Part Twelve

Belinda Jackson

I could tell by the way the tall woman walked towards me, that she must indeed be the dragon that had been yelling at Carla over the phone last night. Her impossibly high heels clicked on the concrete floor and her hair shone in the unflattering light of the same fluorescent lamps that gave her pale skin the look of marble. Her full red lips were set into a stubborn line and the dark suit she was wearing fit her like a glove.

When she approached my desk, she gave me the once-over and I knew instantly that she was not only taking in the view, but judging me in an instant. Like a predatory animal that tried to determine how much of a fight its prey would put up.

Her hands rested on the high reception desk, perfectly manicured fingers neatly lined up; she was wearing no rings except for a simple golden wedding band.

"My name's Parker from the DA's office. I am here to speak to Mrs Linda Hanson," she said in an even, somewhat throaty voice.

"You're early, Ma'am," I replied and her eyebrow twitched slightly.

"I don't have much time."

The sound of a newspaper being folded made us both turn our heads into its direction where we laid eyes on a tall handsome man with dark hair, kind eyes and a leather jacket. He gave a boyish grin that gave me a very unwelcome, yet familiar twitch in my stomach and approached us after rising casually from the seat he must have assumed quite a while ago.

Mrs Parker slid one hand off the desk and casually put it on her hip, looking him up and down as if she was pretending to see him for the first time.

"My, my. I should have known." Her voice had dropped and was a low yet only very mildly aggressive growl now.

He cocked his head and subtly lifted the right corner of his mouth.

"Well, you did suspect something or you would already be hurling objects at me right now."

The man seemed to know her well.

She snorted - which he ignored - and instead turned to me to give me a warm and kind smile that came so naturally to him that I was sure he was not faking it.

"I hope you don't mind my showing up unannounced to accompany my wife." He cast a sidewards glance at said wife whose eyebrow had wandered towards her hairline. Her hand was already extended towards his arm as if she wanted to stop him in his tracks.

"I worry a lot about her these days," he explained with a genuine smile. "She can't seem to take good enough care of herself and my little son she's carrying under her heart."

A low noise came from his wife that sounded as if she'd been shot, but his wide smile didn't waver.

"No. I understand, of course." I said.

Pregnant? Hopefully she wouldn't eat the baby after giving birth. From the looks of her, it didn't seem that far-fetched.

"Jarod..." her tone was warning and he straightened up again. I hadn't noticed that he had leaned in confidentially until he stood up straight again and placed his hand in the small of his wife's back.

I gestured towards the hallway.

"Please just follow the signs towards the visitor's room. Someone will be with you shortly."

"Thank you so very much," he said and with that they went off. Only when she started walking, she accidentally drove her stiletto heel into his foot and he paled, the expression of happy contentment wavering for a moment.

She looked sorry, her hands flying up to his shoulders. "Honey, I am so sorry!"

She then gave him a beaming smile and walked ahead of his limping form towards the visitor's room.

Jarod

We were alone in the waiting room except for an anxious looking elderly woman with graying curls who was tightly holding on to a worn leather briefcase.

"That was absolutely unnecessary and you know it," I said, painfully stretching my foot.

"Oh that," she replied nonchalantly. "You could have prevented that from happening to you by not making me look like a dependent little housewife."

"I wouldn't be able to make you look like one if I wanted to!" I protested, already enjoying the game. She leaned over the armrest of her chair towards me and brought her nose very close to mine.

"Still."

I decided it was safe to steal a kiss and she responded with some ferocity, making me temporarily forget our surroundings, the reason for our being here and the fact that her still somewhat delicate ulcer condition wouldn't allow for rough sex in a supply closet.

When we broke apart, the woman in the corner had buried her nose in a magazine with some embarrassment.

"I am sorry. You know how much I love teasing you."

"Yeah. You have demonstrated it quite inflationary over the past ten years," she replied evenly, then brushed her lips against mine again, giving me a deep look at the same time.

Damn that ulcer, just laying next to her tonight wouldn't be easy. And judging from her evil grin, she wouldn't make it any easier on me.

"Are you still in pain?" I asked her, but she shook her head. "For obvious reasons I could not resort to my former favorite remedy, but I'm fine."

