All That Glitters
show: Young & the Restless
central character: Lydia Callahan Summers; mentions Phyllis Summers Newman, Avery Bailey Clark, George Summers, Summer Newman, Daniel Romalotti
summary: …is not certainly not gold. / Or, in which Lydia Callahan stares through the maternal looking glass.
notes: I've been dealing with an odd fascination with the woman who gave birth to Phyllis & Avery to be honest. That's why I'm writing this. I wrote this when Michelle Stafford was Phyllis and not Gina. Spilt Milk, which is sort of a sequel and centered on Avery to this though it could be a standalone will have Gina as Phyllis.
disclaimer: No. All characters are creations of the Bell, CBS and Sony Pictures. I only own anything you don't recognize, and how Lydia Summers is portrayed because I can't remember if she was brought on the show. Something called creative license. Go with it. I don't own Black Beauty by Anna Sewell either.
musical inspiration: too many to name, if we're being honest.
PART I
Lydia Summers (nee: Lydia Ann Callahan) meets George Summers in Rhode Island.
She marries him in Darien, Connecticut.
(The skies are a cloudy grey and it rains.)
.
Lydia Summers remembers when she's still Lydia Callahan – innocent and seeing the world through invisible rose coloured glasses. Her green eyes shine with perpetual optimism and all she wants to do is travel the world.
Regardless of marriage, there is a household and two daughters to raise.
Lydia goes from Lydia Callahan, only child of engineering mogul, Edward and Harriet Callahan to Lydia Summers, socialite wife of George Summers. Yes, she is a socialite literally born into old money. Of course, Lydia runs in the same social circle as the vapid and shallow.
At the core of her being, Lydia just wants to rebel. Maybe.
Her bright red hair and green eyes already make her different and stand out.
So, it's not out of the realm of possibility that she would break the mold.
.
When her girls are born six years apart, Lydia smiles tearfully when Phyllis has a head of red hair like her and Avery's green eyes mirror her own.
She does something right because in her childhood dreams, she desires daughters.
Not according to George. He wants sons. It's all he ever wants – a son to carry on his bloodline and bear his name in every way that matters to prying eyes, nosy gossiping wives and business associates. It's not vocalized but still, Lydia can't help but wonder why Phyllis and Avery don't have a brother.
.
The rosary Harriet gives her on her sixteenth birthday has black beads that are smooth against her fingers. On the end of the stream of glass beads is a silver cross complete with crucified Christ that catches the light when Lydia wraps the string of beads through her fingers.
She bites her lip to keep from crying out. It's her wedding day at nineteen years old. She glances at herself in the mirror, red hair done up to perfection and her face is like porcelain. Lydia is done up like a china doll, as Harriet orders her to suck in.
Harriet pulls at the strings attached to the corset of the wedding dress until Lydia can't breathe. Her mother forces the curves of her hips to be accentuated and the smallness of her waist to be noticed.
Lydia is afraid to smile for she may cry and fall to glass pieces.
"Mother, I don't love him. I don't love George. Not enough for marriage."
"Lydia, dear," another pull, another tug, another short intake of breath, "George is a nice man, and the Summers family is wealthy. He will take care of you like a lady should be taken care of. If only your father were here," Harriet sighs, and crosses herself. "God rest his soul."
At the mention of God from her mother's lips, Lydia knows it is blasphemy.
When the tugging and the pulling cease, the corset of her dress is done and wrapped up.
Harriet surveys her daughter and takes her face in her hands with an unusual kind of tenderness that isn't the social norm. Tenderness is not in Harriet's vocabulary or repertoire.
The tears build up in the back of her eyes but she pushes them back.
She cannot breathe in this dress and there is a knot that settles low in her stomach and squeezes her lungs so tightly, her breathlessness is more than just the dress.
Harriet's smile is razor sharp and her eyes are a steely, cold blue. There it is, the status quo – the maternal normalcy.
Lydia frowns, as it takes all of the strength inside of her not to scream.
"Frowning is unbecoming. You end up with wrinkles when you frown – then where would we be?" her mother's fingers caress her cheek and it feels like fire being burned against it. She tries not to flinch but fails. Her mother is dainty, lady-like, and has cold eyes that can sometimes look through a person. "Beauty is a fleeting quality, but not with you, my sweet girl."
Her mother leaves the room, dress swishing behind her.
Lydia turns a final gaze on the full-length mirror.
She looks at the reflection in the smooth surface, ivory dress and red hair twisted into beautiful intricate patterns. It is as though she is a beautifully decorated sheep headed to the slaughterhouse and the new wedding band her shackles to bear. It is her eyes that startle Lydia the most. She will not learn to love George. Instead, Lydia thinks as she gazes into that mirror and make her eyes so determined and so cold, Mother would be proud. She will hold on to the last strands of her sanity and try not to strangle her new husband with the string of rosary beads glinting back at her on the bed.
.
Lydia's mother, Harriet, dies and she attends the funeral with a two-year-old Phyllis balanced on her hip against George's wishes. She will not leave her baby with anyone, she argues and he is crazy if he thinks otherwise. Lydia wants her child near her and that is not a crime. She's in a horrible mood and so no, Marta will not be watching Phyllis. It's kind of morbid to take a toddler to the funeral of a grandmother she will never remember.
George slaps her in the kitchen, the sound deafening and her cheek ablaze.
Phyllis sleeps upstairs, oblivious because the maid, Marta, watches her. She has so much fire too big for her little frame. The red hair is from her, but Phyllis has blue eyes passed down from George. They are filled with a perpetual sense of mischief beyond her two years and Lydia finds herself amused.
Lydia turns away, breathing deeply and her eyes land on the knife discarded on the counter. She still has to put that away because it's clean. She uses it to cut up bananas for her daughter and cut her green grapes into little chewable pieces for her baby before Marta puts Phyllis down for her nap. Lydia will be the mother her own mother is not: loving, tender, warm, and attentive. In any case, Phyllis will like to wear a pretty dress regardless.
"You will never think of speaking to me that way again, Lydia."
Then she has a moment of realization, as twisted as it is: Harriet is as cold as she is in death as she is in life. She feels no grief, no despair. Her mother is gone and then Lydia is pretty sure she will be fine being a widow. At the moment, she thinks with clarity, she would hypothetically kill this man and her conscience will be intact.
She finds her hand gripping the handle of the knife, the point of it at George's chest.
"And you will never put your hands on me again," Lydia hisses, with a dangerous kind of calm that makes her hand still, her voice steady and her intentions clear. "My mother will be placed in the ground today. I have no qualms having a husband halfway lie to Hell either."
George chuckles. "You've officially gone insane." He glances at the blade of the knife as it glints.
"No. This is not insanity. It's justifiable homicide."
"You would actually entertain the thought?"
"Yes," she quips, matter of fact. Lydia raises the pointed tip of George's Adam's apple as it bobs up and down in his throat. "Nothing would give me more pleasure than to slit your throat but my child needs me. Move."
She puts the knife down in a drawer and there is a flicker of relief in George's eyes, she's sure. Instead of becoming a self-made widow, Lydia chooses to become a mother and heads upstairs.
.
People ask Lydia where the name Phyllis comes from. She'll answer with clipped responses and a smile, but here is the truth, and it's not that intricate or astute:
Lydia names Phyllis after her own grandmother. She's young when she dies, but her grandmother's musk of mint and fresh baked gingerbread registers the most in her brain.
.
