"D-d-dad? Mom? Gordy?" Alan croaks. He has been in an induced coma for a week, finally waking to find himself alone. He is only awake long enough to realise that his parents and his brothers have all left him here all alone before he is once again unconscious. Realising that he shouldn't have expected anything different.
*TB*
Jeff is angry. A week and he has not had anyone to bully and belittle and he can't stand it. Getting home to find Gordon has stolen 50 000 dollars from him, which he was hiding from the government to avoid paying tax, a trick he has been using since he learned the definition of the words tax avoidance! Clever accounting and having clients give him cash without contracts or traceable receipts have saved Jeff millions over the years. Even choosing to pay his sons medical bills in cash as it is tax deductible! Jefferson would write books on tax fraud if he thought he could get away with it!
Lucy couldn't care less about the money, but the jewellery he stole was irreplaceable and she like Jeff is fuming.
Only she is not angry with Gordon, he she is worried sick about. He hasn't contacted any of his brothers because she has asked them and they wouldn't lie to her, and his cell phone number has been disconnected. She wants nothing more than to sit by Alans bedside every minute of the day, but her husband will not let her.
Her anger is at Jeff for putting her beautiful, unique 4th child in this position.
When she first met Jeff Tracy, he had just returned from space a hero. There's was a whirlwind marriage and she didn't even have time to get used to the idea of being a wife before she found out that she was pregnant with Scott. Lucy loved being a mother and was thrilled when she had Virgil and John as she had always wanted a big family.
Jeff never told her he believed in corporal punishment, and she found out the hard way.
Wishing more than ever that she had taken the boys and ran the first time he laid a hand on Scott. The boy had been 5 years old and had spilled milk all over baby John. It was on purpose as John was in pain from teething and wouldn't stop crying, and in Scott's words "was annoying him". Jeff had grabbed the terrified child thrown him roughly across his lap and spanked his bare bottom with her hairbrush in front of Virgil until they were both crying. Scott from the pain and humiliation and Virgil from the pure terror. Telling her that the lesson would serve Virgil well in the future if he got any "ideas"
She left him that very day, packing Johns diapers, formula, and baby clothes into his diaper bag, and throwing as many clothes and toys into a suitcase for Virgil and Scott. Not thinking to take anything for herself, just wanting to get her boys out of there.
She moved her boys back into her parents' home, telling her mom and dad what he had done and that she was never going back.
Jeff tracked her down within 24 hours, telling her that there was nowhere she could hide, she belonged to him and so did the boys. He would only let her leave in one way and that was in a box 6 feet under the ground, and that she would not be allowed to interfere with the way he raised the boys.
Over the years she got used to living in fear, terrified that if she spoke up one of the boys would get really hurt.
After Jeff first beat Scott, Lucy vowed that she would never give him another child to torture, but he was insatiable. She can pinpoint the moment Gordon was conceived; it was their wedding anniversary. The neighbours teenaged daughter was babysitting the three boys while they went for a meal. Jeff had told all three boys that they would be punished severely if they misbehaved and they were to do as they were told.
John was 20 months old and already terrified of his father and would hide from him when he started shouting. Once he had hidden under his bed while Jeff was shouting at Virgil for not putting his toys away and fallen asleep there. Causing panic in his mom who was convinced that he was hurt or had managed to get out of the house somewhere. It was Scott who finally found him curled up around his teddy bear – a present from his Grandparents – under the bed fast asleep. Lucy was too relieved to be angry, and luckily Jeff had left the house for work before he found out that John was missing.
Scott had grown into a conscientious child, trying hard to keep his father from getting angry with his brothers and would ensure that they both stuck to their orders to behave, besides they liked their babysitter, she usually bought something for them to do together, sometimes a puzzle or an art project.
Jeff was drunk by the end of the night, volatile and meaner than a rattle snake when sober, Jeff was even worse when he was drunk. So Lucy had sex with him, to protect her boys. Jeff never let Lucy use birth control, but she was always so careful. Until tonight, tonight she didn't care about anything but keeping her husband busy and occupied and when he was done, he withdrew, rolled over onto his side, and let out a low guttural snore.
For weeks Lucy put off the pregnancy test, terrified that the symptoms she knew only too well, her swelling breasts, the morning sickness and most telling of all the missed period. When she finally plucked up the courage, she wept at the result which confirmed her worst fears.
Lucy was pregnant with her 4th child.
She thought about abortion about quietly aborting the baby and never letting Jeff know, but she knew it wasn't an option, she was already in love with the wriggly worm of hope inside of her that was to become child number 4.
