Chapter 13: Adultery, Divorce, Forgiveness, and Cardinal Sins

"So, who is that girl Milo was with earlier?" Brenda Barrett asked as she passed a mug to Max and poured coffee for herself. Apparently, it was the evening for tag team childcare for the Davis sisters. Initially Sonny had been taking the girls for the weekend. He had dropped them off at his former sister in law, Carly Benson Ashton Durant's home when he rushed off to PCGH to check on their mother. Carly had fed them, albeit with dinner Sonny had already prepared, and then taken them to visit her former in-laws. Carly had called Brenda and begged for a no questions asked, last minute favor. If she got Molly and Kristina to bed at Sonny's could Brenda hang out there until Sonny returned home? Brenda hadn't felt like she could really say no, so she was catching up with Max Giambetti and taking advantage of an unlimited supply of Corinthos Morgan Coffee.

"His new girlfriend, Suzi Hornsby," Max said.

Max's tone and facial expressions were neutral, but Brenda could tell he wasn't really in favor of Milo's choice. "You don't like her, do you?" she asked.

"I don't really know her," Max said.

"But what you know doesn't impress you much?"

Max blushed. "She doesn't really seem like a very friendly person."

"Is she worse than Ally?"

"Mrs. C is just misunderstood," Max said.

"Bite your tongue! She is no longer Mrs. C! Divorce number three has been final for a week, hopefully there will not be marriage number four."

"Don't tell Anthony that," Max said.

"Is he still trying to reunite them? I realize Jax has descended to new all-time lows in the past two years. That is really saying something considering some of the stunts he pulled before that. So, I understand that Anthony doesn't want his Mama with Jax. But Anthony needs to understand that Ally and Sonny are toxic together. Gloria thought the divorce was good and she practically considers divorce one of the cardinal sins. Lois still feels like she is atoning, eleven years later, even after she remarried Ned."

"How does Gloria feel about adultery?" Max asked.

"Good point, but we now know that Ned didn't actually commit adultery. He was raped by Katherine Bell. Actually, Gloria may not know that. I think she may just be channeling forgiveness is divine," Brenda said.

"Wait Lois should forgive Ned for committing adultery which he didn't actually commit? Or did you mean that Ned should forgive Lois for not believing him?"

"Ok, this is delving way too much into stuff that is none of my business but to be fair to Lois, Ned told her that he slipped up and slept with Katherine. He thought he had."

"I guess I more wondered why Gloria would expect Lois to forgive Ned for adultery but not expect Sonny to forgive Mrs. C for the same thing. Presuming Gloria doesn't know Ned is actually innocent, that is a double standard," Max said.

Brenda almost had to agree. Except that seemed to support Ally and Sonny's reconciliation and she was pretty sure she would need to convince Cruz to transfer into the NYPD if that happened. Especially if it happened and Ally kept Jax as her boy on the side. She shook her head at that image. "Max, please, enough with the Mrs. C stuff," she said.

Max looked slightly sheepish as his cheeks turned crimson. "I'm sorry," he said.

"It's alright, just don't let it happen again. Please, don't let it happen again."

"It is a double standard though," Max pointed out.

"Yeah, in a way, there are orders of magnitude though. Ally moved in with Jax while married to Sonny. Plus, she had that on again off again thing with Alcazar during their first and second marriages. Ned only slept with Katherine once and that wasn't even consensual on his part."

"Did Lois know that when she remarried him? Is that why she could?"

"Lois knew about the rape sometime after Katherine died. But by the time she and Ned were coming back together I think it wasn't even a critical issue," Brenda said. She remembered the conversation she and Lois had when she had collected Brooke for a long weekend in Port Charles.

October 29, 1998

Brenda took a sip of her hot chocolate and then wrapped the blanket around her more tightly as they sat outside on the back deck of Lois's brownstone after Brooklyn had gone to bed. She had come into the city the day before for photo shoot and was spending the night with Lois. In the morning Lois would go back to a long day in the Neuro ICU at NY Presbyterian and she would escort Lois and Ned's four-year-old daughter, Brooklyn, back to Port Charles for a long weekend. Apparently, Ned had a meeting in Manhattan Tuesday morning so he would bring Brooklyn back with him. Aside from two brief trips, once in March when Ned and Carly's son, Michael, had been kidnapped, and at the end of August when she and Jax hadn't been able to marry because his first, and presumed dead, wife showed up alive right before their vows, Brooklyn hadn't been to Port Charles in over two years. It was also the first time that she would be staying with her father and stepmother alone. "I'm glad you're doing this. Lila is so excited!"

