Ch 11
Rosie was wiggling around as her father tried to tie a ribbon in her hair. "Abuela Pilar and Grandma Grace and Chloe are really coming here?" She bounced.
"Yep," Ethan nodded. "And tomorrow we're all gonna go to a wedding."
Rosie grinned. "My dress is so pretty, Daddy."
"I saw." He said.
"There's lace everywhere." She reminded him.
"You can't play in the mud with a dress like that." He tried vainly.
"I wouldn't worry," Theresa said coming in with Ethan Martin and Emma. "It's an inside wedding. Rosie? Do you wanna play in the playroom with Emma and Ethan?"
"Her hair isn't done." Ethan said. "Rosie, stay still for me?"
"Here, let me," Theresa said. "I have a lot of experience with squirmy little girls."
"I'm not squirmy," Rosie and Emma said together.
"Of course not. I meant your aunts when they were little girls." Theresa gathered a handful of hair quickly, being careful not to pull.
Emma and Ethan Martin sat with Ethan on the bed. The two children studied the father.
He nonchalantly studied them in his peripheral vision.
"You're very handsome," Emma announced.
"You're beautiful." He told her.
Emma giggled.
Ethan looked at his son. "You look like me and your uncles."
"I look like myself." Ethan Martin said. He wasn't quite belligerent, but he wasn't quite as charmed as Emma.
"Yes you do," Ethan agreed. "So what do you two like to do for fun?"
"Tea parties are best." Emma said. "But I like the park and the zoo."
"Yeah? Maybe we can do that someday soon. Ethan? What about you? What do you like to do?"
"Play with my cousins and my sister. And go to preschool. I like preschool."
"Nice teacher?"
"Painting once a week and play dough any time."
"You like to paint?"
"He's good at it," Theresa said. "There you are Miss Rosie."
Rosie shook her head hard. The bows stayed in. "Thank you." She grabbed Emma's hand. "Let's go play."
"Okay," she looked at her brother. "C'mon Ethan. We promise not to play anything girly."
"When Alex and Thomas are ready, tell them to come play with us too." Suspicious, he followed the girls.
"We will," Theresa promised. She looked at Ethan, "I think they'll be friends."
"Yeah, there's something there."
"You sound disturbed."
"It's the idea of being outnumbered. For me, it's always been one to one. Now it's three to two."
Theresa laughed. "So, I heard you were making inquiries into when the bar exam was."
"Figured I could use a California license since I plan to live here."
"So you're not just messing with me?"
"I don't mess with people, Theresa. Life's too short."
Theresa looked at him. Then she went with an instinct she'd long thought was gone.
She kissed him. Hard.
Surprised as he was, he responded almost instantaneously. When she leaned back, he grinned at her. "California has done wonders for your initiative."
"I think it's the sunshine. It makes everyone more aggressive," she smiled.
"You've got lipstick all over your face. We better fix that so we can get to the airport."
"Can't we just let your dad and Luis go so Grace and Mama can yell at 'em for not telling them where they were going?"
"You don't have to go, but Rosie and I are. Chloe doesn't deserve to be the only kid at ground zero."
Theresa smothered a groan. "Okay, I'll go. I'll face the firing squad with you all."
"Kids are great distracters. Pilar and Grace will be so busy being amazed that they won't have time to remember how angry they are."
"I sincerely doubt that Ethan. I am just really glad Ivy's not coming. I never want Ethan or Emma near her."
"She's my mother, Theresa. She's not a person you like. I respect that. But she does have the right to know that she has grandchildren."
"She's poison, Ethan."
"Let's not fight."
"That's your problem, Ethan. You never want to fight anyone."
"I don't want to fight you. I just don't know what my rights are with Ethan and Emma yet. Are they your kids, or are they really and truly going to be ours? Cause if they are ours, they will meet their grandmother before her funeral."
Theresa's expression was rapidly changing.
"There's another important person we haven't talked about in all this. What about Rosie? Theresa, I love you, always will, but I know you hated Gwen. Can you tolerate my daughter without turning this into a Cinderella/Stepmother contest."
"What kind of question is that?" Theresa snapped, defenses coming back up.
