A/N: See Chapter 1 for Disclaimer.

Chapter Summary: George, Lionel, and Tom travel to Haven Lake together; George confronts Mark about his relationship with Louise.

Chapter 3: George Hears the Truth

"Is your grandma still angry?" Jenny asked Lionel that Wednesday afternoon as they sat down together at the Willises' kitchen table. Lionel had just gotten off the phone with Mrs. Jefferson a few moments ago and Jenny could tell that it had not been an easy conversation for him.

"Yeah," Lionel sighed. "She's still furious at Pop because of their argument yesterday, but now, she's mad at me too."

"Why is she mad at you?"

"Because I agreed with Pop. Because I told her that I thought Pop was right and she wasn't."

"Well, good for you. I never thought I'd agree with Mr. Jefferson about anything, but I agree with him now. It really is time that he started putting your mother first for a change. He's put your grandmother first for way too long. Your mother always deserved so much better."

"She sure did. You know, I don't think I ever truly realized just how much Pop was hurting Mom on the inside all these years. But then after she disappeared a few years ago, I got to really thinking about it, and I got to asking myself, 'How would I feel if I had to put up with a spouse who treated me the way Pop treated Mom every day?' Ninety-five percent of the time, whenever there was a big fight or shouting match between my folks, Mom was in the right and Pop was in the wrong and I knew it. But most of the time, I tried to stay out of it and stay neutral. I used to tell myself that I was taking some kind of moral high ground by staying neutral."

"Well, I can understand not wanting to take sides and get caught up in the middle between your mother and your father."

"Yeah, but Jenny, this was never about me taking any kind of moral high ground. I see it now that 'staying neutral' was really my way of staying a coward. There were times when I stuck up for Mom when Pop was being stupid and making her miserable, but there were many more times when I could have come to her defense but I didn't because I chose to be weak. It was more comfortable that way. Just as Pop always put Grandma ahead of Mom, I always put myself and my own comfort ahead of her when I should have taken up for her and been there for her."

"Lionel, you've always been a good son," Jenny insisted.

"Maybe, but I could have been a much better son to Mom than I was. I just…I don't know. I guess seeing Mom again after all these years has made me realize how much she means to me; how much I really have taken her for granted all my life. How sorry I am that I wasn't always there for her like I should have been. I just wish I could tell her all these things now, but it's too late. Mom's alive, but yet, she's gone. For good."

"Oh, Lionel," Jenny said sympathetically, and then she got up from her seat, went over to him, and gave him a long kiss.

Early the next morning, George took a flight to Boston with Lionel and Tom. Thankfully, they agreed to go with him because they knew that if they didn't, there was every possibility that George would do or say something stupid and cause a great deal of trouble. They took a cab from Boston to Haven Lake and they arrived at the Haven Lake Bakery at about a quarter after eleven.

Several minutes before they walked through the door, Mark came into the bakery carrying a big bouquet of tulips from his garden, and Louise gave him a big smile as she wheeled up to him.

"Hello, Mark," said Louise.

"Hello, sweetheart," he responded as he handed her the tulips.

"Oh, thank you so much. They're just beautiful."

"You know I had to bring you some," Mark said with a smile.

"I'm so glad you did. You know I'm just crazy about your tulips. I think we have a vase in one of the cabinets back in the kitchen. I'll go find it and put these in some water. Why don't you come back to the kitchen with me? We can talk while I look."

"Sounds good to me," Mark agreed as he walked back to the kitchen with Louise. "Where is everybody today?" he asked then as soon as he noticed that Heather and Frank were both gone.

"Oh, Heather had a doctor's appointment this morning. They're just making sure everything is going well with the baby," Louise explained as George, Lionel, and Tom walked into the bakery. "And I let Frank go to lunch early today."

"That was very sweet of you," said Mark as Louise pulled a glass vase out of one of the cabinets.

"I happen to be a very sweet person," Louise said with a smile, and then she wheeled herself over to the large kitchen sink and filled it about halfway full of water.