"They are her family, it just took me too long to accept that and even longer to face up to the mistakes I made in the first place," Lois said.

"I think they all understand that you were hurting," Brenda offered.

"Lila has always been more forgiving than anyone deserves I think that is how she and Edward manage to stay married," Lois said.

Brenda laughed. "That is probably true, but I think you're being way too hard on yourself. For what it is worth, Ned agrees with me," she said.

Lois winced. "I miss him, and I miss the three of us as a family but we both made the choices we made, and we need to live with them. I can't and I won't disrespect Ned and Carly's marriage," she said.

Brenda wasn't sure how to respond to that. What Lois said was completely logical, and even moral. It sounded good but it also sounded a bit forced. When push had come to shove Brenda had agreed to run away with Sonny after he divorced Lily. Except then he had learned Lily was pregnant and he couldn't leave his child. "A baby has a way of changing things, I guess," she finally said.

That had been in October 1998. It had also been the weekend that they had celebrated Michael Edward Ashton's first birthday. A little over a year later she and Lois were having an even more awkward conversation.

November 5, 1999

"You barely said anything during dinner, Bren, what's wrong?" Lois Cerullo asked as she pulled Brooke Lynn's bedroom door closed.

Brenda yawned and laid a hand over her mouth. "You know, I'm really tired," she said as she started to turn towards the spare room instead of following Lois to the stairs.

"Did you and Jax have another fight?" Lois asked.

"No."

"Did he decide to spend another weekend helping Miranda?" Lois asked.

"Actually, he did, but I've decided that either he really believes that Miranda is pretty much incapable of breathing without assistance and seriously what kind of life is that, for either of them? Or he is doing this to make me jealous because he doesn't believe I'm really over Sonny. Either way, the less I react to it the better."

"Are you over Sonny?" Lois asked.

"I don't want to date him or marry him anymore. But, yes, I still care about him. I'd prefer that when everyone learns he isn't actually dead that his new attorney keep him out of jail. No, I didn't explain the part about him not being dead to Jax. I'm not stupid!"

"He has a new attorney?"

"Yeah, Alexis resigned to take a prosecutor job at the DA's Office."

"The same Alexis that is having Dr. Mark Quartermaine's child?"

"Yes."

"I guess Edward didn't like her working for Sonny?"

"She resigned before she and Mark got married," Brenda said. She took a deep breath and realized the conversation she had been hoping would be easier in the morning probably really wouldn't be. Plus, Brooke would be awake then. "Suddenly I'm not so tired maybe we should talk."

Lois started down the stairs but turned back to face Brenda for a moment. "I'm still guessing that Edward put her up to it. I'm really trying to give Brooklyn time with them but things like me make me question how wise of a decision that is," she said.

Brenda didn't respond to that. She actually thought Alexis had made that decision all on her own, albeit in the heat of the moment. "A lot of things have happened in Port Charles in the last six months and some of them are a lot more relevant to you than I realized before," she said.

"You don't have to dance around this, Bren. I was actually talking to Ned when he got the call about the carjacking. Are the police any closer to an arrest?" Lois asked.

Brenda wasn't sure how to answer that question. It was pretty clear Luis Alcazar had been behind the carjacking. It was also unlikely that he would actually be arrested for the crime. "How much did Sonny explain to you about why he was doing everything?" she asked instead.

"I know he did it for Robin. No matter what went down with her and Jason, Sonny will always have a place in his heart for her, and, no matter how much she may have screamed exactly the opposite when she was in high school, Robin will always love Mac. Mac loves those girls like they were his. They should be his, and their mother should have better taste in boyfriends. At least they are safe now," Lois said.

"You and Mark agree on something."

"We agree that Mac loves Maxie and Georgie?"

"Mark probably wouldn't dispute that either, but when Felicia showed up at his fiancée's funeral in July and asked Mark if there was anything, she could do he suggested she show better taste in boyfriends."

"Fiancée?"

"Mark was briefly engaged to Kristina Cassadine, Alexis's younger sister. She died when someone blew up one of Sonny's warehouses. Initially the police thought that someone was Roy DiLucca, Felicia's boyfriend."

"So, Mark married the sister of his dead fiancée? That is almost as twisted as some of the things Jax has done, which is saying something."

