Disclaim - Like, duh.

OK, I have been promising you this since, what, chapter 6? You will hate her, trust me.

Chapter 13 – Confrontations With My Mother

It had been more than a month now since Emily and John had announced her pregnancy. In that time John had spent a week cosseting his wife as much as she would let him. He had gone with her on clinic days, cheerfully volunteering his time working in the office or just watching out to make sure Emily was alright. Even when he hadn't been with her, he had shuttled her back and forth, while supervising the furnishing of their home. With Alan and Fermat home – Alan's cast had come off a week before his return from Wharton's and his arm was as good as ever – John could afford to spend more time with Emily. Not as much as he would like, but still in the two rotations he had down in that time, John had been able to squeeze in time for them as a couple that tied them over until the next time.

Jeff had suggested a slightly delayed honeymoon but the couple had elected to plan on something for their first anniversary. Between suggestions for locations of the trip and suggestions for baby names, Emily sometimes felt like reminding them one was more than six months away and the other was even longer out! But the warm, loving feelings that surrounded her these days helped her hold her tongue. The Tracys were only like this because they cared. Knowing this, Emily told John before he had left a few days earlier - this time John was only going up for two weeks, since Fermat and Brains were heading up for their three week "summer vacation" at that point – that it was time to deal with her other family. Make or break, Emily had to know where she stood with the family of her birth.

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Though you couldn't tell from the graceful manner in which she walked through the La Mediterranee Restaurant on 2nd Avenue in New York City, Dr. Emily Tracy was a nervous wreck. A reasonable distance from Tracy Towers, Emily couldn't help but smile at the fact that Jeff and Kate had just happened to have meetings planned for the same day that Emily had scheduled this long-overdue confrontation with Susan Haas. As days had become weeks and the weeks had become months, it had been harder and harder for Emily to think of Susan as "mother" or the others as "family". Since her marriage to John, she had been surrounded by a real family and was no longer willing to accept the status quo. Knowing her mother as she did, Emily suspected she knew this meeting's outcome – Susan Haas would demand her daughter "do what is expected".

Well, Emily never had before. Why start now?

In the three and a half months since Emily had married John, the doctor had received a weekly message in her e-mail account from Jordan Pierce, a junior partner in her father's law firm and apparently one of the few who knew of her marriage to an "islander". The message was always the same: Annul the marriage and return to civilization (aka Manhattan). Jordan had even made it clear he was still considered highly eligible and available. Yuck. What, she had mused, had she ever done to deserve that mental image?

As Emily approached the table, Susan Belmont Haas raised her eyes to examine her only daughter. A fissure of resentment ran through the older woman, whom, through a personal trainer and discreet plastic surgery, did not look old enough to be Emily's mother, forget the fact that her son was six years older than his sister. Thinking of Roderick, Susan allowed herself the satisfaction that at least her son had turned out right.

Roderick was a junior partner at his father's law firm and was engaged to marry the daughter of the other senior partner. Claudia Beckett had been the debutante of the year when she had made her society bow and had received a degree in Romantic Languages from Bryn Mawr. The younger woman had already joined her mother and Susan in their charitable committees. Her future daughter-in-law was the ideal young woman in Susan's eyes. Her own daughter, with her blue eyes sparkling with emotion, her bright blond hair pulled back, yet falling in waves down her back and a slight tan making her glow with vibrancy, looked like her father's family but Gerald had never been able to comprehend his daughter either. Emily's sharp mind, academic achievement, her dedication to her chosen profession would e understandable, even praiseworthy in a son. But in a daughter? What had Susan done to deserve this?

"Mother?"

"Sit."

Well, Emily had never received a warm welcome from her mother in her life. Why should now be any different? Dutifully sitting across from her mother, Emily waited with expectation and a small sense of dread at the inevitable. Would this be the day her parent pushed her too far, the day Emily would cut all ties to the family of her birth? Somehow the thought was no longer as frightening as it had once been. Marrying John had brought her more than a husband. Now she had a father, brothers, a sister, a nephew, dear friends and happiest of all, the miracle that now grew beneath her heart. Feeling the love of the entire Tracy clan behind her, Emily instantly straightened and faced her mother head on.

"Thank you for meeting with me, Mother. We need to talk."

Susan's well made up face revealed nothing but her eyes were cold with disdain. She suspected what her greatest mistake wanted from her and she had come prepared. Instructing a hovering waiter to simply bring two martinis – no menus required – Susan barely noticed when Emily had her order changed to a mineral water. Never having bothered to learn her daughter's likes or dislikes, she was unsure of Emily's reasoning and frankly, could not care less.

"Well," Susan asked impatiently, "I have to assume you have come to your senses." That said, she handed her daughter a legal folder with annulment papers.

Emily sighed. "Mother, an annulment simply isn't possible." At her parent's glare, Emily took a strengthening sip of the just delivered water. "I am having a baby. You are going to be a Grandmother."

Susan was incensed. "I will have no mongrels in this family. Our position will not allow it." That said, she handed Emily two business cards. Reading them, Emily raised horrified eyes to her mother's. The divorce attorney's card was bad enough but the other…

"Emily, if you expect to be welcomed back into the family, you will need to get rid of all your mistakes first."

