James Harper Jr. had had a fairly troubled night with one that had a lot of things on his mind. Mostly with regard to how the Harper family was going to move forward. His father probably wasn't going to change. The fact that James Harper Sr. continued to defend Dieter Wilhelm even after the man had been arrested for trying to have people assassinated and arguing with Jenny over her choice in husband to the point where he had a heart attack was enough to make that fairly obvious, but James Harper Sr. probably wasn't going to be on his feet again in any way that would matter for quite some time. Given what the doctors had said, the condition of his father's heart was such that he was probably going to be pretty fragile for the foreseeable future. He might be able to dress himself and go to the bathroom and handle those things, but he wasn't going to be able to return to the only work he'd ever known and at the same time, it was extremely doubtful that James Harper Sr. would be able to turn to anything that physically he could do.
Jenny would be fine. From what he'd seen of Harry, he could feel comfortable in Jenny finding a man that she loved and would respect her, and looking after John and Janice would probably give her good training for when she and Harry had children of their own. In that, James Jr. felt confident and calm that his sister and ultimately his siblings would be fine. As such, they were not what had essentially disturbed a lot of his sleep through the night. That had been more with his mother and the events that had transpired at the hospital the previous night, when Henry Jenkins Sr. drove him back to the hospital after his father had had another heart attack at something.
And those thoughts and concerns weighed heavily on him that he barely noticed much that was going on around him. He simply sat and tapped a spoon up and down into the cornflakes that were offered to him for breakfast.
"Is something wrong?" Lisa Jenkins asked politely, "You've barely touched your breakfast."
"I'm sorry, ma'am," James Jr. sighed, "I'm just... thinking over things."
"Your father?" Lisa asked with a tone that was rather icy, but James figured his father probably deserved that.
"He may be part of it... but it's not him specifically," James Jr. answered.
"What your mother ever saw in him is beyond me," Lisa grumbled, "to put your sister through so much going into the wedding... and then the stunt at the hospital..."
"In some ways he was very kind to her," James Jr. sighed, "authoritarian, to be sure, but kind nonetheless. And... I'd suppose the way she was raised as well didn't help matters as that she was never raised to think that wives were anything more than decoration for their husbands... even when she had some ideas that looked like they might lead to striking out. She got it from both directions. Her own family was conservative to an extreme with how a family was to function and my father was raised to be the same... and often tried to force those same lessons on the rest of us."
James Jr. took a bite of his Cornflakes and chewed them politely while Lisa and Henry Sr. sat at the other side of the table and looked on. He didn't continue until after he swallowed the cereal.
"But it didn't really stick," James Jr. spoke slowly, "mostly as Jenny and I were able to make some friends at school and managed to get some time where we could spend with friends and have sleepovers and do things that other kids did. And their lives were NEVER like what our folks tried, and they all seemed like good families... And at the same time... for as much as Dad talked about his method's being how "God willed it," I've never actually found a passage that expressed the sort of thing that he tried to teach... and in much of what I read trying to find it... the more and more I knew I couldn't just let him bully Jenny, John, or Janice. Even if he had a point on certain issues, he took it to an extreme. Like a guy that points out that running a red light is dangerous and then puts the solution of putting a remote controlled boot on every car to make sure that it can't move while the light is red... It's an extreme."
"I'd really doubt that there was much of a point that he ever had," Henry spoke, "Love is not control, regardless of whether its love between siblings, love between lovers, or love between parent and child. It's never about control."
"I don't disagree," James answered, "discipline and doing the right thing are important... but one doesn't need to be male to know that."
There was more that he could say on that, but chose not to. He had seen plenty of families that were different from his growing up that were happy and successful, but the thing that had really helped him truly see how wrong his father had been on many things had been when his fiancée, Aisha, had saved him from being mugged. He'd commented on how that wasn't what one expected, and got a rather stern point that she could do what she wanted to and that no one had the right to bully anyone for any reason. He apologized to her, as he didn't want to antagonize his rescuer.
From there, they lead into some conversations on things that ranged from the Harper family's problems to what Aisha wanted in life. The true "wake up call" was when she put a hand on his shoulders and looked at him with a great of kindness in her eyes and said, "your father is bully, and as thoughtful as you've been... he is the kind that preys on people like you." In that, while James Jr. continued to look for ways to redeem his father, he had come to learn on just how wrong his philosophy was. He also felt fortunate that Aisha agreed to date him and that love between them began to form. A part of him hoped that Jenny might be able to come for the wedding, but that was a different thing altogether.
