Talking in Circles

"It's certainly not worth getting upset over, my boy."

Mom nodded sagely. "It's true."

"I don't think you're considering the totality of context here, Pop."

Mom tilted her head toward Jason in concession. "Absolutely."

"There are worse things in the world than vampires," Pop said. "Murderers, thieves, takers of innocence." He said the last glancing toward his wife.

"Your father's correct you know, Jason."

"Have you considered that he is, perhaps, all of those things? And more?" Jason slumped in his chair and crossed his arms, muttering under his breath, "Takers of innocence, indeed."

Mom patted the table toward Jason as if she could coax the distance between them to collapse. "Jason is making a very salient point." She picked up some of the law language over the years, between father and son.

Jason wasn't liking any of this. Both Mom and Pop were acting bizarrely casual, considering the nature of the situation. The more he knew, the more he felt like he was out of the loop. He shook his head. "I don't know about this, is all."

Pop was standing at the coffee pot now, pouring another cup. "Is this because you don't want to change your direction in life? Well, you don't have to. The Count rarely calls on me, and he's understanding if I've other obligations, so what's the problem?"

Jason leaned forward again, pressing an index finger into the table. "It's not about that!" He gave a sidelong glance at Mom and checked his volume. "It's not about that. One reason I didn't want to be a defense attorney is because I don't want to deal with being a shield for murders, thieves and," his eyes teetered between Pop and Mom, "stealers of virtue."

"Takers," Mom corrected, and Jason let the correction pass without comment. "Isn't this what you wanted?" She added. "To follow in your fathers footsteps?"

Jason spoke as calmly as he could, but with the frustration mounting, his next words came out condescending. "These are unexpected circumstances that I couldn't have been reasonably expected to foresee."

Pop sat in his chair and tested the heat of his coffee with his tongue. By his grimace, it must have still been a little hot. Setting the ceramic mug on a coaster that Mom had spirited to the table unseen by all, Pop observed, "You're talking like a lawyer."

"Because no one is going to represent me! Mothers excepting," he quickly noted, to which Mom gave a genteel, magnanimous nod.

"You know what they say about a man who chooses to represent himself," Pop quipped.

Jason glowered.

"I'm kidding."

"I don't think it's an amusing situation."

"Honey," Mom said, standing and coming quickly to Jason's side to place a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "No one's forcing you to do anything."

"Not yet, but—" Jason burst into bitter laughter. Dracula? Give me a break! He felt the hand come off his shoulder and a pang of regret struck his chest. "I don't know what to think right now is the problem." Jason stood too, put a hand on his mother's cheek and looked into her eyes, an apology she understood perfectly. "Look, I need some time alone. Gotta get my head around this insanity, alright? Pop?" Jason looked toward him.

Pop waved a hand dismissively, and didn't look at his son. There was embarrassment there, Jason knew, and it hurt to see, but everyone would understand that in these circumstances it was understandable to be a little irascible.

Sensing he was leaving, Mom patted Jason's arm. "Now, before you go, let me fetch you something."

For a few awkward moments she was gone, leaving Pop and Jason to not look at one another or speak. The air in the room seemed to thicken in vicarious embarrassment. Mother returned holding a canvas board. "I painted this just this morning," she huffed as if she had sprinted to fetch it.

"You're not old enough or moving enough to be breathing like that, Mom. You need some exercise." Taking the painting from her, he almost regretted his words. Thinking of his folks mortality was a painful thing for him. He wanted them to live forever.

"If your father would take me to the golf course occasionally," she said reprovingly, knowing Pop would hear. He let the comment pass.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Jason had gone, Leonard sat testing his coffee while Abigail stood in the middle of the kitchen, assessing her property as she tended to do. It would frighten her son when he'd come in from school as a child and see her there, standing in an open space for no apparent reason, but it's the way she liked to do it.

"Why haven't you told him about you-know-what?" she said as if to no one in particular.

Pop was becoming frustrated with his coffee taking its sweet time cooling. "You know I can't talk about you-know-what. I don't even feel comfortable referencing whatever it is."

"I know you have ways."

"And I know I have ways, and I know you know it."

"If you know I know it, then don't try to fool me or yourself about it. It's known, except for him."

Leonard's coffee cup smacked the table. He released a frustrated puff of air from his lips. "What are we talking about?"

"I know you are worried about how Jason will react. It's important that he know though—and look at him." She slung a hand toward a row of wine glasses on the wall, behind which was the parlor and on the other side of that, the house's exit, which Leonard knew full well. "He can't get much more upset than he already is, but if you keep waiting, he's going to have more reasons to be annoyed with you."

"With me? What about you?"

Abigail hugged herself and looked toward the ceiling, her eyes placid, a reverie of some sort turning her lips upward in a contented grin. "I'm his mother. I'm above reproach or ire."

Leonard eyed his coffee with a healthy dose of suspicion. "I wonder."

Abigail came behind her husband's chair and began to massage his shoulders. With the way she kneaded the muscles and spoke with a slightly wistful tone, the action was more thinking with her hands than trying to work the tension out of Leonard's tense neck. "It isn't about you, that's what you must keep in mind. It's about our boy, and he deserves to know."

Leonard sighed at the pleasurable sensation of his wife's delicate fingers firmly working against his taut muscles. "I know."