"What's that remedy?" I asked, confused.

"Warm milk with a shot of bourbon. Sadly warm milk with honey might benefit the baby, but surely does not benefit me."

"When he's born you can blame him for that until his college graduation."

"And beyond," she insisted.

"If you like."

I could see her expression change with the mentioning of our little boy's birth and I could tell that it was for a multitude of reasons. What Donald had told her about our son being the reason for the murders, Linda's threatening her that she would do her best for him not to be born and the traumatizing events surrounding Sammy's birth probably spun in her head.

She quickly recovered, though and leaned in to squeeze my hand quickly. Maybe she wasn't too mad at me accompanying her to see Linda after all. Still, she would have never asked me to.

I gently placed my hand on her lower belly and felt the warmth that was radiating from her skin.

"Can you feel him already?" I asked, curiously as always.

"Not yet. I'm not that far along. You should know that, Dr Jarod."

Before I could tell her off, a worn-looking young man in white scrubs walked in and gestured towards the hallway. "Miss Parker?"

We followed him towards a visitor's room through whose double doors we could see Linda sitting at a table, her arms folded. Parker's hand slipped unconsciously towards her middle when she laid eyes on the woman who had attacked her such a short while ago.

"I'm here," I whispered into her ear and brushed her hand with my fingers to encourage her. She didn't appear to notice, just straightened up and pushed the doors apart with some force. The loud noise of her stilettos apparently startled Linda because she quickly looked up when we walked in. There was only one chair so I decided to simply stand close to my wife while she sat, but she opted for towering over Linda instead.

"What do you know, Linda?" she said in a snide tone, without preamble.

Linda's face looked gaunt, her cheeks hollow, but her eyes were alight with something that I could tell was not madness. Her tight lips stretched into a smile that was nothing short of mocking.

"Now, wouldn't you like to know what's coming for you!"

"What do you mean?" Parker growled like an animal, but Linda seemed unfazed by it.

"They thought you'd come for my baby, but you didn't. And now they're after yours. I wish I could show you just how much it hurts to lose your son."

"So Donald's abduction was a trap?" Parker asked, matter-of-factly.
Linda's face darkened, the smile vanished as if a switch had been flipped.

"Don't dare to trivialize it."

"I don't," Parker replied evenly, which only fueled Linda's rage. She didn't know her well enough, but I could see that Parker was seized by an inner tremble. I felt my muscles tighten, ready to interject if Linda dared to round the table and attack Parker again.

"You don't know anything, Miss Parker. You have no idea how much you will grieve and how they will take him away from you. And you don't deserve any better." She turned to me now. "I actually feel sorry for you, but bad enough that you had to marry such an impossible wife. The whole town is saying that you'd better divorce her and find someone suitable."

"I won't let anything happen to her or the baby," I told her, feeling stupid even before she bore her teeth and laughed at me.

"You are just as full of yourself as she is. People like you disgust me! As long as you can live your own dream, you don't care about anybody else's."

"Who is they? Who would be so evil?" Parker asked, no emotion audible in her voice. Her prosecutor voice. Which sounded just like her Centre voice, I realized for the very first time.

"Evil? You don't know what evil is, yet. But you will, as soon as you find your baby shattered at your feet."

Miss Parker

"Honey, are you okay?" I heard Jarod's concerned voice from outside the lady's room.

"Don't call me that!" I managed weakly, but doubted that he could hear my whisper through the door. I flushed the toilet and fought off nausea again as I straightened up and stumbled towards the sink. I felt like splashing water into my face but only drank a handful and washed my hands not to smudge my make-up and destroy the illusion of invincibility that today's attire had been all about. I had hauled some sort of insult at Linda and then exited the room with dignified slow strides. As soon as the doors had closed behind me, though, I had made a dash for the bathroom.

"You scared me." Jarod grabbed my arm as I came back to the hallway.

"Well, you should have pretended to be a woman then, and walked in to check on me," I tried a joke, but felt just as hollow as before.

"Do you think Linda just snapped or would you say that there's some truth to her allegations?" As usual, Jarod cut right to the chase and didn't give me time to craft an appropriate response. So I blurted out the truth.