Unlike her previous 3 pregnancies, number 4 was complicated, prolonged morning sickness well into her 5th month saw her hospitalised with severe dehydration. She knew she was having another boy, Jeff insisted on knowing the sex, and was acting like the loving, kind attentive husband he had been in the early days of their marriage. Baby number 4 was then renamed Gordon Cooper, on Jeffs insistence, she didn't mind, as long as he was healthy Jeff could name him whatever he liked.
The day before valentine's day, Friday the 13th, Lucy was 7 months pregnant and already feeling like a beached whale, she had fallen asleep on the sofa with 2 year old John while 4 year old Virgil played quietly, not wanting to disturb his mom and brother when Jeff threw open the door and marched Scott into the house having picked him up from school.
Scott was crying and Jeff looked furious at the scene of the two sleepers with Virgil left to his own devices. Jeff screamed her name causing her to startle and jump up from the sofa and John started to cry. Jeff shouted at her to shut 'that bloody child up or he would' which immediately quietened John.
His voice low and menacing as he grabbed her by the arm and forced her through to the kitchen telling the 3 boys that if just one followed all three would get a spanking before demanding to know why she hadn't picked Scott up from school. That he had been embarrassed to be called to advise that Scott had been left behind. She hadn't answered her cell phone, she groans when she sees the missed calls from the school and from Jeff and can only apologise.
That was the first time Jeff had ever slapped her, a loud crack across her cheek with the palm of his hand which caused her to cry out in pain, and for little Scott to come running. Jeffs anger was then directed to the boy who had deliberately defied him, and he got the promised spanking and Virgil and John were given the same treatment, as promised.
Lucy remembers screaming at him to stop, that the boys didn't deserve this, they hadn't done anything wrong. The look of disgust he gave her as he accused her of trying to raise weak willed mommas' boys. He was going to kill them all right there, and the immense shock caused her to go into premature labour, she will never forget the exact moment her waters broke, all over the kitchen floor. A sharp shooting pain across her abdomen as she begged him to help her save their baby.
The terror of premature labour, the possibility of giving birth on her kitchen floor. Having to convince Jeff that this was happening, to spur him to get her to the hospital.
Baby Gordon was delivered via an emergency caesarean just after midnight on the 14th of February and she never even got to hold him before he was rushed away to neonatal intensive care. She had never felt more alone. Jeff had to stay with the boys and her parents lives an hour away and she had no method of contacting them, and there is no way Jeff was going too.
Despite the trauma of Gordons arrival, Lucy loved the tiny scrap fighting for his life in an incubator. The first time she was allowed to see him he was already 2 days old and weighed less than 2 pounds. He had wisps of thin ref hair poking out from a cotton hat. Jeffs father's hair. Tiny but fully formed fingers and toes. His whole body would have fit into the palm of her hand had she been allowed to pick him up. She would sit next to him for hours, reading to him, singing to him. She cried the first time she was able to hold him, lying him on her chest his head rested against her shoulder, her little miracle.
Virgil and John had been enrolled in day care and Scott was at school even after they finally bought Gordon home, he had needed so much attention.
His big brothers were growing into a unit, doing everything they could to help look after Gordon, who they had affectionately nicknamed 'squirt' and to protect each other from their father. Scott was old enough now to realise that his father was not like normal fathers.
Alan was a shock. Lucy had had no symptoms of pregnancy apart from gaining weight, but the baby was up near her rib cage, so she never gained an obvious belly. She had secretly started taking the pill after Gordons birth, but a urinary tract infection had seen her prescribed antibiotics which no one told her rendered the pill useless. Complaining bitterly of indigestion the day Alan was born it wasn't until she felt a contraction that she realised that something was very wrong.
Gordon had only just discovered the joys of walking, at 13 months he was slightly behind where his brothers were but their paediatrician had confirmed that this was to be expected as he spent the first 2 months of his life in the hospital and that he would catch up in his own time. Gordon loved being on his feet, toddling around the house, he followed Virgil everywhere because Virgil let him. But right now she had no idea what to do. Jeff was on a business trip and not due back until the following Friday.
She asked Scott to call for an ambulance, now nearly 8 Scott was more mature than his father had ever been. The surprise when the paramedic told her she was having a baby could have won her an Oscar if she had been in a movie.
Her boys were taken from her at the hospital. Into emergency foster care until either their grandparents or their father could come and collect them, and she found herself once again alone and giving birth.
Alan Bartlett Tracy was everything Gordon hadn't been, big, bouncy, and loud! Perfectly healthy mother and baby were discharged the same day. Sunday March 15th 2044. Her boys were returned an hour after she got home, and this time Lucy Tracy vowed she was done. Her family was complete.
