Part 19 PG-13
"I don't know for sure what she wanted," Brenda said. "I let her in sort of automatically. My hospitality training took over. Then I had to explain Ginny, and came up with nothing more brilliant than the truth."
"Don't see why you think you should have done anything else," Zander said. It was late evening, and Ginny was in bed.
"The upshot is, she was shocked to see Ginny. She'd already seen her somehow, and asked me what Carly's daughter was doing here. She turned very pale and stopped cold, when I told her Ginny was yours. She knows you are in school, and me too, and expressed her great surprise again that you should have a child with Carly, because Carly is so much older than you."
"And what did she think of my new girlfriend, then?" he said, with a mischievous smile, coming over to where she sat on the couch and massaging her shoulders.
"I'm not sure she knows," Brenda said. "I figured Ginny was enough material for her to absorb for now, and she didn't ask me what I was doing here. I believe she thinks I'm the maid."
He leaned down and kissed her neck. "Let's not think about her."
"I wonder sometimes."
"What do you wonder sometimes?"
"That I'd never give up what I've got - a man I can talk to about anything, who can talk to me about anything, and my extraordinarily fantastic sex life - for so-called love."
"Me neither."
"And then I wonder which is love - you, or them?"
"You mean Sonny, or Jax?"
"Yeah. Emily, too."
He went back to massaging her shoulders. "I'm not going to worry about her. Mom's coming to town again."
She turned to look at him. "You aren't worried about that now, are you? You seem to get along fine with her."
"I still feel nervous. I'm afraid Dad will pop up and wreck everything."
"Come over here," she said, pulling him around the couch to sit down on it by her, "Send him to me and I'll handle him."
"I know you can handle him," he said, smiling, and pushing her hair back from her face. "It's me that is in doubt."
She leaned over and kissed him. "I love you," she whispered.
"You would really stick with me, and Ginny, even if you could have Sonny or Jax, again?"
"That's what I've been saying just now. Your attention span! I think I may win for the semester."
He laughed. "I love you," he said. He picked her up and carried her back to the bedroom. She giggled and held on.
Bobbie opened the door – someone was knocking.
"It's him again," Bobbie said. "Cameron Lewis."
"Let him in so I can tell him off one more time," Carly said. Bobbie asked him politely to sit down.
"I was talking to a lawyer," he said. "It appears I could sue you anyway. But I won't. I want to take up his suggestion that maybe we can get along."
"So this means you're going to bend?" Carly said.
"Something like that," he said, sarcastically.
"Look, you can't talk to a kid and put their parent down."
"I appreciate your long term view," he said. "Why would I put the child's parent down?"
"Because your whole parental career consists of it?" Carly guessed sarcastically.
"I don't know why you believe everything Alexander has told you, or see only his view," he said.
"Look, Dr. Lewis, Zander and I took a parenting class," Carly explained. "My lawyers suggested it. The people teaching it have experience in Family Court, and they really believe the number one problem is this. You put down the other parent to the kid, you put down the kid. Normally that applies to the parents who are split, like Zander and I, we understand not to put each other down to Ginny and respect her relationship to the other and that she's part of that other person too."
"And this is relevant because?"
"Well, in this case, it's the child's grandfather that would put her parent down. It's bad for her. Zander couldn't get out of it, but he can get Ginny out of it."
"It depends on what the court thinks," he said.
"Why do you want to see Ginny anyway?" Bobbie asked. "Given your disdain for your son, why is his daughter worth your time?"
"I don't have disdain for my son, and my granddaughter is also my descendant, young woman, and she will, with such parents, need - "
"You're doing it already! That's what I was talking about!" Carly yelled.
"You aren't concerned for your own daughter?" he asked Carly, "how do you think she is going to do with Alexander and that Brenda Barrett woman?"
Carly was silent.
Bobbie knew it was a weak point. "We can't choose the people the other parent will fall in love with," she said. "Zander doesn't like Sonny much, and he could think with better reason that it's dangerous for Ginny to be around him. Brenda Barrett is a respectable citizen. She knew how to take care of a baby. If he'd been with some girl his age, Carly might have had to spend time training him for that."
Carly looked as if she didn't think that would have been so terrible, and that Brenda Barrett couldn't have been more unnecessary on that score, and that Brenda Barrett was the last person on earth to earn the title 'Respectable Citizen.'"
She kept quiet, however.
Cameron got up to leave. "You're going to need a lot of help," he said. "Some day you'll probably come asking me for it."