Thank you to everyone that took the time to read this dark and sad story.

It was a bright and sunny afternoon. Natalia felt so blessed to be enjoying the early spring like weather. She really couldn't believe how much her life had changed in the year since that dark and stormy night.

She decided to steal Olivia away from the Beacon a little earlier than Olivia had planned on leaving. Olivia didn't mind in the slightest. What ever she didn't get done today, Greg would take care of during the month she and Natalia would be gone on their honeymoon.

Natalia had a picnic basket and a blanket in the car. She drove Olivia to the park and they set up their picnic under a large tree. They had a beautiful view of the gazebo and the little duck filled pond. They could also see the newly finished police station at the edge of the park.

The girls had finished their lunch and were just enjoying the quiet of the afternoon sitting under a tree. Olivia had her back against the tree and Natalia was between her legs leaning back against Olivia. They were both people watching as they sipped wine from the plastic cups Natalia had packed.

They both watched as two older women came walking towards them. Natalia thought one of the women looked familiar but couldn't really place where she might know her from. As they got closer, Olivia noticed that they were holding hands. The couple walked right up to them.

"Excuse me, we hate to interrupt your lunch, but are you Natalia Rivera?" The woman that looked familiar was the one to ask the question. Olivia was about to ask them to leave when Natalia started to talk.

"Yes I'm Natalia. You look so familiar. Do I know you?" The older woman got a sad smile on her face.

"No dear. You don't know me. I am Hortensia Lopez, Gabriel Guzman's mother and this is my wife Carmen Lopez." Olivia moved to stand up. She helped Natalia to stand. Then she stood in front of Natalia. She wanted to make sure this crazy woman didn't hurt anyone.

"Listen! I don't know who you are lady, but Guzman killed his mother. That was why he was in custody the day he blew himself and the police station up." Natalia put her hand on the small of Olivia's back to calm her.

"No wait Olivia, I think she might be telling the truth. Look at her, she looks just like him." Olivia quieted and took another look. Natalia was right, this woman did look just like the bastard. But how was that possible?

"He said that he killed you. That's why he was in the police station the night it exploded. That was a year ago. Why are you here now?" The woman was nodding her head with that same sad smile.

Carmen stood slightly in front of Hortensia. Taking on Olivia's challenging body language. "Hortie wanted to get on the first plane, when we heard what was going on with your trial. I told her we should stay out of it. I thought it would only get Gabe all wound up and he'd just do something crazy. Sadly he did it anyway. We sent for his body and had him quietly buried near where we live now. Hortie took losing Gabe very hard. The fact that she was never able to win back the love of her only child, almost broke her. We decided to come back to Springfield when we saw your wedding announcement in the newspaper. Hortie wanted to talk to you before the wedding." The two women still had their hands tightly clasped.

Carmen turned to look all around their area. She wanted to find a place where her wife could sit down comfortably. She smiled when she saw the gazebo. "Do you mind if we go over to the gazebo? My wife and I are not as young as you two. If we sat on the ground, you would have to call the fire department to get us back up." Carmen laughed at her own joke. Natalia took Olivia's hand and started to walk towards the gazebo. She wanted to hear everything these ladies had to say.

Once Olivia was sure Natalia was comfortable on the bench, she went back to get their things. The three women sat in silence as they watched Olivia gather up all their things and put them all in the picnic basket that Natalia had packed. She folded up the blanket and returned to the gazebo. She had Natalia stand back up so she could put the blanket down on the bench so Natalia could have a little bit of cushioning. All her broken bones had healed, but she still got stiff from sitting.

"Like Carmen said, we saw your wedding announcement in the newspaper. We wanted to come and wish you all the best. I wanted to be able to apologize to you. We know how Gabe influenced your parents and encouraged them to do all the things to you that he wanted to do me, but couldn't." Hortensia paused for a moment. She was deciding how much to tell this poor woman about her very misguided son.

"Early on, in the first few days after he got out of prison, he caught Carmen and I in an intimate embrace. He went berserk. I had never seen him like that before. No matter what I tried, I couldn't get through to him. He tried several times to physically hurt Carmen. I was always able to stop him before he could do anything. I was so sure that once he calmed down and got to know Carmen, he would be able to see how happy we were together. If he saw for himself I was happy, I thought he would come around." Carmen wiped a tear from Hortensia's cheek.

"As you can guess, that never happened. In fact he got worse and worse. Every time we saw him, he would either try to hurt Carmen or try to convert us to his way of thinking. He would try to bring us to the church he had started. We actually went once. We had never heard so much hate spouted by someone professing to be a messenger of God. We never went back." Hortensia needed a moment to get her emotions under control.

