Chapter 21- Trouble Starts

February 1st, 1982. Chicago, 5 AM

"Molly you don't have to be afraid." Bob said gently, running his fingers through her hair.

It was just one day after the toddler's second birthday and he found himself sitting up with her because she was scared to death of the storm raging outside. Molly shook her head and buried her face in her father's chest.

"Oh boy this is going to be a long week." He mumbled. "Come on sweetheart, it's time for us to go to bed."

"No!" She cried. In truth, part of Molly was just trying to steal some time alone with her father. She liked lying in his arms and listening to the rain, even though it scared her.

"Yes." He reassured, picking her up again and getting up out of the chair. She was going to cry when all of a sudden someone knocked at the door.

"Oh great, who could that be?" Bob mumbled, keeping Molly in his arms as he got up to answer the door. "Ellen!" He gasped. Tears threatened to pour down her cheeks and he could tell they weren't the first batch. "Ellen! Are you alright, are you hurt?!" He asked, concernedly. She sniffled and nodded.

"Yeah." She managed.

Neither adult noticed, but Molly carefully studied her young cousins just as her father watched his sister. She noticed they were a bit shaken themselves and the idea frightened her. She tightened her grip on her father's arm and looked up at him helplessly, thinking he would know what to do because she thought he always did.

"W-what happened?"

"Howard and I split up tonight…I think."

"Y-you what!"

"Yeah Bob I think maybe we're done." She bit her lip and looked down, trying to hold back tears.

"Why!"

"Oh Bob, I've said so much in front of the boys tonight. Maybe I'll just tell you in the morning."

"Where's Howard?"

"He went to the airport."

"The airport?"

"Yeah, probably to see Miss-little-black-book number nine, or eight or I don't know…" Ellen complained as she walked over to the couch and put down her sleepy sons. "But I know he's coming back and I don't wanna be there when he gets back."

She burst out crying and covered her mouth as she sobbed, just as soon as she turned her back on the boys. Bob was amazed, he'd never seen her that upset. He took her in his arms and attempted to comfort her. Bob noted that the boys, who'd be one in just a little over a week, looked up at their Mom with sad, confused eyes. He took pity on them.

"What's going on here?" Emily asked, coming out into the living room as she tied her robe. "Ellen?...Oh Ellen, honey!" Emily soothed, holding out her arms for Ellen. "Sweetheart what's wrong?" She yawned.

"She and Howard split up."

"You what!"

"We're done." Ellen gave a muffled cry.

"Well why?"

"I think she said something about Miss-little-black-book number nine." Bob reflected. Ellen nodded through her tears.

"Oh honey, this is Howard, he's crazy about you I'm sure you must…" Emily began. She didn't think Howard would cheat in a million years.

"No Emily, I'm not wrong." Ellen resented the idea that she might be. "I mean, I wish I were, but I think he's cheating on me."

"What happened?" Emily asked, expecting that she might've picked up the phone when another woman called or something.

"I found his little black book." She explained. Bob and Emily exchanged glances. "I mean, I know when we were having that long distance relationship…I know there were other girls back then but now…."

"So you found his little black book, how do you know he's seeing any of them?" Bob asked.

"Well he kept it, didn't he? And it's not like he put it in storage: I found it! Listen, can I sleep here on the couch, me and the boys? I'm going to Mom's in the morning."

"Mom's?" Emily asked as Ellen grabbed a blanket off the edge of the couch.

"Yeah. Mom's."

It was then that Bob and Emily realized there was something huge they weren't being told about this. Something horrible had to have happened if Ellen was willing to go to her mother's on her own volition.

...

Ellen and the boys left very early the next morning, just as the rest of the house was sitting down to breakfast. Bob had tried to convince her to stay, but to no avail, she was sure Howard would be back soon. Meghan watched her parents carefully over breakfast. They were very upset and she was confused. She had no idea why Aunt Ellen, Zach and Ryan had slept on the couch and why everyone was so upset. Meghan watched as her father sighed, noting he'd done it in this very particular way; one that was always a bad sign and met that he was frustrated to no end.

"Daddy what's going on?" Meghan asked.

"What are you talking about?" He pretended like he didn't know. Bob didn't want the girls to know what was going on. He thought it would all blow over in a couple of days anyway.

"But Daddy why was she here?" Meghan reiterated.

"And why did she leave?" Bridget followed.

"And why did she stay over night in the first place?" Meghan asked again.

"Girls. Aunt Ellen's just going through something, and it's not our business." Emily said as she sat down. "So don't ask any more questions about it."

"Okay Mommy." Bridget and Meghan said at once.

Bob just stared at Emily for a moment, wondering how she had gotten them to stop asking. If he had said that, it wouldn't have done any good.

About an hour later, Bob and Emily left the girls with their babysitter and got on the elevator together to head to work. Neither of them had said a word to each other about what had happened the night before…until now.