"I've known that for many years now," Mark told her, returning the smile.

After Louise took the tulips out of her lap and placed them in the vase on the counter, she looked at Mark and asked, "So how much trouble have you given Estelle this week?"

"Not enough to make her want to quit, I'm sorry to say," Mark teased, and Louise rolled her eyes.

"I have a theory about you and Estelle," said Louise with a mischievous grin.

"If you're thinking that Estelle was raised by wolves and that I'm an angel to put up with her, then you and I have the same theory," he quipped, and again, Louise rolled her eyes.

"Not even close. No, my theory is, I think you and Estelle are constantly exchanging insults and picking on each other because somewhere way deep down in your hearts, the two of you are actually attracted to one another!" Louise kidded.

"Louise, are you trying to give me a heart attack or something?!"

"Oh, go on and admit it! Every time you start an argument with Estelle, deep down, you really want to kiss her!"

"I really want to die from horror just thinking about it!" Mark said aloud, and then he and Louise just died laughing for the next couple of minutes, all the while George, Lionel, and Tom were standing near the kitchen doorway, meticulously watching them and listening to every word they were saying. Once their laughter finally died down, Mark looked into Louise's eyes and told her seriously, "The only person I'm ever interested in kissing is you."

Louise smiled again, and she looked up at Mark and told him, "Well, I don't know what's stopping you."

Mark then wrapped his arms around Louise's neck, bent down to her and gave her a long, passionate kiss.

"I'm gonna kill him!" George cried out while Lionel and Tom physically restrained him from going into the kitchen and making good on his threat.

"Calm down, George," said Tom.

"Cool it, Pop," said Lionel.

"I'm gonna kill that stupid honky! I'm gonna kill him stone cold dead!" George yelled as Tom and Lionel literally dragged him out of the bakery.

After Lionel and Tom got George out of the bakery, they spent the next several minutes trying to calm him down. Then a little while later, they found out where Mark lived and they went to his house.

"Now remember, Pop, let me do the talking, alright?" said Lionel as they all walked up to Mark's front door together.

"Yeah, Lionel. You talk while I beat him to death!" George said aloud.

"Pop!" Lionel scolded.

"George, violence won't solve anything," Tom argued.

"Oh, so what am I supposed to do?! Just stand by and do nothin' while that honky goes around kissin' my wife whenever he pleases?!"

"Let's just talk to the man and find out where things stand, alright?" said Lionel as he rang Mark's doorbell, and George responded with a frustrated sigh.

Mark then opened his front door and said, "Yes? May I help you?"

"Yeah, you can help me! You can help me by stayin' away from my wife, chump!" George yelled.

"Pop!" Lionel cried out.

"I beg your pardon?" said Mark.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Moore. Let me explain something. My name is Lionel Jefferson, and this is my father, George Jefferson, and my father-in-law, Tom Willis, and we're all here in Haven Lake because we want to find out some information about Louise Wood. You see, Louise Wood is my mother."

"Your mother?" Mark gasped, unable to believe his ears.

"That's right. And my pop, here, is her husband. And he saw you two kissing in the back of the bakery earlier today. That's why he's pretty hot under the collar right now."

"Oh, my Lord," Mark gasped.

"Yeah, that's right! You'd better pray to the good Lord because you gonna need Him when I get done with you!" George shouted while Lionel and Tom held him back.

"Pop, will you please just cool it?! This isn't helping!"

"It certainly isn't!" Tom cried out. "George, will you please calm down…for all our sakes?"

"You'd all better come inside," Mark said quietly, and then the three men followed Mark into his house.

George, Lionel, and Tom all sat down together at Mark's kitchen table, and the three men brought Mark up to speed about Louise's life with them and everything their family had been through since her disappearance six years ago.

"It's been agony all these years, Mr. Moore," Lionel told him truthfully. "We didn't know where Mom was or what had happened to her. We didn't even know if she was alive or not until this past Saturday when she came to Pop's office."

