul until Harper came around and ruined everything! You just don't like Alex for some reason. Get over it!"

"It's not because of that!" Mrs. McNeil sobbed.

"You're a cop and you don't know how to investigate who you're suspicious of? Since when did you start operating on hearsay? With the way you're acting, your arrest records should really be evaluated or maybe you should start getting some mental health help."

"Are you implying that I'm crazy?" she asked.

"Yes!" Jasper snapped. "You've been crazy for years now! Dad only goes along with it because he loves you and has no backbone!"

"Calm down and tend to your wound, Jasper. I'll handle this," Mr. Azure finally spoke up. "You'll arrest that girl for assault, correct? I clearly saw her assault my son-in-law."

"Arrest Harper?! Have you lost your mind?" Mrs. McNeil snapped while Mr. McNeil put his head in his hands. "We will never—"

"Ines, we... we have to." Mr. McNeil spoke up over his wife to her surprise. "Harper clearly attacked him and there are witnesses. We saw it too."

"We are NOT arresting Harper," Mrs. McNeil remained stubborn.

"Fine, then I'll push to get an internal investigation going and have you two removed from your positions on the police department," Mr. Azure threatened.

"You can't do that!" Mr. McNeil yelled.

"You'll find that I have quite the influence anywhere I go, Mr. McNeil. You know when you've met someone truly powerful. Are you really going to lose everything because your wife wants to be stubborn, or do you two really just not care about your son?"

"Who are you to judge us on what we do?" Mrs. McNeil snapped.

"We're only judging what you've put out there. So far that's just how much you hate our son and don't love or respect yours. It's a shame really; Jasper is such a lovely young man," Mrs. Azure sighed. "I thought I was going to meet amazing parents, but I guess he's just that good on his own."

"My son is just rebelling and being ungrateful. This is just a phase," Mrs. McNeil tried.

"He's not a teenager! He's thirty!" I spoke up a bit more. "For fuck's sake, he was just assaulted protecting me and is currently bleeding! Why are you trying to cover that up? If she isn't arrested, not only will you two get fired, I'll get everyone in your family of working age fired and blacklisted for three generations!"

Mrs. McNeil trembled a bit, but she started to finally look at Jasper with that stupid apron around his head. Part of it was already saturated with blood, so much so that I had to look away quickly. "Don't trouble my family, we'll arrest her. I... I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me; I know you don't mean it! You should apologize to Jasper; he's the one who loves you two here," I sighed. This may be why Jasper's self-esteem was so low and why he clung to me like he did. He might not be able to take another relationship shift of any kind.

"She doesn't know how to be wrong, Sugar. Don't waste your breath."

"I don't want you to be gay. I raised a man, not a gay! I introduced you to many women so you could choose a good wife," she said.

"Which is why I stopped meeting you for a few years one on one," Jasper explained.

"I picked out all your friends so you wouldn't go down this awful path," she continued.

"I haven't spoken to those people since I graduated high school. You know that, Mom."

"I did everything right! Why are you like this?" she cried a bit harder. At this point, I wasn't buying it. Her cries felt a lot like the manipulation Emily used to frequently use to get her way.

"Do you hate Jasper?" Elizabeth asked.

"I love him! That's why I'm trying to save his soul!" Mrs. McNeil cried desperately.

"I dated a priest once; he told me only God can save a soul. So what gives you the right to save anyone's soul when even a priest can't do that? Do you think you're a god or something?" Elizabeth's question effectively shut Mrs. McNeil up. Her hypocrisy was called out completely by this point.

"I....I...."

"All you have to do is say why you turned on me and start respecting my marriage," Jasper said.

Mrs. McNeil looked incredibly conflicted. "Why wouldn't I believe my friend when she told me about her son?"

"You thought Helen Reed was your friend? She's using you to get Jasper to leave me and make Todd Corporation stock plummet. If that had happened, I could've easily held you accountable and sued you for damages. Helen wouldn't hold out someone else's hand to help you had I done that," I said. "She doesn't care about you; she just wanted to cause trouble for me. Had she succeeded, you would've been broke, I would've lost my business, and Jasper would've lost a high-paying job and a big home as well as been publicly embarrassed in the business world. His entire career would end being sabotaged before it started. Helen wouldn't help you then either."

"I didn't mean to humiliate him," Mrs. McNeil muttered.

"You didn't mean to so much that you paid a journalist to portray him as a weak-minded cuckold in a public article? You were really trying to protect him then, weren't you? I still haven't gotten back at you for that," I remembered. Why did I keep forgetting about her like this? "Whatever, this is about Jasper, not me. Are you going to forgive your mom or not?"

"Jasper, I didn't... please forgive me," she looked like teeth were being pulled. Did she hate being wrong this much?

"I won't think about it until Harper is arrested," Jasper said firmly.

"I'll have someone—"

"No, Mom, I wanted you to arrest her personally. That's the only way you can prove anything to me at this point," Jasper said.

"Jasper, I can't—"

"Then you've picked your side; now stay there."

"No, I just... I've taken care of Harper, I watched her grow up. She's like a daughter to me," Mrs. McNeil cried. "Please don't make me do this."

"If only you cried for me like that," Jasper sighed.

Eventually, it became clear that the conversation was going nowhere as Mrs. McNeil just resigned herself to crying uncontrollably.

"I'll make sure Harper is handled by the end of today," Mr. McNeil assured us while trying to quiet his wife.

"I said Mom has to do it, or else the deal is off. I don't care that she's crying," Jasper said.

The room was silent again, the weight of the words lingering in the air. Mrs. McNeil's sobs had turned to quiet sniffles, her defiance finally breaking under the pressure of reality. Mr. Azure's calm authority had left no room for argument, and Jasper's firm stance was the final nail in the coffin. The McNeils had been outmatched in every way, and they knew it. The realization that they had lost was evident in their defeated expressions.