A Way With Words - Diary entry - April 21, 2014 (3)

[soulan]

My eyes were squeezed shut so I didn’t see what Junior saw when he walked into the living room. Just heard his voice behind us, Sorry I’m late oh shit what happened? He thought someone had died and he was right. A tragedy can happen a long way off or a long time ago and when the knowledge of it finally hits the right people it can make another one

Comments

[gilli_ann]

When I re-read this, not only the poignant closure stood out to me but the hope for a better future in the children learning the truth about their fathers, showing acceptance, and gaining understanding of the fathers' life story and behaviour. I'm sure it must've been tough growing up as unhappy Kaj's son and wondering whether you had contributed to the unhappiness, for lack of the real reason. In canon we are left wondering how much Bobby, Junior and Francine/Jenny actually guessed, but we do know that neither man told them outright about themselves. It's a huge step forward and it really makes a profound impression on me, when AWWW tells the children the truth and lets them digest it, cime to terms with it and - hopefully - grow as humans because of it.

Unless I have forgotten something from the early chapters, there's still one father figure X in the story - who's the twins' real father? Why isn't he in their life, or .... is he, perhaps all the time? Making various guesses here. Looking forward to finding out and to reading the E/J reunion.

Have a safe journey there and back again!

[gilli_ann]

...and uhm, yes, I realize the irony in my comment given that the kids have been served a pretty awful lie about their mother. So I hope they'll one day learn the truth about that too, and be able to deal with it...

[soulan]

The way I look at it, they’ve been spared an awful truth about their mother. In canon, Jack didn’t want any kids but he got one son and tried in his way to be a good father in the areas that Lureen was an inadequate parent (at least in the one instance we know about). But motherhood has a much bigger impact on a woman’s life trajectory, and as we’ve seen Jay has career ambitions that it would have thwarted if she had submitted to it 100%. The next chapter will reveal the identity of their father and what made Jay decide to carry the pregnancy to term.

Hope, yes! When I started writing this story, Massachusetts was the only state with same sex marriage. And now look!