Last time: The fallout from Martin and Katherine continued, and Jessica overheard a conversation between Fox and Julian that shocked her...

Chapter 10

Martin had a sense of déjà vu as he walked up the front walk, knocked on the door, and waited for it to open. Like before, the door opened while he was deciding whether to run for his life or not. Again the door was opened by one of his children. But this time, he looked into the eyes of a man. His son all grown up.

"Papa. What? Did you see the news and figure that you couldn't hide anymore?"

Luis was angry and made no secret of it, even though he kept his voice low, and Martin looked ashamed.

"Luis, it wasn't like that. I was always going to come and see you all. I was just afraid that with everything that you had been through already the last couple days…I just didn't want to complicate things."

Luis was not moved. "Whatever. You should be glad that Mama is home. She's the only reason I opened this door to you." Luis didn't invite him in. He simply stepped aside to allow his father to come in.

"Mama!"

Martin waited tensely in the entry as Luis called for Pilar. What would she say after all this time? How would she look? Would she throw him out the minute she saw him? He wouldn't blame her if she did.

"What is it Mijo?" Pilar came from the kitchen and stopped short. "Martin."

Her voice held no surprise, but neither did it speak of anything else. Looking at her, Martin was struck at how pretty she still was. You couldn't tell how hard her life had been since he left. He hadn't been in contact with his family at all, but he knew it would've been hard raising five children on the housekeeper's salary she'd been making. He read the papers; he knew Alistair took special pleasure in making their lives miserable.

The only difference he saw was in her eyes. In her eyes he could see the hardship, worry, and all that had been endured. They were tired. They didn't have the sparkle, the same sparkle that Theresa's had inherited. They looked old beyond her years, and again Martin had to bow his head. He had done this to her. He had broken her spirit.

Pilar had prayed for the day when Martin would come home to her. She had devoted her life to his moment. She had shed tears, she had harbored hope, and she had sometimes cursed his name. She had at times tried to picture what it would be like. How she would feel. And this wasn't it. She felt oddly empty. She didn't feel like crying, or throwing her arms around his neck and kissing him, or shouting with joy from the rooftops. She didn't even feel hate or anger, or any of the other things she thought she'd feel right now. He was still handsome. The graying hair, the new lines in his face…aging was definitely agreeing with him. Looking into an older version of the face that had always turned her inside out, Pilar searched for the old feelings. She couldn't find them. Not allowing herself to fully take note of this, she motioned toward the living room. "Come in. Have a seat."

As Martin walked into the living room, he saw that Miguel, Paloma and Theresa and Ethan as well had followed their mother out of the kitchen, and stood waiting expectantly.

"Hello." It sounded so inadequate, but Martin's mouth had suddenly gone dry and he couldn't form anymore words.

"Papa." Miguel held out his hand and Martin reached to shake it. Another son all grown up. It was obvious shaking his hand was more a matter of being polite than a welcoming gesture on Miguel's part, but Martin felt thankful it wasn't a slap in the face.

Meeting the Paloma's eyes, Martin felt his heart squeeze. She wasn't a baby anymore. She was as beautiful as her mother and sister. She only had a faint smile for him—again more to be polite than anything—and he wondered anew if he'd been better off just staying away. They had done just fine without him it seemed, and would continue to do so. All he was doing was disrupting things.

Everyone took their seats and an uncomfortable silence ensued. Looking around the room and feeling the most uncomfortable of all, Martin said the first thing that came to his mind.

"Just like I remembered it."

"Well, we barely had money to keep up with the repairs, so remodeling was out of the question."

"Luis" Pilar's voice had a soft note of warning, but Luis would not be silenced.

"No, Mama! Those are the cold hard facts and he ought to know 'em. I'm not going to sugar coat this for him because it sure wasn't a bowl of cherries for us after he left!"

Martin softly broke in now. "I know I left you in a horrible position, made your lives harder than they had to be. And I'm more sorry than you'll ever know."

Pilar, Miguel, Paloma, and Theresa said nothing at this, but Martin guessed that Luis spoke for them all.

"You're sorry? You're sorry? OK. If you're so sorry, where have you been all this time? Why didn't you ever call or write or send money? Why did you leave in the first place?"

Martin didn't know where to begin, or how to make them understand, but he had to try to explain. He owed them that much.

"You know your mother and I were working at the mansion at the time. I mostly did grounds keeping, but sometimes helped with maintenance stuff inside the house." Martin stopped, trying to figure out the best way to continue.

"Katherine used to love to sit out in the garden, and was friendly with all the workers including myself. She'd ask about our families and talk about Julian and Sheridan, and always thanked us for our work, so we got to be pretty comfortable around her.

"One day I was working in the flower beds behind the gazebo when Katherine came out there, and she was crying. She didn't see me, but I saw that she was holding her cheek, and when she moved her hand I could see a bruise forming by her eye. I stood up and asked her if she was OK and she hurriedly covered her face and said that she was fine. That it was nothing, and ran away. After that I always kept a closer eye on her, and noticed that she was bruised a lot of the time. On her arms, her face. She always quickly covered them up and said she was just clumsy—always bumping into things.

