A/N - It didn't take me months to update, yay! This is a pretty emotional chapter, and I am somewhat fond of it. I hope you are, too. Thanks as always for the feedback, and also thanks to GSFanatic, the most patient beta to ever beta.

...May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass, for such,
Being made beautiful overmuch,
Consider beauty a sufficient end,
Lose natural kindness and maybe
The heart-revealing intimacy
That chooses right, and never find a friend...

A Prayer for my Daughter, W.B. Yeats


I stare into the eyes of Anne Rose, the woman that my father wanted to trade our whole family for so many years ago. It gives me some kind of brutal satisfaction to see that Anne has not aged well--she looks tired; beaten by age and time. I am not usually so vindictive, but this is one person who is the exception to the rule.

"Sara...Sidle?" Anne says, a mixture of disbelief and heartbreak in her voice. "What--why--"

"It's me," I say. "How did you remember?"

"I've seen so many pictures of you. I still have a photo album with your pictures that Jimmy--that you father gave to me. I look at it often, actually."

"How sad for you," I say, not making any effort to hide my bitterness.

We size each other up. I am the daughter of the woman my father married. She is the woman who took my father away. I am the daughter that my father always came back to after he left her. And she is the reason why he always left. It's a tricky combination of attributes, and I know we both have pain in our hearts that will never go away. We are scarred in our own separate ways. It was only a matter of time before our paths crossed.

I realize that I'm not only at her place of business, but I'm also in her home. There's no need to be rude. A lot of years have passed. I can at least be civil.

"I'm...sorry. I didn't come here to insult you," I say, looking at the ground.

"Why did you come here? It's been a long time, Sara. As you know."

"I know it has, and I do have a reason," I quickly say. "I've been going through some stuff lately, and I need to remember things about him--the good things. I don't remember a lot of good things. And I came back, and I'm here to talk to you because...well, it was something I had to do."

She didn't say anything, which was making everything way more awkward than I would have liked.

"So do you think we can talk? I have questions. Actually, a lot of questions. I'll understand if you don't want to answer them, but--"

"Of course," she said finally. "I understand. We really should talk. I'm sorry it's taken so long for that to happen. Please, come in."

I enter the Wild Horse Inn, which my parents ran until my dad died. Just coming through the door and seeing the old place was enough to send a thousand memories scattering through my soul. Most of the furniture had been replaced, of course, and the floors were now hardwood instead of carpeted. I think this may have been because of the blood, but I'm not so sure.

Along with owning and operating the inn, we also lived in it in the later years when it wasn't doing so well and we had to sell the house. That's when everything got a lot worse for my mom. Needless to say, most of the memories were not pleasant.

Anne sees me looking at the place not so fondly, and patiently asks, "A lot of memories here, huh?"

I nod, trying to keep a stray tear from betraying me and slipping out of my eye.

"Okay, well, let's sit down. Do you want some tea or anything?"

"Tea would be great, thank you." I follow her through the inn, noting the changes she's made. She's done a good job; the inn looks homier than it ever did before.

Once we get to the kitchen, though, I stop short. I can't make myself go through the door. It's like there's an invisible barrier separating me from going into this room. There's a perfectly logical reason for this--it's where my mom stabbed my dad. Repeatedly. In front of me and my brother.

Anne notices my hesitation and says, "Oh...well. You can go ahead and sit down at the dining room table. I'll be there in a moment."

I am grateful that she doesn't comment on my reluctance to go in the kitchen, but I'm also aware that as soon as we sit down together, we're going to be talking about a lot of difficult things. I tell myself that it's okay; that I made this journey to come to this point, and if I don't do it now, I may never get back home to Grissom. I picture him in my mind. I close my eyes while I hear Anne pattering around in the kitchen, and I visualize Grissom at home with Hank. This will help me get through the conversation. I am determined.

Anne sits across from me at the table a few minutes later, handing me my tea. I thank her and take a sip. She also takes a sip of her tea. We are delaying the inevitable. The elephant in the room is getting bigger. Someone needs to say something.

