Chapter 7
Holly's House
Saturday, August 1, 1992
Samantha dropped Blake off at Holly's house, coming in for a minute, while Blake wrote her a generous check for her services. Seeing the house was free from her mother, for the moment, Blake decided to take a nap, as her sleep had been interrupted by the nurses checking for signs of concussion all night.
She was exhausted, yet her mind was racing a mile a minute. A baby...Ross's baby...Roger wasn't her father...was it Ed?...or had her mother had yet another secret lover. Blake drifted off to sleep with the fantasy of what her life would have been, had she grown up a Bauer. Would she have been a doctor, like Ed and Rick? Would she be be a respected citizen of Springfield, known for her goodness, instead of infamous for her dalliances with the Spaulding men and her scheming?
A sickening thought came to her, that Alan-Michael would be her cousin, if it was indeed true that Ed was her father. At least that love affair had ended; another blue-eyed, middle aged, successful man had taken Alan-Michael's place in her dreams. Although not conventionally handsome, Ross Marler was the whole package. His kindness, sensitivity, caring, and god, his sensuality, could take her breath away.
Blake fell asleep to those thoughts, even believing she could still smell his scent in her bed, though the sheets had been washed several times since their encounter the night of the black-out.
Holly arrived home after an eventful day at WSPR. The town was buzzing about the arrest of Senator Leo Flynn. How would it affect the campaign? Was Ross now a shoe-in for Senator? Could Leo rise from the ashes of this mistake? Springfield's local chapter of MADD, Mother's Against Drunk Driving, was already picketing city hall, calling for Leo Flynn's resignation and withdraw from the election.
Walking into her living room, Holly noted a melted, half-pint of ice cream sitting on the coffee table, as well as Blake's shoes and clothing strung across the floor in a path to her bedroom. Her baby was a mess. Thankfully, they had a maid service, or Holly would have kicked her dear daughter out long ago.
Holly made her way to the bathroom to get freshened up. Ed had called her at the station, hoping to meet with her for dinner to discuss something. He's been vague on the phone, but Holly presumed it had something to do with Blake. Blake's trail of debris continued into the bathroom. Holly grabbed a handful of used make-up sponges and dropped them in the wastebasket, spying a lone box sitting at the bottom. A pregnancy test box.
Closing her eyes and feeling a headache coming on, Holly prayed quickly that the test was negative, or at the very least it wasn't Alan-Michael's baby. That man had caused enough chaos in her daughter's life. Though the alternative was the mysterious man that Blake had been supposedly seeing, who had broken up with her recently. Perhaps that was what Ed wished to talk to her about.
After Holly made a brief stop in her bedroom for a scarf that could act as a shawl on this slightly cooler night, she made her way to the living room, seeing that Blake was awake and digging through the refrigerator.
"Blake! Good, your home. We need to talk about what happened last night."
Blake popped her head up from the fridge, holding a tub of ranch dip and grabbing bag of potato chips on her way to the kitchen table. "Mom, I really don't want to talk about it right now. Can you just leave it alone?"
"No, Blake. First of all, you tried to make a scene with me to embarrass Ross in front of all those people. And then, you get yourself in a car accident with a drunk Leo Flynn. What were you thinking? And don't for a minute think that I don't know you were up to something. I know you, dear daughter! I wouldn't be surprised if you planned that accident."
Blake continued to ignore Holly's rant, used to it. She instead focused on how good the salt and vinegar potato chips tasted with the ranch dip. 'Pregnancy craving number 1, check! At least it's not something as nasty as pickles and ice cream.'
"Mom, leave it alone. It's over, done, nothing to do about it now. Besides, you should be happy your precious Ross won't lose the election now. I bet you're just dreaming of moving with him to a little brownstone in Washington and having a happy little life away from here."
"Hardly," Holly huffed, bitter about the senatorial candidates words to her before the call from the hospital came. "Ross made it pretty clear last night that there was nothing between us."
"Sorry," Blake responded.
Holly graced her with a doubtful look.
"No, really, I am. I learned first hand how callous some men can be."
"About that, Blake. I saw the pregnancy test box in the trash. Are you?" Holly trailed off.
Blake paused, not expecting to have to get into that, with her mother, so soon. She nodded slowly.
