New Beginnings, Chapter 31
 

Chad looked into her eyes, which were full of tears. The doubts melted away  because he could SEE that she was bearing her soul to him. The ideas swirled in his head. The word stuck in his chest. It moved up his chest and was lodged in his throat. But, finally, it came out of his mouth.

" M…Mama?"

Eve slowly nodded. " It's me, Chad."

Chad just stared at her. This was the moment he had waited for his entire life. He watched, as in slow motion, Eve lifted her arms and opened them. She knew she was taking a risk, but she had to. This is what was in her heart.

Chad slowly walked towards her, not really knowing what his body was doing. Before he could really think about anything, he was sitting on the bed next to Eve, and his upper body was being enveloped by her arms.

" My baby…my baby…my son.", were the only words heard in the room. Chad finally stopped his shock and slid his arms around Eve and squeezed her back. The words were still stuck in his throat, but his emotions were free to express themselves in his tears, which they did.

Mother and son stayed in this position for quite some time, almost feeling that if they let go at this moment, then it would all have been a dream and not real. Finally, Chad pulled back to look at his mother.

" Are you sure?"

" Julian did the DNA tests. He confirmed it for me."

" YOU and Julian Crane?"

Eve nodded. " I know."

" No. You DON'T know. In a million years and then some, I never remotely thought my mother could be you."

" I know."

" How? Why? When? Where? I'm sorry, but, look at this from my point of view. The thought of you with Julian Crane isn't something that I can think many people can wrap their minds around. Least of all, me. "

" Julian and I are a long story from a long forgotten part of my past."

" So forgotten, Coach and Whitney and Simone don't know about it.", Chad said harshly. " Oh my God, Whitney!"

Eve looked at Chad with a sad face. " Yes, Whitney. I know that she had some feelings for you."

" It isn't just her. I don't get it. There is NO WAY that Coach or them can know about you having another kid. Not the way that they talk about you. That you're the 'perfect' mother and wife, and always have been."

" Chad, it's difficult."

" No. Not really.", Chad said, getting angrier as he spoke. " There's no way that they  know about me."

" No, they don't."

" I was your secret. Your dirty forgotten secret.", Chad said bitterly. " I was dirty to you. Something to be ashamed of. I was wrong. You didn't want me at all!"

" Chad, PLEASE! Give me a chance. Let me talk to you about this. Please?"

Chad didn't know what to do. He had the letter from Julian, that spoke about his mother fighting everyone for him. He had wanted to believe that. Yet, his mother was sitting here before him. A mother who had another family that had no clue about the possibility of his existence. If she wasn't ashamed of him, then WHY didn't they at least know about the possibility of their being another child for her? She had wiped out his birth. He looked into her eyes. God, they were so deep. So scared. He was scared too. He looked at the floor and said, " Explain."

" Chad, I'm sorry if you think that you are a dirty little secret. You aren't. Not to me. I've lived with your death everyday since the doctor's came in and told me that you had died. I……I don't have any excuse, except for that I was trying to survive at the time. When you died, I had nothing. I began the year a college freshman and in a year's time, I had flunked out of school, fallen in love, been abandoned, gotten into alcohol and drugs, gotten pregnant, been disowned by my parents, and wound up with a dead child.

Any one of those events would be enough to put someone over the edge, but I had them all happen to me one after the other. When I left the hospital without you, all I could think about doing was surviving. That's all. I told myself that it had been a bad year and that it was time to go forward. So, I took Alistair's offer of paying for my education, and it became my life.

I can see now, that emotionally I dealt with nothing. Pretending that it was just a year in my life was the wrong thing to do. I'm a doctor, and if I met a young woman in my situation now, I'd make and have made the psychiatric appoints myself.  But, I had nobody to do that for me.

By the time I met TC, I had buried it so deep, it was like a bad movie I had seen. As the years went by, I had relegated it to someone else. It happened to another woman. The only part I couldn't give that 'other' woman was the loss of my child. The ache was there, but I thought it was private. Very private. I needed TC, so I became what he needed me to be, which  was 'perfect'. I had been so devoid of genuine human contact…..of love…..that I did what I had to do to keep TC. By the time I realized his deep hatred of all things Crane, I was in too deep. I couldn't stop myself. I couldn't be alone again.

Plus…..I could never explain to him that I felt responsible for your 'death'. "

" Responsible? How?"

" I had gotten involved in alcohol and drugs. I didn't know I was pregnant, and I still did both of them. I cleaned up when I found out about you, but I thought I had caused your premature birth and your death. That's not something you tell the man you want to marry."

Chad looked at her. He heard her story. It was so hard to reconcile the woman he was talking about with Dr. Eve Russell. The woman he described just didn't sound like Eve Russell. No wonder she was so confused. But, he had also heard the pain. The pain in her voice. The pain in her story. It's not that he hadn't heard the story before. Being from the streets, he'd seen plenty of women with his mother's story, but few of them had her happy ending. Most wind up in the morgue before they were 35. Nearly all, if they lived past that, where unproductive shells. His mother had coped and succeeded and produced a loving family.

He knew she was right. The only way she COULD make it is by burying him and all those memories. Chad had buried a few memories himself. He could feel his anger dissipating because he knew what he was getting was the truth. It wasn't pretty, nice or kind, but it was the truth. He ached as he looked at her. Even if her family didn't know about him, SHE did. The guilt. He'd seen it on the streets. Drug-addicted mothers, conscious for enough moments to know how they had destroyed their own children. He asked one how she could go back to drugs after seeing her sick child. ' Don't you get it, Man? It's the only way to get through the day. I guess if I was really brave, willing to take my just punishment, I'd just put a bullet to the brain.' Chad heard sometime later that she had done exactly that.

He KNEW his mother. He had seen her for years, in the streets. Yet, she got out.  He looked at Eve. He realized where he got his strength. He reached out to hold her hand. They sat there for a few minutes, while he gathered his thoughts. Just as he was about to speak, there was a knock on the door.

" Eve, Dr. Harvey is here. I brought her right up.", Grace said, bringing in the doctor.

" Chad, why don't we leave these two alone?"

Eve nodded and Chad left with Grace. Once outside in the hall, Chad turned to Grace.

" Is there something wrong? Is she sick?"

Grace smiled. " No. She's not sick. She's.." Grace gets a cellphone call.

" Hello?….Hi Jessica….Oh yes, I have that recipe for her downstairs in my purse. I'll go downstairs and give it to you." Grace motioned that she was going downstairs and Chad nodded. Chad eased his way back to Eve's bedroom and opened the door a crack and listened in.

" Well, Eve, you definitely have an attentive husband. He called me and asked that I give you a house call."

" He's definitely overprotective."

" Well, he's an expectant father. Nobody would guess that this was his third and not first."

Eve laughed. " He wants this baby so much. So do I."

" And, it's my job to help you carry to term. So, be quiet for a bit and let me take your vitals."

Chad moved his ear from the door.

" My mother's pregnant?"