In Fate's Hands

“You bastard,” said Jesse through barred teeth. “How could you do this to Mom, or even to me, with my girlfriend’s mother, for that matter?”

“Jesse, it’s not what it looks like,” responded Mr. McCartney as he stood up to face his son. “And I didn’t know that she was Elizabeth’s mother.”

“Like hell it isn’t,” responded Jesse angrily. “I can’t wait to tell Mom what you did so she can finally divorce you and we can both be rid of you once and for all.”

“Wait a second, you’re married?” asked Susan, also rising to her feet. “You told me you were single!”

“Don’t do that. You knew I was married and you loved doing something you knew you weren’t supposed to do. That’s the whole reason why you got with me in the first place.”

“Actually it was because I was drunk and I was pissed and you were right in front of me, so I went for you. Then, I kind of started to like you after awhile, so I decided I would keep you around, but you never once mentioned having a wife and a son,” responded Susan.

“Well then you must have been too drunk to remember.”

Elizabeth shook her head disbelievingly. “You are both sick. How can you cheat on your wife with a straight face and not an ounce of guilt? And, Mom, how can you be dating someone when you aren’t even divorced yet yourself? What about me?”

“What about you? You never wanted to see me or have anything to do with me again, remember? I’m the big, bad mom.”

“And I still don’t, but don’t you think I should at least get a heads up when you decide to start dating again? I’m still your daughter, in case you have forgotten. If you really cared about me, you would have fought for me and tried to convince me to forgive you instead of dating any random guy to distract yourself from your mistakes. I’m sure Dad is rolling around in his grave right now; he would be ashamed of you just like I am.”

Susan lifted up her hand and slapped Elizabeth hard across the face. Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open and angry tears began to fall down her face. Her cheek immediately began to puff up and enflame from the blow.

“How dare you say that to me?” Susan sneered.

“You bitch! I thought you loved me, but I have never been more wrong about anything. You are just as bad as Anthony. And your taste hasn’t improved yet either! John is just as abusive as Anthony, except he is more verbal instead of physical.”

“You have no idea what you are talking about, Little Girl,” stated Mr. McCartney.

“Oh really? Because Jesse tells me all the time how you pressure him, belittle him, and pretty much make him feel miserable all the time just because you are jealous of him.”

“Jealous of him,” laughed Mr. McCartney maniacally. “Why would I be jealous of him?”

“Because he has a career in basketball ahead of him and you lost your chance long ago. You were a great player, but then you screwed up and he doesn’t deserve to pay for your mistakes. He’s his own person, not your little puppet.”

“You are out of your element. I only want what’s best for my son.”

“Oh, would you look at that? I think you might have hit a record high for the number of lies you have told in one night, Dad,” said Jesse. “Good job! Now, you know that’s a load of crap just as much as I do.”

“I only pressure you so that you can be the best that you can be.”

“Really? Huh. Because I would say you pressure me so that you can live your dreams vicariously through me, which doesn’t quite work for me.”

“You know that’s not true!”

“Do I? I mean, you’ve been lying about all this. God only knows what else you have been lying to me about. For all I know, you could have been cheating every night right under Mom’s nose. Obviously this isn’t the first time, either; I mean, you and Susan here look pretty damn comfortable.”

“Well, Susan satisfies me in ways that your mother can’t. Your mother never quite caught on to what I was doing; she was too naive.”

Jesse’s fist collided with John’s face within the speed of light and blood came pouring out of John’s nose. Susan quickly handed him a tissue and grabbed onto him so that he wouldn’t fall backwards.

“You little-“started Susan.

“It’s ok, Susan. Glad to see there’s still a man in there, son,” John said as he held the tissue up to his gushing nose. “I was just testing you. None of the stuff I just said was true. That punch just proved that you still believe me whether I’m telling the truth or not.”

“Whatever. I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. Don’t expect Mom and me to be there when you get home. Come on, Elizabeth, let’s go.”

Jesse took Elizabeth’s hand and turned to leave, but then suddenly turned to Susan.

“Oh yeah and, Susan, if you ever lay a hand on Elizabeth again, I promise that you will live to regret it.”