"Okay, well...how about this--you tell me what you know about me and your father and I'll tell you the rest," she says.

"Fair enough," I say, thankful that she's going to let me get to the bottom of this after all. "Let's see. You met as freshmen in high school. You fell in love and planned to get married, but your parents didn't approve of him because he wasn't Jewish. You still dated seriously, planning to elope after you turned 18, but he met my mom at a party and had a one night stand with her. She got pregnant from that one night and he decided to 'do the right thing' and marry her. Now, here's my favorite part--you guys still dated the entire time they were married, even after my brother was born, and even after I was born 5 years later. And 15 years after he married my mother, he was going to leave her to marry you, but--"

"Oh, let me take it from there," she says sourly. I then regret my choice of words right away, but I can't help it. There are just so many memories I can't leave behind, and I've spent so many years blaming her for all of it.

"He was finally going to leave Laura and come back to me, but instead, she murdered him in the kitchen and now none of us have anything." Her face does not hide the still evident sorrow that she must still carry around with her on a daily basis. The empathy I feel for her surprises me.

"And there's 2 sides to every story and neither of us could know what the other went through, so..." I say sadly.

Her face softens and she nods.

"That's true. I know Jimmy was not the nicest of people in the end. I know Laura got the brunt of his anger. And believe me; I was angry with him for that, all the time. Whenever I heard another rumor that he sent her or you kids to the hospital, I'd end it with him yet again. But it never lasted. Sara, what can I say? He was my first love, my only love."

Obviously I think of Gil when she says this, and I realize things are not always black and white. Sometimes, life takes a different turn and complicates everything. I was going to spend the rest of my life with Robert, I really was, but I could never stop thinking about the man I met at the Forensic Academy Conference. I'm sure my dad tried to stay with my mom, at least for a while, but Anne was his one true love. I'm always embarrassed to admit that I believe in fate--I'm a scientist, after all. But there are so many things in my life that I have to chalk up to fate because there's no other explanation. And I realize that while Anne and I have walked down different paths, we're probably more alike than we think.

"I know how that is," I say. "And I'm sorry, again, for speaking out of turn. It's just that...I haven't gotten over it. I lost my dad. A few years ago I lost my brother. A few months ago I lost my baby. And there's so much loss, and I have to blame someone for it...well, anyway, I'm sorry."

"I didn't know about your brother, Sara," she says, her tired face radiating unexpected warmth. "I'm so sorry. And your baby, too, that has to be the worst."

"It was," I say. "It is."

"I lost Paige, too," she says. I look up at her, surprised and heartbroken for her.

"What? When?"

"A few years ago, to breast cancer. She was 30 years old. Can you imagine?"

Paige was my father's daughter. I saw her around sometimes when I still lived in the Bay. She was 8 years younger than me and didn't know who I was, but I knew who she was. It took all my strength not to say anything to her, but she was just a little girl. She didn't need to know who her father was yet. She'd had plenty of time to figure that out on her own.

"I am so sorry, Anne," I say. "It seems like we've both lost a lot in our lives."

She nods. Neither of us is crying. There are no more tears left.

"Did my dad...did he ever..."

"A few times," she admitted. "I ended up in the hospital once or twice. But never like...your mom and you kids. He was very resentful of his life, and he took it out on all of us. He never meant to--I'm sorry, Sara, I know you couldn't possibly want to hear this--but he never meant to have children with Laura. We had a lot of plans together, and that one mistake ruined everything he wanted. When you kids were old enough, he was going to leave. I don't know exactly how it all happened, but he told me he was leaving Laura. And I figured...well, I thought--"

"It was," I say. "He told her that night he was leaving. I heard the whole thing. She cried and begged and pleaded even though I thought she'd be relieved. He slapped her when she became hysterical and started crying and wouldn't stop. And that was just the last straw. She went crazy, grabbed the knife, and it was all over. But if it's any comfort to you, yes, he was going to leave her--us--to be with you."

I can't tell if this is any comfort to her. She doesn't show any signs of, well, anything on her weathered face. I don't know why I expected something, but I did.

"You know, Sara, your father was very proud of you."