"Oh, honey! I'm sorry. I remember how awful an unexpected pregnancy can be. Have you told the father yet? It's not Leo's is it? I mean I know you've been seen out and about with him. But then there was that boyfriend you said you've been seeing. Oh, please don't let it be Alan-Michael's. Are you sure you want to keep the baby? I mean, you're not really the motherly type."
Blake let Holly ramble, still stuck on the 'awful unexpected pregnancy' comment. It was her. She was the 'awful unexpected pregnancy'. Trying to unsuccessfully hold back the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes (really, had she ever cried this much in such a short period of time?), Blake moved to the living room couch.
"You never really wanted me," Blake began. "You probably hated me from the moment you knew you were pregnant. Roger Thorpe's love child. If you hated the man so much, why did you ever sleep with him in the first place? And why not just leave me with Ed when you went to Switzerland? At least he wanted me. All you did was send me to grandma Barbara's and then pack me off to boarding school when I was old enough. Or send me to Grandpa Adam's when you couldn't stand to see me one more minute during the summer holidays."
"You will never know what I sacrificed for you little girl. Being married to and raped by a man I despised? I did that for you. Going to jail for murdering said bastard. I did that for you! Being dragged through the jungle? I did that for you! Marrying a man who was appealing as acid rain? I did that for you!" Holly's voice raised higher and higher until she was outright yelling.
"Ha! Jokes on you mom! Roger Thorpe is NOT my father!" Blake blurted with a cutting quality she knew would dig into the freshly cut wound. "So all those sacrifices you made? All for nothing! You should have aborted me when you had the chance. Then your life wouldn't have been so awful!"
"What in the world are you talking about? Of course Roger is your father. There was no one else," Holly spat back.
"Blood tests...someone changed them. I'm A+ and Ed told me that you and Roger are both O+. Ed's AB-."
"Honey, that's just not possible." Holly couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"Why, you were married to Ed at the time. Don't tell me that married people don't sleep together?"
"But we weren't. We didn't. We were having some problems at the time."
"Was the problem named Roger Thorpe?"
"No, Ed was drinking. And working. Too much. There's just no way…" Holly trailed off, not believing her daughter's news.
"So if it wasn't Ed, who was it? What other guy were you sleeping with? It'd be nice to know who, you know, just so I don't accidentally sleep with my brother or uncle or something."
"Blake, honey, I'm telling you the truth. Just Roger. When I found out I was pregnant, I slept with Ed, just so he'd think he was the father." Holly realized how awful something like that sounded out loud.
Blake snickered, "And you think I'm the messed up one? At least I will never regret having my child. And I will never regret who the father is."
The phone blared, breaking the silence. Blake picked it up. "Ed?...So you have them?...Yeah...Really?...Okay...yeah….I'll see you in the morning." Blake hung up the phone watching Holly stare her down, trying to discern Ed's part of the conversation.
After a long, long pause, Holly finally spoke, "Well?"
"Ed's my father," Blake said with relief and a smile.
Holly's reaction wasn't as relieved. "How? I just don't understand. It can't be possible. All this time? All this time I thought you were that monster's. My whole life has been built about that one fact. An now? It's just not true? My whole life? None of that had to happen?"
"Mom," Blake began, starting to see the crazed look Holly was starting to take on.
"NO! ALL OF IT!" Holly shouted. "THE RAPE! PRISON! SANTO DOMINGO!"
"Mom, calm down, let me call Ed, have him come over," Blake tried to calm her mother down.
"I've got to get out of here. I've got to go. I can't be here. Not here. Not in this place," Holly started mumbling to herself.
"Mom!" Blake tried to get her mother to respond to her, following her to the bedroom, where Holly proceeded to get out a suitcase and began throwing clothes in it. "Mom, you're not in your right mind, you can't go anywhere right now!"
Holly continued ignoring Blake, still mumbling to herself. Blake was starting to get very worried. She grabbed the phone to try and call Ed, but Holly ripped it out of her hands and threw it across the floor, breaking it into several pieces. "NO ED!" Holly screamed. "I don't need anyone. I just need everyone to leave me the hell alone!"
Blake backed up a few feet, for the first time, truly scared of her mother and what she might do. Blake watched in horrified silence as Holly grabbed the suitcase, walked out of the house, got in her car, and tore out of the driveway.
To be continued...
