A/N: And there's more… At least from Ray's point of view.

Inspiration Song(s): Garth Brooks (Feat. Huey Lewis) - Workin' for a Livin'

APoV

I watched as my father took off his jacket and his boots, placing them carefully on the hook, and then he passed by me almost drunkenly in a stupor like a sleepwalker upstairs to his room where the door quietly closed behind him. What was the meaning of this? This wasn't the homecoming I'd expected.

With no-one to ask, soon I returned to my room and lay down. I stared at the ceiling for what seemed like hours when I was suddenly awakened by the blaring of Dad's alarm at four o'clock Saturday morning. Ray rarely worked weekends. If he had nothing planned, he generally preferred to spend those days hunting, fishing, or hiking. And he needed no alarm clock as a reminder.

I heard shuffling footsteps coming from the vicinity of Ray's room. Whereupon he went across the hall to take a five-minute shower. I opened the door just in time to see him come out already dressed, tiredly rubbing his face. He couldn't have gotten more than three hours of sleep and it showed. His eyes seemed even more bloodshot than last night.

My unordered questions burning, bubbling, creeping up my throat, yet I couldn't think of interrogating Ray at a time like this. I'd stumbled into the midst of some unspoken crisis. All I knew was that the Steeles were in a state of emergency. I briefly wondered what Carla Mae Morton Adams had to do with all this. For years, it seemed as if all the bad things in my life came as a result of her influence or neglect. This could be no different. I wished with all my heart that Carla would just leave and stop haunting our lives.

I decided to go make some tea, or maybe even some coffee for Ray so he could perhaps gain a little pep in his step. I walked almost directly into Carla, who was in the kitchen staring in consternation at the food arrayed in front of her. I guess she had just pulled food out of the refrigerator and cupboards willy-nilly. I suppose she had also considered preparing something for Ray. But Susie Homemaker or Betty Crocker she was not.

She had taken out the fixings for sandwiches, soup, and even some pots and pans before reaching the extent of her kitchen expertise. I almost expected to see a clown car pull in through the kitchen with as much of a circus atmosphere created. It was completely hilarious how inept Carla was in the kitchen after so many years as a supposed homemaker. For years, I didn't even realize that Carla knew where the kitchen was.

Rather than witness a replay of her wasting the food I bought with my hard-earned money, I practically shoved her aside. For as much as I was making sandwiches and a salad along with heating a few tins of soup and placing them into a thermos and starting the coffee maker.

Soon, the coffee began to brew. I made it for Dad the way he liked, strong and black with no sugar. Ray liked his drinks straight, just as he liked people. Straightforward and honest to the letter. And hard-working as the day was long.

As I filled his large thermos of coffee and sealed his medium thermos with soup, Ray entered the room. He seemed almost surprised to see me though he'd seen me last night and this morning. It was as if I had been just a figment of his imagination. What the hell is going on?

If I didn't know any better, I'd think Dad was taking their defunct wedding vows a little too damn seriously.

RayPoV

I knew the shit had hit the fan. I hadn't expected Ana to drop by so unexpectedly. I knew about the contentious relationship between Ana and Carla. One of the things that I demanded when Carla showed up crying, soaking wet on the doorstep was complete and utter honesty. I wanted to know the full story before letting the bitch into my home again. It was bad enough that she betrayed me, but she had broken my little girl's heart.

The truth was far worse than I thought. After Carla's third clusterfuck of a marriage, where Ana was returned bruised and battered, I had sworn to myself that I'd happily see the back of Carla for the rest of my life. What she allowed to happen in that house, to her, to Annie, made me lose the final iota of respect I had left for her.

It was bad enough that she had cheated and shattered our family, but then she decided to drag Ana behind her while she pursued a new better life with her new man and she turned him. He was tired of hearing her poor paltry excuses. Supposedly Frank Lambert has been the love of her life, and yet it didn't stop her from chasing around other men like a cat in heat to scratch whatever itch she had at the time. If it wasn't for the fact that she had taken Annie with her, I would have sworn good riddance to bad rubbish.

Standing in front of me now, however, she was barely a shadow of herself. And I meant that in all the worst ways. She didn't have beauty or charm to recommend her now. If she had attempted to flirt with me, I'd have told her a dead fish would have better luck. Luckily she didn't attempt to charm me or even guilt me. Although she did throw herself at my mercy though I had very little where she was concerned.

When the sad, pathetic figure whispered, "I have nowhere else to go" I had known she meant it.

It turned out she had once again bitten the hand that fed her, cheating on Bob before the ink was barely dry on their marriage certificate. Unfortunately for her, but providentially for Bob, he'd found out almost immediately and quickly reversed the colossal mistake he had made in marrying her. Because he was so wealthy and successful, Carla felt no real worries and signed the prenup hastily, without reading the fine print. Since she had been caught committing adultery, she had absolutely nothing coming as it had entailed a very quick divorce if any of the parties were found in flagrante delicto, which she had been.

With his divorce fast-tracked and her sent off on a rail, her paltry settlement soon dwindled, and when she became sick, short of breath, and a little dizzy, she thought nothing of it at first. She thought it was all just stress. Since she no longer had any insurance, she hesitated before going to a free clinic.

