Frances was relatively quiet as she and Samantha finished their work on the stew that they'd had planned for dinner. Things hadn't been too bad for the day, and once Eric's appointment had finished, Frances ultimately closed her clinic for the day and came home. There she'd found Samantha already at work on dinner. That wasn't too bad, and was something that Frances had long picked up with regard to Moon Lake. Before her family moved to Moon Lake, they'd normally eaten dinner anywhere between seven thirty to nine PM, depending on how hectic the day was, and that had often meant that both her and her brother were expected to be in bed by ten.
After the move to Moon Lake with her parents and then her brother becoming weredogs, things began to change. Dinner was served earlier, between six thirty and eight PM. Frances's curfew remained at around ten PM, at least until her becoming a werecat, and Frances could well remember her parents pleasure filled barks and howls coming from their bedroom after they became weredogs. Occasionally Frances could even hear them outside the house... though it was often intermixed with other weres hidden in the woods or in their own homes as well. It was something that Frances guessed that Moon Lake's weres ate dinner earlier in order to have more time for "fun" in the evening to early night time hours. And Frances soon had that confirmed for her as well...
Her parents never really got over that she was a lesbian, and her unexpected transformation into a werecat right before they intended for the weredog induction ceremony for her was something that Frances knew had put some stress on her relationship with her parents. They didn't disown her or anything, but there was the specter of disappointment that was always pretty clear. It was really only her brother, Samson, that accepted her for who she was without judgement or tension. However, even with that, after her first transformation, many of those pulls and desires were there, with Samantha often on Frances's mind growing up. Her own curfew was pushed back and she could remember slipping out after dinner to meet with Samantha, and that continued as they grew up, got married, and then adopted Ben. Dinner was often served early for more time to have fun at night, and their "mews" were among the multitude of weres enjoying each other's company.
However, sex wasn't the thing that really worried Frances at the moment. The thing that had brought about the most concern and worry on Frances's part was in relation to the Thanksgiving Football game that Moon Lake High played every year. In previous years it had been a full contact sport and thus had required permission from parents to play. This year the game was apparently switched to "flag football," but the consent forms were still part of it, so as to abide by Washington State's rules with regard to school athletics. In the past, Frances had been more than happy to allow Ben to play, and he did seem to have fun, but in recent years, with all the reports of NFL players suffering from injuries and conditions that were more in line with professional boxers taking repeated blows to the head, Frances had decided not to support Ben playing this year.
That in turn lead to some division. Samantha seemed fine with Ben playing, and Ben was clearly adamant that he wanted to. On some level it made Frances feel like she was in her own parents' role when it came to her sexuality and becoming a werecat. It was like she was the "bad guy" trying to take Ben's freedom from him. But that really wasn't Frances's intention and she really wanted what was best for Ben, both mentally and physically. The latter part was what had heavily influenced her decision, as while weres, and particularly large weres like werewolves, could take a lot of physical punishment and survive, largely due to "lycanthropic regeneration," brain injuries and disorders were another matter. She'd seen enough weres who'd served in the military, some in both World Wars and few from the Vietnam War, struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, brought on by not physical injury but damage to their psyche to know that weres could be vulnerable to those sorts of things.
The session with Eric Anderson early in the day reflected that. It was pretty clear that the younger Anderson suffered from a low level form of bi-polar disorder, mostly brought on by the circumstances in his life. The fact that it was low level and more situation would mean that Eric wouldn't need medication to treat it, but the fact that becoming a weremerman didn't automatically cure him of it was further proof to Frances that a were's psyche might be just as vulnerable as a human's would be, even if the were's body could take more. And it had been that sort of thing that Frances had hoped to prevent happening to Ben.
But it had lead to debate, both with Ben and with Samantha. The only thing where Frances had felt secure in all of this was that Samantha would at least stand by Frances, which would mean Ben would need to convince Frances in order to gain permission. At first, Frances felt fairly confident that she could stick to her stance as it were. But Ben had raised some valid points while she and Samantha were cooking dinner, and points that Frances had to admit had a decent point. She still wanted to protect Ben from injury, and particularly injuries that being a were wouldn't easily heal, and a part of her wanted to stand firm on it. But she did understand that flag football had a lower chance of injury than tackle football, and if she were to take her worries to their fullest extent... she would be essentially arguing that Ben reject being a were and the various instincts that came with it.
"Am I becoming my own mother?" Frances wondered to herself as she moved about the kitchen to the cabinets where they kept the dinner plates while Samantha continued to stir the stew and checking a small timer that had been set up next to the stove, "that I'm rejecting Ben...?"
