Home of Gwen and Ethan Winthrop
Eight Years Later
"Jane, what's taking you so long?" Ethan Winthrop rapped on his daughter's bedroom door. They were planning to spend some quality father-daughter time that day and Gwen had packed a picnic for the two of them.
"Just one second," Jane called out, her voice distant and not paying any attention to whoever was standing outside her door.
Ethan groaned and knew immediately what she was doing. She was talking on the phone with her best friend Lindsay while applying her make-up on, which, by the way, took hours to do. Finally having enough, Ethan turned the doorknob and decided to march in there, hang up the phone, put down any make-up utensils, and drag his daughter out whether she put on her lipstick or not. He was halfway into the room when he noticed his daughter was not on the phone and certainly not putting on make-up. Instead, she was smiling as she stared at a picture of some guy with a lovesick expression on her face.
"Jane Marie Winthrop, who the hell is this?" Ethan angrily muttered, taking the picture frame out of his daughter's hands and throwing onto her fluffy pink couch.
"Gosh, dad, what is your problem?" Jane sighed, walking to her couch to retrieve her picture, "He's my boyfriend."
"Boyfriend? Since when did you have a boyfriend?" Ethan yelled angrily, growling at the picture frame Jane was holding. He was most certainly not going to accept the fact that his baby girl was dating a guy who probably just wanted to get into her pants.
"Since two months ago, and plenty more before that, father," Jane spat out the word father. She dusted her denim miniskirt of all dust as she sat down, crossed her legs and said, "Wonderful way to start out a father-daughter day, isn't it?"
Ethan frowned but he loosened up and embraced his daughter in his arms, "I'm sorry, okay? Its just that I don't think you are old enough to date, yet."
"Have you gone completely mental, dad?" Jane gasped, her mouth was wide open in shock, "In case you haven't noticed, I'm fifteen."
"Close your mouth, honey, you'll catch flies like that," Ethan said, ignoring his daughter's comment. "Let's go spend the day together peacefully," Ethan emphasized peacefully, knowing fully well that their days together ended in complete chaos, "but change your outfit first. It shows too much skin."
With that, Ethan left his daughter's room and went to start the car. Jane was absolutely furious with her father, thinking that he could control her life.
"Okay, daddy, I'll change," Jane mimicked one of those fake angelic girls. She walked into her closet and picked out her black Soffe cheer shorts, rolling the band up twice (making her extra-small shorts even shorter than her miniskirt), and her tightest white cami.
With a smug grin on her face, she walked out of her house into the passenger seat of her father's new car. Clearly, Ethan was outraged by her choice of clothing.
"B-but that's shorter and skimpier than the other outfit!" Ethan gasped. He knew fully well that his popular and loveable daughter was absolutely drop-dead gorgeous and if she wore that outfit (which showed off her great figure and greater legs) all the guys would be crowding over her.
"Hey, you said to change," Jane laughed.
"Grounded," Ethan muttered before driving off.
Home of Theresa and Jared Casey
"Lindsay, can you please tell your older brother to get his lazy butt out of bed?" Theresa Casey asked her daughter while attempting to scramble some eggs. Lindsay watched in horror as she watched her mother break bits of the eggshell into the frying egg.
"As long as you don't cook and let Myrna do her job," Lindsay wondered where her family's personal cook, Myrna Dexter, was.
"Excuse me if I was trying to be polite and offer Myrna a day off!" Theresa frowned at her daughter. Then turning back to the state-of-the-art stove, she smiled and said to her daughter, "I'll be sure to give you plenty of this!"
"Mother!" Lindsay groaned as she trudged up the long stairs of Crane Mansion (which technically should have been called Casey Mansion, but they would not own it anymore if they renamed it).
Lindsay threw open the door to her older half-brother's bedroom. Ethan Crane was sleeping in an uncomfortable – or rather gross – looking position with his head underneath his pillow and his arms underneath piles of books and his legs caught under piles of dirty underwear. Ethan's room was an absolute sty and just looking at it made Lindsay want to vomit.
"Hey Captain Underpants, wake up time!" Lindsay screamed into Ethan's ears. No reaction. "Ethan, get up, before I tell mom!" Still there was no reaction. "If you don't get up in five seconds, mom is going to give you five times as much of her home-made slop than usual!" With that being said, Ethan shot up, threw a shirt over his naked upper body and flew down the stairs in only his shirt and boxers.
