Chapter 6- Family Reunion Quite Unexpected
Fp stares at his wife with shock and disbelief. She's here. Back in his life. Of all the times? She chooses now to come back in his life. He doesn't love her like he loves Alice and now he's in deep shit.
"Gladys…" He says as shock was evident in his voice,"... When did you get into town?"
Her black hair whips around and a chuckle falls loosely from her tight pressed lips. "An hour ago. Jellybean is waiting in your room, Jug."
Jughead forces a smile to mark his lips. He knows that his mother just wants to make his father's life hell. She didn't even let him stay with her in Toledo and now she just expects him to Okay with this arrangement. "Okay…" He mutters before he goes in the direction of his room.
After Jughead left Fp was left with his wife. "So… did you stop drinking?" His wife questions him as she sucks at her lip.
He sighs trying to avoid Gladys's glares. He knows she already knows that he's not completely sober. He also wonders who told her about his slips. He knew it wasn't Jughead; since he was just as confused as he was.
"I have to admit I did spill for awhile. But, I'm back on track, Gladys." He sees her smile and surprised when she hugs him.
"Good. That's good to hear, Fp." Awkward silence filled the room. And then she opens her mouth again. "Why don't we go to Pop's to celebrate?" She offers.
He has to choice but to nod along and then his heart swells when he sees his little girl. He hasn't seen her in so long. It's been too long since he last saw her. Jellybean looked much older now. She didn't wear pigtails. She's dressed with a jean jacket and tan boots. Her hair is much lighter than it used to be.
"Hello Dad." Jellybean says as she latched onto her brother hip.
Fp tries to hide the fact he isn't hurt by her rejection and forced a smile to appear on his lips. "Hey sweetheart." His voice was calm and filled with love.
Jughead sighs as he tries to walk to his dad's pickup with his little sister at his hip. He doesn't understand why she's being so clingy but he doesn't want to start anything. He's just happy his family is back together. Fp gets into the driver's seat and Gladys hops into the front seat. She finds her opportunity to twined their hands together and he has to force a smile.
He wants to love her but he can't stop himself from thinking about the blonde that lived next to Fred's. As a force of habit he gives Gladys's hand a gentle squeeze before he pulls into Pop's parking lot.
After Alice gets out of the hospital and now has to deal with the fact she's carrying Fp's baby. Their love affair child. She slowly gets into a cab and tells them to take her rental home. When she gets home she sees Betty sitting in the living room.
She sets down her purse and sits down on the couch next to her daughter. Polly is sitting on the left of Betty. Betty doesn't realize that her mother back home until she looks to her right and sees her mother. She instantly hugs her and tears roll.
"What are you doing here? I thought you had to stay at the hospital?" She questions her mom as she releases from their embrace.
"No they just had to change my blood sugar and they let me go." Alice lies as she takes a handful of popcorn and pops some into her mouth.
Betty drops the subject and they just snuggle up in a blanket while watching Halloween movies. Now she only has to figure out whether or not she's going to tell Fp she's carrying his baby. She's sinning. She can hear her husband's words drilling in her head over and over again as she tries to focus on the movie.
"Sinners have to die."
She shakes her head as shivers occur and her back feels paralyzed as she sinks into the couch. She feels her daughter's hand on hers and starts to calm down.
"Mom, are you alright?" Betty asked her mother as she eyes her with soft concerned eyes.
Alice takes a deep breathe in and slowly releases as she notices her daughter worrying continue. She nods her head and forces a smile to appear on her lips.
"Yeah I just have the chills. I'm going to bed early tonight." She says as she gets off the couch and walks over to the staircase.
Betty sighs and returns her attention to the screen in front of her. She knows that something's bothering her mother but she just can't think of it right then. She also remembers it's her mother first day back to her regular self and knows it's going to take time.
A family of four sits in the back at Pop's. It's awkward and forced and Jughead could tell that his father was faking happiness. He almost felt guilty. He knew that his dad like Alice. But he also knew he loves his mother or—- loved his mother.
He's not even sure if he can get over the fact she abandoned him when he needed her. His mother told him no the night he called her and now she just pops up and acts like none of this happened. And he's also expected to act like he wasn't abandoned one or another.
"Jug, how are you?" Gladys slips in through a sip of her drink. Jughead sighs and forces a faked smile onto his face. It was like they were a family of plastics.
"I'm good. Still trying to get back to normal after—" He stopped and shut his mouth. "Never mine why don't you talk about you and JB?" He suggested as a play for her mistake he wasn't supposed to mention.
Gladys crosses her legs underneath the table and lets out a pained sigh. She had a feeling her son was still angry about her not letting him stay with her and Jellybean. She didn't want him to mention it to her husband. She just got back and she didn't need there to be a fight already.
She exhaled a sharp breath and smiles at her son,"It was difficult for the first few months. My parents weren't so open with me and JB being there but we turned it around." Then she turned to Jb and gave her a hug behind. "Right JB?"
Jellybean smiles back and nods. She wants to tell her brother all about the time away but she can't. Not yet. She was told by her mother. And she can feel the fakeness in air as they say there. It was so foreign. And she also was aware that the war of Gladys and Fp would soon be on its way.
"Yes she's right. Grandma and grandpa weren't happy to hear about Daddy's slip." Fp's heart crumbles a little after hearing his daughter.
He knows it's all his fault and he destroyed his family with his issues and now he's still dealing with after effects of his problems.
"I'm sorry, Jellybean. I've been trying to get back on track. And I'm so sorry I ruined our family." He apologies as his eyes mist up and he avoids his daughter's sad eyes.
His daughter huffs a sigh,"It's okay." But he knows it wasn't and now he's feeling even shitter than before they sat down.