Imagine her surprise when she defied the odds by ending up with a decent doctor who, after taking a brief inventory of her symptoms, looked rather grave as he sent her off for more tests. It was cancer. And it had gone on unchecked in her system for years. She was very close to the latter stages. Without significant intervention, she had essentially been handed a death sentence. Her cancer was terminal. And damned if I could turn her away. I had loved her once. Despite all she had done, she was still Annie's mother, and I had vowed in sickness or health and for better or worse until death do us part.

Our relationship would never return to the fiasco it once was. I wasn't tempted to remarry her to save her life because it wasn't as if my paltry insurance would cover her pre-existing condition. But I would help her if only for the memory and the gratitude of the wonderful, beautiful child she brought into my life. The only trouble would be hiding this from Annie.

After the first few months, when she realized that Carla wasn't going to come chasing her home, I think she felt betrayed at the idea that Carla would remain with the man who beat her for even a moment, a week, or even the months that finally came before she finally divorced the bastard tore the foundation of their relationship completely to the ground. Ana resented her mother with the heat of a thousand fiery Suns.

It had taken years for Annie to develop even a smidgen of the self-confidence that she had once possessed as a child. That and a hell of a lot of self-defense lessons. And I was sure that the one thing she would never allow is a man to strike her. She claimed she would kill him first, and if he ever struck her child? She was very wary of men in general after her ordeal. Finding out he had taken Carla in would be seen as a betrayal.

Thus the deception began. Unlike the other times in which I would encourage her to make frequent visits to Montesano, I always had an excuse, something to keep her there you know to improve her chances and give her more opportunities and further enrichment. But it was all a fraud perpetrated for the express purpose of keeping her in ignorance of Carla's presence here.

I had no real hope that Carla would survive long even with the amount of money that I earned through this second job to at least keep her comfortable. Sometimes she would read the paper and think or read about different wonder drugs. She became obsessed with the idea that maybe she could have some type of experimental treatment that would save her life.

Where she expected the money to come from, I didn't know. Because even working as hard as I could, I could barely keep the bills paid and food on the table. Let alone some of the most expensive medicines I'd ever seen. I wondered how the FDA could hold its head up with the highway robbery.

The only thing I could do is hope and pray that perhaps Carla would recover or go into remission. It wasn't like I wanted her to die. I was going to help her, but the idea of looking into my daughter's eyes knowing that Carla was living in Annie's place of refuge was horrible.

This is why when I saw her I thought she was some type of ghost or apparition. I had stumbled past my own daughter, ignoring her to fall into bed. And when I woke up not hearing any unfamiliar sounds, I staggered to the bathroom to begin my day again. It seemed as if I hardly got a break. My carpentry business had begun to take off, but I was able to do other jobs also.

Before I semi-retired, I'd happily given some of the other jobs away but since Carla had arrived, I had been snapping up every possible client and job I could. I would do my carpentry work late at night but during the day, I worked for a construction company that was doing some repairs and renovations to the biggest damn house I had ever seen in Montesano.

Jesse had a lot of money to burn. He said he wanted to spruce up his house into a veritable castle, something he'd be ready to die in. I guess it was his version of the Taj Mahal, though he wasn't building it in tribute to any wife. He and I were both in our late 40s, and though Jesse seemed to take good care of himself, he was obviously somewhat careworn. We could have been twins.

Because I was a master craftsman, I was in charge of all the very expensive high-value detail work. All the extra trims, frills, and intricate details were my responsibility. It was my job to add those special touches that separated fine furniture and architecture from all the rest.

Early in the morning I would report for duty and get to work. And even though most of my work was supervisory, the finer work such as inlaying the floors and such was my province.

Our crew had been working for about three months because no sooner would we be finished before he would add yet another project, something that simply had to be done. Though I might have complained that this seemed to be the job that would never end, it was a job that paid the bills, and the bills were coming due with alarming alacrity.

The new project was a gazebo. It was going to have it all. Flatscreen televisions, seating in an outdoor kitchen featuring a pizza oven, gas grills, and expensive ranges. An oasis where he could kick back, relax, and catch the Seahawks if it wasn't raining or snowing, though he'd better save it for baseball season.

This house was beautiful. The multilevel home was easily three stories tall, and the two stories had a lookout. The way the old tall trees framed it made it seem as if it had always been there. It blended well with the architecture and landscape of our town, yet was placed slightly elevated from the rest. Which was good since we lived in a place that experienced as much rain as Washington.

Jesse, much like me, had been a lifetime resident of Washington, only traveling to and fro for work. But he'd been running his family business for almost thirty years. Six generations, and he was the last. I understood how that felt. Though Ana is handy, and I'd taught her how to use the majority of the tools and equipment in my workshop, I knew she wouldn't carry my trade forward. Jesse had money to burn; it wasn't like he was worried about heirs and as he claimed, he couldn't take it with him.

So, we weren't exactly buddies, but I did have great respect for him. Especially since he decided to leave the city and rusticate in the country, operating his empire from a distance. Despite our differences in fortune, I was bound to share a rapport with someone who loved the Pacific Northwest as much as I did.

After a hard day's work, I took a brief moment to savor the wonderful lunch that Ana had prepared for me. I felt guilty as I bit into the delicious offerings. I spied Jesse staring down at me from the window. Still, I was surprised when Jesse came out of the house to where I was sitting on a picnic bench eating my meal.