Sacrifices of the Soul, Chapter 18
 

Gwen and Rebecca adjourned to Gwen’s suite.

" Well, Mother, I didn’t think your plan would work."

" Of course, it would, darling. Mother knows best."

" When I came to you in tears, telling you that I knew that Theresa was after Ethan, but, that nobody would believe me, I was really afraid."

" And, you didn’t need be."

" When I overheard Chuck at that restaurant in New York, telling his friend how he helped his tennis coach’s pal put one over on the guy she really loves’ fiance, I KNEW that he was talking about Ethan and me."

" Yes. Your instincts were right. And, I told you that Ethan would never believe YOU, because Theresa paints herself as the VICTIM, as so many golddiggers do."

" So, you said for me to give her enough rope to hang herself. Hence, the job as my Wedding Coordinator. I admit, I was going to freak out the night that looking over Theresa’s bridal stuff, I found the sketch of the bride and groom, with her name scrawled on it. It took everything I had to not scream when she, along with Whitney and Pilar, burned the sketch. "

" But, you didn’t. You went along with it, playing the trusting and naïve fiance for Ethan. It never would have worked, trying to expose Theresa. She had to expose herself."

" And, you think that’s what happened?"

" Of course it did. Theresa not Wedding Coordinator? School taking up her time now? Giving her the ‘check’ was the final blow. He dismissed her as nothing more than a servant. Oh yes….the Housekeeper’s daughter blew her cover."

Rebecca watched as Gwen paced the room.

" Gwen, what are you doing?"
" Mother. Why would Theresa give herself enough ‘rope’ to hang herself? She wouldn’t do it now. Not without good cause."

" Cause?"

" She must have had some indication that the feelings would be reciprocated. She must have had some indication from Ethan that he had feelings for her."

" Who cares if Ethan has feelings for her?"

" I DO, Mother."

" Gwen, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that YOU have the ring, the wedding is still on, and she’s OUT as Wedding Coordinator. At Ethan’s request even. Nothing else matters." Rebecca gets up and gives Gwen a kiss on the cheek. " Gwyneth Hotchkiss, you worry too much about things that don’t make a difference. This marriage will happen, and it will be a brilliant match. You’ll see."

Gwen knew that she couldn’t argue with her mother, so she let her leave. Gwen went over to her desk and took out the pictures of Theresa and Ethan from Bermuda. They made her sick to her stomach. She knew that Theresa was after Ethan, she’d known it always in her gut, but everyone made her feel like she was crazy for suspecting ‘poor little Theresa’. She had ALMOST fell for it herself, doubting all her instincts, until that evening she overheard Chuck in a mid-Manhattan hangout. As he described how utterly duped ‘his fiance’ was, she broke a glass in her hand. She couldn’t believe that everyone thought it was ok to play her for the fool, even Ethan, she had decided. But, she loved him, and wanted him, and when her mother came up with the plan for Theresa, she’d gone along with it.

But, now, Gwen wasn’t so sure. Yes, she loved Ethan a great deal. She couldn’t imagine her life without him. It wasn’t as if Gwen hadn’t met other guys- she was the only living child of a father with a considerable empire. Not as large as the Cranes, but, paupers they would never be. When Ethan seemed to be ‘dragging his feet’, as Rebecca said, there was a period of time where her mother seemed to have an excuse for Gwen to come home on different occasions, and always there, by ‘coincidence’, was some obscenely wealthy, and usually gorgeous guy, whose family would love an ‘alliance’ with the Hotchkiss family. Gwen amused her mother, and then proceeded to bore every one of those gentlemen with talk about how wonderful Ethan was. After  5 or 6 times, Rebecca got the hint.

Gwen looked at the pictures and thought that if Theresa ‘hung herself’, she did so, because she thought that she had enough of a comfort zone with Ethan to tell him the truth. SOMETHING had to have happened for Theresa to think that Ethan wouldn’t turn his back on her with a full confession. And, Gwen knew that the only thing that would have given Theresa the green light like that, was if Ethan had confessed that he had ‘strong’ feelings for Theresa.

