The Fine Print - Chapter 24
by yhh



"What are you doing up so late?" Ethan and Eve asked each other simultaneously.

They both smiled.

"You have work in the morning," she reminded her son.

"And you have- -"

"I'm doing my job right here," she answered, rocking her sleeping grandson and step-daughter.

Ethan nodded. "They are lucky to have you."

Eve shook her head. "I'm the lucky one."

After checking on his sleeping twins, Ethan sat in the glider opposite of Eve. "You look like a natural."

"I wasn't at first. When Whit was born, part of me was terrified that she would die like I thought you had. And the other part of me wanted no one else to touch her or hold her except me just in case those were my final hours with her."

"TC didn't notice your anxiety?"

"Everyone chalked it up to first time mother's anxieties. And why wouldn't they? To them, Whitney was my oldest. But your father sent me some hard to find jazz recordings- -"

Shock vibrated throughout his face. His parents had talked over the years. "You two talked?"

"No. We never made more than polite chit chat for many, many years. Then when I attended board meetings at the hospital, we argued over any and everything. If I said the hospital carpet should be blue, he would say brown. Everyone started calling them the Eve and Julian hour. We would go round and round. The secretary used to be afraid to bring up any topic on the agenda that might lead to Julian and me having a difference of opinion. Strangely enough though, once we stepped out of the conference room, we went back to pretending we weren't aware of each other. But we always were, always are. We sensed when we needed each other, then we would send little gifts that to anyone else wouldn't mean much but to each other, they meant that we hadn't forgotten, even with all the heartache and pain."

"What did he send you when Simone was born?"

"A mule and a pit bull."

"A mule and a pit bull?"

Eve smiled as she did when she first saw the stuffed animals. "I once overheard, because your father wanted me to, him say that TC was as stubborn as a mule and as tenacious as a pit bull. I knew he had taken one look at Simone in that nursery and thought the same thing about Simone, which he wasn't wrong about. She's definitely more stubborn and tenacious than Whitney. More like her father."

He loved these chats with his mother. The knowledge he gathered about his parents and their relationship went along way to help him make sense of his world. "So how did you become a natural with kids?"

"Taking Whitney home, watching her grow went a long way to help. Then as Whit and Kay grew, Noah hit the terrible threes so there were many lunches, dinners, playdates, weekends where Grace was running around trying to find the missing or the strangely quiet Noah. That's when he wasn't bothering the girls. Then Simone and Jess came along. And then it became about stopping Noah from using the girls to do his bidding. Ask for another cookie, he would order them, because he knew he couldn't get another one because he had already had two."

His mother and his sisters led such different lives than he did. He couldn't imagine Ivy holding both Regan and Quinn at the same time, much less keeping up with Fox as he got into everything. Though he could easily see the sea of nannies that had been assigned to do such things. They each had had their own nanny, in their own suite. The only time the four of them saw Ivy was on special occasions, otherwise she saw them one on one. They hadn't been allowed to eat in the dining room until they were ten. Of course, by the time Regan, Quinn, and Fox turned ten they had been ensconced in boarding school for at least three or
four years. What would his life have been like in the cul-de-sac neighborhood with the Bennetts and the Lopez-Fitzgeralds? If he had gotten to play outside with his siblings and other kids until the streetlight came on. Who might he have become? "Do you love Theresa more than me?"

