admittingly, to be partially held hostage mentally by your mother at pattyâs age should be laughable, but itâs not. not with the way patty spent her childhood with a passive aggressive, guilt tripping mother. miles couldnât separate that, and marriage, too , apparently. patty could count the ways she loved her husband, but one of them was when he says something, he often meant it. there was no mental hoops to jump through trying to guess. it almost startles her the way he tightens his grip, but it only makes her feel heard, and impossibly loved. she traces her thumb soothingly over the space across his cheekbone. pattyâs mother could stress her out, but not stanley. â youâre not being dramatic, dear. â she pauses, it seems thoughtful. sheâs teasing, or was. he has no idea how many girls in her sorority loved him.Â
but when she looks at him again, itâs understanding, but sad. she blinks quickly, feeling tears rush. â donât say that â stanley, you do deserve me. â or, someone to love him as much as she does. she feels like sheâs crying because of everything pent up inside, but a little bit because he thinks that. thereâs something awful sitting in the forefront of her mind â not everything, not a family. â but she would never. â she just.. makes me feel like somethingâs wrong with me, in the disguise that she cares. â she sniffles. â i shouldnât let it get to me but I grew up thinking, you know, Iâm too much, Itâs so stupid, as if Iâm not old enough to have my own thoughts and opinions that Iâm crying to you. â
not having lived through it himself, stan canât know just how horrible it was to grow up with pattyâs mother. but he knows enough to hate the woman, for what she did to her own child, for what she did to the woman he loved so much that heâs certain there isnât a thing he wouldnât do for her. it was simple: patty deserved that kind of devotion and stan saw to it that she got it. if they ever did have kids, somehow... stan knows that patty would be the perfect mother. somehow, despite all the pain sheâd endured, she knew how to love better than anyone heâd known. and stanley felt sure he would be a good dad, if only due to his wifeâs influence.
he relaxes almost instantly at her touch, realizing itâll do her no good to get riled up about itââ not now, anyway. âgood.â he lets out a breath. âiââ thank you.â stanley wonders, sometimes, if patty knows how much she had healed his heart when they met. he offers her a smile, but sadness tinges his eyes. how he hates to know that she is hurting. at her protest, he lifts a hand to weave soothingly through her hair. âi just feel lucky, thatâs all,â he murmurs. as much as their difficulty to conceive is always lingering somewhere in his mind, stan doesnât even consider the idea that patty âcanât give him children.â itâs a ludicrous idea to begin with, that she should owe him anything at all; her body, her love, anything. but her feelings of guilt are twin to his own; he blames their childlessness on himself and himself aloneââ even if he canât remember why.
âhey,â he says gently as she begins to cry, âhey, come here.â stan pulls her into his lap and wraps his arms around her, feeling desperately protective. âthereâs nothing wrong with you, patty. not a thing. and i know that doesnât mean you donât feel it, but god would i do anything to take that feeling away.â he presses his face into her hair, breathing her in for a moment, hoping that his touch can do what words cannot. âof course it gets to you,â he murmurs, âsheâs your mother. and you deserve so much better than what she has to give, sweetheart. itâs not stupid. i swear it isnât. itâs the farthest thing from stupid.â he tilts his head to look at her. âi consider it a privilege to be the person you cry to.â
