Still staring dagger at each other as Natalia dialed Rafe's number and put him on speaker phone Olivia heard her blackberry ring. Normally she wouldn't have thought twice about letting it go to voicemail in such a situation but when she noticed it was Emma's special tone she stepped away to take the call. "What's up Em? Now really isn't a good time. How about you call me in a few" but stopped cold when she heard her regularly sarcastic and at times distant teenage daughter utter two words she hadn't said together in almost five years "Mommy please" What in the fucking hell Olivia thought. Of course Emma would need her in exactly the same time her older sister did. Thinking that it was probably a matter of Emma having gone over her limit at the mall Olivia felt a headache creeping behind her eyes. "Em whatever it is I'm sure it'll be fine until I see you at home. Your sister"
"Mommy please. I need you to come get me please" Emma gasped her voice choked with tears.
"Honey what's wrong? Are you and Clarissa alright? Did you two get in an accident?" As soon as those words were out of her mouth the other women in the room disconnected the still ringing phone and hang on Olivia's ever word. "Baby? Are you hurt?"
"Olivia?" both Doris and Natalia asked coming to her side attempting to get close to the phone but Blake didn't even bother to be subtle she just took the phone and after a few quick touches put it on speaker phone. "What's going on and where's Clarissa?" Blake asked.
"She" oh shit! "She left me. Mommy she broke up with me. I need you to come pick me up" Each woman had the exact same expression of "fuck me" on their face, as if they didn't have enough drama for today.
"Olivia go get her" Natalia said rubbing her wife's increasingly tense shoulders.
"But what about?" Olivia asked disturbed by the thought of abandoning one daughter's problems over the others.
"We can handle it. You take care of Emma right now"
Walking towards Doris Blake threw the woman their car keys "You too"
"What?" Doris asked in confusion as the keys slapped her knees.
"Our daughter is out there upset after having broken up with her girlfriend. She needs one of us to calm her down. You do that and I will talk to Rafe and straighten this all out." Blake said as she picked up the fallen keys and kissed her wife on way back towards the house phone.
"Natalia?"
"She's right. We can handle this. You two take care of Clarissa and Emma. Make sure they are alright." As Doris and Olivia walked out the door trying to wrap their minds on all the problems that had suddenly popped up on a supposedly stress free weekend their eyes briefly met. Olivia had almost dismissed the other woman from her mind and was almost buckled in her seat when she heard a light tap in her window. Looking up the last person she expected to see there was her erstwhile bestfriend. "What?"
"Look you know me I don't handle my daughter being in hurt very well. When Ash calls me crying my first thoughts are stop the tears and kill whoever caused them and ask questions later. I'm" sighing and rubbing her face wearily across her face she started again. "Olivia I'm"
"You're a complete dumbass and if think you're getting out of paying for our next lunch by causing a fight you are sadly mistaken" with that Olivia smiled at her friend and peeled out looking to save yet another wayward child. It took only a few minutes to get to the mall but it took double that to get Emma to calm down enough so that she tell her mother where she was. By the time Emma was safely in the car it looked to Olivia as if her usually cocky daughter was a broken woman. Only the death of a favorite cow two years ago came close to how distraught Emma was. The girl threw herself in Olivia's arms and the mother sat in the parking lot for several minutes just whispering soft endearments into her daughter's ears. "Baby it's going to be okay I promise"
To which Emma would weep "I love her mommy. I love her so much." This was the first time that Emma had gotten her heart broken. No one was more surprised than Olivia that her daughter had fallen so hard for the Ms Mahler and ever few months after they joined she kept expecting them to break as very young couple often do. Each month and each year Olivia was astounded that her daughter had found so easily what had taken her over four decades to find. It hurt Olivia because Emma was in pain but unfortunately she didn't think the pain was going to be just forgotten in a few weeks time if they were truly over. Emma and Clarissa's lives were so intertwined that everyone in the family was going to feel this heart ache for sometime. But no matter right now Emma was her priority. "Baby?" She asked again when she finally got the girl on the sofa after running her a hot bath and spooning big bowls of warm apple pie and melting vanilla ice cream. "What happened?"
