Thread by @justabloodygame

The train pulled into South Station under clear skies, no sign of the storm, nor the handsome conductor who transformed and fled under its auspices. Maggie stood, groaning as she pulled her luggage down from overhead, and thought of her son, Jerome, and the distance between them.

How clearly hindsight crystallizes your mistakes. Maggie closed her eyes, seeing herself 15 years before, knocking on her son's dormitory door. There was a quiet rustling within, a muffled voice.

"Jer? It's your Mother..." And she entered, changing their relationship forever.

Later. She had called Rome to tell him what she had seen. She has expected him to share her shock, her rage. They had raised him better, hadn't they? They had taught him better than to be a... a... remembering the word that had crossed her mind then only deepened her shame.

But Rome had not shared her fury. He only sighed, and said, "Mags, I already knew. I've known... hell, maybe always. Assumed you did too."

"But Rome, it's... not right. Not my son!"

"But he is, Mags, your son. And he is... who he is."

Maggie was at a loss, holding the phone.

She shook her head, still not willing to accept it.

"Rome, I just. I wasn't raised to... I don't know how to accept this."

How to accept, what she'd always been taught was wrong. How could she? Her baby. Her little boy, now a man. In bed with another man.

Pulling her luggage through South Station, blind to the crowds that jostled her, the fried food smell of the food court, the smiling advertisements draped from wall to wall, she remember the crack in the Earth, the fissure between her and Jer, widening as she opened that door.

She saw him seeing her reaction, the confusion on her face melting to recognition and then dismay.a

"Mom, I can expl-"

"Well," She said, flustered, "Well. You're busy. I'll just-"

Her son. Her son! Bent to grab his clothes.

"Mom, wait, at least let me-"

She slammed the door.

She jumped, imagining that shutting door again, the closing of her heart against a young man who was just... being himself.

He called, and called her phone. And she ignored the calls, left his texts unread. Shivering with rage. She had felt so betrayed back then.

And then later, when Rome had calmed her down and she finally agreed to meet. She didn't let him speak. She raged, lectured, cajoled and cried. All the while not noticing how his eyes cooled, his heart guarded itself. She didn't see the fissure between them grow into a canyon.

Only later, with a cooler head and after a long talk with Rome, did she see the error of her ways. Only after she called her son to apologize and heard the coolness of his tone and how he called her 'Margaret' now instead of Mom, did she realize what her foolishness cost her.

Only then did she look down, and see the darkness, the vast sea of her ignorance that had wounded Jer, and distanced them perhaps forever. She would go on apologising forever if she had to.

Someday, someday, he would feel her shame, another layer to her despair.

Leaving the train station, she saw him standing by his car, checking his watch. Her breath caught. At 33, he was the spitting image of his Father. He spotted her. The guardedness in his expression hurt every time.

"Margaret," was all he said as be grabbed her bags.

"Son, I-" A sharp look from the young man reminded her of where they stood.

"Jerome," She corrected, with a pang in her chest. "It's good to see you."

He merely grunted non-committally as they got in the car and drove off from the station.