"Then on one particular day I was asked to take care of something inside the house. As I passed one of the rooms, I heard a woman crying, so of course I went in to see what was wrong. Katherine was sitting in one of the chairs, crying inconsolably. Her dress was torn, and I could see she had a lot more bruises. Some were old, some were fairly new, and you could see where knew ones were going to form. I rushed to help her, but she told me she was fine and to leave her alone. But I demanded to know how she'd gotten hurt. Finally she told me that Alistair was abusing her—physically and sexually and had been for years. I begged her to let me go for help, but she refused, so I had no choice but to leave her."

Looking around, Martin could see that so far his family wasn't particularly moved. They felt bad for Katherine he was sure, but still didn't see what that had to do with him leaving, so he continued.

"After that day, I watched her even closer, and though she always denied it, it seemed like the beatings were getting worse. I begged her again to get help, but she kept saying she was fine.

"Then came the day I witnessed Alistair's abuse for myself. I had come up to the main house to meet your mother so we could come home, and as I passed Alistair's office, I heard him yell at her, then a loud smack. I heard Katherine cry out in pain and then a thud as if he had actually knocked her to the floor. I ran in and yelled at Alistair to stop, and tried to help Katherine up. Of course you can guess how Alistair took that. He was so angry he almost hit me—I don't know what stopped him. But he told me to get out and to never interfere in his and Katherine's life again.

"That night, I went back to the mansion on the pretense that I'd forgotten to take care of something in the house. I snuck up to Katherine's rooms, and made her leave with me. We ran away that night, and have been hiding out all over the world ever since."

"Why did you never come back?" Paloma was the first to break the silence that followed Martin's story.

This was the hard part. Martin only hoped that his explanation would be good enough. "I knew if I came back Alistair would kill me."

"Is that also why you never tried to contact us?" Miguel was next with questions.

"Yes. If Katherine or I had tried to contact anyone in Harmony we knew Alistair would find us for sure."

Luis and Theresa weren't quite buying any of this. Looking at them Martin felt his heart sink, but didn't have time to saying anything to them before Pilar asked her question.

"How did you survive?"

"Only Katherine's youngest sister knew where we were. She was married to a wealthy man, and she had her own money from her family's side, so she was able to help us out whenever we needed to move. In between times, we lived and worked under assumed names and kept to ourselves."

Luis finally spoke, and his voice held somewhat less an edge than Martin would've expected. "If the only reason you didn't come back is because you were afraid that Alistair would kill you, why didn't you come back the minute he was dead?"

It was a fair question. "Katherine and I felt that we'd been gone so long and everyone thought we were dead anyway, maybe it was best to let things be and not disrupt your lives." Martin turned to Theresa where she sat on the couch holding Ethan's hand. Both had been quiet up till now, and he wished one of them would say something.

"So why disrupt our lives now?" Theresa's voice held the missing edge from Luis's and Martin took a deep breath.

"I saw what was happening to Luis and Miguel and thought I should be here. Thought that maybe I could help somehow."

"How did you feel that you would be able to help after being gone for 20 years?" Theresa asked. " We've gotten along fine till now. Besides, with my and Ethan's power at Crane behind them and Ethan representing them in court, they will have the best defense money can buy. I can help them just fine without you."

"Of course you can Baby Doll. I just thought…"

Of course you can Baby Doll….

Theresa didn't hear anything else her father had to say after that. Memory after memory filed through her head at that simple phrase, at that tone of his voice.

Of course you can Baby Doll….

"Daddy, I can hit the ball almost as far as Luis!"

Of course you can Baby Doll…

"I can drive the go cart as fast as Antonio can Daddy!"

Of course you can Baby Doll…

"We had a spelling bee at school Daddy, and guess what! I'm the best speller in the class!"

Of course you are Baby Doll…

"I can help them…without you."

Of course you can Baby Doll…

And she couldn't take it anymore.

"How Dare You!" she snapped coldly.

Silence. All eyes were turned to her in shock. But she didn't care. She could not be stopped.

"All this time! All these years. You left us here to be tortured by Alistair so you could save his wife? Just left us to fight for ourselves, to be blind sided by his wrath to protect someone who had people around her to help her if she had asked? How could you?"

"Theresa…" Martin was cut off by his daughter's continuing outburst.

"How could you leave Mama with five mouths to feed? How could you leave her to raise us all alone? Did you know when Antonio died?"

Martin dropped his eyes and nodded. "Katherine's sister let us know."

"How could you stay away? Didn't your first born son's life mean anything to you? You say you knew that Alistair was brutally beating and abusing Katherine, in the most heinous ways possible, but when news hit the papers that I had married him, you didn't come back to save me. Everything he did to Katherine? Yeah, he did them to me too! Now you come back to 'help' Luis and Miguel, but where were you when I needed you? Nowhere! You were nowhere to be found. Because you're a coward. And I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"

With tears streaming from her eyes, sobs wracking her body, Theresa ran through the house out to the backyard, slamming the door behind her.