"And with Jenny here and happy with your son as her husband... and them looking after John and Janice, I'm sure they'll be able to be free and grow up happy," James Jr. then spoke, "so that's good... and with what's gone on with my dad... is that he shouldn't be able to bully anyone anymore. But... I... I really don't know on what will go on with my mom..."
This earned a couple of raised eyebrows as both Henry and Lisa were a bit puzzled with that. While they weren't the sort of people to wish ill on anyone, they both figured that the situation James Harper Sr. was in would be enough to really free Elizabeth Harper from the sort of outdated opinion that wives were only there to serve husbands.
"Wouldn't she jump at the chance to be free of your father's influence? Even if he lives and they stay together," Henry asked slowly, "It's not like he can stop her now... and it's likely that he'd need someone to pick up the slack, as it were."
"One would think so," James Jr. said with a sigh, "and there are times where one would even see some private wish to be free on her part and the frustrations of all that my father put her through... but yet... at the same time they remain like two sides of the same coin. Some of it may be on the fact that there have been times when my father was kind to her... some of it may be that she was pretty much raised to hold similar beliefs in what her place was. So... even if she recognizes what my father has done was wrong..."
"She can't take the next step," Lisa said slowly and with some realization on the problem James Jr. presently had.
James nodded, "and in that... with my dad presently out of it, she turned that sort of attachment onto me, as I am the oldest male in the family. It was like she didn't even remember that she'd stated that Jenny and I were "disowned" earlier in the day for not agreeing with him... And on some level, that may help with the emancipation process, be it here or in Alabama... but..."
"That isn't quite what you want, I hope?" Lisa asked.
Again James nodded, "Anyone would want that position of power at times... if only to assure what they felt was right... but in many ways that's a temptation and doesn't really work... And one that I can't afford. My fiancée and I have positions lined up in Mississippi after we graduate... me with computers and her as a teachers aide or something like that... She told me the term, but I forgot what it was... anyway, we have our own futures to work toward. I can't be going back and forth because my mom can't or won't make decisions independently."
He was also silent on some private musings about maybe one day moving to Moon Lake with Aisha as well. The idea sounded nice, in that he'd be close to family, but that would be something that he and Aisha would need to talk about. It'd definitely mean leaving the jobs they'd gotten lined up at some point and Aisha also had family in the South that she was still close to. He didn't want to pressure her into anything.
He ultimately looked to both of the Jenkins and then sighed, "but I also have no clue on how to do that... get her to break out and try to think and be independent. I can urge her to do the things she's always wanted to do or to find things that she can do to support her and my father... but wouldn't that just repeat the same old cycle? And should I do it before Janice and John are "emancipated" and come to live here?"
"It might be easier to use things to your advantage now," Henry commented, "but if you get her to "be independent," she may come to resent you when she finally DOES make that jump. And that could mean a battle now or a battle later."
"So... what do you think would be the best way?" James Jr. asked, "because I really don't know of a way that wouldn't come off as... well... essentially taking over my father's role... which REALLY isn't what I want to do. That wouldn't make her independent. It'd only change who she follows."
Henry and Lisa both traded glances. They didn't have too many ideas on what to do in that regard, either. The best they had would be to try and talk with Elizabeth Harper in a way that would get her to realize how much she'd actually come to put herself in the position she'd been in. However, neither of them had any skill in therapy and thus didn't know how to do what they knew would need to be done.
"I'm sure Jenny would have ideas... but... I don't want to add any MORE family stress on her," James sighed and found himself looking down at the now empty bowl where his cornflakes had been, "especially while she's on her honeymoon..."
Henry and Lisa both nodded at that. Of course, they also knew that Harry and Jenny did have classes on Monday, and to their knowledge, neither Harry nor Jenny had actually taken any official leave, which would mean they'd need to return at some point, if to make sure they were caught up on their own school work and didn't fall behind. And while being weres, they might be able to run on less sleep than normal humans did, as they'd noticed over the years that weres often did stay up later than they did and yet still got up at the same time as they did and didn't seem to be tired by it. However, since Henry and Lisa had never become weres and were now at an age where the first transformation had the potential to kill them due to the stresses of that transformation, they'd never be able to tell if that was one of the special extras that weres had, or simply that was for younger weres simply running on youthful energy and that a were's longer lifespan simply changed when things like old age kicked in. Regardless, they didn't want to put any more pressure on Harry and Jenny than they had to...
But still... getting Elizabeth Harper to be truly independent would be a tough thing to do...