Brenda raised an eyebrow and then decided she really just didn't want to know. "I never said I thought Mark and Alexis's marriage was a great idea. Has Sonny ever met Luis?"

"I haven't introduced them. Luis does have a summer home in Port Charles though perhaps they have met randomly."

Brenda was under the impression that the Alcazar estate was a little more than a summer home. "But Sonny didn't realize you were dating Luis Alcazar?"

"We're about to enter the twenty first century. I don't need permission."

"I wasn't saying that. Listen, this isn't easy to say and I worry that you're going to not believe me and hate me later."

"Why would I hate you? You're entitled to your opinion."

"Lois, it's not that I think he needs to pick a new cologne or something. Luis Alcazar is the one who kidnapped the Jones girls, he is the one who paid Roy DiLucca to kill Sonny, and he is the one who killed Kristina Cassadine when he blew up Sonny's warehouse. It is also pretty clear that he was behind the carjacking that resulted in Ned and Carly's baby's death," Brenda said.

For once in her life, Brenda thought she might have rendered her best friend speechless. But eventually Lois did gasp, "That isn't possible."

"I wish it wasn't. Sonny's death was one of the conditions of Maxie and Georgie's release."

"I know. Sonny explained all of that, but Luis would never hurt a child like that. You must have seen how he was with Sage at dinner."

"Loving one child doesn't imply you will treat all children well. Wasn't that your whole argument for keeping Brooke away from the Quartermaines the first two years after you and Ned split up?" Brenda asked.

"That isn't fair!"

Brenda didn't disagree. "I'm sorry, you're right what I said was unfair and you have changed and helped Brooklyn reconnect with Ned and I'm so glad about all of that."

"There is a lot you don't understand, Brenda. I know I made mistakes and trust me I will be atoning forever but I still find it difficult to deal with the entire Quartermaine Contingent at once and sometimes I do worry about expecting Brookie to deal with that. She is still just a little girl; she just turned five. You saw the way they descended at Sonny's Funeral," Lois said.

"They don't know he isn't dead, Lois. As much as they don't like it, they accept that Sonny was Jason's family. They were trying to support Jason."

"Maybe they should understand that Jason finds most of them most supportive when they are in a different state."

"He and Ned do alright," Brenda said absently.

"Ned has his moments and Jason did rescue Michael. He worked so hard to find Charlotte too," Lois said.

"I know, it's just all such a mess," Brenda said.

Lois nodded silently. She took a deep breath and released it slowly. "How certain are you about your assertions about Luis?" she asked.

Brenda wasn't sure what else to say. She shuddered when she thought about how much easier it had been to be friends with both Ned and Lois when they had been together. "Do you think I would toss these accusations around if I wasn't sure?" she asked.

"I don't know, maybe. Ok, don't look at me like that, Bren. The Quartermaines seem to have a flair for the dramatic especially if it involves a conspiracy theory."

"The Quartermaines don't know most of this. Luis has been charged with the bombing of the warehouse. It sounds like most of the rest of it will be difficult to prove or prosecute unless Roy DiLucca cooperates and that probably won't happen."

"I can't do this."

"What does that mean? You can't talk about this?"

"No, I mean I can't bring Brooke into this. I won't bring Brooke into this."

"You mean into Luis's world?"

"Yes, and I'm sure if Ned was here, he'd have some cynical retort about that."

"You know he might, but it wouldn't mean that the most important thing to him isn't you and Brooke being safe," Brenda said.

"Maybe…" Lois said.

Lois's voice was full of uncertainty. Brenda could understand that.

Lois had broken off the engagement but then she had taken things a step further and relocated back to Port Charles. Brenda hadn't anticipated that. But less than a week after their painful conversation Edward had been beaming like a Cheshire Cat because Lois's name had been on the list of November physician interviewees at PCGH. A month after that Lois had accepted an offer and was getting ready to actually start as an attending neurologist before Christmas. Christmas at the Quartermaines had definitely been interesting that year.

In some ways it had been a great holiday. Lois had brought Brooklyn to the mansion for Christmas Dinner she and Michael had played with the train and traipsed all over with Katelyn and Kensington and in that moment, as the mansion came alive with the magic of the season, Lila and Edward had both seemed at least a decade younger. But against that backdrop Ned's wife, Carly, had seemed anguished and Mark's new wife, Alexis, had seemed anxious, or perhaps just anxious to leave.