Excuse me, she wanted to say. But she knew she had heard him correctly. They had had many, many, countless conversations about his relationship with her Resa. "No, I don't love Resa more than you. Our lives were so different. I worked hard to become a doctor and I enjoyed my career. But when I walked through my front door, it was all about being a mom. I had an open door policy so kids were always in and out. Resa and Whit were two peas in a pod, the same way Kay, Simone, and Miguel were. Noah was the protective older brother to them all. Jess hung out with me and Grace or Paloma when she lived here or visited. And if Jess wasn't with one of us, she could be found reading a book in the corner. She was completely content to be by herself. I loved all the kids who graced my house. If I had had the ability to dream after you were gone, then my life with TC would have been the life I dreamt of. Resa hated being surrounded by all those boys in her family, especially after Paloma left. So she was over all the time. I used to dress her and Whitney up in matching outfits. They were my twins. They were both my daughters. When Resa became involved with you, we all saw less of her. Her behavior wasn't a reflection of how she was raised and she knew it, so unfortunately she stayed away as much as she could get away with. I was angry and pissed that you led her on, but she was at fault, too. You were taken from the moment you truly got to know her, you were with Gwen. Resa bared responsibility for the disaster you two made of your relationship. And regardless of your mixed signals, she had the power to walk away. She had the power to say no to you. And she chose not to. As someone who loved her like a mother, I cried for all she missed and gave up on because she waited for you. Someone who was never hers and never was going to be. Then one day, I found out the man who had Resa thinking night was day and day was night was my son."

Taking a deep breath, Eve paused and asked for the right words to speak to her son's fragile heart.

"I loved the baby I vaguely saw after I gave birth, which was you. I loved the baby I held in my arms and toes I counted, who was Chad. And I loved the baby whose casket I paid for by pawning jewelry your father had given, who was Emmanuel. I loved all three of you. I loved the imagined personality of my supposedly deceased son. I loved everything about him. Then when Chad and then you became my sons, I had to rectify the imaginary life I had created for us, my dreams of the person my son would have turned out to be, to the reality of who you both are. I love you just as much as I love my girls, but that doesn't always mean I have to like you. Your experiences, this lifestyle has shaped you into the person you are today. I see glimpses of myself in you, but I'm still getting to know you, Ethan Crane, for who you are. I'll be honest. At first, even with all the joy I felt for having you in my arms and my life, to finally know the truth, I saw you, thought of you as Ethan 'I can't make a damn decision if my life depended on it' Winthrop nee Crane. You were the man who put Resa in a tailspin. But as I've come to know you, talk to you, observe you, I admire you. Your example of love came from the arranged marriage of Julian and Ivy. You saw your dad sleep with anything that moved. And although I know Ivy was very discreet, her bed wasn't empty either. I won't even mention the Evil one. You had to live with Julian's seeming indifference and Ivy's overindulgence. I can empathize with why you couldn't stand firmly committed to Gwen. I'm amazed you can even handle a relationship with all you've seen- -"

"I liked the attention," the younger man said softly as if admitting a deep, dark secret.

"It's the Crane in you."

He grinned slightly. "I thought after having all of Ivy's attention all these years I would shun such lavishment but instead- -when Theresa looked at me like I put the sun in the sky and could tune out everyone else in the room but me. It's- -"

"Exhilarating. Julian could do that to me. It was like we were the only two in the world," Eve remembered fondly.

"It's intoxicating. I've been meeting with Dr. John Hudson and I realize that power I had over Theresa and she me, led me to make poor choices and hurt those I love. I'm even questioning if I was ever really in love with her or was I in love with the way she stroked my ego? I can't believe I broke Gwen's heart repeatedly because of my ego."

Eve wisely decided to keep her mouth closed.

"Thank you for being honest with me. I would have had more things to talk to Dr. Hudson about if you had said you didn't love her like a daughter."

"I've been truly blessed to be surrounded by great kids whom I love greatly, but I'm not always so fond of the choices they make. My mom was rolling over in her grave during my Boston years."

"She's stopped rolling now."

Looking into her son's eyes so much like her own, she smiled. "I think so, too."

"Do you think Gwen will ever give our marriage another shot again or have I hurt her too much?"

