The next day I felt as though my eyes had been held shut with heavy stones and I actually struggled to open them, knowing what opening them would signify; I would have to deal with what Brett had told me the night before.

I had tossed and turned and flitted from one dream to another the entire night and felt like I had just dozed off when I felt Bosco roll over and get out of bed. I didn't even open my eyes. I wanted to stay asleep, or at least look like I was asleep for as long as I could.

Even though I was wearing my red flannel pajamas I still felt cold. I pulled my apricot colored duvet up around my chin and snuggled deeper into it's warmth. My head felt hot and my limbs cold, a sure sign that I was in emotional stress.

When Brett had confessed that he was not the father of Carly's child, I will admit that it crushed me terribly. I knew that the pain and torment he now felt could not be erased. Even if he decided to stay with her he would be raising another man's child. Whoever this mystery man was, I wondered if he knew about the baby. It made me remember a time when things were very similar in my life.

When I was a lot younger I had been married to Fred and he had given me two wonderful children; Emily and Charlie. We had gotten pregnant and married within our last year of highschool. Fred was an alcoholic, among other things, and was very controlling of me. He needed to know where I went, when I went and how I went anywhere. So, it was understandable when I joined the force and ended up with a male partner, that he was very upset about it. In fact, he never got over thinking and accusing me of sleeping with Bosco. It made life very hard and there were times that I was tempted to do just that, but I never did.

The time came when I could no longer live with him and we separated. Eventually he began to drink harder and for longer periods of time. I had my reservations about him being allowed to see the kids but he was still their father and time after time I relented and let them go.

During that time I had made a few mistakes of my own, namely, sleeping with a fire fighter who was well known at our precinct, Jimmy Dorhety. Bosco had been seeing a woman named Sarah Richardson for some time and things were going well between them. Knowing that we would never be together, I decided to cement my freedom and go out and do something wild. I went out one night after a hard day at work and met up with Jimmy at a bar. I went home with him, despite Bosco's blatant feelings of disgust over it. I woke the next day feeling terrible and very hung over and left Jimmy's as soon as I could get dressed. Even though I felt bad, Jimmy was a very desirable man and I ended up going back and letting it happen all over again.

I never understood Bosco's anger over it and began to question in my own mind whether or not he was jealous. I knew how I felt about him but never dreamed that my feelings would be reciprocated. One night as I was leaving the precinct, Bosco followed me. We had had a terrible fight in the locker room and I wanted to get out of there and go home and sleep, but he followed me. He caught up to me on the street and confessed his love for me. He kissed me deeply and told me he loved me. I never thought I could be so happy. We made plans to meet up at the end of the night at his place.

But that wasn't to be.

I had gone home to get some things and had been confronted at my door by Sully and Ty Davis. They told me the worst words I could ever imagine hearing; that my children had been killed in a terrible auto accident and that Fred had been the driver. He had been drunk and they never knew what had hit them.

It was the beginning of the darkest period in my life. For weeks, I stayed in bed crying over the love I had lost. When a mother loses her children it is as if a part of her has been ripped out and can never be replaced. Bosco stayed with me during that whole time and gave me comfort as best he could. It was five weeks after the funeral that I woke up with the symptoms of pregnancy. I went to the doctor and he told me that I was in fact pregnant. A kind of joy came into my heart as I realized that I would have something to live for again. He examined me with a new piece of equipment that could show accurately how far along I was. When he told me the news I was devastated. The child I was carrying was Jimmy Dorhety's.

To make a long story short, I didn't tell Bosco the truth that I had learned until much later. I had a miscarriage one evening when he was at work and it wasn't until after that I told him about the baby's parentage. He was shocked and as angry as I'd ever seen him. He threw me out that very night and I went to stay with Sasha, who had become a very good friend to me.

Sasha and Ty had broken up because she had gotten an abortion without Ty's consent. He wanted a family and she wasn't ready. He had left her and so there was room for me to stay at her apartment. We grew closer during that time.

Bosco had been unable to deal with what had happened and started drinking heavily. He called me one night, in the middle of the night and asked me to come over. I came over as fast as I could. His apartment was a total mess, as was he. He brought out his anger and sorrow upon me and told me he couldn't live without me. It was a confession that I knew was hard for him to make. I had a confession of my own.