Ned and Carly had divorced, surprisingly amicably, before Christmas 2000. That year Ned's second wife and third wife both showed up with his children. Ned and Lois seemed to be on the cusp of truly reconciling and Carly seemed to be encouraging that which had been more than a little surreal. Ultimately, Carly's scheming for good approach paid off and Ned and Lois did remarry in November 2001. She had missed their wedding because she and Sonny had left for his Island roughly two months earlier.

September 6, 2001

"Here, drink," Sonny said as he set a glass of milk down in front of her.

Brenda bit her lip as she picked up the glass and took a sip.

"I hope you're not done. Brooke's friends the cows would feel unappreciated," Sonny said before he flashed her a dimpled smile.

In spite of the mess her life had become, Brenda had to smile. She picked up the glass and took a few more sips.

"So, what really happened before?" Sonny asked.

Brenda took a deep breath and exhaled. "I told you before, I just wasn't feeling well."

"Bren, you're going to have to do a little better than that. I know you aren't doing well," Sonny said as one of his guards came into the kitchen.

"A very irate Mr. Jacks is here to see Ms. Barrett, boss," a guard, who Brenda vaguely thought might have been named Bruce, said.

Sonny flashed the guard a look of frustration laced with contempt. "Bruno, didn't I tell you that as far as anyone was concerned Brenda is not here?" he asked.

"Well, yes, but, boss, Mr. Jacks was threatening to call the police," Bruno said.

"It's alright. I'll talk to him," Brenda said. She connected with Sonny's eyes in an effort to reassure him. "I need to do this, Sonny," she said.

Bruno still looked a bit shell shocked from Sonny's earlier reproach. He looked at his boss warily.

"Fine, show Mr. Jacks into the living room," Sonny finally said.

After Bruno left Brenda turned back to Sonny. "I'll be ok. Things have been over between us before we got back together this time. I just wouldn't let myself see it before," she said. Then she got up from the table and started out of the kitchen.

"There are laws against this kind of imprisonment!" Brenda heard Jax say as she stepped into the room.

Brenda crossed the room and carefully sat down in the wing chair across from the couch Jax was pacing and ranting in front of. "This isn't imprisonment, Jax. I was going to call you later but since you are here now, I guess I might as well not put this off any longer," she said.

"All you have to do is tell me you had a temporary lapse. Perhaps you hit your head when you fell," Jax said.

"I was wrong to try to reconcile with you, because I'm not sure that we really belong together at all, and I'm pretty sure I'm too in over my head with other things to even figure any of that out. I can't do this."

Jax looked aghast at her words. "You're dumping me for a criminal?"

"Alleged criminal and Sonny is just a friend. I just need some time to figure out my own life. Then I guess I can figure out where everyone else fits into it."

"I'm hardly everyone else. I'm your fiancé!"

"You were my fiancé, Jax. However, some of the things you have done recently make me wonder how well I really knew you. Perhaps I accepted your proposal too hastily. If you really love me as much as you claim to, you will give me this time to figure things out."

"Figure things out while shacking up like a mob moll? I don't think so! What you really mean is once Corinthos leaves you to go back to Ally, and he will, ask Alexis about that; you will be interested in me again. Well it doesn't work that way, Brender!"

After a little more ranting, Jax finally left slamming the door behind him. Brenda remembered how she had laughed at the irony that she and Sonny weren't together. It had probably looked that way to Jax. Sonny had started the paperwork to divorce Ally after discovering she was sleeping with Lorenzo Alcazar. Ally had moved out. Officially she was living with her mother, since Sonny refused to allow his sons to live in the house of the man who had tried to murder him not even two years earlier. Brenda supposed it hadn't been an unreasonable request on Sonny's part. Or at least it hadn't from a superficial perspective. If you got into deeper nuances, then perhaps it had been almost as dysfunctional as Ally and Sonny's marriage had been. Brenda almost laughed at that idea, almost because she was afraid her marriage to Jax might have been even more dysfunctional. But she hadn't married Jax. She hadn't married Sonny either. At one point she had regretted that, but she wondered if perhaps he really had done her the favor, he believed he had.

Her sister had often claimed that calling off the wedding had been the only decent thing Sonny Corinthos had ever done in his life. Brenda tried to believe that was because Julia loved her and had worried about her safety but sometimes it was so hard to get past Julia's criticism to let herself fully believe that. Julia hadn't understood how, or why, she had turned to Sonny when everything fell apart. Brenda had never been able to explain that. Partly because she was rarely able to explain things to Julia and partly because things with Sonny rarely lent themselves to explanation with anyone.

