Written in 56 minutes.

---

Tuesday, October 1, 2024

Webber House: Living Room

“You’re really not making me go to school?” Danny asked skeptically. He winced when Jason tightened the knot on his tie, and tugged on it when Jason stepped back. “Man, these suck.”

“There’s no point in using Mom’s kids as a sympathy point if we leave the worst one at home,” Jake said, and earned himself a whack on the arm from his mother and a dark look. “It was just a joke.”

“I don’t particularly like the idea of any of you there,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. She watched Cameron toss a coat to Aiden and rummage for an umbrella. “But Jake’s not entirely wrong.  The fact that I have three minor boys living in my home, even if Danny isn’t my son, is a point against revoking my bail. We’re not hiding you,” she told Danny.

“But maybe don’t tell your mom you’re missing your first day back because of it,” Aiden suggested, and Jason winced, watching Danny’s reaction. His son didn’t even seem to flinch at the insinuation, which didn’t really give him much to work with.

“The actual hearing won’t be that long, I don’t think.” Elizabeth took the coat Cameron offered her, hung it over her arm. “Diane is bringing the motion, so she’ll talk first. Then the U.S. Attorney, and then the judge will rule.”

“And then we’ll all come home,” Cameron said. He held out an umbrella to his mother. “Don’t let your hair get wet. You know what happens if it does.”

Elizabeth rolled her eyes, then accepted it. “You boys better get going if you want to make sure you have seats.” She kissed Cameron’s cheek. “Drive carefully. I know it’s only drizzle—”

“Yeah, yeah, I got you. And we’ll wait for Michael and his mom in the parking garage before we go in. You’ll be right behind us?” Cameron asked.

“We’re leaving now,” Jason said, taking Elizabeth’s coat from her arm and holding it out so she could slid her arms through. “We’ll be right behind you on the road.”

“At least until Dad gets on the open high way. Speed limits are just a suggestion, he told me once,” Danny said, shrugging into his coat as he followed the other boys out the door.

Jason held the umbrella out, opening it when he and Elizabeth stepped outside. The rain had been coming down steadily since early that morning, a light drizzle that turned the whole sky a dreary gray. Matching the mood, no matter how much Elizabeth’s boys tried to keep the mood light.

The boys were driving the car Elizabeth had been using since her own had been seized in the arrest, the sedan waiting at the curb in front of the house. There was a brief argument between Jake and Aiden over the passenger seat, but Jake won the day on seniority and slid next to Cameron, with Danny and Aiden heading for the back.

Elizabeth stood by the passenger side of Jason’s SUV, Jason just behind her with the umbrella held over both of them. The four boys could have fit into their vehicle, but it would have been cramped — the only way to fit them comfortably would be to leave two of them at home. And how would Elizabeth even choose?

Would this be the last time she’d be in her home for months? The last time she’d see her boys outside a court room?

The sound of the door opening jolted Elizabeth, and she looked at Jason, took a deep breath. “I can’t help it. I’m worried about him driving in the rain.”

“We can call them, and you can follow them on your phone,” Jason told her, and she was grateful he didn’t tell her that they could just get on the road and keep the boys car in sight the whole way.

Once they were in the car, it would become real. It wasn’t a weekly trip for her check-in with pre-trial services — it was a hearing that Diane was almost guaranteed to lose. Elizabeth knew that they hadn’t been able to find enough to get the indictment dismissed. But would the government try to put her back in jail?

“Let’s go,” Elizabeth said, finally, and accepted Jason’s help to step up into the SUV and avoid tripping on her high heels. “I want to get this over with.”

Highway 481 South, Mile Marker 13

Diane flicked through some paperwork, squinting at the small print, then glanced over at Spinelli, his fingers wrapped tightly around the wheel, eyes on the road. Since they’d left Port Charles, the car had been relatively silent with only the rustling of papers and whooshing of the windshield wipers.

“It would have to rain today,” Diane muttered, flicking on the defrosters to clear the windshield. “What did Chase tell you when you passed the information about the phone?”