She knew that related to her own past. The disappointment and dissatisfaction that her parents had with regard to her not only being a lesbian, but a werecat besides. The most often complaint that Frances remembered getting was, "but how will you have children?" It wasn't that she was disowned or anything like that, but Frances could remember the lack of real trust or happiness that should have been there to know that their daughter had found someone she truly loved. Was it really THAT wrong that who Frances loved happened to be a werecat? And that question came back to haunt Frances as she began retrieving and setting down the dinner plates on the counter.
For Ben was right in a way that she and Samantha felt the same sort of predatory call of nature that Ben did. Neither of them screamed at the sight of mice in the way one might expect ad there had been a few times were rats and mice in the woods and small meadows in the areas between the long straight "spokes" that made up the roads in Moon Lake's wagon wheel layout had ended up as late night snacks for both of them. In this, Frances knew she couldn't not feel all the desires that came with being a werecat just as Ben couldn't not feel all the desires that came with being a werewolf. And if she was pushing the injury issue with regard to the Thanksgiving Football Game to the point where she was worried about Ben getting hurt in flag football... she might as well also tell him she wouldn't condone him hunting deer when his pack decided to go hunting when they held their meetings on the nights of the full moon. And it was that that made Frances stop and think about whether or not she was becoming her own mother...
It wasn't something that Frances actually liked. She liked to think of herself as being past that sort of thing, and it didn't help that Samantha had provided references that essentially backed up Ben's other points. But as the debate had gone on, the more and more Frances felt like she had debated herself into a corner. She had every right to worry about Ben's health and safety, but the way she'd gone about debating it in this case, the more and more it sounded ridiculous to her. She could stick to her argument, but the more she thought about it and some of the other odd things that she'd picked up on over the course of the afternoon and the debate.
"Are you really doing this to be with Nate and Alex?" Frances asked to Ben as the timer went off and Samantha began turning off the stove's burners.
"Not just to be with them, mom," Ben answered, looking up as Frances broke the silence that had hung over the room for a few moments, "but to at least to demonstrate that the risk of injury is not that great in flag football. Could something bad happen? Sure... but the odds of that are very low."
Frances ultimately nodded at that, as it repeated what Ben had already argued on. Her thoughts returned to pondering the corner she'd debated herself into, though that lasted for a brief moment as Ben soon continued.
"Though I will admit that Nate and Ben did help brainstorm ideas on ways to try and persuade you," Ben admitted.
"You asked them to help?" Frances asked.
"In part... though some of it was also them wanting me there too," Ben answered, "as part of my wanting to play is to be with them. Werewolves are highly social creatures. But my point has been that hanging out with them is not the ONLY reason for why I'd want to play."
"And you didn't talk to anyone else about this?" Frances wondered, her thoughts thinking back to some of Eric's comments from his session.
"No," Ben answered, "if anyone overheard... they weren't brought into the debate. So... if you had a session with someone who overheard... I didn't ask that person to help."
Frances nodded and accepted that answer. Ben sounded calm and consistent in the answer. In this, Frances felt she could trust Ben with his answer. This meant that Eric's question during the session was likely more something that came from either overhearing Frances not give permission to Ben the previous day, which was possible. As they did all regroup with Eric and Julie came "home." The only other possibility was that Nate might have commented on it to Eric, either at home or at school, and sought his brother's advice. This in turn might have raised Eric's curiosity in the debate, even if Eric's sport of choice was baseball.
"Would you want anything to drink, Ben?" Frances then asked as she approached the refrigerator, just in case Ben wanted something other than water.
"Water will be fine, mom," Ben answered as he noted Samantha serving the now cooked stew onto the plates that Frances had placed on the counter. The smell from the dinner was quite good and Ben was looking forward to it. "I would like to play, mom... And please don't be made with Nate or Alex. A lot of their motivation was to be there for a friend."
"I don't," Frances answered and then thought to herself, "I'm just trying to wrestle with the fact that I've debated myself into a corner... Over reacting on the possibility of Ben being hurt, which may not be as big as originally thought... and if taken to the logical conclusion, I'd then have to say that pack activities are too dangerous for him on the off chance a deer gores him with its antlers... And forbidding that would essentially forbid him to be what he is..."
Of course, Frances could also admit that she had been wrong, and she knew that. In fact a part of her even recognized that she was wrong, but that part of her also recognized how much she'd responded to Ben's protest over playing in the Thanksgiving Football game this year in the way her own parents had responded to the realization that she was a lesbian. That brought an added sense of shame to the whole issue. And while she thought through all that, that would take some time to overcome.