Lies my father taught me
For ar_drabbles challenge 62: education, an experiment of sorts.
It wasn't his fault he was bad at relationships. He'd been taught badly.
He could blame his parents: Dad had been at a low point and Mom swooped in with salvation. The pattern persisted: Dad stayed home when he was depressed, Mom kept him that way. No wonder he'd married a woman who knew he didn't love her. She'd never be happy so he'd never be happy, and they would live happily ever after.
He should blame his father. He had grown up alone, with a bitter mother and an absent father. When Dad decided to teach by example how a man should love, it had been too much, too late.
Dad's public declaration of love cost Lee his marriage.
Lee had tried to cut the president's legs out from under her on the witness stand, to show that she was no better than Mom. One self-medicated on booze, one on chamalla. But this one Dad loved. He swooped in, sword in hand and fury in voice. Lee was horrified to learn that his father knew a secret he'd never bothered sharing: women eat this stuff up. That night Dee moved out of their quarters and Laura moved in to Dad's.
This was the father he should have had: a man who wouldn't let his woman go. A man who was strong enough to defend a woman who needed no defense. A man who could damn propriety and public opinion and move his woman into his home. A man who loved that his woman challenged him daily, who didn't care if she loved him back as long as she let him love her.
When Kara reappeared from out of a midnight sky, Lee realized that the lesson of Bill Adama and Laura Roslin had come at just the right time.
It wasn't his fault he was bad at relationships. He'd been taught badly.
He could blame his parents: Dad had been at a low point and Mom swooped in with salvation. The pattern persisted: Dad stayed home when he was depressed, Mom kept him that way. No wonder he'd married a woman who knew he didn't love her. She'd never be happy so he'd never be happy, and they would live happily ever after.
He should blame his father. He had grown up alone, with a bitter mother and an absent father. When Dad decided to teach by example how a man should love, it had been too much, too late.
Dad's public declaration of love cost Lee his marriage.
Lee had tried to cut the president's legs out from under her on the witness stand, to show that she was no better than Mom. One self-medicated on booze, one on chamalla. But this one Dad loved. He swooped in, sword in hand and fury in voice. Lee was horrified to learn that his father knew a secret he'd never bothered sharing: women eat this stuff up. That night Dee moved out of their quarters and Laura moved in to Dad's.
This was the father he should have had: a man who wouldn't let his woman go. A man who was strong enough to defend a woman who needed no defense. A man who could damn propriety and public opinion and move his woman into his home. A man who loved that his woman challenged him daily, who didn't care if she loved him back as long as she let him love her.
When Kara reappeared from out of a midnight sky, Lee realized that the lesson of Bill Adama and Laura Roslin had come at just the right time.