Jesse and Elizabeth went to sit downstairs because the ship had not docked yet. Jesse ran and got Elizabeth some ice for her cheek.

“I’m sorry our date was ruined by our untrustworthy parents.” Jesse put his arm around Elizabeth as they sat and waited for the ship to dock. She leaned into him and held the ice against her cheek.

“Me too. I mean, I know they aren’t the best people, but it never occurred to me that they would do something like this, much less together. What are the odds? It’s almost like they did this just to spite us.”

“I wouldn’t put it past either of them. I can’t wait for my mom to divorce him.”

“Yeah hopefully it’ll get a little better now for you.”

“I doubt it. My dad will still want to be a part of my life no matter what and he’ll blackmail anyone just so that he can get what he wants, so a judge would probably be forced to side with him if my parents go to court over custody of me. At least my mom won’t have to deal with him anymore though.”

“I don’t think your mom would just let him take you though. Your mom is the kind of mom that would do anything for you, unlike my mom, and she wouldn’t just let John take you away from her; she would fight for you.”

“I know you are right, but that part kind of makes me nervous. He will expose every fault she has and do his best to ruin her reputation and I don’t want her to have to go through that.”

“Well then we’ll just have to help her dig up some bad stuff on him. And what does your mother have to hide? Besides, we don’t know for sure what’s going to happen so we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves.”

“Yeah I guess you are right. I never really thought my dad would actually cheat though.”

“My mom turned into a whole different person than I thought she was. Even now, I didn’t think she could just start dating again so fast after all that we went through with Anthony. It never occurred to me that she would put me in danger, but she did and for a really long time. My dad is dead, so you are pretty lucky that you have at least one parent that’s alive and loves you.”

“That’s true. I wish I could have met your dad.”

“Me too. He was such a great guy. He would have really liked you. He would be so angry at my mother for doing this to me. I can’t believe she actually hit me. I’m so angry at her that, if I never had to see her again, I’d be perfectly fine. She never was around long enough to actually be my mother anyway.”

“At least now you know what she’s really like and you won’t have to be surprised by her anymore.”

“I don’t even care about what she does anymore. She can do whatever she wants just as long as it has nothing to do with me. She can go screw herself. I’m not going to be talking to her for a long time or ever again. She hasn’t earned my forgiveness.”

The ship finally docked and Jesse and Elizabeth were the first ones off the boat. They walked quickly back to his car so that John didn’t have a chance to beat them back to Jesse’s house.

“Would you mind coming with me to tell my mom about my dad? I’m not quite sure how she’s going to take it.”

“I wouldn’t think of not going with you. If you need me, I’m never going to back out on you.”

Ten minutes later, Jesse pulled into his driveway and they found Karen sitting on the sofa in the living room reading a book.

“Oh, hi, Elizabeth! You look beautiful! How was your date?”

“Thanks, Karen! It was wonderful. Jesse was such a gentleman.”

“Mom, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What’s the matter?” She dropped her book and stood up to face Jesse.

“We ran into Dad on the cruise. He was with another woman and we saw them kissing. Ironically, that other woman turned out to be Elizabeth’s mother. I’m so sorry, Mom, but I thought you should know and I didn’t want to lie to you.”

“The sad part is that doesn’t surprise me one bit. Your father and I have been growing apart lately, so I began to suspect that he was cheating on me because he started coming home a lot later than he normally did. I tried to convince myself that it was because he had a lot of work to do, but I secretly knew better. I think I knew for awhile that it wasn’t going to work out between us, but I just didn’t want to face the fact that I made a mistake in marrying him, so I stayed with him. Now I finally have a good reason to divorce him and move on with my life. In a strange way, I almost feel liberated. Now we can be rid of him.”

“You can, but I don’t think I’ll ever be rid of him.”

“If he petitions for custody of you, I’m going to make sure he doesn’t get it, so you won’t have to worry about him,” responded Karen. “You haven’t seen just how dirty I can fight. Now, both of you come on. Let’s go dump all his things out the window and then turn the hose on.”

“Sounds like fun!” said Elizabeth and they all ran upstairs and started taking John’s things and throwing them out the window. Karen invited Elizabeth to stay over and she accepted because she knew that they needed her and, in a way, she needed them too. John never came home that night.