"In the end, so Carmen would be safe and to get some peace of mind, we finally decided to move back to Puerto Rico. I think that's when he really cracked. In his mind, it was all the proof he needed, that I had chosen Carmen and the devil over him. The only way we could really keep tabs on him, without him knowing, was through the church's website. We also kept a subscription to a couple of the Springfield newspapers. We didn't really understand how lost he was until we read about your trial." Hortensia's eyes filled with tears and her voice cracked. She needed a moment to get herself under control again. This was proving to be as difficult as she thought it would be.

Natalia didn't know what to do with all this information. None of what happened to her, was this old woman's fault. In Natalia's mind, it wasn't even Pastor Guzman fault. Her parents were adults and they made the decision to do what they did.

"Everything you went through is my fault. I came to beg for your forgiveness. If I hadn't made him the center of my world when he was a child, none of this would have happened. Please forgive me. It should have been me that went through everything you had to endure." Hortensia finally broke down and let herself cry. Carmen held her and comforted her as best as she could. Hortensia seemed to quiet after a few minutes.

Natalia leaned forward and placed her hand on Hortensia's knee. "Mrs. Lopez, please don't blame yourself for what did or didn't happen to me. I most certainly don't blame you or even the pastor, for what my parents did to me. What they did to my body has healed. There will be scars to remind me of how lucky I am. That I survived and now I am thriving. The meanest thing they did to me was to tell me, that not only did God not love me, but that he could never love me. That God wanted them to kill me, so he could send me to hell for all eternity." Both of the older women gasped at the cruelty.

They were shocked when Natalia started to smile. Natalia took Olivia's hand in hers. "The moment I woke up in this woman's arms, I knew they were wrong. I knew that God really did love me. If he didn't, I wouldn't have woken up and certainly not in Olivia's arms. I know in my heart and soul, that God sent Olivia to find me and to save me." Olivia just smiled. Even after a year of loving Natalia, she still wasn't what anyone would call, a believer.

"I walk without a limp, even though my leg was broken in several places. I can lift anything with my left arm and I only lost some vision in my left eye. It's only God's love that makes all that possible. Before that night, my life was grey and small. Now my life is so much bigger. There is so much more color in it. Please don't feel sorry for me. Apparently I had to learn the hard way, how to trust my inner voice. To trust in God's love, even if everyone is telling me I'm wrong. It took extreme measures, but I finally get it." Natalia chuckled at her little joke.

"Do they know what really happened the night of the explosion? Can you tell us?"

Twenty years later:

"Ma, there's an email here for you from Auntie Doris. It's not from her personal address. It looks official. It's addressed to Pastor Natalia Spencer." Natalia came out of the kitchen to see what the governor wanted this time. Natalia was hoping that this was the official letter asking her to officiate at her wedding. She kissed Emma on the head as she sat down. Emma being a typical sixteen year old, rolled her eyes. Natalia just smiled.

"Now let's see what Governor Wolfe has to say. I hope it's about the wedding." Natalia opened the email and started to read. Emma watched as all the blood drained from her mother's face. "Emma, sweetie, go get your mother please. She's going to want to read this too." Emma stood up, but she didn't move.

"Are you ok ma? You don't look so good." Natalia looked up from the computer screen and made eye contact with her daughter. She tried to smile, but somehow failed.

"I'm fine baby. I'm just very surprised. My mother is very sick and she's asking to see me. Please go get your mother for me. She needs to see this too." Emma was confused. She had always thought her ma's parents were dead. She hardly ever spoke about them and never in the present tense. She ran upstairs to her mother's office.

"Mom, mom! Ma needs you! Go down to the living room, ma needs you!" Olivia jumped up from her desk. She had been working on a bid for their next hotel. It will be The Beacon number five. Now she was just worried about her wife of almost twenty years.

"Hang on bean! What's the matter with your ma? Is she sick? Did she hurt herself?" Olivia got to her daughter and placed her hands on her shoulders, holding her in place until she answered her questions. Emma shook her head no.

"It's not like that. She got an email from Auntie Doris. It said her mother was sick and asking for her." At first Olivia was confused. Why would Doris's mother want to see Natalia? Then it hit her. Not Doris's mother, Natalia's mother. They hadn't heard from her in twenty years. The last time was just after Guzman and her father blew up the old police station. She had asked to see Natalia just before she was transferred to the women's prison in Decatur.

"I'm going down to your ma. I need you to call your brother and have him come home. We need to have a family meeting. He's at Daisy's. Don't take no for an answer. If he's not here in thirty minutes, he loses the keys to his car for a month." Emma nodded her head. This had to be crazy important. Their mom never threatened taking away the car unless it was extremely important.

Natalia was still just staring at the screen when Olivia found her in the living room. She carefully gave Natalia the once over, making sure there was nothing physically wrong. They hadn't spoken about Maria in at least ten years. This was going to be interesting. The kids would have to be told something now for sure. She would support whatever Natalia decided on, as always. Olivia walked over to the couch and sat down next to her wife. Natalia leaned back into Olivia, feeling Olivia's strength and love pouring into her.

