The theory of everything

Life used to be a lot less complicated, she knew who she was, she knew where she was going and she never lacked for confidence. Somewhere between meeting Tom and finding herself ensconced in suburbia, or as she likes to think of it - her own private low security prison – she has lost herself. Sometimes she blames fate. Sometimes she blames the universe. Sometimes she blames Tom. To be honest, she often blames Tom but given that the alternative is to blame herself she, sadly, finds that it’s something that she can live with. She misses her old existence. She wonders if she’s editing out the bad parts of her life before Tom, before the kids, but she finds it hard to imagine what could be worse than her current situation. She does love her husband and her children she’s just not very comfortable being a wife and mother. She misses being good a things, her previous life taught her very little about failure, she’s been forced to take a crash course and the learning curve was step and painful.

She watches the other mothers on Wisteria Lane and at the boys’ school and wonders what they have that she doesn’t. She is sure she is defective in some way, as though there some kind of gene for parenting that she lacks. Her parents weren’t bad role models and she has read all of the literature on childrearing that she can find but when it comes to her children nothing that she tries works. The theoretical knowledge is there but she can’t apply it, it’s like there is a language barrier, she has a parenting specific learning disability – maybe she is eligible for some form of government aid, at the very least someone should be investigating her disorder and educating the public, they could make PSAs about it and everything and sooner or later, other women would admit that they suffered from the same affliction and there would be a major Oprah episode on the topic. She plans to get right on to organizing all of that just as soon as she manages to find some free time; she has penciled it in for the day after Penny’s 21st birthday. In the interim she is content to use her quieter moments to contemplate who should play her in the Hallmark movie of the week about her life.

She is pretty sure that her flights of fancy are harmless and not the harbingers of an emerging psychotic episode but she plans to keep them to herself just to be on the safe side. Her inner world is great source of solace for her, it’s easier to retreat there when there is so little that she can control in the outside world. The problem is that, all talk of mental illness aside, sometimes there is a blurring between her fantasies and reality, which leads her to her current dilemma. She is almost sure that Bree has feelings for her. The kind of feelings that go well beyond the bounds of friendship but that certainly can’t be described as familial. The problem is that she’s only “almost” sure, she’d rate the probability somewhere around 95% but it’s the uncertainty that troubles her. She knows that in her career she would have made major decisions with much less information than she has on the this topic but she feels it’s important not to say anything to Bree until she has dissuaded any doubts she has on the matter of Bree’s intentions. In her lower moments when she is plagued by her demons she knows that she is only using this tactic to avoid analyzing how she feels about the possibility of Bree being attracted to her or, the far more worrying alternative, that she has created the whole situation by misinterpreting Bree’s actions because that would mean opening up a large can of worms labeled “Why?” and she really does not want to go there.

She sticks with the premise that Bree loves her and decides to approach the situation like any theory. So she searches for the thing that will make it false. She creates scenarios to test the lengths to which she can push Bree – it doesn’t hurt that she will benefit from the outcome, after all she doubts that the boys would have got into Barcliff any other way and it makes it easier to rationalise her actions, although it is somewhat disconcerting that she is perhaps more comfortable with using Bree than she is with confronting her. It is, however, equally disconcerting that it made her stomach flip when Bree chose the twin’s future over that of her own potential grandchildren. She doesn’t think it proves anything, she can’t say that Bree wouldn’t do the same for Gabrielle or Susan, maybe should would, although Lynette doubts that the others would ever ask such things of her.

Her latest scheme is one of her best yet she can almost convince herself that she is only asking because she really needs to find a good nanny. It wasn’t how she had planned it but she couldn’t have been happier with the setting, she feels that it is important that it’s as ordinary as possible, she doesn’t want to muddy the waters by feeling that she has tried to hard to get Bree to do what she asks. It is far from her classiest moment, she could have been charitably described as casually dressed (although she realises that a closer description would be bedraggled and she is sure by Bree’s standards her attire and makeup are by no means acceptable for public consumption) and the bottle between her teeth is not exactly about to take off as the accessory de jour. Bree, on the other hand, is a study in immaculateness, she is the poster girl for sartorial and tonsorial perfection. Lynette tries to convince herself that her racing heart and difficulty swallowing are due to her anxiety over the task ahead and not a response to Bree’s radiance and with that alarming thought in mind she decides that it’s time to ask her question. Bree protests, as Lynette knew she would, and Lynette tries hard not to laugh at the fact that Bree describes her major concern at the situation as ‘unseemly’ - she finds her so adorable at that moment but suppresses that thought as quickly as it comes and returns to the task at hand. Bree begins to waver remarkably quickly and so Lynette goes for the kill. She knows she is being coy and she can feel herself smirking, she knows that what she’s doing is dangerous akin to flirting and she notes, with what she likes to imagine is detached disinterest, that Bree seems powerless to resist.

Her mission accomplished, she watches Bree walk away before pulling out of the drive. She smiles to herself, pleased that she has achieved her goal but concerned that her feeling of wellbeing may have more to do with the fact that she has yet to disprove her theory that Bree loves her than it does with the fact that she is a step closer to getting herself some high grade nanny. Bree closes the door to her house and disappears from view and Lynette tries not to notice the fact that she misses her already. Things would be much simpler if Bree would just declare herself one way or the other but that simpler life allows for the possibility that Bree’s only interest in her is platonic and that’s something that she reluctantly admits she had decidedly mixed feelings about. So she is content to wait and to test her theory until it either proves false or becomes a law.