"No, he wasn't. Please don't tell me that, because it's bullshit. He called me names. He tried to get me to stop doing so much homework; to stop reading so much. He never--"

"Sara, please. He was proud of you. He didn't show it in the right way, but he was. He told me all the time how you were going to be a doctor or a lawyer."

"I'm a criminalist," I say. "I'm a scientist."

"Oh, he would have loved that. He didn't have any aptitude for any of that stuff," she says, almost fondly. "He was an artist. Did you know that? Our plans included going to an artist's colony in Austin. That was basically his dream."

"I had no idea," I say honestly. "I really didn't. He never said anything."

"He was embarrassed. I think once he settled down with Laura, he wanted to move on from that part of his life. It's also part of the reason why he was so angry all the time, because he no longer had an outlet for his frustrations."

I know that Anne is not saying that she understood my father's violent tendencies. I know she's not saying that his physical and mental abuse was our fault. I know she's not saying these things, but still, what she is saying is rubbing me the wrong way. But I decide to do something I don't do very often, and I bite my tongue. I will not confront her. She's had enough pain in her life, as much as I've had, and this does not need to happen.

She can apparently tell that I'm not sure what to say next, so she breaks the silence.

"Do you have someone, Sara? Are you in love?"

"Yes. Yes, his name is Gil. He's my second husband, actually. But he's the love of my life."

She smiles sadly. "I hope you realize how lucky you are."

"I do, every day," I say. I wish he was here, or that I was back at home with him. I only feel like a whole person when he's around. I quickly remind myself that this is the reason why I have to be here right now and not with him. I decide a subject change is necessary, or I really will start crying.

"I can barely step foot in this inn without wanting to run as far as I can. But you own this place. You're in the kitchen every day. How do you do it? I can't even imagine."

She smiles sadly.

"It's part of the healing process, I guess. Your father was my one true love, and I haven't found anyone else to replace him. This inn is all I have, and I feel his spirit in the air every now and then. If I leave here, if I move on with my life...then I'm scared I won't feel the spirit anymore. I know how sad that is, but it's okay. I get by. The inn does pretty well and I have my own little hobbies and such."

My heart aches for this woman; the woman I've felt only bitterness towards for more than half my life. And there's the empathy again, because I know deep down if I lost Gil Grissom, I would feel the same way.

We talk for a little longer about my father, my mother, Gil. I tell her about Vegas. She tells me about the strange guests that frequent the inn.

When the conversation comes to a lull, I look at my watch and realize I've been talking to Anne for almost 3 hours. She sees me looking at my watch and looks up at the clock mounted on the wall. We both realize that maybe it's time to wrap this up.

"Well...thank you, Anne. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I was just wondering, is there anything you kept that belonged to him? Or anything he drew, painted, wrote? Anything that was creative at all that is still around today? He never shared those kinds of things with any of us, and I was curious..."

Anne nodded warmly. "You can come back any time you want and I'll show you a lot of things. I have letters, pictures, drawings...I kept everything. Oh, and the picture on the wall above the fireplace? He painted that."

We walked to the fireplace and I stared at the picture that I knew so well. My dad painted that? He painted the picture I used to stare at for hours when I was a kid, trying to figure out what was happening inside of it? The picture was meant to be abstract, but in it, you could barely make out the figure of a little girl. She was surrounded by sweeping circles painted black and blue, and it was all set in the middle of a green and brown forest. It was the most confusing picture ever, yet I was so intrigued by it as a child. It broke my heart to know he painted it and I never knew.

"Wow," I say. "I didn't know."

"Yeah, he tried to keep his artist thing to himself," she says. And quietly, "and to me."

We finally part ways and I tell her I'll be back in a few days to look at what he left behind. I don't feel relieved, really. I don't feel like a weight has been lifted. But I do feel like I have more insight into who my father was and why, maybe, he was so angry all the time. I'll never understand why he took it out on us the way he did, but I do realize that underneath the violence and anger and pain, there was a man who's life didn't turn out the way he planned. And I understood that a lot more than I gave him credit for, that was for sure.