"I don't think she was lying. It felt as if she was telling the truth. Gleefully, yes. Because she knew it would hurt and upset me. But she told the truth."

There was a short moment of silence in which I already knew what to expect.

"Well, is that your intuition or that… sense that's telling you that?"

I straightened my shoulders, ready to stand up for it. "Both, actually."

Jarod

Unaware of where we had just come from, Sammy was her usually cheerful and talkative little self and delivered countless anecdotes of her day at school while I made dinner and Parker sat on the sofa, watching her with a sad smile on her face.

The moment we'd come through the door, the armor of make-up and the suit had begun to melt off when she had cast the shoes aside, shrugged out of her jacket and pulled the blouse from the waistband of her skirt that was getting a little too tight. While the make-up was still in place, her steely facial expression vanished and she sat on the couch where she remained.

"Mommy, uncle Sydney says I can come fishing with him if I like. And Debbie sent me a postcard from her vacation in Spain! I read it all alone." Sammy told her and plopped down on the couch next to her. It hadn't been surprising that she had almost learned to read already, just from watching us read to her. She really was very bright. Growing up in a loving and wealthy family, my little daughter could one day become anything she liked to be. Like me. But maybe she'd stick to something in particular earlier, I thought with a smile.

I watched from the kitchen as Sammy rested her head on Parker's shoulder and slipped under the blanket that covered her mother's body, hugging her.

"Are you okay, Mommy?" She must be sensing her discomfort, but seemed mollified when Parker told her that everything was fine.

I wondered why Linda had been so intent on our unborn son being the target of the people or person she thought would come to hurt our family. If she wanted to hurt Parker, why didn't she just threaten Sammy, a little girl just as vulnerable as her son had been? A year younger even? Why did it have to be the little boy who was still safe in his mother's womb? Because it was a boy and Sammy was a girl? But did it make any difference?

I asked Parker the same question that night we lay in bed and I lay behind her, my face half buried in her neck.

"It's crystal clear, Jarod. I killed her son, now she wants mine dead."

"You didn't kill Donald. He was abducted and murdered."

"In a way I did. I could have looked for him, but I was too scared that something would go wrong with my pregnancy if I put myself in danger. And she knew that. She knew that I sacrificed her son for mine."

"That's not true!" I objected. "You were just being sensible. It was a trap! And you can't really control that sense, can you? And it puts a lot of stress on your mind and body that you have to avoid in your condition."

She turned around to me with a start. "Yes, but why do I have that gift if I can't use it to help? Why do I have to fight it in order to not endanger my child? There must be something to it, Jarod. Maybe I should have just taken you along and we could have found him…"

"But I didn't believe you."

Her shoulders sank and she buried her head back into the pillows.

"And still it's my fault. Linda has every right to hate me, Jarod. Every right. I don't know what I would do, if I were in her position."

The unspoken words hung between us like mist that soaks your clothes and skin.

What if I will soon find myself in her position?

Val

Parker looked skeptical as Christine held up a light blue set of baby-clothes and gave her a beaming smile. "How about this? Cute little ducks! The little guy will love it!"

"If he's anything like me, he'll prefer Darth Vader," Parker said through gritted teeth. I knew for a fact that she was happy to leave this kind of shopping to Jarod, and at the rare occasions when she wanted to shop for the baby herself, she hit the online stores to avoid other expectant mothers and people like Christine. I felt a little out of place myself in this wonderland of things in pastel colors and stuffed animals that were so cute that they made me feel sick. The fact that Christmas was looming didn't improve things.

Christine was a phenomenon. She was usually as sarcastic as we were, but when it came to shopping for babies, she flipped. (Maybe because she was older than Parker and slowly got the grandma feelings.) Thank god I was neither maternal nor… grandmaternal? Whatever.

Despite the now more obvious roundness of her stomach at four months along, Parker appeared as maternal as a machine-gun and looked on with a painful expression on her face while Christine hit the store like a whirlwind.

As we stood pretty close to the door, I slowly leaned into her, whispering into her ear: "We can bolt. I hold the door, you slip out, I come after you and we go for martinis."