Phyllis hates ribbons so Lydia allows her red hair to fall freely and frame her face and getting her little spitfire in a black dress is a struggle – it's a funny one that reminds Lydia of what her own laughter sounds like.
This little girl is someone special, her little flame in the darkness.
That is the only certainty Lydia is sure of when everything else in life is up in the air and there are no permanent guarantees.
.
George and Lydia attend the funeral and it's a traditional Catholic service.
Yet Lydia doesn't hear the minister's words saying Harriet leaves this world to be with the Father.
She doesn't hear the minister's deep baritone commending Harriet's soul into the bosom of the Lord, because she now sits at the right side of Christ.
Lydia hears Phyllis' toddler babbling when everyone is sad and it makes her quietly chuckle.
(In this sea of black, Lydia doesn't pay attention. She's enamored with her daughter at the moment.)
.
The lawyer tells her that as Harriet's living relative and only child, the entire Callahan engineering fortune belongs to her and any children that she will have.
He's white haired and his glasses fall to the bridge of his nose as he hands her a pen to sign.
"Excuse my singing," Lydia says, with a cordial, brilliant smile. "My daughter's sense of amusement is focused on this family heirloom," she turns her attention to the redheaded toddler playing with the emerald pendant around her neck and taps her button nose. "Isn't that right, sweet pea?"
Phyllis looks up at her and laughs.
Lydia signs the legal document, sends the lawyer on his way with his copy for safekeeping, and files hers away in a secret safe only she knows the combination to.
The maid comes in, "Mrs. Summers, if you like I will take Phyllis now for her nap."
"No, Marta," Lydia stands, and hitches Phyllis on her hip as the toddler rests her head on her shoulder. "That will not be necessary. In fact, you may go home to your own little boy. I'm sure Oliver misses his mother. You have the day off. Phyllis & I will make do. Then Mr. Summers will come home and then we will continue making do."
"Do!" Phyllis chimes in.
"There will be no nap today, anyway. I seem to be raising a non-conformist."
Marta's eyes go wide in disguised surprise, "Oh, Mrs. Summers – uh, thank you. Thank you so much."
"We're both mothers so I understand. You can take your check on your way out on the table by the front door. I think you'll be pleased. Have a good night."
"Again," Marta says, with an undertone of joy in her tone before leaving the living room. Lydia disguises her amused chuckle. "Thank you.
Marta leaves and as soon as Lydia puts Phyllis down and there won't be a quiet evening of watching a sleeping child and indulging in afternoon tea – maybe even a nap herself.
Instead, Phyllis runs off laughing with her red hair flying behind her and it becomes a game of Chase Me & Catch Me.
But that's okay. It's more than okay.
.
When George comes home, Lydia takes a break from her reading to check on Phyllis.
Instead, she finds George still in his suit carrying Phyllis on his lap as she intently focuses on a book in her father's hands.
"The first place that I can well remember was a large pleasant meadow with a pond of clear water in it. Some shady trees leaned over it, and rushes and water lilies grew at the deep end. Over the hedge on one side we looked into a plowed field, and on the other we looked over a gate at our master's house, which stood by the roadside; at the top of the meadow was a grove of fir trees, and at the bottom a running brook overhung by a steep bank…"
He reads their daughter Black Beauty in soft, dulcet tones while absent-mindedly running a hand over Phyllis' head of hair.
(Here's what Lydia Summers will admit to: the man is infuriating and they make love when the sex is angry and rough, but this George is different from the one that puts his hands on her only once before she threatens to slice him and mean it.
She's not sure what to do with those conflicting feelings – how to vocalize them or wade into this foreign emotional territory deep enough before she sinks deep enough.)
.
Lydia lets herself sink into George, allows herself to fall into the arms of this complicated man.
"Lydia – "
She silences him with a kiss, long and hard before she pulls away. "If you talk," Lydia says, calmly undoing her dress and allowing its fabric to fall around her ankles, "you ruin the illusion that there is something like love between us. Let me have that illusion, George. For tonight."
George is surprisingly gentle with her and it brings tears to her eyes.
"You unbelievably stupid woman," George whispers softly, against her skin and it makes her get goosebumps, "it's not an illusion for me, Lydia."
This is what making love must feel like.
PART II
Six years after Phyllis, Lydia gives birth to Avery.
It's not characterized by the waves of contractions and a flurry of nurses and doctors, demanding that she push. It's odd but she doesn't remember the intensity of her contractions as she pushes Phyllis out twice. Avery's birth is very different. There are still nurses and doctors, telling her to stay calm but Lydia is staring up at operation room lights. Her heart races against her ribcage and all she wants to do is sleep. The only common thing between both births is that her legs are numb.
The deafening silence allows Lydia to think. She thinks of her mother of all things and how her own mother is not typical and how Harriet fails as a mother. It is not her fault, she admits. It's just uncommon for mothers to carry their babies or bond with them. Lydia's earliest memories are comprised of maids and nannies that act as her mother but are not. Phyllis and this child will not have jumbled early memories filled with hired help and virtual strangers, obligated to be there because of paychecks.
Lydia will make sure of that.
George is a difficult man, and hell, even more difficult husband because his real spouse is his vague semblance of work. Maybe he's an investor or a businessman. And maybe, it's all smoke and mirrors. She doesn't have the strength or capabilities to ponder that.
She's having a Caesarean Section and the surgeons and nurses pull at her and rip her open so her child can take its first breath. Against everything logical in her, Lydia accepts George's hand in his and it is unusually warm. It's the only thing in this operating room she has to hold.
It is silent, until the surgeon announces, "Mr. & Mrs. Summers, you have a beautiful baby girl!"
A dam of emotion breaks within her as Baby Girl Summers cries, taking her first breaths.
The baby is loud and vocal. George glances at their new daughter for her over the surgical curtain.
"She's beautiful. She's healthy," George tells her, with the most truth she has ever heard from him. Fresh hot tears slide down her already damp cheeks. He smiles all the way and Lydia is reminded of the boy her mother makes her meet in Rhode Island. There is a light in George's blue eyes that almost resembles happiness. He is happy.
"I know you wanted a son."
"I wanted him, but he was not meant to live, Lydia. Let it go."
The doctor announces that they are closing Lydia up, while her legs are still numb with the pain medicine. George reluctantly lets go of her hand, and uncharacteristically plants a kiss on her forehead. He follows the direction of the whimpering cries of their newborn daughter while the nurses tend to her.
This girl is still making noise and making her presence known.
Phyllis is six year old and is still her little spitfire. She will be an adult, and still, carrying that endearing and equally frustrating rebellion.
This little one, however, will change the world one day.
.
When Phyllis is four, Lydia gets pregnant.
At eight months pregnant, she miscarries. It's a stillbirth. The baby is alive one day, and the next, there is no heartbeat – she doesn't see the little flicker on the monitor or hear the steady but fast heartbeat anymore. The doctors all look at her with somber faces like they expect her to wail and curse God.
They break her water and with one push, Lydia delivers a little boy. There is silence.
One nurse hides her sniffling as she takes the baby away to wrap him.
There is a swelling pause that seems like lifetimes but is in reality, only minutes.
George sighs, heavily, "Doctor, what caused this?"
"Don't you mean who, George?" Lydia quips, in a hiss and looks up at her husband pointedly. "You mean, who."
She wants to scream. Lydia wants to curse and scream until her throat is raw. She wants to sob and fall to pieces because there are more questions than answers and one of these doctors have to know.