Furious beyond belief, Emily spat "My baby is not a mistake Mother, nor is my marriage. My husband, his family and I are all thrilled about the baby. And welcomed back? I have never been welcomed or wanted in your family. Why should I have hoped you would have changed? I was a fool for that, but only that."

"Keep your voice down Emily, you are embarrassing us both."

"Good," Emily snarled. "Maybe some people will know you had a daughter."

Perfectly sculpted eyes rose at the past tense her daughter had used but Susan gave away no other emotion. Pulling out another legal folder, she pushed it across the table. "Fine. Then sign this if you want to live with your mistakes. This family certainly won't."

"Hold it."

Puzzled at the new voice, both women turned to it. Katherine Eppes Tracy had walked up to the table, eyes daggers at Susan Haas.

"Agent Eppes, wasn't it?"

"Oh, I left the Bureau more than a year ago. I work in the private sector now."

"Fine, Miss Eppes, I merely need Emily to sign this, then we can all leave."

"How do you know Em and I weren't planning to have lunch here?"

Susan raised her eyebrows once more. "As if you could afford to. Miss Eppes this is a five star French Restaurant in Manhattan. I doubt a former civil servant and a doctor who has chosen to work for a charitable trust could even afford the valet parking."

Kate was ignoring the woman, instead perusing the cards and documents in front of Emily. Turning her disgusted face to the society matron, she growled, "You sick bitch." Touching Emily's cold hand, Kate had gently asked, "Are you OK?" At Emily's tight nod, Kate handed her the papers that would disinherit and disavow Emily if she did not agree to terminate her pregnancy and divorce her husband. "Sign baby. You don't need them; you have a real family now." Turning back to Susan, Kate bashed "And you sign these." Susan blinked, then took the documents Kate had pulled from her briefcase. "These documents state that you will make no claims on the former Emily Haas, her husband or her husband's family. You will also not try to claim any children of that marriage in the event of either Emily or her spouse's demise." No where on either form was that name Tracy until Kate signed as witness on both documents. After she had finished witnessing both forms, Kate handed one form to Mrs. Haas and stored away the one she had brought from the Tracy Family lawyers. "I'll have copies of this forwarded to your attorneys. Tell them to have copies of your document ready to go back with the messenger."

Kate stood, placing her hand supportively under Emily's arm. "Now if you don't mind, our father-in-law is here to join us for lunch. Nursing and expectant mothers shouldn't skip meals, should we Dr. Tracy?"

Susan Haas, who had been turning from her daughter and her companion, froze at the name. Pale, she turned to the younger women. "Tracy?" she whispered, horrified. No, she thought, it couldn't be.

Kate smiled coldly at her. "Yes, Tracy. Mrs. Katherine Tracy and Dr. Emily Tracy, wives of Scott and John Tracy, the eldest two sons of Jeff Tracy. Yes, THE Jeff Tracy."

Realizing her error, Susan tried to reclaim lost ground. "Emily, my dear…"

Emily actually took a step back in disgust from her mother. "No. You never gave me your love, you never gave me your approval, and you never gave me a thought if you could help it. Well, now you won't have to because I will be walking away and I will never think of you again. Be happy Mrs. Haas, or at least as happy as you ever could be."

Before Susan Haas could say anything more, she heard a man call out "Kate, Emily!" A smiling Jeff Tracy came across the restaurant, followed by a couple Susan recognized as a current U.S. Senator and her husband. "Carol, Bill, I'd like you to meet my two lovely daughter-in-laws, Katherine Tracy and Dr. Emily Tracy. Emily," Jeff declared with pride "is the young doctor I was telling you about, the one who has not only agreed to run the Tracy Charitable Trust Clinic in Akaroa, but has set up a remarkable program for visiting specialists to rural New Zealand." Smiling at the two young women, he went on. "Both my daughter-in-laws are as bright as they are beautiful."

"Well, Jeff," the Senator's husband declared. "Your boys sure know how to pick them. Kate, my girl, Jeff has been showing off pictures of young Jason. And I hear that by next year, he'll be having another grandchild to be bragging about?"

Emily gave a becoming blush as the conversation, not unnoticed by many in the upscale establishment, moved to a private alcove. The one who watched it the most was the one who suddenly realized how much she had lost. A bright, beautiful, accomplished daughter who had made a social match most society matrons could only drool over.

It was a sad statement of the relationship the Haas' had with Emily that when the delayed marriage announcement appeared in newspapers the next day, most people never connected Emily with the Haas'. The only biological family mentioned was her late grandfather and as Susan had preferred to use her step-father's name, no one knew that Emily was the child that they had fed, sheltered and educated but had never given what a child needs most – her family's love and approval. They didn't acknowledge her now as they knew Emily had meant it – she would never acknowledge them as family, they would never have the valuable link to the Tracys and they had no one to blame but themselves.

a/n - I hope you hated Susan as much as I did. And I created her!!! More than likely, you will never hear from her again. Emily now has the Tracys, and before anyone asks, Kate views herself as the big sister to the Tracy clan; Emily married a younger (barely) brother so... If in-laws show up again, I gotta bring the Eppes back... They are fun...