She whispered back without taking her eyes off the howling dervish that was our friend.

"It's no fun without the booze."

I reassumed my position, leaning against the wall with my arms folded in front of my chest. Parker's eyes followed Christine through the store while she caressed her stomach with her palm. She was biting her lip without noticing which meant that she was tense. I didn't have to ask the reason since she had just told us, while climbing out of her racy car, that she was supposed to be having dinner with Jarod's parents and sister that night. I had asked her how she had managed to avoid it thus far, but she had only snorted. At least it seemed that her old friend Broots would accompany them. At least someone who liked her, I thought sarcastically. This wouldn't be easy on her. I wondered whether I should headlock Jarod and tell him to behave and not let his joy about being with his mommy and daddy again, overwhelm him.

"This is perfect! Isn't it, pal?" Christine held up a bunch of baby stuff and since she was gripping more than five items at a time, I was really confused.

Parker clasped her hands and smiled: "So beautiful! Give it to me, I'll pay for it."

"No you won't!" Christine replied in a sing-song voice, holding up her credit card. "I want to be godmother and I am prepared to pay for it!"

"You know you can't just buy anything!" I called after her, but she had already hurried towards the checkout.

Parker sighed. "Thank god it's over. Do you have any idea what it was that she picked?"

"Not at all, but if we finally get out of this hell now, I'm fine with anything," I replied and took Parker by the arm. "You sure you're up to that dinner tonight? You look a little pale."

"Delicate flower," she growled.

"Don't be sarcastic on me," I growled back.

"I'll be fine. This way I'll finally get that first meeting over with and Broots is like a little watchdog around me, so it will be fine."

She was repeating herself. Bad sign.

"Have you been to your doctor recently?"

"Yep. Gave me some pills." Parker showed me a container of pills that she carried in her handbag.

"Let me see." I checked out the label but since I didn't know much about these things, just stared at the letters blurring. Why was I acting like some crazy mother hen?

Jarod

Miss Parker had spent an excessive amount of time on her appearance that night and it was clear that she was uncomfortable although she looked stunning in a black skirt and a low cut black silk blouse that still didn't reveal too much. Her high heels clicked on the floor when she followed me towards the restaurant, Sammy by her side in her favorite green dress.

My parents were waiting in the lobby of the recently opened hotel that housed the restaurant we would be eating in. Tentative steps were usually not Parker's thing, but it seemed today that she was walking more slowly than usual and her holding Sammy's hand for once looked as if it was meant to comfort herself and not her child.

I held the door for her but when she stepped in, her hand brushed the door frame and I could see her fingers twitch as if she wanted to grab it for support but then restrained herself. A look into her face confirmed that something was wrong.

"Are you okay?" I brushed her cheek with my palm and was relieved not to find it burning as it usually did when her ulcer was acting up.

"I'm fine." She avoided my eyes when she reached for her handbag and pulled out a container of pills, swallowing one without water.

"If you are not feeling well, I'll take you home," I promised but she simply shook her head, a determined look in her eyes. Meeting my parents was quite a challenge for her and I knew that she never turned down one. She wouldn't back out now.

"Granny!" Sam did a little jump and then ran towards my parents who were approaching with bright smiles on their faces. My heart skipped a beat as I saw them and I placed my hand in my wife's back to guide her towards them.

Her face was completely void of any expression until Broots hurried towards us with a little wave and his usual uncomfortable grin. He hesitated, as usual, before he carefully hugged her.

"You look great, Miss Parker!" he enthused and then shook my hand forcefully. Dear old Broots. Parker held on to him a little longer than she used to, then smiled at him.

"Good to see you, moron."

The insult had long since become a term of endearment, so he beamed at her.

"Where's Sydney tonight?"

"It seems that he has a date," I said with a conspirational grin. Broots grinned widely. "That makes one of us."

We were interrupted by my parents who, with an excited Sammy in tow, had finally reached us from the other end of the lobby. Parker looked as if she was bracing for impact as she discovered that Emily was holding on to Sammy's hand.

"Mom, Dad, Emily," I hugged my family in turn, then gestured towards Parker.