"Was this my fault?" Lydia questions, very matter of fact. She locks gazes with the doctor and she can almost see the doctor flinch at the steadiness in her tone. Mother would be proud of her stoicism. After all, Mother always does say the best way to speak to someone is doing it while staring them in the eyes.
"No," the doctor answers, honestly. "Sometimes, as unfortunate as it is, stillbirth is a very real possibility with pregnancy and can occur. There could be a host of factors but no one is to blame."
She will not cry. Not today.
Lydia will push the tears that build in the back of her eyes by sheer force of will. She will not allow them to flow. Instead, she will request something that has the doctor nervous and her husband questioning if they should take her to the psychiatric ward, two floors below.
Wisps of red hair frame her face. Lydia steels her green eyes and says, "I would like to hold my son."
"Mrs. Summers, that's not – "
"Doctor," she cuts him off harshly, with a smile and curses herself for the lone tear that curls around the apple of her cheek and breaks off at her chin. "I respectfully don't care about what is and what isn't. Hospital policy isn't relevant to me. Now, please – my husband and I would like to see our son. I'd like my son to know his mother's arms."
.
The first thing that strikes Lydia is how defined his features are. He looks deceptively asleep. It's as though the doctors make a mistake – her son can't be dead; he's merely sleeping.
But the second thing that strikes her is the paleness and coldness of his skin.
The shape of his permanently shut eyes strongly resembles George's, but yes, he has the Callahan nose. Little, fine hairs make up his incomplete eyebrows. She faintly smiles at the Cupid's bow of his lip. His little fingernails are so transparent against his tiny fingers.
"He's a handsome one." George observes.
"That's right," Lydia whispers to this child as if he's in a long, dreamless sleep. She strokes the round curve of his cheek, wishing it to be warm and failing. Warm tears pool in her eyes and her voice breaks. "You're my handsome boy, Edward. Shhh…your mother's here."
"Edward?"
Lydia raises her eyes to meet George's and she wishes she doesn't want to look at them too long because there is veiled heartbreak in them. There is a precocious, curious and beautiful child waiting for her at home. Phyllis will stare up at her and point blank ask her where her baby brother is.
It's very jarring – the task of explaining death to a child who can't quite comprehend it.
"Yes. After my father."
George furrows a brow, "I thought we would name him after his father."
"No," she steals another glance at the nameless baby boy because the nurses have to take him away. Lydia shakes her head. "Not you. Maybe his middle name will be your father's name instead. I was young when we married, but he was good to me."
This is just another compromise in the marriage. It stops surprising her a long time ago.
What does surprise Lydia is there is no compromise at all in this situation.
"It's settled then," George concedes, with a smile directed at her. "Edward Eugene Summers."
Lydia glances back at her husband with a watery smile of her own.
.
The nurse takes Edward away, and Lydia hates this space between her arms. They are bare and this ache of the empty space blooms in heart and it catches her off guard.
Lydia knows the gravity of this type of ache. It is the type that is quick, sending a chill to the bone. It's wide and deep, feeling bottomless.
In her mind's eye is a seventeen-year-old version of herself deciding to whether or not to fall into that bottomless type of grief. She remembers her uncle, her father's only brother – her uncle Louis. He bears a perpetual musk of cigar smoke and is a large, heavy set man with a loud, funny and boisterous personality to match. In stark contrast, Lydia's father is a gentle, affectionate man. Her uncle never calls her Lydia, opting to give her toffee candy that slips past Harriet's watchful eye and always calls her Lydie.
Her uncle's words on the day of the funeral playing in her head, his baritone with a slight rasp, "My Lydie, your father was a gentle man but make no mistake. The man was stubborn and tough. Remember that you are a Callahan and we are an enduring breed. He loved you very much. Whenever, you feel sadness, hold on to that."
It is that moment where she breaks.
She shatters, and George holds her while she cries.
"I loved him, too. I wanted him, too," George whispers, against her hair. "My boy. I wanted him."
(Lydia glances up and swears she can see a light layer of wetness and tears in George's eyes, but they never speak of that again.)
.
Lydia tells Phyllis Edward is back in heaven, resting on a cloud because he's not ready to come back yet. Maybe one day, he will.
Phyllis turns in her lap around. Her blue eyes shine, "Mommy, you cry a lot, so stop it right now. Edward's in heaven, 'member?" her daughter says, with a sternness and truth beyond her four years.
She sniffles and nods, "Yes, you're right, darling," Lydia wipes her tears away and is sudden feels a surge of gratitude for this child – Phyllis, who will probably never have a shortage of surprises in her lifetime. "Do you know how much I love you?"
"To infinity," Phyllis answers, right away with a full on grin.
Lydia hugs her daughter and pulls her close. "Absolutely. I love you to infinity. I always will."
.
The body of their son, Edward, is quietly buried in the Summers family plot forty five minutes outside of Darien.
The only spot of colour is yellow; a bouquet of daisies Phyllis leaves for her brother.
.
Lydia and George name their second daughter, Avery Bailey Summers.
She chose Avery after the last name of her best friend, Charlotte Avery. George picks Bailey from the last name of his favourite accountant and brand of Cuban cigars.
.
Avery is a very different baby from Phyllis. It's a mystery of nature.
Avery has little wisps of blonde hair that tickles her nose when she presses a light, feathery kiss to her forehead. Lydia gets lost in this baby. She smells like innocence, newness, and a beginning.
While Phyllis cries, Avery coos. Phyllis always rests her head on the crook of her neck and instantly falls asleep when Lydia rubs small circles on her back. Avery keeps her big green eyes open, a very observant child that does not want to miss anything. She falls asleep when she cannot stay awake anymore. Avery battles with sleep when Phyllis embraces it.
Lydia can remember one particular moment when Phyllis' protective streak is the most visible quality around her little sister. She insists on bathing her baby, but Lydia basically learns that Avery hates being wet. Her daughter is not a water baby. Lydia would be amused if her baby's crying doesn't induce a migraine. But it's motherhood. Lydia remembers bathing Phyllis as she coos, laughs and kicks her little feet in the basin. However, it is the only time Avery screams bloody murder as if the water is a current that will sweep her away.
Phyllis offers her sister her finger and Avery takes it in her grip, her crying stopping.
Avery stops crying and turns those big, luminous green eyes on Phyllis, almost intuitively from where Lydia is standing.
"Hi, Avery. I'm your big sister, Phyllis. Don't cry. See? It's just water… Please don't cry, Avery… " Phyllis turns her excited gaze to her mother, and it does something warm to Lydia's heart like the realization of a dream long buried in it. Avery smiles. "Look, Mommy! She smiled at me. She loves me."
"Of course, she does," Lydia replies with a smile, pressing a kiss to her oldest daughter and then strokes the curve of her infant rosy daughter's cheek. "You're her big sister and you're going to be a good one at that," Lydia turns her attention on her baby girl as she scoops Avery in her arms and wraps her with a towel.
Phyllis volunteers to help pick Avery's clothes because well, sisters do that too and runs ahead. She meets Marta and pulls the maid along to the nursery to help too because she wants her baby sister to look nice. Avery might like wearing ribbons since she doesn't.
Marta sends Lydia a shocked apologetic look with a touch of amusement.
"C'mon, Marta! You gots to help me pick an outfit for Avery and surprise Mommy!"
"Of course, Miss Phyllis."
