Disclaimer: I own nothing but a half eaten box of crackers and a statue of a snowman. The characters in this story with the exception of Jules Archer and Maxwell Shepard do not belong to me. They are the intellectual property of Ken Corday and Days of Our Lives.
Chapter 4: Family Dinners
Brady Black pulled his silver Mercedes into the driveway of his sister's house. A yellow Labrador trotted out to greet him as he opened the car door. "How's it going Buddy?" he asked the good-natured canine patting it on the head. Buddy barked in response and followed Brady along the flower-lined path to the front door.
A wreath of dried flowers adorned the hand-carved oak door. Brady pushed the bell and then rapped a playful rhythm on the wood. Almost immediately, it swung open to reveal the smiling face of his brother-in-law.
"Brady good to see you! Come in," Shawn said stepping aside, "How are things going?"
"Not to bad," Brady replied, "and you?"
Shawn led him towards the kitchen. "Things are good. Belle's feeling good. Little V is chattering and running up a storm."
As they entered the kitchen, Belle left the pot she was stirring and came up to embrace her brother. Belle had changed little over the years. She still had that youthful appearance and spirit. Only now she was a mom of a two year-old and delightfully round with another one on the way.
"How is my favorite sister in the whole wide world?" he asked laughingly.
"Big as a house," she replied.
"I wouldn't say a house," Shawn teased, "more a truck."
"No not a truck," Brady offered, "How about a boat?"
"Oh stuff it both of you! Shawn it's your fault I look like this in the first place," she scolded.
"Oh I think you had a hand in it too?" Shawn shot back in a sexy little voice.
Belle ignored him. "And Brady, someday you'll get married and need to learn to how to sweet talk a pregnant woman."
Brady's smile dimmed just a little bit. His social life, or lack there of, was a bit of mystery to his family. Luckily he was saved from any attempts at a witty rebuff by a force that collided with his leg. He looked down to see his squealing, rather messy, nephew clinging to his leg. "Little V, what are you up to?" he asked picking up the sturdy little boy and setting him on his shoulders.
Little Victor rattled off something somewhat understandable about a new toy. Brady allowed the little boy to direct him to his room to see this new wonder.
Marlena and John arrived shortly after Brady for the weekly Black family dinner. Experiencing a bad case of the empty nest syndrome, his parents had requested that one night a week be dedicated to a family dinner. The location of the meal varied from week to week between the Black penthouse and Belle's place. Once in a while Brady took them out to eat, but he wasn't really expected to be an active participant with the new family ritual.
After the chaos of the arrivals, the Black family finally managed to settle down to the table. Little Victor was seated in his high chair between his mother and his grandfather. He gleefully squealed and laughed as Grandpa John fed him small bites of this and that. Marlena and Belle picked at their food like delicate birds while the men made no qualms about shoveling it in.
When dinner was finished, Little V was taken upstairs by his dad to be washed and put to sleep. The rest of the family retired to the living room for coffee (hot water with lemon and honey for Belle). Brady reclined slightly in an over-stuffed chair and let the conversation whirl about him.
"You'll never guess who I ran into at the hospital today," Marlena began sitting down beside John on the sofa.
"No, who?" Belle asked jumping at Marlena's bait.
"Chloe," her mother replied.
At that single word, Brady felt his whole insides clench. He almost launched out of the chair before catching himself and settling back down. She was back in Salem. She was at the hospital. Was she sick? Was she visiting someone? Brady forced the excitement and fear down into the pit of his stomach and tried to focus on the conversation.
"Chloe Lane?" Belle asked startled. "I mean, Chloe Wesley."
"The same," Marlena replied. "I ran into her in the ICU."
Brady's heart ceased and it became difficult for him to breath. The leukemia was back, he thought.
"She's started her residency at SUH, and her current rotation has her in intensive care," Marlena continued.
Brady released his pent up breath. His heart was still beating rapidly, but his insides had begun to unwind.
"Good Lord," Belle exclaimed, "I had forgotten. Of course, she must be a doctor by now. Did you talk with her long?"
"Not really," Marlena sighed, "We exchanged greetings, but then she was called away for a patient. We were going to meet up later, but I guess we just missed each other."
"I wonder why she didn't tell me that she was back in town?" Belle mused.
"Don't take it personally honey," Marlena reassured, "Residency is very demanding. Chloe probably doesn't have time to sleep let alone track down old friends. Oh," Marlena exclaimed reaching for her bag. She withdrew a small note. "Chloe left this with my secretary. It's her new address and phone number."
Belle took the little slip of paper an examined it. "She's not living with Craig and Nancy anymore?"
Marlena chuckled, "I think Craig and Nancy are too old to put up with her schedule."
"How does she look?" Brady asked abruptly. Marlena and Belle turned towards him with startled expressions. They had forgotten he was there. His father just smirked at him with an all-knowing grin that Brady ignored.
"She looked good, healthy, but a little sleep-deprived," Marlena replied.
Brady didn't offer further comment. He just sank into his own thoughts.
"What did I miss?" Shawn said cheerfully descending the stairs.