"My wife, Michelle."

She did not even flinch at her first name, though Broots did, since she had expected it.

"Hello," she extended her hand and shook my father's who regarded her with a kind look. My mother, dressed in a flowery blue and white skirt and a cardigan, looked at her black clothes for a moment too long, then smiled and shook Parker's hand, too.

The only one who was unable to hide her disgust was Emily, who could only craft a very insincere smile. "Hi," she simply said, her hands buried deeply in the pockets of her jeans. More introductions were made and fortunately my family took to Broots a lot better than to Parker who was obviously very relieved to be able to deal with Sammy who suddenly announced that she had to go to the toilet.

When we met again in the restaurant whose huge bay windows overlooked the river, I could see that Parker was paler than usual even in the soft, dimmed light in the room.

"Now how's that morning sickness?" my mother asked, taking a sip from her glass of wine which I could see Miss Parker was staring at with some envy.

"Darling," my father groaned. "This is hardly a topic for dinner conversation."

"It's okay. I'm fine," Miss Parker replied, her tone still a little hollow. She quickly took a sip of her water to have something to do and not appear to be monosyllabic.

"Good. It's great when it's over, isn't it? You feel so much better although then the whole gaining weight part becomes relevant."

Parker gave a little cough, choked on her water and I desperately tried to come up with a good way to change the subject. Parker was so self-conscious about her growing stomach that my mother couldn't have picked a better way to make her uneasy if she had wanted to.

"Yes. I noticed that. It's becoming quite obvious. You're four months Jay said? A friend of mine looked like that when she was at least five." Emily said and seemed to really savor the taste of her wine as she gave a wide smile. Parker's look darkened, but she did not fire back with one of her infamous remarks.

"I think I am going to order the fish!" Broots suddenly announced, his voice a little loud and my mother gave him a startled look. She turned back to Parker to say something else, but Broots went on mercilessly.

"It sounds really good along with those potatoes… What are you going to have, Miss Parker?"

While the others were obviously still trying to work out why someone I had introduced as Parker's best friend would not call her by her first name, Parker smiled gratefully.

"I might just go for the soup."

"The soup?" My father asked, surprised. "That's not much. Don't forget you're eating for two."

Although my parents were really trying to make her feel appreciated, this was totally going the wrong way.
"Yes, don't take my remark the wrong way!" Emily added. "I didn't mean you were especially fat or anything."

Somehow it didn't sound right with the emphasis put on the word "especially" and Miss Parker just smiled uneasily.

"I'm fine. Thanks."

"Oh come on. You must be craving something. How about the pork roast?" Emily asked, winking at her. "Lots of meat and a good sauce?" She laughed and made a dismissive gesture. "Don't you think you have to impress us by not eating! It's not your fault anyway if you blow up like a balloon."

Parker's facial expression had changed from discomfort to mild annoyance. Well, delete "mild"; she was beginning to look positively pissed off. Counting the fact that she still looked very slim and had never gained much weight despite the obvious in her first pregnancy, I couldn't help but doubt that my sister's intentions were as good as she let on. My mother seemed to feel something along those lines because she patted Emily's hand and gave her a warning look.

"Maybe you can let Michelle decide for herself. She can certainly use a few more pounds."

That seemed to soften Parker a bit and when we launched into a conversation about Sammy's latest achievements at school she even contributed a few sentences.

I noticed that Emily was ordering her glasses of wine in rapid succession, but didn't find a way to stop her. Thankfully she barely talked to Parker which I preferred over her hurtful remarks, whether they were intentionally so or not.

"So you're a district attorney?" My mother asked, when the first course arrived.

"No, I am a prosecutor working at the DA's office," Parker replied patiently while her soup stood steaming in front of her. Under the table I touched her hand softly.

Miss Parker

"So how do you manage such a demanding job while being a mother?" Jarod's mother asked and I swallowed. Although in my opinion I managed quite well, this was not my favorite topic.

"I only work part time and Jarod's practice is usually closed Thursdays so I work all day then," I gave her my usual statement.