Lydia coos at Avery. "You're a lucky girl in the big sister department, aren't you? Yes, you are…"
Avery, in her six-month-old wisdom, merely babbles, makes noises that babies her age make and then sneezes.
It's the cutest set of sounds she's ever heard.
She wraps Avery a little tighter in the warmth of the bath towel and heads to the nursery for the surprise. Lydia watches as green eyes blink slowly and get heavy and as she is making her way to her destination, Avery has fallen asleep in her arms.
(Lydia can be surprised for the both of them and Phyllis will understand.)
PART III
It's her 62nd birthday.
She remembers it because it's her first one since George's death four months prior. Her husband dies in hospice care alone and broke, and is cremated when he expressly states that he wants to be buried next to their stillborn son.
Lydia remembers her father and his affinity for hard liquor the most. She still wears black not because she's mourning but because it's a performance, a masquerade. She does not have the energy today to cut the other nosy socialites down with her words. They are satisfied with the thought that being a widow turns her cold so why disappoint the audience? Her hand curl around the crystal tumbler and it is half filled with the amber liquid, steadily depleting.
Her green eyes gaze on the mantle, lined with framed pictures of a past that doesn't seem like hers. It's like gazing into a family encased with a snow globe, untouched and perfect.
Finally, she touches her fingers to the grey marble urn with George's ashes.
"It's my birthday today, but you knew that. It's been four months since you died. One daughter hates me and would flush you down a toilet if I sent this urn to her," she says, and it feels like she's breathing in rage and anger. Resentment is her main course and regret is her desert, "and Avery, who has been jaded about you but loved you her whole life," Lydia pauses, as her voice hitches against her will and she whips a tear away, "doesn't know how to see you anymore. I don't have my girls with me, and you, dear husband, have been reduced to a container of dust!" she shouts, the echo bouncing of her walls of this quiet house. Lydia's heart taps an erratic beat and the amber liquid in the glass calls to her in a siren song of sorts, promising her salvation and sanity. She composes herself, smiles her best smile and raises her glass of whiskey to George's remains. "Here's to you, George! My birthday gift to myself is admitting that you died a coward and I should have cut your heart out when I had the chance. Cheers," she says, and clinks her glass against the smooth surface of the urn.
The only remotely exciting thing is the fire that goes down as she consumes the whiskey in one gulp.
Yes, Lydia is Edward Callahan's daughter indeed.
Her father is a whiskey man.
.
She's estranged from Phyllis and Avery has her own life now.
Every now and again, Lydia is amused that she is a grandmother of two. There's a Daniel Romalotti piece of art she buys under a pseudonym hanging in her foyer. Her granddaughter according to Avery, Summer Newman, is beautiful, passionate and smart with a good heart – she's really Phyllis' daughter in the best way. You'd love her, Mom, Avery says on the phone.
She's also the great-grandmother to a little girl named Lucy, Daniel's daughter.
"She has red hair, Mom. Like Phyllis, and like you. Well, strawberry blonde."
"That's wonderful to know, darling."
"I just wanted to say happy birthday."
Lydia smiles, despite herself. There is a reason to smile, she guesses. It's better than nothing.
"Thank you. How is…" and Lydia cannot bring herself to finish the rest and Avery knows it.
Memories of the past – summers in Rhode Island, afternoons baking, Christmas tree shopping as it starts to snow, nights reading bedtime stories that turn into peals of laughter and happy screaming because it's all tickles and pillow fights – flooded her already swimming head. The ghosts of the past haunt her and leave her chest so tight and wrought with suffocating nostalgia.
"Mom, Phyllis is…Phyllis," Avery replies, on a sigh.
"Yes… your sister simply is."
"Mom, I did ask her to try and call you if that helps."
"Thank you, Avery. She won't call me and I won't control her emotions."
"Phyllis being uncontrollable has not changed at all."
For some reason, this makes Lydia laugh and comforts her. It's one of the best birthday presents she can get from someone who is so distant from her – the distance feeling infinite and the emotional crevice deep as a bottomless abyss. "Nobody control Phyllis. I learned that lesson early," her voice trails off, "She hated hair ribbons and pony tails…."
"Mom, are you going to be okay, today?"
She blinks, lightly pressing the bridge of her nose between slightly trembling fingers to stop the swimming in her head. "Avery, we all have to bleed eventually," Lydia smiles, and her cheeks hurt. "I'll be okay."
"Okay…if you say so. Goodbye, Mom."
"Goodbye, Avery," Lydia replies, and adds wistfully. "It's up to you how you process the information, and I understand you are not happy with me, but I am glad you know the truth."
It grows quiet. "Yes. I'm trying that, but… sometimes, I wish I hadn't heard him confess."
Lydia eyes the crystal tumbler filled with whatever remnants of liquor is left.
Slight nausea is about to rear its ugly head, but it's all about composure.
"I understand, sweetheart."
(Lydia hears her mother's cackling in her head as she says, happy birthday, Lydia. You've become me. She's broken her daughter's heart – both of theirs actually; Phyllis' heart is one of stone towards her, while Avery's is one of flesh, still ripped, scabbed and raw. It's a terrible thing to have that in common with Harriet, someone has no maternal bone in her body, and a gaze that makes anyone under it wither until they are small, breakable, and inconsequential.)
.
Lydia remembers her mother collecting snow-globes. She remembers staring at them as the figurines inside them stay in a perfect kind of stasis with a shield of circular glass. The misfortunes of the world cannot touch them. Snow globes crack, though. They shatter and misfortunes enter in and out like a revolving door.
.
Lydia is eleven years old when she is playing with one of her mother's snow globes, but then it breaks. Harriet strolls in, casually, and Lydia is terrified that Mother is angry with her. The glass pieces are at Lydia's feet. She doesn't know how to fix it and she's just so sorry. Lydia feels her bottom lip begin to tremble and her green eyes filling with tears.
"You will not cry, Lydia. I am not angry."
She sniffles, and looks up at her mother, hopeful and part confused, "Really? But I broke it, Mother."
"I know you did, dear," Harriet says, with a smile. She places her hand on Lydia's shoulder. Lydia doesn't say it, but wonders why her mother's hand is so cold or it is like that naturally. She barely stops herself from shivering. Her mother's hand reminds Lydia of an old witch's hand, nails replaced by the sharpest talons that could cut through bone. "This is a life lesson that you had to learn."
"A…life lesson?"
"Yes. Snow globes are perfect little things, Lydia, but they are fragile. Such is life. Life can be perfect for a while, but that perfection is not permanent. Know that, my daughter. You may be staring into the face of Christ," Harriet explains, curling an errant stand of Lydia's red hair around her finger, "but Satan himself will drag you into the pit of hell eventually. Perfection is not bad to strive for, but believing that it is lasting is folly. Do you understand?"
"Yes..." Lydia answers, pausing and raises her eyes to meet her mother's hardened ones. "I understand, Mother."
"Next time, don't hesitate in answering a question, or I will not hesitate making you pick up the glass pieces if this happens again."
"I could cut myself."
"Then I propose it could be a lesson in being careful. We all have to bleed eventually."
As her mother leaves her behind with the broken glass, Lydia is pretty sure a girl isn't supposed to be fear her own mother, but she is terrified of hers. That night, her father – Edward Callahan is and powerful in frame, but gentle and warm in disposition – chases the fear and monster that bore her away.
.
There is a gift that Lydia gets to unwrap all by herself.