A week or so before, my doctor had called me to tell me he had been wrong with my due date and that meant that the baby I had been carrying was Bosco's child. I told him this, knowing that it would hurt him more, but I couldn't be dishonest anymore. He cried when I told him, but it had made all the difference to him that I hadn't been carrying another man's child. We spent the night together and by the morning, we felt as if we had come through the storm. We had been together ever since.

I understood better than Brett could ever have known. I knew his feelings of grief and anger toward the only woman he had ever loved. I understood why he felt that his life was no longer the same. He had said one last thing to me as we stood at the top of the stairs, his voice dull and thick with emotion.

' Ma. Don't tell anyone about this. Please.'

Oh, how I hurt for my third son right then.

' Brett, I have to tell your father. What would he think if we held this from him? He'd be very upset.' I said softly, reaching out to caress his cheek.

He thought for a minute before running his hand over his chin. ' Ok. But no one else. I can't deal with this right now and the last thing I need is for everyone to be asking questions. And one more thing.' He said pointedly.

'What's that?'

' Don't say anything to Carly or the Davis's about this. Carly feels really bad...and I don't want you treating her any differently.'

That was just like him; to think of someone else's pain before his own. Even though Carly had done a terrible thing, he was thinking of her feelings first. It was going to be tough, though, to not treat her any differently, to demand to know how she could betray my son in such a way that he might never recover. Still, I nodded my head in agreement.

He left me then and walked slowly toward his own room, his head down in defeat. He was hurting so much it made me want to scream. I walked to my own room and shut the door. What were we going to do now?

' Well, look who's awake.' I heard a deep voice from the doorway of the bathroom.

I rolled over on to my back and looked at my husband. He strode into the room wearing nothing but a towel swathed around his narrow hips. He was still wet from his shower and beads of water still clung to his skin and dripped from his hair.

He still took my breath away. He was so sexy and his body was as firm as it ever was. He was just beginning to have a little protrusion on the front of his belly but he was still a lady-killer. I sometimes felt like a school-girl, staring at him and feeling my heart flutter as if I was some teenager in heat.

' Like what you see?' He asked in a husky voice as he dropped the towel onto the floor. One look at his bottom half told me that he had already planned a morning tryst with me. But that couldn't be. We needed to talk and I dreaded every second of it.

I struggled to sit up. ' I always like what I see, but we need to do something first.' I said

' You know you are very sexy in the morning, Faith?' He asked as he pulled open his dresser drawer and rooted around for some underwear.

My blond hair was a mess and I hadn't taken the time to wash the makeup off of my face. Yes, I knew just how sexy I looked in the morning.

' Bosco, we need to talk and it can't wait.' I said slowly.

He turned around and faced me. 'What is it?'

' Can you come and sit down here for a sec?' I asked, patting the bed.

He pulled out a pair of clean boxers and slid them over his muscled legs and then grabbed a t-shirt and pair of jeans and put them on, succoming to the fact that he wasn't getting any action at the moment and came and sat next to me on the bed.

' So, what is it? Something with one of the kids?' He asked, as he put his socks on.

I nodded and took a deep breath. ' There's something that I have to tell you and you're going to be upset but I need you to promise me that you won't say anything to anyone.'

Worry flashed over his face and he automatically reached for the chain around his neck. His fingers nervously began to twist the charm around, as he did every single time something was wrong.

' How can I promise that when I don't even know what you're talking about?'

' Please. Just promise me.'

' I can't promise you that. Just tell me what it is.' He said, starting to get a tiny bit irritated.

' Bos, just promise me or I can't tell you.' I said. It was the same way that things had been between us for thirty years. I tried to make him promise something when he didn't know all the facts, and he would get upset and angry because he didn't know what to expect.

' Like hell you can't!' He flared. ' You can't do that, Faith. It's not fair. Just tell me what it is and I'll do my best to keep calm.'

I couldn't blame him for being annoyed with me. I just knew that he was going to be really mad when he found out that Brett was so hurt. He would understand better than I ever could, I thought to myself. After all, he once had to deal with the same thing. It was a subject that was sore with him and something that he never talked about.

It was as if the past had come back to haunt us and I was once again being punished for my sins, except this time my son would bear the brunt of the hurt, and probably my husband.

' Brett confided something in me last night. Part of it I expected and part of it I didn't. He told me that I could tell you and only you about it, but he made me promise that you wouldn't say a word to Carly or to Sasha or Ty.' I began.

' She's pregnant, isn't she?' He asked quickly.