"Mommy always picks me up from school except Thursdays, then Daddy is there and sometimes when Mommy has a trial, Sydney comes to pick me up and we go to the zoo or the cinema or to the library," Sammy chimed in.
There was a flicker of something darker on both of Jarod's parents' faces when Sydney was mentioned and I understood that they still deemed him Jarod's former captor. At least there was someone who was less appreciated in that family than me.

"So you're going after the bad guys. But what about that little boy that was murdered a few months back? They never arrested anyone for that, did they?" Emily again.

That woman annoyed me to no end with her barely disguised animosities towards me and the ensuing comments that were meant to hurt me. I was not fat, I had to remind myself. Dr Summers was always encouraging me to eat more, that was. Emily had indicated that because she had noticed that it was a sensitive subject for me.

Emily looked a stylish kind of disheveled in her battered- looking jeans, with the bleached hair and the light green shirt she wore under a light linen blazer. She was pretty even, with Jarod's eyes and a nicely-shaped face. In said eyes, though, there was a glitter I didn't like when she looked at me. She was on her fourth glass of wine already and although it had barely arrived, she had nearly half finished it. From her flushed cheeks and the nervous darting of her eyes, however, I recognized that she was probably not used to that kind of alcohol intake. Was she trying to prove something to me here? Or was she just drinking because she knew I couldn't?

I suddenly felt lightheaded, dizzy even and I winced, but thankfully nobody noticed. When I had told Dr Summer about the symptoms this morning she had told me not to worry and to be generous with the pills she had given me two weeks prior. They were not real medication but would relieve the dizziness and benefit the baby in any way. Under the table, I carefully felt for my handbag and took another pill from it that I swallowed, again, without anyone noticing.

"Michelle?" I looked up nervously. "Yes?"

"I was asking about the little boy," Emily reminded me.

"Oh, yes." What was I to say? "No, they've never made an arrest in that one."

"Jay told us that the mother is your neighbor and that she attacked you. Freaky shit, if you ask me."

I inwardly shuddered at anyone calling Jarod "Jay" but she couldn't possibly know that it was what I called Jarod during sex. And if she did I would personally take my husband's life for telling her.

"Somebody attacked you?" Broots asked, shocked.

"It wasn't that bad."

"She said you killed her son, didn't she? Why would that be? It is so far-fetched!" Another insult in disguise went hand in hand with a large gulp of wine.

"Emily, please." Jarod finally interjected.

I felt anger welling up inside me again and gripped my spoon hard to relieve some of it.

"It is far-fetched," I said as evenly as I could manage.

"Yeah, or did you screw up the investigation or something?"

"I only took very little part in the investigation since it was the local sheriff's job."

Emily took another sip from her glass, rendering it empty again and from the look in her eyes I could see that she was going to deliver the final blow to my resistance any time soon. I really had to give credit to the little bitch. She managed to play my weaknesses time and again without me being able to pin it on her or to respond accordingly since I did not know about her weaknesses. A girl can try, though.

Jarod's parents were friendly enough and so the conversation returned to their granddaughter. Everyone was praising Sammy's smarts and her looks so we were back on common ground.

Jarod, who had noticed my earlier discomfort, had reached around me and his fingers now massaged my back and took some of the tension away. It was a really sweet and loving gesture and the disgusted look on Emily's face spoke volumes, so I gave a low sigh and turned to Jarod to kiss him gently on the lips. Emily's face darkened even more. Interesting.

The main course arrived and I actually enjoyed the salad I had ordered, so I let my guard down for a bit and talked to Broots.

Only minutes later, though, Emily gave it another shot. The wine seemed to lower her guard so the next insult was pretty obvious. Unfortunately Jarod and his parents were busy discussing baby names – no way I'd call any son of mine Cuthbert – and didn't overhear.

"Well, Michelle," the sounds rolled off her tongue in a rather drunk fashion. From the corner of my eye I could see Broots tense and my heart went out to him for a moment.

"Jarod could never properly explain how you went from chasing him with a gun to getting him to knock you up. He said something about amnesia but I didn't buy it."

Suddenly I knew for a fact that if I touched her hand right now, I'd get a jolt of hatred that was way stronger than the one I had received from Will's wife a few months ago. She really hated me. Unfortunately the attention of the others on the table now focused back on me so I couldn't respond appropriately.