This house is too big and the spaces are too wide, the silence pretty loud in a sad, oxymoronic manner. The gift is realized in an urn of ashes Lydia wants to break to pieces. This gift lies in pictures that turn brown at the edges. The gift lies in tradition that long dies before George does. The gift lies in herself – in the way Lydia's heart starts to become a mixture of hard stone and soft flesh. The stony parts frighten her while the soft parts comfort her. Lydia's stony heart pushes her oldest daughter away and her soft one breaks because her youngest cries.
George lights the damn fuse – may he continue to rot in all circles of Hell – while Lydia detonates the bomb. She swears it's for good. She swears there's a purpose.
Lydia calls her daughter a liar when Phyllis is screaming the truth. It's uglier than George swindling people out of their livelihood. It's blood money. It's all blood money, generated on the deaths of others. Harriet is wrong. Lydia doesn't learn to love George. Instead she learns to tolerate him on a good day and is ahead of the learning curve when hating him.
It keeps Lydia sane most nights.
.
She lists of all of the things she will miss about Phyllis. And still does miss.
Her red hair, her eyes, her smirk when she is devious, her full smile when she is truly joyous, the way she is protective of Avery, her love of video games although Lydia herself does not understand the appeal, listening to her daughters squeal with laughter and argue all at once. Lydia will miss her stubbornness, her conviction and how the way Phyllis is unashamed in anything really. She is everything Lydia wants to be. Phyllis is what she could be as a young woman with dreams of being a film actress, traveling the world and allowing the wind to take her where it blows.
The day Phyllis leaves home, she says matter-of-factly that Lydia is dead to her and she will never set feet in this house again because it's no longer her home.
It's twisted. It's sick and maybe, Lydia is a mad woman.
But Phyllis is gone.
(She's free and that is enough. Lydia hasn't come with a plan to protect Avery just yet, and that frustrates and scares her all at once.)
.
Avery is angry and heartbroken, and Lydia believes a lie when every cell in her body wants to let Phyllis know that she is correct. But Lydia rips her own heart out of her chest as Phyllis stomps out of the house, opens the iron gates and with an ugly creaking sound that sounds like disjointed piano keys. Phyllis is gone. Maybe LA bound because Lydia can't be.
Maybe New York is where Phyllis goes because she has Danny Romalotti on the brain. She is gone and Lydia knows Phyllis can handle herself. She will learn to handle her daughter hating her and meaning it, but Harriet is right, she admits with a shudder when there is a chill in the air of this grand foyer. We all have to bleed eventually.
Here is something that Lydia learns very quickly: the bleeding never stops. It may slow down, and the cut is not as gaping and the sharpness is an ache with time, but bleeding when it comes to parenthood is never ending and hurts anyway.
.
Lydia wants to rip this mansion down with her bare hands.
She wants to set this ornate place on fire and watch every square inch be nothing but ash.
Too tired to turn the bedroom light on, she sits on the edge of the bed. Her slender fingers curl around the curve of her wine glass. Perhaps, she should break the glass this time – watch the pieces go everywhere and cut herself so she physically bleeds.
George steps into the room, flooding the room with light that hurts her eyes but she will sit on this bed – this empty bed, this fucking bed – and stain the sheets with her husband's blood perhaps. Or, maybe she will get some sick sense of tranquility from putting that wide kitchen knife to use and stab George with it so many times the blade cuts through his body like melted butter. As a side option, Lydia could listen to the sound of George's bones snapping underneath the weight of her expensive car's wheels.
But there he is, alive and breathing when he doesn't deserve to.
He should be lucky for the beautiful girl in bloom, sleeping a few doors down. Avery has enough love for her dad for both of them.
Lydia throws her head back, swallowing the last mouthful of white wine in the glass and sets it on the night table.
"I see it in your eyes, you know. I've seen that before."
She lowers her eyes, peeling the comforter and slides into her side of the bed.
"Oh?"
He chuckles, deep and the sound cuts her. George slides in next to her, holds her breath and the urge to spit in his face as he kisses her, hard. She kisses back and wants to tear him to pieces. It's a silent battle, an unspoken one in which George and Lydia know all the rules of matrimony but break every single one. He has lovers and so does she – it's no loss.
Lydia pulls away, and wants to rip the hands that hold her face.
"You'd like to kill me right now. It's in your eyes. It's what I loved about you most when we were introduced, you know? Those beautiful, piercing green eyes and your flaming red hair…"
She laughs bitterly. "You waste your flattery," and then she slaps George's hand away from a strand of hair like a mini-bomb in their bedroom. "Touch me again, and I'll kill you for real. Goodnight, you son of a bitch."
Lydia turns away and brings her knees up to her chin under the covers. Her knees ache and her spine cramps but it's better than the pain she's feeling internally.
She digs her teeth into her bottom lip, hard enough to taste blood.
There. The tears stop eventually like just Mother says they will.
We all have to bleed eventually.
It's all cut arteries, severed veins and glass shards for a heart from here.
.
Somewhere over the years, Marta goes from the maid and the nanny to someone who is her friend. This woman is the most honest person she knows, and Lydia knows she can place her worries in her capable hands and she can get advice in return. Lydia feels the distant, slow burn of the liquor or it could be Marta's warmth as she dutifully comes into the dining room. Like a shadow, she comes in, sets a navy blue tea rounded mug in front of her and the aroma of Earl Grey tea greets Lydia.
Marta pours gently, before Lydia places her hand on the other woman's hand and says, "Stop."
"Have I done something wrong, Miss Lydia?"
"No. God, you've never done anything wrong," Lydia admits, tears filling up her green eyes. "I need – I need to ask you something. Please sit and call me Lydia. You've earned that by now."
Marta smiles, lightly and sits down in the chair across from her, neatly folding her hands in front of him as if she is about to meet the President or some European monarch. It makes Lydia almost chuckle, and like a knot come loose in her heart, she almost does but she doesn't. Marta's hair is nearly all grey now, a contrast from the mousey young woman with the chestnut coloured hair. Her hazel eyes are still the same however.
"You know," Lydia starts, "the night Phyllis left home, I did something I thought was for a good reason but years later, I'm so angry with myself. I let the hatred I had for George make me irrational when I could have taken both of my children and just ran. Mother to mother, Marta – I need to hear your take on things."
She fidgets. Lydia is too tired to do anything today, on today of all days.
She can't even muster up the energy to glare at the maid so she will submit to her questions.
"Miss Lydia, I don't think – " she corrects herself upon seeing Lydia's raised brow. "I'm sorry. Lydia… I don't think it is my place to say."
"I want you to. Consider it your birthday gift to me."
Marta blinks her hazel eyes and then lowers them to fidget with her hands. She sighs, and raises her eyes back up to lock gazes with Lydia's green eyes. "You were foolish that night, Lydia. Forgive my frankness. However, you are still Phyllis and Avery's mother, no matter how they may feel – just like Mr. Summers," she pauses to cross herself, and continues, "is their father," she smiles, warmly. "A mother's love makes us do irrational things. My Oliver is a big man now – a doctor – and I am so very proud. But I would be irrational to protect my son."
Lydia blows on the top of her steaming mug of tea and she takes the most delicate of sips before she sets the mug and lets the warmth burn her palms slightly.
"Avery will understand in time. Phyllis hates me and I can't say I blame her."