"Emily, what are we going to do?" Bob asked when the doors shut.

"Oh I don't know…I wish we could talk to Howard so we'd know more of what happened." Emily considered.

"Yeah- that would be good. Ellen is my sister, but I think she's being a little…rash."

"Yeah. I do too. Bob?"

"Yeah honey?" He asked. The elevator reached the bottom floor and they walked out into the lobby.

"Do you think we can help? I'd hate to see them break up."

"Well me too, but…"

"Bob I was thinking. If we could talk to them about a time when we had a problem in our marriage…"

"E-Emily I don't think we really have any that we could talk about."

"I can't think of any either." She lamented, then smiled suddenly, realizing how blessed she was. "Bob I love you." She kissed his cheek.

"I love you too." He said as the other elevator's doors opened. "H-Howard."

"Hi guys! Boy do I have the greatest news!" Bob and Emily exchanged confused glances.

"Howard." Bob began. "Don't you know your wife left you last night?"

Howard's face fell. Howie had told him that she'd taken the boys and gone to Bob and Emily's, he assumed his wife and sons were still there.

"What?" He asked.

"Howard." Emily said, taking her friend's arm gently. "Ellen went to her mother's this morning with the babies."

Howard's eyes grew wide at this. He too knew that if she went to her mother's it met she was serious.

"What happened between the two of you?" Bob asked. He was still confused about the whole affair…er, thing.

"Howard, we heard this had something to do with your not throwing out your little black book."

"Is she still on about that?" He asked angrily. "That's not what this is about! It's him!"

"Him?" Bob asked.

"He's in town and that's what I was going to tell you. After two months I was finally going to get to get him."

"Your brother Gordon is in town." Bob guessed.

"That's right. And this isn't about my black book. This is about Gordon. And Ellen getting sick of Howard." Howard was very upset and stormed out of the building, slamming the door behind him, leaving Bob and Emily stunned.

…

"Hum…let me think!" Carol was intrigued by this question.

It was late at night and she was Bob and Emily's dinner guest for the evening. It was just the three of them and it was kind of nice. The girls were fast asleep and Larry was out of town. It was sort of like old times, except for the fact that Bob and Emily were worried sick about Howard and Ellen.

As the day progressed, they'd discovered that Howard had headed straight to the Hartley's and tried to talk to his wife. When that failed, he'd tried to take possession of his sons. And failing that, he'd gone back to the airport where he'd taken someone else's Tokyo flight, just because he couldn't handle it and he knew flying would be the only way to calm him down.

Later on in the afternoon, a frantic Martha called Emily to let her know that she was keeping the twins while Ellen went out to dinner…with Gordon!? Bob and Emily were hurt and didn't know how to break the news to their dear friend; so they decided that the only way they could help was through an intervention and to try to relay some kind of personal story to Howard and Ellen…if possible.

"A time when you two had a problem with your marriage." Carol continued to consider.

"Yeah." Emily confirmed.

"Well I think our marriage is perfect." Bob added. Carol raised an eyebrow.

"I wouldn't call it perfect. But it's pretty nice." Emily giggled. "I don't think we've ever had that many problems with each other." She leaned in and kissed Bob when she said this. He smiled. Both of them felt so blessed, especially in the last few hours.

"Hold on." Carol smiled.

"What?" Emily asked.

"I can remember one time you were pretty upset with him Emily."

"What's that?" Emily batted her eyelashes carefully. She was on the verge of getting mad. After all, there was that one incident Carol, Howard and Jerry knew about that she'd worked hard to keep from Bob.

"Oh well. Remember when he went on that long book tour, and you were pregnant with Bridget? As I recall, very pregnant?"

"Emily…you were upset about that?" Bob had had no idea.

He wondered if she was also upset about his upcoming book tour. Emily thought for a moment. She was stunned. Of course she'd been upset!

"Well Bob I, I was alone with a baby and expecting another…it wasn't easy. A-

and I was worried that you might meet someone else…"

"Emily when was I ever unfaithful to you?"

Emily gulped, bearing with the realization that she'd been unfaithful and not him, well, sort of… That kiss gnawed at her conscious. The fact that she'd agreed to see her old flame bothered her more…what had she even been thinking?

"E-Emily what's wrong?"

"Bob." Emily spoke up. "There's something I have to tell you."

"W-what?" Bob was nervous now. His heart began to pound, noting she'd gulped when she accused him of being unfaithful. He watched Emily and Carol exchange glances.

"Emily…is this what I think its about?" Carol asked.

"She knows and I don't!"

"You never told him!" Carol was angry.

"I didn't want to hurt him Carol. Nothing happened."

"How can you say nothing happened?"

"Because….because I'm not the one who wanted it to. I'm the one who kept talking about my husband."

"Ok wait, wait, what, what happened here?" Bob asked.

