Written in 63 minutes.

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Monday, September 23, 2024

Penthouse: Living Room

Sam was curled up in an armchair when he finally came home that afternoon. She didn’t get up or even look at him when he came through the door or when he dropped his keys on the desk with plink of metal hitting the ceramic dish next to the phone.

They stood there for a long moment, the silence suffocating the oxygen in the air. The room felt small, the walls closer and closer. When had it changed? Dante wondered. When had they changed? When had they lost sight of each other and the life they’d built together?

He crossed to the other chair, sitting across from Sam, sat on the arm, every muscle in his body tensed — for flight or fight, he didn’t know. Just that he wanted to be ready for whatever came next.

“I’m not fighting tomorrow,” Sam said finally, her voice sounding dull, almost rusted. Huskier than normal. She lifted her tired dark eyes to his. “At the hearing. Mom made it pretty clear that any chance I had to win was over on Saturday.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why? You told me.” Sam let her legs drop to the ground, but she kept her arms wrapped tightly around her torso. “You told me I had to get my head on straight, that I had to stop creating problems for myself. Starting fights with Jason, going after Elizabeth—” She closed her eyes. “Doesn’t matter that I’m right, does it? That Jason had no right to come back after two years and get angry with me because I was trying to protect Danny. Or that Elizabeth’s doing everything she can to steal my son.”

“Sam—”

“Doesn’t matter that I’m right. The court doesn’t care about the truth.” She exhaled slowly, opened her eyes and met his gaze. “Mom said if I don’t fight it, if I accept anger management, maybe I get them back by Christmas.”

“Your mom’s always had your back, Sam. If that’s what she’s saying—” Dante paused. “I know this is gonna feel like I’m piling on, and I don’t want it to be like that. But Rocco—”

“She told me. There was a fight at school.” She got to her feet, crossed to the terrace and watched the rain cascading down the glass. “Danny and Rocco. I think Jake got involved?”

“Tried to break it up. But Rocco—he’s got—I didn’t know he…I didn’t know he was unhappy here.”

“Neither of us saw it,” Sam murmured. “Both the boys hid so much of what they were thinking. Feeling. We were patting ourselves on the back for how perfect our family was. How very Brady Bunch we were. And the boys were miserable. No matter how much I want to blame Jason for coming home — Danny was drinking before that.” She looked at him, and the distance between them felt like a thousand feet. “They both were.”

“I don’t know how to fix it except it’s…a choice. Rocco can’t—he doesn’t want to be here. Maybe he’s more messed up about his mom than I thought. But I can’t—I can’t force him to live here when he hates it. And I don’t want to be separated—”

“You’ve got to put him first,” Sam finished. She exhaled in a slow breath. “Yeah.”

Dante crossed to her now, stepping behind her and drew her back against him. She relaxed into his embrace, and he kissed the side of her head. “I love you. I know it hasn’t been easy, but that hasn’t changed.”

“I love you, too,” she murmured.

“But—”

“But right now you have to put Rocco first.” She turned in his arms, stroked her hands down his biceps to his elbows, then back up. “And I have to put everything into getting my kids back where they belong.”

“You know, whatever I can do to make that happen—”

“I know.”

He kissed her forehead, and she tightened her grip on his shoulders, neither one wanting to let go — and both knowing they had no other choice.

Silver Water: Hallway

Rocco trudged down the hallway behind his grandmother, his hands shoved in his pockets, and his eye throbbing like a motherfucker.

“I don’t know why we have to come here,” Rocco muttered as they approached his mother’s room, where Laura turned to face her grandson. “You think you’re gonna tell my mother what an asshole I am, and she’ll rise from the dead?”

“I think,” Laura said, tilting her head, “that you’d be surprised what gets through. I spent years locked in a catatonic state, did you know that?”

He jerked a shoulder. He’d heard something about that, but had never really dug into it.