"Wow," was all Lindsay said when she noticed that he was out of the room.
Lindsay returned to the kitchen where she saw her 18-year-old being grossed out by his mother's cooking. Her father, lucky him, was being treated to a gourmet meal of Frosted Flakes.
"Hey, Jared, are you sure you don't want some scrambled eggs?" Theresa asked her husband.
Looking panicked, Jared stuttered, "I-I think I'm p-pretty full."
"Come eat breakfast, Lindsay!" Theresa slid two disgustingly yellow eggs onto a plate.
"Daddy!" Lindsay squeaked.
"Is that my cell phone ringing?" Jared pretended to hear his cell phone ringing and quickly ran out of the room.
"I hear Jane calling me!" Lindsay shrieked, following Jared, and rushed out of the kitchen, leaving only Ethan and his mother.
"Well, that just leaves you and me. Here, have some more eggs," Theresa slid Lindsay's uneaten eggs onto Ethan's still full plate. Fighting his urge to cry, Ethan fought to swallow the unusually crunchy scrambled eggs.
Once in the safeness of her own room, Lindsay picked up her cell phone and called her best friend Jane. It was early afternoon and Jane was probably practicing her flute or something like that. All summer long, Lindsay and Jane spent their days calling each other because they could not see each other, for they lived in separate towns.
"Hello?" a cheerful voice said on the other line.
"Jane?" Lindsay asked.
"Hey, Lindsay! What's up?"
"Save me, please!" Lindsay bit her bottom lip, "My mom is trying to feed me, again!"
"Don't you have a personal chef?"
"Mom gave her the day off!"
"Oh, that's not good."
"Gee, I reckon it isn't," Lindsay said sarcastically, rolling her eyes.
"Well, nothing could be worse than my dad finding out that I have a boyfriend."
"Haven't you been seeing Logan for two months?"
"Yeah, but dad didn't know so he's pretty wound up."
"Oh, that's too bad."
"Listen, are you free today?"
"Yeah, I think so. Cheerleading was canceled at last minute and I can't make any plans with my Harmony friends because they're doing this Harmony High School thing."
"Gee, and we only go to the best boarding school in the world."
"Okay, Miss Sarcastic!"
"Hey, you started it," Jane laughed.
"Whatever."
"Okay, so I was wondering if I could go to your house. I mean, sorry for being a bit rude just being blunt and asking like this, but I've never met your parents, or your brother, or have been to your house! You've been to mine tons of times. My father-daughter day with my dad isn't going so good so he said he'd drop me off at anyone's house, even if it means driving for 30 minutes. So can I go to your house?"
"Well, duh! Get your designer outfit butt here now!"
"Okay, ha ha, see you in thirty minutes, doll!"
"See you, love you!"
"Bye!"
Quickly, Lindsay called up one of the family maids to clean up her room and ran downstairs to get rid of her mother's junk and set up some real food.
Winston Town Park
"Dad, can you drop me off at my friend's house?" Jane batted her eyelashes in an irresistibly cute way.
"I already told you I would, sweetie," Ethan finished up packing the picnic and brought out his car keys. In the car, Ethan was fumbling to fit his car key into the ignition but it wouldn't go in. Finally after realizing that he put it in the wrong way, he started the car and asked Jane, "Where is her house?"
"Its thirty minutes away in a town called Harmony," Jane said as she turned the navigation system on and then turned the volume up for the radio speakers. She was so busy trying to station it to the right channel that she didn't notice her dad had frozen in his seat.
"H-Harmony?" Ethan stuttered, hoping he had misheard.
"Yeah, Harmony," Jane said.
"Where's her house?" Ethan managed to say.
"I'm not exactly sure of the address but she said that if we get lost, look for the Crane Mansion. Its huge and we can't miss it."
Now Ethan could do nothing but sweat. His heart was racing as he thought of the place that he dreaded to go. There was no way he could go back. Not after the way he left.
"We're not going," Ethan said firmly. He backed out of the parking lot and planned on driving back to his house.
"But dad! You told me that you would drive me anywhere and Lindsay's house is anywhere and anywhere is where I plan to go!" Jane said firmly. The girl would make a great lawyer.
"No."