‘ Strong’ feelings for Theresa. Gwen got weak in the knees and barely made it over to the chair to sit down. How? How could this happen? How could he develop feelings for anyone else?

More than that, what would Gwen do about it?

Could she marry a man who wanted someone else? If Theresa had never confessed her lies to Ethan, would Ethan still be with her? And, if he wouldn’t, should she want to be with him? How could he be involved with Theresa down in Bermuda, and still take HER there for their honeymoon? Isn’t that the ultimate sign of disrespect and something JULIAN would do? Was Julian right, when he called Ethan ‘ A  Crane through and through.’

Had Gwen only wanted to see what she thought she saw. Was Ethan like Julian, and Theresa just the first in a long line of women in ‘their’ marriage?

All these things were running through Gwen’s mind, so she didn’t hear Ethan come into the room.

" Gwen? Gwen?"

Gwen looked up and saw Ethan there. He was concerned. He reached out, and wiped away a stray tear that was falling down Gwen’s cheek.

" Gwen, what’s wrong?", Ethan said with deep concern in his voice. Gwen got up from the chair, and walked over to the fireplace and stared into the fire.

" Gwen, didn’t you hear me? I asked what’s wrong?"

Ethan stood there for a few moments, and Gwen was silent. Then, she softly spoke up, not turning to look at Ethan.

" Ethan, do you know why I fell in love with you?"

Ethan looked at Gwen and shook his head, and answered , " No."

" It was your eyes. There was such kindness and gentleness in them. I saw in them a soul that would never hurt me. And, I needed to believe that."

" I WOULD never hurt you, Gwen."

" I hope not." Gwen turned around and faced Ethan. " Do you remember the day you knew that there wasn’t any Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy?"

Ethan laughed. " No. I can’t say that I do."

" I can. I can remember the exact moment."  Gwen walked over to the chair and sat down. " I had a perfect childhood. At least up until that day. Nothing was wrong in my world…I had a mother that I thought loved me, even if she was distant. A father who doted and adored me, and an older brother that was just ‘perfect’, he loved me, teased me, and always took care of me." Gwen stopped in mid thought, and paused for a moment of silence. Ethan could see the tears forming in her eyes, thinking about her brother, but, she wiped them away and continued.

" My father and I had a ritual. He would come into my bedroom and make up stories. They would be funny stories. It was just our time together…nobody else was allowed. I can’t remember what they were about, just that they would make me laugh, and this very  serious man whom so many feared, only wanted to please me. Well, that night, he was late, and so I forced my mother to try and entertain me. She tried, but, nothing she did really satisfied me, and she gave up in exasperation. She left, and my father came in…much later than usual. And, he did the same stories, but, something was off that night. They weren’t as funny. Something was wrong for me, and I didn’t know what it was. I was trying to decide what it was.

You know how something can be on your mind, like some insignificant piece of trivia that you KNOW you should know, but, don’t, and, when the answer comes to you, it just leaps out of your mouth, because you’ve FINALLY gotten the answer?"

Ethan nods yes.

" Well, that’s what happened to me that night. My father had left, and my mother came back in to check on me and make sure that I went to sleep. And, then, I blurted it out."

" What?", Ethan said with curiosity.

" I told my mother that my father smelled. And, that it wasn’t her perfume. "  Gwen looked Ethan directly in the eye. " My mother and I have never been that close. She always was closer to my brother than I. There was something so impeccable about her. The perfect clothes…the perfect manners…never a hair out of place. She had poise and elegance. Nothing ruffled her feathers, let alone ‘hurt’ her. How could she be hurt, I remember thinking as a child, because she was the Ice Queen, and nothing melted her demeanor. "

Gwen looked away again, staring into the fire. " But, I hurt my mother with my statement. I didn’t think that anyone could hurt her, least of all me. She looked back at me, as if I had stabbed her in the heart. It was one thing for people at the Club to whisper about her and circumstances with my father. Or, for the servants to discuss it in the basement, when we were gone. But, now she had her own daughter telling her that she wasn’t enough for her husband, and that she had failed as a wife, and that her own child knew her husband sought ‘comfort’ elsewhere. I have to believe that is the ultimate humiliation.