“The same thing you did,” the younger man said. “He can get the records, but it’ll be pretty limited right now, especially if she replaced her phone. We won’t be able to get anything off the cloud — but I wouldn’t expect it anyway.”

“No, not with the security Sonny would have put on the phone. Paranoid man,” Diane muttered with a huff. “But if we can get the location data and id of her phone, I can get information from cell towers in the area. We might be able to triangulate where her phone was located.”

“I know.”

“It won’t be a smoking gun,” Diane continued. “None of it really is,” she admitted. “It’s useless in front of a judge, but a jury would eat Kristina up as an alternative suspect. I’d never work for Sonny again,” she added, “but I think Alexis would understand.”

“I don’t want this to go to jury,” Spinelli said with a scowl. “I want to find Kristina on the footage planting the gun—”

“Spinelli—”

“Stone Cold asked me again if he could do anything, and I had to tell him no. Again. And that we didn’t have anything to tell him,” Spinelli added. Diane pressed her lips together, looked straight ahead. “He’d keep it quiet if we told him about Kristina—”

“I know that we’re convinced, Spinelli, but we might be wrong.”

“Diane.” If he could take his eyes off the road, Diane knew the pitying glance he’d give her.

“She’s the daughter of my best friend, Spinelli. And Jason’s been looking after her most of her life. When I think of what he and Sam went through to get her out of that damn cult. What Kristina’s put her parents through over the years—” Diane shook her head, dropping her eyes to the papers in her lap. “Six months ago, I wouldn’t have considered this, you know. But when I found out Kristina was planning to sue for custody of that baby, when I watched her at that funeral, making herself the center of attention—” she pursed her lips. “The little girl I knew couldn’t have done this. The callous woman I’ve seen lately could.”

Bobbie’s Diner: Dining Room

Sam shook out her umbrella, then tucked into the wrapper that would keep the rest of her bag dry. “I know you’re busy this morning, so thanks for meeting me.”

Alexis picked up her coffee. “I’m not due in court for an hour, and you have your appointment at noon, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Sam gave her order to the waitress, waited for her to go. “I wanted to talk to you about it. About what to expect. And how to answer the questions.”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been to anything like this, but you don’t need a game plan, Sam.” Alexis lifted her brows. “You just go in, and you answer the questions.”

“But this guy—he’s heard from Danny, and by now, Jason. He probably knows all about the custody issues, and that—that day in the lobby.” Sam picked up a straw, stripped off the wrapper. “He already has an idea in his head of who I am, and I just want to make sure he gets the right one by the end of it.”

“Sam—”

“Kristina was over last night, and she was telling me that I need to stand up for myself, you know? That I need to talk to the doctor about how things really were—” Sam stopped, saw her mother grimace. “Is that for me or Kristina’s advice?”

“Both. Your sister—” Alexis set down the cup, sat back, and didn’t speak again for a moment, collecting her thoughts. “I understand that she’s been through a very difficult situation, and that we’re barely two months out from the loss of the baby—”

“Irene,” Sam said softly, and Alexis closed her eyes. “I know, Mom. I catch myself doing it, too. I don’t use either name. But are we really helping her? Or are we choosing sides this way?”

“I don’t want it to be like that—”

“But it is like that. Kristina’s been—she’s been great,” Sam said. “You know? Checking in on me, making sure I eat. Keeping me from just being lonely—but Molly told me she’s not around as much as she’d want to be because she’s avoiding Kristina. I hate that, Mom. I let it happen.”

“I have as well,” Alexis said. “I looked at it like it was a triage situation. Kristina was more fragile, and Molly’s always seemed so capable—so…sturdy. I think that’s still largely true, but that Kristina’s taken that fragility—that inability to handle the reality of…Irene’s existence, and her…” Alexis’s voice faltered. “Her absence,” she said finally. “And she’s become brittle.”