“In fact, I missed most of your mother’s teen years. Just like she’s missing yours. Oh, it breaks my heart,” Laura murmured, and Rocco looked at her, feeling a bit ashamed of himself now for being so irritated by this visit. “She’s missed so much time with you and your sister, and it’s an ache, a guilt that you never let go. I’ve never forgiven myself for not being there when my babies needed me.”

“You woke up,” Rocco muttered, looking down at the floor, concentrating on the lines of tile. “But she’s not going to.”

“The doctors said that about me, you know. That I’d be locked away forever. But I wasn’t. Lulu came to see me, and she needed me, and I found the strength to come back.” Laura touched her grandson’s shoulder. “I’m not saying it’ll work for you. That if you just keep asking, she’ll wake up. But I am asking to find a way to make peace with the situation as it is. You know that if she could be here, she would. She never, ever wanted to be without you.”

He bit down hard on his lip when it trembled. “I have made peace with it—”

“Have you? Or have you ignored it? Hid it down deep, found ways to make it go away until you couldn’t ignore it anymore?” Laura pushed the door open, and Rocco reluctantly looked inside. At the hospital bed, with the machines beeping, and the woman laying prone in the bed.

Four years since the explosion at the Floating Rib. Four years since she’d gone out, leaving him at home. He didn’t even know if he’d said goodbye or hugged her. Probably not. He’d probably thought it was cringe.

“You don’t come to see her very much, do you?” His grandmother asked softly, and Rocco shook his head.

“There’s no point. She can’t even hear me,” Rocco managed, but he took a few steps inside the room. His mother’s long blonde hair was neatly brushed, laying in golden waves around her head. Her face was clean, but lax from someone who was sleeping but not really.

Her hands were folded over her abdomen, the way a body would be posed in a coffin, he thought. And that was all she was, wasn’t it? A living corpse with nothing inside?

“Your mother loves you so much, Rocco. It’s hard to remember that right now,” Laura said, resting a hand on his shoulder. “But she wanted to be a mother so badly, and she went through such hell to make it happen. Maybe one day, I’ll tell you more. But she’d always tell me it was worth it just to have you in her life. With your sweet smile, and your daddy’s eyes. Your Spencer impulsiveness, your Falconieri temper. She used to worry about that combination, and I’d always tell her—I’d tell her that we’d be here to make sure you didn’t take any wrong turns. That we’d love you so much you’d never need to be angry at the world.”

He wanted to speak, but he couldn’t. His mom had always said he didn’t think before he spoke, that it would get him in trouble, but she’d usually laugh and promise to tell him all the stories about how they were exactly like. But she’d never get to tell him those stories now, would she?

“I came to see her last year,” Rocco said suddenly, surprising himself and his grandmother. “It was three years. I thought three years was long enough, and I came here, and I told her she needed to wake up because this was just stupid because if she wasn’t going to wake up, then maybe she should die already because then at least it’d be over.”

He heard his grandmother draw in an unsteady breath, but Laura didn’t say anything, so Rocco kept talking. “And then I heard myself, you know. I realized I was wishing my mother was dead, so I left and I went to a party, and when someone gave me a beer, I drank the whole thing and I forgot that I said it. And I felt better.” Now he looked at Laura. “So I kept drinking. And when that stopped working, I started getting high. And then doing both. And that worked. Because I wish my mother was here, and she’s not. She’s not dead, but she might as well be because this? Being stuck in between, not living but breathing? It’s stupid and I hate her for not dying, I hate you for keeping her alive, and I hate my dad for leaving and if he’d never left, she’d never have been out on a date with that guy. I hate myself for feeling that way. So I make sure I don’t think about it.”

He shrugged off Laura’s hand, and stalked out of the room, promising himself he’d never go back.

Webber House: Living Room

“I’m home,” Elizabeth called, looping her purse over a hook by the door and tossing her keys in the dish on the table.

She went to the kitchen, then leaned against doorframe, folding her arms and smirking. “I’m never going to get used to this.”

Jason, stirring something in a pot at the stove, turned to look at her, lifting his brows in question. He reached for the dishtowel over his shoulder to wipe his hands. “What?”