Two days later, they were on the way to the prison in Decatur. They told Rafe and Emma the whole story. They found out that Rafe already knew most of the story. He had over heard Frank telling Mallet about the time he had been shot in the leg. "It was the night that crazy mother fucker Guzman and Pastor Natalia's father blew up the police station." Rafe spent the next few days looking it all up on the Internet. He read all the articles and watched all the news broadcasts. He didn't know how he felt about the whole story so he didn't bring it up to his moms. Emma was completely dumbfounded.

Olivia took Natalia's hand as they walked from the parking lot to the infirmary where Maria was. Natalia pulled Olivia's hand up to her lips and kissed it. Even after all these years together, it still amazed Natalia that Olivia always knew just what she needed. They got to the guards' station and explained who they were there to see.

"You're here to see Maria Rivera?" Both women nodded their heads yes. "She and I arrived here at about the same time. You two are her first visitors in all that time. You're Pastor Spencer? Why would a pastor be coming to see her now? I'm pretty sure she doesn't want to have anything to do with religion." Natalia was surprised by what the guard was saying. Olivia was starting to get annoyed. Natalia looked closely at the guard's name tag.

"Officer Malloy, I'm not here as a pastor. If you must know, Maria Rivera is my mother. This is the first time she has asked to see me since she's been here. The last time I saw her, she told me, that she never wanted to see me again. I was just following her wishes. Now do you think we can go in and see her now?" Malloy was standing there with her mouth hanging open. She should have known who the smaller woman was, she looked just like Maria.

Officer Malloy did the mandatory body search on both Olivia and Natalia. She also did a close inspection of the purses. Once that was all completed she showed them to Maria's bed in the infirmary. Malloy pointed to the curtain that gave her friend a little bit of privacy. Malloy stuck her head around the curtain.

"Maria, are you awake? Your visitors are here. Are you ready to see them?" Maria nervously shook her head yes as she pushed the button on the bed to let her sit up. Malloy pushed back the curtain as soon as Maria was sitting up. This was the first time in twenty years that mother and daughter looked at each other.

"Natalia is that you? You've become a very beautiful woman." Natalia wanted to be pleased with the compliment but she just couldn't. She had forgiven her mother and father years ago. She didn't want to carry all that anger around. That would have only hurt her. But standing there looking at the woman that had given birth to her, she realized that she just didn't care what this person thought about her. That made her smile. Maria could never hurt her again.

"What can I do for you mother? Why did you want to see me after so many years?" Olivia was surprised by the tone of her wife's voice. It only held curiosity in it. Not hurt or anger. Once again her wife showed what a wonderful human being she was. Maria heard the same thing that Olivia heard. Maria was expecting her child to hate her. Clearly Natalia didn't.

"I don't want anything from you. I just wanted to say goodbye. I just had my appendix removed. My sentence is complete. I get out of here in two weeks. I'm going to live with my cousin Martha, in New York. She got me an interview for a job at the place she works. So this is goodbye. I hope you are happy and that you have found peace in your life." Maria sounded sincere. It wasn't an apology but it was a wish for her happiness. It was more than Natalia had expected.

"My life has turned out to be very happy. Olivia and I have two children. A boy eighteen and a girl sixteen. We own four luxury hotels and we are now bidding for our fifth. I took over Guzman's church. I have been the pastor there for almost twenty years. I preach about God's love and accepting everyone into your life, instead of all the hate he preached. I have more love in my life than I ever thought was possible. I have you to thank for that." Maria thought she must have heard wrong. How could she have had anything to do with love in her child's life.

"You and my father never showed me anything but disappointment. I believed everything you told me. I believed God could never love me. I worked so hard to make you and my father proud of how pure I was trying to be. Your big mistake was thinking I had ever lied to you." Natalia paused to let that sink in for a moment.

"That mistake ended up being my salvation. You put me right in the arms of the woman I secretly loved. The very fact that I survived and regained consciousness in Olivia's arms caused me to have an epiphany. Not only were you wrong about God loving me, because God did love me. You were wrong about who God wanted me to love. God saved me from you and your hate and used Olivia to bring me back to life. It changed my whole outlook on life. So I should thank you for trying to kill me. If you hadn't, I would still be living under your thumb, unloved and very unhappy." Natalia had forgiven her mother years ago, but getting that off her chest, made her feel lighter than air.

"You know where I am and how to contact me if you need anything. It's your decision to hate or to love. I will not try to find you. This is all up to you. You are welcome to get to know your family as long as it is done with love. If you decide to stay away, I wish that you find an inner peace and your way back to God." Natalia took her wife's hand and headed back to her life.

The End