Dana stared at the soft glow of the vanity mirror. Her reflection gazed back, a woman she barely recognized anymore. Her hand moved in practiced motions. The ritual was comforting in that respect, simple and familiar. Tonight, though, wasn't about routine. She faced the truth. A truth that she wasn't quite prepared to admit to herself.
Every stroke of the makeup brush felt weighty, as if it held deeper meaning. As the blush tinted her cheeks, she couldn't help but feel the weight in her emotions. As Dana delicately applied her mascara, she knew very well that Jack wouldn't appreciate the details. He never did. He wasn't supposed to.
But she could pretend.
Her son. Her Jack. How had it ever come to this? She would never deny the love that ran deep between them. it was there from that first breath he'd ever taken. Somewhere along the line, though, something had... changed. It wasn't supposed to, but it had. And now it was like an elephant in the room, and she couldn't pretend it didn't make her heart race when they were in the same room.
She longed for him in a way that terrified her.
It had started innocently enough. Dana had been severely depressed. Jack had seen it and suggested that he take her out on mother/son dates.
"Let's go out, Mom," he had said, in a voice full of innocent compassion. "Just you and me. Let's get you out of the house."
He had noticed what her husband had failed to. Dana was losing herself as her marriage seemed to be dying. Herb seemed to be retreating into himself. Drifting further away from her every day. They hadn't been intimate in more than two years. The fire had not only cooled between Dana and Herb, but it had gone out. The loveless bed that they shared day after day had only added to her heartbreak.
Her mind turned to the dinners and outings of the past few months, the dates. It had been just the two of them, Dana and Jack. Jack had seen that she had been in pain, and he'd stepped in to fill the void. He had also filled her heart.
It had all been so innocent and pure. Jack would take her out to dinner, maybe to a movie. They would talk and laugh, and for a few brief hours, Dana felt alive again. Not as a mother, not as a wife, but as a woman. She hadn't realized how much she'd needed that, how much she'd missed feeling seen, until she had it again.
With each date, something began to shift within her, something she couldn't name at first. Her heart would react to the sound of his laughter, and to the gleam in his eyes when he told a story. She started to look forward to their dates with an excitement that felt, different. It was like being young again when she and Herb had begun dating.
Seated in front of her mirror, reality weighed heavily upon her. For the first time, even if only in the privacy of her heart, she admitted the truth to herself. She had fallen in love with her son. The older, innocent maternal love was there too, but now there was more. Something she didn't dare speak aloud. Something that she knew was wrong, yet couldn't bear to give up.
She wasn't naive.
She knew Jack didn't feel the same way. For him, he was just keeping his mom company, seeing her through what he assumed was a bad stretch. He couldn't know what it meant to her. He didn't understand these were the nights she lived for. That she prepared for them as though she were a woman in her 20s, preparing to spend an evening with her man. She had selected her clothes carefully, matching it with the very sexiest lingerie. Though he would never see it.
She did admit to herself, privately, that she wished that he could.
She closed her eyes, willing herself to keep control of her racing thoughts. It wasn't his fault. Jack was tender, thoughtful, as Herb could be, if he were still willing. Jack had stepped into a position that was not his to fill, but he had done it out of love. Pure love, not the teenage like infatuation that seemed to consume Dana. In her loneliness, Dana had let herself hope for things that could never be.
Her eyes strayed back to the mirror. Although she was no longer a young woman, there was a beauty about her. She did, she supposed, look pretty damn good. At 5'6", she was a little taller than the average woman, but her long thin frame gave her feminine shape an extra emphasis. Her long dark hair, tied back in a pony tail, framed her delicate face. She knew that she was beautiful, to any men who looked.
Herb wasn't looking anymore. But when she was with Jack, she felt seen. Even if he didn't know what he was seeing.
For Jack, it had been a simple and uncomplicated love, the love of a son for his mother. Dana, though, had crossed an emotional line, one she could never come back from. She would keep it buried. For his sake. For hers.
Finishing her work, she put her makeup away, her hand trembling just a little. She would smile. She would laugh, listen to his stories, and pretend everything was all right. She wouldn't let her muddled heart ruin the evening.
Because Jack didn't need to know. He couldn't.
Yet, even knowing that and fully understanding the lines that must never be crossed, Dana allowed herself a flicker of hope.
She was dressed sensibly for their date that evening. They were going to the county fair, so she was in tight jeans, with a warm flannel shirt and a stylish pair of knee-high boots. She smiled to herself. She looked sexy.
Guilt prodded Dana. Herb didn't know about any of this. Her feelings, her selfish daydreams of unattainable love. He couldn't know. This wasn't about Jack trying to cheer her up anymore. It went deeper, something that couldn't be said, not to him, not to anyone.
Herb trusted her. He still loved her. The fact was that she loved him too. If he gave her even the smallest bit of what she desperately needed, she wouldn't be so drawn to something so wrong.
At the front door, Jack was waiting, smiling in that warm, easy way he always did. Radiating that effortless charm he'd had since he was a boy. He was so like Herb that way... well, so like Herb used to be.
Dana and Jack were riding the Ferris wheel as it creaked to a soft stop, leaving them suspended high above the county fairgrounds. The distant hum of laughter, and the smell of cotton candy and fried foods wafted upwards towards them. Up here, everything seemed still. They were in a world all of their own. The fading light of the sunset bathed the horizon in a soft, golden glow.
Dana leaned back in her seat, the worn vinyl squeaking softly beneath her. She craned her neck to take in the view. It was amazing. The moment was perfect. She turned towards Jack to say something. She would never remember what she had meant to say in that moment.