"She loves you or she wouldn't still be here and you wouldn't be here in the middle of the night watching your babies sleep. Now can she learn to trust you again? That's a different story. But you have love on your side and if you stick with your counseling, stay faithful, and let her know and show her you have eyes for no one but her then I think you have a fighting chance," Eve responded honestly. She had talked and talked to her daughter-in-law about the state of her marriage and knew Gwen was in love with Ethan still but was just afraid of being hurt again. Afraid another Theresa would come along and Ethan would become an indecisive cad again. She prayed that didn't happen for both their sakes and for the sakes of her three grandchildren.

After some hesitation, he decided to ask the question that had been weighing heavily on his mind. "How is Theresa? Or shouldn't I ask?"

The confusion was bright in his eyes.

"It's okay to ask." Eve sighed, remembering the consultation with the world-renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Thomas Hardy, Senior, whom Julian, on her behalf, had brought in to examine Theresa. Pilar, Luis, Antonio, Gilly Grant, Antonio's new bride, Sheridan, Miguel, Charity, Paloma, and she sat patiently as the doctor explained Theresa's condition. Pilar even allowed Martin and Katherine to come. The doctor had confirmed what everyone had suspected- -that Theresa had had a complete mental and psychological breakdown after truly comprehending her best friends were dead. When and if Theresa would ever recover was ultimately up to the young woman herself. She knew Pilar had asked her there to assure her Dr. Hardy's assessment was correct. And unfortunately the diagnosis was correct much to Pilar's and everyone's dismay.

She opted not to mention that she had visited Theresa in her room. To see the baby whose diapers she'd changed, the little girl she'd held to her breast, lying in the artificially lit room with her eyes open yet seeing nothing almost got the best of her, along with the quiet screams, that no amount of medicine seemed to stop. But she did lose it when she looked into her Resa's eyes and saw a fierce battle going on. She instinctively knew what ever demons Resa was dealing with were darker and more serious than anything she had ever had to deal with, even in her darkest hour. Julian held her as she cried for the loss of another child. She had called Father Lonigan to come pray over Theresa because she knew only God could save her other precious brown-eyed girl. Her soul wept. "She is trapped within her own mind. There's nothing anyone can do, except pray. The rest is up to her and God."

Ethan wasn't sure how he felt. He knew it was okay to feel anger towards the person who abused him. He knew it was only natural for him to want his abuser to hurt like he hurt. But his abuser was someone he knew, it was someone he trusted, loved. While he had learned that most rape victims knew their attackers, it didn't bring him much comfort. He wasn't sure what he wanted to happen to Theresa, but he felt she had gotten the easy way out. She had created havoc and destruction all around her and now she got to lie in a bed all day, have someone wait on her hand and foot while she was consumed with her own thoughts. Based on the conversations he had overheard between Pilar and Sheridan, he logically understood that Theresa wasn't having the time of her life in the sanitarium but she sure as well wasn't cleaning up the messes she had made either. Noticing his mom rubbing her eyes, he decided it was time for her to go to bed. "Let me put Nicky down."

Carefully lifting the infant, he laid his former nephew now brother down in his crib. "Love you, Nicky." He was glad that after Nicky's early arrival, Fox, Gwen, and he decided that one large nursery would be best so all the babies could be together. He loved coming in at night and checking on the three infants, then moving on next door to check on Nate and Endora, when she was staying with them. This next generation wouldn't have to struggle to find common ground and be close; they would grow up together, loving each other and knowing each other inside and out. "Now give me Dora." Once again he stealthily moved and placed his little sister, that one still shocked him, and laid her in her princess bed across from his son's fire engine bed. "Love you, Dora." Moving back into the main nursery, he helped Eve out of the rocking chair and on to her feet.

"Even though I wasn't with you every second of every day like I was with your sisters, I’m so glad that I at least got to watch you grow from afar. I love you, Ethan Crane," the former doctor declared, standing on her tiptoes to kiss him.

"I love you, Eve Crane. Now go to bed."

With glee in her eyes, she nodded and headed out the nursery. "My son the task master."

"And don't you forget it."

With a final goodnight, they both walked down the hallway to their separate rooms.


Chapter 25
Chapter 23
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