Prologue:
Sami stood in her kitchen drying her hands, looking out the window onto the busy street below. The streets were humming with the activity of a late summer afternoon, people coming in from the day...others traipsing out for the evening. It was as if the street were humming a low soothing tune, where the hurries of the work week had slowly faded into lulling ambling pace that personified a Sunday.
Since moving to Portland some eight years ago, she had come to appreciate the soothing bustle of the city that seemed to melt into the lush green peaks of the West Hills. She sighed to herself, thoughts ruminating of her life...the life she had made for herself and her children. HER LIFE.
After the death of her husband and youngest son, she had made a decision to start over. The twins had been barely toddling when the accident occurred, and Will had been away at college. One minute, the "men-folk" of her life had been walking out the door to pick up a pizza, the next thing she knew, Sami Brady was both a widow and a grieving mother. And then, she was just THERE...the idealic life she had imagined suddenly gone, in one freak moment, at the tip of a steering wheel. There had been investigations and muttered insinuations, but she knew ultimately that it was no evil plot, no dastardly master plan, no vendetta...it was a simple patch of black ice that had taken Lucas and Tommy. She mused that Lucas would be irritated that something as mundane as that would be his ultimate foil.
The accident had sobered Will, both literally and figuratively. His party days at college had come to an abrupt halt. He had buckled down, and surprisingly turned to a pre-med curriculum, destined to be the next be the next in a long line of Horton doctors. His father would have been proud.
Afterwards, she had decided that she needed a change. She was weary of being the infamous Sami Brady, the commissioners daughter, black sheep extrordinaire. She was exhausted from the efforts to stay strong in the aftermath. There had been too many people around, too much advice given, too much help. Her mothers constant analysis, her fathers constant not-so-subtle inquiries about her future plans, her sisters constant face of resolute sympathy...and the twig that snapped the camels back, a grieving mother-in-law who suddenly wanted to be "close" to her and her children. The shock of the sincerity should have been heart-warming, but it was like ice water, as she realized that Kate would want to insinuate herself and her will upon Sami and her children, as she had her own.
So she left. She applied for a job, found an apartment, and left. She had only been to Portland once in her life, on a business trip with ARC. She was struck by the openness of the city. It was urban and yet, green and fresh. And fresh was just what the doctor had ordered. A place where no one knew of Lucas...of Sami...of Lucas and Sami...where she was no longer a grieving widow to be pitied and coddled, but simply a single mother of a precocious 9 year old, with a grown son settled in the Midwest. Here, she was Gina Roberts, not Samantha Brady.
She had seriously considered reverting to her maiden name a few years following the accident, but she enjoyed the convenience of having the same last names as her children...it drew less attention, and it appeased a foreboding sense of guilt that went with renouncing her husbands name. She opted instead for using a variation of her her middle name to bolster her "new" identity. Where it was at first foreign and strange, she now found the moniker comforting, like a badge of accomplishment. Her choices had, for once made her happy. She had turned inward after the accident, and made decisions for all the right reasons. And, for once, her plans had come to fruition beautifully, and at little or no expense of anyone else.
She dried her hands on a towel and sidled over to pick up her mug of tea, that had been steeping for just the right amount of time. "Nanny's Tea...yes dammit, Nanny's flippin tea!" she chided herself smugly. It had been the sole token of remembrance of the man. She had stealthily secreted away the recipe many years before, and it had been the miracle draught of calm that he had said it would be. It had soothed many a tummy-ache and had placated Colleen when she woke to nightmares of the bogey-man under the bed. It had also been the key to her modest success. Upon moving to Portland, she had accepted a position as a cafe manger for a small bookshop in the Pearl district. Gaining the position had been a combination of melding her years of helping out at the Brady pub with a little creative license on her resume. It had been the only time that she had, in any way, used her widow status, as distasteful as it was, as an emotional lever. She supposed that perhaps sympathy did have some purpose after all, following her interview with the owner. Hey, she was a better person, but no saint.
Any remorse was tempered by her drive to succeed, and her dedication had paid off in spades. The cafe, once a side show to the little bookshop, had taken on a life of its own. "Rondelet" was now a busy cafe which bristled from early morning to mid afternoons, specializing in breakfast pastry and light lunch fare. While there was no dinner menu, it was a late night refuge for the college crowd, who horded the fresh desserts, rich coffee, and yes, "Nanny's Tea".
The recipe had been unveiled quite unceremoniously, as Gina had brought in a batch for Naomi, her assistant manager, after a horrendous bout of morning sickness. It had soon passed to others in the shop with stress, with insomnia, with, well, a craving for really good tea. So, within 3 months, Nanny's tea was on the barista menu. Within one year, it was being packaged in bright tins for sale by the pound. By the second year, Nanny's tea was popping up in other popular eateries, with her permission (and at a price, of course). After 8 years, Nanny's tea was a locals beverage. It was as if it had always been there, a testament to the "native" culture. What had started as a small business venture has paid for Will's college and Medical school. It had allowed her to buy the spacious 2 bedroom loft apartment, which she now called home. It paid for Colleens soccer camp, drama and dance classes, and just like that, Gina Roberts was a made woman. And this time, she had made herself. Sami Brady was no more.