"At least, she is feeling something towards you. When I was three months pregnant with Oliver, and walking one warm afternoon the strangest thing happened. There was a baby raccoon lying there in the sun asleep while his mother seemed to be occupied elsewhere…" Marta laughs. "I sat in this park at a distance, and watched the mother raccoon look for food while with another one of her babies. But this little one lay in the sun asleep. Eventually," the maid taps Lydia's hand to steady one she doesn't realize is shaking ever so slightly, "the mother did come back for her child. I don't know what will happen, but everything will be okay. Phyllis will come back." Marta rises because there is probably some cleaning to be done. "Would you like anything, Miss. Lydia?"
Lydia sighs, sipping her tea, replaying the story of the raccoon in her mind. She can't help visualize Avery as the baby raccoon who would stay by her and Phyllis as the one who would rightfully leave. Maybe Marta is right that things will sort themselves out and be okay. She'd like for it to speed up. It's been years and she just wants a chance to make it right. Lydia just wants to tell Phyllis that she is right all along – the two of them seeing the same monstrous vision of George in hindsight.
She glances outside, the sky grey and the distant rumblings of thunder heard.
Lydia loves the way the droplets hit her skin, her bright red hair wet and darkened to a colour lies between auburn and copper. She stands.
"A walk, I think, will do me good."
"Oh… Miss Lydia, I would not object in normal circumstances, but forecast called for rain."
"Well, that's what umbrellas are for. Join me."
Marta opens her mouth to protest and then relents and says, "I would love to walk with you," she chuckles, hazel eyes as bright as the day Lydia meets her. "My mother used to say walking in the rain was as if being blessed by God."
Lydia loops the third button of her deep navy coat shut.
With a smirk, she leaves the umbrella behind. The rain never bothers her anyway.
(She might even dance in the rain a little and hope against hope that her baby raccoon lying in the sun, comes back to her. Someday.)
PART IV
Lydia Callahan Summers officially reaches one whole year of widowhood.
If Lydia has to learn any type of life lesson, it is quite irritating that they come to her as she declares insomnia the winner for the third night in a row.
Her breath collects in her chest, causing pressure in her ribcage, akin to a defunct accordion.
Green eyes focus on the ceiling in the dark and for the first time in years, Lydia swears this room is haunted. It is as if the ghosts of her past all congregate in this room to let her know that they are very much alive in her present. She sees Phyllis' red hair flying behind her as if she is a superhero in flight as she runs and plays with Avery. Lydia can feel Avery's soft blonde head against her chest as she rocks her child to sleep on a night that lights the Daren sky with lightning and seems to shake the earth with thunder.
When she's slightly drunk, she can almost see George's form and feels his weight making him impressions on the mattress and his side of their marriage smell like the cologne that makes her nauseous now. Maybe it always does in hindsight. When she's sober, she sees her mother. Lydia is damn sure that Catholic piety does nothing for the life lived and the soul afterwards. Perhaps, her mother sits on the right side of Satan himself in hellfire. It is the all too familiar warm presence of her father, Lydia does not want to let go of.
Tonight she is stone cold sober and raises her hand to her line of vision. There on her fourth finger is her shackle. Her chains — although it's just a rose gold and platinum wedding ring set – glint back at her in the darkness, making its presence known.
I am here. I am always here.
(Here is the lesson Lydia Callahan Summers learns and she's appalled with herself that it takes that damn long: freedom can be bought while sometimes it can be sold. Occasionally, however, is taken by sheer force and is the best way travelled.)
.
In the darkness of this room, Lydia pulls her wedding rings off with a couple hard tugs. She almost grimaces, the pieces of jewelry stubborn. There's a blossoming ache in her ring finger but the broken accordion in Lydia's chest resolves itself. Lydia slides the rings in the drawer of her night table, not bothering to look at time when they feel welded on to her finger for so damn long. Perhaps, they will be pawned. Perhaps, they will be melted down. She doesn't care.
There's a tan line there now - the place where her rings previous occupy. It's a couple shades lighter than her skin and truthfully, it's quite ugly.
But still, Lydia smiles and exhales a breath she holds from she says I do behind a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. It's her tan line and she will wear that badge impressed into her skin proudly.
.
Lydia hugs two of her pillows to her body a little tighter, as if attempting to get some semblance of warmth. While the sun rises and the world wakes up, Lydia Callahan - and yes, just Callahan - finally falls into one of the best sleeps of her life.
.
Buzzing.
Maybe it's a bee, and she's wondering how the hell one got in here when she's allergic. She loves Marta but she'll kill the woman for opening the window a little too widely but then she groans into her pillows, remembering Marta has two weeks off. Her fourth grandchild - a little girl - is a newborn and she needs to be there for her daughter, Annalisa.
Nope. Not a bee.
Lydia's head is foggy and clears as the buzzing and vibrating, she realizes, is coming from her iPhone.
She glances at the time, realizing it's half past eleven and it's…Avery?
"Hello? Avery, hi," she answers, with a yawn and rubs her eyes from the remnants and cobwebs of sleep. Lydia blinks. "What's going on, sweetheart?"
"Mom, I wasn't sure if I should even call you because I know you've been dealing with a lot since Dad's death…and I debated even calling you," Avery pauses and Lydia can hear her daughter trying not to sniffle too loudly and keep her voice even. Something is wrong because Avery tends to ramble when she's bothered by something. Lydia sits up, and runs a hand through her red hair. She glances outside, the sky quietly busy as the sun struggles to peek through behind clouds. "And then I thought even though Phyllis was working through how to deal with you, she would have wanted you to know…"
Eyebrows knitting together, Lydia feels it. She feels it in the pit of her stomach. That slight twist every parent gets when you glance outside every ten minutes after the streetlights come on, when you turn around at the Christmas tree lot, only to find out that your daughters aren't there and you're running between evergreens of every size, hoping to see a shock of red hair and the head of blond hair with red ribbon inevitably behind it, forcing every bad kidnapping scenario from your mind, when your daughter tells you she hates you and she means it because her eyes are cold. Lydia waits for the relief to flood in as Avery pauses and it's a long one. The relief has to come. It comes when Lydia runs, only to find her oldest staring up a tree that is a little big in awe and her youngest, taking her hand and begging if they can make it fit because it's a beautiful tree and Daddy will love it like her and Phyllis do. Lydia needs the warmth that starts deep within her heart and spreads outward when she looks into Avery's eyes, happiness in them, and relents to that tree.
Lydia gets the stomach twist, the heart that skips a beat but that's no relief and no warmth. She grabs her phone a little tighter.
"If you don't scare your clients like this, please do not start with your own mother. What's wrong with your sister, Avery?"
"Mom…it's bad."
Lydia rubs her temple lightly, takes deep calming breaths while her maternal alarms sound off in her head.
"Is Phyllis in legal trouble? Because if that is the case, she wouldn't want me to know and you could get her out of it."
"No," Avery answers, with a catch in her voice. "No… she's not in any legal trouble."
"Okay. Then…then what is it?" Lydia asks again. No ice. No snappish tone. Just a mother worried about her child. She hugs a pillow to her stomach to make it stop hurting even though the pain isn't remotely physical. "Please just tell me. You've succeeded in scaring me, by the way."
Avery finally tells her, but her daughter sobs her way through the phrase.
"Mom, Phyllis… She's in a coma."
EPILOGUE
"Oh my God, there you two are! Do you know how scared I was that something bad had happened to you?" Lydia kneels at Avery's level, pulling on her coat to make sure she's warm and runs a gloved hand over Phyllis' face. "Are you girls alright?"