"I HATE YOU!" Jane shrieked. Her long platinum blonde (which was straight and wavy at the end) flew around angrily as Jane turned sharply to glare out the window. Jane's word cut into Ethan. She had taken to saying that phrase for the past five months whenever he got her really angry.
"Fine, I'll take you," Ethan gave in after a long silence, turning his car around, heading in the direction of Harmony, Maine.
"Yes! Dad, I love you again!" Jane smiled widely.
"Love you too," Ethan said in a far-off voice. Harmony brought back so many horrible and tragic memories. The worst was Theresa Crane/Casey: his one true love and Jane's true biological mother. Not that Jane knew, of course. When they left Harmony, Jane was less than eleven-months-old. He would never forget his last conversation with Theresa, though. Never in a million years.
Crane Mansion
FLASHBACK
"I want full custody of my daughter back, Ethan," Theresa Crane said angrily. Theresa, Ethan, and Gwen were all in the sitting room where Theresa had yet to discover the true reason for their visit with Theresa and Ethan's daughter Jane.
"You have your daughter, Theresa, this angel is mine!" Gwen said. When she said that Theresa had her daughter meant that Theresa had Lindsay, Theresa's daughter with her fiancé Jared Casey.
"Jane will never be your daughter, Gwen," Theresa growled.
"You wish. Jane is my daughter and I will be the one she calls mommy," Gwen smiled smugly.
"No!" Theresa glared daggers at Gwen.
"Go back to that damn bitch-of-a-kid of yours," Gwen said hatefully, holding Jane closer to her.
"Don't you dare say that about Lindsay!" Theresa suddenly was much angrier and was about to pummel Gwen to the ground when Ethan caught her arms. "Let go, Ethan!"
"Theresa – we came here to say goodbye," Ethan said softly, "we're leaving Harmony."
"Not with my daughter!" Theresa screamed.
She had long since given up on her love for Ethan and the only love of her life was Jared Casey. She already had a daughter with him, Lindsay, and planned to take back Jane so that she could live peacefully with her family: Little Ethan, Jane, Lindsay, and Jared. Gwen would never take her baby girl.
"She's my daughter and I can take her wherever I like," Gwen smiled.
"Over my dead body," Theresa felt tears threatening to break free.
"That can be arranged," Gwen snarled.
"Jane . . . come to mommy," Theresa smiled.
Jane twisted her body to look at Theresa and cocked her head to one side.
"Jane, where's mommy?" Gwen smiled.
Jane returned her attention to Gwen and started cooing at her stepmother. Watching this, Theresa felt her heart crashing and her world burning around her. Ethan, though he was married to Gwen, felt guilty and wanted nothing more than to kiss Theresa to make her feel better and share custody of Jane with her.
"J-Jane . . . Jane . . ." Theresa collapsed suddenly, with Ethan holding her arms.
"Now that's better," Gwen said with joy. She started walking out of the room with Jane in her arms and said, "Bye Theresa. I hope you burn in hell."
"Gwen, we can't leave her like this!" Ethan gathered Theresa in his arms.
"Yes, we can. Now let's go!" Gwen felt anger building inside of her. Even when Theresa was unconscious she managed to steal Ethan away from her. The door was slammed open and a worried Jared angrily stormed over to Ethan and took Theresa into his arms.
"Tess, Tess, wake up!" Jared said softly and lovingly. "Get the hell out of here!" Jared growled at Ethan and Gwen.
"Gladly," Gwen walked out with Jane and quickly got in the car. Ethan slowly got up and started to follow just as Theresa started stirring.
"Ethan, please give me my baby back!" Theresa cried.
Ethan ignored her and walked out without looking back. As he got into the driver's seat he saw Jared restraining Theresa and telling her there was nothing more she could do.
"IF I EVER SEE YOU OR GWEN AGAIN, I WILL HAVE YOUR SORRY ASSES HAULED TO PRISON!" Theresa cried.
With that, Gwen and Ethan drove off. They were going to out of Harmony for good and they couldn't feel much better. Well, Gwen anyway . . .
END OF FLASHBACK
"Jane, wouldn't you much rather see that boyfriend of yours?" Ethan wondered.
"Dad, you don't have to pretend you like him. I forgave you already," Jane smiled.
Nothing could be worse than this situation. Ethan started sweating through his shirt and every second he was closer, he could feel the coldness of the jail bars. Worse – he could feel the coldness of his betrayal.