Lost Sons

[ibonekoen]

I'm not sure what prompted me to write this, but I did, and I thought I'd share.  So far it's gotten good responses from my test audience.  :-D  Let me know what you think.

 

Josh doesn’t remember his mother. The woman that he calls ‘Mom’ is, in actuality, his stepmom. His biological mother left him and his father when he was little.

Most people, when they’ve been told, think it’s a tragedy. Josh thinks his mother did him a favor.

“She left before I was able to make any kind of real attachment.” he informs those who would feel sorry for him.

Josh doesn’t know if his mother is still alive. All he knows is that she lives in San Francisco, but that might not even be true anymore. He’s never tried to make contact. She left him without a second thought, why should he care what happens to her? He has a new mother, a better mother, one who won’t leave him at the drop of a hat.

Josh remembers nothing of his biological mother and that just suits him fine.

Josh has everyone, including himself, fooled.

His father has never lied to him. When he felt Josh was old enough to understand, he sat him down and explained to him all about his biological mother. He didn’t want his son to be ashamed.

There are days that Josh wishes his father had never told him.

There are days that Josh wishes he had the courage to find his mother and ask her why. But he is afraid he already knows the answer.

His father thinks that it is his fault, that he did something wrong. Josh knows this isn’t true. He knows that it is his fault. He feels that he did something wrong, something terrible that made his mother decide to leave. Maybe he cried too much, maybe he didn’t smile or laugh enough, maybe he said something or did something that his mother disapproved of. He wishes he knew what he did wrong. He wishes he could go back in time and fix his one mistake so that she would stay.

He wonders if his mother ever thinks about him. He likes to imagine that she’s seen every one of his movies and loves them all and proudly tells those around her “That’s my son.”

He thinks they wouldn’t believe her.

And he wonders why he should care whether or not she thinks of him. He wonders why he wastes so much time wondering if she thinks about him.

He thinks it’s his mother’s fault he can’t commit. He’d been poised to get married, had gotten a ring and proposed and even set a date.

He’d broken it off at almost the last possible minute. He’d told his fiancée he was sorry but he couldn’t go through it. He’d told her it wasn’t her, that it was him. She hadn’t understood his problem and had gotten angry. They’d yelled and things had gotten ugly.

He wonders if he will ever be ready to settle down with someone. Sometimes he thinks maybe he’ll just become the male equivalent of an old maid.

He runs into an old friend one night at a bar in New York. He thinks that Elijah Wood can relate to him better than most. Elijah knows what it’s like to have a parent leave. Elijah’s parents divorced when he was 15, but they’d been separated since Elijah was seven or eight.

Josh thinks that maybe Elijah had it much worse than him. He was far more attached to his father than Josh had been to his mother. Elijah still missed his father occasionally. Josh had long since convinced himself that he didn’t miss his mother.

Elijah knows that Josh isn’t being completely honest when he says he doesn’t care about his mother. Elijah thinks that Josh hides his pain too much, that he shouldn’t keep it bottled inside. He feels that Josh should just let it go and realize it wasn’t his fault his mother left.

“You were a kid, man.” he insists as they stagger drunkenly through the streets of New York. “Your mom had issues. Forget her.”

He tugs Josh into his apartment building. “C’mon, I’ll make you forget alllllllll about your problems.”

As Elijah kisses and teases, Josh thinks that maybe Elijah is right. Maybe it wasn’t his fault his mother left. Maybe she does have issues. Maybe he didn’t do anything wrong after all.

And later, as Elijah curls around him and falls asleep, Josh thinks that maybe, just maybe he wouldn’t be an old maid after all.

~Finis~

Comments

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

This is cute and I'm with you on it. I'd have liked to see more detail at the end. Maybe. I guess with the style you're using there isn't much room for that kind of detail. Anyway, it's good as it is.

[ibonekoen]

One day I'll write an NC-17 Josh/Elijah story. ;-)

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

Gotta see that!