"I didn't mean it, but I do need to know that Rosie isn't going to be held accountable for everything Gwen did to you."
"Ethan, I would never punish a child because of the way I felt about their parents. I'm not Julian."
"I needed to hear it." He said simply. "Now, about my mother..."
"You decided that Rebecca is only going to hurt Rosie. That's how I feel about Ivy."
"My mom loves Rosie."
"Because her mother is who she always wanted you with. You can't say the same thing for Ethan and Emma. She hated me from the day we were supposed to get married because she thought I was the one who told about you not being Julian's son."
"She was wrong."
"She'd still take it out on them."
"It's not fair to give one child a relationship with a grandparent and to deny it to the other two."
"It's different Ethan. Ivy makes it different. I'll treat them equally, but she can't. She's so locked in her own definitions and rules that if you don't do it her way, she refuses to acknowledge that it happened."
"What about Pilar?"
"She's considered you hers since the day you were born. She loves Rosie and I want her to love Ethan and Emma. Am I still mad that she chose you guys over Poe, Kay, Sheridan, and me? Yeah a little. But she's my mom. I know what it does to Sheridan not having Katherine around to see Thomas. I'd like to be able to have another shot at a relationship with her."
"Why do you say that she chose us over you?" Ethan asked. "If she had, she would've agreed and given us the plane tickets. I think she just refused to choose. It's one of the character traits that no one will be able to change, I think."
"You see things your way," Theresa said quietly. "You know, if you're going to move out here, you should probably start talking to Rosie about it. Not to mention a couple of women back in Harmony."
Ethan sighed. "There are some things I have to know first."
"We straightened out a lot here."
"Yes. We did. But what about the rights I'll have with Ethan and Emma? What about family reunions? What about your last name? What about money and orthodontists and college funds and all the practical nonsense no one likes to think about?"
Theresa tilted her head and got off the bed. She took out an envelope from her desk drawer and gave it to him before she sat down again. "Open it."
Ethan complied and found Ethan and Emma's birth certificates. His name was listed as father for both of them.
"They're yours Ethan. I had Ethan Martin's done about a month after I left Harmony. Emma's has always had you listed as their father."
"How the hell did the private detectives miss this?"
"Promise not to be mad at her?"
"Who?"
"Poe. I think it might have had something to do with the two grand she gave to anyone asking questions."
"Where did she get that kind of money?"
"She never said, and we never actually asked."
"So they're mine."
"As much as any human being can belong to another person, yes they are yours. I know you love them and they're willing to love you. Just don't push, okay?"
He looked at her. "You better have warehouses full of pictures and videotapes of the early years. I want to know every detail."
Theresa had to smile. "And to think I was ready to kill Sheridan for insisting we videotape every thing from birth to the present."
He nodded. "There are no informal pictures of Crane children. Not a single spaghetti face or mud pie in the lost. Every three months they go to a studio and take formal pictures, which are filed in an album. That's not a childhood, that's an advertisement."
"You want a spaghetti face? I have got at least one of every kid. 'Cept for Alex. He's too damn neat."
Ethan laughed. "Hank will help with that."
"Don't be too sure. My sister just might be able to reform the slob."
"And you? What do you plan to do?"
"Love you. Always," she smiled.
"Oh? There's nothing about me that you want to fix?"
"Yes. You're divorced, correct?"
"Right."
"Well, I'd like to make it so you were married."
"That would fix the issue of your last name." He agreed. "Ethan and Theresa Soltini-Winthrop? McKay-Winthrop?"
"How about Ethan and Theresa Winthrop-Bennett?"
"I think that sounds just about perfect." He kissed her.
"Yay," she said softly before she kissed him again.
HR
"I don't know how I managed to be talked into this," Kay muttered.
"Because Olivia wanted to meet her grandmother and Grace is too well bred to make an ugly scene in public in front of a grandchild she just met."
"I violently dislike you," she hissed at her sister.
"I know." Theresa squeezed her hand.
"Flight just landed," Ethan announced to his sister and fiancée. "You alright there, Kay?"
"I should not have come." Kay said, looking like a trapped animal.