"All these years, neither Louise nor I had a clue about her past. I had no idea that she had a husband, a son, a daughter-in-law. I can't believe it."

"Pop and I couldn't believe it either when we saw her again. To tell the truth, we're all still in shock."

"I imagine," Mark said sympathetically.

"I just don't understand. Why didn't the authorities try to find out Mom's identity when she first arrived at the hospital in Boston?"

"Oh, they did. They had Louise's picture sent out to every police station in the state, trying to find any family she might have. Trouble was, they were looking in the wrong state."

"Unfortunately, it is true that the government's ability to track down missing persons in this country is painfully lacking," Tom chimed in.

"No kidding," Mark agreed.

"I tried so hard to find Weezy," George said soberly. "I called the cops every single day, tryin' to find out if there was a new lead on Weezy's case. I went out lookin' for her every day, every night, just walkin' the streets, callin' her name. I hired a bunch of private detectives over the years to try and trace Weezy down. But no matter how hard I tried to find her, nothin' ever worked."

"I am sorry, Mr. Jefferson," Mark said sadly. "I can only imagine how hard these past few years have been for you, especially after losing a gem as priceless as Louise. It must've been pure hell without her." Mark had hated George ever since he'd started trying to force Louise out of her home and business, but after spending a little time with him and seeing the horrific toll Louise's disappearance had taken on him, Mark couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

"It was pure hell without her. And as soon as I get Weezy home, I ain't never lettin' her outta my sight again as long as I live."

"Mr. Jefferson, before you say or do anything regarding your wife, I think I ought to fill in some blanks for you. Louise may be your wife, but there's a great deal about her that you do not know."

"We'd really appreciate that, Mr. Moore," said Lionel. "It'd mean a lot to us to know what these past six years have been like for Mom."

"Well, you gentlemen need to brace yourselves. The truth's really going to hurt," Mark warned them.

"If you're talking about the accident, we already know about that, Mr. Moore," said Lionel.

"Accident?"

"Yeah. When Mom came to see Pop, she told us about the accident she had that made her disabled and made her lose her memory."

Mark shook his head then and said, "Louise wasn't in an accident. She was lying."

"I find that pretty hard to believe. My mother's the most honest person I've ever known."

"The vast majority of the time, Louise is the most honest person on the planet. But she lied to you two about what happened to her because the truth is too painful for her to talk about."

George and Lionel glanced at each other for several long moments, each of them scared to find out where this was heading. Finally, George looked Mark in the eyes and asked him, "Moore, what happened? What happened to my wife?"

"Do you guys remember a serial killer who was kidnapping and murdering women in the Manhattan area a few years ago?"

"Yeah, the Forty-Niner," said Lionel with a sense of dread.

"That's right," Mark confirmed.

"We all knew that Louise disappeared on the day that he was supposedly going to kidnap and murder his latest victim," said Tom. "We've all been scared these past few years that Louise's disappearance had something to do with him. Until Louise came to George's office the other day, we were terrified that she'd been killed by him."

"Saul Donaldson, a.k.a. the Forty-Niner, kidnapped and murdered a whole string of victims in succession in New York, but what the press and the authorities didn't know at the time was that he had also kidnapped and murdered many other victims throughout the state of Massachusetts over the past several years, and not always on the forty-ninth day after his last murder."

"Yeah, I remember there being this big story about his capture. He was caught kidnapping this woman and taking her to this dilapidated cabin he owned in a small town near Boston, and the police found three other victims he'd been holding hostage there, plus a number of dead bodies," said Lionel.

"That town was Haven Lake, and Louise and I were two of his victims. The third victim you're talking about is a little girl named Melissa."

"The little girl Mom adopted?"

"That's right."

"Wait-wait-wait-wait. Hold on a minute. Are you tellin' me that somebody did this to Weezy? Somebody actually hurt my wife bad enough to put her in a wheelchair?" asked George.