“You, in my kitchen. Being domestic.” She crossed the room to slide her arms around his waist and lifting her face for a kiss. “Or that,” she murmured against his lips.

“You know I can cook.” He rested his hands at her hips.

“Oh, I definitely remember that.” Elizabeth drew back slightly so that their eyes met. “The omelette you made me after—well, after we made Jake,” she teased, and he grinned. “You swore me to secrecy.”

“I think we’ve kept too many secrets,” he replied, and she sighed, letting her head fall against his chest. He kissed her hair, then stroked her back. “You worked all day, I didn’t. Why shouldn’t I make dinner?”

“I have no idea.” She kissed him again, then went to the fridge to get a bottle of water. “Where are the boys?”

“Jake and Danny are grounded in their rooms for the night. I told them we’d come up with the rest of their punishment later,” Jason added. “And Aiden’s in his room by choice. I think he said something about a cooking show he wanted to watch.”

“I’m still getting used to this stage of parenting,” Elizabeth said, sliding onto the stool at the island. “Where they’re in the house, but I don’t have to chase after them.” She played with the cap on her water. “Sometimes I miss when they were little, and I couldn’t let them out of my sight. Back when they had problems I could solve in a minute or less.”

“I wish I hadn’t missed all of that time,” Jason admitted. “Missing Jake — and Danny’s—childhoods—it’s a regret I’m going to carry with me.”

“But you’re here now, and that’s going to matter. I promise you. Carly didn’t find Bobbie until she was older than Jake and Danny, and you know that didn’t stop them from being close.” She bit her lip. “Did you talk to them at all? Because I’m still not sure what to do with them after today. What could have gotten into them? Danny throwing punches, Jake mouthing off to his principal? Every time I think they’ve got an ounce of common sense—” She made a face.

“Yeah, I talked to them. I…told them about my accident. About after. How learning how to control my impulses was important. And that sometimes, it was more effective to not let someone know they were pissing you off.” Jason grimaced. “I think it got through to them, but like you said — every time it feels like we’ve made some progress—”

“Two steps forward, eight steps back,” she finished, and he nodded. “You should give them lessons on how you used to make Taggert lose his temper all the time. You’d just stare at him with that blank face—oh, he’d make me so mad,” Elizabeth muttered. “He talked to you like you were garbage, defective, and you’d just have that stone face, and I’d always ruin it for you—” She stopped. “I think we know where Jake gets some of his mouth from.”

“He never bothered me until he started going after you,” Jason told her. He came around, tugged her to her feet. “And then Taggert realized that I’d take whatever he threw at me about me—but going after you—” He stroked her arms. “Jake gets it from both of us.”

Elizabeth smiled wistfully. “Sometimes I think about that girl, you know? Who I used to be, who you used to be, and I imagine going back in time and telling her how the story ends. Can you imagine telling those versions of us that one day we’d be talking about our son and which of our worst traits he inherited?” She laughed.

“I don’t know. I don’t think it’d be that surprising,” Jason said, and Elizabeth looked at him, surprised. “Not to me. I knew how I felt about you.”

“I thought maybe I was reading the signals wrong,” she said softly. “We were so young, and I didn’t know how to trust what I was feeling, much less that it was even possible you might feel the same way. Maybe you’re right. Maybe where we ended up wouldn’t be such a surprise.”

“I like where we are,” he said, kissing her forehead. She lifted her head, the way she’d wanted to on that long ago day in January and kissed him.

“Diane called,” she said, and he sighed, stroking her back again. “She expects the injunction to be lifted any day now. The FBI will be searching the Quartermaines again. The motion to dismiss is next week.”

“I know.”

“If it’s okay, maybe we don’t talk about it unless we have to. I want to pretend, just a little while longer, that the only thing we have to worry about is our teen-aged boys making stupid decisions.”

“It’s going to be okay. I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Jason told her, and she sighed. “I promise.”

She didn’t respond — what could she say? It wasn’t in his power to do anything about the situation. If it was, it would have already been over.

All she could do was hold on to the precious little normal they’d managed to carve out and hope for the best.

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