"Too late to back out now," Theresa said taking her arm and linking it with Kay's.
"Who elected us welcoming committee anyway?" She demanded, looking at the slightly separated Sam and Luis.
"She's not going to kill you in a public place," Ethan told her.
"Right, far too many witnesses," Theresa added.
"That's not what I'm worried about. She's not the type to kill. She'll just guilt me to death."
"I won't let her. Neither will Poe or Sheridan."
"Oh, you three are in for a steaming dish of guilt yourselves."
"So we give as good as we get."
"Your mother practically raised Sheridan," Kay said.
"Yeah. So?" Theresa asked.
"So where is she? And where's your sister?"
"You know that Mama and Poe's relationship isn't the greatest. It was never the same after she sent Poe away. It got worse when Mama wouldn't see us. And Sheridan isn't well equipped for huge scenes in public."
"This is a mistake. Poe gets scary when she's mad. Remember the gym sock soufflé?"
"Hank will help her get through it."
"Did they really manage to get it together without our meddling?"
"Sad but true," Ethan told his sister. "Now, listen, I wasn't there when you were a kid so I figure I've got some time to make up for. I will protect you from bullies. Even if the bully in question happens to be your mother."
"My mother's not a bully. She's a guilt machine who can not comprehend the world outside her head."
"She's a bully," Theresa said stubbornly. "She's just not an obvious bully."
"What about your mother then?"
"She can be a bully too, but I've got Poe to side with me. Let your brother help you with Grace."
"Sheridan can just play either side I guess." Kay speculated.
"She'll just sit there and watch for a while till one of them goes to far."
"Or till one of us snaps." Kay voiced the grim thought.
"Knock wood," Theresa said lightly rapping on her own skull. "Here they come."
The kids had been bouncing around baggage claim, but Sam called them over. Theresa and Kay hung back to watch.
Olivia was first and she scrambled over to hide behind Sam's legs.
She was already a Grandpa's girl.
Like mother, like daughter, Kay thought.
Chloe had locked onto Luis. He had picked her up and she was peppering his face with little girl kisses. She was giggling and clinging and so happy to be with her Daddy that Theresa realized why Luis did not want to leave Harmony. Rosie had grabbed Emma's hand to drag her over to dance around Luis and Chloe and hug Nana Grace and Abuela Pilar.
Ethan Martin stayed with his parents and hugged his mom's leg. When all was said and done he was really kinda shy.
Finally, they couldn't avoid it anymore. Theresa, Kay, and Ethan Martin approached as a unit.
"Mama?" Theresa said quietly.
Pilar looked from her granddaughter and adopted granddaughter to her daughter and grandson. "Theresita, mija." Tears were in her eyes as she embraced her long-lost child.
Theresa hugged her mother as Kay moved towards her daughter.
"Livvie? Sweetie let go of Grandpa's leg and c'mere a minute."
Sam took Olivia's hand. Grace was less than a foot away, but neither he nor his wife had said a word. "Olivia, this is your grandmother."
"Mom, meet Olivia. She's your granddaughter."
Grace knelt, putting herself on Olivia's level. "You are the most beautiful little girl I have seen since your mother." She opened her arms, and Olivia stepped into them. Kay bit her lip. Was this how things would be? Grace and Sam loving Livvie, but barely looking at their daughter.
She felt hand on her shoulder and then another take her own hand. "I'm on your side little sister," Theresa whispered. "And if Miguel doesn't like it, tough."
Grace stood, still holding Olivia on one hip. "Kay." She opened her other arm. "Oh my God, I missed you, baby."
"Go," Ethan whispered into her other ear as Kay stood uncertain before she finally gave into what she wanted and embraced her mother.
Theresa let Ethan hold her from behind. She covered his hands with her and rested her head back against his shoulder. "Will you marry me?"
Ethan thought he'd imagined her words at first. Then she looked up at him. She nodded. "I mean it.'
"I thought you meant it at the apartment. But if you need to hear the words again, yes, yes, yes a thousand times." He whispered in her ear, and she giggled a little as his breath and lips tickled.
"I love you," she said softly. "I'll love you till the day I die."
Ethan smiled. "Let's go home," he whispered.
