âI donât know if Iâm the best person to talk about connecting with family,â Jean admitted, moving to ladle out some vegetables onto their plate, topping them up from where theyâd eaten through already. She couldnât do much to make things easier on Rachel, couldnât be anything close to the mother that she thought she should be, but she could feed her. At least that was something. âI ate dinner every night with my parents, but when I left for the Institute, we didnât talk for years at a time.â Even when they did, it had been a courtesy phone call â or even worse, one where Jean only phoned to get information so she could apply to medical school, like asking for her birth certificate (that her father couldnât find) or details of her vaccinations.
Sheâd connected with people outside of her blood, of course, and connected with them well. Sheâd formed sisterhoods and brought Illyana under her wing, and she told herself that proved that she was capable of having a family â but it was always different when she saw her own eyes reflected back. âYes,â Jean said, lowering her hand slowly from where she had been working on the meal, because she knew something was coming from the way Rachelâs laugh was barbed at the edges. She stood there, and she wanted to argue against it, wanted to say of course she wanted everything to do with you. She wanted to say that none of that was true here, that she was the perfect, doting mother this woman deserved, that she was the wife she was supposed to be to Scott, who seemed to be doing this all so easily âŚ
But she couldnât. She stood there, silent and her shoulders aching with how tightly she was maintaining her posture. âIââ Jean licked out over her lips, dropping her gaze back to the pot of food that was now slowly burning. She didnât care enough to move it from the hob. âIt takes some adjusting,â she said, finally. If cruelly honest was what they were going for, then here it was. âYouâre never something I thought I would have, Rachel, and you ⌠You have the Phoenix, or she has you, I donât know. And I donât know why those other Jeans acted how they did, but I know that when I look at youââ Jean sucked in a breath. âI donât know what to do to stop you from going through the same things I did.â
There was a lot that was hidden in the distance between them. A thousand more questions that Rachel figured sheâd never get answered. And Jean might not ever ask. It was easier in the moment to pretend those things didnât tear at the edges of whatever was forming here, but when Rachel wasnât looking her mom in the eyes? That was when the resentment grew. In conversations like this, it was easier for her to pull away and say next time. But next time just repeated every other awkward time. Like now â what was she supposed to tell her mom? That she died so young that Rachel didnât know her outside of stories other people told about her?
The words that came out⌠they were exactly what Rachel had meant, but that didnât stop her from noticing the stiffness in Jeanâs posture. It didnât stop her from wishing she hadnât said anything at all. She had highlighted that distance she had and thrown it in her face. But it was the most honest thing she had said since she had gotten here. (And maybe it was the most honest she had been to herself about her feelings.)
âI have her.â It might have seemed like over confidence on Rachelâs part, but she did credit a lot of her knowledge and power in her own relationship with the Phoenix to her mother â and to Maddie to some degree. âI begged for her. A chance to prove myself â a chance to beââ just like you. That is what her life had come down to back then. All the lines that people drew between her and her mom, telling her how she looked just like Jean. How she sounded like her, how they missed her. And Rachel tried to fill that hole in their lives. (Another root of resentment that Rachel had dove into.) âIs that what you would want?â She looked her in the eyes. âTo be protected? Shielded from everything? Is that what you would want?â Maybe this Jean hadnât birthed her, but she had gone much further to try and be a parent than any other version that Rachel had run into. âItâs too late for that.â Honest or cruel? âYou think I look at you like you died and left â like Iâm mourning you. Put the shoes on yourself. You look at me like you failed me when you didnât â when you donât know me. Youâre too busy âprotectingâ me to see me.â