"That's exactly what I'm telling you," Mark responded. "Louise and I were beaten and tortured by him for months. I always tried to take as much abuse for Louise and Melissa as I possibly could, but there were times when I wasn't able to take their place like I wanted to. Louise went through pure hell in that cabin, gentlemen," Mark said in a grave tone as all three men visibly stiffened. They knew that what they were going to hear next was going to be extremely painful and they tried to brace themselves inside for it as best they could. "There were times, many times, when I wasn't able to take beatings for them, either because I was too weak or unconscious, or because that monster had me tied up in another room and it was just him with Louise and Melissa. There was one time, about three months after he'd first brought Louise to the cabin, that Louise attempted to escape with me and Melissa. He'd had her all tied up in his bedroom and done terrible things to her for weeks, but while she was in there, she discovered that he kept a spare gun hidden away in one of his dresser drawers. One day he brought me in there. He had Louise tied down in the bed, and I was tied down to a chair. He left the cabin for a number of hours, and in that time, I worked very hard and I was able to loosen the ropes and untie myself. While I was working to free myself from the chair, Louise told me where the gun was. As soon as I was free, I untied Louise from the bed and I grabbed the gun and found the bullets in another drawer and loaded it. Then we found Melissa and we all started to run away. Just as we were about to run out of the cabin, though, he came through the door, and he pulled out the gun that he was carrying and he held it to Melissa's head. I had no choice then; I had to put the gun down. Then, he…he didn't say a word; he just punched me and knocked me out. When I woke up a few hours later, I was still in the living room, tied down to the chair again, with Melissa sitting on the floor beside me. Then I heard Louise crying out from the basement, screaming in agony. In order to punish Louise, punish all of us, really, for our attempted escape, he spent hours, days, viciously beating her. During that time, he broke both her legs, over and over again, countless times," Mark explained, and his words hit George like whips. Louise mercilessly beaten for hours, days on end. Both of her legs broken over and over. "He must've hit her head terribly hard," Mark continued, "because she was actually unconscious for two or three days after he was finally done torturing her. When she finally did wake up again, she had no memory of who she was. She didn't even know her own name. Melissa was the one who told her that her name was Louise, but to this very day, she doesn't even recall what her true last name is. She doesn't remember any of you. She has no idea that she has a husband and a son. Until today, neither did I."

All the men remained quiet for several long moments, trying to digest everything that Mark had just told them. After a couple of minutes, Lionel asked, "What about Angie? Can you tell us about her?"

"I guess you all have figured it out by now that his abuse of Louise was not just physical. It was also sexual. Louise was raped by him not just once, but many times."

Lionel looked over at his father in that moment, and surprisingly, George was actually quiet. When George Jefferson got angry, typically, the whole neighborhood knew it. When he was upset about something, he had no trouble yelling and running his mouth. But now, George Jefferson was experiencing a very different kind of anger. Now, he was in the middle of experiencing deep, cold rage. He just sat there, as still as a statue, his right hand clenched in the tightest fist. Now, for the first time ever in his life, George Jefferson was literally too angry to scream.

"When we were finally rescued and taken to the hospital, Louise was unconscious once again because of a recent beating, and the doctors ran their scans and they found out that she had swelling on her brain. She was in terribly critical condition over the next couple of months. The brain swelling went down on its own, thankfully, and she went through many surgeries on her legs. Then three and a half months into Louise's hospital stay, the doctors discovered that she was pregnant."

The instant Mark said that, George's clenched fist tightened even more.

A few moments later, Mark said, "It isn't every woman who would give birth to her rapist's child. And in fact, the doctors and nurses tried very hard to bully Louise into getting an abortion. She actually considered it for a while because she was so scared. And it wasn't just Louise's legs that were affected by all the beatings; she also has heart complications. Going through with the pregnancy was a risk, a grave risk. Due to her heart problems, Louise easily could have died during her pregnancy with Angela. But at the end of the day, Louise just couldn't bear the thought of ending her child's life to save herself. As risky as it was to her health, even to her life, Louise went through with the pregnancy like the trouper that she is."