"Yes, Mom. We're fine," Phyllis replies, as if answering a question about the weather. "Avery and I found a Christmas tree. Can we go home and make gingerbread now?"
Lydia stands, hands on her hips. "Yes, we can go home – right after you explain to me why you disappeared like that," she intones, voice stern. She doesn't want to be mad at her daughter so close to Christmas. However, she doesn't like this knot in her heart and heaviness in her stomach either.
Avery's voice is small. She wraps her little arms around the circumference of her waist.
"We're really, really sorry, Mommy. But look – the tree is so beautiful. Daddy has to love it when he gets home from his Christmas trip. It will look so pretty when we decorate it."
Phyllis frowns, turns her blue eyes to the ground and kicks at the white dusting of snow with the tip of her boot. "Dad doesn't love us enough to care about the tree," she grumbles, under her breath.
"Don't say that! Daddy does love us!"
Phyllis lifts her head, flames behind her eyes. Blue flames are the hottest ones. "He's always away from us, Avery! You don't keep stay away from someone you love!"
"But he always comes back! Daddy will come back and see the tree."
"No, he won't," Phyllis snaps. "He's never here!"
Tears spring to Avery's eyes and Lydia has had enough. She won't have George's absence ruining Christmas. She won't have Phyllis crush the hope that Avery has in her father when it will probably be crushed as an adult. Today, they will make gingerbread houses, decorate that tree a little too big for the living room and open presents on Christmas morning. She comforts Avery and glares at Phyllis at the same time.
"Phyllis Ann Summers – stop it immediately, young lady!" She turns to Avery, wiping the tears from her eyes and speaking softly. "Don't cry, okay Avery? We'll get this tree and hopefully, your father will be back in time," she presses a kiss to Avery's forehead, making her six-year-old smile.
"Great. You're a liar," Phyllis sneers, with a slight roll of her eyes, "and Daddy stays away from us."
"Daddy would never hurt us. When I grow up, I'm gonna be a lawyer so you can't be mean to me anymore!"
Yes, her girls are different as night and day. Phyllis sounds too bitter and honest for her twelve years and Avery sounds too innocence for six years old, but that's the status quo. Or is shaping up to be that way. There's a light dusting of fresh falling, white snowflakes landing in her hair and Avery sticking out her tongue to catch the snowflakes. Phyllis just wants to build a fort. Lydia feels the beginning of exhaustion – more mental than physical – and all she wants to do is get this tree wrapped up and tied to her car. Meanwhile, she can retreat into the warmth of baked gingerbread houses that always remind her of her grandmother – the woman she names her first and very strong-headed (and possibly grounded if honesty is to be called for here) daughter after.
.
She waits 48 hours.
Lydia waits two days to understand how her daughter goes from healthy to comatose. She waits two days to question if she even has the right to be worried.
Then she figures being angry makes sense. Anger is simple because Lydia can't let the guilt, can't blame herself for setting off a motion of events that made her daughter retreat to Wisconsin only decades, a few marriages and a couple children later to be found in a stairwell like yesterday's garbage.
"Avery, you need to tell me how this happened again, because I don't understand. Was she pushed down those stairs? Did she fall? Because I will not believe that someone could push her and leave there!"
"Mom, calm down…."
"I've been calm for a whole year, Avery. I've been calm. I've seen my therapist to make sense of this. I've spent two days trying to understand what the hell Phyllis would be doing in a stairwell. Explain it to me again, please."
The more times she hears the story, the closer she feels to Phyllis in a way.
She fingers a soft rose petal, as she sits under the shade of the white gazebo in the backyard of her property. The sky is warm as the sun is a ball of orange under this especially nice Darien sunset. Lydia uses her free hand to pull her wool shawl closer to her body for some semblance of warmth. It's hard to be calm and rational when all Lydia wants to do is crawl out of her skin.
"Mom… I don't see what that will do," Avery replies on a resigned sigh. She pauses. "I'm scared too."
As the sun sets, she raises her eyes to its descent remembering everything: the day Phyllis leaves, the day Avery goes off to university and then law school at Yale, gets married to a man Lydia doesn't particularly care for. She closes her eyes, recalling her son's face as he sleeps forever. She remembers his shut eyes, the shape of his nose and the Cupid's bow of his lip.
"Avery," Lydia says, acknowledges it for the first time since she leaves that family cemetery decades ago. "I lost a child."
"You… you lost a child?"
"Yes. He was stillborn. Before you and after Phyllis."
"I'm so sorry."
"Darling, I'm sorry about your lost little one too."
Avery pauses, and her voice becomes small like she's a little girl again and then there's the adult – the successful lawyer that doesn't need her for anything. "You remember that?"
"Yes. Of course. I remember everything about you. And your sister," Lydia's voice gets wistful and wrought with nostalgia. She pulls her wool shawl around her shoulders, closer, as a breeze from the seaside comes in and caresses her skin with a sharp coldness. She shifts her phone to her free ear because that hand has an ache between her fingers. "Sometimes, I drive into town for one reason or another. The old McAvoy is still there. It's been decades and another family lives there now, but it's still there…"
Lydia also briefly remembers a boy with a cowlick, mouthful of braces and ocean blue eyes. But he's so shy and polite, she finds it equal parts amusing and endearing.
"I'm scared I'll lose Phyllis, but I feel like I don't have the right to be scared."
"Well," Avery says, her tone strong, and even, "whether she likes it or not, she's your daughter. She's not going anywhere and she'll wake up."
Lydia looks up again, the sky changing from its array of sunset colour to a royal blue. Stars begin to glimmer and a warm smile touches her lips. To every star around the moon and back, I love you to infinity, Phyllis. Please believe that. Please believe me.
"You gonna be okay?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I'll be fine. I'll see you in Georgia tomorrow. I'll text you the name and address of the facility when you land."
"That's the plan. Avery, put down the measuring cups and call me if you have to. I'm here anytime, and I love you."
"I love you too, Mom. Goodnight."
.
Georgia is a warm state in summer, actually sweltering. This facility, however, is cool. It's pristine and it has as the slight scent of antiseptic that hangs in the air.
Avery leaves to take a call and Daniel goes in to see his mother first. That hallway corridor seems endless with turns that may resemble a labyrinth.
Her granddaughter, Summer, is even more beautiful in person. It's uncanny but she has shades of Lydia, herself, as a young woman. It's as if stepping into a time machine without actually stepping into one that exists. She expects the young woman to be standoffish and put herself at a distance but be polite because Summer perceives her as a stranger. Instead, Lydia is greeted with a hug from her granddaughter.
"Hi, Grandma Lydia," she greets, and then pulls away. She asks tentatively. "It's okay if I call you that, right?"
Lydia touches her shoulder, absentmindedly and gingerly fingering a strand of her granddaughter's strawberry blonde hair. It's almost red to her. "I'd be honored if you called me that."
She nods, the ghost of a smile on her lips just like Phyllis. "Okay," she plays with her fingers, intertwines them together and then jerks a thumb behind her. "I'm going to go find Aunt Avery," she declares gently and touches her hand. "Are you gonna be okay?"
"I'll be fine here. Go find your aunt."
"No, I mean… are you going to be okay seeing Mom like that? According to Aunt Avery, you haven't seen her in years," Summer clarifies. She lowers her gaze. "I… I, uh, heard what happened to make my mom leave Darien. Daniel told me some of it. Aunt Avery told me the rest. I have my own opinion of it."