The following morning, Fp flutters his eyes open and looks to his left. And he sees Gladys. He sighs in defeat. He wanted Alice lying next to him. He knows he sounds ungrateful and also knows that he should be happy that his wife his back in his life.
But he doesn't. He feels unnatural and force driven. He slides out of bed and enters the living room to find his two kids helping themselves to breakfast before school. Jellybean hasn't been enrolled in school yet; so Fp has to take the day off and enroll her into Riverdale Elementary. He can't believe his little girl is almost done with grade school and she's a year or two away from middle school. That seems crazy to him and yet he knows the reasons why it seems crazy. He spent too many hours nursing himself with liquor bottles; instead of paying attention to his kids lives.
He sighed as he grabbed himself a bowl of cereal and brought it to the small table in their living room. His trailer wasn't the greatest. And it wasn't the most room either. He sat down at the table and exchange warming smiles with his two children.
"Morning."
Jughead and Jellybean answered back unison." Morning, Dad." And began eating again.
Jellybean was too focused on trying to find out what happened while her and Mom were gone. She heard about the teen that was murdered by his own father and then her own dad was accused of his murder. She wants to ask what happened. But she's scared and worried that it will cause a rift between her parents again. The last thing she needed was fighting. She was a year older than she was when her father fell apart and her mother took her to Toledo to live with her grandparents.
It was a hard adjustment and she had no friends for the first four months. And she had an resentment toward her father and all her mother. She only wanted to see her brother and that was more than anything.
"JB, you excited to start at your old school again?" Her father asks her as he takes a spoonful into his mouth.
A smile crosses her mouth and she nods happily,"Yes I'm so happy to see Abby again. I haven't seen or spoken to her in a year." And then her smile fades,"I hope she's not mad at me."
Fp sees that his daughter is upset and sets his spoon back in the bowl, got up from his seat and hugged her tightly. Jellybean feels tears forming in her eyes as her father holds her. She has missed this so much and now that he's back in her life. She starts to feel herself crumble apart.
"Hey hey, don't cry. It's okay. I doubt she's mad at you, Jellybelly." His nickname for her slips through his lips as he kisses her forehead and rubs her back as she cries.
His heart breaks for his little girl. He never intended causing so much pain and heartbreak. He didn't mean for his drinking to get so out of hand. He loves his kids more than anything and he wants to work on his marriage but he also feels like it's an obligation. It shouldn't be an obligation to be married. No it should be happiness and open arms as he walks in the door after a long exhausting day at work. Instead it's starting to feel like resentment. He's afraid that he might just start drinking and his vice will get all his attention.
He doesn't want that to happen. He slowly situated Jellybean on his lap and she cried into his shoulders while wrapping her arms around her neck, loosely and comfortably.
Jughead watches as his breakfast turns into a upsetting sight. He hates seeing his little sister crying. It breaks his heart. He walks over to his sister and Dad and taps his dad's shoulder.
"Jelly,Hey hey, look at me." He softly encourages. Jellybean slowly lifts her head and looks at her brother with tear filled eyes. "Shh. It's going to be okay. Abby won't be mad at you. And if she is I'll be by your side and help you tell her. Alright?" She nods her head and detaches from her dad and latches onto her brother.
"Okay…" She mumbles into her big brother's shoulder and wipes her eyes.
In the Smith rental house, Betty, Alice and Polly were sitting at the enlarged table meant for a family of six. Now that was the only the three of them; they didn't need all this space.
Alice struggled that morning with the fact she's carrying a big ass secret that could ruin everything and whatever was in its path. And to make matters worse her stomach was haywire all morning. Morning sickness was a bitch and she started having resentment toward one person and one person only. Fp Jones. It was his baby and now she's carried a sin child. Not that her baby was a sin. What they did was a sin that brought her this child-out-of-wedlock surprise. She's freaking out as she stares at the three positive tests and she already knows that she's expecting.
It's been a day now since she learned the news and was just now letting it absorb into her skin. She's going to have another baby in less than 9 months. And again she's doing this all alone. Sure she has her two daughters. But how is she supposed to tell them she's expecting a baby and yet alone the father. The father's other than her youngest's boyfriend's dad. That's quite factor.
"Mom." Polly said as she looked at her mother cautiously. Alice looks up from her uneaten plate of food and smiles. "Edgar wonders when your letting him for lunch."
Oh yes. She's also in a committed relationship with Edgar Evernever. Yep she has herself in a barrel of snakes. And she also was having an affair with Fp behind his back and also behind Fp's back as well. Now she feels like a whore. Great Polly, she thinks to herself as she took a long sip of her tea.
"Ah yes." She pauses and looks at her calendar," Tell him to meet me at Pop's at noon." Polly nods her head, quickly sends Edgar a text and closes her phone screen again.
Betty fights her eyes from rolling. Just when she thought her mother would drop this cult act. She drives herself deeper and deeper into that mystery shit.
"I'm not really hungry." She blurts out as she grabs her plate off the table and carries it into the unfinished kitchen.
The kitchen is much smaller than their expensive house before her mother burned that down." Are you feeling alright?" She heard Polly ask from the dining room.
Of course she's not okay. What kind of silly and damn stupid question is that? Instead, "Yeah.. I just wasn't hungry and also Jug's supposed to pick me up any minute." She lies briefly before snatching a bagel from the fridge and grabbing her backpack on the kitchen counter.
"See you at dinner." Polly says as Betty opens the front door and closes it behind her.
Not before she closes the door,"Yeah…" She answers in a hopefully convincing tone.
Jughead's on his bike in his serpent gear and she hops onto his bike. She feels the vibrations from the rubber tires burning against the asphalt. Jughead smiles as he speeds down the road. Betty's arms were wrapped around his waist as they drove off.