New Horizons (2/10)
Title: New Horizons
Fandom: Brothers and Sisters
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Length: ~15,000
Characters: Justin, Kitty, Kevin, Sarah, Nora, and Tommy
Icon: danielle_nahimi
Warning: Contains references to sexual abuse and rape.
Summary: In which Justin leaves rehab, and the family struggles to deal as something disturbing comes to light.
Chapter Two
In which Kitty is a bitch and Nora and Sarah are appalled
“Oh, please”, said Kitty. “Justin, you were in a war. You served your country and paid an expensive price for that service. You aren’t complaining because you had a little sex you didn’t like. You aren’t coming over all Andrea Dworkin about a boy coming on a little strong. These girls in your group thing are making women seem like tiny, frightened little puppies. What’s wrong with just a tiny little bit of personal responsibility?”
Justin looked at Kitty as if he had never seen her before. She was standing, eyebrows raised, hand on hip. He took a breath. Tried to find some Dr. Holden-ish words.
“Kitty, I’m really glad that you came to my last family group with me”.
“Thanks, Justin. I just think that you would maybe have got more out of this whole process if the other people in your group had been more like you, and not been these little whinybabies trying to blame everything on other people. In fact…”
“Kitty!” She looked up from where she was digging in her purse for her sunglasses.
“Kitty”, he lowered his voice to something approximating his normal speaking tone. “I don’t really know who Andrea Dworkin is but I do know that what I got out of this whole process was clean, and that none of the people who achieved the same thing have been anything less than just as courageous as I have been.”
He climbed into the car, and slammed the door. Kitty paused, and then, sunglasses on, got into the driver’s seat, started the car and pulled out of the carpark.
Justin was suddenly scared that he couldn’t do this; couldn’t deal with the real world. He had never felt more real than at New Horizons, even though it hurt like a fucker at times.
Kitty had always looked out for him, but always let him make his own choices and it was weird that she was being so critical of the rest of the people who had supported him through recovery.
Justin only realised that an uncomfortable silence had stretched out between them when the car pulled into the driveway, and Kitty jerked the gearstick into park.
Justin and Kitty still hadn’t really talked by the time dinner was served. The Walkers were all sitting in their usual places around the gleaming table, eating the second of four courses of a Nora special, when Kitty started in on the girls from group again.
“I was so proud of Justin today, Mom”, Kitty said. “It was just such a shame that his last family group was full of these overwrought stories of men who done wrong. It was like being at a really melodramatic take-back-the-night rally.”
Sarah sat up very straight, across the table, and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, really?” she said. If Kitty had been less absorbed in her point she would have noticed the warning tone in Sarah’s voice.
“Well, sure,” Kitty flapped one hand, as if to indicate that her point was perfectly obvious.
“It was like Naomi Wolfe said in that book about this whole date rape phenomenon”. Kitty’s voice was scornful. “All of these women are just completely determined to be victims of something. I mean, we’ve all had bad sex. This whole need to blame other people and make some giant, hysterical deal out of it is just a symptom of this modern refusal to be accountable for your own actions.”
“Don’t be so goddamn naïve, Kitty.” Sarah’s voice was harsh, and the rest of the family started to look between Justin, Kitty and Sarah like they were watching a tennis match.
“I know that having a bit of sisterly solidarity is frowned upon by Phyllis Schlafly and the rest of those Concerned Women of America witches, but I thought it would have been self-evident to even a self-regarding, moral majority Republican like yourself that violence against women isn’t some fantasy construct of crazed feminazis.” Sarah took a gulp of her wine, and shot Kitty a look that made her choke off her response.
There was a tense silence around the table. Tommy looked into the middle-distance, clearly not wanting to be in that room having that discussion. Justin was majorly touched by him being there at all. Tommy, of all the Walker siblings, struggled most with the concept that his youngest brother couldn’t kick drugs by sheer willpower alone. Kevin’s head was down, staring at his still-full plate like he was trying to laser-beam the pattern from it with his eyes. Kitty was defiant, face flushed and the shine of angry tears in her eyes.
“Kitty, could you help me bring in the dessert?” Nora got to her feet, and gestured with her eyebrows that Kitty should follow her into the kitchen.
Kitty shoved her chair backwards, and followed Nora into the kitchen. Her back was rigid with irritation. Justin knew that the family conclave would have determined that he be allowed to chill out on his first night home from rehab, and could only imagine how much Kitty was going to get it from Nora.
“I don’t get what’s going on here,” Justin said. He looked around at his brothers and Sarah.
Sarah shook her head and took another swig of her wine.
“It’s nothing to do with you or group, Justin.” She sighed and propped her head up on her hands, elbows on the table.
“It’s this long-running, deeply tedious argument that Kitty and I have been having for years. For some reason, she really took exception to me getting involved in this women’s group at Wharton which organised a take back the night rally.”
Justin nodded. Kevin sagged against his chair. He looked exhausted, and Justin realised that he had hardly asked him about the big case he was working on after he had mentioned it the first time up at New Horizons.
“I don’t really get what her problem is apart from the fact that, fundamentally, the Republican Party just hates women”, said Sarah.
“And gays”, added Kevin.
“And, you know, disabled people and black people and atheists.” Tommy rejoined the conversation, cracking his knuckles.
“And the idea of women having any reproductive rights”. Nora was back in the room with dessert, but without Kitty. Sarah raised her eyebrows at Nora, and Nora slightly shook her head. Sarah looked down at her plate, biting her lip.
“Baked cheesecake, Mom?” Justin could hear how brittle his voice sounded, and hoped that no one else could. “Awesome to be home and have your cooking against after those New Horizons rations.”
( Part Three)