Everyone enjoyed a good laugh at his expense before filling Shawn in on the details.
Later that night as he drove home through the Salem streets, Brady allowed his mind to digest the night's shocking information. Chloe Lane, no Chloe Wesley, no Dr. Chloe Wesley was living right here in Salem, USA. It was mind-boggling.
At the beginning of their relationship, if you could call it that, Brady had been intrigued by Chloe Lane. She was such a strange mix of strength and vulnerability, a tangle of volatile emotions, and a compromise between innocence and worldliness. In her eyes he saw reflected the same pain, defensiveness, and desperate desire to be loved that often shone through in his own gaze. Just as he did, she guarded her heart with a shell of bitterness and anger. While he used yelling and fighting to drive people away, she used glasses and drab clothing. It was like looking into a mirror, and he didn't like what he saw. Brady didn't want to feel those things anymore, and he didn't want Chloe to either. So, he set out trying to change not only her but also himself. He had worked hard on himself; letting go of the old anger, making up with Marlena, and making some tough career decisions. Chloe, he had pushed and prodded into focusing on her dream, loosing her carefully crafted defenses, and dropping Phillip.
Good old Uncle Phil! Even now, Brady couldn't think of Phillip without feeling that old curl of jealousy in his gut. Despite their strange family connections, Phillip and Brady had always managed to be some sort of friends. However, the introduction of Chloe into their social mix had slowly pitted the two against each other in a war for her affection. Too many times, it seemed as if Phillip was winning. Phillips obsessive passion had overshadowed Brady's gentle support. Chloe kept going back to him no matter how stupidly Phillip behaved.
Brady had loved Chloe. The minute Dr. and Mrs. Wesley had stepped out of that hospital room and admitted to Chloe's stunned friends that she had leukemia; he had known the truth. Before that moment, he knew that he liked Chloe, valued her friendship, and was attracted to her. After the fateful announcement, he knew that he would die if she did. Brady finally understood the all-consuming fear and pain that his father must of felt when he first learned about Isabella's sickness.
The emotions had overwhelmed Brady. He had run into an ally and taken out his rage on the inanimate objects there. Cancer terrified him. It was his childhood boogieman. Cancer took the people you loved away from you. During that summer, he became plagued by a dream in which Chloe would ask Brady to carry her to the window so she could see the sky. While he was preoccupied by the sunset, she would slip away in his arms. He woke up crying in a cold sweat. He began visiting her daily but never at sunset. As haunting as that dream was, her sickness was the real nightmare.
The fact that the cancer ate at her body didn't bother Brady. Her physical appearance had never been that important to him. It was the way the leukemia seemed to gnaw away at Chloe's soul that hurt him. As the treatments became harsher and more frequent, she seemed to drift away. The light in her eyes began to dim, and she seemed to give up on life. Brady Black, who had never had any use for God, begged every night that Chloe would still be there in the morning. Just as she took a turn for the worse, word came that a donor had been found. Brady wept with joy when she made it through the transplant procedure.
The Chloe who came through leukemia was very different from the one who had been diagnosed with it. She was born again with a passion for life. Far off dreams of exotic opera houses were left along the roadside. Her heart had never really been in opera; he had seen that. It was just a childhood dream used by Chloe to escape the bad experiences of her younger years. She told him once, "I want to live celebrating life, and what better way to do that then to become a doctor?"
The cancer was gone and so was Phillip. The road finally lay open for Brady and Chloe, but their relationship never progressed beyond friendship until one fateful night. Even now, Brady could not exactly say how it happened. One minute they had been talking in their old way, and the next moment they were caught in a passionate embrace. Brady always suspected that once he began kissing Chloe, he would never be able to quit. He had been right. It was the first time for them in so many ways. Chloe had been a virgin, and Brady had felt like one. Brady's experiences at boarding school had not prepared him for wonder of making love to someone you actually loved.
Chloe and Brady had spent one wild week as lovers. They were as close as two people could be, both in body and mind. By the end of that week, she occupied every thought that entered and left his brain. Chloe Lane Wesley became his everything.
The relationship that never officially started never officially ended. There had been no knock-out-drag-down fight or tearful good-bye between them to finish it; instead, Chloe had given him a cheerful waved at the airport. Neither of them had truly expected that to be the end of things, but somewhere deep inside Brady he had known that he was running.
His father had once tried to explain his mother's death to him with these words, "Sometimes son, things are just beyond our control, and people you love leave you." As a small boy, Brady vowed that he would let no one else in his heart. Marlena and Belle had been the first people to make him break his vow, then Chloe. The only way to save himself the heartache of their inevitable departures was to leave first. Marlena he pushed away with anger. With Belle, he used boarding school. With Chloe, it was business opportunities abroad.
Pulling into his designated parking spot in the garage, Brady had an epiphany. He was the biggest idiot ever put on the face of the Earth. His own stupid convictions had cost him more of his life than any heartbreak ever could have. He had thrown away years of love and support with Marlena and Belle. With Chloe, it was too painful to even imagine what he had lost.