September 6, 2001

Brenda opened her eyes in the dimly lit room and winced at the pain. "Do I even want to know what happened?" she finally asked.

Sonny rose from the chair and squeezed his chin as he walked across the room. "You mean after you got rid of CandyBoy?"

"Very funny, I remember that part. Just not much after that."

Sonny lowered himself down onto the edge of the bed and laid a hand against her shoulder. "You didn't feel well. You started to fall. Of course, I'll always catch you," he quipped.

"I need to do something different."

"I know, listen, I was thinking maybe we could go to the Island for a while. You always liked it there. We'll figure it out, Bren."

She had believed him. Ned had believed that was desperation on her part. Perhaps it had been. Yet, there had been some trust there as well. Perhaps there shouldn't have been but there was. They had spent almost eighteen months on his Island. Despite the rumors that ran rampant in Port Charles over those eighteen months their relationship had been purely platonic.

"Did Lois just not want to fight with Ned about Sonny?" Max asked.

"I don't think Lois wanted to fight with Ned about anything. But, yeah, at the end Sonny was a big issue. And it was even more complicated because of everything with Jason," Brenda said.

"You mean because Carly was sleeping with both of them at the same time?"

"I'm pretty sure that Ned and Carly were never together until after Ned and Lois had divorced. I more meant because of Jason working with Sonny. I understand why Lois helped him, but I also understand why Ned was so opposed to him working with Sonny," Brenda said. Ned had made all of that quite clear the night that Lily Rivera Corinthos had died.

May 31, 1996

Brenda struggled to take a deep breath as Ned drove through the front gates of the Quartermaine Estate. She couldn't believe that Lily was dead. "It wasn't supposed to end this way," she finally murmured as Ned pulled up in front of the mansion and shifted into park.

"I know. Unfortunately, the violence of Sonny's world doesn't always discriminate well. That is why I have always had concern with Lois, you, and now Jason, being right in the middle of it all. But I don't mean to get into that now. Are you going to be ok at least for tonight?" Ned asked.

Brenda internally debated between the honest answer and the one that would allow Ned to leave and relieve the babysitter, so Emily got home before her ten o'clock weekend curfew. She decided upon the latter. "Yeah, I'm just going to go to bed. Tell Lois I will call her in the morning."

"I will," Ned said. He pulled her into a sideways hug, and then patted her shoulder for a minute. "Call my cell phone if you need anything later tonight," he added.

Brenda nodded and then silently got out of the car.

When Brenda opened the front door a few moments later the front foyer was empty, and no one seemed to be in the living room. Perhaps the coast truly was clear. She hesitated in the foyer for a minute and then made her way down the East Hallway to the kitchen. The kitchen was also empty but through the French doors she could see that the outside lights were on for the East Patio that led to the pool. It looked like AJ was out by the pool with Ashley Barrington.

Brenda shook her head at that image. Perhaps Ashley's return from Fairleigh Dickinson had led to AJ's recent break up with Nikki Langton. She supposed that would fit, although it kind of stunk for AJ. Not that dating Nikki Langton had exactly done him any favors either though she supposed. Whatever, she thought, it really wasn't any of her business.

Brenda was about to go up the kitchen stairs when Dr. Monica Quartermaine came into the kitchen from the solarium.

"Oh hi, Brenda, I heard someone come in and hoped maybe Emily was back," Monica said.

"No, but Ned just dropped me off so she will probably be calling you in a minute for a ride."

"Usually Ned or Lois drop them back home or they walk but I wouldn't want her walking after nine even in a safe neighborhood like this."

"Lois went to Sonny's so Ned will probably need you to pick her up."

"Is everything ok?"

"You know I think I'll let Ned explain that. I'm sorry, I'm really tired," Brenda said and then she turned and started up the stairs before Monica could say anything else.

Brenda knew her response was a little rude, but she just couldn't get into it all. In her room she collapsed onto her bed and started to cry. She couldn't really explain the tears; it seemed hypocritical for her to shed them for Lily because they really hadn't been friends. But still, Lily was a person and a few hours ago she was going to be a mother.

"So, then what changed?" Max asked.

"I think that Ned came to accept that Sonny was really Lois's and thus Brooklyn's family and it wasn't fair to ask her to turn her back on that, or him. Even now, I don't think Ned is completely comfortable with everything, but he accepts the situation for what it is," Brenda said. That was the simplified version of everything she supposed but it really wasn't her place to share more than that.