Rosie was wiggling around as her father tried to tie a ribbon in her hair. "Abuela Pilar and Grandma Grace and Chloe are really coming here?" She bounced.
"Yep," Ethan nodded. "And tomorrow we're all gonna go to a wedding."
Rosie grinned. "My dress is so pretty, Daddy."
"I saw." He said.
"There's lace everywhere." She reminded him.
"You can't play in the mud with a dress like that." He tried vainly.
"I wouldn't worry," Theresa said coming in with Ethan Martin and Emma. "It's an inside wedding. Rosie? Do you wanna play in the playroom with Emma and Ethan?"
"Her hair isn't done." Ethan said. "Rosie, stay still for me?"
"Here, let me," Theresa said. "I have a lot of experience with squirmy little girls."
"I'm not squirmy," Rosie and Emma said together.
"Of course not. I meant your aunts when they were little girls." Theresa gathered a handful of hair quickly, being careful not to pull.
Emma and Ethan Martin sat with Ethan on the bed. The two children studied the father.
He nonchalantly studied them in his peripheral vision.
"You're very handsome," Emma announced.
"You're beautiful." He told her.
Emma giggled.
Ethan looked at his son. "You look like me and your uncles."
"I look like myself." Ethan Martin said. He wasn't quite belligerent, but he wasn't quite as charmed as Emma.
"Yes you do," Ethan agreed. "So what do you two like to do for fun?"
"Tea parties are best." Emma said. "But I like the park and the zoo."
"Yeah? Maybe we can do that someday soon. Ethan? What about you? What do you like to do?"
"Play with my cousins and my sister. And go to preschool. I like preschool."
"Nice teacher?"
"Painting once a week and play dough any time."
"You like to paint?"
"He's good at it," Theresa said. "There you are Miss Rosie."
Rosie shook her head hard. The bows stayed in. "Thank you." She grabbed Emma's hand. "Let's go play."
"Okay," she looked at her brother. "C'mon Ethan. We promise not to play anything girly."
"When Alex and Thomas are ready, tell them to come play with us too." Suspicious, he followed the girls.
"We will," Theresa promised. She looked at Ethan, "I think they'll be friends."
"Yeah, there's something there."
"You sound disturbed."
"It's the idea of being outnumbered. For me, it's always been one to one. Now it's three to two."
Theresa laughed. "So, I heard you were making inquiries into when the bar exam was."
"Figured I could use a California license since I plan to live here."
"So you're not just messing with me?"
"I don't mess with people, Theresa. Life's too short."
Theresa looked at him. Then she went with an instinct she'd long thought was gone.
She kissed him. Hard.
Surprised as he was, he responded almost instantaneously. When she leaned back, he grinned at her. "California has done wonders for your initiative."
"I think it's the sunshine. It makes everyone more aggressive," she smiled.
"You've got lipstick all over your face. We better fix that so we can get to the airport."
"Can't we just let your dad and Luis go so Grace and Mama can yell at 'em for not telling them where they were going?"
"You don't have to go, but Rosie and I are. Chloe doesn't deserve to be the only kid at ground zero."
Theresa smothered a groan. "Okay, I'll go. I'll face the firing squad with you all."
"Kids are great distracters. Pilar and Grace will be so busy being amazed that they won't have time to remember how angry they are."
"I sincerely doubt that Ethan. I am just really glad Ivy's not coming. I never want Ethan or Emma near her."
"She's my mother, Theresa. She's not a person you like. I respect that. But she does have the right to know that she has grandchildren."
"She's poison, Ethan."
"Let's not fight."
"That's your problem, Ethan. You never want to fight anyone."
"I don't want to fight you. I just don't know what my rights are with Ethan and Emma yet. Are they your kids, or are they really and truly going to be ours? Cause if they are ours, they will meet their grandmother before her funeral."
Theresa's expression was rapidly changing.
"There's another important person we haven't talked about in all this. What about Rosie? Theresa, I love you, always will, but I know you hated Gwen. Can you tolerate my daughter without turning this into a Cinderella/Stepmother contest."
"What kind of question is that?" Theresa snapped, defenses coming back up.