“She wants me to stand up for myself,” Sam repeated. “And tell the doctor all the ways Elizabeth has done me wrong for the last twenty years.” Her lips were curved in a faint smile. “I’ve got that list ready to go, you know.” She tapped her temple. “It’s never far away. It’d be really easy to do it.”

“My question to you would be,” Alexis said, “is why do you need to make Elizabeth the villain in your story? She’s not, sweetheart.”

Her mother’s kind tone had Sam dropping her eyes, tears rising. She cleared her throat. “Someone else has to be the bad guy, Mom. Come on, you know how this works. Because if she’s just another character in the story—” She tapped her chest. “That makes me the problem. And I don’t know how to fix that. I thought I had. I thought—” She looked away, her eyes a bit distant, then focused, looking back at her mother. “I don’t want Jason back. I don’t want the life we had together. We didn’t love each other the way we should have, you know? Not anymore. And not for a very long time. Danny — he’s a miracle and I will never regret that he was born — but he probably shouldn’t have been.” Sam’s final words were released on a shuddering sigh, and she sat back in her chair, folding her arms. “It was easier with Elizabeth when she and Jason were just friends. When Jake was Danny’s brother, and I could forget why that link existed. I wouldn’t have to remember the person I was, and all the terrible things I did to break that link. The horrible things I thought about that boy. He never deserved any of it.”

“No, he didn’t.” Alexis tipped her head to the side. “But that boy is Danny’s brother, and they love each other very much. You have to make peace with all of that Sam. You have to. And you have to make peace with the person you were then.” She leaned forward. “Or you will never have a relationship with your son again. Can you live with yourself if that’s how this ends?”

“I just know I can’t keep doing things the way I have. I almost—I was lying in Scout’s room last night, and I started to think Kristina was right, you know? That I deserved to have my side of it known. That if this doctor understood why Elizabeth was the problem—I started planning it in my head, what would I say, how would I phrase it—and I just—” Sam sighed. “I don’t know. I just don’t.”

“Don’t go into this appointment with a game plan, Sam. Or a prepared speech, a rehearsed diatribe. Just go in with this thought — Danny. He’s all that’s left of your relationship with Jason. And he’s all that matters now.”

Franklin Street: Federal Parking Lot

Elizabeth stepped down from the car, her heels scratching lightly across the concrete floor. She moved out of the way so that Jason could close the door and looped her purse over her shoulder. “Cameron said he and the boys are inside with Michael and Carly—” Her phone buzzed again. “Spinelli and Diane just got there, too,” she said, reading the text. She lifted her eyes to him. “That just leaves us, I guess.”

“I know.”

And yet still neither of them moved. She shivered lightly, listening to the drops of rain outside, and the way water dripped inside, echoing off the walls. “Parent teacher conferences are in two weeks. I usually go back and forth between Jake and Aiden. They’re both good students, so I don’t feel like I have to talk to everyone. I like to see Jake’s art teacher, and Aiden’s math teacher. Aiden doesn’t like math—”

“Hey,” Jason touched her arm. “You’ll be there to do that. Okay?”

“I know. I know,” she repeated. “But…I just wanted you to know. In case. You’ll be there for Danny, and he has that shop class with Jake. I wanted to talk to the teacher, to see how that’s going because it’s such a strange choice for him, but he took it to be with Danny—”

He cut off her rambling with a brush of his mouth against hers, and she sighed, sliding her hand up to his neck. “If you don’t come home today,” he said, his breath against her lips, “then I won’t stop fighting until you do.”

“Without switching places with me,” she said, a little wryly, feeling rewarded when he smiled faintly.

“Without switching places,” he admitted. He took her hand, brought it to his mouth and kissed the inside of her palm. “Let’s try something new, okay? We’re in this together. No matter what happens.”

“No bailing,” she said, and his smile widened. “I said that to you once, remember? A lifetime ago. We…we broke that promise,” she admitted. “But not this time.”

“Not this time.” He kissed her forehead, lingering. “And not ever again.”

← Flash Fiction: You’re Not Sorry – Part 78 |