"I messed up mom" Emma said with a sigh not looking up but just holding the cooling bowl in her hands. They were sitting on the sofa watching Real Housewives of Orange County and Olivia would have poured her baby a glass of red wine complete the break up meal if she didn't think Natalia would kill her. "I messed up so bad"
"Maybe if you give her some time she will cool off honey. Maybe she was just really upset when she broke thing off" the girl still hadn't told her exactly what happened and although she was dying to know she didn't want to start another ten minute crying jag.
"No. she meant it. She hates me. She said that she didn't know who I was. She said she didn't want to be with someone who could do what I did" Hearing those familiar words from the mouth of the one person that she had tried her best to make better than who she used to be Olivia lost her breath. Oh God no. This was not supposed to happen Emma was not supposed to be like me. She's so much like Natalia. Oh God no. I did this. I "I thought I was helping. I just wanted to protect her but I. I hurt her so bad. I just wanted to make it better"
"Baby what did you do?" Olivia asked with terror filling her heart.
Bending her head and hiding her eyes Emma wiped tears from her eyes before speaking softly. "There was someone hurting her. She wanted to take care of it herself but I couldn't stand the thought of this person not paying so I hired someone and got so blackmail material and threatened to expose her if she kept hurting Ris" and then the tears burst threw again as strong as when Clarissa first walked away.
It was almost as if she were looking at a scene from her own life Olivia thought. You think you are helping the one person you love and you hurt them more than you ever dreamed. It was like you were toxic. No. No this is not going to happen to my daughter. It's not. Taking her daughter in her arms and hugging her tight Olivia screamed in her head "You don't get to visit my sins on my daughter you bastard. I changed. I did everything right this time. Emma will not go through the pain that I suffered. Damn you."
Doris had gone to every place that she thought her daughter might be and found her nowhere. There was no way that she was going home to Blake without Clarissa so she just kept driving until Blake called. Shit Doris thought what am I going to tell her. "Hey baby listen I'm sorry but I've been looking for Clarissa but"
"She's here honey so just come back. She wants to get home and get to bed" When she got to the door she found Clarissa laying in her mother's lap asleep and Blake running her fingers through her strawberry blond hair as she spoke to Natalia. Thomas was sleeping by Natalia's feet and was making scratching and light growling sounds in his sleep. When they looked up Blake's face was noticeably less strained than when she'd left almost an hour ago. Shit she was supposed to be staying stress free Doris thought with worry but forced herself to make a smile when Blake smiled up as she approached the sofa. "So what happened?''
"Emma and Clarissa had a major misunderstanding and I think Clarissa may have reacted mainly out of hurt but that's for those two to decide later."
Leaning over and kissing Blake's forehead Doris asked "But what about Rafe?"
Shaking her head Blake sighed "How about we discuss that on the way home. I am so exhausted that I could literally fall asleep any second."
"Oh I'm sorry baby" Doris said with worry. Taking the teen in her arms and carrying her to the car Doris thought back to when she had done this so many years ago for the not only Clarissa but also Ashlee. They were growing up so fast and it broke her heart. Long ago a scoop of ice cream and an extra story solved all of life's problems but now she couldn't save her babies from the years of heartbreak ahead of them. Turning back toward's Natalia as the woman stood in the dark yard Doris was at a loss. In so many ways Natalia was her opposite in temperament and world view and long ago she had looked down on the Latina and naïve and unsophisticated. Now however she worried that the woman would finally wash her hands of her wife's crass and loud best friend. It was not only the strain on her relationship with Blake and Olivia that Doris feared but also she knew the loss of the woman would hit her hard. Often she and Natalia would sit with back as their highly energetic spouses ran wild with the grands and talked. At first it was akward but now she felt lucky to call the woman a good friend and it would her horribly to loose Natalia. "I can take you home" Doris said expecting Natalia to scoff in her face.
"Thank you Doris but I'm going to take Ash's car and drive home" Turning away Doris felt tears prick her eyes and thought of course Natalia was too well mannered to be rude even after everything Doris had said in the house earlier. But Doris stopped cold when she felt warm slim arms wrap around her shoulders. "It's okay Doris I know that you were upset. It's going to take more than you being a little bitchy to stop us from being friends"