I grew up that day, Ethan. The day I made my mother dissolve into tears.

The stories were never that funny afterwards. And, in a short while, I was always sleep when my father got home.

I made vows to myself, long ago, Ethan. I would NEVER have a child of mine break my heart in that way.

I would not live like that. I would NOT be my mother or Ivy."

Gwen turned back to look Ethan in the eye.

" I will NOT live like that Ethan. And, I would hope that any man who asked me to marry him, would understand that about me. "

" Gwen, I…"

" It’s the reason I did so well in school and pushed myself so hard. I wanted to have a CHOICE. My mother, Ivy, they didn’t have choices. They didn’t have a lot of options. I do. It’s my choice to marry, and I get to choose whether or not I will have a marriage of convenience. That’s not my choice, Ethan."

" Gwen, I know that’s not your choice. I would NEVER do to you what my father has done to my mother. I promise you that."

Gwen looks at Ethan and he realizes that she doesn’t quite believe him. He goes over to Gwen and takes her by the hands and they sit down on the couch.

" Gwen, I have no intention of repeating my parent’s marriage. I don’t want that in the least. I don’t know what else to say to convince you. I guess I can give you this present.", Ethan brings out a box and hands it to Gwen.

" A present?" Gwen looks to Ethan with semi-suspicion. Gwen places the box on her lap. " What’s in here?"

" It has to do with our honeymoon."

Immediately with those words, Gwen’s face turns dark, the pictures of Ethan and Theresa running through her mind. " I don’t think that Bermuda is the place for me, Ethan."

" Good. Because, we’re not going to Bermuda. "

Gwen looked at Ethan in shock. " We’re not?"

" No. Open your gift."

Gwen opened the box, and for a moment it took her some time to realize what this actually was.

" Ethan….this isn’t…."

Ethan beamed. " I called Peggy and asked her if she remembered where you had put it. She and I searched the Hotchkiss attic all day for it."

Ethan moved over so that he and Gwen would be ‘sharing’ the present.

" Ethan, I haven’t thought about this in years. You remember the summer we spent doing this?"

" Of course I do. Our parents had read some article about how educational summer programs mixed with outdoors life looked good on college applications, and off we were shipped to Wyoming for the Summer, working on the cattle ranch, and taking those courses at the local college."

" I know. The conditions were awful."

" And, we cursed the day we were born a Crane and a Hotchkiss."

" And, how other kids wouldn’t have to be doing this."

" So, we mapped out our escape plan. How we could live a life where nobody knew who the Cranes or Hotchkisses were. We designed everything."

Gwen looked at the book with awe. " We sure did. The map of the USA and Canada. What towns we would go to. The kinds of jobs we could get. The escape routes and estimating how much time we could have in each place, before our parents tracked us down."

" We even designed the route so that there wouldn’t be any pattern for them to follow. I know it’s not 5 –star accommodations, but, I got the best ones they had. With the exception of a few towns, where we’ll have to drive, we can take the train to each of these towns. A sleeper car can be romantic."

" Well, I see that you and Theresa did a good job.", Gwen says closing the book.

" Theresa had nothing to do with this."

" She didn’t?"

" No. I made all these arrangements myself."

" Oh, Ethan! That’s wonderful.", Gwen says, nearly throwing herself in Ethan’s lap. She begins to cry and the tears won’t stop even if she tried. " I love you, Ethan."

" I love you too, Gwen. "

[END OF FLASHBACK]
 

Gwen patted her stomach. " So, that’s the story, little one. The day your father saved our relationship. I love him something awful, and I will work everyday to keep my marriage safe. To keep our family safe. I won’t let anyone or anything interfere. I promise."
 

Theresa looked at the diary entry on the computer screen, remembering that day. The day her dreams died. Well, the one of being Mrs. Ethan Crane, that is. Theresa was beginning to realize that she could have other dreams, with other people. It wouldn’t be easy, but, she had to live HER life. Chad had been right about that.