"Oh Bob…I didn't ever want to tell you this."

"Emily, I'll tell it." Carol comforted.

"Tell what?"

"About all those dates Emily had when you were out of town."

"D-dates?" Bob asked.

"They were not dates!" Emily defended. "So I saw my college boyfriend. So what? And the other one was just a favor for Mr. Carlin."

"Mr. Carlin?" Bob asked. He was hurt by this idea even though he didn't know the full extent of it yet.

"Bob I was seeing friends and family and acquaintances. And better yet, I was very pregnant, with your daughter…do you think I was really pregnant and dating?" This sounded absurd to her. "Pregnant and dating, with a baby sitting here too?"

"Emily, before you try to convince him, let me just tell him what happened." Carol insisted and then began her recollection.

April 1978

In truth Emily couldn't have been more afraid, nor could she have been

angrier with Bob if she tried to be. She was keeping up a brave face when he left that morning because she knew this was something he really needed to do. After all, he'd been working on this book since well before Meghan was born. But in truth she was terrified that something would happen when she was alone: that the baby would come early and her water would break in the middle of the night and she and Meghan, who'd turned one just a few days before, would be all alone while she was in labor. So, because she was paranoid, she decided that she would have a lot of people over for dinner while Bob was gone: friends, family, you name it.

"Oh Emily, you look so wonderful tonight." Carol complimented her friend as she sat down at the table.

"Thank you Carol." Emily blushed. She certainly didn't feel like she looked wonderful.

"Why'd you set four places, is Bob coming back?" Carol knew that they were waiting on Howard but had not been expecting a fourth person at dinner.

"I have a guest coming, an old friend from college, just in town for the one night." Emily admitted.

"Oh that's nice."

"What's his name?"

"Steve."

"It's a guy?"

"Just an old friend from college."

"Hi everybody, what's for dinner?" Howard asked, allowing the front door to shut behind him.

"Salad Howard."

"Salad, is that all?'

"We're on a diet." Carol added. "But what will your guest…Steve, is it, think of this?"

"A diet. She's pregnant she shouldn't be on a diet! It'll starve the baby. And who's Steve?"

"Howard I'm not feeding her junk, I'm giving her good things and that's all she really needs. Steve's a friend of mine from college, he's here just for tonight, in town that is…What?" She asked, stopping when she noticed Carol and Howard looking at each other.

"Emily uh, was he more than a friend?" Carol asked. Emily didn't feel this was any of her business and got up immediately when someone knocked on the door. "No and as a matter of fact, he's bringing his wife and kids."

"Emily!" Carol watched as the tall, handsome man hugged her friend.

"Steve how are you?" She asked.

By this point, Carol had taken Howard by the hand and was leading him toward the door: they would go out for pizza and give Emily some time to get reacquainted with her friend and his family.

"And where's Marge and the kids?"

"Emily that's uh….the part I didn't want to tell you over the phone, you see, Marge and I just got divorced…"

At this point, Carol had changed her mind and decided that she and Howard should stay and chaperone Emily, but she made them leave. Besides. Emily thought that her unborn daughter served as a great, sort of built in chaperone.

"You didn't tell me you were, uh…"

"Pregnant?" She asked. She'd been wondering if this would shock him at all. She felt it made his not telling about the divorce fair.

"Well yeah…and who is this little angel?" He asked of Meghan, who sat up in her baby swing. She'd been sitting there the whole time, minding her own business and playing with her toys. Emily had tried to put Meghan to bed shortly after Carol had arrived but she wanted, to stay up. He peered over Emily's shoulder at the baby who sat in the middle of the living room.

"This is my daughter Meghan. Meghan, this is Mommy's friend, can you say hi? Huh, can you wave and say hi, Meghan? That's my girl!" Emily praised as Meghan giggled and waved in the way that babies try half-heartedly to wave. She then returned to biting her teething ring.

Meghan was very curious about who this man was and why he was there if Daddy wasn't. And where was Uncle Howard, he'd just been there, hadn't he? She didn't sense the man was bad but she knew she wanted Uncle Howard to come back. She sat and watched her mother and the strange man for a moment, immediately realizing that she was beginning to get sleepy.

"Oh I'm sorry. I'd met to put her down before you came." Emily apologized to her old flame, who really was an old flame and not just a friend, like she'd told Carol. She lifted her daughter into her arms and kissed her cheek. "Just make yourself at home and I'll be right back, okay?"

"Sounds fine Emily…good night Meghan." Emily smiled at this and took her daughter to bed.

"Okay sweetheart. It's time for sleep, yeah." She whispered as she lye Meghan in her crib and turned the mobile on. The mobile always got Meghan sleepy instantaneously. "Here's your bunny, baby, and your pacifier, yeah. Mommy loves you very much." She said, kissing her daughter's forehead. "And I'll see you in the morning, alright love?"