"We fell in love and so we started a family," I said flatly.

"Yeah, but did you know you wanted to start a family with him when you tried to shoot Jarod countless times before that? Or when you tried to drag him back to that hellhole and have your brother torture him?"

"Mommy shot daddy?" Sammy asked, her eyes wide and questioning. We had never told her anything about that part of the past in order not to upset her and here Emily went and destroyed it all.

"Oh, sorry. She didn't know?" Emily added, her shock and embarrassment really well acted.

"Emily, can we just…" her mother tried, but Emily went on.

"If I had known that, Michelle, I am so sorry. How could I? I mean, knowing that her mother tried to kill her father and deliver him to an organization that would exploit his genius to kill god knows how many people must really upset the poor thing."

Sammy looked as if she was going to start crying any minute and I regretted deeply that I had not insisted on her sitting next to me instead of between her grandparents.

"Emily, it's…" Jarod began and I knew with sudden clarity that he was still buying her act of being sorry and not having meant to disturb Sammy.

She was hurting my daughter and possibly my relationship to her, so I didn't care anymore whether she was just trying to provoke me.

"Listen, Emily." My voice was so loud and sharp that everyone at the table was suddenly staring at me. Even Jarod didn't even try to resume his sentence.

There was a gleeful expression on Emily's face, so she didn't suspect yet that I had found her weak spot which she unknowingly had revealed to me through her comments.

"I am just so glad I met Jarod," I explained, feeling my husband relax next to me. I was almost sorry that I would have to surprise him. "And I love him very much. Being alone and bitter like you with such a longing for a child you'll never have must be horrific."

Her face fell and even without the blast of anger and pain that I could clearly feel coming from her, I would have known that I had hit home. So that was it. She was jealous and bitter that from a relationship like ours could come a happy marriage and children. I had tried to fit into this family and ignore her trying to hurt me, but now I couldn't stop myself even though I knew this comment alone would have been enough.

"How old are you now, Emily? Thirty-eight, is it? Chances must be slim to find a suitable guy in time to start a family. And especially when you are so bitter that you feel the need to upset a little girl who hasn't done anything to you just to hurt its mother whom you detest for the sole reason that she has everything you will most likely never have."

The silence around the table was deafening as everyone stared at Emily who looked crestfallen. I felt almost sorry for her when she got to her legs shakily, then grabbed her empty glass and threw it at the floor where it shattered, alerting the other costumers. I held her stare and noticed the tears spilling from her eyes.

"You are such a fucking bitch!" she yelled, then practically ran out.

Gazes turned from her to me and I could see anger forming in Major Charles' and disbelief in Margaret's eyes.

"How could you?" Margaret asked. "She is anxious enough as it is. She's even in therapy because of it!"

"Her boyfriend left her last year and she found out that she couldn't have kids!" Jarod added. "Didn't I tell you that? Oh wait." His eyes darkened. "I probably did."

"No, you didn't."

"What is wrong with auntie Emily?" An oblivious Sammy asked with obvious distress. "Is she upset that Mommy shot Daddy?"

I could feel my throat tighten. They were obviously making me out to be the villain and I had just proved to them that I was every inch the monster they had initially thought I was. Sudden sickness threatened me and the dizziness returned full force.

"Parker, how could you?" Jarod asked, his voice barely lowered. "Why did you do that to her?"

The pain intensified and now I pushed my chair back and walked towards the door in a hurry.

"Wait!" Broots, who had been sitting next to me, got up and followed me out.

Inside the lady's room I grabbed the sink and stared into the mirror, trying to focus my gaze. The fact that I had just completely screwed-up any chance to ever be accepted in Jarod's family suddenly didn't seem very relevant anymore as I could hardly stay upright. I gasped and felt my fingers slip from the edge of the sink, unable to breathe at all. The pills were in my handbag in the restaurant and I doubted they would help me now. But so was my cell-phone.

I was grateful when the door to the bathroom opened and I looked up at the person, only now realizing that I had dropped to my knees. Surprise must have lit up my face as I managed: "You?"

To be continued…