' Yes.'

'So, what's the big deal? They are old enough to have a kid together. Hell, they've been living together for years now. Why are you so upset?' He asked, looking a little relieved.

' Bos..' I began

'Faith, is it because they aren't married yet? Is that why? Just think about it for a minute...we weren't married and we still had sex...you really didn't think that they were just friends, did you?'

He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek and rubbed his thumb in circles around my face. 'Babe, you didn't think he'd stay a kid forever did you?' He was trying to be tender and loving toward me, but instead was making it look like I had no sense whatsoever.

I held on to his hand and looked at him, knowing that what I was about to tell him would change everything. The way he thought about Carly would change, the relationship we had with her would be strained.

' Just think about it, Faith. We're gonna be grandparents again and Little Faith will have a cousin to play with and...' He was getting excited about it and wore a silly expression on his face.

I shook my head. ' No. We aren't going to be grandparents.' I said softly.

Confusion settled on his face. 'What do you mean?' He asked, the silly smile starting to fade.

' I mean that this baby isn't going to be our grandchild.'

His faced changed in an instant from confusion to anger. ' She's gonna have an abortion? Is that what you're trying to say?' He spit at me.

' No.'

'Well then, what?' He cried, terribly confused by what was going on. He didn't understand.

' What I'm saying, what Brett told me last night, is that this baby isn't his.' I said quickly.

He sat there for a moment, his eyes blinking rapidly, as if the information couldn't reach his brain and make him understand. His hand reached back up for the chain and he began to twist it over and over again.

'Bos?'

He said nothing, simply stared off into space as he digested this terrible information and I was sure he was thinking about what had happened to us all of those years ago. I watched him closely, trying to guess as to what he was thinking. He made no movement other than blinking his eyes. He chewed furiously on his bottom lip and I could tell that he was holding in an anger that I hadn't seen in a long time.

As the seconds ticked by I began to wonder if he was going to speak at all and then he turned to me, one shiny tear lodged in the corner of his eye.

'It's happening again, isn't it?' He whispered, clenching his jaw. Oh, he was going to come undone for sure. My heart constricted as I heard his words, knowing what he was getting at. It still hurt to know that he couldn't let it go.

'Bos, this isn't us. This is Brett and Carly's life, not what happened all of those years ago.' I grasped at the words to try and comfort him.

' How could she do that to my son...how could she betray him like that?' He whispered, shaking his head back and forth.

I put my hand over his again, in an attempt to calm him down again. I should have known how he'd react to such a betrayal. It was as if he was going back in time, feeling the feelings that had been thrust upon him all those years ago.

He jerked away and stood up, his eyes blazing. 'That slut! That little slut! How could she do that to him! How are we supposed to see her again?' He roared, losing control. His face was now a deep shade of red and his eyes were wild. He looked like someone that was ready for a good fist fight.

I jumped out of bed and grabbed his arm and put one hand on his face. 'Don't say that!' I hissed, desperately afraid that Brett or someone else would hear him.

'I promised Brett that you wouldn't say a word to anyone! You can't break his trust! Now calm down before you wake the whole house, do you hear me?' I ordered him savagely.

' I have to get the hell out of here!' He snapped at me and stormed out of the bedroom. I tried to run after him but his legs were longer and faster. He made his way down the stairs and slipped into his sneakers and coast and out the front door. It slammed behind him. He hopped into our blue mustang and tore down the driveway.

I stood at the window and watched him go down the street, terribly afraid that I'd never see him again. Tears ran down my cheeks.

' Mom, what's going on?' I heard a deep voice, along with a gentle hand on my shoulder.

Startled, I turned around to see my second son staring at me. ' Nothing, honey. Your father is upset, that's all. It'll be alright.' I sniffled.

Mikey narrowed his eyes, not believing me. ' I heard what dad said, ma. Who was he talking about?'

I shook my head, not wanting to give away Brett's secret. ' I can't say, honey. Just...just...leave it be.' I said sadly.

I walked away from him and returned to my bedroom and went directly to the shower and turned the water on full blast. Changing my mind, I put the stopper in the drain and began to fill the tub. A long soak was just what I needed to calm down. I added some bath salts and then got undressed. I grabbed my pink fluffy bath towel and set it beside the tub and got in.

Tears of frustration cascaded down my cheeks and dripped off of my chin. Poor Brett. Poor Bosco. Would our family ever be truly happy?