Jeff didn't believe that she had no idea she was pregnant and became paranoid that she planned to take the baby and run but her plans had been thwarted when the hospital called him, he didn't leave his business trip early, instead choosing to leave her with a new born, a rambunctious 13 month old, a precocious 3 year old, a dreamy 5 year old and a sensible 7 year old. All of whom had different needs. And were on winter break from their schools and daycare.
But she tried, she taught Scott how to change Gordon and Alans diapers and to help with making school lunches. She let Virgil entertain them all with piano music, which was the only thing Alan would fall asleep too. she taught John how to hold Alan properly and he would sit with him for hours in their rocking chair while they both listened to Virgil play.
Alan hated sleep. Sleep meant he was missing out. By the end of the week she was tearing her hair out, she had tried so hard, but she couldn't do it alone. As cruel and as cold as Jeff could be, he was still the boy's father and he loved them.
Jeff insisted all 5 boys be spanked by him for any conceived offense, and she was to fetch them for their punishments which he would deliver and then the boy in question would be ordered to bed for the rest of the day. As they got older, they got more rebellious and started to find little ways to fight back. For which if they were caught, they would be whipped.
Gordon was in trouble every other week. Finding himself in detention or at the principal's office for a paddling, or worse being told he was being suspended. He never meant to get into trouble, it just happened.
She couldn't stop it, no matter how much she wanted too. There were a few times she fought back, but she never found the courage to make it stick.
No one remembers what it was Gordon did to earn Jeffs wrath, but he had been sent to his room to await his punishment. By now Gordon was 10 years old, a joy to be around, a kind-hearted, funny, clever, red headed little boy. Alan was already taller than him, but he never minded being the family runt, it made everyone want to protect him more.
But one day he angered his father and the result was the worst beating of his life, later Jeff would admit he went to far, that he shouldn't have thrown him up against the wall or kicked him repeatedly in the ribs.
Gordon never mentioned the pain he was in, not to his brothers or his mom and he would never tell his father. He found himself unable to breathe and was rushed to hospital with a punctured lung and severe chest infection.
Lucy knows that it should have been her who found him. That she shouldn't have sent Virgil.
That was the second time she tried to leave Jeff, but he said he would change, he promised her that he would never put the boys in danger again. So instead of a divorce he sent the boys to summer camp.
Gordon managed the whole summer without incident, him and Alan attending the same camp were able to look out for each other, and their letters home were full of descriptions of horseback riding, archery, swimming in the lake, avoiding the arts and craft cabin, playing tennis and even miniature golf.
John was sent home in disgrace, which lead to him getting the belt for the first time, and a paddling for sneaking a banned book into school. Jeff never told John the truth about why he burned the book. It had little to do with the book itself and if John had read it at home he would not have gotten into trouble, but he took it out of the house and got caught. A mark on Jeff Tracy's fatherhood record, one of his boys breaking the law, and that could not be abided.
When Lucy found out that John was cutting, she told him to get out. To find a way to escape from Jeffs shadow because she knew even then that she was going to be trapped forever.
She knows the boys think she handed them over for whipping willingly, and that all she ever cared about was their father's money, but it isn't true.
Lucy Tracy loves all 5 of her boys deeply but was never strong enough to leave Jeff.
*TB*
Only now it is different, her Gordy is gone forever. She watches Jeff pace up and down the office, snarling and swearing under his breath, and she knows it is now or never.
"Jeff, I want a divorce. You can keep everything I don't want a single cent from you, just give me Alan and we will leave." She tells him, finally releasing the breath she didn't even notice she was holding in.
"We have been through this Lucile. You. Can. Not. Leave. Me. Do you have any idea what that will do to my reputation? This Gordon scandal is bad enough, if the press get wind of it, it could be disastrous for my profits."
"Money" Lucy spits at him. "That is all you have ever cared about. I let you bully and torture my boys because you kept promising me that you would change, and if that didn't work it was the threats that I would never see them again if I left you and if I took them there would be nowhere we could hide that the great Jeff Tracy couldn't find. You told me that they were waking Allie up from his coma today and that I couldn't even be with him as he needed to learn 'his lesson'. I am done with this life and I am done with you. I am going to the hospital to be with my son. My biggest mistake was the day I gave you a chance for redemption after Gordons injuries, but you can never be redeemed Jeff. It's over"
Enraged, Jeff lunges for her, pinning her up against the wall. Before screaming "THE ONLY WAY OUT IS IN A BODY BAD LUCILE!" Before he shoves out of his way and leaves her on the floor, the hand clutching her throat, and for the first time in years, Lucile Tracy starts to cry.