"I didn't mean it, but I do need to know that Rosie isn't going to be held accountable for everything Gwen did to you."
"Ethan, I would never punish a child because of the way I felt about their parents. I'm not Julian."
"I needed to hear it." He said simply. "Now, about my mother..."
"You decided that Rebecca is only going to hurt Rosie. That's how I feel about Ivy."
"My mom loves Rosie."
"Because her mother is who she always wanted you with. You can't say the same thing for Ethan and Emma. She hated me from the day we were supposed to get married because she thought I was the one who told about you not being Julian's son."
"She was wrong."
"She'd still take it out on them."
"It's not fair to give one child a relationship with a grandparent and to deny it to the other two."
"It's different Ethan. Ivy makes it different. I'll treat them equally, but she can't. She's so locked in her own definitions and rules that if you don't do it her way, she refuses to acknowledge that it happened."
"What about Pilar?"
"She's considered you hers since the day you were born. She loves Rosie and I want her to love Ethan and Emma. Am I still mad that she chose you guys over Poe, Kay, Sheridan, and me? Yeah a little. But she's my mom. I know what it does to Sheridan not having Katherine around to see Thomas. I'd like to be able to have another shot at a relationship with her."
"Why do you say that she chose us over you?" Ethan asked. "If she had, she would've agreed and given us the plane tickets. I think she just refused to choose. It's one of the character traits that no one will be able to change, I think."
"You see things your way," Theresa said quietly. "You know, if you're going to move out here, you should probably start talking to Rosie about it. Not to mention a couple of women back in Harmony."
Ethan sighed. "There are some things I have to know first."
"We straightened out a lot here."
"Yes. We did. But what about the rights I'll have with Ethan and Emma? What about family reunions? What about your last name? What about money and orthodontists and college funds and all the practical nonsense no one likes to think about?"
Theresa tilted her head and got off the bed. She took out an envelope from her desk drawer and gave it to him before she sat down again. "Open it."
Ethan complied and found Ethan and Emma's birth certificates. His name was listed as father for both of them.
"They're yours Ethan. I had Ethan Martin's done about a month after I left Harmony. Emma's has always had you listed as their father."
"How the hell did the private detectives miss this?"
"Promise not to be mad at her?"
"Who?"
"Poe. I think it might have had something to do with the two grand she gave to anyone asking questions."
"Where did she get that kind of money?"
"She never said, and we never actually asked."
"So they're mine."
"As much as any human being can belong to another person, yes they are yours. I know you love them and they're willing to love you. Just don't push, okay?"
He looked at her. "You better have warehouses full of pictures and videotapes of the early years. I want to know every detail."
Theresa had to smile. "And to think I was ready to kill Sheridan for insisting we videotape every thing from birth to the present."
He nodded. "There are no informal pictures of Crane children. Not a single spaghetti face or mud pie in the lost. Every three months they go to a studio and take formal pictures, which are filed in an album. That's not a childhood, that's an advertisement."
"You want a spaghetti face? I have got at least one of every kid. 'Cept for Alex. He's too damn neat."
Ethan laughed. "Hank will help with that."
"Don't be too sure. My sister just might be able to reform the slob."
"And you? What do you plan to do?"
"Love you. Always," she smiled.
"Oh? There's nothing about me that you want to fix?"
"Yes. You're divorced, correct?"
"Right."
"Well, I'd like to make it so you were married."
"That would fix the issue of your last name." He agreed. "Ethan and Theresa Soltini-Winthrop? McKay-Winthrop?"
"How about Ethan and Theresa Winthrop-Bennett?"
"I think that sounds just about perfect." He kissed her.
"Yay," she said softly before she kissed him again.
HR
"I don't know how I managed to be talked into this," Kay muttered.
"Because Olivia wanted to meet her grandmother and Grace is too well bred to make an ugly scene in public in front of a grandchild she just met."
"I violently dislike you," she hissed at her sister.
"I know." Theresa squeezed her hand.
"Flight just landed," Ethan announced to his sister and fiancée. "You alright there, Kay?"
"I should not have come." Kay said, looking like a trapped animal.