It feels like ice cold water being poured all over her. It is as if someone rearranges the rubric cube of her life by twisting the sides and facets of her life because of every decisions Lydia ever makes, irrational and rational. Different coloured squares are beside each other, and she's frantically trying to twist the rubric cube again to make all of the colours match up on one side – all of the sides, actually. Blue to blue. Red to red. White to white. Yellow to yellow…
Lydia chuckles and then laughs, "You wouldn't be Phyllis' daughter if you didn't have one. You're indeed a Summers girl," Lydia sighs, combing a hand through her red hair. Phyllis has red hair. Phyllis, who lies comatose in this facility trapped in her own body. She whips more tears away. "It's great you have opinions."
"Yeah, I have them but I have no right to judge you."
"Thank you for that, but I assure you, I'll be okay."
Summer hugs her again, and then walks off in the same direction Avery heads off earlier.
Her grandson, Daniel is handsome, rugged and has Edward's eyes – it's what makes Lydia stare at him when they meet – it's rude to stare, Mother teaches her that. He rubs a tired hand over his face, true exhaustion written and sculpted into his face.
"Daniel…"
The young man – this grandson of hers – does put interactional distance between them as Lydia is a stranger to him, and he to her. They straddle the line between relatives and strangers. Can they be acquaintances? Can they be friends? She doesn't have a crystal ball for that.
"Hey," he answers, digging his hands in his pockets. The grandmother in her wants to tell Daniel not to slouch so much. However, Lydia wants to respect his space and if he wants to slouch, she proposes that it's his prerogative. "It was cool of you to come."
"Well, I've decided not to miss anything more. Life is short."
"I just want my mom to come out of this, y'know? I'd give anything to hear her micromanage my life. Usually, I'd tell her to back off and make her promise to give me space," he sighs, disguised as a sniffle. He taps his phone in the center of his palm twice before he says, "Uh, I'm sorry I couldn't bring Lucy by. She's dealing with an ear infection. I'm going to call Heather."
Daniel makes a move to leave. Avery and Summer hasn't come back yet.
"Would you mind some advice from your newly acquainted grandmother before you go?"
"Yeah," Daniel answers, with a shrug of his shoulder. "Sure, I guess."
"Lucy is at that age where if you blink, you miss things. Being a parent changes your whole life. Avery told me how it took it a while to understand that but when you did, you've just fallen in love with it. With her," Lydia grins at her grandson, her eyes soft. "I see your eyes light up when you mention her."
For once, Daniel actually smiles and it's the kind of smile a parent gets when they're in awe of this little life they create and one wonders how they got so lucky.
"Lucy. She's…something. Pretty amazing."
"Just… I made a lot of mistakes when it came to your mother and your aunt. But just hold on to every moment you can with Lucy because today she's a baby, tomorrow she's dating and bringing home a person you don't like and she makes it clear your opinion isn't relevant."
"Mom did that to you?"
Lydia laughs, tucking a lock of hair behind her eyes only to reveal one of her pearl earrings Avery gives her for Christmas one year. "What do you think? Both Phyllis AND Avery did that to me." She touches Daniel's shoulder. "My great granddaughter is beautiful and she's lucky. Keep doing what you're doing. I will also tell you that I'm extremely proud of your art."
"I appreciate that. Thanks."
Lydia wipes underneath her eyes, careful to not ruin her makeup. God, she has to stop crying like this. She's done more crying today than she does in years.
Daniel finally leaves to check on his daughter and Lydia is scared to go see hers.
.
You're holding on to rage and pain, Lydia.
It's all I know, Dr. Schultz.
Then we find you something new to get to know.
You make it sound so idyllic and linear.
It's not. We know that.
So, what do you propose I do? Knit. Climb Mount Everest. Get into tai chi and discover the joys of meditation in order to find enlightenment?
Yes. Maybe. But let's start with something more familiar.
Such as?
Your daughters, Lydia.
.
It's been so many years and still, Lydia is not ready for hers. Her room is so plain and so unlike Phyllis. There is a bouquet of white daisies and yellow peonies on the night-stand. A framed photo of a man with looks that rival John F. Kennedy himself rests on this night stand as well. This must be the fiancé Avery tells her about. Jack Abbott. Summer leaves letters for her mother with a painting complete with a toddler-sized handprint from Lucy. Lydia feels like a ghost, as if she is floating through this room. Phyllis lies in this bed, the only noise the steady beeps of the machines keeping her alive. Additional machines are hooked up to her head as white tape pieces – or what it looks to be – stick to her head. She shakily reaches out and brushes the stands of red hair in her daughter's eyes so it frames that beautiful face.
Lydia pulls up the stool and sits, grasping one of her daughter's hands. It's so warm and her child is so still.
"Oh, Phyllis…" Lydia sobs, pressing her lips to the hand in hers. "I'm so sorry. You were right that night. About George. I thought going against you would protect you but all I did was hurt you. I drove you out of your home and I never should have let that happen. Now, you listen to me, okay and listen well. Because this is the only time you probably will,…or not," Lydia's eyes flash with resolve that Phyllis will wake up, and simmering anger at whoever is responsible for this. "You have people who love you. I love you. You need to wake up and tell me go to hell. Hug your children. Get back to a man I know you don't have to ever learn to love. Tease your sister. Just come back,…please," she gently drops Phyllis' hand and presses a soft kiss to her child's head.
"I'll come back and keep doing so," Lydia says resolutely to her daughter, and on some level to herself with a half smile on her lips. "To infinity, Phyllis. To infinity."
.
Lydia Callahan Summers goes back to just being Lydia Callahan.
She's right here in Atlanta, Georgia again with her girls again on another day. It's not ideal – the situation, the setting – but she's with Avery and Phyllis and that is what matters.
(It's partly cloudy but every now and again, sunshine peaks through and that's okay.)
A/N: I can finally say that after two summers – two years actually – of writing this, it is finally COMPLETE. I never thought it would be something this big or complex. It was hard to trace this woman's life because we don't know too much about her on the show. Lydia Callahan went from a character nobody ever talked about to a character that took residence in my headspace until I couldn't NOT sit down and finish tracing this woman's path throughout her life. But it was easy too. It was easy to mold this character after someone who could have given birth to two opposite people like Phyllis and Avery. I realize that as I type this, Lydia Callahan Summers could have been a combination of the two women she gave birth to. This started as an itch I needed to scratch because honestly and truthfully, I found the backstory they tried to introduce for Phyllis and her dad being a thief just stupid. I didn't delve into that too much here. Just enough to understand a mother's perspective.
My writing style has changed in the last two years since I sat down and started writing this, but I hope you all have fun reading it and understanding a character the show will never, ever expand on. If you're a fan of Phyllis, Avery or both and you made it here, I hope I did them enough justice. If you're not and you still read this, that's cool too. It was cathartic for me to write this.
As promised, I will be writing "Spilt Milk" which is an Avery character study based on the last few weeks of her time in Genoa City just because Jessica Collins was fucking brilliant and inspired me to write it. It can be seen as a sequel to this or a standalone, but Lydia WILL be back.
I feel like this is unedited and has typos everywhere, but I'm posting it as is. I'm dead tired and my brain is gone to mush so when I get some sleep, I will edit this AGAIN.
As always, any feedback would be appreciated and frankly, helpful since this piece really put me out of my comfort zone.
-Erika