Emily stayed with Meghan for a few moments, until she was sure she was beginning to drift off to sleep and then left to attend to her guest. She wondered momentarily if she should feel strange about this, as Carol had suggested before she left but she quickly dismissed the thought.

"Wow. I just can't believe it."

"I know it's been a long time." She admitted.

"Well, I mean seeing you…it's surreal…and seeing you like that, well it's…"

"Surreal?"

"Yeah." They both laughed.

"Well your other one…Meghan. She couldn't be more than a year old?"

"Exactly, she's twelve months a couple of weeks ago…on my husband's and my ninth anniversary."

"Wow ninth…that's a long time."

"It's been a great time. Can I get you something to drink?"

"Scotch…but you can't…"

"No, I can't. It's fine though. But baby girl's all worth it. You know, you have kids, right?"

"Yeah a boy and a girl…they're great…but I couldn't imagine having them so close together."

"Yeah, we're going to have two babies at once." She said. She felt nervous every time this part of the subject came up. "It wasn't something we planned, it just happened this way…but we're over the moon." She admitted.

"But your husband, he's gone a lot?"

"More often than I'd like." She admitted.

"Yeah, my daughter Bridget, says that about me."

"Your daughter's name is Bridget? No kidding! This little girl's name is going to be Bridget!" Emily cried.

"Wow, what a small world." He said.

"Very small."

"How far are you?"

"Almost six months."

"My Bridget is nine."

"Wow…we're no where near that." She laughed. Emily smiled; she was really beginning to feel Bridget under her heart in the past few days. She was surprised when she heard Meghan begin to cry.

"Oh honey no!" Emily sighed.

"That's okay, you get her, is it alright if I make a call to my kids?"

"Sure the phone's right over there." She laughed and went off to get Meghan.

"What is it Miss Meghan Emily, huh?" Emily asked soothingly, kissing her baby's cheek and lifting her in her arms at the same time.

"Dada?" She asked.

"Oh honey, Dada'll be back soon. Mommy told you that remember? He's on his book tour." Meghan put her head down and played with the buttons on her Mom's sweater.

Emily elected to take Meghan back out to the living room with her…she wanted the barrier anyway because she could feel that it was all getting a little more awkward than she would've ever bargained on. Emily thought it was funny that she didn't find her stomach and growing unborn baby enough of a barrier.

"I hope its okay if I bring her back out with us, she's not quite ready for bed." Emily explained, placing Meghan back in her swing where she'd been before. Meghan watched her mother socialize with her guest as she began chewing on her fingers.

"Oh it's fine, after all, I'm the one who is the guest."

About an hour later Emily's guest was preparing to leave. She was relieved that they'd had a good evening and nothing had happened. All that awkwardness was just in her head after all.

"Wow I can't believe it." He began as they walked toward the door. "It's like we picked up, right where we left off."

"Well I don't know about that." They had been engaged where they left off. That had been in another time and place.

She smiled as she opened the door for him to leave. In that instant, he took her by surprise and kissed her deeply. Emily protested, punching his broad shoulders softly with her fists, letting him know she wanted to be let go of his lip lock. Emily thought it was a great kiss but was careful to not reciprocate. In addition to being horrified, she noted that there was just something that wasn't there between them. She paused and caught her breath.

"I think you had better go now." She paused, looking over at Meghan who had watched this with wide eyes. That in it self made her deeply ashamed.

"Oh, alright Emily…if you insist. But I know if I were married to you, I'd never leave. Good night."

"Good night." She gave a slight graceful smile and closed the door behind her.

Emily sighed and began to cry.

…..

February 1982

Present day Emily was crying too by the time Carol finished the story.

"Bob I'm so sorry. I didn't ask him to kiss me. I thought he was bringing his wife and his kids."

"Meghan saw this!' He was horrified by this idea.

"She was a baby." Emily reminded. "She doesn't remember it."

"But still. She saw it?!" He was livid. "H-how could you keep something like this from me all this time?"

"Bob I'm sorry, I thought I was doing the right thing. I didn't want you to think something that wasn't true, that I-"

"Emily I thought we didn't keep secrets from each other."

"So did I." She said quietly.

"Uh-oh." Carol mumbled to herself, wondering what she'd started when the two began to argue.

As far as Bob was concerned; this was worse than Howard's little black book. She had invited her ex over. What had she been thinking? In his mind this was almost an act of infidelity. He was crushed but covering up his pain with anger.

"As long as we're here, what is this thing with Mr. Carlin?"

Seeing an ex-boyfriend was bad enough, but one of his patients? That just crossed the line.

"I was only doing for him what you would do for him Bob, only I'm a girl. I could do it better and you weren't here."

"W-what did you do?" He yelled. His eyes got wide when he asked this.

"Well." Carol said. "I remember it started when Emily came to the office."