George, Lionel, and Tom just sat there quietly together for a good while, taking in everything that Mark had told them.

Finally, after a long silence, George asked Mark, "Did she have an easy birth?"

"I'm afraid not. The birth was quite difficult. I was actually there with her in the delivery room. You see, by that time, Louise had been living here with me for about three months. The hospital staff had been giving her so much grief over her decision to go through with the pregnancy, they were upsetting her so much, that it was actually obstructing her recovery, and by the time she was six months pregnant, she just couldn't take it anymore so I got her discharged from the hospital and brought her home. I hired a doctor to live here with us and oversee the rest of her pregnancy. I actually served as a medic back in my Army days and I've delivered babies before, and Louise and I had been through so much together that it just seemed right for me to be there with her when she went into labor. She was so brave. She was…amazing. It was so painful and exhausting for her, but she kept going no matter how hard it was. She just barely had enough strength to give birth to Angie. And then just moments after Angie was born, Louise's heart stopped."

"WHAT?!" George cried out.

"Right after Angie was born, Louise went into a form of cardiac arrest. Her heart had to be shocked into beating normally again," Mark explained, and Lionel, Tom, and especially George looked as though they'd been kicked in the gut. Everything that Mark had just told them obviously hit them very hard, but no one was as deeply impacted by it all as George was. In those moments, he actually looked as though he was going to collapse onto Mark's kitchen floor. Even though there was nothing wrong with him physically, he literally had to fight to catch his breath.

Several minutes later, after all three of them had (somewhat) recovered from Mark's latest bombshell, he told them all about Louise's long recovery after Angie's birth and Angie's first two years of life. Then he explained everything that had happened that led up to her decision to start working for Garrett Andrews at the Haven Lake Bakery, and how she eventually came to be its owner. After Mark had brought them up to speed on all the events of Louise's life that they'd missed the past six years, Lionel and Tom continued to talk with him about Louise for a little while as George remained silent. Finally, after exchanging the usual pleasantries, George, Lionel, and Tom left Mark's house and went back to New York.

When George, Lionel, and Tom got back to Manhattan, it was late in the evening. Tom went up to his own apartment while Lionel got off the elevator at the twelfth floor with George.

"Lionel, go upstairs," George told him in a low, somber voice. "Go be with your wife."

Lionel put his hand on George's shoulder then and said, "Pop, I'm real worried about you. I don't want to leave you alone right now."

"I appreciate it son, but I need to be alone now."

"Are you really sure about that, Pop?"

"I'm sure. Go."

"Alright. But promise me you'll call me if you need me."

"I promise."

"Alright then, Pop. I'll see you in the morning."

George nodded, and then Lionel got on the elevator and went upstairs to the Willses' apartment. As soon as Lionel left, George went into his own apartment and locked the door behind him. After locking the door, George took a few steps into the living room, and he stood perfectly still for the next few moments, taking in one deep breath after another. The deep breaths were not an attempt to calm himself, however. They were to prepare himself for what he knew he had to do next in order to release the overwhelming rage and fury that had been boiling inside him for hours.

It was then that George began ripping his apartment to shreds. He threw and broke every object he could find. He broke all the glasses on the bar and flipped it over, causing all the bottles of liquor to crash to the floor, and George just let the alcohol pour out all over the carpet. He ripped the curtains down. He turned over the dining table and chairs, and in fact, he even threw one of the chairs through the balcony window. He turned the couch over, and he picked up the coffee table and threw it through one of the balcony windows as well. He then ripped the phone out of the wall and threw it, and after that, he flipped over the desk. In the next moment, he grabbed the beach painting that had been above the desk, and after breaking it in half over his knee, he threw both pieces of the painting across the room.

Finally, George collapsed to his knees and broke down crying.