"Too late to back out now," Theresa said taking her arm and linking it with Kay's.
"Who elected us welcoming committee anyway?" She demanded, looking at the slightly separated Sam and Luis.
"She's not going to kill you in a public place," Ethan told her.
"Right, far too many witnesses," Theresa added.
"That's not what I'm worried about. She's not the type to kill. She'll just guilt me to death."
"I won't let her. Neither will Poe or Sheridan."
"Oh, you three are in for a steaming dish of guilt yourselves."
"So we give as good as we get."
"Your mother practically raised Sheridan," Kay said.
"Yeah. So?" Theresa asked.
"So where is she? And where's your sister?"
"You know that Mama and Poe's relationship isn't the greatest. It was never the same after she sent Poe away. It got worse when Mama wouldn't see us. And Sheridan isn't well equipped for huge scenes in public."
"This is a mistake. Poe gets scary when she's mad. Remember the gym sock soufflé?"
"Hank will help her get through it."
"Did they really manage to get it together without our meddling?"
"Sad but true," Ethan told his sister. "Now, listen, I wasn't there when you were a kid so I figure I've got some time to make up for. I will protect you from bullies. Even if the bully in question happens to be your mother."
"My mother's not a bully. She's a guilt machine who can not comprehend the world outside her head."
"She's a bully," Theresa said stubbornly. "She's just not an obvious bully."
"What about your mother then?"
"She can be a bully too, but I've got Poe to side with me. Let your brother help you with Grace."
"Sheridan can just play either side I guess." Kay speculated.
"She'll just sit there and watch for a while till one of them goes to far."
"Or till one of us snaps." Kay voiced the grim thought.
"Knock wood," Theresa said lightly rapping on her own skull. "Here they come."
The kids had been bouncing around baggage claim, but Sam called them over. Theresa and Kay hung back to watch.
Olivia was first and she scrambled over to hide behind Sam's legs.
She was already a Grandpa's girl.
Like mother, like daughter, Kay thought.
Chloe had locked onto Luis. He had picked her up and she was peppering his face with little girl kisses. She was giggling and clinging and so happy to be with her Daddy that Theresa realized why Luis did not want to leave Harmony. Rosie had grabbed Emma's hand to drag her over to dance around Luis and Chloe and hug Nana Grace and Abuela Pilar.
Ethan Martin stayed with his parents and hugged his mom's leg. When all was said and done he was really kinda shy.
Finally, they couldn't avoid it anymore. Theresa, Kay, and Ethan Martin approached as a unit.
"Mama?" Theresa said quietly.
Pilar looked from her granddaughter and adopted granddaughter to her daughter and grandson. "Theresita, mija." Tears were in her eyes as she embraced her long-lost child.
Theresa hugged her mother as Kay moved towards her daughter.
"Livvie? Sweetie let go of Grandpa's leg and c'mere a minute."
Sam took Olivia's hand. Grace was less than a foot away, but neither he nor his wife had said a word. "Olivia, this is your grandmother."
"Mom, meet Olivia. She's your granddaughter."
Grace knelt, putting herself on Olivia's level. "You are the most beautiful little girl I have seen since your mother." She opened her arms, and Olivia stepped into them. Kay bit her lip. Was this how things would be? Grace and Sam loving Livvie, but barely looking at their daughter.
She felt hand on her shoulder and then another take her own hand. "I'm on your side little sister," Theresa whispered. "And if Miguel doesn't like it, tough."
Grace stood, still holding Olivia on one hip. "Kay." She opened her other arm. "Oh my God, I missed you, baby."
"Go," Ethan whispered into her other ear as Kay stood uncertain before she finally gave into what she wanted and embraced her mother.
Theresa let Ethan hold her from behind. She covered his hands with her and rested her head back against his shoulder. "Will you marry me?"
Ethan thought he'd imagined her words at first. Then she looked up at him. She nodded. "I mean it.'
"I thought you meant it at the apartment. But if you need to hear the words again, yes, yes, yes a thousand times." He whispered in her ear, and she giggled a little as his breath and lips tickled.
"I love you," she said softly. "I'll love you till the day I die."
Ethan smiled. "Let's go home," he whispered.